Hi all,

I am going to try and get back to the schedule where I post every Sunday. Hm, this is longer than I expected... :)

Last week my schedule was changed. I had to teach on Friday. It wasn't that big of a deal, I just figured I would be uber tired on Friday because I had to teach all the classes I normally teach on Thursday. I teach 5 classes on Thursday and then had to teach another 5 on Friday. Which really meant that I had to plan a lot on Wednesday. But I made a really fun lesson about contractions and pop songs. How do they relate you might ask? Well, I reviewed what a contraction is with the students and explained how native speakers use cotractions all the time when speaking. We did a few activities with that and then I played two pop songs. I printed out the lyrics and then had the students find teh contractions in the lyrics. They really seemed to like it. It was fun and I had a good time. I even tried to make them sing! I get to teach the lesson 7 more times and then I have to plan a lesson for Thursday's class. I am thinking about a lesson around articles. Many Korean tend to leave out articles of speech when they speak. I have to figure out a way to make it fun.

Friday a really nice teacher took me to sign up for language class! Thankfully it looks like everything will work out and I will go to class every day (sort of a bummer, but I want to learn!). So, I will leave straight from school- hopefully get on a bus in a timely manner, go to class, and then come back home. I should be home around 8:30 every night. I need to remember to take a snack with me.

Friday night was fun as I met up with Ray, Ariah, Amber, David, and Amelia. We went out for dinner and just got to hang around. Then I met up with Alison on Saturday and that was a lot of fun! I showed her around downtown, we had a "picnic" in a park with kimbap and mandu. Then we walked to the traditional market and then to Daseong Park- which has a zoo. The park is really pretty, but the zoo is really depressing. The animals do not have any toys in their cages and generally do not look very happy. Some looked a little underweight as well. The most astonishing thing to see was the fact that people kept trying to throw food to the animials- completely unheard of in America. The moneky cage had a whole bunch of trash at the bottom of the cage from people throwing food in bags. Some of the monkeys were even gnawing and trying to eat the plastic bags and such. It was pretty ridiculous.

Anyways, later Alison and I went to a resturant that had an outdoor area. We ordered a bottle of white wine and a cheese plate!!! It was soooo good, even if I did get bit by 20 mosquitos. We hung out there for a while until Ray, David, and Luke met up with us. Then Amber, Ariah, and Amelia found us and we all hung out at a bar. Ariah, Amber and I stayed at a jimjilbang Saturday night and woke up for Dunkin' Donuts Sunday morning. :) I then went back home to drop stuff off before going to church. I forgot that Sunday was a "holiday" of sorts and when I got home my host mother's sister was there. I was told to eat food- so I sat around and tried to hang out. Then I left for church and when I came back home there were moe relatives. In fact, there must have been about 10 relatives or so who came for this holiday. It's really an observance of the ancestors. It's a mini-observence compared to Chusok, which will happen in two weeks. It was interesting to meet the family- no one spoke english, so I just sat around trying to smile. But the family did the whole thing where they set out food and drink for the ancetors and bow and such. It was interesting.

Church was interesting on Sunday- but good too. I met up with the young adult pastor who speaks really good English. Again, he reiterated the fact that there is no English service, so he was not sure how the church could serve me. But while we were meeting the worship band was practicing for service and they were practicing songs I recognized! I was really excited. The songs were in Korean, so I could try and sing the Korean or sing the English I knew. It was cool. The pastor sat with me during church and tried to write down parts of the message, but it was hard for me to understand everything. Apparently the head pastor really wants me to come to the church. I feel bad because everyone has to bend over backwards to translate for me. So, after service I went up and introduced myself (not as scary as it sounds, there aren't a whole bunch of people at the young adult service and I only said about 2 short sentences in Korean). I was about to sit down, but they were no! wait! We are going to sing a song for you. So, that was nice, I did not know what it was about and if they sing songs to visitors or what- but I felt very welcome. :) Afterwards I got invited to a Bible study and got a book. They are going through the Purpose Driven Life group series. But the book is in Korean. There really wasn't a Bible study yesterday because the group had me introduce myself and they introduced themselves. Everyone is older than me, but very nice and helpful. Some were very eager to speak English and others were very shy. I am going to try and go back next week. After Bible study we went to get food and I got to talk some more about myself and Colorado. Then I went home- turns out a few of my new church friends (hopefully they'll be friends) live in the same apartment complex as me. So, that's cool.

Okay, I have to go and teach! Hope all is well with everyone! If you want some more to read check out my friends' blog- he ate dogmeat soup the other day. I haven't had it yet! http://koreanexperience.blogspot.com/

-me :)