Thursday, May 24, 2007

Rainy days...

Things here are continuing as usual. We are finishing up our first semester of Avalon and diving into the next one in about a week. We are in the middle of our parent-teacher-translator meetings; the first one that us foreign teachers have partaken in. It's a good experience for me but It also reminds me that I am an extreme amateur at teaching...what do you expect though when I majored in Music and a German....hmm


I've been filling my weekends with sports and hanging out with friends in Seoul. Time continue to flies by...Soccer is going well. It's always a good time to play on the great gravel "fields" (and if we are lucky we can get field without too many potholes :) Actually we've been playing on some turf which is pretty fun. Rock climbing is going well also. I definitely need to work on my balance and strengthening my grip but it's coming along slowly. I tore up my hands this past weekend but no pain no gain right?...:)

There was a fun market right outside our apartment this past week. There were tons of stalls to buy food/spatulas/fish/yup...everything you need to survive in Korea :)

This past weekend there were some celebrations for Buddha's birthday (that is actually today). I was able to check out the Lotus Lantern Parade which was pretty fun and saw some cool sites in Seoul. Seoul continues to surprise me...


I had my taekwondo competition a couple weeks ago and have yet to find out if I received my black belt. It was one of the shortest tests I've taken. It must have lasted about 2 minutes...okay maybe like 5, but regardless, it was really really short. I had to spar for about 30 sec. and perform 2 pumsae's (a combination of about 15-20 punches and kicks) and do some other kicking (of which I didn't understand the commands and so I kind of messed that up...yup...) It was fun though and I'm glad I did it. When I was sparing, one of the refs was saying something to me in Korean and I just have him my confused look...it's a common look...
(The pic to the bottom is me with my sparring gear...:)

The weather is so rainy these days which can be nice but defintely plays a role on your mood.. The mosquitos have officially began to attack me though. The other night I ended up with about 5 bites from this one darn mosquito...oi. I can't escape them...

I guess nothing else too new has been happening. I'm just rollin with the punches and still trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I'm done.

My sister is also coming out in a couple weeks so I'm definitely looking forward to that! What a better place to chill with the sis :) I still dont' know what travel plans we'll be partaking off, but we'll figure it out.

I'm still trying to learn Korean on my own which is hard but I'm making slow but steady progress. The self-motivation is going surprisingly well...some days better than others for sure. The korean teachers that sit beside me have been extremely helpful. Great people.

3 comments:

T said...

I love your stories!

And for the mosquitos, they love Asian blood for some reason--it's a fact!

Enjoy each day,
Tara

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Niceeeeeeeeeeeeee..... i gotta the see the black belt on ya waist.. and oh that buddy of yours in your photos... i think if he's not dating someone, then yall look good together... Okay please don't delete this off your blog..hahahaha..love ya laura