You Win Some, You Lose Some

This week has been filled with exploration and misadventure. I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off for Thanksgiving and I made the most of my time for sure. On Monday I visited Olympic park which was very beautiful. I also walked along the Han river and enjoyed the scenery there. The next day I went to Mallipo beach which was really nice. I had a bit of a cazy adventure (which would take too long to properly detail but it invovled a cosway, a centipede nest and a lighthouse). Korea really is a beautiful country. I look forward to visited more National parks while I'm here. I heard that there are hotsprings in one of the parks in the winter which sounds amazing after a day of hiking. 

   Wednesday was my birthday (22...) so now I'm starting to feel old. I feel like an adult for the first time but it might be becuase I wear a tie to work every day. A couple of my coworkers bought me dinner Wednesday night which I really appreciated. Then the next day at work I was suprised with a cake and a myraid of "happy birthday's that I wasn't expecting, but again, I really appreciated the gesture. 

   So... I haven't been able to talk since last Thursday morning. I was a little bit sick over the long weekend and then after I started to talk on Thursday it slowly started to dissappear. On Friday I had no voice at all! As hard as it is to disipline kindergarteners normally it is even harder when you can raise your voice over a whisper. After resting my voice since Friday (it's Sunday night now) I can finally talk again, although my voice is much raspier than normal. I still don't know what will happen once I start talking agin. 

   Korea has met all my expectations so far but my biggest complaint is I have been getting eaten alive by mosquitoes! I have about 30 mosquito bites on each arm. They like bite at night, so if you ever come to korea either sleep with the window closed or bring OFF.

   A big part of the reason I came to Korea was to find out who I am as a person. And it has been my expecation all along that I won't return to Canada until I come up with an ansnwer to that question. I think that I am on the right path, I am slowly starting to develop a sense of identity. But still, it has only been three weeks. My mind has not yet been dissevered from the past. 

Long Weekend

This weekend is Korean Thanksgiving.. Which means I have five days off. Work five days, five day break, two more days off. I don't want to get too used to it, because I think it will be a while before I get a break like this. So after my first full week of teaching by myself I am getting into the swing of things. I still haven't had to makeany lesson plans myself yet, and I won't probably the week after next. By the end of the month everything should become routine. The classes have been good so far. I really like the kinders, but I still need to learn how to discipline them better. I think I'm going to try to rely on positive reinforcement more so than negative punishment from now on... Which means I'll have to buy candy... Lots and lots of candy.  Some of the elementary classes have been a little difficult so far. It's hard to get kids to pay attention when you don't exactly now what is going on yourself. So next week, when I actually have a feel for the classes it should go better.

    After two days of the long weekend I have seen a lot of Seoul! Yesterday I went to the Cheonggyecheon Stream which was really nice. It is a small waterway running through Northern Seoul with park space on either side. It was a very peaceful walk. I also went to Seoul Tower. It was only 9000Won so I decided to go to the top of the tower. The view from the top was spectacular. I'm glad I did it. 

   Today I went to Bukhanstan National Park and climbed the highest peak, which was about 3000 feet. The trail was a lot harder than I was expecting because of the steepness of the path. I underestimated how hard it would be and at the beginning of the hike I was pretty much running up the hill... Big mistake! It took about 2 hours to get to the top, with picture breaks, and about the same length of time to get back down but I took a different route. The view from the top was breath taking, words couldn't even describe it. The other hikers were incredibly friendly too; they offered to take pictures of me and gave me food! 

   I still have a lot planned for the next three days. After going to the track tomorrow morning I am going to go to Olympic park and walk along the Han river. Depending on how expensive intercity buses are I may take one to another national park on Tuesday. I am excited! After this extended holiday I'm going to try to get back to training. My workouts have been sporadic right now and I can't do any olympic lifting until October because my gym is closed. And there are no other  nearby  OL gyms available. I'm going to take out the gates tomorrow morning and see where my 30m time is at. Hopefully I'll do some bounding



too.