If you haven't seen it already, the somewhat terrifying funeral procession of Kim Jong-il. I remember reading about the same kind of hysteric mourning for the death of his father Kim Il-sung and some of those that later defected saying that people were watching to make sure that you mourned violently enough. People here seem very unsure of what will happen next and a lot of my kids say that their parents and teacher have said that it would have been better if Kim Jong-il hadn't died as his son is so inexperienced. 

Merry Christmas!

A very uneventful Christmas here. Danielle and I made a delicious breakfast and watched Love, Actually and then I have spent the rest of the day sleeping and lying about. We went to a party at a friends that lives across the street last night which was quite fun, left me with a bit of a hangover this morning.
Tomorrow we start intensives so that should be pretty tiring but I am teaching The Little Prince in one of the classes so that should be pretty fun. It will also be pretty fun to make some extra money. It will not, however, be fun to be working six days a week. At least it will probably keep me from spending all my money.
My classes are pretty excellent so far except for one class that is the worst thing I have ever experienced. Its on Saturday and it is filled with all the kids that everyone has given up on. They are all taught by Koreans during the week and then have me on Saturday and their English is non-existent. Pretty much they just refuse to speak. For three hours. Their is pretty much nothing worse than trying to get people to acknowledge your presence and speak for three hours.
Danielle and I have booked out flight to Vietnam and the plan is pretty much to travel around that area for about three months. After that I will be heading to India on my own for a few months! I can't wait to start traveling.
I hope everyone is having a good holiday season!

Seoul

So here are some photos from my vacation in Seoul with Pete, Aaron and Sarah. It was a great break, especially as Aaron acted as tour guide and translator which meant that I was really on vacation!

Sok Bosa Temple

Just a few Buddhas

A temple on the mountain behind our apartments that Danielle and I hiked to. We arrived just in time for some beautiful afternoon light!
This term has been going well. Last weekend we had a work party that was attended by our companies CEO. It ended up being quite and eventful night, quite different from all of our previous branch dinners. Aaron has talked about how in Korea since seniority is such a big deal whenever you would go out with your co-workers the boss would have to be the one leading the drinking because if the boss didn't drink than no one else could. With our previous branch manager she would not drink and so no one else would and all of our work functions were clearly segregated between the Koreans and the foreigners and had been super awkward. This dinner was the complete opposite. The CEO and our branch manager Lia definitely led the drinking by ordering tons of soju and beer and doing shots with everyone. Quite the wild dinner! Eventually, once everyone had gotten some good drunk bonding in we were all sent to a Korean club another exciting experience. The club was huge, with lots of tables and then a big dance floor in front of a stage. There was a band that played all the top K-Pop hits with lots of dancers and singers and tons of lights. Between songs the stage would change- part would spin around or someone would be lowered from the ceiling to DJ between songs. It was only acceptable to dance during the fast songs and everyone ran off the dance floor for the slow songs. Our CEO was a typical creepy older Korean man who didn't speak a work of English but didn't let that stop him from talking very loud and very close in Korean for long periods of time. Eventually we took our leave and met up with some friends for a calmer end to the evening. While it was completely bazaar to see our boss and co-workers completely drunk it has made work much more enjoyable as I now know the people that I work with! And all it took was a night of heavy drinking.

A Place in the World

So I know that many of you are writing out your yearly checks to charity around this time and I have a suggestion of a very worthy and needy charity. Two of my friends (Adam Mauerer and Bill Silva Reddington) have been working on a movie in Atlanta about a school that teaches both American children along with refugee children from throughout the world. They have nearly finished the movie but are raising the funds they need to complete it through kickstart (a website that helps people raise money). Anyway, the preview of the film as well as a very detailed and interesting description of it are all on their website and it would be awesome if you all donated a little bit!  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ctqfilms/a-place-in-the-world

So I tried to have the preview embeded but I have no idea how to do that so you are going to have to go to their site to check it out.

"My family owns a slave teacher"! and other rediculous things my students say

So here are some anecdotes from this past week:
When beginning or discussion on modern slavery (we have the best topics) Klaus informed the class that his family had a slave. I don't think I was ever quite able to convince him that even though he had never seen this individual get paid, that he was not in fact a slave. This student has lived for more than a year in California and definitely understood the meaning of slavery but I guess not how widely inappropriate it is to say that you own a slave.
During another class discussion about why it would be good to study abroad we came up with the reasons of learning a new language, understand a new culture and meet new people. Jenny, who is a bit of a bitch, asked me why it was good to meet new people. I would have liked to ask her why she thought I was in Korea if not for those three reasons because it is certainly not so I can spend my free time answering dumb questions from grumpy middle schoolers.