"THAT? NO, THAT'S NOT A MONSTER...THAT'S AN ANGEL."

Downsides of living in a small space:

- no kitchen table, no where to eat meals besides the cluttered 2x2.5 fo0t table that serves as my desk

-no where to stack the random crap I accumulate except on that same 2x2.5 foot table

-no counter top to prepare meals, all the preparation takes place on my washer, whose top is slightly rounded, making things like slicing pieces of cheese slightly more difficult

- a nasty stench in one part of the place stinks up the whole place

Upsides of living in a small space:

- less to clean

- keep things cleaner since a few things out of place makes things seem even more cluttered

- can hear the music coming from the computer no matter where you are

- doesn't take too long to heat, or cool, the place

- never have to be afraid that someone, or something, scary is hiding in another room because you only have one room, there is no where for them to be, so you pretty much know your always safe from scary entities

Just finished reading another awesome Paulo Coehlo book. It's called The Fifth Mountain, and I highly recommend it.

If you have never listened to Griffin House you should check him out. I have three of his albums, just recently downloaded one, and he is awesome. I've been listening to him on repeat for about a week now.

I'd like to tell the person who decided to have like 3 free songs on iTunes each weeks that he, or she, is not only a gentleman, but also a scholar. I love the free songs.

Watched The Big Lebowski, while drinking White Russians, for the first time last Friday. Don't know why it took me so long to do either.

Felt bad this week after getting angry at Dario and making him sit against the wall while the rest of us played a game. Right after telling them not to touch, or blow on the flashcards that I was setting up to play a game of memory what did he do? Blew them all over. I made him sit against the wall and watch us play. At the time I thought it was appropriate, but later I realized that not only is a a 5 year old boy, ergo facto he hardly has the ability to pay attention and heed warnings, but I expected him to be able to do it in another language. He did deserve it though. That kid never listens. Why is it that I love him so much? I don't know.

Hope all is well with you. Talk to you later.

A child can always teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.

- Paulo Coehlo, The Fifth Mountain

"HAHA FOUR CHEESEBURGERS!! IT'S OK...WE'RE NOT DRIVING."

Went snowboarding again last weekend with a co-worker of mine. It was fabulous! A lot of the ski resorts have free buses that leave from Seoul early in the morning, which is great. We narrowly missed going to "who knows where in Korea". We hopped on a bus after asking the bus driver if they were going to Oak Valley, which is where we wanted to go. He said yes, but I don't think he understood us. We got on the bus, and then they started asking for money for tickets. We thought it was free so we were a bit confused. Luckily the guy in the seat next to us knew English and asked where we wanted to go. They said we were on the wrong bus, and they didn't know where the right bus was. Luckily we were early, and eventually found the bus after running around confused for about 20 minutes. It was a great day of snowboarding though. Well worth the confusion. I'm hoping to go again in a couple weeks!!

Moving on...

I've decided 2010 is gonna be a pretty great year for me. I have some things I want to accomplish, and I think I'll be able to keep up with my new year's resolutions. I'm not going to elaborate on those resolutions because I read in a magazine awhile ago that you shouldn't blab about your goals too much. You then start thinking that you've already accomplished these things by telling so many people about them, and never really do. So, only a select few know my mantra for 2010, and its gonna stay that way.

It's exciting to think that at this time a year ago I had no idea I would be teaching English in Korea. It sort of crossed my mind, but I never thought seriously about it at this point last year. It just makes me wonder where I will be at this time next year. I have plenty of ideas about where I think I want to be. I'm never short of ideas. I call these ideas my "things". I know at least a couple, or a few, people who roll their eyes every time I say, "Wanna here my new thing?" Don't worry, it doesn't bother me when people roll their eyes. Sometimes I accomplish these "things", and sometimes I don't. Either way, I'm sometimes happy with even just thinking about accomplishing them, that's one step closer than never thinking about trying new, different, exciting, and maybe scary "things".

There are just too many things I want to do...I can't help but come up with new "things". I'm a bit greedy, and always want more. Here's the current list of To Do's. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to cross a few off in the next year. Commence the rolling of the eyes...

in no particular order (maybe)

1. sail around the world in a yacht

2. learn Spanish

3. climb Mount Kilimanjaro

4. learn how to white water kayak

5. learn how to rock climb

6. complete an Ironman triathlon

7. learn to love running

8. travel to India, Egypt, South Africa, Russia, Turkey, Croatia, Thailand, Israel, Saudi Arabia...

9. road trip up the Pacific coast

10. climb up Machu Picchu

11. learn how to take awesome pictures

12. learn how to do some sort of trick on my snowboard

13. chase tornadoes in that awesome tornado chasing vehicle

14. read many, many books

15. complete the Ironman in Kona

16. learn Russian

17. learn Arabic

18. learn how to mountain bike

19. complete an Xterra triathlon

20. run a marathon

21. go heli-snowboarding in Alaska

To Be Continued I'm sure...

So here's to 2010. Here's to my mantra of 2010. And here's to whatever happens...

"I'VE NEVER PLAYED ORGANIZED SPORTS, I JUST HAVE REALLY GOOD INDIVIDUAL SKILLS."

Not really too much new to report. Things have gotten pretty routine now. I am trying to wake up early to work out, but I only succeeded once last week. It's really sad, but I find it really hard to get out of bed before noon. I know that's bad. I'm trying to work on it, but when I don't start teaching until 1:20pm it's easy to just stay up late, and sleep in. Then I just work out after work. Must try to motivate myself better. We'll see what happens.

Our classes got switched around a lot after Christmas. Only once of my classes stayed the same. Otherwise I have new kids in all the others. So far I really like all new classes. I don't have any really annoying kids, and most of them are pretty good, and participate well, and seem to be motivated. Who knows how I will feel about them after I've had them longer. I've found that the classes I really like at first turn bad, and vice versa. I think I got lucky this time though. All my classes seem pretty good.

Also, my kinde class has gone from 2-3-2-1-2-3-4, and now we have 5!!!!!!! It is so much nicer having more kids. They are so much better behaved when its not just 2-3 kids. They stay in their seats better, and are much more motivated because they want to make sure they have the most stickers. It's amazing how brilliantly kids will behave for a sticker. I like all my kids too. There is only one who is a bit annoying. His name is Yun. The first couple days all he would say is, "What, what, what, what, what, what?" Over and over. It was funny at first, and then it just got really annoying. He is no longer allowed to say what. Now, he must say, "Excuse me?" His new thing to repeat all the time now is, "Go, go bed. Santa no coming. Go, go bed." I think his mom must yell at him to go to bed in English every night or something. I asked him if he liked going to bed, and he said no. So I'm assuming he gets yelled at every night to go to bed. He says, "Go, go bed," probably about 6 times every class. I tell him to stop all the time, but he doesn't listen. So today he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be or something, and I said, "Yun, go, go bed. Go, go bed." All the other kids cracked up, and Yun actually started to pay attention a little better.

A couple things that show you've been in Korea for a decent amount of time...

1. Everytime you turn on a faucet you flinch a little, thinking the shower head might spray you in the face. My bathroom is my shower. I have to pull a knob out on the faucet to turn my shower head on, and the shower head is right above the sink. This is how the bathrooms work in Korea. As a result, if you forget to push the knob back in after taking a shower, the next time you turn your faucet on, the shower instead turns on and you get all wet. I've actually only done it maybe 3-4 times. The first time was the worst. I thought my bathroom was falling apart or something, so it took me a couple seconds to realize what was happening, and shut the water off. Now, I understand, and I can dodge the water before it even hits me. None the less, I still sort of flinch every time I turn on my bathroom faucet.

2. You don't feel like your meal is complete unless you have at least a couple bites of kimchi. When I first got here I didn't mind kimchi. I didn't think it was too bad. Now, I all but love it. I really look forward to having a piece when I sit down to eat. I definitely think it's an acquired taste, but I really, really enjoy it now.

Well, I think that's about all folks. Until next time...keep it real.

My apartment building

Looking down my street

This is looking left at the end of my street. My school is at the end of this street.

My bathroom

"DENTER. YOU KNOW LIKE SOMEONE WHO PUTS A DENT IN A CAR. THAT'S THE DENTER."

Where to start, where to start. There have been lots of random goings on since my last post so I guess I'll just go right into it...

Today was our first day back to classes after 9 days off for Christmas, and...it was a SNOW DAY!!!!!!! I think we maybe got 7 inches. One of our co-workers whose been here awhile said he's never seen this much snow in Seoul. Yay!! We only had our kinde classes, and the elementary classes for the afternoon were cancelled. It was an excellent start to the New Year!!! I'm very glad God invented snow days because I think they are some of my favorite days ever.

I guess I should fill ya in on what I did during our Christmas break huh?

• On Dec. 19th we had a Christmas party at school for the kinde kids and their parents. We sort of did a lesson in the classroom to show off their English, decorated bags, decorated a cake, and each class also sang a couple Christmas carols. It all went pretty smoothly, and to top the day off all the kids were dressed in their Halloween costumes. Since our Halloween party was cancelled because of the swine flu back in October they decided to make it a Christmas/wear your Halloween costume party. It was pretty funny to see them all up there singing Christmas carols in witch and spiderman outfits.

• On Christmas Eve day a few of us did a little shopping at COEX Mall. It is this huge, underground maze of a mall. I don't think any of us bought much, as our main purpose for going to the mall was to eat dinner at the Mexican restaurant there. So it was Christmas Eve, and we were a few Americans eating Mexican food in Korea, and it was awesome! After dinner we headed to Myeongdong to check out the shops there, and eventually go to the midnight mass at the Catholic Cathedral there. Well at 11pm we decided to head to the Cathedral to see if there was any kind of line or anything. Of course there was, and it was a long one. We waited outside for about an hour, and missed getting into the Cathedral by probably 200ish people. So they shuffled us into an auditorium that had a big screen set up to watch the service. It was still pretty cool to experience midnight mass even though it was all in Korean. We did get a shoutout at the end of the homily when he said, "I would like to extend a welcome to our foreign friends. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"

• We got up early on the 25th to go skiiing/snowboarding at Vivaldi Park. It was so much fun!!! I was a little nervous that I might have forgotten how to snowboard, but it all came back when I strapped in. It felt so awesome to be back on the snow. I really can't describe it. I love snowboarding so much, and besides being with family, I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate Christmas. Emily tried out skiing for the first time, and did pretty well. It was fun trying to help her learn to ski by pulling from the few things I could remember from my one ski lesson last year. As long as your remember pizza and french fries your good right? As this is Korea, the place was pretty packed, but actually not as bad as I was expecting. On one of the harder runs I had the whole thing to myself for a couple runs. Ahhhh. No way to put into words how exhilarating, yet peaceful that is. I wish I could do that everyday. After we got back later that night we headed over to a friend's apartment for a "white elephant" gift exchange. I got some candles that I'm super happy about. Now I have something to combat that smell that creeps out of my bathroom every once and a while. Refer to earlier post if you don't understand what I'm talking about. I was also pretty proud of the gift I thought to bring...a huge package of toilet paper and some beef jerky. The person who got that should count themselves pretty lucky.

• Emily and I spent the rest of the week doing some touristy things in Seoul. We visited:

~Namdaemun Market- bunch of different shops selling a bunch of different, random things, such as, ginseng, tea, hats, socks, coats, food, etc.

~Cheonggyecheon Stream-stream through Seoul, it was paved over after the Korean War, but now its a really pretty stream to walk along with lights and such

~National Museum of Korean- I think it's the biggest museum in Asia, that's what I heard at least, had some cool exhibits, lots of pottery, some Buddha statues

~Deoksugung Palace- not as big as the first palace I visited but pretty cool none the less, built in the 1500's, some buildings were added on in the late 1800's and were made to look like western arcitucture so it was neat to see that mix, its neat to see these old palaces surrounded by new skyscrapers

~Seoul Plaza- right outside the palace area, some exhibits were set up there, Seoul is the World Design Capital for 2010 so they had a cool display, and there was a cool display about the Korean Base in Antarctica, that stuff was really cool to see, however, I was pretty freezing and reading about people living in Antarctica just made me feel even colder

• For New Year's Emily and I headed into Seoul to check out the festivities near Insadong. There were tons and tons of people there, as well as tons and tons of cops everywhere. They closed the street down and had a stage where some people performed. I think there was a pretty famous K-Pop Group. We recognized the song but didn't catch the groups name. The teenage boys around us were pretty excited though so we think they might have been a big deal. They had a countdown, then rang a bell 33 times while some drum group was performing. Then people started shooting off Roman candle fireworks everywhere. We bought some from a guy on the street and joined in on the fun. It was pretty crazy. Fireworks everywhere. A sight to see for sure!

All in all it was a pretty darn good break. I missed being with family, but it was really nice to have a good group here to celebrate the holidays with. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and here's to 2010!!!! Make it a good one!!!! Talk to ya later.