Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year to you and yours! While many people went up to Seoul last night I went with the other locals to Daejeon to party with other locals. It was fun. So much fun that I took like 200 pictures. Too bad facebook is being kind of a dick and not letting me upload them except one at a time and it's taking forever. So we got back to Okcheon at apparently 5-5:30. Mind you that's not anything special here cause bars and clubs are always open and beers and soju is always flowing. Anyway I feel like crap I've been inside most of the day but I'm going back out in 2 hours because tomorrow is Saturday and we don't exactly get a bunch of 3 day weekends thrown at us so you gotta take advantage.

Settled in

I really do not know what to say right now. It may seem dumd but I really don't know what to talk about. School has been fun, but so has everything else. It's interesting to be here since I was writing so much before but now I'm just into it now. But alas my birthday and halloween are on the way. There are always things to complain about and I promise you that I will find them

Seoul Saturday-Sunday

Seoul was fun as I will count this weekend trip as my first time since it was the first time I 1.Drank and 2. passed out in the nations capital. Also this trip was enlightining. I'm not gonna pull any punches we were at a place called Hooker Hill when we started the drinking as one of us is formerly a member of the Army who was stationed in Seoul for 6 years I believe. This was the place for them to go. It was quite crowded at the top at less hookery places but the middle section of the hill(note: this really is a hill and it sucks to go up or down) there was a proposterous number of prostitutes standing infront of their "Bars" where I wonder aloud now at work, "could you even get a drink at one of those places?"

It akso made me question English education in this country as one girl approached the oldest gentleman in our group took his arm and tried to coax him into some shady room in this dark ally of a street. I didn't hear her but I assume she could speak enough English to get her point across which probably puts her in the top 30% if only because she is willing to even speak it. It seems hard to get Koreans to fess up to knowing English cause they are afraid of making a mistake and looking dumb. Little do they realize that people like me come from across the planet in an attempt to teach them and in the process we look tremendously foolish for basically the whole time. I think I've seen 4 non prostitute, non English teacher Koreans speaking or at least trying to speak English. My main Pizza guy, probably mid to late 30's, the head teacher at my school, a very very nice woman in her late 50's had a very nice conversation with her even though she swears her English is terrible, it's not. My Vice Principal, he also speaks very well but we haven't spoken a lot since my first week. And the last one is the funniest but this man in Seoul we met while standing outside of a hotel trying to find a room he came up asked us where we were from was making jokes and singing songs all in English then he tried to help us find a room by talking to a couple of hotels we called he was probably also mid to late 50's like the VP. I guess the point of this is that many Koreans know functional English or at least the polite words but are like frozen solid against usuing them. Which is differnt from me cause I only know polite words, hello, goodby, here and there. So yeah

Anyway I don't have any pictures of anything of my own from Seoul cause we got cameras at the end of the trip instead of the beginning because we are idiots. So far I've just taken some pictures from here in Okcheon and I will post them soon so that everyone can see how awesome of a place this is.

Edit: I think that I'm gonig to buy pizzas for my schools because I should probably do something for them before they start to think I'm an inconsiderate jerk. Oh Kay off to teach the first class of the day!

Take me out to the Ball game

Went to a Hanwha Eagles game last night and if anyone comes to visit, we might have to go to one too. I had the time of my life. The tickets were free, the retired a guys number and oh yeah the home team managed to pull it all of in the bottom of the 9th. Let me fill you in on some details, the Eagles, ok they suck most of the time. I went in to the game knowing this. The KBO(Korean Baseball Organization) is an 8 team league and the Eagles are bringin' up the rears at a fat 32 games behind first and 9.5 games behind 7th. They are bad. But last night was a clash of the titans as the 6th place Seoul Heroes were in town. Fahd and I two of the new comers bought 10000 won shirts that just happened to have like the best players numbers on them so we were pumped. His guy had his own song that would play and the crowd would sing every time he came up to bat, it was pretty badass. My guy was the Babe Ruth of the team, not so much on the talent end more in the gut. Anyway we walk in and are handed towels that say "Ace 23" and we're like "that's cool" cause free stuff is where it's at.

There was a big "35" in center field and an equal sized white sheet covering up the number 23 next to it so it was pretty obvious what we were going to see. So the game starts and it's boring as hell. I'm kinda wondering how there in last place cause for the first 3 innings there is one combined hit and like 4 walks. Then the 4th inning rolls in and the Eagles pitcher losses his shit. Base hit, walk, walk, GRAND SLAM. Did not expect to see that. 2 batters later, 2 run home run. Where the hell am I? I thought they played small ball over here, but these guys are up 6 in the blink of an eye. They get out of it and I'm thinking "thank God that's over" but it's not. They give up 3 more in the top of the 5th all while remaining hit less themselves and down a staggering 9-0.

Then it happened, slap single to right, single to left Lee Bum-ho # 7 the best player on the team comes up and crushes one to the vendors area in left center field. There were like no manufactured runs here. I think maybe 2 guys feigned bunting but never put bat to ball. In the mean time they Eagles had scored like 4 more runs and all of a sudden it was 9-7 and they had a chance. Well not for a while anyway.

After the 6th inning everything stopped and we had the retirement ceremony for Ace 23 the man who led the Eagles to their only KBO Championship in 1999, they showed video and Jeong Min-Chul. He looked pretty impressive in the video and he was not so old probably close to or tipping 40 he started his career in '92. There was a long draw out ceremony and then he gave a speech and like 25 minutes later the team ran out tossed him in the air a couple of times and then put him in a BMW for a lap around the field and then the game restarted. They might as well have skipped to the 9th cause that's basically what ended up happening, there would be a chance and a strike out or ground out.

The 9th worked perfectly though we had the top of the order up. The first guy grounded weakly to second but he's the lead off man so he can fly, he beat a bad throw and made it to second base during the ensuing chaos, the second man up struck out or some ting and them it was Lee Bum-ho's time to shine, a single to left field and he did his part it was a one run game with the tying run at the plate my guy the big boy, Kim Tae-Kyun # 52. He walked which was cool but they had already put in a pinch runner for Bum-ho and so the big boy was gonna run for himself. Or jog the guy after him comes up and crushes the first pitch over the left center field wall. Pandemonium I'd never been so happy in my life. In the words of Homer, "This makes up for everything that's ever gone wrong in my life – or ever will!" pure joy. I couldn't sleep for a while after I got home from the excitement... or maybe it was the mountain dew

By the way I've arrived

So I'm in Korea now and finally feel good enough to pound out a post. Not that I was sick before just really, really tired. I touched down at Incheon International Airport at 7:30pm and didn't get to the Orientation site at Jeonju University until 2:15am. Not to say that the bus ride and interactions I've had so far were a nuisance, quite the opposite I've loved every minute of it. The staff has been just as good giving us everything we ask for.

I was (am) just having some trouble shaking this jet lag. Be cause of the way we flew to get here, west over Canada and the Pacific the sun was up and bright the entire trip from 7-7:30am on the way to Greensboro to catch the first flight up until 7:30-8pm here in Korea so I was suffering from sleep deprivation. Slept 90minutes the first night here and this past night(it's 8:45 am as I type) I slept from 7:45pm -4am then tried to call home back to be at 5 and slept all the way up til 7am. I feel much better and like I'm coming around to the time change. Oh well Off to class