A recap

I apologize for the lack of posts as I know how much everyone anticipates them ;).  A lot has happened in the (almost) one year since I last posted. My last post was shortly before I boarded a plane to India and spent a little over a month traveling there. Since then, I've completed another semester and a half of teaching Business English at the university, completed my first High School kids English camp (more on that later), returned to the US to see friends and family in California, Gangnam Style happened(and is a favorite norae-bang/karaoke choice) and I was "promoted" (given more responsibility without a pay raise). I realize that's a lot to cover and if I was to write about it all I'd have to shut myself in my room for a long time but, come to think of it,  I'll be doing that anyway since it's now Winter here and time for me to go into hibernation.

I'm not kidding about the hibernation. It's now 39 degrees (F) outside which, in my opinion, is a good enough reason to stay in bed under the blankets until it's time to go to work at 6pm. There is nothing fun about Winter here-- even when we are going out for dinner or drinks, we have to suffer the long, cold walk to wherever we are going and then can't enjoy the experience because we're thinking about how cold it's going to be on the walk back. Not to mention that our office is an icebox and the government has ruled that the heat cannot be turned on until it is consistently 18 degrees (C) during the day, which is 64 degrees (F), which it hasn't been for the past two weeks now and still no heat. 

It's hard to think that just 3 months ago, it was so hot that we (the teachers) were complaining about having to wear our short-sleeved camp t-shirts because of the sweat-causing material, and wearing jeans was incredibly uncomfortable. I'm referring to our time during the high school English camp that the University hosted this past Summer. I have to say, I was dreading doing a kids camp because of all of the horror stories I had heard, but it turns out that high schoolers can be pretty fun to teach. I had a great class which included two very outgoing class clowns who were dubbed by the rest of the camp as  dumb and dumber and accepted those titles proudly, knowing that neither of them were actually dumb and it was really a term of endearment. I could go on and on about my experience with Korean high-schoolers but I'll just leave you with my favorite memory: one lunchtime (we were required to eat meals with our class), I was piling my leftover food into my soup bowl to make throwing it away easier, and was noticed by a couple of the boys. They began to make jokes about my "mix food" and daring each other to eat it. After a lot of theatrics during which 4 different boys and our camp counselor (University student/helper) made a show of almost eating a spoonful, I finally announced that none of them were brave enough and put the spoonful in my mouth. This got quite a reaction and started a tradition: at the end of each meal, a few of the boys would stick around and one unlucky loser of rock/paper/scissors would have to eat a spoonful of my leftover "mix food." If they refused, they would be ridiculed and told they were "not man." As disgusting as it was, it turned into quite the bonding time with some of my students. Now most of those students are leaving Korea for Australia, a prize for successfully completing the camp. I have to say I'm a bit jealous that they will be spending Christmas in warm Australia while I will be here, in cold, cold Korea.

That brings me to my final bit of news: This Christmas I had hoped to escape the Korean Winter and spend it with my family in Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, my plans changed once I realized that Papua New Guinea seems to be the most expensive place in the world to get to and I can't actually afford that right now. That plan is being put on hold. So, while I will be going into hibernation for most of December and spending Christmas at the University here in Korea, I have decided to leave shortly after and spend January and February in India (which seems to be the cheapest place in the world). Last Winter I went to the southern part of India and traveled for a little over a month. This Winter I will be going to the northern part and volunteering for a little over a month (possibly longer) at Sambhali Trust

( http://www.sambhali-trust.org/ ), which "provides underprivileged Rajasthani women and girls with educational, vocational, and social skills to help them to become confident and financially independent." I'm still in the initial stages of planning and am currently looking at tickets, but I was invited to join and told that they would like to put my international business degree to use :). 

I said that was my last bit of news but since I mentioned Gangnam Style earlier, I should at least tell the story of how this very song was used against myself and two co-workers for the entertainment of a dormitory security guard. Last weekend, we were searching desperately for a bathroom and ended up pulling a Johnny English-style stunt to get ourselves into the nearest (locked) dormitory. We found the bathrooms and after making use of them, tried to leave. The only problem was that, while we were able to sneak into the dorm behind some unsuspecting students, there were no such students for us to follow out. We were locked inside and being stared at through a glass box by a security guard that we hadn't noticed on our rush in. We looked at him and motioned at the door with pleading eyes and can you guess what he did? He pointed to us and then made the motion for us to do the Gangnam Style dance. He was going to keep us locked inside unless we danced for him. If you haven't seen the dance, you should youtube it...and then imagine us doing it per terms of our release. 
This is now extremely long and possibly boring so I'll stop here. Also, I apologize for the change in size and font...I can't seem to fix it.