Midweek update (3rd week of November)

Here's a quick recap of this week so far:

- My friend, a fellow UFV student, was admitted to hospital two days ago with appendicitis. They operated immediately and removed the problem. Word on the street is that she'll have to pay $2000 for it, but her health insurance will cover 90%.

- I submitted my application for extension yesterday, which means I will be here another 6 months after my contract ends in January. That means I'll come home next July.
Why did I choose to extend? Well, the main reason is that I simply like it here. It's a nice place to be and I am enjoying my life in Korea; I'm having a good time. I like my kids, I like my job, I like the food, I'm not doing too badly with the language, I'm not bored, I'm not too homesick, etc. Things are simply going well. On the more practical side of things, I wouldn't be able to start at UFV until fall of 2013 anyway, since I'd be coming home almost a month after school begins in January. As well, to be honest, I could really use another 6 months of pay in order to continue to finance my education.

- My school is having a "performance day" on Friday, which will involve some student plays, concerts, performances, etc. My grade 4's will be performing "The Rabbit and the Turtle". I'm so proud of them.

- I'm planning to go to Tokyo in December, to visit a friend and to see the sights. I got a smoking deal on airfare.

- I have 2 big projects coming due next week, and I'm not really excited about either of them. Actually, to be honest, I'm already finished with this semester of classes in my mind. I just don't want to keep going to them :( It doesn't help that my UFV GPA is unaffected by the grades I receive here.

- This past Sunday (November 11) was Pepero Day in Korea. It's a commercial holiday created by the Lotte conglomerate to celebrate and distribute Pepero, a Korean snack equivalent to Japanese Pocky (basically a long pretzel stick covered in chocolate). You're supposed to give a box of Pepero to someone you like and vice versa. It's similar in effect to Valentine's day actually, except Pepero day was created by a company. Can you imagine if we had a Lays or Oreo or Smarties day?

- I lost my voice on Wednesday. I sound like a frog (speaking of which, Korean frogs don't say "ribbit" they say "gaeguri" or something like that); it's quite embarrassing  I don't know how I'm going to teach Thursday's class.....

- Finally, I have some more, kind of random photos to share:

These are some photos from our Halloween party that I received.

I'm carving the pumpkins. I love them, but there's absolutely no way I would
trust any of my kids with a knife.

Me and JiAe, prolly the best-dressed student at the party.

Some of my grade 3 troublemakers. They didn't clue in that I had
a knife, so they tried scraping the skin off the pumpkin with their spoons.

Me, going inquisitor-like on that pumpkin.

I told my Dad that I would take a picture of the endless make-work projects in Korea. They simply can't get enough of road construction... Perfectly fine streets get plowed up all the time and then patched like below...

This street stinks. Literally.

Almost all the sidewalks in Korea are made from bricks like this.
That way, I guess they're easy to fix and replace--just pull out all the old
bricks and set new ones in place. It looks fine, but it becomes all uneven
and people trip all the time.

Also, I saw this out my window the other day. Wouldn't this be helpful at work??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB60lsH88t4
(1:12, SFW)

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- My roommate was in the process of getting hired for a big bank in Korea. It was a job he really wanted, and I'm sure he's qualified for it, but last week's interview (one of many) didn't go well and the results were posted yesterday. He didn't pass. I feel really bad for him, this is a pretty big setback, since Korean jobs are for life. But, he's choosing to keep a positive attitude, which is commendable. I'm sure some soju helps too.

- I went to get some more passport photos/resume photos today. Here's what I got:

The old Korean photo master airbrushed me
like crazy. He's actually really good with photoshop,
I was really impressed :)

Oh, and my voice is at 25% health today :(

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Here's a follow up to that incredibly wonderful moment that happened yesterday:

I got a letter from one of the students in my class (the same one that hugged me actually).

It was addressed to me; apparently I live at my school's English classroom :)