The Garlic Lady Returns!

I saw her again on the bus yesterday. This time, without a hint of garlic!
She still wanted to talk to me the whole way to Damyang, and this time she was so bold as to sit. right. next. to. me.

However, she shared her bag of goguma chips (sweet potato chips, but I thought they were made from some sort of nut. Either way, they were delicious) with me. In fact, she even fed some of them to me (a little strange, but I'll file it under "W" for "When in Rome").

On the university front, I wrote my last final yesterday. I think it went well, and I'm looking forward to the break from studies. In Korea, the universities have huge vacations--school starts in September and goes until December. Then it doesn't start again until March! Yes, they get 2 whole months of vacation here!

On the elementary school front, things are going well. I'm getting excited about teaching my kids about Christmas. I had wondered if I was going to be able to bring Jesus into the classroom (as in, teaching them about Jesus--I try to show them grace like Jesus would on a regular basis, but it's trying) since He is the reason for the season. To be honest, I don't know how athiest-militant the atmosphere is in school, but my impression is that it's more relaxed than in Canada. I asked my pastor about it, and he advised me that it would be okay to talk about Jesus. After all, he said, a lot of the kids in my class probably go to church with their parents or grandparents, so they would already know the Christian holiday of Christmas.

Now for a bad story :(

Here's some preface:

- Two nights ago, my roommate went to his hometown for a few days, so it was just me here.
- My roommate has a printer, his friend Junseong does not. My roommate has given Junseong free access to his printer, along with the passcode for our room so that he can use it when he needs it. Fine with me, it's not a problem. Junseong is a nice guy.

But this takes the cake...

At around 01:00am, I had just finished studying for my finals, took my shower, turned off the lights, and crawled into bed. No sooner than 1 or 2 minutes after closing my eyes, I hear a knock at the door.

"Oh, it's probably Junseong wanting to use the printer. But it's 1:00am and I'm going to sleep, so he can come tomorrow," I thought.

Another few knocks. Then the beeping sound of my door's keypad being activated.

"Are you serious!?" I thought.

Junseong came into my room, used his phone as a flashlight, turned on my roommate's computer, turned on his printer, printed several pages, and then left.

I was shocked and very angry. What gall! I'm sure he was rushing to meet some sort of perfectly ordinary 1:00AM deadline to hand in a physical copy of his assignment--except that he's not even enrolled in any classes here!

Yeesh. Now I'm angry again just from writing this. I'm going to have to discuss this matter with him later.

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Oh, also, a sad story. Today is the day that most of the international students at CNU leave for their home countries. At least, that's what's going on with our (Irene's and my) good friend Miyuki, who returns to her native Japan tomorrow afternoon. We're going to miss her :(

Oh, and a big news story!

My application for contract extension was approved! That means I will be in South Korea for another 6 months after January, which means I could be coming back to Canada in the middle of July. I'm pretty stoked about this, since I love Korea.

Also, another big news story:
I'm coming to Canada for a visit in January! I'll be there between January 18 and February 1st. Looking forward to seeing family and friends. People are assuming that I'm lonely here (in South Korean culture alone equals lonely)... but it's not the case :)