It's been a long few weeks.

And after several days of good meals and some showers and sauna trips, I am finally recovered. So here's what's been up.

First, I went to Seoul with Professor Kim, my boss. This was 10/3, it was Chuseok, Korean thanksgiving. Then I went the next day with him to Asan where his wife's family lives. The weekend can basically be summed up thusly: We ate and drank a lot and stayed at home with his family. Same as last year. I understood everything that was going on this year, but still didn't have much to say. Not exactly my family, you know? But it was nice. And in Asan we went to a famous volcanic hot springs which has an almost 600 year history, including patronage by many Korean kings.

Then we launched directly into festival week. It was the founding day festival for the university. Strange, actually now that I think about it, because why was the university founded in the middle of the second semester of a school year? Anyways, lots of fun and games and stuff. It's kindof like homecoming at US universities. Only more awesome because the main event isn't just a football game. Games and prizes everywhere, 3 nights of performances by quite famous Korean musicians, and of course, outdoor tents for each department. Sweet. Anybody say Pojangmacha? lol. Anyways, In addition to all that, I did a demonstration with my department's hapkido demo team. It went pretty well. I intended to put a video of it in this post, but when I tried to copy the video file, it was 18 GB, because they ripped it at maximum quality. 0.0 "And I was like, ' WHaa~AAAAT?'" Anyways, maybe I can imbed that later.

I would've had a pretty good weekend after that, except the new student entrance practical exam was saturday. That was a bit funny at some points, but generally just boring. I spent the entire day from 10AM to 5 PM watching students perform the basics of their respective martial arts. Some of them were quite good. I didn't even grade them. I was what they call 얼굴마담. (olgeul madam) This is a Korean phrase that means "Face Madam" and basically the meaning is that I was only there to look good or make a certain impression on the crowd. I find that expression hilarious. Anyway, I gave a couple welcome speeches to students and parents and tried to maintain morale in my students who were working the exam.

This week is review week for Mid-terms next week. One class I taught "discussion with friends" recently. Here's one of the dialogues I wrote as an example:

A: I'm dead tired. Let's skip class.
B: What? Don't be funny. Midterms are next week.
A: I know, but I hate the professor. He's so~ boring.
B: Yeah, but you can't cheat on his exam. It's speaking only.
A: Oh shit.

I laughed a lot in that class. Especially when the whole class said together, "I hate the professor." Then I pretended they hurt my feelings.