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.

keepin it korean, son!

Yesterday, I taught the last of 3 classes for a group of about 21 chinese college students. They learned tae kwon do from me for 3 weeks, once a week. They were pretty funny. This last class was hilarious. I'd been doing my best to teach in Korean since they're only here on a one month experience sort of trip. You know, I wanted to keep it Korean for them. The last class they begged me to just teach in English. I guess even though they had a translator with them, who did a pretty good job, it seemed, translating from my korean to chinese, they were still getting confused because of the 0% korean they all understood. It was hilarious. I wish my korean students would beg me to teach them in english, but they wouldn't understand if I did. Korea's a little behind on the english.
Oh! And a couple of girls from the chinese college kids group turned fangirl on me. It's been happening quite a bit recently. Fangirls just pop up everywhere. lol But I'm so not used to it. I'm not a movie star or any other sort of star for that matter, and fan-girls still really catch me off guard, and make me shy. I mean, these couple girls in this college group saying they loved me and that I was handsome and stuff. They were so proud of their ability to say it in korean, too! hahahahaha except that their pronunciation was bad and I didn't get it until the 3rd time around. Then one girl told me I was pretty. Big laugh at that one. It's ok in korean language to use the word pretty for a man, but I'm still not used to it.
Gonna try again to go get my foreigner card renewed, this time with (hopefully) all the right documents.
I hate it when people cancel classes with me. I mean, I could have planned something else for that time. Or when students just don't come to my morning class during the vacation? Oh ho ho, that really pisses me off. I could've slept or eaten a decent breakfast or what, but no~~~~ooo, I had to come in to the University and no one shows up? And they all know my cell number, but do they show me that courtesy? No. Eezel. I almost cancelled class this morning just out of spite.
Oh, and one of the students in the running for the internship just got cut out, and so did Burlington. I'm only sending 2 students to Washington, now. One of them's name is literally the same as the way you say America in Korean. Mi Guk, which means beautiful country. I find that hilarious. But it's confusing as hell when I'm teaching and I have to talk about something in the US. So I started calling him America. lol
New nickname for today: Lu-"Cass" because someone spelled my name wrong in korean, and "Cass" is a popular brand of korean beer. So I'm beer. This beer also comes in 'Red' and 'Light' varieties, which is pretty damn hilarious. Blushing? Cass Red. Lose some weight? Cass Light. Come to think of it, I feel pretty bad for any girl named Cass or Cassie who comes to Korea. lol
I still want a camera.