About Three Months In...

First off, I would like to let everyone know that I am okay and I am not in any immediate danger whatsoever. Yesterday there was a shootout between North and South Korea on an island close to the North Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, 2 Korean marines were killed and there were about 18 people injured. We do not know if this provocation will ignite a war or not, but I have asked a few of my Korean friends now and they are not too concerned at this time. I am keeping close tabs on everything just to be safe. For those that have been praying for me and the country of Korea, thank you.

Second, I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! I am actually going to eat a Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday as well! My friend invited me to his church's Thanksgiving feast, so I will be able to have some Turkey and all the fixings. I am really looking forward to it. As for Thursday, it will probably feel like a normal Thursday for me here, since Korea does not celebrate America's Thanksgiving day.

I have a few things to update everyone about since the last time I wrote. One thing is that my Korean has improved tremendously. It seems sudden, but my abilities improved to the point where I am now able to converse a little bit. I was really surprised! It just makes me marvel at the human mind and its capacity to learn. I think this sudden increase is due to a bunch of latent learning. Even though I didn't think I was learning things, I actually was. My mind was just processing everything in the unconscious. Crazy thing is that I am actually starting to have dreams in Korean. I can't fully remember them or what I was saying, but I know I was speaking Korean. Isn't that cool? There were many times I was disliking the Korean 4 class, but now I see how it has benefited me. Just another example of how pain can be used for someone's good. I finished Korean 4 about a week and a half ago. I don't know what class I will be in this upcoming Monday. I am hoping for Korean 2, but I wrote down 아무것나 "anything" on my application form. We'll see what I get.

Also, I just finished the last chapter of our class's book today! I do not have any more lessons to teach for the semester. Now it is time to assess the students' learning. They have an oral presentation, a final paper, and a final exam. For the oral exam, they will be doing 15 minute movie reenactments. I hope this assignment is fun for them and that they enjoy acting out these movies for their classmates. As for the final paper, they were asked to think about what they would do and what they would say if they only had a few more months to live. I thought it would be interesting for them and I am also interested to read what they have to say. It is crazy how fast this semester was. It just flew by and now it is almost over. It is hard to believe!

One thing that was funny this past week is that I had the students do an exercise where they wrote down a Korean holiday and one thing they wish they could change about the holiday. One of my female students wrote down that she wished there was a Princess Day. On this day all men would have to treat females like princesses. Some other students mentioned Christmas day and how they wished they could have a girlfriend or boyfriend on that day. I had to say to them that they would use hope instead of wish, because there is a possibility they could get that boyfriend or girlfriend! I told them they still have a month to find someone! Finally one of my students this afternoon wrote down Black Day. Black Day is Valentine's Day for those people that do not have a boyfriend or girlfriend. If you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend you go eat noodles with a black bean sauce called 자짱면 (ja-jjang-myun) with your friends. This student said he hopes on Black Day to eat these noodles with Fisher (that would be me)! It made me laugh out loud.

Some other things is that I have been able to take a few trips this fall. I went up to Seoul twice and got to visit with some friends. The last time I went up I got to see friends from Irvine Onnuri Church (Dan Kim and Joe Chun). We went to dinner, saw a variety show, played darts, and then went to the Onnuri English Ministry in Dogok the next morning. We had a fun time playing darts, because we made it so that whoever got 3rd place in a round would have to do 10 push-ups and whoever got 2nd would have to do 5 push-ups. Can you guess who had to do the most push-ups by the time the game was finished? Yup, it was me! Let's just say I was a little sore the next few days. It was good for me though. I actually started to improve by the end of the night, perhaps because I was afraid of having to do more push-ups : )

I also went to Kyungju to see an old Buddhist temple called Bulguksa with the professors in the Practical English department. It is one of the most famous attractions in Korea. I went there before, but the last time I went was in the summer. This time I went in the fall and the weather was very nice. We also went to the Millennium Park in Kyungju, which I hadn't been to before. The highlight of that park was this show we went to. There were these men that did all these tricks on some horses. Let's just say the last display was this man running/jumping with the horse as it was running. It was really cool.

This last weekend I went to my friend's church in a neighboring city called Su-san. The name of the church is Su-san church. They had a great Thanksgiving concert that they put on for everyone. After the concert, me and my friends went to this really cool Korean restaurant. It was called 행랑채 (haeng-nang-chae). Here is a picture of what it looks like:

Their menu was simple, bibimbap, a fried potato pancake, a fried go-chu (kinda like jalepenos) pancake, and dumpling soup. Each item on the menu was very delicious. Then after eating dinner, we went to this tea house that was in another part of the same lot. The hostess of the tea house made most of the teas on the menu. The tea I had was a sweet citrus tea. Pretty good, but maybe a little too sweet for my tastes. At this tea house is where I saw the shaman. She was dressed in white and her face was painted with gray make-up. She also had bright red lipstick on. I think the make-up is what scared me a bit. She actually came over to us and told us that the teas were very delicious. Later we saw her come in with some Japanese tourists and she was speaking fluent Japanese. Pretty interesting.

Here is a picture of some of the foods we ate (bibimbap and the dumpling soup):

Anyways, hopefully these updates suffice and were enjoyable. Again I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you all have a great time with your families and friends! God bless,

Jeff

Here we go...

Alrighty folks, so there have been a couple of requests now for me to give updates, so I am going to try my best to update this blog with the latest happenings here in Busan. I am not always the best at this sort of thing, so gentle reminders are always welcomed.

Anyways, I must say I am pretty well settled in here. I have been teaching for about a month now and have really enjoyed it. This week I will be starting lesson 5, meaning that we are already half way through the book. Boy does time fly. Midterms are coming up in about 2 weeks, so I am going to start writing my first midterm exam this week. The midterm should only take about 40 minutes for the students to complete, so the test should not be too difficult to write. I will let you all know though how it went afterwards.

My students are really good. I know this class is a little difficult for them since everything is in English, but they are working hard and coming along. They are finally feeling comfortable enough to shout out answers in class. The first few weeks I had to pick people out individually and have them answer questions. These days though students are willing to take a risk. I still have to call on people though sometimes ; ) In about a week and a half they will have their first essay due. I am looking forward to reading their responses.

As for Korean, many of you know that I am at a higher level than I should. Right now I am at about the higher beginner level. Unfortunately there is no higher beginner level this semester. There is only the higher intermediate level, level 4. Being in the class has its ups and downs. Obviously it has pushed me really try hard to understand what is being said in class. I have actually learned a lot of new vocabulary words and am able to understand about 50% of what the teacher is saying in a given class. What is difficult though is that I have a hard time expressing myself and making complete sentences. I feel like such a baby at times, spitting out any words I can to help get my message across. I realize the good in it though, because it has definitely humbled me and it helps me to understand my students. I reflect back on my experience in Korean class and think about how my students must feel the same way sometimes when they are listening to me or trying to express what they want to in English. Anyways, there is about a month left before the class is over with, so until then I will keep persevering, keeping a positive attitude, laughing at myself, having fun, and trying my best : )

Well I have a cold, so I am gonna wrap this up for now. Hope you enjoyed the update : ) Feel free to comment or ask any questions!