Today Was a Good Day

I had a nice little break today, our class only ran for 2 hours instead of 4. Our teacher had to go supervise the mid-terms for all the other students. Our mid-terms are next week. However, we have class tomorrow (Saturday) to make up for class we will miss further down the line. This has been a tough week for time/brain power. At the end of class today I was feeling a bit overwhelmed again, but things always tend to work themselves out.

The big news around here is that the seniors are going to the U.S. tomorrow for their senior trip! An Hyo Sang and Heavy G are going with them, so things will be a bit quiet here until they get back. They are touring LA, SF, and SD. My boy Matt Gates is going to meet them when they tour UCLA and speak perfectly fluent Korean to them and ask them about all the stories with me. (JK buddy)

I was able to get a nice little workout in today at the gym after my meeting with the K-PACE director. Let me tell you a bit about that. He is in the main building here (tallest building) and I was to meet him at 3pm. I walk in and with instructions from Heavy G I head to the second floor. He told me just go through the big fancy doors and talk to the secretary. Cool, easy enough. I take the elevator to the second floor and step out. On this floor are two museums to my right, and two frosted doors to my left in the 4 corners of the building. Sweet, what do I do now? There is absolutely no indication on any of the doors where Dr. Rhee's office is, and I'm not about to go walking randomly in to offices where the top administration of the university works. I messaged Heavy G and about 5 minutes later he gives me a call on Kakao and tries to talk me through it. As you may have gathered from some of the videos I've taken of him, Heavy G's English isn't the greatest. Over the phone it's even harder. Luckily right as I was telling him I have no idea what he's saying Dr. Rhee walks down the hallway.

So I follow Dr. Rhee through the far frosted doors (probably the last place I would have gone) and straight ahead past 3 secretaries into his office. This place is nice, I mean REALLY NICE. We're talking CEO of a fortune 500 company nice. The office you all want in the corner (it wasn't actually in the corner) with a giant beautiful desk and 8-10 comfy chairs in a meeting area. I guess that's what you'd expect for the guy who's grandfather founded the university though. Good stuff! As we were exchanging pleasantries a secretary came in and brought us both some bourbon (it was apple juice).

He was worried about my financial situation so he had been thinking of some ways I could make some money. Apparently it is illegal to teach English as a tutor within 6 months of coming to Korea so that is out of the question for now. His son works at a Christian school about 30 minutes from campus and they have a part time opening which would be great. The only problem is that it's from 9-12 and that's smack dab in the middle of my Korean class. The other option with this would be to find something at the same school in the afternoon. Otherwise he had thought about asking the K-PACE program itself if there was anything I could do to help. The third option would be to have me help with some English work here at the school. All seem like good options so I'm glad to see what pans out. I know God will have his hand on this.

I had 왕돈가스 (Wang Don Ka Seu) which is a giant breaded pork cutlet (Wang meaning King). I actually ate this twice today. This is a Japanese dish. I didn't have the brain to actually take a picture of either of them, but trust they were excellent. Besides that I finally got a chance to catch up on some of my vocabulary work and finish my homework. The students and other RA's all went to bed early tonight because of their trip tomorrow. YJS has his second of three tests to become a Korean police officer tomorrow morning! Wish him good luck with that, it's a three hour test! Pretty intense from what I've heard.

An unexpected friend came in to my room to hang out tonight. Park Jeong Bin! (Yes Alex, Jeong Bin!) I met him about a year and a half ago up at Concordia when Dr. Carol invited me to meet the K-PACE students on their senior trip. We were instant friends and I'm so happy we've been reunited. I've written a bit about him in the past, he's such a nice guy and we get along really well together. We were reminiscing about when we met and he was sad and missed Dr. Carol. (I hope you get to see this Dr. Carol). I took this picture as he was pining.

Jeong Bin! Chillin' in mah 방 (bang) room.

I have Saturday class tomorrow! (Ohs noes :() so I must go to bed now. Thank you again for stopping in, and don't forget to post any questions you have for when I can get around to doing interviews of the other RA's!

Korean Word/Phrase of the Day: 눈사람 (Noon Sa Rahm) SNOWMAN! Noon being snow, and Sa Rahm being person. Pretty good stuff.

TL:DR I'm in Korea.