Slacking

So I'm a slacker.... but you all knew that, right? With that out of the way here we go. So it's been almost a month since I made my last post (Really? I guess...) so I guess I'll give an update as to what's happening here. The last week of July was officially my summer vacation. I didn't really do anything terrifically exciting or do any extensive traveling thanks to a procedure I had to have done on the 31st. It wasn't exactly what you would call pleasant, but I survived.... more or less.... I also had to go to get new glasses and lenses ordered since I managed to break my other pair due to my glasses flying off of my face after I tripped in the hallway at school. The frames broke at the nose and I managed to get some nasty scratches on the lenses. Fortunately I have a spare pare to last me until the 16th when I will be able to pick up my new pair. They turned out to be pretty cheap, only about 90,000 won (about $90).

On that note I'll move into a comparison of prices for things her in Korea and the U.S.
Glases (frames and lenses) U.S. $220 Korea $90
Gas (per gallon) U.S. $3.50 Korea $8.00
Beef (1 lb, ground) Korea $4.40
Movie Ticket- $9.50 (Korea)
Cheeseburger- (Mc Donald's) $1.70 (Korea)
Sliced Cheese (12 slices) $4.40 (Korea)

These are just things that come to mind off the top of my head. As you can see glasses are much cheaper here, as is health care in general (LUCKY!) but gas and some food items (mostly beef an cheese) are more expensive. There is of course a reason for this, mainly being that Korea refuses to import U.S. beef. They haven't for about 3 years, not since before the single case of Mad Cow disease (my student's stubbornly refer to it as Crazy Cow disease...) and if you asked an average Korean about it, they would probably say they are worried about it. There were big protests about two months ago because Korea had agreed to start importing beef again and the media was able to use peoples fears to get the government here to go back on the deal. There were claims made by the media that it was a big problem in the States and such... and what happens? We pay more for beef here. Then Korea gets angry at the U.S. after going back on the trade deal after claiming the "islands" of Dokdo in the Pacific Ocean which both Korea and Japan claim are uninhabitable. These "islands" are little more than rocks poking out of the surface of the ocean, but what ever.

Well, I reckon it's about time to head off to bed for me. Hope every one is well. Don't be afraid to leave comments. I like reading them and if anybody has a question they want answered about anything (well maybe not anything *points at one Mr. Josh N. and Trevor D.*) I'd be happy to do my best to answer.

I'm out I guess,

Shad

July 14th

Sorry for the lack of posts. I really do mean to post more but I'm a slacker. Anyways so I spent a majority of my weekend at the Korean Kumdo Championships. It was pretty cool. On a related not I passed my Kumdo test and am officially 5th grade. That means I (finally) get to use armor. I already paid for it and will get to start using it on Monday. YAY. Things at school have been quite busy as we have been down a teacher since the start of the month. Our new teacher is supposed to be her on Thursday but we'll see. Otherwise things are typical.

Over the next few weeks I plan to blog about my classes and students so look forward to that.

I also received a request to post about cultural stuff so I guess I'll start doing that too. Nothing really comes to mind at the moment but I did go grocery shopping today so I guess I'll go into that experience. I went to Lottemart which is only a 5 minute walk away, and is pretty much where I do most of my shopping for food. It's a multi-level store, bigger than your run-of-the-mill Super Wal-Mart. At any rate, the when you enter and leave they have people who bow and say something like "thanks for shopping here". Weird, but also familiar as we have people greeters at Wal-Mart, just without the bowing. You might also be pleased to know people who stop right in the middle of an aisle or just stop right in front of you are prevalent here too, though here it's a cultural thing, people who don't know you are allowed to be pretty rude. You get people trying to get ahead of you in line and all that junk a lot. Why the other day I was standing at a taxi rank when a taxi stopped and I started to move toward it this lady just barged ahead an took it. While that's not common it was still annoying as you really aren't supposed to do anything (like you can anyways...). Whatev.

My vacation starts on the 29th and runs for until the 4th. Unfortunately I won't be able to go out of the country or anything due to my GI wanting to do a procedure to get some imaging since it's been a year from my last images. Lets just say it involves a flexible fiber optic camera. I'll let you fill in the blanks there.

Quick Post #3

I really am planning to post a nice meaty rundown here soon, I promise. For those of you who read and were concerned about my hand, good news! It was just a tumor and it was benign. My stitches came out a week ago and it looks pretty good, they might not even be a big scar.... so much for me trying to claim I got it in a knife fight. Now it just looks like I might've got jabbed with a letter opener..... lame.

Also, congrats to my incredibly hardcore father who ran a 4:04 marathon. I'm proud of you!!!

The Raging Storm

Ok I really like coming up with slightly corny titles for my posts. This one fits I feel. So I was on my way to my Kumdo test after I had finished work yesterday when I could feel it was going to storm, I just hoped it waited till after I got on the bus. By the time I reached the bus stop, the sky was black and it was starting to rain. I sought shelter in the entry way of a building having left my umbrella at home. Good thing I did because it started to absolutely pour. That wouldn't have really been so bad, but then it started to hail. In the twenty minutes it hailed, we got up to quarter-sized hail. Yuck....

By the time I got to the gym, I felt the same way, nervous and excited, a raging storm of feelings. Not good really as you are supposed to be relaxed, calm and smooth. I think my test went ok, but who knows, I'm sure I'll find out soon.

The Next Level

This is gonna be a short post. That said, I'll be posting tomorrow night. For those of you who don't know, I had surgery on my hand last week to remove a bump between my thumb and index finger. I still have no clue as to what it was (before the surgery the doctor had no clue to what it was, thus it's currently at the lab, results on that next Tuesday). Thus I have three stitches and was told not to go to Kumdo at all for the next two weeks, which I have chose to ignore as it is healing fine (the doctor said so, even though I went to practice). Which leads me to my posts title. I have a test tomorrow!!!!!! It's basically the test to see if I'm ready to wear the armor, the equivalent of just over half way to a black belt in other martial arts. So , even though my had has stiches and my foot is still covered in blisters, I am soooooo psyched.


More tomorrow.

Changes

I remember hearing a line from a movie that went something like this "Somethings change; somethings never change.", and as I have now reached the 1/4 mark of my stay hear in Korea I find that saying truer and truer. Sometimes the changes are easy to see, others aren't so easy to spot, some of the changes and again others not.
I suppose the first change is the most noticeable, and that would be my appearance. Sure, I cut my hair which is a big change for me but others aren't quite as spectacularly noticeable, at least for me. The biggest physical change I've noticed is my arms. Kumdo has been subtle changing my arms. My forearms are noticeably more muscled as are my biceps and triceps. I've also managed to put a dent into my weight. I had been down 15 pounds at one point but I gained back five of that, which I will attribute to added muscle mass (I hope, lol)
On the subject of Kumdo, the master thinks I'll be ready for the armor next month, which I'm looking forward too. I've noticed my strikes have become a lot faster and more accurate, and my footwork is improving. Still, it's nice to have outside confirmation. I'm looking forward to actually being able to spar. I feel like a paper tiger as I've only been learning offense, but now I'll actually be able to start learning defense. My hands and feet are starting to toughen up too. They still get blisters, but they are really starting to get resistant to the beatings they take each week.
As for school, it still a mix of bad and good days. I have a class where all the parents are coming in next week so Ive got to put on a show with my class, but that's not until Wednesday, and truth be told, I'm more than a little nervous. Last Friday the kids went on their Spring picnic field trip. It was originally scheduled to be at Seoul Grand Park (which has a zoo and all kinds of stuff), but due to some problems in Seoul which I won't go into it was changed to Lotte World, the world's largest indoor theme park. It's ranked 7th in the world in terms of attendance. Since I and the other teachers were with the kids we didn't get to do much, especially considering the limited time we had. But we all agreed that we're gonna go back next month.

W ell I suppose that's a good length for this post for now, but I'll keep the promise I made a few weeks ago (I'm sorry, I've been busy, well sort of....) and post the picture of myself, enjoy!

Children's Day

Let me first apologize for the gap between my posts, It's been busy, although there isn't much to post. I had originally meant to post earlier in the week with pictures of my classes, but that fell through when my camera refused to work. But enough of that. Today's post will go in reverse chronological order (sort of).... yay!

Today was a national holiday in Korea, namely Children's Day. Basically think Mother's or Fathers day, but for kids. Yeah.... At any rate what it meant for me was I had the day off. Mmmmm yeah 3 day weekend. I spent much of it loafing around as I'm waiting for payday on Wednesday. I did however take part in some gaming on Camp Casey (which meant I got to eat on base)

Friday, being as it was Children's Day weekend, we had a party for the kids at school, which meant I had to be at school for first period...... Thus I decided to go to Kumdo that night, but we'll come back to that. My assignment for the day was Arts and Crafts, which despite my lack of a artistic ability went fantastic. Basically what it entailed was from 9:40 to 2:45 (minus 45 minutes for lunch) I was making Parent's Day cards with origami carnations. The kids had fun at any rate...

After I was done for the day I went to the 8:30 pm Kumdo class, where it turns out I'm like a minor celebrity. Despite never having met any of the students there, they all new my name and a good deal about me. Apparently the master told them about me (which is weird because the asst. master teaches the morning class). Anyways class went well, save for the fact it was very hot and I was dripping with sweat at the end.

Monday, I went in for my 2nd Crohn's appt. I had to have blood work done. It came back normal. As I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of diagnosis and my graduation I realize this last year could have gone much worse and that I am truly blessed, especially when I consider a teacher I knew here in town who had Crohn's got careless and had to go in for emergency surgery and had to be set back to the U.S. It was a good object lesson for me, but I digress. The appointment went well, but since it's been nearly a year since my last procedure involving a flexible camera taking images of my insides, I get tho schedule one for my summer break. Yay! (please insert sarcasm here) Oh well, I realize it's necessary and all, and at least it is n't my favorite thing in the world, the barium follow through x-ray.

At any rate, I get another wonderful three day weekend this next week as it's Buddha's Birthday (which is also apparently another national holiday). I promise that I will make another post (more substantial than tis one as well) then. For now take care. Shad