End of Summer

Finally! The heat of the summer has broken and the weather is cool again. Along with the cool weather comes a new semester. The school year starts in March so we're at the half-way point now. I'm trying more group work in my classes and it's going really well so I'm very happy about how much my students are speaking English and practicing.

I've been recruited to help make an "English Olympiad" exam for all of the students (who volunteer to participate) in our province. At first nothing was explained to me except that we would be going to Jeonju for a few hours one evening. Later I found out that we had to spend a whole weekend near Imsil, actually in a very tiny place called Gui. We met and stayed in a traditional music school/mentoring place. The making of this exam is top secret so we were far from civilization and after we finished making the exam, all copies of the exam were burnt except for one that remained on the leader's laptop. Koreans take exams very seriously.

The only other people there were musicians who showed up around 9:00 PM and played in the building next to ours until midnight. The type of Korean music played at the school sounds like pots and pans being bashed together in a semi-rhythmic fashion which made it a little difficult to concentrate on our task.

There were huge spiders and other insects I had never seen before in the hallway and rooms of the school and it was a bit unsettling. Before going to sleep, I removed the largest cricket I have ever seen from my room (it was dead) and closed the door before going to sleep. I slept on the floor - Korean style - and slept a fitful four hours. We ate fish soup and shellfish soup all weekend so I wasn't happy with the food either.

Last Friday we had another meeting and they promised another one soon to come. During these meetings almost everything is spoken in Korean so I don't understand much of what's going on. I'm just the proofreader. So most of the time I'm completely lost at these meetings and then after we finish I finally get a copy of the exam and am instructed to proof read it before the next meeting. It's all just a strange process to me as I have no idea of the big picture. I just go where I'm told to go and do what I'm told and hope that whatever we're doing is working.

My wife has been having some trouble with her knee and one of her ribs so the doctor instructed her to stop taking kumdo. Her job is also going to finish in October so hopefully she'll have some time to heal and spend on herself. Her sister is coming to visit from China in two weeks for Chuseok holidays (like Thanksgiving). We're looking forward to it as we haven't seen her for a year and a half.

We took our cat to the vet a few weeks ago to get shots and then again because he was lethargic and not eating afterward. When we went to the vet the first time, he asked us if the cat was Korean or American. It seemed like a strange question to me but then he explained that cats in Korea have not been acceptable pets for as long as in the west and thus have not been bred for temperament as long. When we told him that the cat was Korean he said that we had to spend more time playing with him...that basically he was more active and more "wild" than your typical "western" cat. This was very enlightening news as we were wondering why he was so wild. He sleeps all day then at night meows and runs around the house, jumping on our bed, biting any fingers and toes that aren't under blankets and generally making a lot of noise. We were hoping that a little fixing would solve the problem but it seems that his condition is incurable. From day to day it can be hit and miss whether he allows us to sleep much or not. We've been trying to play with him more but his biological clock is completely opposite from ours. When we want to play he is sleeping and when he wants to play, it's too late at night. We think he is getting more calm as he gets older but maybe it's just hopeful thinking.