Jo, taking a picture on her camera phone of her daring Risk campaign. We went to a game-bang to play games, and turns out they now have Risk 2210! Yay! My favorite game in the whole world. I simply had to teach Jo. 

This picture is taken exclusively for my Risk playing buddies. Notice how I haphazardly stormed through North America, forgetting to take Canada? Yeah... It's been a while since I've played... *sigh* 

Don on the left and Daniel on the right.  

Three of my newest students in Venus class. From left to right, there's Candy (aptly named because every day she is demanding candy from the teachers), Julia (the newest addition to Venus), and Cindy (a real sweetheart). In the background, growing out of Cindy's head is Kathy. Susanna didn't want her picture taken. 

The kids can't really stand still long enough to take a sharp photo. They are generally squirming all over the place and excited to have their picture taken. 

Here is Daniel (formerly Dominique). Peace, brother. 

Migeum Station, late at night. 

Here is Migeum station late late at night - I was waiting for the last train, and the platform was completely deserted.  

Although it's not much, I think the river is the center for birds in the area. You can't really see that much for wildlife anywhere else in Seoul (barring the zoo, of course).  

The reflections on the river were what struck me on that particular day, so I have several pictures of that.  

The ripples under a low-rising bridge/footpath.  

This is my attempt at an artsy photo. Ponder the deep significance. :-) 

I kinda liked how the reflection of the buildings "fit" into the dip in brush. Kinda... 

You can cross the river at any of these weirs by stepping on the concrete blocks. When you cross, you get that sensation where you feel for a brief moment like jumping in, or falling. That's why you should always walk on the row furthest from the undertill. 

The magpies congregate at the river to scavenge. There are large groups of them, but as soon as you try to take their picture, only the photogenic ones stay around. The other ones are too shy, I guess. 

Ducks. Quack quack. 

A white heron. 

Here is a picture of the skyline near my house. This is probably close to Migeum station. It's funny, the river is so completely different from the concrete jungle only a few hundred yards away. This picture almost gives you a sense of open space!  

The large blurry white splotch in the middle of this picture is a white heron. They wade in the river without really noticing the pedestrians nearby. Although, I must say, as soon as you want to take their picture, they cross over to the other side of the river and pout. 

Here is a picture closer to Sunae - probably around Jeongja or so.  

The parabolas on this bridge were really cool, and I had to take a picture. 

Here is an underpass nearing the end of my river hike. Don't ask why I took a picture of it. 

Here's one of my afternoon classes. It is the last class of the day, and they're little angels... (*bites tongue*) mostly. 

This is what we deal with at school. Scary, huh? 

Okay, in my blog post, I said I'd be posting "photos". I lied. It's been a slow patch, so all I took pictures (er, "a" picture) of is this. This is a picture of the street on the way to school. I was all geared up for spring, and then nature went and dumped a load of snow on us. I was holed up in my apartment at the time, so I didn't even notice until the next day. Amazingly, it was probably more snow in one shot than we had received all winter. It was nice to see so much white. It made me appreciate Canadian winters more. 

Saving the World

Hi Everyone,

I just wrote "Not a whole lot is new these days", and suddenly realized that it is my default response for describing my life. Pretty bad when that's your default response, huh? I should give myself more credit! Saving the world isn't all THAT dull, is it?

Anyway, there are some new things in my life these days. I'll list them in a secret order that only YOU can figure out with your magical decoder rings.

1. I finally got my computer fixed. It was acting up for several weeks, and I got it fixed a while back by completely formatting my hard drive and reinstalling Windows. That was a pain in the butt because I had to do it not once, but twice, because when I reinstalled, the lagging problem was solved, but I had about a million viruses on my computer that jumped onto it because Windows started up with no firewall. I guess that signals the internet to attack full force, because my computer was like a warm steak to an army of E. Coli. It's good to be in business again.

2. I was offered a returning contract with the school that I'm at, and I've been considering it very strongly, because they will increase my pay, give me the time to vacation in Canada, as I asked, and let me keep my cozy apartment. As you may have gleaned from my previous posts, I love my apartment. *sigh* I have yet to make a final decision though, because I think I may be able to get a better deal with another hagwon and I may want more than 2 months away from Korea before diving in again. My original plan was to take a brief sojourn to Thailand before coming back to Canada. However, with only 2 months to come back and visit everyone, I may save that trip for later. Mark my words though - I will travel to Thailand.

3. The semester has ended, and the school has made the requisite changes for a new batch of students. Some of the younger students are returning to kindergarten, but the 7-year olds have moved on to our elementary program. I miss them. I didn't realize it until I taught the afternoon class that my students graduated to. They're all little geniuses and they have extrordinary personalities. I'm glad I get to teach them in the afternoons - even if it is only for 35 minutes. Cupid class (my youngest students) was split up and is now in several different classes. Charlie is the lucky recipient of most of the Cupid students. I miss them too. My new students are great, and I'm enjoying the new semester already (although my youngest class, Venus, despite being older than Cupid, doesn't know a lick of English, so it's terribly TERRIBLY hard to communicate). It's kind of cute though, because I can pick up a few words here and there - they keep asking (at like 11am, before lunch) if it's time to go home.

The new schedule they have planned is rough on the teachers. It involves a more jam-packed schedule in the mornings so that they can force in another class when we used to have a break time. Yeah, we're not getting breaks anymore. Except for lunch. I dunno what they're thinking. *NEWSFLASH* Sources Reveal That Kids Have Changed - they no longer need recess or time to run off steam. According to top scientist Frederick Oplenshitz at the Brighton institute, "we designed them better... faster... stronger. Software companies are staying abreast to the latest trends in the global market, now we're doing the same with our children!" *END NEWSFLASH*. Ugh. Please pardon the raging sarcasm. Tensions have been a little high at school recently. I've been trying to stay as positive as possible. :-)

4. I ran out of phone card time. I need to go to Itaewon... that's not really news. It's more of a reminder to myself...

5. Spring is in the air. It's been a long time coming, too. I talked about it in my previous posts about how I despise winter here, but I think (knock on wood) spring is just around the corner. I can tell - and not just because of the change in temperature. There's a feeling to it - kind of like that fraction of a second before you plummet backwards out of your chair that you were precariously tipping absentmindedly in the middle of a university lecture, only to end up on your back, wondering what happened - only picture that brief fleeting feeling drawn out over several days or weeks. It's like a certain expectancy of something that is JUST about to happen. I have been terribly cooped up as of late, playing video games and eating delivery pizza. And boy, can I ever say, "Korea is a beautiful country!!" Um... yeah, I know, it's lame, but winter was just too depressing for me. Now that spring is here, I will be outside more often (I hope).

6. I shouldn't be telling anyone this, because then it puts pressure on myself, and then I'll end up not wanting to do it because it's a self-inflicted expectation... BUT, I've started to write. I am only dabbling right now, but I have wanted to write for a long time. I did some writing in high school (I wrote a one-act play that I helped direct) and I wrote some stuff for a radio competition for CBC radio, but I've never really gone at it head-on. I'm scared but I'm plodding onwards and trying to push myself to generate more than 2 pages of work. We'll see how that turns out. I was also considering doing a weekly updated story in weblog format - would anyone be interested in that? I could do that on the side and it might help me keep my mind on writing and polish my linguistic skills. Then again... the pressure! OH GOD THE PRESSURE!!!

7. My apartment is clean... kinda... Let me rephrase that: Once I put my clean clothes away, my apartment will be clean. The other day, I swept under my bamboo floormat, and there was enough fluff built up to make a set of socks. It was creepy actually, to see how much fluff comes off your socks in a given period of time. I don't think I'll ever buy carpets again, because that crap gets locked into your shag and could probably kill yoU, MAN....

8. I got my Christmas present from my brother the other day. It's a great abstract-ish painting that he made. He really is a great artist, and I think he's getting better all the time. If only I had some wall space to hang it on... *sigh* I had to go to the post office to get it, since they came by my house while I was teaching. It was worth the trip!

I think that's about it for now. I will be putting some pictures of the last little while up on my blog ASAP. There aren't many though, so don't be too disappointed...

Hope to hear from you all soon!