Ok, Im back

My apologies to everyone for not posting in a while, broken internet paired with a complete lack of motivation forced me to neglect my die hard readers. But Im back now, so lets all try to get on with our lives without holding a grudge.

Things are good in Seoul, winter is fast approaching and I am anticipating the coldest weather I have ever had to live through. Growing up in the South had its advantages like being able to wear flip flops year round and having school canceled at the the threat of temperatures dipping below 32F. However, I am completely unprepared for a serious winter because of it and am not receiving the sympathy I think I deserve. After me, the closest any other teacher has come to living in the South is Chicago, so everyone else is a little less concerned than me and make a point of laughing at my linen pants, Rainbows, and single layer fleece. EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that one of my co-teachers lived in Phoenix for some years and is equally unprepared for the winter. My apologies Robyn, I am confident that we will survive this. The Canadians are even optimistic, preaching that it cant be worse than Canada and that they can survive anything because, of course, they are Canadian. I tell them that personally, I dont recognize Canada as a real country, only a hat that is Americas first line of defense against the North Pole, so shut up.

We have now spent a week in our new school. It is an awesome, completely new building with everything modern and shiny. I, however, must have drawn the short stick and have been downgraded significantly in terms of my classroom. Many of you are probably thinking that it cant be worse than my previous pink room, but trust me, teaching in a classroom that is also the library sucks. Aside from being smaller than my last two rooms, there is no shelf space because of all the books, which consequently prevents any wall space for the things I thought were pretty essential to teaching, like the date and weather posters. My white board has also been cut in half and I am now forced to write on a portable board that is prone to rolling and thereby messing up my calligraphy style writing that I spent so much time learning. Also, since it is the library, other staff and students have the nerve to treat it as such and do not hesitate to enter at any time to look for the latest copy of "Aurthur's Adventures."

Other than my room, the school is really nice. The rest of the classrooms are awesome and the teachers room is huge with a lot of big windows. The first two floors are for the school, but the top floor has about 6 apartments for the teachers. They arent finished yet, but when they are, there will be enough room for 11 teachers which presents a problem because since there are only 15 of us total, the majority of us are going to have to move. While I wouldnt volunteer to move, I wouldnt mind if I had to because like the school, the apartments are really nice with big windows and a a big deck for everyone to enjoy the subzero temperatures. There are also parts of me that dont want to live where I work, but am a little bit excited about going back to the dorms. So, only time will tell, I think we will find out who is making the move towards the end of the month.

Our staff is also finally set for the next few months. Since I got here, I have seen about 8 people leave and 8 new people arrive, but with the departure of two teachers today, there will be no more new teachers until March. For those who are interested, the current total is 6 Americans, 9 Canadians. But do not fear, I have enough red, white and blue propaganda for all of Korea, and guess what, these colors dont run.

Ok, so thats about it for now, expect new pictures and a tour of the new school in the next few days, along with a post about what its like to work in school that puts performance second.

Stay classy, yall.