I'm going to try to be more concise and to the point in this blog, to keep my scant readers from getting lost in the tedium of my thoughts. So this past week there were a few notable happenings. First, my coworker Sasha finished her last work day, and while she is still here for another week or two, she'll soon be going to Moscow for another teaching job. She brought a lot of energy and camraderie to the office and is a really fun person, and I'm sad to see her go. Her replacement showed up Friday and started today. David's Welsh--and acutally the first guy I've ever met from Wales. He's polite, formal, about two years younger than me, has some teaching experience, and overall seems like a good guy. My other coworker from the UK, Adam, went home for two weeks, and with Sasha being gone, there's only five teachers instead of the usual seven working right now (David is training for the week) so we are teaching more classes than normal. I don't mind it--it makes the days go by quickly--but it means I'm getting less reading time than before at work....haha.
The weekend was full of fun, and probably was one of the most packed I've had recently. Friday night was a house-warming celebration for Doug's girlfriend Cheri, and we chatted and played games til 2am. Saturday I slept in and met Christina at Outback for a "thank you" lunch. I'd helped her several times to prepare for English interviews for jobs in Seoul and the lunch was a more-than-adequate compensation. I had a rack of ribs (at her insistence) and I ate the entire plate. These were no ordinary ribs, either--they had been seasoned and grilled to an unusual degree of perfection and I loved them. After lunch Christina and I parted ways and I met up with my new-found Korean friends at the English study group. We chatted in a Korean tea shop for a few hours about "green" energy, blind dates, and fast food, then Vivian and I went to Doug's apartment for the long-anticipated Thanksgiving meal. We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, Swedish meatballs, broccoli and cheese, and some roasted chicken (turkey being mostly unavailable here). We stayed and chatted for a while, then took off around 11:00p so Vivian could catch her train to Gumi, a town about 35 minutes away by train. Silly as it sounds, the 35 minute train commute takes the same time as a subway commute across Daegu, so it's really not all that far away.
Sunday I got up early to play soccer with Phillip and Jason. We played til 1p on artificial turf, so that adds up to about four hours of solid playing time. There were three or four teams (I couldn't quite tell because players were switching jerseys so frequently) and so I had some break times in between. The highlight of the day was scoring my debut goal in the Korean soccer league--I intercepted a pass intended for the keeper and placed the shot perfectly between the keeper and the near post. However, I missed two one-on-one chances with the keeper later on, which my team jokingly harped on me for. The weather was ridiculously cold and windy because we were playing on a field in the mountains, so I had to borrow a jacket to avoid freezing. After the games, I went home and got dressed for church and went off to the English Bible study group. We talked about Moses and his objections to serving, and the Koreans put a spin on it that I hadn't considered before so it was fresh for me. After the study I took the subway to Daegu's train station and got a ticket to Gumi to meet Vivian for dinner. We ate at a Japanese place and then spent a few hours chatting in Starbucks. (As an aside, we saw a girl get "hit" by a car on the street outside while we were chatting, and an ambulance came and collected her. I think she was faking or was just frightened, and wasn't really injured.) Vivian and I have a lot in common, and I think she carries more potential than most of the girls I've met. She's mature, independent, intelligent, open-minded, goal-oriented, and she has a heart for other people. I like her.
I'm going to start listening to Christmas music over the next few days, and I've heard numerous reports of snow falling across the country, which I'm eagerly awaiting for Daegu. December is here!
No comments:
Post a Comment