Ahhh my sad little blog--sorely neglected once again!  I think it's time for a facelift.  Starting with this post, in which I'll update on my activities of the past couple months.

So the new school year is well underway.  It began in March.  I am enjoying teaching this year more than last year as I feel more experienced, full of ideas, comfortable in my environment, and I have some really great co-teachers this year.  There is also another foreign teacher in my Girls' School this year--Kholo (see picture).  She is from South Africa, and she and I have quickly become friends.

In other news, I moved out of the KNU dorm and into an apartment off campus almost 3 weeks ago now.  All the foreign teachers will be moving into apartments within the next few months; my friend Karissa and I were just the first to go.  She lives above me.  We have studio apartments about a 15 minute walk from KNU.  I really love the independence and the bus ride downtown is actually quicker.  Plus, with the weather warming up (finally!) the extra walking is pleasant and good exercise.  And!  I bought a bicycle.  I found a used one at a shop near my school and rode it all the way home (40 min.).  This is a huge accomplishment for me because it means that I FINALLY know my way around this city.  It was really hard to get my bearings because I was always being driven everywhere (bus, taxi, car) rather than going there on my own!  I'll post pictures of the apartment as soon as I get it put together; I've been waiting on KNU to get me some furniture but that arrived yesterday so finally I can stop sleeping on the floor and pulling my wrinkled clothes out of garbage bags!

Something else I've done recently is to take up Salsa dancing as a hobby.  Some friends and I discovered a little place where a group of Koreans meet to dance to Latin music every Friday night (who would've thought Koreans could be good at Salsa!), so we go there every Friday night we can, meet once during the week to practice, and also we have a once-a-week private lesson from one of the Korean dancers we met.  It's something I've always wanted to do, and it's a fun challenge to learn all the steps, and good exercise on top of that!

I think that the weather is the thing I'm most happy about at the moment.  Highs in the 70's this week.  Yesterday one of my coworkers and I walked to a coffee shop downtown on lunch break, then came back and talked to girl students while we watched the boys play sports on the field.  (Amazing how even though Buk Middle school has 2 out of the 3 grades integrated now, the students still sex-segregate themselves for the most part.  Even in class.  Getting a boy to talk to a girl during an educational activity and vice versa requires almost a direct command.)

Okay well that's most of what I've been up to lately, with one major exception: 

꽂보다납자.  And that gets a separate post.  :P