Concerning flaming polar bears

It seems that my blog is slowing down into a weekly post, as work picks up and my Korean life slides into a "quick succession of busy nothings" (From Jane Austen's letters...duh). Well, rather "busy somethings" because this experience is far from null. Another work week done, several thousand new lessons learned about teaching. The learning curve goes on but still keeping afloat and feeling ever more competent. A highlight from the last few days: having the four 14 year old boys in an advanced writing class completely school me in Harry Potter spells, they were spewing Latin(ish) words and diligently butchering them (Boldmate? Really?) at a speed that even beat my nerdy Potter knowledge. Second highlight: teaching my youngest kindies (the 5 year old hellions) to pound it and seeing a whole little class of gansta Korean children. Epic. Yesterday, we made the snazzy, 50 minute, bullet train trek (they even have a karaoke room aboard which we unfortunately did not patronize) to Seoul to see a Korean ice hockey game. First off, I was extremely glad to have some experience with European public transportation before tackling the Seoul subway system- it was a compost bin full of worms going every which way and most definitely NOT in English. We did manage with only one minor mishap involving a hopped turnstile but live and learn. Our group met some other foreigners in the foreign district (go figure) and, after checking out an English bookstore (bought "The Thorn Birds" and tore myself away from "Anna Karenina") , we had a very welcome properish cheeseburger at an American bistro. The game itself was fantastic. From what we could make out, the team mascot was a Polar Bear as the players entered the rink through the flaming head of one. Yes, you read correctly. I really can't explain more than just one word-- Korea. We made a rabble-rousing time of it, dutifully egging on any fight that we saw and applauding the requisite blood on the ice. Of course, this got us a LOT of looks from incredulous Koreans, but it also got us on the big screen for about 2.157 seconds so there. Hoarse from shouting at the players and singing along to every bad western and Korean pop song that was blared through the speakers, we left the rink and made our wiggling way back through the subway system to the bus terminal. Asteria and I had a very long but very profound ride home. We talked the whole 2 hour long way (OK this doesn't sound long but it felt like several archeological ages) about life, love, Korea, college, and...grad school. I know I said this in my last post but I really am getting more and more excited at this idea. What is good about it is that, having been excited about several careers in the past few years, I still have a whole year to make sure about this before I have to apply. As it is, UW is sounding better and better. It is in the low twenties in the national ranks for English PhD programs which, while not phenomenal, is respectable. It also has a summer London study abroad program centering on the British novel...BUT, we'll see where the coming months take me with regards to this.

Anyway, we pulled back into Daejeon, and it was very settling to feel myself back somewhere familiar. I guess you don't know what is familiar until you go somewhere not, so it's comforting to know that my city is getting a little less foreign...if only the four block radius of it that I know. Next up: back to work tomorrow! As always, love from me!