Tidbits: My students last night all gasped as I bit into an apple at our last break (9pm). I thought they were shocked to see me eating in front of them or were about to ask me for a bite as they tend to do. (This is why I should really eat in the staff room!) But then one of my more talkative girls told me with wide eyes that eating apples at night is very, very bad for you. … I don't know if it's a luck thing, or a medical superstition along the lines of d...

So it was an eventful weekend in Korea: North Korea launched its "successful satellite" / "failed missile" - I take both terms with a grain of salt, having seen the propaganda that both sides tend to generate when political ideologies differ in this way. The exciting thing for me was that this was the weekend I dragged myself into Seoul (after a festive night out and about 3 hours of sleep) to take a tour North, to the DeMilitarized Zone. ...

Hi friends, I'm sorry it's been a while! Mostly, that's to due with the fact that I've settled in so comfortably here; it doesn't feel like there's much extraordinary to write about these days! Nevertheless, I've compiled some tidbits, mostly things that come out of my students' mouths; that's when I have the most contact with Korean culture, and it tends to amuse me! · I wore my awesome, mirrored aviator sunglasses in to work a few days last week, and the s...

So it shall be: It's snowing! (but not staying), and I'm finally coming down with a cold. I'm not really surprised, since I sit with kids for six hours straight, many of whom openly hack without covered their mouths two feet away from me while I lecture. No voice left. I'm trying to nurse myself with tea and leftover seed-cracker-cookies and juice - the things I invested in for the last-day party for those same germ spreaders. I do like my kids more than that, o...

I've reached the end of my first week teaching! I still don't know where I left my winter coat, back in Seoul. Luckily, it hasn't been cold enough to make me absolutely need it. The week has been mild, for February. It rained over the weekend, but it's Monday and the sun streams in through my big apartment windows. Back in Seoul, the consensus was that I'd be starting teaching the last week of February, when the new 13-week term starts. The brand-new curricul...