It's Been A While

Wow, it’s been a really long time since I last posted and honestly I don’t have a good reason why. It’s probably because things have slowed down around here and living in Korea is starting to seem more like a lifestyle rather than an experience. I guess that’s a good thing since learning the lifestyle is what I came here for. These last couple of weeks have been very interesting. I’m getting to a point to where I know a lot people around campus and around the neighborhood.
Last weekend I was able to attend the Passion World Tour. Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, David Crowder Band, Matt Redman, and Chris Tomlin made their way to Seoul for a weekend conference. While I was standing in line to receive my ticket, I met a Korean American from New York City who attended Yongsei University. Yongsei is one of the two biggest and most prestigious universities in Seoul. After talking for a while, he told me he was standing in line to get the tickets for his whole group. He was part of a campus ministry that met at the campus on Tuesdays. It’s called the Yongsei International Christian Fellowship. This group is open to anyone, but Korean Americans who decided to come to Korea, either for college or as an exchange student, made up the majority of them. Since I was there alone he invited me to meet the group and sit with them in the concert. Most of these students were either from Seattle, Southern California, or New York. It was probably the biggest group of Americans that I’ve been able to interact with for a long time. This past Tuesday I went to Yongsei University to worship with the group and we went out to eat afterwards. I’m thinking I’ll probably be spending a lot of Tuesday nights with these guys.
Now that things are slowing down a little, life kind of has a routine to it. I thought I would run through it quickly.
Sunday: I usually hitch a ride with Don Kinder, one of the American professors here, and James, his roommate, to Hanmee Church of Christ. Church usually lasts from 11-12, then we eat lunch at the church from 12-1, and we have bible class that lasts from 1-2. Since most churches in Korea, especially ones that are catered to English speakers are later in the evening it gives me the opportunity to worship with other churches in the city also. After worship, I usually spend the rest of the day lounging around in my dorm.
Monday: I have my Korean Culture and History class at one o’clock with Dr. Park. Dr. Park is a Korean who has a doctorate from Harding Grad. She teaches English, but the school chose her to teach me culture and history. A couple weeks ago, Dr. Park directed me to a website that had at least a hundred essays written by Korean professors in English. She told me to pick about 7 essays that I found interesting and I was to read them before class and then we would talk about them during our session. It’s really interesting because she’s always asking me these simple questions that I have a hard time answering. It’s funny (and quite sad) that some of the fundamental things I believe in I actually don’t fully understand. And it doesn’t just happen in her class, it happens to me all the time here. People are always asking me, “Why does America do this? Why does America believe that? What do you like about your country? What don’t you like about your country?” And even though those might seem like remedial questions, it’s not easy having a conversation about them with a person who didn’t grow up believing in the same ideology that you did. Ironically, I can say that this semester has taught me more about America than it has Korea. Monday nights is also the time for cleaning the dorm. Every month each dorm room picks a certain tasks out of a hat which tells them what they will clean for the next four Mondays. Luckily, I haven’t had to clean the bathrooms yet (knock on wood).
Tuesdays: I don’t have any classes on Tuesdays, but my Korean language teacher has me come to his daycare and teach his 6 and 7 year olds English for a couple of hours. I teach four classes, twenty minutes each. Each class has about 20-25 students. It’s pretty fun and the kids are the most hilarious characters I’ve ever seen in my life. Afterwards I kind of just walk around the city and find random things to do until it’s time to head to Yongsei University. It would be a waste of time to go all the way back to KCU and leave right back out. That night, our dormitories have small groups which for my group start at 10:20. There are all different kinds of small groups, but since I’m a native speaker, they placed me in the “I want to learn English” small group. They also have a movie small group where they watch movies and they have a small group where they play games…just to name a few.
Well this post is already extremely long, so I’ll finish my weekly schedule in my next post. Thanks for your prayers!

Bring Back Alan Greenspan

One of the reasons I haven't been posting a lot of post on my blog is because I really haven't had much time to do anything lately. My eyes have been glued to CNN.com trying to get my mind around the financial calamity that has hit the United States. It's so weird to be so far away and have to hear about bad news like Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Ike, and now the sickness of our economy. Our country is in a very scary condition right now.
Since I've been here in Korea my prayer life has been exceptional, but I feel like that's only the case because I have less distractions, less issues, and less worries. I mean I'm glad that I'm practicing good habits, it's just I think it's ironic that we call on God when we need him the least. I wonder how many of our national leaders have consulted with God about our problem at hand or has all their faith been put into a $700 billion dollar bailout plan? I hope and pray that people who are dealing with losses from the hurricanes and people who are making decisions in the next couple of days are asking God for his opinion, because in the midst of our shortcomings as well as our prosperity, his is the only one that counts.

First Video

Here' s my first video blog. I think sometimes the guys think that if only guys are around then they don't have to wear clothes. That might change after this video. And don't worry, permission was granted.

One Month Down...

Well I'm going to have to apologize for not updating in the last couple of days, but things have just been crazy around here. Book reports due, 21st birthday was last Thursday, and now I have a new addiction, watching my favorite television show online. Thanks to Ted Simons, who showed me where I could watch Law and Order:SVU on the internet, I haven't stopped watching it. As far as my birthday goes, it was literally an all weekend celebration. Thursday, some of the guys bought me a cake, and after we ate that we ordered Chinese food. How backwards is that? Friday, my Korean language professor took Samuel, Winter, and I back to VIPS for my birthday, and as always that place was great. He also bought me a cake. Saturday, Ronda invited me to her house for pizza and she made me a cake from scratch. So in all, I had four birthday cakes. That has to be a record somewhere.

On Sunday, I went to an evening worship at Yongsan Church of Christ after I left Hanmee Church. Yongsan was the congregation where most of the military personnel go. It was a good day. After worship Ted Simons and I went and ate at a Korean fast food chain called Kraze Burger. It was pretty good, but it wasn't worth the money we paid for it. So to say the least, that was a one in a lifetime experience.

Things are going well here. I can't believe I'm one month into this thing. Before I know it, I'll be on a plane back home. I'm so glad I'm able to do this.

Next Milestone: 44 years away....

Happy Birthday to me! You know, one of the good things about having my birthday in Korea is that I get to celebrate it for 38 hours. Can't beat that. I joke with people that 21 is kind of a depressing age. I mean you grow up waiting on important birthdays. I mean you got 13, 16, 18, and then 21, but after 21 what's left...65! Anyway, I'm definitely blessed to see another year. I've now spent my last four birthdays away from home and away from my family. Two of those birthdays were in a foreign country. I mean don't even know how it feels to spend a birthday with family anyway more, it's kind of depressing. But if I'm learning anything as I get older it's this. That special family time isn't centered around special holidays or birthdays, but it's when nothing is planned, nothing is done out of the ordinary, and we're just sitting around enjoying each other's company.
Well, it's almost time for class so I better go prepare!

Chuseok!

Ok, so Friday was a pretty good day. First of all, I taught my first college class. I mean at first I thought the class was just something the students wanted to do and it was just me helping them learn English, but it's actually a real class that the stduents are auditing. An actual professor came in the class to do a small introduction of who I was and thank me for teaching the class. Then he prayed over us and left (at KCU they pray before every class meeting). That was a neat experience. Now I think about it, I got papers to grade! Anyway, that evening I met up with Ted Simons, a graduate of Oklahoma Christian who is here teaching in English in one of the schools. We went to a noodle shop with three people he met at the church he had been going to. First we have Hannah. Hannah is a girl from the United States who is an international student in London who is on an exchange program here studying at Korea University. Then we have Anna. Anna is Finnish and she's also here studying at Korea University as an exchange student. Then we have another young man, I forgot his name, who is also here teaching English in one of the grade schools. After we ate noodles, Hannah had to go back to her dorm, but the rest of us went to Ted's apartment and played Apples to Apples. We wanted to play at a coffee shop but after we walked to the Olympic Park and found out that it closed at midnight we just went back to Ted's. It was my first time playing it, but it was pretty entertaining. When we got done it was like 3 o'clock in the morning so I just stayed the night at Ted's place. That was my first night to spend away from the dormitory.
This morning Ronda introduced me to her friend Anna Marie who is Indian but is a citizen of England. She's been here for a few months teaching English. We went shopping at the Hyundai Market then we did some more shopping in Itaewon. It was a long day! This weekend is Chuseok weekend, which is one of the biggest (if not the biggest holiday) on the Korean calendar, so everybody's gone home for the holidays so to speak. There's only a couple people left in the dorms. And when I say a couple, I mean a couple. Luckily, because of the holidays, we're out of school on Monday. I'm starting to like Chuseok already.

Korea Exchange Student or Korea Visiting Professor?

So last night I was sitting in my room minding my own business when one of the other guys in the dorm comes to me telling me about the English class he wants me to teach. He didn't know English very well but after about ten minutes of fumbling through words I finally make out what he was trying to say. He told me that the class was going to be on tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:30. I said ok, and went to back to whatever I was doing. Now mind you, people have been telling me about this class for a while now, so it wasn't a surprise, I just didn't know when it was suppose to be.
After a couple hours go by, another student who can't speak English well came to me and after fumbling over his words, I found out he's telling me that the English class that I'm teaching is down stairs in the classroom waiting on me. I'm was like there must be some mistake. Another guy just came in here and told me it was tomorrow. Then it hit me. It was two different classes. Before long, I'm going to be teaching about as many classes as I'm already taking.