It has been an interesting few weeks. There is a lot of things going on here because of the swine flu. There are many students who are not coming to school because their parents are afraid they will catch it there. They have even closed down individual classes when too many kids were out sick with colds or sore throats because the parents have insisted on it. They have also canceled the Christmas program because they don't want to have all of those people in one room together for fear that one person infects everyone else. My kids had started to learn their lines and the songs that they would sing, and were kind of sad that we won't be able to perform it.

Last week I had what we call an open classroom. All of the parents get to come in and observe a class. We have to practice exactly what we are going to do many times. It is almost more like a rehearsed play than a lesson that I teach. After the lesson, I went into a room with all of the parents and they got to ask questions. I was kind of intimidating. I had the two directors sitting on either side of me, and was facing all the parents. They spoke all in Korean, even though everyone in the room could speak English. It was quite a relief when it was done, but I have do do another one next week too.

It is starting to get cold here. It has been below freezing for a while now, but of course I am too cheap to turn on the heating in my apartment. It stays around 16 degrees Celsius, or 58 degrees Fahrenheit in my apartment. It is kind of okay because I don't spend a whole lot of time here. I have a nice blanket that keeps me warm when I am sleeping, and I have gotten used to just wearing warm clothes the rest of the time.

Yesterday (Saturday) I got to go bungee jumping!!! It was so much fun. I went with some coworkers and my friend from church. The tower is only 45 meters high, but it was quite a rush. It was only scary for a split second just after jumping from the tower, but most of the time it was just an amazing adrenaline rush. I would do it again in a second. I was harnessed in so that the rope was hooked to my back instead of my feet, so it just felt like I was flying.

This is the tower that I jumped from. It is only about a kilometer from my apartment, and I run by it almost every day. I now get to run by it knowing that I have conquered it.

I got all strapped in and ready to go!

I waited up on the top of the tower for four other people to go before I was able to go.

Here is a link to a video of my jump on youtube. The video starts out sideways, then flips so that it is right-side-up. You will also notice that my videographer has a comment about his own jump at the end of the video. He kind of forgot that he was taping....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqSBH6ZQzD0

Can't wait for some of you to come and visit so you can do this too!

It has been a long week at school. It seems like there is a never ending list of stuff to get done. I'm not sure why, but for some reason I thought that maybe that would go away when I graduated from college. I try not to have to take stuff home to work on on the weekends after spending more than 50 hours at school during the week (Yes, I know that many of you spend more time than that at your jobs), but I think that I have done school stuff every weekend that I have been here. It is hard to find time to study for my Korean class, but I think that I am doing okay.

Yesterday I went on the most amazing hike you could probably go on in Seoul. I have gone hiking with the same person for the last few weekends, but this was the first time it was just the two of us. That actually ended up being pretty good because there was no one to slow us down! We went to Bucansan, which takes about an hour and a half to get to from where I live. The hike up was part hiking, part mountain climbing and part rock climbing. We were on the mountain for about five hours, and the whole thing was breathtaking.

This is Travis and his awesome camera. It is an actual film camera that you don't see anywhere anymore. He takes it everywhere with him and protects it with his life.

This is a guy that we saw hiking up who was going barefoot. It isn't extremely common, but ever once in a while we would someone going up the mountain with no shoes. Ouch.....

There are a lot of people who climb this mountain, and they have been climbing it for a long time. This had to be a softer stone, because people's footprints had actually carved stairs into the side of the mountain.

This is fortress wall on the North side of Seoul. I know that they have walls on the North and South side of the city. I'm not sure if it goes all the way around the sides too. It was pretty amazing to see it stretching up and down the sides of the mountain. It was kind of like seeing a mini Great Wall of China.

We ate lunch on the top of this peak. We actually climbed to the top of that rock that is highest in the middle. There were a lot of people up there, but no one else attempted to climb on top of the giant boulders. The more challenging part was getting down from them. I kind of had to leap off of it. The rock surface that I landed on slanted down towards the cliff, and it took me a few steps to stop my momentum. Travis was sure that I was going to fall off the edge. Some old Korean guy saw and came running over to make sure that Travis didn't make the same jump.

The mountain has several temples on it. This is just one of the many, from far above.

These are just two of the amazing views that I had from the mountain. I got so many breathtaking pictures, but none of them really do justice to the majesty of the mountain.

I have purchased my ticket to come home for Christmas. It was quite a sum of money, but I'm sure that it will be worth it. As much as I love it here, I really can't wait to visit home.

Love you all!

We had a ton of fun at school for Halloween. Of course, I got to school and my camera battery was dead again, just like on Chu-suk. I will try to find some pictures that other people have and post them eventually. At school, we made 7 different activities around the school. There was a haunted house, a room where they got wrapped up in toilet paper to be mummies, a "monster dance" (basically the cake walk), pin the tail on the donkey, etc..... I was in charge of the Monster Dance room. By lunch time, I had danced and sang for seven twenty minute sessions, and I was beat. We then went for a parade around the block , where there were parents standing about every 20 yards to hand out candy. By the time we got back, the kids could barely hold their bags. After the kindergarten, we had two more 2 hour classes, both of which had a Halloween party and parade and dancing. By the time I went home that day, I had lost my voice, and my feet were killing me.

I had the most amazing day on Sunday. Of course, I had left my camera at school on Friday, so I had no way to document it. After church, me and two other guys drove about an hour out of the city to the countryside. By the end, we were driving on these little eight-foot-wide roads that had so many potholes that it was just destroying the little Teeca (sp?) that we were in. We went to the house of a couple who goes to our church. From there, we went strait up this mountain to an amazing lookout where we could see for kilometers and kilometers. We hiked until the sun went down, which was pretty early (maybe around five o'clock). On the way back we stopped at their neighbors studio. She had come hiking with us, so she invited us in to see her artwork. She in an amazing painter, and has work displayed in the Korean National History Museum. She offered us Mocholi, which is basically a rice wine. I only had a few sips and ended up with a headache within the hour it was so strong. Then we went back to the first house that we were at and had dinner. Eel-soon is an amazing cook, and had cooked everything vegetarian in my honor. The guys I was with weren't very excited about that and made a joke about not bringing me back there. Of course, Eel-soon took that as a clue to make more food. We sat down to dinner, and were at the table for about 2 hours. They kept on asking my friend "Do you like......" If he ever said yes, they just went and brought out that food. It became the funniest joke. We kept telling them to stop asking the questions, but it just kept going and going. There were only five of us there, but there was at least three times as much food on that table than I have in my whole apartment! After dinner we went out to look at the full moon through the telescope. It was an amazing experience that very few people get to have. I can't wait to go back again, which may be in just a few weeks.

My Korean classes are starting to get harder, and I am having a harder time finding time to study. There is a ton of work to be done at school right now, and I am just getting by day to day. Also, once I get my next pay-check I will be looking for the best price on tickets home for Christmas. I have about 10 days that I can be home, and the prices are looking like they are going to be around $1800. I'm not one hundred percent sure that it is worth it, but I am planning on doing it none the less.

I am sorry I missed Halloween. If you have any pictures of the kids I would love to see them.
Love you all.