August 29, 2009
The second year!
Ah, yes, here we are… my biyearly apology post.
Anyways, today begins my second year in Korea. I decided to stay another year for several different reasons, which there isn’t much use going over, because it’s all be settled! So.
My first year was, overall, an enjoyable success. No regrets that I came.
I’ve been working on setting some goals for myself, but since many of them are a little boring (you folks probably, honestly, do not care about how I would prefer to structure my classes), I won’t dwell on them.
There will be some changes in the upcoming year. Come Tuesday, I will be getting a new principal at my school. My last one was a nicer guy, who let me choose my own vacation and camp days, so I’m a little concerned I won’t get the same liberty with the new principal (who is also supposed to be very ‘active’, which means making us work harder arrrrgh). Hopefully it all goes well! Come March, my super nice co-teacher will leave, too, and I don’t know what will happen after that! I may get a new one, or I may be teaching on my own. That, I think, will honestly be a little disastrous.
As for my travel plans…
Around Christmas, I’m planning an Asian tour with my pal Andy. We’re hoping to hit Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand! This is one of my concerns with the new principal, as I can’t request the time off until she’s decided our schedule and I find out if I can pick my own vacation days or not. HOWEVER I am maintaining ~positive thinking~ about it. I think the trip will be fantastic.
There’s a Korean holiday, Chuseok, coming up in October. Last year it was on a Monday (it’s a lunar calender holiday) and we got the whole week off.
This year, it’s on a Saturday, and we get the following Monday off. I was planning on going to Taiwan. I don’t think that will be happening. 
All in all, it’s looking like a DISMAL semester for travel. I’m going to be broken-hearted if spring semester looks to be the same, because one reason I stayed was to get more traveling done in Asia.
The place top of my list to visit is Japan, because I must get over there to get the tour from Andy before he leaves in July. My parents are visiting in May, so I may be scrounging for time. Bleah. But! I maintain ~positive thoughts~! It’s still early, I’m sure I will have time to see plenty of Asia.
I’m really hoping this year is going to be awesome, because I already have some big events I’m missing, namely Grant’s graduation from bootcamp in October, a wedding, and a baby. Geez.
So it’s about 365 days until I’m done here. It seems like a long time, but I think it will go by surprisingly fast. I hope to have something nice to update about soon, but I don’t have any trips planned, so maybe it will have to be something nice about Yeoju. Soon the rice fields will be turning gold and it’ll be beautiful.
I hope everyone is having a good time at home!
