Hey Everyone! I’m now back in the Land of the Morning Calm, and have discovered how to add pictures to my Blog! Hooray! I’ll post a more detailed summary of my holiday soon. 

Walking the Dog…

My friend Marietjie is in Thailand at the moment, and I’ve been persuaded to take her dog for a walk while she’s away. Today we chose a little path that meanders through the woods, beside a pond, over hill and over dale. It’s really quite pretty – today I watched tiny tadpoles using impossibly tiny tails to propel impossibly rotund bodies through a puddle. I saw little butterflies with perriwinkle wings, and dragonflies with irradescent blue bodies careening through the air. I saw copious amounts of white flowers on long green stems crowding the hills, and I saw green leafy plant-like kinds of things…as one would expect to see in the woods. Overall, the experience made me absolutely thrilled to be alive, excited about life, and incredibly pleased that I don’t own a dog of my own.

Today my summer students wrote their midterm exams, and seem to have done a pretty good job of it. When they sign up for a class, the teachers name is in Korean. For my name, that looks like 제니스 힐머 – but when the students translate it back into the Roman Alphabet, it tends to come out as “Jenis Hirma” instead of Janice Hillmer. It makes me smile.

16 more sleeps until I sleep in Canada (excluding possible naps, or dozing on the plane)

I Love Learning New Things…

I love living in Korea, because I learn so many new things. Today I was lucky enough to get a double whammy.

1st I learned that just because the pop machine says “Mountain Dew”, doesn’t mean you won’t get a cup full of Pineapple Demi-Soda.

2nd I learned that if you have just procured a cup of Pineapple Demi-Soda, (which you thought was Mountain Dew) and your student brings you a coffee … you need to make a choice. Pick one and stick to it. Don’t try to alternate sips of Pineapple Demi-Soda and Coffee during your lesson. You’ll wind up with a mouth full of curdled milk taste, with a tinge of coffied pineapple and nothing you can do to fix it. That can be unpleasant.