A view of Seoul from the Seoul Arts Center

Anlee and I at the Seoul Arts Center after seeing the Monet exhibit
"Teaching" at a public school in Korea during the months of Dec., Jan., and Feb., does not include much teaching. The students take the final exams the first week of December but the new semester doesn't start until the first week of March. We have no textbooks to go over, so I play a lot of games, lead some singing (carols for december), and try to come up with some interesting lesson plans for the students. That is, when school is actually in session. The whole month of January is vacation for most of the students. School is in session for one week in February and then the last two weeks are an all-school vacation before the new semester starts. It's really quite crazy, and doesn't seem very efficient. During the month of January I have 1-3 classes a day with two special groups of students that study all the time. These are the same groups of students that I have "extra" classes with in the afternoons. I have got to know these students better than any others. These last two weeks with these kids have been pretty fun. I'm getting more comfortable in front of them and confident in my lessons and just being able to ad lib stuff. I tend to always worry about not having enough stuff in my lesson for the class period, but it's worrying me less now. This week especially has been a lot of fun. The girls in my first year class (around 14 years old) have been super crazy and talkative, but not in a way that they ignore me. They are including me in their conversations (as long as they're speaking English I'm doing my job, right?) and they listen when I ask them to. I did a lesson on the 50 states for Monday and Tuesday. I gave them a blank map and as I went through a powerpoint with pictures and facts for each state, they had to fill in the state names. It was a lot of fun for me and they found it interesting. They're always asking to play games, but I've been challenging them recently with some harder stuff. They get bored, but I can see that they're learning so it's rewarding. And we do play games often too. We did 20 questions yesterday.

January is flying by. Tomorrow is my six month mark. Half-way through my contract. It's really a weird feeling seeing time go by in a completely different country, away from all the normal things that serve as markers for the passing of time: Christmas, school semesters, sports seasons, tv shows, etc. I kinda feel like time has stopped back home and that when I come back, everything will be unchanged.

January has been a good month. Along with the National Museum of Korea visit, Anlee and I went to a Monet/Picasso exhibit this past weekend in Seoul. I have never found much enjoyment in visual art, so I did not have high expectations for this. But I found it quite a bit more interesting than I had anticipated. I found that if I took the time to look intently at some pictures, there is quite a lot to take in, and it can be a fairly satisfying experience. There are, of course, other pictures that I have no desire to look twice at. Most of the abstract stuff just doesn't do it for me. We went to the Museum with two new friends of ours, Samantha and Barry. Samantha is from Malawi, via England and Barry is from Ireland. They are really fun. It's so cool making friends from all over the world and hearing their different stories.

I have continued to read quite a bit. The most significant reading that I am doing is this book called "The Gospel in a Pluralist Society" by Lesslie Newbigin. It's really speaking to me with where I'm at right now. There's a lot of underlining going on. Also, I'm going through the New Testament and writing down every verse that has to do with the workings of salvation; how man actually becomes saved. This is a huge topic. And one that is not very clear. But I really want to get a better understanding of what the Bible says about it and formulate my belief based on that. It's been a good experience so far. I've gone through Matthew and Ephesians.

Well, I'm going to get to reading. This is my one night with nothing to do and I look forward to sitting back and taking in what these books have to offer. I love stimulating my mind. Take care. Here's a video of the snow we had a couple of weeks ago-http://www.vimeo.com/9015475.

Peace, derek