work and play!

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Dream as though you will live forever;

live as though you will die today.

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-A classic fave by James Dean

Hello friends and loved ones of the universe!! it's been a long time since i've written anything which leaves me with TONS to say... work, life and play in Korea; things have been changing quickly for me! let's get those interested parties up to speed!!

WORK: the most drastic changes have taken place at work! to sum it up, with a whopping 6-months tenure at my school, i am the most veteran'd employee. The only person (of the 12 or 14 employees) who has been there longer than me is our owner!! It only takes one month of experience to make you the 3rd most tenured employee in the company - talk about turnover!! We've replaced EVERYONE but me in the last two months which landed me a promotion to 'Educational Team Manager'! I took it with slight hesitation knowing the state of things as all of the pieces get tossed into the air while trying to fix the gaping holes left by certain previous staff members.

I have been a week into my new role now and things are crazy! we are putting in long hours while we get everything organized for a veritable re-birth; revamping everything at exactly the same time. Soon the 8 am to 8 pm shifts will give way to a nice, comfortable, fully functional school.... SOON! In the meantime, i'm enjoying the new challenges and fast-paced school days! and the kids are still JUST as cute and willing to make it all worth-while as they always have.

LIFE: things are going fantastic as they have been! Sarah is finishing her first complete year and heading home for some much-needed R & R, family time and her beloved Alabama Football!!! She will be back in Asia about 10 days later to meet up with me and muc in Hong Kong during a 5-day stint starting September 18th! Korean Thanksgiving or "Chuseok" is our benefactor for the excursion. I have been LOVING Korea's many holidays and taking full advantage; this one will be NO exception! After Hong Kong, Sarah will start a 5-month bid at the other Kids College in our city. This way, we both will finish at the end of February and have all types of big things in mind for what happens after that... after some months at home, our outlandish possibilities include Japan, Australia, Taiwan, even Dubai was recently recommended, or who knows what else may present itself? maybe we'll be feeling weary by then and thinking about the idea of HOME?? :) the fun part is not knowing for now!!

The marathon is now only about 6 weeks away. per usual, I should be thinking about starting to taper down my training but instead am 'really planning to get more into it soon'. Who has time for this training business?? The sad thing is however, that this is almost certainly the most-prepared i'll have ever been coming into a full marathon! I was doing great a month ago and following my plan until a low, dull kind of grinding pain in my knee took me off of my system!! Vinnie, my training partner for the race, suggested starting an Omega 3 (or fish oil) regimen that has worked wonders!! it's like an internal lubricant for the joints and bones, so finally training is back on.... whenever the hell i find some time, that is!!!

Also, i recently joined the Daejeon City Ultimate Frisbee team!! It is reasonably competitive as far as i can tell and we have our first games this coming weekend in Daegu. it's a traveling league so we'll be in a new city with new people every weekend in October! really looking forward to the league and everything that will be involved!! it seems like it will be comparable to a college 'club' team, and you should start seeing photogs of the festivities soon!

PLAY: The last time i wrote, it had been months since we had spent a weekend in Daejeon without hitting the road.... now I have spent 3 of the last 4 right here in our town!! most nights are a blur of silliness kind of mashing together so i'll just highlight one long and eventful Saturday night as an example:

we started out by tracking down a German microbrewery here in town. a friend of ours had told us about an all-you-can-drink/salad and snack bar from 5 pm to 10 pm on Saturdays all for what you'd expect to pay for a few good beers - about $16!! I'd say we got our money's worth a few times over as our party grew and grew throughout the evening (i think we had a dozen before the day was done?). We played some recently popular 'international catch phrase'!! - turns out that Americans have a HUGE advantage since the game is pointed directly at our culture, society and slang. It also turns out that Americans are the most competitive (who knew??) with many disputed points and shoddy hand-offs... one of our 'discussions' resulted in a waiter coming over and making us balloon animals to chill us down!! just the way i like it! :)

Gettin' down at WeisenHaus in Wolpeyong Dong (about one or two blocks west of CGV movie theater and Daejeon's Government Complex; On the left-hand side; down one flight of stairs). Best beer and special that we've found so far!

Then we moved on to drunken bowling where we smuggled in some traditional Korean rice whiskey (called Soju) to keep things going. Then came a real Korean favorite; Club FM. Club Family Mart or club FM basically means that you sit at picnic tables outside of the local convenience store in the middle of the downtown 'scene' area and drink beer for a third the cost of those inside the bars around you. it is the source of unmatched people watching, un-intelligible BS'ing and absolutely no bar-closing ever. After a number of hours there, Sarah headed back to crash at my place while I stayed out..... for a LOOOONG time. soon we found ourselves in one of the bars dancing up a storm and entertaining ourselves freely as the ONLY people in the bar at 6:30 in the morning.

Jinny's Pub spared no expense in entertaining us as their only patrons. this flame-spitting bar tender was proof of that. This picture shows the only shot I took in a 16-hour beer bender... i have no idea what it was at 7 in the morning.

We left the bar to find that some of our friends were still at the Family Mart! man, those guys are crazy, i'm- ah, forget it, i'll join them "for one"! ................ two hours later Sarah called in hopes that i was still alive and asking why i had just come home and then left again?? I told her she must have been dreaming but that i'd be there shortly; afterall, it was getting a little late... ;)

We would find out the next day that the reason she thought i had come home was that someone came into my apartment while she was there sleeping!!!! seemingly out of drunken confusion at first, but then decided to rifle through Sarah's purse and a pair of my pants (?!) in the hallway and then would throw the stuff back just inside my door after taking what they wanted!!! luckily they must have been one of the dumbest S.O.B's in the universe and missed my computer, a couple of I-pods and some of Sarah's jewelry within a few steps of him. They took a stack of 'cards' out of Sarah's wallet but they all would turn out to be coffee club/business card type junk.... while she had active bank cards tucked slightly more away in the wallet!

at first glance we tallied the damage at about 11 dollars and a free coffee!! - EXTREMELY luckily for us! then when Monday morning came and i was heading out for work I realized that he'd stolen my black shoes too!!!! some ratty pair of black dress shoes were missing from my entryway! i wish i could have heard the guys internal conversation on that one - "forget the i-pod... i want those loafers!!"

later in the day, i was bitchin to my colleagues about the nerve of some drunken idiot coming and stealing my shoes when Tel - a Welsh co-worker who lives in my same building - said that he'd noticed a pair of black shoes in the building on his way down that morning. hours later, when i'd get home, i sure enough recovered my shoes in the stairwell of my apartment!! i wore them to work the next day wishing they could tell me their story all the while. i guess they didn't fit the guy?!

easily one of the most bizarre 16-hour beer binges i've ever experienced and although almost nothing was actually stolen in the end; it robbed me of some of my high faith in the Korean people. It made me feel violated and vulnerable. but ultimately, Sarah was safe (thank God!) and there were no real consequences.

One curious observation of the whole thing was this; even the Korean thief seemed considerate of his victim's convenience! think about it: who would take the time to put the rest of the purse back inside the door? who would put the shoes back somewhere that i might find them the next day? make up your mind... are you a piece of s*** or not?!? .... *ah* Korea.

random tidbit too strange to leave out: a 'claw game' like you'd play to win stuffed animals at ChuckyCheese... the rub? you're playing to win live lobsters!!?! this was as close as i've come to culture shock since i've been here!

Finally, we got out of town this past weekend to meet up with our Busan couch-surfing buddies, Ross and Kelsi! Remember the ones that live on the islands to the south?? Marilyn ended up joining out crew at the last minute and we blasted our way through the 6-hour train/bus/taxi rides for 24 glorious hours on the beach and one last chance at a sunburn before summer winds down. Ross and another friend made it out to meet us after a major recovery effort on his part from the night before, but Kelsi unfortunately never found her way! best wishes to those two as they finish their year and head back to the US for now!!!!

Sinji!! the most beautiful island, perfectly timed weather, the finest, smoothest sand and fewest people combined to make the best beach experience of Korea so far! Not to mention, free camping anywhere in the sand without being bothered!!

THIS is the life!!

I hope everything back home is going really truly incredibly well!! I can't believe i've been here already for 6 months and am officially more than halfway through my contract. time. live good and keep me posted on what's going on back home on facebook please!!! nothing but love! thanks for keeping up on me!!! :)

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