Good stories always prevail.

hopefully part 1 of many to come... at first I tried making a humongous post, but I got stuck worrying about this and that, the way things sound or look, so the pictures of the place and audio of cicadas will have to wait. Until then, here's a bit of the first few moments...

Awake at 4:30AM. Its a funny feeling to wake up when its completely dark. Not by accident, but the totally unable to go back to sleep kind. My mind is already racing for things I've got to, could do, should do before actually starting work. Today's actually day 4 since we've arrived, quite a bit has happened since we left our lovely country tis of thee.

Following the movie hopping that took place on the flight for both of us, (I watched 4 movies, Esther five), we were immediately met with Esther's cousin who took us back to his place. We had visited 5 months ago with connie and Derek, but this time everything felt a little more comfortable and less fast-paced than before. After some good grubbing and conversating with him and his parents and our 96-year-old-and-still-thumping-along gma, we took a 2 hour car ride to Bundang where we'll be living for the next year.

The first thing we did is get to the tutoring academy. If any of you were wondering, we're teaching preschoolers. (and kindergarteners and elementary kids) We're charged with instructing the english language first, before starting to assign memorization, grammar, and all the unnatural stuff that happens when trying to study a foreign language. It seems to be a decent philosophy, implemented through research about the way people learn language, and the problems with the way koreans right now are trying to learn. Another strange fact we learned about koreans is that they don't like koreans to teach English- they prefer Caspar white, full-bloodied American Americans (or Canadian Canadians) to our twinkie type of identity. The reason seems to be when you want to learn the Tango, you'd prefer to learn it from the Spaniard with the ruffled silk shirt and tight pants as opposed to a korean who's been there his whole life, but doesn't look the part. Fair enough, but I wouldn't trade that for being able to know and speak a little korean here. Its already come a long way in living negotiations and already I'm excited to learn it all before I have to go back home. But at the school, relatives have told us its important to act like we don't know korean at all; in order that students as well as their parents feel that its a completely foreign environment, one that they can soak up the language and conversating with.

That's all that's ready for now. For most of you you also know about our current 'situation'. I'm not really ready to go into it, the latest is just waiting for about a week. Your guess is as good as mine. =)