7-31 So, it's been a little while since my last post, again, and with a little push (Thanks Jacki) I though I'd write one before I head to a concert tomorrow and thereafter won't have internet for a little while. So, I've bought a ticket to the Jisan Rock Festival in the Jisan Valley Resort area and I'm mainly going b/c I've really got into the band MUSE. If you're not listening to them, you really should, as they are a great band with some awesome tunes. So my buddy Terryance and myself have been jamming to MUSE and Third Eye Blind, of whom will also be there tomorrow as well. I believe I saw that Corin Bailey Ray(sp?) will also be there and I'm somewhat interested in seeing part of her show. It ended being quite the trouble in getting my ticket for the show however. I sent in my money and form on Weds and apparently they didn't get the memo. So, to make the story short I had to call them a few times and luckily they found my reservation and I'm set to go to the concert and rock out to some MUSE. One last note about the concert, I would have like to went today as well to see Mute Math, I've recently started listening to them and really like their stuff, particularly the song "Peculiar People".
In other news, the past two weeks I've been entertaining the kids at summer camp from 9-12 every morning. We mainly played games and cooked a lot. The first week on Thursday with 1-3 graders we cooked pizzas which turned out ok but afterwards I really though about what I had done. I was alone with twelve young children allowing them to cut peppers, onions, mushrooms, etc! Ah, probably not the best idea but no one was harmed and although the pizza wasn't perfect it was still pretty good. In the second week we had the 4-6 graders which turned out to be a pretty big challenge in that we have a 5th grader that is EXTREMELY ADHD and brings a lot of trouble on himself with other students but also gets picked on a little much. So, it made for quite the balancing act, especially seeing how I don't know the majority of what they are saying to each other!
To finish the week I let the students watch a movie and I had brought Monsters, Inc for them to watch, equiped with Korean subtitles and all. Of course it didn't go quite as planned as it did not work, nor did the Harry Potter's, etc in the room. So, I tried for a while to pull something off the internet. The boys wanted the Simpson's Movie and the girls wanted Harry Potter. Finally, I was able to find Monster's Inc online and got it to play. But, there was no Korean subtitles which made it difficult for the students but being an animated cartoon, it ended up being ok. That is until the computer shut down and I had to reload the movie again! In the end it worked out great but for a while it was quite stressful!
So, that leads to today, my first day of vacation! I don't have kids again until August 23rd! Like I stated earlier I will be attending the Jisan Rock Festival tomorrow to see MUSE. Next weekend I will be heading on another trip with Adventure Korea to the southwest coast to a private beach house for the weekend. I hope this trip is as much fun as the mud festival was, as it was pretty awesome. I should be able to finally get those pics up soon as my camera was acting up. Also in the next month or so is my other Adventure Korea trip where I will be checking out the 4th Tunnel dug by the North Koreans that was found in 1991 and is said to be able to transport 10,000 troops an hour if it had been used. I will get to look into North Korea as well as do some hiking and camping (in SOUTH KOREA Aunt B!). Early in Sept I will be running a 10K race up near the DMZ as well (DMZ International Peace Race) and I'm trying to get into decent shape for that as the races I've ran so far have only been 5K's and the last one was over a year ago when I ran the Ice Breaker in Great Falls, MT in April!
The final trip I will be taking this summer is during Chuseok, which is basically the Korean Thanksgiving. I will be boarding a plane and heading to Jeju Island which is a tropical Island south of mainland Korea. It should be a week of fun and sun and I can't wait. I've also booked a hostel for the week, so everything has been taken care of. I'm really excited and blessed to get to do all of these fun trips while I'm here in Korea.
I have been missing home quite a bit here in the past few weeks. I'm really looking forward to getting the next package from dad, especially so I can show up my Marine shirt he picked me up. It means so much to get these packages from home. Hopefully this week I'll get to mail some packages back home to as I want to get D the J a gift for his 1st birthday and I also want to send Allison a letter and coins and bills from over here as I know she said she is really looking forward to getting it. I've also picked up some books to pass the time the next two weeks. I recently read The Road, which is a sad but amazing book. I'm currently reading Theodore Rex, which is about Teddy Roosevelt's presidency and another awesome book. Today I purchased The Wilderness World of John Muir which is a collection of Muir's best writings from his other books. I really love Muir and his love for nature. John Muir played a major role in the formation of the National Parks and had a special relationship with Teddy Roosevelt. The other book I bought today is called The Koreans and it is a book about who Koreans are, what they want, and what the future holds. I've read about 20 pages in it today while riding the subway around Seoul and it's a very fascinating book and should help me gain a better understanding of this wonderful but sometimes confusing country.
Well, that's all that I can think to write today. It's about time to go bowl with some friends. Hopefully I can find a computer this week and write about some other things I've been doing but couldn't think about today. 'Til then. Oh, one last thing, if you want to know a little about Korea, check out this website, it's a guy that does cartoons about life for a foreigner sometimes here in Korea: http://roketship.tumblr.com/page/2