Gamsamnida

Sorry I'm writing this a little late.  I was out of my apartment all of yesterday doing many things: going to the beach and playing a really good soccer game and a good volleyball game; going to a super restaurant where I ate duck for the first time, which turns out to be very good; going to a "noraebang" which is a place with karaoke rooms where you can just sing songs with your friends - it seems funny but they're really popular here - and it's pretty fun; and then hanging out at a bar which played loud Mexican Reggaeton songs.  All that to say that I think Thursdays will be a better time for me to write my blog. 
This story also highlights the fact that there are some cool people here and I'm enjoying getting to know them.  It's certainly an interesting challenge, though, to 'find' my identity here in a new place (I think it is every time you find yourself in a new place with new people).  There is quite a variety of backgrounds in the foreign teacher group here.  I've discovered that a number of them are Christians, so that's a huge blessing.  There's even a girl here who lives a block away and went to Calvin! Crazy eh? (Although for some reason I'm not too surprised).  There is an English speaking church in Pohang, and I'm hoping to go this afternoon, so I'll write more about that later.
School continues to go well.  I can't help but compare it to teaching in Gallup, and teaching here is pretty much stress-free comparatively (and that was a unique challenge to being in Gallup - I don't mean to make it sound like a bad thing).  Teaching here is so 'simple' because the curriculum and and scheduling (pretty much everything) is already layed out for me. While this has been nice, it does have it's drawbacks - it doesn't leave much room for creativity in the classroom.  Also, the goals of the education system in Korea seem to be a little different than in North America.  Here, smarts are judged by how well you can read, understand, and memorize a textbook.  My kindergarten students are super bright - some of them are reading and writing at 3rd grade levels - but I'm not sure that their critical thinking is very strong.  One middle school teacher here put it this way: "Critical thinking skills in America are bad, and in Korea they're worse."  So anyway, more on that later.

Only one picture today.  This is a pear.  This is what all pears are like here.  Crazy eh? (that's my juggling ball beside it to let you put this massive pear in  perspective).  (Ps. I've realized that my floor isn't actually hardwood, it's just a good imitation).

Gamsamnida (thank you) for reading.
Mike