Happy Halloween

Thursday's sort of sneak up on me, and I'm not usually prepared, so then I end up winging my blog, and it probably comes out somewhat odd.  Well this one's no different.

It's Halloween tomorrow, which seems to be a holiday that is just being noticed here in Korea.  There aren't all the crazy decorations all over like there are in Canada.  But our school is going to have a Halloween party tomorrow, and everyone is dressing up.  I'm pretty excited.  I'm going to be a pirate - old and reliable.  And hopefully I'll find a way to scare my kids a little.
I've never been a big Halloween fan, but my favourite Halloween was in Harambee house in Grand Rapids.  I had an awesome time scaring neighbourhood kids that year.

The weather has gotten steadily colder.  It's still somewhat warm during the day, but there's a dramatic temperature drop every night.  I really like this time of year - when you can almost smell the winter in the air, and you have to add extra blankets to your bed.

My thumb is healing quite well as far as I can tell.  I'm starting to resent my cast more and more.  It smells pretty bad in there.  I don't think it'll last the weekend.

We have a new teacher at Poly, and it's neat to see how the staff dynamics change with a new member.  She seems really cool.

School is going well.  I'm continually struck by the unreal expectations that are placed on students here - at least the ones I know.  Our pre-school students are just 3 years old and they are expected to sit at a table for 40 minute at a time and learn how to read and write their second language.  I think that's pretty crazy.  But it's somewhat hard to argue with the results.  My kindergarten kids can read and write at between a 2nd and 3rd grade level and we have discussions in science that I've never had before.  So it's pretty interesting.

Here are some pictures of past events just to spice this blog up:

This was taken a couple of weekends ago on the hike we took up a mountain near Deagu.  I think it's a funny picture.

 This is Tim (a co-teacher) and I just before we raced.  I post this because this is the scooter that I've been driving around on, and I'm probably going to buy it from Natasha at some point - which is sweet.

 Thanks for reading.
Mike