You have made some tremendous strides today

Heh, I want to watch some Arrested Development sometime.

I'm coming off a high from having a successful lesson today, as well as being almost done with classes for the week!

This was my first week of real classes. What's that you say? I thought you had class last week! Well, yes, last week was the official first week of classes. However, it's apparently a Thing in Korean colleges (or at least this one) that students don't think they have to come to the first class. You know, because it's just going over the syllabus and grading and other important stuff. Oo, do I sound bitter? That's not what I'm going for. Just sarcastic.

One of my classes was entirely absent the first day, and a few others only had two students show up. Other classes had more students, but by then, I wasn't expecting much, so I just planned for some introductory getting-to-know-you things and going over the syllabus. And then the students who came to those first classes seemed to expect more. So the first week was annoying.

This week also had it share of snafus, but it definitely taught me to be prepared for anything. The first class of the week, to which no one came last week, had eight more students in it than I had on my class registry. And no one in that class was actually on the list that I had. That taught me to just send around my own attendance list, and it's worked well ever since.

Another thing that has been a challenge has been planning for and having three-hour classes. Seriously. This is an unfortunate scheduling for everyone, really. It's one thing to have a three-hour lecture course. Not my choice, but I'd do it if I had to in college. But taking a three-hour class in a foreign language is a headache for the students. So by the third three-hour class (that's right, I have three of them), I think I've gotten to a decent place for planning and teaching. It's definitely going to take some more finessing, though.

So last week was the first week of classes, but this week was for reals. And next week, teaching kids' classes will be thrown into the mix! Woohoo!

I didn't do anything really cool last weekend, except for going to church in Seoul and having lunch with a couple new friends there. We went to a pretty decent Korean restaurant by church, and ate dolsot bibimbap, which is served in a hot stone dish. It was delicious, and pretty cool, because there's a raw egg in it that cooks in the dish when you mix it with all the other food.

Oh! And I went to Hongdae the weekend before that. I'm no night owl normally, but I met up with my friend from church, and we and her friends from her school stayed out all night. It was really exciting, actually. Hongdae is a popular night life spot because it's by a university. Like I said, I don't do night life much, so to me, it was amazing to be a part of that culture with so many other people. And there were a ton of people out. There were a lot of Korean college kids there, but also a lot of foreigners, and the energy and diversity of the place was awesome. I've only stayed out all night once or twice before, and it's something I wouldn't want to do very often (I felt pretty sick the next week), but it's a huge rush when I do.

This weekend, I'm going to have dinner with the English majors and some exchange students from Dallas Baptist University. On Saturday, I'm having a Korean dinner with my walking buddy/colleague, and she's actually going to teach me how to make it! I like kimbap, so I think we'll have that.

Phew. I think I've come off the high now. I wish I could just kick up my heels, but I'll have to wait until I'm done with my last class this evening. But maybe I can go for a mountain hike this afternoon.