Busy Bee

Lots going on this month. Finally updated the site - I added a few hundred pictures from my trip to China. Also I changed the look a little bit, feedback is appreciated. I've got my black belt test in Hapkido coming up on the 22nd, which will go fine if I can remember all the moves and also stop injuring myself once a week. On the 23rd I leave for a 10 day vacation in Japan. I will be in Tokyo for most of it, with perhaps a couple days in Kyoto. In any case I'll be in Tokyo for new year's, which ought to be pretty wild. In other news I met a lovely girl, but it's unclear yet if she's realized that she's met a really great guy. Harhar. In all seriousness, and despite setbacks, I'm going to go ahead and hold on to my unwavering optimism/confidence/ faith in the mysterious. Life is short. Carpe diem! I'll conclude with a quote from my main man Kahlil Gibran, from his masterpiece, The Prophet.

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Coming up for air

Welcome back! It's been a minute since my last update (read: much longer than a minute) but I've been busy finding my way in the world. Here are some of the things I've done since July:

I had a week of vacation back in August, which I spent in China, as planned. That was about the only thing that went according to plan, especially given my loose notion of making a "plan." Let's just say that several boats, planes, and minor crises later, I am most certainly wiser. I did wind up in Beijing and spent the week there, which was fantastic. I met up with an old friend from the states and also met some great people at the hostel where I was staying. Beijing is an incredible place. I've never seen a place with so much history crashing headlong into the future. There is something a bit oppressive about the city, but at the same time, the strength and tradition of the place are plainly obvious to see, and there's also a lot of beautiful stuff to see. Highlights included Beijing Opera, the Forbidden City, the Hou Hai lake/bar district, and of course a 10k hike along the Great Wall. As you will see very soon, I took a lot of photos and will be filling up the currently empty China page with a few choice photos. It was my first serious outing with the Nikon D40, and I got a couple really nice shots. One more thing I'll say about China is that as cheap and awesome as it is to travel there, the attitude of the general populace certainly made me appreciate Korea a lot more. The atmosphere is definitely wilder and woolier than the more calm, if still crazy at times, feel of Korea. At least at night and at the markets.

Since then things have been pretty uneventful. People have come and gone at work, as contracts expire and begin all around. Silly office nonsense happens all the time and we all deal with it in our own individual ways. I have yet to make a dent in learning Korean. I finally stopped being addicted to novels and video games long enough to start updating my site and getting my photography in order, language is next on the list. I've certainly still got time to learn quite a bit, which leads me to my next bit of information.

Ryan and I have decided that we will almost certainly extend our contracts here in Korea. Our year is up at the end of February, but it looks like we'll be staying until the summer to make some money and for other various timing reasons. I plan on being in Thailand at the end of next summer, and I'll stay for as long as I can, probably just teaching some English on the side and training full time in Thai boxing. I've gotten a lot of "when are you coming back to the states?" type questions, which I love, because it's nice to know that people are thinking of me just as I'm thinking of them. But the answer is, I don't really know. As far as a permanent return, I'm loosely planning on early to mid 2009. As far as visiting, I'm going to shoot for a week in the states at the end of February, when I renegotiate my contract. I've got a week of vacation in December, but with plane tickets to DC running close to two grand, I've decided to fulfill another long standing dream of visiting Japan. It being literally at my backdoor, it's a great opportunity and also, it'll be cheaper. I have to remind myself that I need to be saving money here!

In other news, I hurt my knee in Hapkido. After taking a month off of training to let it heal, I'm back in the dojang (school) training 5 nights a week. The knee is hugely improved, but I'll probably be seeing a doctor soon to get some MRIs or other tests done. Might as well with my free health insurance! The master wants me to test for black belt in December, from what I understand, so I've got to be ready and stay healthy.

We just did Halloween at the English school and I was in charge of building the haunted house, along with Ryan and our head teacher, Aldrin. We definitely put in the hours and came up with a great setup, and after a full workday of screaming myself hoarse, wearing creepy masks and hiding in dark corners, I can safely say we scared the bajeesus out of those kids. My job is really great sometimes. (Really getting my mileage out of that theatre degree! Sigh.)

To all you folks back in the states, and you know who you are, I miss you. My life here remains interesting, instructive, and productive, but especially with the holidays coming on, thoughts of home are on my mind more often these days. I hope you're all doing well!

New pictures soon!

5 months in and I'm already skipping town

That's right, I'm leaving Korea.

It's time for summer vacation, which starts friday!
I'll be taking a 25 hour ferry from Incheon, South Korea, to Tianjin, China this friday. From Tianjin I'll be catching a train to Beijing, where I'll meet up with a friend and galavant about the Chinese capital for a few days, possibly followed by a short trip to Shanghai to see another friend. I'm beyond excited, especially now that I'm packing this little piece of kit:



That would be my new Nikon D40 dSLR. It's pretty cheap as far as digital SLR cameras go, but it has capabilities and qualities that my old digital camera can't hold a candle to. Much as I loved that Kodak and took some great shots in Europe with it, it's time to move on to bigger and better things. If you take a look in the photo section you'll see a bunch of new albums up; everything that's new has been shot with the Nikon and I think it's a huge improvement.

Besides my impending trip to China, not a whole lot is going on here. July 4th came and went with absolutely no fanfare (of course,) and that was actually a little bit sad. I'm not the most patriotic person, but you never know what you've got until you don't. That includes fireworks, crappy American beer, and bug bites.
I've been doing a lot of rock climbing, including two outdoor trips to nearby mountains with folks from my rock climbing gym. Those trips were incredible, especially the second one: a multi-pitch ascent up what I'm told is a roughly 600 foot face. It took all day, and we completed one section, we would clip into anchors drilled into the face and rest for the next portion. Definitely the most frightening experience of my life, including running with the bulls. Of course I was on a rope the whole time, with almost no chance of serious injury, but try telling that to your jangling nerves when you're 500 feet off the ground, holding onto a mountain using nothing but one tiny finger hold and the sheer friction of your climbing shoes on the rock.
In infinitely more boring and mundane news, management is being juggled around at work, with unpleasant consequences. The job is now no longer as much of a cakewalk as it was before, but remains a pretty decent living. I do have to say that my initial desire to extend my contract past the original 12 months has cooled somewhat. Right now I'm thinking I'll go straight to Thailand in February, when my contract is up, spend 6 months there, and then maybe move on to Hong Kong.

One never knows.

My next update will be packed with info and stories on my trip to CHINA. Stay tuned.

Brave New Warble

Note: I wrote this entry on June 20th, but I'm posting it July 20th. Things have gotten a bit behind on the site due to work, figuring out my new dSLR camera (!) and all that jazz. A really, actually new blog entry is coming within the next 48 hours. And so are a bunch more pictures. Stay tuned!



Hey! No big events these last six weeks. Korea continues to entertain and more importantly, educate.

One thing that happens a lot in this line of work is people coming and going. Due to the 12 month contract that everyone has, and everyone starting at different times of the year, my office has a constant turnover and arrival of people coming from all over the english speaking world. It's kind of fun and exciting to have people coming and going, but it's also kind of a bummer when cool people leave the office to go back home, or on to other adventures. This month, we are losing Justin, Irish Ryan, and Nathan, who are all great guys. It's been awesome working with you guys!

Speaking of Justin, he, Nate and I have been doing a fair bit of rock climbing these past 6 weeks. Nate (not to be confused with Nathan, who is one of the people leaving,) was a pretty avid climber back in the states, I had some experience, and Justin was just starting. We're pretty well into the groove now, thanks to the fact that we live really close to a bouldering gym. Bouldering means rock climbing without ropes, but it's generally low height, so you don't hurt yourself, and very difficult. The gym is an interconnected set of rooms with thickly padded floors, and angled walls covered in factory made holds that can be screwed into most surfaces. It's been excellent for making me stronger, dovetailing nicely with hapkido, which focuses a lot on hand strength.

Speaking of health, I've gone on a diet for the first time in my life. Don't worry, I'm not trying to LOSE weight, I'm actually trying to gain muscle. My new diet is gleaned from the book "Natural Hormonal Enhancement" by Rob Faigin. He asserts, after doing a huge mountain of research, that the best way to eat in order to gain muscle and burn fat, is to eat lots of protein and not worry about having too much fat. My meals are cycled, such that every 3rd day I have a big meal of carbohydrates, and then every 4th day as well. In between those times I eat very few carbs. The idea is that the human endocrine system is millions of years old, and is based on eating a diet that's very different from what most people eat today. Our ancestors ate a lot more protein and vegetables, and very few, if any, refined carbohydrates, like white bread, pasta, etc. Anyways, the book is well reviewed and makes sense, so I'm going to give it a try. Also, I'll be starting a weight training regimen next week, in addition to my martial arts training, so this could be the start of a whole new thing for me. I'll report back on how it turns out/is turning out.

In other news, I miss theatre and the arts desperately. I've got to find out about the english language theatre and other things like that in the Seoul area. I know it's out there, I've seen links and ads here and there. Time to do some research.

I've been pretty prolific as far as music goes. Pretty soon I'm going to start adding a few songs of mine to the website so everyone can listen.

My roommate Ryan Ellis is getting married, for those of you who don't know. He met a lovely british girl here named Helen Kenny. They don't have a date set yet, but I guess I'll post it when I know and when the time is right. For all those of you who love Ryan Ellis and want nothing but the best for him, let me assure you that Helen is a fantastic person and I'm 100% behind them getting married. They've moved pretty quick, but hey, when you know, you know.

What else? Teaching is a continuing process of self-discovery. Just when I think I have a pattern down and there's not much else to figure out, some new challenge or unrealized part of myself leaps to the fore to make things interesting. I feel that there are many days when I learn more than the kids by a good margin. Specifically, teaching these kids is really teaching me a lot about the meaning of patience. I thought I was a reasonably patient person before I came here, but I think now I'm starting to learn what real patience is. Real patience is teaching the same thing 4 times in one week to the same kid, who just isn't getting it, and persisting with it, until he DOES get it. There's usually a reward for patience in this job, but it's sad to say that sometimes there are brick walls that it's hard to break through. However, you never know when a breakthrough will happen, so it's best to just keep a clear head and take deep breaths. Patience is really the key here! It's incredible, though, because patience is really a way of creating stillness within yourself. And when you can do that, you notice things that have been there all along, patiently waiting for you to discover them. Or at least, that's the way it's starting to become for me.

Oh and one more cool thing that happened. A couple weeks ago, the birthday of Buddha was celebrated here in Korea with a massive parade in downtown Seoul. People came from alllllll over Asia to join in the festivities, and there were a bunch of performances of both traditional and modern musicians and artists during the day. There was everything from traditional Korean drumming to yoga demonstrations, as well as traditional Indian dance - Katakali, believe. The parade started at night. Why at night? Because the whole thing is called the Paper Lantern Festival, and there are thousands of paper lanterns everywhere! The buddhist temple near the parade area was decked out with a gazillion of them, and at night, every single lantern was turned on. With that, and the parade, the effect was really beautiful. I managed to snag some lanterns and take them home for decoration purposes. Check out the pics section if you want to see what I'm talking about.

Thanks for checking in. Remember to check out the new pictures!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

It's been an interesting time since my last update. I've hit extreme highs and extreme lows with the job, but it seems to come with the territory. I've gotten into hiking a lot on the weekends, and I've started going to a rock climbing gym pretty close to where I live. I've reached yellow belt in Hapkido, though I'm still looking for a place to practice Taekwondo.
I've put up a bunch of new picture albums to document all the most noteworthy adventures I've had recently. To start with is a nice little selection of photos from St. Patrick's Day here in Seoul. Yeah, I know it was a while ago, but some of the pictures were just too good not to put up. Plus, it was pretty surreal to see so many Koreans celebrating an Irish holiday with such gusto. They really love Guinness here, I can tell you that much.
I've also got an album up from a hike on one of the local mountains, Gwanaksan. It was a fun time and got me addicted to hiking around here. Of course, Korea is mostly mountains, so hiking is huge here. It's hard to describe the feeling of sweating up a thousand meter peak, only to watch people two or three times my age gleefully smoke me up the trail, flashing big smiles as they hustle their fully-outfitted-for-mountain-climbing selves right up the mountains. Koreans are strong people.
Then there is an album I've put up from a recent field trip we took the pre-schoolers on. In the morning I teach wee little ones (7 years old in Korean counting, which generally means 6 in American counting,) and this month's field trip was to the zoo.
Also, last weekend I took a trip to Wonju, about an hour and a half outside of Seoul, with Justin and Nate, two friends from work. We climbed a 1288 meter peak in Chiaksan national park, but that's only part of the story.
For starters, we weren't supposed to be in Wonju at all. Justin screwed up when we were getting our tickets, having read our guide book wrong. We were apparently supposed to go to an entirely different place called Muju. Go figure. We figured this out about 30 seconds before the bus for Wonju headed out of Seoul, with us on it. Luckily Chiaksan is right outside of Wonju(sorta) so we just rolled with it, and everything ended up working out.
We left on a friday night, and got a room at a place that would probably be described here in Korea as a "love motel." The room is basically designed for people to have sex, with lots of mood lighting, porn on the TV, etc etc. There was even a vending machine in the hallway that sold dildos, fake vaginas, and various other tools/toys. We stayed there two nights, actually, since the enormous bed was big enough for two, and there was a couch as well. The funny part was, the second night they supplied us guys with 3 condoms instead of the standard one... thanks, I guess?
Saturday morning we rolled out of the motel/hotel/whateveritis only to realize that our guidebook was incredibly vague on how to get from Wonju to the national park. After poking around for an hour, and getting lots of crappy directions, we finally stumbled across a police station. Being completely lost, we went in to ask for directions. The amusement we were able to provide for those local yokel Korean cops was something to see. They whipped out every phrase in English they knew, and after a few minutes of language practice, one of them finally said, "follow me." Figuring he was going to tell us how to get to the bus terminal we were looking for, we went along. Imagine our surprise when the officer loaded us into one of the cop cars and drove us directly to the stop where we could catch a bus up to the mountain. Koreans really are that nice.
The mountain was incredible, and was the longest hike I've done to date, at 1288 meters. In the foothills there is also a very old Buddhist temple, where we were accosted by a very old man who seemed pretty drunk for eleven in the morning. He proceeded to tell us a long, rambling, nonsensical, entirely charming (seriously) story about a big rock that looks like the moon with some clouds around it. I'm not making this up. He even gave us a business card with a picture of said rock on it.
The last part of the hike was so steep that there were wooden stairways built into the sides of the mountain. Imagine our surprise when, as we three struggled to the summit, it was already crowded with middle aged folks and middle school field trip groups. Definitely an educational experience, and very humbling.
After coming down the mountain and catching the bus back to Wonju proper, we decided on a galbi restaurant for dinner. In Korea, galbi is basically BBQ cooked right at your table, on a cooker built into the table top. It's delicious, and in true Korean fashion, the table is covered with little dishes containing all manner of little sides, garnishes, and various kinds of kimchi. In the bathroom I noticed a pretty old guy sneezing his head off approximately every 5 seconds. I can't say I was too excited when he rolled up to our table and invited himself to join us. "Great," I thought, in a typically American reaction, "this weird old homeless guy wants to make friends and eat our food." Not so! The gentleman made as much chit chat as he could with the English he had, bought us a round of beers, and wished us a good night, as he hustled his grandkids on home. According to Justin, he sees that kind of incredible hospitality and friendliness at least once on every hiking trip outside of Seoul.
Well of course we ended up making a bit of a night of it, and got up very late the next day, precluding any more hiking that weekend. Still, it was time very well spent.
Lastly, I threw up a smattering of pictures I took just before I came to Korea. There were a couple good ones I just couldn't keep to myself, like the shots from the anti-escalation/war march that I went to in DC, and the picture I got someone to take of myself meeting Ralph Nader. And of course, shots of me and and my brand spankin' new (at the time) black belt, posing with my TKD masters.
You'll notice in many of the pictures I've put up, by the way, that I'm sporting quite a gross little mustache. Myself and a bunch of guys at the office were having a sort of a competition, although Ryan and his 1/4 pure Italian blood whipped all of us, with an incredible Super Mario-esque 'stache.
It's getting warm here. Stay tuned for reports of island hopping and beach parties. Also, I'm in training for a Taekwondo championship that Master Yang (my TKD master from back in the states) has asked me to compete in. So there's a lot going on. I'll do my best to keep the site as updated as possible. If you want to leave a comment, please do - just click the link at the bottom of the post that says "comments." I hope that anyone who's reading this is having a wonderful day, and ate something delicious recently.

It took a while to sink in.

I live in Korea now, but my heart is back in Virginia. It wanders the Blue Ridge and stumbles along the country roads. It shivers in the shadow of something that seems so incredibly out of place, something that is out of range of even the darkest expectations. I read the news almost every day. I am constantly reading about death, starvation, the woes of the world, its lightest places and darkest deeds. I think of myself as informed. That did not prepare me for what happened at Virginia Tech. And if I am unprepared, and shocked, and saddened, I can only imagine what the feelings must be for everyone back in the states - especially those in Virginia, and especially those at Virginia Tech. I just wanted to throw my two cents of support in. I am practically a world away, but my thoughts and wishes are back in those roaming hills and mountains now, and on those beautiful campuses, and riding on the shoulders of the students, faculty, and staff who must bravely continue on. All those who have been touched by this week's events: look to hope and gather your courage. We're all with you.

Bits and pieces as the rain comes down

"Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering?
And shall it be said my eve was in truth my dawn?
And what shall I give unto him who has left his plough in midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress?
Shall my heart become a tree heavy-laden with fruit that I may gather and give unto them?
And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill their cups?
Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me?
A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?
If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons?
If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein."

That's a quote by Kahlil Gibran, from his 1923 book The Prophet.

I'm here and it's weird and I like it.

Korea! Wow. It took a couple weeks for the novelty to wear off. Many, many things are very, very different.

First off, apologies to all who thirsted for news/photos/assurance that Ryan and I are still alive. Our internet access was pretty spotty for a while there, but now we have incredibly fast access in our apartment, so staying in touch should be a lot easier. If anyone is so inclined, my Skype handle is "swiftestranger" - don't hate on my LOTR reference. Keep in mind that if you want to chat, you're going to have to pick a time that might be pretty weird for you. I think the time difference is about 11 hours.

Ryan and I made the trip in about 24 hours of travel time, start to finish. It was exhausting and it's taken us quite a while to get our bodies adjusted to the change of place. We're pretty well settled in now. Speaking of settled, I should mention that we're very happy with the apartment that our employer has set us up with. It's about a 5 minute walk from the school where we're teaching, and actually is much bigger than I suspected it might be. It's a two bedroom apartment, with one MASSIVE bedroom and one much smaller one. Rock paper scissors, best 2 out of 3, decided who would get the big'un: yours truly. You might think it's stange to decide that kind of thing this way, but it's how Korean kids decide EVERYTHING. The results are never argued about. Rock paper scissors is IT. Anyways, after figuring out the heating system by way of a helpful visit from our landlord, Mr. Yang, I have to say I quite enjoy the ondol setup. Ondol is the Korean style of heating. Pipes are laid out underneath the floor, and hot water is run through them, which means that the floor is radiating warmth at all times. It keeps the place pretty cozy.

Adjusting to the culture has been more or less easy, since American English teachers are fairly well respected. Americans in general are treated well here, though the US soldiers stationed at the Yongsan base enjoy a somewhat less savory reputation. Korean isn't really required to get along in Korea. Many people speak enough English to complete basic transactions, like buying things at the grocery store and ordering food at restaurants. Koreans are generally friendly in these kinds of situations and will work hard to please guests and customers. I'm trying to learn Korean anyways, but it's slow going, largely because I am easily distracted from spending my personal time in constructive ways. Now that we've gotten more settled in and my schedule is starting to solidify, I'm hoping to make some headway on the language. I feel like it'll give me that much more opportunity to enjoy my time here.

Of course, many people asked me about my knowledge of the Korean language, (or lack thereof), as it pertains to my job, which is teaching English to Korean kids. Well, I don't need it at work, because the way language is taught here differs from the high school spanish/french/whatever classes you might be familiar with. Rather than translating everything from Korean into English, the idea is to create an immersive environment wherein the kids are obligated to speak only English from the moment they step in the building, to the moment they leave. In the early levels, this is hard, but over time the kids really pick things up. In my higher level classes - 10 to 12 year olds - the speaking abilities of my students are high enough that I can just sit there and converse with them. Of course, in the lower level classes I'm frequently just having them repeat after me, but you've gotta start somewhere.

My school (or English hagwon, as these things are sometimes called,) is the Pyungchon branch of SLP, the Sogang University Language Program. Basically, a highly regarded university here in Korea, Sogang, decided to get into the hagwon market by creating curriculum materials and starting up franchises. I think the business arrangements might be more complicated than that, but that's the gist. I use the books they write to teach English to the kids. This is a great deal more structured than it is at many hagwons, many of which do not have any kind of structured curriculum whatsoever. Of course, it's not perfect, but it helps, and I still have a lot of latitude to cover what I think the kids need to know. You might think that only experienced teachers could make those kinds of decisions, but when you're dealing with basic English, it becomes obvious pretty quickly as to what the kids need to be working on.

The kids themselves are an interesting lot. Going to a hagwon, which is basically a private afterschool program, is expensive, so we get our share of what seem to be spoiled rich kids. We also have a bunch of really sweet kids, though not as many as I'd like. I teach preschool in the mornings and elementary school aged kids in the afternoons. My preschool class is a group of 9 hellions that can be pretty bad, but the older kids tend to be much easier to control. Control is the operative word here. If you can't keep them quiet, you can't get anything done, so I tend to rule my classes with an iron fist. I goof around a lot, and make a lot of jokes, to keep the kids interested, but they all know by now that I can turn on the mean teacher juice at the drop of a hat, so I don't have to exert myself as much to keep them in line. All that projection and vocal control that I practiced as a theatre major is paying off in big ways now - in these small classrooms, I can pretty much deafen whole groups of kids without even trying. All that aside, it's pretty rewarding to actually see the kids learn things. It seems so hopeless for some of them at first, but they really start to pick it up. I've only been teaching for a few weeks, but already I'm seeing improvement in many of the students. I cling to this thought when the preschoolers make me want to throw them out the window.

Outside of the office/school, life stays interesting. I haven't found a Taekwondo school I'd like to train in yet, but I have found a Hapkido master who I like a lot. Actually, two of my coworkers, Ashley and Selina, started studying at this dojang a little while ago, and that's how I found out about it. The master doesn't have a lot of English, so the language barrier can be tough here. However, my previous experience in Taekwondo has really helped me in the beginning stages at least. Not to brag, but I am much more comfortable with the things that I'm learning than the other white belts are in the class. It only makes sense though - practicing one martial art is going to make it easier to learn others. Hapkido is quite different from Taekwondo in many ways, and after the stress of my black belt test, it's nice to take a few weeks off from training TKD every day and try something new.

Basic living here is easy. Ryan and I have discovered places to watch movies, buy electronics, get food from just about anywhere in the world, play putt putt golf, you name it, it's probably around Seoul somewhere. People are nice and prices are generally very fair. I like my job, my apartment, and my roommate. It ain't perfect, but I feel good about where I am. Plus, Koreans celebrate St. Patrick's day! I'll have some pictures up Irish folks parading (literally) through downtown Seoul very soon...

New Beginnings, Also, Other Cheesy Titles

Well, it's all very official now. I'm flying to Korea on Monday, February 26th. With me will be my good friend Ryan Ellis. We're fixin' to learn them there Korean children some of that there English.

It still doesn't quite feel real. When doing serious traveling, it usually doesn't feel real to me until I do something normal like eat, or sleep. Then the reality of it all comes rushing in, like when your ears pop after hours of dim hearing. I'm definitely excited, though I know I'm going to miss some people very much. Some people I ALREADY miss a lot. You know who you are. But hey, that's the way it happens. People come and go - these days I do more of the latter, but traveling the world has been a dream of mine since I was a child. Only thing that's changed is that I figured out how to get paid for it.

In other news, I've earned my 1st degree black belt in Taekwondo. After years of on and off study, due to injury, college, etc., Master Yang gave me the chance to test for black belt before leaving for Korea, and I jumped on it. Having spent a good deal of my time over the last couple months training, it was still one of the hardest hours of my entire life. As it should be, I think. It feels really good to make that step before moving on to my next big thing. Taekwondo is something that'll always be with me, but it's nice to feel like I at least finished my current assignment before skipping town. Of course, I'll continue to train in TKD while I'm in Korea, as well as other martial arts. Also, immediately after my time in Korea, I'm planning on spending some time in Thailand training in Muay Thai... but that's a whole other story.

My next post will be from the other side of the ocean. Wish me luck!

Off and running... to another country.

I'm finally going to Asia, which I've wanted to do for most of my life. How, when, why, blah blah blah?, you may or may not be asking yourself. Here's the deal:
English is the language that business is done in, worldwide. Korea is a country that does a lot of business and has a thriving economy, so learning English is really big there. Not only is it taught in regular public schools, but the country is full of smaller, private programs that utilize native speakers of English in furthering the language skills of the Korean children. I was just poking around the education section of job listings on craigslist, when I came across a recruiter whose job it is to find college educated native English speakers to send off to these schools in Korea.

It works like this: you don't have to have formal teaching experience or an education degree, but due to Korean immigration requirements, you do have to have a 4 year degree, and due to the school's requirements, you must be a native speaker of English. You also have to be willing to sign a 12 month contract, but it's a pretty sweet deal. The average pay is a little over 2 grand a month, an apartment is provided to you with free rent, and your plane tickets - there and back - are paid for. I thought, well, I need money to move to Chicago or NYC, and this has got to be better than waiting tables. I was tired enough of that grind to try any job that pays as well, really. So I applied, and even got my friend from JMU, Ryan Ellis, to apply.

Ryan has been living in Richmond since graduation, working some decent jobs and living on the cheap in a group house. He has a real interest in teaching, though, as well as an interest in adventure, so it was more or less easy to get him on board. We got our applications considered together, and as of this writing, we've been hired by a school in Anyang (1 hour south of Seoul) to teach English to elementary school age children. We'll also be sharing a two bedroom apartment.

Sounds great, right? Only thing is we don't speak Korean.

Of course, you don't have to, since many people in South Korea speak some English, and the children aren't allowed to use much Korean in the classes at all. However, I'd like to be able to find my way around a little when we get there, so I've got some Korean language software and a book of "Survival Korean." I figure I'll just sort of have to roll with it.

We'll be leaving before the end of February, so anybody who wants to see myself or Ryan before a year goes by better hop to it.


In other news, my Taekwondo teachers, Master Yang and Master Kwon, after some initial misgivings, have supported my trip to Korea. The big deal here is that Master Yang is offering to let me take my black belt test before I leave the country - which basically means allowing me to skip a belt to do so. Of course, I have been training longer than many of the black belts in my dojang, the difference between us being that I've missed more belt tests than anyone else. Still, it shows a lot of confidence on the part of my teachers, which is an honor. It's also going to make my life a lot more convenient as far as Taekwondo training in Korea is concerned, since the 1st degree black belt is technically the first belt that actually transfers from school to school. Without a black belt, I would be faced with the prospect of starting all over again at the bottom of the ranking system in a new school. Let's hope that I pass my black belt test here in the states! As usual, I'm confident that I'll be successful.


Well, that's it for now. Stay tuned for more travel details - exact date of departure, etc - as well as more pictures being put up. I'd like to get all those Europe photos up before I start getting all snap-happy in Korea...