new digs and other mundane updates

Whew! Finally have my own Internet connection again. We rather suddenly moved into dorms at the end of last week, and it's been a bit like starting over again: new digs, new roommates, new part of town, new transportation lines, new set of shopkeepers ... but the biggest challenge - no personal line to the Net again for a few days. I am a part of the wired generation, no doubt about it.

But anyway, I'm now happily settled - Web and all - in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom suite on the top floor of a four-story brand new dorm building about 10 minutes' walk from the college. My roommates are fabulous folk: a chill couple from Ohio - new grads from an ESL master's program - and a former junior high math teacher from Colorado Springs. I have a Western-style bed again, and out my window is an undeveloped plot of tiny, haphazard houses and squash blossoms. The rooms are actually built for two each, which I can hardly imagine, but the place is grand for our setup of four people. And we only share a washer among 12 people now, and it's on our balcony, rather than down five flights in a dingy basement of a busy hotel.

As of now, we're supposed to be here another six weeks or so before moving up to the Village, but I'll find shoes in Asia if that deadline actually holds. We're taking another trip up there tomorrow and we'll see how much closer the crews are to the lavish architects' drawings ... it will be an amazing place if it turns out anything close to that, but it's obviously got a lot yet to get there.

Meahwhile it's an adventure navigating the neighborhood's maze of tiny alleyways and major "a la NASCAR" streets. We're also within minutes of another, large university, and there's a cool area closeby teeming with cosmopolitan restaurants, shops and nightlife. Downtown is now a bus- or cabride away, instead of mere stops on the convenient subway, but the sense of local community is captivating.

Amid trips to E-mart this weekend, the country's semi-equivalent to Wal-Mart/Target, a group of us squeezed in a full day touring the coastal part of this region by bus - stopping at a park, a temple, an arboretum and a windmill field. Nothing jaw-dropping, but fun nonetheless, and for $25 bucks for the day (sans lunch), the price was definitely right. Plus it was nice to be out in the countryside for a bit and also more along the tourist routes, where English signs at least are more plentiful. Thankfully fall appears to have finally hit, and ever since the days of rain it's been mild and breezy - hopefully we've got a couple months of this weather before winter rolls in, because it's fantastic. I'm planning an overnight to Seoul and a templestay for a break later this month, and we're hitting two cultural expos this weekend - one on the college's tab as "cultural training" and a thank-you from the dean for teaching summer camp.

Speaking of work, we've finally gotten to the point of breaking down a lot of our planning into task forces, and it's nice to get our hands on tasks and see measurable progress. Plus we've been rethinking some of the curriculum and coming up with really cool activities and projects ... I can hardly wait to get into the Village and put it into practice. I feel so spoiled, getting into the cool part of education by skipping all the typical bureaucracy and limited school systems. Granted, we'll have our limits, too, but the support and materials we have to work with are AMAZING, and there's no need to teach for any standardized test - the only test is whether students enjoy themselves and get a little more comfortable with English.

That's about the wrap for now, I think. Love from Korea! :)