Last weekend I went to North Korea! It was probably the coolest thing I've ever done. First we took a bus up from one of the military bases in Seoul up to the Panmunjom, which is the area between North Korea and South Korea. We had to watch a short video that was both informative and funny, in that it was a sort of propaganda. I already knew North Korea is messed up. I didn't need to be constantly reminded. Then we went to the Joint Security Area, which is the only area where North Korean and South Korean soldiers look directly at each other. While we were taking pictures of North Korea and their buildings, some North Korean soldiers started filing out of their building, which made our security escort nervous, which made ME nervous. ... read more

Hey everybody! I’ve been in Korea for an entire month! And luckily it started to warm up FINALLY. After weeks of being in the single digits, we are currently at 43 degrees! The news of greatest importance is that I finally got my Alien Registration Card (ARC) on Tuesday, so I now have a bank account and a cell phone! I was ecstatic, to say the least. My cell phone was really cheap, has a great camera, a Korean-English dictionary and a subway map. It’s pretty impressive. At work we’ve just started a new month of classes, so I only kept one of the classes I had last month. All of my classes were just for the month of January, but my phonics class became my beginner class. It was really nice to have them as ... read more

Hi! Today I started teaching classes by myself, which is MUCH more interesting than watching someone else teach. Though I had to do some of that as well. I finally got my schedule for the month, so I can really prepare for classes now. In the morning I have Winter Intensive courses, which are for the super smart kids whose parents make them do extra school. Today they had to show me homework that involved writing a story about discovering a planet and one of the kids had me absolutley riveted. It was crazy exciting! And the grammar was at least as good as a native-speaker his age. So those classes are really easy. Everyone's done their homework, everyone knows what I'm talking about. Wednesdays and Thursdays I do lunch duty and supervise gym for kindergarteners ... read more

No excursions this week since it was our last. We went to classes and spent a lot of time downtown making our last minute purchases form people at home. I bought my dad a sombrero in the zocalo market and we ate a LOT of Tepoznieves ice cream, especially flavors that are difficult to get at home, like rose petal ice cream. My friends decided to celebrate a fake birthday for me after I told them I never had a 16th birthday party so we went out to dinner and one friend bought me a dress made by local women. It's really pretty and navy blue. ... read more

On Monday we started classes, with includes 3 long sessions on grammar before lunch and 1 short session of vocabulary after lunch. After classes we were allowed to explore the city, so we always went downtown to explore and eat. My host family did not do much cooking so my roommate and I ate downtown often. On Wednesday after class, we went to Taxco, which is a small town near Cuernavaca that is known for selling silver. After taking a tour of another small basilica, we were basically set loose in the markets. Many of the booths sell silver, but some of them sell miscellaneous handicrafts. One persistent merchant sold handmade Chinese finger traps. I bought presents for most of my family and many pieces of silver jewelry. At one point, a classmate and I got ... read more