Almost my birthday!

We are now into full swing in the month of JULY, what... July?! When did it become July? Where did May and June go? Time has been flying here, like usual. In a little over week, we will have been here for 6 months. 7 more months to go! I just can't believe how long I've been away from home for! I am still liking it here, much more than I did when we first arrived. With the change of seasons, the heat has brought beautiful flowers and green rolling hills. The landscape is no longer a brown and desolate (and quite dirty) expanse I actually live in a very pretty city! I have also recently discovered Central Park, which I will put pictures up later. Central Park is a HUGE area in the middle of Dongtan just filled with anything you could possibly want to do outside. There is a rock climbing wall, several soccer fields, jungle gyms, tennis courts, badmitten courts, basketball courts, fountains with water shows that change colors and play music, little streams and water areas for the kids to play in, sculptures, etc etc! There is always a huge crowd of people wandering through and just a million little kids running around everywhere having a great time. It really makes Dongtan such a cooler city now that I know Central Park exists. I will be spending a lot of my future summer days there!

As I type, there are various car alarms going off from the relentless thundering!! We are in the middle of monsoon season here, and I have never been in such crazy and volatile weather. The storms here last for hours or the majority of the day. Usually back home, if we have unusually nasty weather, it doesn't last longer than and hour or two. I woke up this morning and it was uncharacteristically dark for 7:45am, and I looked out my balcony window just in time to see the heavens open and dump all the water in the world on Dongtan! We even had to take a cab to school it has been such bad downpour. The thunder and lightning has not stopped since 8am and its now almost lunch time! I can hear all the little kids screaming each time the thunder cracks, they are so scared. :)

We are about 24 hours away from our flight to Bali! Our first vacation starts this evening (well I'm pretty checked out already...) and I have not been this happy for a Friday in a while! I mean I love the weekends but IM GOING TO BALI!!! I am so pumped. I could really use this relaxing week off work, tensions are at another high around here lately. We have started having weekly meetings with Sue, which lasted for ohhh about a week. There is still a huge communication gap that needs to be sinched up or LCI will continue to have extremely unhappy employees who aren't willing to do any extra work for them. They ask A LOT of us here, usually at the last minute, and we get zero positive reinforcement. For example, the classes I teach in the morning are different than the other LCI teachers. The kids I see for the first half of my day have a longer summer vacation than LCI. So in theory, I wouldn't have any morning classes for the first 2 weeks we get back from our vacation. Instead, LCI has decided to hold a "summer free trial session" for the 3 days. I will be teaching it. The curriculum they want me to teach has NOTHING to do with the curriculum I've been teaching for the past 6 months. I now have to go back and learn 7 different subjects and 3 different books that I have never touched before, and teach random students that I don't know. Who, by the way, are less than 6 years old and have no English names or previous English experience. I start the Tuesday we get back from break, I was told about this TODAY! I have to prepare lesson plans, find activities, scan books, plans songs and games, etc to get ready to dazzle these new students so their parents decide to enroll them in LCI. Sorry about the rant, it just another day in the life working for a Korean boss who doesn't care much about employee morale.

Anyway, to come back to my original thought, I'm going to Bali! I mean sorry guys I don't want to rub it in, but my feet will be in the Indian Ocean in t-minus 24 hours! :) I want to have a relaxing week but there are also lots of activities I have planned. We all agree that we want to see a temple and some sort of traditional dance while were there. Katie is also REALLY excited to see monkeys so I found this cool place called Uluwatu Temple. It is situated atop a peak on the SW Bukit peninsula of Bali. Supposedly you go in the early evening and catch the amazing sunset before the traditional Balinese dance starts (dance:check). It is also in the middle of Monkey Forest (monkeys:check) which you're not supposed to bring any of your belongings into because the mischevious monkeys will steal them! The Pura Uluwatu temple is one of the oldest in Bali and is off limits to anyone not practicing the Hindu-Dharma religion. You can however walk the grounds and explore the temple without actually going inside (temple/cultural experience:check!). In addition to the temple, I want to do lots of adventure activies and have lots of fun in the sun! Surf lesson, paragliding, MAYBE bungee jumping (sorry mom!), Sea Walker (check it out online- pretty cool!), and a kayak tour. I found this company that offers a day-long kayak and snorkeling tour with a lunch break on the beach! Ok I will stop going on an on about Bali I know it is probably hard for you guys to read being stuck at home and everything :). Haha! I am just joking, I know I am very lucky to be doing these things and that I am working hard for the money to be able to do so (even though some of my pictures probably make it look like I am working hard and playing even harder!). I feel fortunate to have help from home, but it is so satisfying to take a vacation on your own money! I like searching for flights, reading up on the food and culture, and planning activities. And I really believe I appreciate the experiences that much more. Anyway, I will have lots more pictures to post soon after this next week!

Another big event of July: the Independence of America! As you can imagine, this glorious holiday is not so much celebrated here. No TnT value packs, black cats, roman candles, or growing pagodas (my favorite!). I couldn't so much as find a sparkler! But we still had to celebrate somehow. A group of us went on a boat cruise on Friday evening. It was a small-ish ferry boat (mom & dad- it reminded me of Das Boata!!) that was rented by a couple friends of ours who are starting up an event promotions company here. They are Jam ROK (Republic of Korea- clever huh!) and they have been putting on events for a couple of weeks now for Koreans and foreigners to do together. So there were a few hundred people on the boat and we just cruised the Han River for a few hours. And when I say we cruised, let me clarify- we floated down about 5 blocks to a bridge, turned around, floated back to where we started, turned around and floated back to the bridge, and continued on this cycle for a couple hours. Haha! Besides the lack of distance, there was no shortage of scenery! We had a different view of Seoul on either side of the bridge, one perspective I had yet to see. We were also endlessly entertained by the various harlesses (I swear 'harless' should be in the next edition of Websters Dictionary) on jetskis and our game of counting the dead fish. The Han River is DISGUSTING- I saw over 40 dead fish in the 15 minutes I was standing out by the railing. Overall it was a really fun time and a good opportunity to get our various groups of friends together. I even met some Koreans! On Saturday evening a bunch of us got together in Pyeongtaek (where Katelan, Chase, and Chris live) for a good ol' fashioned all American BBQ.... with pork belly and kimchi. Haha I'm only half joking, Katelan made some delicious cookies and we managed to find some salmon and beef at the grocery store. We even had corndogs! Those are American, right? No burgers though, couldn't find those anywhere. It was a fun evening with everyone complete with a sing-off of the Canadians there vs. us Americans. O Canada vs. The Star Spangled Banner, they let us win because it was our holiday. :)

We just got home last weekend from Mudfest. I don't even know how to begin explaining this one! check it out here: http://www.mudfestival.or.kr/english/festival/festival1.php

I will post a few pictures from friends. I didn't even take my camera out because I didn't want to ruin it!

Well I have to end this post now, I actually have to get to work and go teach! Today we are having a "snack party" in our afternoon elementary class. I hope Chris doesn't eat it all before I show up (mom, dad, tyler- remember Chris? HAHA!). I will post a few pictures and write more after Bali!

Until later,
Tia Teacher


“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller