Good to Be Back

I wasn't sure how I'd feel when I came back to Korea, but after 3 weeks I'm pretty confident saying that I'm happy being back here, and more than ready to put in another year. All ready things are falling into a nice groove, Shannon and I are keeping busy with the other foreigners, and our stupid little dog is keeping up his part by not peeing on the floor and keeping people entertained.

What I imagine must have been a typhoon rolled through town last week, bringing a kind of rain I've never seen before. For days on end, it rained steadily; and not just that west-coast-drizzle you get in BC, but a constant pouring, sometimes so intense it would darken objects on the horizon. It let up just in time for the weekend so we could do a little camping, but until Friday afternoon, I was starting to think this we were getting a glimpse of what it was like for Moses way back in the day.

I'm practicing my Korean again, and things are coming along nicely. I was even able to decipher what some of the Grade 1 boys were trying to say to me, which usually isn't too hard. This time though, they had heard I went to Canada, which I guess is the same as America to them. They also figured that I must have met all their heroes from Wrestle Mania, which was about all they could talk to me about for the rest of the day. "Teacher, did you meet The Rock? Did you meet Triple H?" Too cute.

I mentioned the "stupid" dog earlier here, which I suppose was a little harsh on him, since I think for a dog, he's actually quite intelligent. What he is missing is the slightest scrap of self-confidence or independence. At our last house, he absolutely destroyed one of the bedrooms - not bad for a dog that isn't mush higher than your ankles. We fixed the room, but pretty poorly, so everyday the landlord has been calling Shannon's school hounding them for $1500 to fix the place. There's no way it costs that much to fix it, but the headache of sorting it all out is causing Shannon so much stress. Her teachers are talking about her and the dog all the time, the school won't make us pay, but there's this feeling they want us to. It's incredibly awkward.

All right, I'm off for now. I've been kinda sick the last few days, so I'm not feeling entirely up to writing right now. I even took a day off school yesterday. My principal, he's so concerned he wants to send me home again today, while the rest of my teachers ask me how I am, then scuttle off and talk about me to everyone else. I may not understand what they're saying, but I can pick up more than they know.