Numerous updates

DOG
So, the dog thing is on hold. Have I mentioned this already? I'm only going home for three weeks right now, and I think it would be really unfair to take a dog on such a long flight after such a short "getting to know you" phase. So maybe I will get a dog while I am here, but maybe I will just wait, because maybe I didn't think enough about it. I know I could handle a dog, I just don't know if Korea could handle me with a dog.

CONTRACT
I signed my contract with Munhwa on Saturday morning. The contract is a little nebulous, but I'm not too worried. I have a good personal reference, I really like the head teacher, and the director asked me the right kind of questions in the interview, and seems like a decent man. So, that's exciting. I met with Harley, the head teacher on Saturday to go over the contract, and then it was done.

CAMP
Camp continues this week. It was pretty good last week, the only frustration is that you are dealing with teachers who don't seem to want to be taught to, at least in one class. Koreans seem to have this crazy idea that they can learn a language by quietly memorizing things, and somehow even the teachers are buying into this. Harley and I talked about it... there's no synthesis, just memorization. But, the older teachers are a lot better, and on most days they make up for the frustrations of the younger, feed-me-English crowd.

BUSY WEEKEND
I had a super busy weekend. I travelled back to Yeongam on Friday afternoon/evening, a three hour train ride, followed by an hour on a bus. Got home, and had to do laundry, so that I could pack for both camp and Mongolia, as I'm heading to Mongolia straight from Seoul this weekend. I wound up carrying a bag full of wet laundry back to Seoul, in spite of the fact that I left the air conditioner blowing on it the whole night. Oh well.
Jessie and I hopped on a bus, met Harley, signed the contract, and then took a train to Seoul from Gwangju. We got about an hour from Seoul when the train stopped and didn't start again. We just hung out, we actually had a pretty good time buring the delay. Since we waited for so long, I figured there would be some sort of reimbursement, but I didn't know how to ask. I figured if we followed the crowd when we got off, eventually they would lead us to the money. They went one better, and a young woman helped us by running to ask all of our questions of a local steward. So, we wound up finding out that we were entitled to free tickets! Sweet!
We went to our hotel, and I hung up all of my clothes. We went to Itaewon for subs, which was awesome. We had them for breakfast too, but they weren't so good cold.
We took the airport limo bus from the hotel to the airport, and wandered around trying to find out where to check in. There was no apparent line, so we just got into one for the Mongolian airline and asked at the counter "Where do we check in for flight 308?". The guy said "Ticket!" and we gave him Jessie's ticket. He said "passort!" and we gave him Jessie's passport. Two minutes later a boarding pass was produced, and he pointed and circled as he talked.
"The flight boards gate 45 (or whatever) and is nine hours delayed." and waved for the next person in line.
Nine hours delayed! So we wound up coming back into the city, playing some computer games at a PC bang, getting a pizza, and watching a really sad Korean movie. It was really good though, it was about a group of minstrels who go to the big city of Seoul and wind up playing for the king. But of course, tragedies occur.
We left at about quarter to seven to get her on a bus back to Incheon. We went to Sosa station, which is where the bus dropped us when we came back. We were nervous, because we don't know the schedule, and decided that we should go back into town to catch the bus from where we had before. We got back onto the subway platform, and then Jessie thought better of it... the timing would be pretty tight, so we wound up walking out and finding the bus again. Pretty exciting no? It felt silly.
She got off safely, and there was some interesting miming through the bus window going back and forth that ended with me chasing after some guy... we're weird people, there's no denying.
I just got another e-mail from her saying her flight was further delayed until 10:55 tonight... that's about ten and a half hours total. Brutal!

Little visitors
I keep forgetting to mention, but the week before last, on Friday, Jessie and I ran into some students on the way home from arranging our pension reimbursement. Specifically, my "one way lover" and one of her little friends. They had asked before if they could come visit sometime. That night, they wound up inviting themselves for breakfast the next day.
They showed up just after ten with some frozen food, and I went to work cooking for them. They are pretty sweet little girls, and it was a really nice visit. I killed the food they brought (we don't have a deep-frying pan, or enough oil to cook what they brought) but it only looked bad, it tasted alright.
It was super-nice.