catch up!

Hello everyone.
I'm back now, in Gwangju, South Korea.
I was a little worried for a few weeks about how life was going to go here, but it seems like everything is coming up roses.
Things are pretty tough without Jessie here, I'm having difficulty adjusting to living alone. It's weird, I tend to forget to eat sometimes, and I am a little lazy about going to bed. I mean, I'll stay up just because I don't want to change. weird, eh?
Anyways, the new school is pretty good. It's an interesting cast of characters. For the most part, teaching there is a breeze. There's enough curriculum that I can lean pretty heavily if I want to, but I'm also allowed to divert and change it if I want to. So that's good, because it means that the adjustment to planning with curriculum will be pretty easy. The kids are easier to handle too, because I mark them, so I can take marks off of their tests for disciplinary matters. W00t! That makes things super easy.
The other teachers are a mixed bag. There's two other young teachers. One is pretty awesome, very funny and easy to get along with. Her boyfriend is also pretty cool, and is another audiophile, so we should get along well. The other seems very cool, but she's up on the next floor, which has proven to be way more of an obstacle to getting to know her than maybe it should have. She's almost finished her contract, it sounds like she will be leaving in early December. There's one who has a lot of physical problems, that seem to be effecting her in other ways, including jumping from topic to topic in conversation. She's pretty lonely, but she can be a little hard to be around, because she's pretty needy. Harley, also know as Mr C, is pretty nice. He really cares about the kids, and they really seem to like him too. He drinks more coffee (instant) and smokes more than I think is healthy, but hey, that's his business.
The other night we were walking home and chatting, and he tossed a butt in the sewer. The streets here are pretty disgusting. Korea hasn't really clued in to the harm of littering yet, and apparently they don't see it as a problem. Apparently tonight was different, and the careless tossing of his butt (which I still don't really approve of) into the sewer was enough to light a small fire under a nearby man. He started to bellow at Harley. Harley got right in his face and started bellowing back, and I got pretty freaked out by the whole thing. While Harley is pointing to all the trash within a foot of the sewer where he had tossed his butt, the guy gets right in his face, like within an inch. Then he sneaked his hand up and tried to poke Harley in the eyes!!! I couldn't believe it! It was the dirtiest fight move in history. We started walking away, and when we went into the restaurant where we were going to eat, he tried to follow us. I blocked him at the door for a bit, but he pushed his way in eventually, and proceeded to disturb everyone in the restaurant while he went on a huge tirade about us, and probably about how "Americans use the world as their trash can", I can only assume. The staff showed him out, and he just waited outside for us for about fifteen or twenty minutes. He was gone when we left though, thankfully. It wasn't that nice, and it's especially bad for Harley, who is extremely stressed out right now (he's writing text books and drinking about 15 instant coffees a day) and not in the best health (15 coffees).
The new apartment is pretty nice. I have a nice little kitchen (only a small fridge, unfortunately), a living room (big flat screen TV) a dining area, a real western shower, and a huge bedroom. Oh, and a spare room. My room is basically set up as the sweetest-ever dorm room, which is a little sad. Laptop for TV, recording stuff, and an over-filled closet. Damned parents and their bargain-hunting/clothes shopping addictions rubbed off on me! The neighbourhood is pretty good so far, except for the occasional angry Korean street fighter (cue Three Stooges eye-poke-block).
I played at the speakeasy for the first time on Friday night, and I think I played for at least an hour or so, although time gets all warped when you are onstage. It went pretty well. I wound up staying until almost 4:30 and going up on stage with the owner and the durmmer from the band I played before for a little jam.
The good news is that from the looks of things, we will be forming a band for the bar. So that should be really fun!
I went there last night again. There was a band playing from Suncheon, and I have to say, the guitarist was pretty incredible. It was a good night, because I wound up meeting up with a bunch of old JLPers that I had met at the camp in Novermber of last year in SeongAm. So it was a good night, and we got some good catching up/meeting in, and I wound up staying out again, until like 3:00 or so.
Anyways, that's all the pertinent news. There will be more updates now, as I have broken the ice, and all awkwardness is gone. haha.