Here's Sam on my lap as I'm marking papers. It took some getting used to, but she just kept hopping from the bed to the chair or climbing my pants, so I had to adjust.


Here's Sam hiding after I vacuumed the apartment for the first time. She's wedged in between the pillows, if you can't see.

Christmas decorations go up

No no, not in my apartment. I just was downtown yesterday (and at E-Mart today) and I've noticed that there's already decorations going up. yikes.
I've been walking a lot lately. The temperature is just perfectly crisp, you are very comfortable in a sweater and jeans, so basically it's like heaven for me. Feeling the wind? throw on a nice jacket, and you are a well dressed foreigner that everyone will smile at as they pass.
Sam is adjusting well to the new environment, which is good news. She hasn't been sick again, unless you count the diarrhea that luckily landed on me instead of the fleece blanket on the bed. I clean up much more easily. She's less needy, more likley now to follow than to just sit in the other room mewling when I leave. She's full of energy, which is good. And earlier estimates of age have been abandoned after further internet research (now with pictures) has revealed that she is probably close to seven weeks.
She's running around like she's crazy, stopping midstride to go 90 degrees to the left... or pouncing on my hand, but not realizing that her legs can't do that yet, she bounces off the wall and falls behind the bed.
I'm having some people over on the weekend for an American Thanksgiving feast. It should be a lot of fun, and I'm getting pretty excited about it.

Other random notes:

I had a ride with a cab driver whose breath was so bad that I ahd to roll down the window. In the backseat.

Sam is stirring up more dust than I knew was possible in the apartment. Trouble is, she fits in all the places that a vacuum doesn't.

I saw a guy whip a rock into a flock of birds the other day. A grown man.

The river is still entertaining. I saw a new kinds of bird yesterday. The walk to the river has climaxed though, with all the leaves turning and now beginning to fall. But now there's that great rotting leaf smell that I love so much, and makes me crazy missing home.

Marking tests still sucks. I'm getting better at making the tests shorter to mark though. I made some multiple choice, and on a question that went "Why did the boy's mom say the rollerbaldes were okay?" (the answer was "They have no bones") one student selected "They were already dead". hahaha. I had to penalize a lot of classes this wekk, so the marks are really low. I hope I don't hear too much flack over it.

That's all for now.

No updates, I know

And I haven't even finished the hallowe'en one, have I? haha.
One good thing about being in Gwangju is that I have things to focus on other than the blog, which is tod bad for you if you're coming here to learn all about me.
So, I'm in a bit of a transition right now. I'm getting used to living alone, and I'm really finding a niche at work.
Today, Jon and Emily came back to the school (Jon is the one who recommended me) came back, and you could really see how much the kids loved him. They were mobbing him! I felt god too, because all the kids from my grade four class were crawling all over me. One kid has been bringing his gameboy, and I told him I had one. I finally remembered to bring it today, so I gave it to him, and they ran off like I had just given them a key to a candy store.
The big news to share was of course my new cat. Yep, I got a kitten. Today! This morning! before work! I decided on Sunday that I needed a cat, not just that I wanted one. Now, you mgiht be thinking to yourself "But didn't he go on and on about dogs?!?!" Yeah, I did, thanks for bringing it up. But it's just too big a time commitment. The way my life has been going, I can't afford to set a walking schedule, because I will be constantly breaking it. But I have been really lonely, so I decided to rescue a cat. I went to the dog cafe on Sunday to check out their kitten selection, and I fell in love with a little Persian kitten that I played with for about 45 minutes. My heart was quickly broken when i found out that she cost $450. Of course, not so quickly that I didn't consider it. But that would be a terrible waste for me, and I would have been living on whatever I could lick out of the drain trap for the next month.
I talked to Harley about it, and he suggested that I wait and try the local market. Apparently the local farmers bring in litters from their farm cats and sell them for like $5! So I tried that. But the local market didn't have any kittens. So I tried the big town market.
I walked around the market for about ten minutes or so before I found the animals. The market is huge, and it's all the same stuff. I don't know how businesses work here, because everyone seems to sell the same things for the same prices. Anyways... I wandered around, and then I started to hear clucking. I headed down birdflu alley, figuring that if there was going to be live pets anywhere, it would be near the other live animals. I was right! I spotted that horribly emaciated puppy first. His rubs stuck out from here to there, I'll tell you. There was another fluffy little pup in a cage, and on top of that cage was a little cage with two little kittens in it. They were just lying on grating with some toilet paper around. I asked to look at them, and I feel in love with the first one I picked up. I pet the second one for a while, but I decided that I had to go with the first. The lady sold her to me for "ocheon won" ($5) and gave me a kettle box to bring her home in.
The car ride was interesting, she kept trying to suckle on my fingers. Also, the cab driver kept trying to tell me that he had brought me to the right place, but he brought me to "Moa Line 2", not "Moa line 1".
When I got her home, I realized just how dirty she was. Man, did she ever smell like the market. I let her walk around and explore, and she hid under the table straight away. After about twenty minutes she came out, and soon she was mewling every time I was out of line of sight, and climbing up my pant legs if I ignored her.
Brooke came over to meet her, and quickly decided that she was both "Adorable" and "Precious". We gave her some milk and water, and everything seemed to go just swimmingly.
Later, at work, I asked Brooke if she would pop in to see how she was (she gets off an hour earlier than I do). When I got home, I was surprised to see that Brooke was still here, and more surprised that the entire apartment smelled like vomit. haha, seriously. Apparently the little thing had gorged itself and made itself sick, which I really should have seen coming. I mean, it was in a cage with no food or water, and she clearly would have been like that all day if I hadn't picked her up, and had probably been like that for days already.
Anyways, the joys of hardwood floors, it was cleaned up in no time.
She's an expert leg climber, and will do it whenever my ignoring her makes it necessary. I'm excited about this, I think she will be a good addition to my life here, and hereafter. Her name is Sam, by the way.
I've been walking to school lately, which has been wonderful. My route takes me along the river, and I have been spotting no shortage of wildlife lately. There's a turtle who always seems to strand itself on the same rock, and cute little birds bathing in the shallow parts. Plus, there are a lot of friendly old Koreans who love seeing a smartly dressed foreign lad walking along their river.
Last weekend, on November 4th, I had my first gig with a band here in Korea. It went really well. I opened with my usualy mix of Bob Dylan and Hawksley Workman covers to open, and then we did one set as "The Matt Amond Band". Then we had another break, and we came back on as "The Jordan Emmans Band" for another two sets. It was fun! I was worried, because we hadn't been practicing together too much, but it worked really well, and everyone seemed to communicate well, and get along musically. I'm excited, they're really good. The lead guy, Jordan Emmans writes kind of Coldplay-style music, with Christian influences, which I have decided is cool! It's not too heavy handed, and it's just his passions coming out in his writing. And his songs are pretty fun to play, as well. The bass player, Dave, is amazing. Just amazing. And the drummer, Dan, is in the Speakeasy band, that I might eventually be playing with. hopefully...
So, lots of exciting things are happening.

Here's some pictures of little Sam.