Brian is dumb

Sadly, it's true. I am without speech at the moment... that is what we're talking about, isn't it? haha. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I seem to have sinusitis. It could've been the air quality, or the "yellow sand," or maybe the flowers opening up. Whatever it was, it's not the most fun I've had and I am now mute, or dumb :) I was able to teach my first class yesterday and I attempted my second class, but my voice gave out halfway through and my boss had to fill in for me. I was able to teach my last class of the day because there were only four students in the class and they're older than most of the other kids at the school, so they're not too hard to control. I went in today and helped with the Art class before they sent me home. Sick days are not very common here and the other American teachers said they were never allowed to take any, but I guess not being able to speak is a little different.

Friday night was the going away dinner for the other American teachers. It was supposed to be combined as a welcoming party for the Canadian teacher that is coming, but his visa was delayed and he hasn't arrived yet. Later that night we saw a belligerent drunk resisting arrest, very entertaining! On Saturday, we accompanied the Americans to the dinosaur expo in Goseong (a half hour or so by bus). The scenery was much different from what we are accustomed to seeing in Tongyeong. The countryside is much flatter and there is plenty of room for fields and farms; everything is more spread out. The expo really made me appreciate the museums we have in America. The exhibits were really lame and cheaply done and a few of them looked like cartoons almost (we guess for the children). There was a small area up on a hill where they had some carnival games, a few arcade games, and a big swinging ship. Katie didn't want to ride it with me, so I went on it with one of the other teachers. Katie and I played the carnival game where you get four balls and you have to knock four cylinders off the table. We both lost, but we got a keychain ornament out of it! After that we went down this huge slide that took you from the top of the hill down close to the parking lot. At the end of the day, we had to say goodbye to one of the Americans (the other one leaves in ten days).

We did absolutely nothing on Sunday because I was sick and we both had to write a ton of lesson plans. We started an entirely new schedule yesterday, but we didn't get our new books until last Wednesday so we had a lot to do in a very short amount of time.

That's pretty much all that's happened since the last time we posted on here. We've been getting more and more used to living here. There are less and less things about life in Korea that we find weird or interesting. Pretty soon we won't think twice about jumping out of the way of a motorcycle driving on the sidewalk! It'll probably take me a few weeks to stop taking off my shoes as soon as I enter someone's house when we come home.

In the world of sports... Japan beat Korea in the WBC final. Everybody here was so mad. I kept track of the score the entire game until the bottom of the 9th when I had to teach a class. I don't remember the exact situation, but there were two outs with two runners on base and the score was 2-1. I was so mad I had to leave right then haha. I locked up first place in the betting pool for the NCAA tournament over the weekend. I won 40,000 won ($25)!! I went 6 for 8 and 3 for 4 in the Elite 8 and Final 4 rounds. The only way I can lose the just-for-fun pool is if UNC loses to Villanova AND Connecticut wins the entire tournament. I went 7 for 8 and 4 for 4 on that bracket!! Both brackets have a UNC - UCONN final, with UNC winning 78-72. We'll see how it goes. I think this year's tournament was fairly predictable. The only games that really surprised me were: Cleveland State upsetting Wake Forest and Wisconsin over Florida State. I didn't call Dayton over WVU but it didn't surprise me. Later