So...it has been an interesting and busy few days.
Last Thursday my school had a festival: apparently this is a traditional autumn thing where the students show off their talents, whether they are musical, artistic or sporting. As a teacher I basically got to walk around the school all day and check the work out, which made a nice break from teaching. :-) The day began with a speech from the Principal, VP and some of the governors followed by a nice photo-op in front of the school entrance:
Then there was a quick lunch, and after that a musical talent show in the main hall, featuring some singing, some dancing and some musical instruments:
(Though some of the acts involving girls
Friday passed pretty ordinarily, apart from the evening where I went along to a Halloween party where I got into costume:
FYI - the witches hat was not originally a part of my costume - it was added to my normal hat after several pints. Had a great night, Buzz was packed to the rafters so the atmosphere was great.
Another reason for it being a good night:
Yup. By popular demand...it's The Girlfriend (TM). Her name's Julie. (I could choose to make an Ali G joke here but that would be too obvious). One thing...she's Christian, which brings me to my next point. When you go out into Cheongju at night, it's quite amazing the amount of neon crosses you can see that indicate a house of worship. Given that Christianity is in fact the most practised religion here, I can't say as I'm surprised, but red glowing Symbols of God are not something you'd see in say, Canterbury or York...
Anyway...after waking up with a hangover on Saturday and eating prodigous amounts of bread (thank you, Paris Baguette) and water to combat it, I spent a good part of Saturday recuperating then went with Julie to see a traditional Korean music performance called Beat at the local theatre, involving lots of drums and some brilliant choreography.
A couple of pics:
And the weekend didn't stop there either. After 6 hours sleep, me and some friends took a trip up to Seoul to the popular theme park Lotte World.
It being Sunday, it was of course insanely busy, but that didn't stop us getting on some of the rides and having a good time. There was also a parade halfway through the day, as well as some really good scenery:
Not bad for somewhere slap bang in the middle of a city. Also, an interestingly-named delicacy was on offer at some of the food booths:
Anyone for some nice Nude Grill Sausage with plenty of sauce? ;-)
Anyway...come Monday I hadn't really recuperated from lack of sleep, but I was still coherent enough to actually do my job, and also give my room a semblance of actually NOT looking like a tornado zone. Those who know me will know that this is the state a room inhabited by my good self takes on VERY SOON after I occupy it. I don't do tidy - it makes it so much harder to find things...
Anyway...to actually give myself the motivation to get writing again, at the same time I signed up for a writing competition called NaNoWriMo. The challenge? Write a 50,000-word novel inside 30 days. Challenging, yes, but certainly not impossible. As of this moment, I haven't actually started writing the novel proper, but I do have the basic plan outlined, and am pretty much ready to start. So...50,000 words in 26 days? Can it be done? We'll see...
Since then, nothing much of note has really happened. I've just been chugging away at my job, planning my NaNoWriMo and beginning to think about what my next life move will be.
But more on that at another time.
Peace out people. More to follow.
