a few days ago, an old man asked me how to get to 강변 station. i told him to take the 신청 direction. he understood and thanked me. i couldn't believe i had just given directions in Korean to a Korean in Korea. that truly made my day.

i realized that more than receiving emails from fellow friends from the states, the highlight of my day is the busride to/from work. i love just listening to my ipod and looking at the fascinating streets of Korea. it still boggles my mind how 20 minutes can go by so quickly. as soon as i see my stop for work, my happiness level drops from about a 10 to a 4. *shrug* at least i still manage to have some happiness left.

i realized that little kids LOVE attention. of course this is something i always knew, but my realization only grew. when i teach my 3rd grade class, every single one of those students LOVES to raise their hands and say something that would interest me. i'm not much of a child-lover, but some of those kids i can't help but love to death. i really have to resist favortism when i teach that class.

yesterday, i went to my cousin's school's musical. this is the same cousin who is a SDA, mind you, and his school is also a SDA school. i swear, i've never seen so many Adventists all clustered together in my life. but as cynical as i was, the musical was really really good. i understood most of the dialogue and even caught some of the jokes. i was especially entertained by the traditional drumming dance that they added in the middle. even when KCN busted out with the 장구춤, i felt extremely proud to be a Korean. i'm no fob, but i definitely see much beauty and pride in our native culture. it was so cool cause even the audience was causing a commotion when the drummers came out. it almost felt like i was part of a World Cup audience or something. freaking cool.

anyways, the musical was really good cause it was about a woman from back in the day who was supposed to get married to her husband. it turned out that he was a fake, and she was really distressed about not having her right marriage. in the end, she learned to wait patiently and have faith in meeting her real husband in the future. of course, the point was that Christ is our perfect husband and He will one day come on an unexpected day, so we must wait patiently and gladly. good stuff.

추석, Korea's Thanksgiving, is this coming week, so i am going to 서락산 with my dad and some relatives. the crazy thing is that we're going with my two oldest cousins' families whom i don't have a lick of memory of. my cousins' kids, my nephews, are actually around my age-22, 21, 20, and 14 or something like that. my dad actually spent like an hour explaining our family tree and history. it turns out that my extended family has a gang of problems, and it's all unspoken and implicit. as my dad explained, MY family may not have the most money, but ours is the most envied because of our healthy relationships with one another. my dad says it's truly a blessing from God, and he thanks the Lord for it all the time. i couldn't agree any more.

today was father/son bonding day. because we couldn't get in contact with our close family friends, my dad took me out to some 감자탕! i guess my dad had been waiting a long time to be able to drink with his son, so we ate, drank, and were very merry. we talked about the good ol' days like how he used to buy me dinosaur toys even though my mom told him not to and how my grandma used to pray every night for an hour cause she would literally pray for every single person she knew in her life. my dad can't drink for crap, but we had a really good time tonight.

because i don't see my Korean improving too much, i'm trying to be a little more proactive about it. i went to Korea's biggest bookstore (and lemme tell you, it's HUGE! just ask Janet Chong Bong about it!) and bought a Speaking Korean for beginners book. i also recently found out that my phone had a Korean/English dictionary in it! i cannot tell you how wonderfully beneficial that is for me. haha. please pray that God would teach me Korean, so that i would be able to better serve Him through stronger and more effective communication.

Thought of the Day: Exit.
Song of the Day: Lord's Prayer Song