Posting sans pix

Sometimes it's good to just "free write" like the school children do in language arts class. I am writing this on my lunch hour at Seoul Foreign School today, and so there will be no photo to illustrate. What am I doing here? I feel blessed to have this chance to be a long term substitute teacher in the elementary school's ESL department. I have only 12 students in 3rd through 5th grade to work with, starting last Monday (November 17), and ending in late January or early February 2009, whenever the regular teacher is ready to resume her position. She had to return to her native land (England) for some medical reasons, and I was selected to fill in during her extended absence. What a delightful place to spend my time, with some wonderful little people, bright eyed, exuberant, ready to learn so much and share their smiles so readily. Love it!

I have thanked the Lord numerous times in the past few years that I had the inspiration and foresight to get "cross-trained" in teaching ESL, while I was working as a special ed teacher in Utah. My work life has evolved from SPED to ESL in the past 2 or 3 years in Korea. I don't know what the future holds for me, but I do know I am enjoying my current work, and that is a grand feeling! Many employees can barely tolerate their jobs, yet cannot risk a resignation at such a shaky time in the world's economic troubles. But Norm and I both enjoy the work that we have here, and actually look forward to going to the workplace every day. Imagine that!

Thanksgiving is coming this week. We have already celebrated with gatherings at our home, lots of social contact, good traditional food etc. What's missing, of course, is our extended family! We are thankful for our #1 daughter, Rebecca, who is living with us for another 10 days before returning to Utah for the holiday season there. We have had a really lovely autumn season with her here. She has enjoyed her time here too, so it looks very likely that she will come back again sometime in early 2009. Korea sort of grows on people. It's funny. I have heard from so many people after they leave here and move on to their next location. Inevitably, they always say how much they miss Korea! I keep that in mind before I complain too loudly about anything here. I really am thankful for our comfortable situation, living here now for nearly 5 years.

But, about those family members.....They are all staying quite busy, and constructively occupied. Yet, something keeps reminding me that time is passing, and I continue to miss out on the day-by-day little things, especially in the miracle of growth and learning that is happening within Calvin Craig. If I think about it too long (especially as the winter holidays are approaching) I will get downcast and lonely, so it's better to just revel in the photos, video, and webcamming we can do. We have our appointment set with Michael and Eleanor for Thanksgiving afternoon, to get our "family fix" for the week.

M and E sold a family car for us this past week. That's a sign of the times, when we are finally able to downscale, from 5 cars in the family to 4! What's interesting is the income a used car produces these days. They say that so many cars are being sold by people, that a used car with a number of little or big problems won't sell very readily. So we jumped at the chance to unload one of ours that is not worth fixing, most likely. A buyer appeared, unsolicited, and we made a big profit of $350 on it! Whoopee!

Speaking of transportation, ours in Seoul is so convenient. The traffic here is absurd, and if it wasn't for the subway system, we would be trapped in the city congestion virtually round the clock. But, we live right at a subway exit, in a very central part of the subway system, so we can easily get to virtually anywhere we want to go, by walking about 100 meters to the turnstile, from our apartment building's elevator. And, as we learned during our visit to Tokyo this past spring, our top-quality subway system costs only about half as much as the Japanese equivalent, and Seoul is much less complicated to navigate, too!

I am in charge of a big international Christmas party next month! It was my idea to begin with, (the theme) and I am gathering lots of support and positive input, so it's exhilarating, and will certainly help me enjoy the Christmas season more (at least until it's over on December 20th!)
I will just have to blog a special posting to "show and tell" all about it.

It looks like we will be hanging around Korea during the Christmas break, too. We had dreams of a tour with the "Royal Asian Society" to North Vietnam and Angkor Wat (Cambodia) at the end of December, but I learned today that the tour has been cancelled because of too few participants. So, it's clear that folks are holding onto their money more these days! That's OK...We will just do some local exploring around Korea on day trips, and be happy. Maybe a little blogging will get done, too!