First week frazzles

It's week one of our summer term and things have been busy busy lately. I'm teaching three new classes including a class called Speaking and Writing that's specifically geared toward helping students prepare for taking the TOEFL exam someday. I honestly didn't even know that class existed until I found out during week 13 that I would be teaching it, so I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed. It will actually be a nice change since it's completely different from everything else I teach but since it's so new to me I'm already looking forward to getting that first class it of over and done with.

It's also that time when old teachers leave and new teachers arrive so there's been a lot of coworker get-togethers lately. Those tend to go well into the night so I've been pretty tired and just haven't had a chance to sit down and update much here. But things have been going well. The weather is amazing right now and for the past couple weekends a few of us went on trips with Adventure Korea, a group that basically organizes outings to different places in the country. So I have loads of pictures and things to share and hopefully once this first week is over I'll have some down time to take care of that. 

Last week was also a bit crazy because my boyfriend and I were finalizing vacation plans. Trying to decide on flights and hotels though while you're talking over Skype with a crummy connection really doesn't make for smooth planning. But we're all booked now! We have non-stop flights to and from Vietnam and just finished booking hotels for the week. We're starting the week in Hanoi, traveling down to Hue for a few days, and then coming back up to Hanoi to fly out. We also considered Ho Chi Minh which would have been awesome but I don't think a week would be enough to see all that and there's no point in rushing around to different cities just to say you saw them if you won't actually get to see much of them.

So that's what's been going on lately. Nothing crazy exciting, just keeping busy and enjoying the springtime and tackling new classes. Much more interesting updates to come soon!

Trivia of the Day: Park Chan-wook (박찬욱)) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. One of the most acclaimed and popular filmmakers in his native country, Park is most known for his films Joint Security Area, Thirst and what has become known as The Vengeance Trilogy, consisting of 2002's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy in 2003 and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance in 2005. His films are noted for their immaculate framing and often brutal subject matter.Despite extreme violence in his films, Park is regarded as one of the most popular film directors in Korea, with three of his last five feature films (Joint Security Area, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) all drawing audiences of over 3 million. This makes Park the director of three films in the thirty all-time highest grossing films in South Korea. In addition to being a film director and screenwriter, Park is also a film critic with several published editions to his name. None have been translated into English as yet.