All that Jazz...

Hey Everyone! Still hanging in here in Korea and the countdown is getting louder and louder. I can tell that time is moving (very quickly on the weekends, but like molasses during the week). Here we are already in the middle of October and are down to 11 weeks until Christmas and 14 teaching weeks left. Since the job is simply so draining and stressful, I am really just focusing on squeezing every ounce of fun that I can on the weekends. The past weekend was the Jarasum International Jazz Festival hosted in little old Gapyeong (the city that I live in). We were quite excited as this is the only event this city is known for, and we were going to be here for the festivities. The festival started on Thursday night and we lucked out with a 4-day week. That Friday (10/3) was a national holiday. We went to dinner on Thursday night with a big group of us and decided to wait until Friday to go to the Jazz Fest. The main acts started around 4 pm and we arrived shortly thereafter. Now truth be told, I am not a huge jazz fan and really don't know much about it, but as anyone who knows me well can tell you, I LOVE to listen to live music. There is nothing I love more than to sit in the grass and lay back and listen to music. And so that is what we did. We stayed until the end at 10 pm and really enjoyed it all. We did get quite cold by the end of the night and made plans to return on Sunday night a little more prepared.
So Sunday night we went back with 2 boxes of chicken, a 7-month anniversary cake, wine, cheese, crackers and blankets. We were set. There were great performances by all the acts. We really enjoyed ourselves.
Teaching this week was OK. We had elementary school kids, who could not be sweeter, but are difficult to control. I am teaching Clinic and Restaurant. I will teach that station again next week, but we will have middle school boys and girls. Hopefully, they will be quiet and smart! (ha ha) We had the Korean Educational Broadcast Channel come to the camp this week to do a profile on our school and program. Since I am the head teacher of the student program, I will be going to the studio this Friday for an interview. If there is a link to the story when it is televised, I will post it here. Should be interesting.
This Friday, we had a team-building event on Nami Island. This is a small island just about 15 minutes away that is quite the tourist attraction. It is really pretty with lots of open spaces just to walk around in. We had a treasure hunt and then a game of kickball. We only had about half an hour to walk around, so Gail and I decided to go back today and spend more time wandering. It was really pretty. I will post some pics as soon as I get them uploaded.
Next weekend, we are planning to go to Busan which is a port city on the southern tip of Korea. I don't know how much there is to do there, but I wanted to see it before I left and I think next month it will be getting too cold for me to want to do anything!
Keep the prayers and the emails coming. I miss you all SO MUCH. xxoo