So many zeroes!

Currency conversion is a funny thing. You see so many zeroes on the money in your pocket and it makes you feel quite rich. But then you do the math, and you realize that you've gotta cross a few of those zeroes off in order to get a semblance of how much you actually have. Either way, though, it's a great thing to know that we now both have steady jobs and regular paychecks, and life is great! Add to that the fact that we are now in possession of a working computer again, and it can't really get much better than this....well, I suppose if we weren't half a world away from our friends and family it'd be even better, but then we wouldn't be in Korea, either. But really, though, since we have our Canadian phone and now that we have a computer again, home feels a whole lot closer again.

As Christmas day gets closer, we're trying to figure out just what we want to do with our day off on Thursday. This is going to make for a very new holiday for us, as we get ready to spend our first Christmas completely on our own. The interesting thing about Christmas here is that it's not as big of a holiday in Korea as it is in other parts of the world, so while it is a national holiday, it's pretty much like a shopping holiday in the States - all of the stores are open, and it's just government institutions and schools that are closed. The fact that it's a national holiday at all is testament to the large Christian population in Korea - there's almost literally a church on every street corner here in our part of Daejeon.

The other exciting thing coming up is our winter intensive courses. Starting in the new year, we'll be going into overtime as we run a month of extra-long days. We keep our regular classes, but we add morning classes for any students whose parents sign them up. It'll be really tiring, but really great to be able to have some of our kids every day for the month (especially some of the ones that need a little extra help). It does mean that January will be a very long month, but it'll be very much worth it for the chance to give some of these kids the extra help that they need (and the overtime pay doesn't hurt, either :P). The two ladies in this picture are definitely not part of the group that need extra help - they happen to be two of the smartest students in our school. These are the kind of students that make teaching a pleasure.

I also got a chance to place my very first geocache here in Korea, too. I put the cache together before the computer died, but I had to put its placement on hold until I figured out just how easy the PC방* was to use. Once I learned that, I got the cache into the wild and posted it...and it was first found within two days of being posted. I was quite excited to see my first cache found, and I can't wait to get some more caches placed in town, as the caching is pretty slim here in Daejeon. There's lots elsewhere in Korea - I just have to get to them. (*PC room - essentially an internet cafe, except they're used almost exclusively for gaming...and I'm the 'almost')

All in all, at the moment, life is going swimmingly. We've made it through our first month in Korea, and we've pretty much fallen in love with everything. We came to Korea planning to stay for two years, so that, if we didn't like it here, one year wouldn't seem so long. But, from our experience so far, it definitely doesn't seem unreasonable that signing on for a second year might be a real possibility. So, to all of you out there who are thinking about coming over, please feel free to contact us, and we'll do our best to answer any questions you might have.