Shorter posts...and maybe more of them...

Ok, so now that I have an iPod touch I probably will be able to post more often. For instance, it is about 11:16pm and I am posting from bed with Charity asleep next to me.

Topic for tonight is the equivalent to the DMV in Korea. My international driver's license from the US expired on the fifth so I needed to get it renewed or go and get my Korean driver's license. The slightly more permanent option of a Korean license appealed to me so Mr. Goh, one of the other teachers and I set out to obtain these two Americans their local license.

First we had to ride the subway to the Samsung subway stop and walk to our destination about three blocks away. Done.

Then we stood in the first of what would end up being many different lines for the day. This first lady curtly informed us that we would have to get more pictures for the other teacher and that we needed to go to the physical exam. Done.

We took our increasing stack of papers with us from the main building to a low-slung building in the complex and proceeded to take the "physical."

Now this was no run of the mill physical. No way. First, you walk right by the eye exam boards that you will have to stand much further away to read a few characters that a busy Korean woman pointed to with a…pointer scant minutes later. I was little nervous about having to do it Korean but luckily she knew 영오 (English) and I passed simply and quickly.

While I was standing in this line I was lucky enough to take, what I am affectionately calling, the "squat-stand-honk-honk test.". Basically I had to squat down Korean style, stand up and with my hands facing forward at shoulder level had to make a "twinkle-twinkle" with my hand. Hence my name for it: the "squat-stand-honk-honk test."

From there we paid at another line, stood in another to have another document signed off on and on to take our test.

The test consisted of twenty random questions on a computer. I don't know what was worse, the English on the test or the fact that on some questions I only had a vague notion of what the question was asking. For instance, one of the question began "what mind should you have as you approach a cross-street:" and the rest were way worse...

From there we proceeded to the last two lines. The first of which we surrended our American licenses and the last where we were issued our Korean licenses.

In total we only spent…3+ hours in this process from leaving school to returning.

Another one for the memories!

Hope all who read this are doing well and if you are facebook jump on out to charityanddaniel2008.blogspot.com and leave a comment including additions, subtractions and comments about this or any other posts that you might see.

Thanks for reading and as always More to come...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hi I know it has been awhile…

Who are those two sitting there about a year ago? They look and act like tourists! Don't they understand what is coming?



One year later we sit looking both forward and backwards (don't worry, not at the same time… that would be painful) and realize that God has been good to us this past year.

We have enjoyed our students immensly, we travelled around Korea and out the Philippines and back. We added to our household through a little dog Mia, gained new friends and experienced untold new things. We lost a bit of money through a robbery and all our debt through some hard work and God's grace.

I have grown closer to my wife and to my God.

We have enjoyed new foods and new favorite dishes.

All in all it has been a great year and it will be fun to see where this year will take us in location, spiritual walk and mental knowledge.

Love to all and have a wonderful new year from Charity and Daniel

As always “More to come”

Hello Again from Seoul…

After not being able to sleep this Sunday morning, I decided to get up and work on lesson plans and some school work.  Upon sitting down with my laptop, I realized that I really didn’t want to work on school work and would rather blog.

 

Let me catch you up on some of the events of the past couple of weeks. 

 

First, we had our opening week of school at SCS and many teachers used that week to prepare students for some of the academic hardships they were facing this semester in their various classes.  This year, I am teaching a new class…SPEECH, which I am enjoying thoroughly, but I am not sure my students are yet.  Aside from our robbery, the week at school passed rather uneventfully.

 

Second, on the last day of that first week, Matt and Aaron Collier came to present some material for the camp they would be overseeing here in Seoul.  Our students were going to have the opportunity to experience camp as it is in America! 

 

During the second week of “school”, the teachers became counselors for a wonderful (if tiring) week of camp.  The students, while still students, were able to find out what American camp was all about.

 

You have to understand, these students do go to camps here in South Korea.  These camps though are more military and regimented than the WILDS, Southland, Northland, Co-Be-Ac and the like.  Talking out of turn can lead to severe, very extended punishments such as the “drop and give me 20” or prolonged calisthenics. 

 

The time is usually devoted to intensive study, Bible or otherwise, and other free times are devoted to all kinds of other…less wholesome activities. 

 

Imagine the surprise of these students when their teachers started screaming and cheering!  It took a LOT of effort to get them all into it at first, but they eventually came ‘round and I think we all had a fun time…well maybe that is not completely true.

 

I think it was good for our students to see us as counselors as I hope that they will be able to approach us much more easily.  Many of them made wonderful decisions and I look forward to what the Lord is going to do for the next couple of months in their lives.

 

This brings me to my third point.  It seems that many of our students and teachers fell ill.  There has been some talk that some of these cases were H1N1 and some of those that did get sick, got really sick.  However, while none of them enjoyed being sick I am sure, all of them recovered with the unfounded fears of the H1N1 virus!

 

While the level of work this year has been extraordinarily high this year, it has been wonderful to have the school full with the students again.  God blesses by giving more than we can handle and then taking care of those things we cannot!

 

More to come…