Tri-monthly review

Three months survived as of today! 25% of the way there already. Seems a lot, and yet kinda not that much too. I'm sure the long cold winter is gonna drag much more, but for now we're in the midst of what I'm told is an unseasonably warm spell. It still feels like midsummer. Homesickness is still absent I'm glad to say. My sources back home told me to expect it to kick in after the third month, but I remain cold-heartedly immune. Not everyone feels the same as me, I know some people are feeling the pull of home pretty strongly right now. Personally I'm quite happy to be here for now. If I'm honest, I did feel a few pangs of 'oh my god what have we done' in the first week here, especially when coming back to my empty room at night, but that soon evaporated. Next week is Chuesok, the Harvest Moon Festival, which is I think something akin to the American Thanksgiving. Everyone goes back home to visit their families, and they pay respect to their ancestors. The more significant factor for us teachers is that we get a week off work - probably the only full week I'm gonna get until next summer when I leave, and I'm especially excited as I'm going to Japan with Amy and Christa. A note of explanation: when I post the photos of the trip, don't be surprised to only see me and Christa in the photos - Amy has forbidden us to publish any of her online; I think she's either in witness protection or she's an international felon. Although I just said I'm quite happy here, I'm not sure that I would pick South Korea as my country of choice if I was to do this over again. I don't know where I would pick, but Seoul is so commercialised, that really it feels that this could be any (densely populated) city in the world sometimes, save for the language differences. Maybe that's unfair though. I've yet to venture beyond the city (as have most of us) so I guess that's like judging the whole of the UK on a few months spent it London. I guess the answer is to get out more. That shall be mission for the next month. Another goal I'm setting for myself is to keep up with the Korean lessons. I haven't had any proper lessons yet - our schedules fluctuate so much it's a little hard to plan - but I've just got a computer program that I'm trying to spend an hour a day on. So far I've not used much more than a hello or a thank you 'in the wild' but I haven't been intensely practicing before this past week so I hope to improve soon. Oh, and Emma's definitely staying. For the time being.