Sunday School

Cara and I teach Sunday School at Mission Baptist Church. Its pretty fun, and at times it can be pretty interesting. We teach the 4&5 year olds and, in my opinion, these are the cutest kids because they're getting pretty intelligent at this point and are just fun to talk to. Today we mentioned to a woman named 'Nita that we taught 4&5 yr olds, and she was like "I guess it'll make you guys wanna not have kids for a while huh?" Cara and I looked at each other and laughed, and 'Nita picked up on it (it = Cara is pregnant) pretty quick.

Anyway, one of the first things that makes it so interesting is that our class has both American and Korean kids. The Korean kids don't speak English very well (if they even speak cause some are shy), but they are 4&5 and speak it better than I speak Korean. But it helps that I can read and write Hangeul! Its actually come in handy a few times. For instance, today, we had done our craft, story and activity time, and had to think of something else for the kids to do. Well, the Korean kids are the better artists of the group and they enjoy making crafts and coloring pictures, so I decided to draw their names in Hangeul blocks. Boy that worked! One kid, Jae Ho (재호), wanted two of them! Sweet. But, nonetheless, we still had too much time left, so that didn't work too well. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Korean and English kids. Right. So I don't speak korean, and they always speak korean to me. So, I generally try and guess whats going on. I sometimes get it, sometimes don't. Also, I borrowed a friends book and looked up a few phrases. Guess what the first phrase I looked up was? "Sit Down!" Though they are good at crafts, boys will be boys, and boys like to run around and hit peeps/things. Well, I can't say much Korean, but "anjeuseyo" [앉으세요] worked like a charm.

The American kids are definitely a handful. You put certain combinations together and madness ensues. Today was probably the worst. Instead of 1 set of friends we had 2. (three actually, but the third set of friends behaved wonderfully) Some of the children who sat together play off each other and things would get progressively louder and more obnoxious. Cara could hear some of them in the bathroom across the hall from our classroom. So when story time came around, we separated them. However, some of the ones we separated would just stop dead in their tracks and not do anything cause they were sad and mad I suppose. Then crayons start getting thrown around, along with paper getting ripped, and random things getting water colors on them. One of the more annoying things the kids can do is when you say something like "let's stand up!" or "lets clean such and such!" they say "no!" I'm thinking "You don't have a choice kiddo..." but obviously a.) they're not my kids and b.) its truly not that serious. So i find another way to convince them pick it up, or they come up with an alternative. Fine by me, as long as you pick up those crayons ;-).

Well, I have a 0600 swim workout with a co-worker, so we'll see how much swimming i remember from USAFA. probably not too much, but, I'll get a work-out none the less.

My Week in Pictures

We drove to Seoul on Tuesday during the Korean holiday of Chusok, which is comparable to our Thanksgiving. The Koreans all travel to their 'grandfather's farms' if they still have them, and visit the graves of relatives. Many Koreans follow some shamanist traditions, believing that the dead interfere in the lives of relatives if their souls are not satisfied, so when they visit the graves they bring alcohol and food to leave, and bow in worship of their ancestors. We hiked up a mountain in downtown Seoul and saw much of this. The pictures of the traditions are on my film camera, but here are some of the scenery shots.



















































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Here are a few of the flowers on the walk from base to our apartment.





And this is the continuation of the Mattress Video you have all been clamoring for (especially you, Grandma!)

Our New Mattress

So, remember that earlier post about the tale of two mattresses? Well, here's part two to that story.

For labor day weekend I'm heading back to the DC area because my Best Man is getting married, and my parents have our mattress sitting in the house ready for me to pick it up. Cara and I have done some research and assume that since the mattress is too big for APO/FPO shipment, that the only route is air cargo shipment. My dad mentions that its too big for a small car, so I change the rental car I have already reserved from and Mid-Size to an SUV.

So I get home, and place the mattress in the back of the SUV and drive from Bowie, MD to Fairfax, VA for Ty's wedding festivities. Fairfax is pretty close to Dulles so I figure I'll have no problem shipping it by air cargo. Boy was I wrong. As it turns out, unless you are a company, Delta or Korean Air Lines doesn't want to talk to me. I have to talk to a freight forwarding company, like FedEx. Great.

So, after all the wedding festivities are all over, I head back to Bowie with the mattress in back of my car. I do some more research on FedEx.com and after creating a fedex.com account, I find out that my package is too light to be shipped by freight forwarding. Then it hits me... I could have had FedEx come and pick the mattress up from my parents house as soon as they received it. I could've had our mattress over a month ago! Oh well, water under the bridge. So dad and I take the mattress to FedEx Annapolis and ship it. Dad mentions that the clerk wasn't the brightest, but I thought everything was cool. That was labor day, and I flew back to Korea the morning of the 4th.

Cara receives a message from FedEx Annapolis that says I forgot to sign the waybill and it can't go out. Great... But, thank the lord, they send it anyway. After about a week has passed, we haven't heard anything, and wondering whats happening to our mattress. I realize that I've tossed my tracking number, and try calling FedEx Annapolis and corporate, but nothing. So I'm completely lost and worried about the location of the mattress.

Well, FedEx calls us and informs us that our mattress is stuck at customs, so she gives them my cell number and FedEx calls me that afternoon. They ask how much it was worth, whether it was brand new or whatnot, and after all was said and done, I was on the hook for a 20% tax! Whoa! So I mention that I'm under SOFA (status of forces agreement), and that changes everything. No import taxes!!! :-D. It gets released through customs and the very next day, we have our mattress!

So we've been sleeping on our new mattress for a while now, but we finally transfered the video of us opening it from the camera to the computer. So, here it is: The "jack-in-the-box" mattress.

Tiger Crawl

This is a video from the recent 'Tiger Crawl', when my squadron toured some of the more interesting bars off base. This is one example of that 'interestingness'. They are 'jaeger bombs' which is Red Bull and Jeager, and the bartender put the shot on toothpicks so it would balance at the top of the glass. Watch to see what he did next!

Classes

Just a quick note to say... I aced my first master's class! Woohoo!

As many of you know I have been writing a paper for the last two months for my Research Methods class. I finally turned it in late Sunday night (or was it early Monday morning?), and got the grade back today. That means I am officially done with my first masters class! I don't mean to brag, but I feel like it, and this is my page... I got a 100 in the course :-) including rave reviews from my instructor about my approx. 30-page rational choice analysis paper on the Chonger (as we affectionately call Kim Jong Il, also known in acronym-ese as KJI).

My next class (which is Intelligence Profiling - should be super interesting) starts in November (the school wisely doesn't start classes in October because most of the students depend on government funding), so now I have ridiculous amounts of free time. I've been in this class since April, before Will got here, so it'll be interesting to have worry-free, and homework-free, evenings again!

Umm... Kia?

So... this is what I do when I'm procrastinating while supposedly writing a paper... I went to the site to see if I could find out what 'Kia' really means, because in Korean it means 'a rejected child' or something similar. Turns out, it's a combination of Chinese characters that means 'to arise and come up out of Asia'. Or so they say. Anyway, like all Korean corporate websites, if they don't have some random anime interaction nobody would buy their products, so here is my contribution to the gallery of Kia oddness. Enjoy!