So the end of July is upon us. Summer is going by so fast and soon the cold wind of winter will be here before you know it.

So let's see lately things have been cool. I've done a lot of eating so to speak. Trying different foods and restaurants. My friend Wu took me to this Turkish restaurant in Suwon a few weeks ago. It was my first time having Turkish food and I enjoyed it and will be heading back there again.

The same guy also told me about a birthday celebration for someone at a thai restaurant. It was my first time trying thai food as well and that was good. It's a shame all the different restaurants around my area and I haven't been to none of them. When I get back home, I will be trying Arab food, Thai again, Japanese, etc, and find me a Korean restaurant to go to in the city.

Hmm let's see what else..I tried a food called Tak Toritang which is spicy chicken boiled or something with potatoes, peppers, and noodles. I had this while eating with some of my friends up in the Pocheon area. One of them Joe, had his sister visiting for two or three weeks and that was her last night there so we all had a going away dinner.

I've been looking for people that are into the arts to hang out with and I went to this art gallery with some people I found on meetup.com.

Cool people and one of the ladies there reminded me EXACTLY of my senior thesis teacher back at HU. Only she is like a white version of her. My friends know that I am talking about Dr. Bontemps.

Anyways I exchanged numbers with some people, I even met a guy from France and a woman who works as a translator..she speaks English, Korean, and French.

Gives me inspiration. Ultimately I want to speak Korean, Spanish, French, and Japanese. Hard task? Sure...but it can be done. Maybe not by the time I'm 30, but it can lol.

My Korean is coming along fine. I am starting to pick up words from the Koreans around me and I watch Korean television. It is also good to watch the American shows and put the show on mute and try to read the Korean subtitles. I know how to read the Korean language (with all the symbols and whatnot), I just don't know what it means. My coteacher is helping me, and I am also learning from a website. I hope to be at least 75% fluent by the time I leave here which means I'm gonna have to pick it up.

In the personal life so to speak, I'm finding out a lot about myself.

For starters, it seems that no matter where I go, I come off as stuckup, arrogant, depressed, etc to a lot of people. This is because I don't usually talk a lot when I meet people (other than the introductions and telling about yourself of course), especially if we just have nothing to talk about. Usually people can talk for hours about NOTHING...meaning small talk which my close friends know I can't stand.

But it's hilarious because I can read it right when I meet people. I don't know what I say, but most people I always get this confused look when people talk to me. And one thing about me that I didn't realize is that I can read people VERY well. I really started noticing it when I got here and I started looking back on things in my life. I can usually tell what type of person someone is within five minutes of meeting and talking to them.

When I meet someone or when anyone meets anyone it's like ok, what's your name, where are you from, what do you do, how do you like it in Korea, what made you come here, etc, etc...after that, if we have nothing in common, I'm pretty much content to sit there and let you talk while I put my input in here and there. Although I only do this if the person seems like they just want to talk. If not, I will try to keep the conversation going.

Many people (several here in Korea) have taken this the wrong way and I get the "what's wrong with you" foolishness. It literally pisses me off although I don't show it. I realized this my whole life and at times I would try to "Talk more" with people, but they can instantly see through the fakeness so I just be myself and I get the other reactions stated above.

So basically I say eff it because I'm screwed either way, and just do me. You can't please everyone all the time and I'm content to have a few good friends who understand me and accept me for me, than try to be fake for people just to please them.

People might say I don't like talking...well that's true to an extent. Like I said, if you bring up something of interest, I will talk all day. And even if you don't bring up something I'm interested in, I will listen to you because I like listening more than talking.

The funny thing is, I said I confuse people, well I confuse myself the most so maybe this whole tirade is pretty pointless. Hmmm.....

As for classes, my summer camps are going pretty well. I have one more day then I start the conversational classes, and then I get a week off. Not sure if I'm going anywhere yet (it would be in Korea). I definitely want to go to Thailand in the winter or Guam...yes I said Guam.

That's it for now. Sorry again for the late update folks.

And oh yeah ehre is some Kpop for you guys...I personally like very few songs. I like Korean music, but my taste is pretty similar here to what it was in America. I dislikes mainstream and go for the less known artists.

So 3 months in...Somebody else said this and I like to think of it this way as well. Break the year up into 4 quarters like a game. I've just finished the first quarter and now it's time for the second.

So what has happened since my last post? Well this past week, I finally got sick for the first time over here and I'm still recovering. It was nothing but a sore throat and a cold, but I'm still coughing and dealing with sinuses. I hate sore throats and I use cayenne pepper powder all the time mixed with warm water to gargle and get rid of it quicker. It works although it tastes awful and I hate it everytime I do it. I hate the sore throat more though.

Also right when my sore throat went away, I went to the Noraebang (karaoke room) for the first time here in Korea. The singing room might as well be a pastime for Koreans here. I went with about 10 friends about 2 hours away from me.

We went bowling first for about 2 hours, then headed to the singing room at about 1130 or so. I kid you not we stayed in there singing songs until 5 AM. I only sang about 5 songs even though I'm a little shy when it comes to that stuff, but everybody wanted to hear me sing. I guess because with my laidback personality, they couldn't really picture it. After I was done singing, two people in particular just had all this energy out of nowhere and they were singing their behinds off. I decided to lay down and just watch the rest of the way and be amused.

Afterwards, since the two hour trip back would've been brutal with no rest, some friends let me stay at their place because they had an extra bed. So I rested there for about 4 hours, although it was hard at first because with me still with a slight cold, my sinuses were horrible and I could barely breathe.

After I woke up, I headed back home and just rested for the rest of the weekend, because it felt like I was trying to get the cold back.

Teaching has had its ups and downs lately. Sometimes I get frustrated when some of the kids don't even make an attempt at the lesson I'm trying to teach.

For example, I did a lesson on occupations last week with things such as "I am a pilot and I fly airplanes" or "I am a comedian and I make people laugh" or my favorite, "I am a hobo, and I do nothing".

So afterwards, I would ask the kids to write down what their dream job would be IN ONE SHORT SENTENCE. Some students when called on said they did not have a dream. They didn't do they absurdly easy assignment so I said "Fine, I guess you will be a hobo then..congratulations!"

The other kids would always get a laugh out of that.

I also ripped off a game that I read from another blog called monkeys eat bananas to play with the kids after the dream job. I would have the class divided into teams and present each team with a slide of one of the occupations we just went over. Only this time I would leave the answer blank and the team would have to guess. Once they guess correctly, they would get to roll this makeshift dice that I made out of cardboard. On the six sides, I had 1 banana, 2 bananas, 6 bananas, 1 monkey, 2 monkeys, and 6 monkeys. Bananas are points and monkeys mean you lose points. Each team starts with 3 bananas.

The teams could also chose to roll for another team to try to get them to lose points. It was so funny watching other team trying to knock teams out with more points, only to see them roll 6 bananas and give them even more points.

If any teachers are reading, this is an awesome game to use as a review for 15 or 20 minutes. It gets the kids speaking (because I make them say the whole sentence when they answer) and they have fun. I also rewarded the winning teams with candy.

This is my last week before summer vacation, although starting next week I'll be doing summer camps and then the third week in August, I get a full week off. I wanted to travel somewhere, but I'm choosing to save money for the time being and will travel somewhere warm in the winter.

So that's it for now. I will keep trying to update more. Hello grandma!! :)

Later.