Hangul

It was cool enough this morning that I actually wore a sweater to work, but now, this afternoon, it's pretty sunny. All the English teachers are going out to lunch in about twenty minutes. It will be nice to have an excuse to walk around outside.

Today was supposed to be my first Korean lesson with Mrs. Lee, the English teacher that is my co-teacher (not my host mother, Mrs. Lee). But then a bunch of teachers wanted me to come with them to the small store at the school to eat some snacks. I learned that when a teacher wears a new dress, she buys her friends snacks as a celebration. So instead of studying Korean, we all ate snacks. Though Mrs. Lee did speak a few sentences of Korean to me, one meaning, "What do you want to drink?" and the other meaning, I think, "Are you going to pray?" I don't remember either of them now, though maybe I could recognize them.

All the teachers at one time lead the morning worship meeting, and she wanted to know if I'm going to. There are a number of reasons why I'd rather not, of course, but I don't know how it will turn out. She also told me (in English) that she hasn't heard from the woman at SOS, who was supposed to call her when she got back from her vacation. So it's unclear whether or not I'll actually be teaching at SOS today--it was supposed to be my first day. I used to be nervous about my first day at SOS, but at this point I don't really mind whether I teach today or not until after Chuseok.

Not much else is new. I really enjoy this fall weather, though my allergies have been really bad the past couple days. I'm going to Jeonup to go hiking with Rachel. I leave Saturday and we'll hike on Sunday. The traffic is supposed to be horrible, because everyone travels on Saturday and especially Sunday in order to get to their families for Chuseok, but I'll just bring a book. I don't really have anything else to do this weekend, though I'll be hanging out with the host family on Monday and Tuesday, and maybe going hiking here with Mrs. Kim on Wednesday.

Reading: read the first chapter of "Darkness Visible" by William Golding last night. I bought the book when I was in high school because I wanted to read something else by the author of "The Lord of the Flies" but I didn't really get into it then, so I'm giving it a go now. I only read a few pages because I've been in a weird mood--haven't felt like reading, but too lazy to write, for some reason. I ended up listening to some music. Seo Jin interrupted me to help her with her Chinese homework (since I can read Korean I read her the names of the Chinese characters in Korean and she writes the Chinese) which seems to have become a sort of routine for us, which is nice. And then I went to bed a little early. I think the allergies are tiring me out.