it's that time of year

This is the doorway into my new bedroom. You can see my cool new Chinese lantern Christmas lights (I've always had a weakness for strings of lights) and my new humidifer, which makes my room a nice place to wake up to. No more parched throat because of the heating system.

It's been a while. Sorry for anybody who missed me. We are in our last week of classes here at the university, so I have to finish writing finals with the final exam team, give speaking tests, make Christmas cookies (okay, I don't have to do this) to give out to my kids, etc. I am living in my new apartment most nights, but on busy nights at school and when I have tutoring or want to meet students, I stay here at school. I don't have internet there yet, so that's the main reason for my silence lately.

We just had an end of the year meeting for school where a guy from our conversation office and I were asked to plan some mixer games. We had two planned, but then realized one wouldn't work out, so we just played evolution. It was a hit. We had the first 10 people who became humans win prizes. I was in charge of prizes, so I went the Korean route and bought toilet paper, soap, and toothpaste and wrapped them up (you can see them under my mini tree). When I first moved to Korea, I didn't get the whole idea of useful presents (toilet paper or laundry detergent as a housewarming gift), but now I really like it.

Yesterday, we had our English department dinner at a nice restaurant downtown and some of us went to a park down the street afterwards where the pond is frozen and they have sprayed some of the trees with water and lit up to make a nice background, plus they have a long ice slide and some sculptures. We went a little picture crazy. They also have these little things that look like toilets that you can sit on and push yourself around with sticks (as seen below). Looked like a grand time, but we didn't join in that.

(Fighting is a Korean way to say go for it, or some other term of encouragement. The Chinese way is jai-yo!)

I hope for all of us that we can rest and reflect a little in the coming weeks. It's a good season!