Class

Yesterday I slept in to recover from my little excursion, and when I woke up I figured I would soon go out and continue exploring Seoul. Yeah, that didn't happen so much. First thing that happened was I caught Mom on Skype. She had to go to work, but soon after we hung up my Dad logged on. We talked for a while, but then he had to get back to work.

As soon as I finished with him, Stellar came online. We chatted for a long time about our travel plans and gushed about graduation and next year's grad school.

Then she had to go to bed, but as soon as she did so, Mimi was there. We talked and laughed about the state of young adult literature these days and pined for the eras of CS Lewis, Brian Jacques, and Garth Nix. When reminiscing about our favorite books to read as middle schoolers, Mimi brought up Laurens Van Der Post's "A Story Like the Wind" and "From a Far Off Place," which are violent and philosophical epics about a French boy, a Portugese girl, their dog, and their bushmen friends growing up in the depths of Africa and surviving in the desert for years while fleeing assassins who want them dead due to various political intrigues. I told her that her definition of "young adult literature" does not resemble our Earth definition.

By then it was late over there in the USA, so Mimi logged off. Just then, Kayli came on and we spent a few hours working out the kinks in our plans for when I get to China. When we had finally booked all our hostels and verified all our timelines, I said goodbye to her, ran through my emails, looked at the clock, and saw that it was 8:00PM.


Well, there went a day. That's okay though, because I was glad to get to catch up with everyone. I went out that night and saw Prince of Persia. (Even though the vast majority of the cast looks in no way Persian despite the film taking place in Persia, I can't resist the chance to watch Jake Gyllenhaal do parkour on the rooftops of ancient cities while making eyes at a snarky princess. Yum.)

This morning I got up early and met Doug over at the kindergarten where he teaches. He introduced me to everyone and let me sit in on one of his classes. The kids in his class are all adorable, and they speak really good English for being so young. I'll be teaching them next time I'm there, after China, and I hope I can keep them under control. They're pretty hyper.

Sorry for the short post, but now it's time to go try to navigate the airport shuttle system so I can pick up Sam. I don't know if I've explained for those of you who don't know, but Samantha is an old friend who I haven't seen in years. She's on her way to Cambodia, but she has a one-day layover in Seoul where I'm going to be showing her around for a day and putting her up for a night. I'm very excited to see her, and I'll tell you all about what we got up to later!