It is sunny and windy today in Busan. The temperature is cold. I do not like it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a sample of the average daily conversations I have here in the Big K. Simple, shallow, and easy as pie. I swear my language skills deteriorate a little more every day. I find myself speaking slowly and as clearly as possible to even my native English-speaking friends sometimes, only to receive an offended-sounding, "Are you patronizing me?" I moved to the other side of the world to open my mind and to gain more knowledge of how the world outside of America functions; but apparently I have to sacrifice the fluency of my own language in order to make room for the new information that is crowding my mind. Argh. (See what I mean?)

I recently started to teach an adult class at my school. I was so nervous about this prospect because the students are made up primarily of the math and science teachers at my institute and, therefore, I felt extra pressure to do a really good job. This enormous pressure weighed down on my already heavy-laden shoulders (ha) for two reasons: (1) I was terrified they would think I was a bad teacher and they would report me to my boss and then, as a consequence, I would be deported back to the States (a black mark on my record I would just assume live without). (2) Adults , even though I am technically an adult, have always terrified me for some reason. I find them to be intimidating and evil; but if I'm honest with myself, I will admit that I feel this way mainly because I can't feed adults as much BS as I feed the little kiddies. I actually have to know what I'm talking about and (horror of horrors) I must be prepared. Today, however, was my third class with the adult teachers/students and I realized, with a jolt of surprise and excitement, that I love teaching adults. I love it. I never would have guessed it to be true, seeing as how I loved working with the little ones so much last year. But the students in my adult class know enough English to communicate and they're so much fun to talk to. And, to make my life a little bit better, my other classes are comprised of mainly middle school and high school students; two age groups I'm finding to be mentally stimulating and flat out hilarious. Life in Korea is too good....

In other news, today I picked up what I thought was a red bedspread that I had ordered last week from a little bedding and curtain store I found a few blocks down the street from my building. Turns out, it's only a mattress pad. Crap. I guess I need to be creative and try to figure out how to make it work for the look I'm going for ("the look" being an actual blanket). Oh the joys of living in another country and not speaking the language.

OK, my three-hour break is up. It's time to go to class.