Dang, I sort of lost track of the time this month. I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post! I don't even have the excuse of any exciting or time-consuming adventures - the last few weeks have been relatively quiet.

After a really beautiful fall, it's definitely gotten cold here. It's still sunny most days and very dry here - I think it's only rained once or twice the entire time I've been in Daegu. Even though it's pretty nice and not even very cold, I might still buy another coat - in school, the teacher's room and classrooms are (usually) heated, but the hallways and bathrooms are not. Everyone just wears coats everywhere - even to teach or work at their desks in. I don't really like it - it's uncomfortable and weird for me to eat and work in a coat, but I'm sure it's much cheaper and more efficient than heating the entire building. Koreans also have a thing for fresh air - outside doors and windows are left wide open in the hallways, even though it's cold, and sometimes there's even a window left open in the heated teachers room. Have I mentioned that everyone wears sandals indoors? Yeah, it's cold.

On the 9th I had my open class. Every native English teacher has to teach a class for at least one supervisor and two other native teachers. I was a bit nervous, but it really wasn't that stressful - Carrie and I chose a lesson that I had already done with my first-graders, and the supervisor and two native teacher were the only people that showed up (my principal didn't even stick around for the whole class). It's all pretty fake - I guess at most schools they take the best students, stick them in the fanciest classroom, and teach an easy lesson. It's definitely not representative of my normal classes or teaching ability!

November 11th was "Pepero Day" in South Korea. Pepero are long skinny cookies that are dipped in chocolate or some other flavor, and since the date is 11/11 and the 1's look like pepero, children exchange it. It's kind of interesting - Pepero Day is a very young holiday, maybe only twenty years old, and in Korea pepero is manufactured by only one company, a huge corporation called Lotte. So a lot of people believe that Lotte started this holiday on purpose to increase their sales! But it really caught on, and at school teachers and students were giving each other pepero (couples often exchange it as well). Like our Valentine's Day, only cheaper and with less pressure.

Last Saturday, the 21st, Mark, Jayson, Vince, Jeannine and I headed to the city of Gwangju to visit some fellow EPIKers there. After a three-hour bus ride we met our host Amanda (the same Amanda that went with us to Busan), and after dropping off our stuff and hanging out at her apartment for awhile, we hit the town for a night out. Gwangju is a smaller than Daegu, but we still managed to keep ourselves occupied until 5:30 Sunday morning! We ate a fantastic Korean meal, hit up a few bars, danced for a few hours at Club Houze, and of course a night out isn't complete without an hour or two of noraebang. We left Gwangju at 6:40 Sunday morning after being up all night, and I slept for the entire bus ride home and most of the rest of Sunday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I taught my students a little bit about it (they loved pictures from the Internet of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade) and had Italian food on the day of with my 'family' here - other EPIKers in Daegu. It wasn't quite the same as being at home but I'm definitely thankful for having such a solid group here.

My new goal here is to write shorter posts more often so it's not such a project anymore (for me to write and you to read!). Thanks for reading, check back soon and keep in touch!