Busan?

"Busan Metropolitan City, also known as Pusan is the largest port city in the Republic of Korea. With a population of about 3.65 million, Busan is also South Korea's second largest metropolis, after Seoul. The most densely built up areas of the city are situated in a number of narrow valleys between the Nakdong River and Suyeong River, with mountains separating some of the various districts."-Wikipedia

Sounds lovely.... looks beautiful..... could it be our new "home"? I'm thinking I could use some beach time :) If it's half as great as it sounds, we should have no problem getting people to come visit us!

-Katie

Blues, Korea, and Colds

Last night Kyle and I went to see Kelly Joe Phelps perform at a music hall in Denver. Phelps is one of the most incredible guitarists I've ever seen. His album "Roll Away the Stone" practically introduced me to delta-style acoustic blues. The last time I saw him perform he did a lot with a slide; I was a little disappointed that this time he didn't use his slide once. However, the performance was still excellent. He performed a number of songs I had never heard, as well as several staples like "Sally Ruby" and "Good Night, Irene".

Katie and I recently ordered another book about Korea: "Culture Shock". The book goes into details about living and working in Korea, as opposed to simply visiting. We have also ordered a program that will (hopefully) teach us a little Korean before we take the plunge. I think we both feel that if we can simply learn a few key phrases before we go we'll be much better off.

Fall is in the air here in Colorado. We've had a few days that were significantly cooler, though today the high is back around 90 degrees. A rash of colds seems to be accompanying the cooler weather, as our co-workers (and in my case, about 21,000 fellow students) are dropping like flies. Katie and I are both taking precautions -taking vitamin C, etc.- but I'm not sure how long we will be able to postpone the inevitable...

Eighteen Credits of Bliss

Just to bore everyone, I thought I'd share what I'm doing in college this semester. I'm taking six courses: The Court In Crisis; U.S. Foreign & Military Policy; Leadership Studies; World War II; Intro to Public Administration; Rome and the Caesars.

My favorites are World War II and Rome and the Caesars. I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise, considering I'm a History major. As I'm a Political Science minor, I've taken a litany of course with names like "Political Theory" and "Political Systems and Ideas". The foreign policy class I'm in currently bores me to tears, though I'm definitely learning valuable information. Seriously.

But I've always loved stories, and as history is almost always told as a story, I've always loved history. Take my World War II class, for instance. Last Monday we attended a presentation given by Paul Murphy, Colorado's only living survivor of the U.S.S. Indianapolis disaster. The Indianapolis was the ship that carried the first atomic bomb to the Philippines. It was torpedoed and sunk shortly thereafter, and the few survivors spent several days in the open water before the Navy was even aware of what had happened. The pic, in case you were wondering, is of the Indianapolis. If you're interested, here's a link to a website about it: http://www.ussindianapolis.us/

Things are going well so far this semester. Midterms will be coming up before long, and I'm looking forward to graduation in December.

The True Meaning of Christmas: Record Profits For Our Shareholders

Several months ago I can recall thinking that if we could just persevere until August, we'd really feel close to meeting our goals. Now that it's September, I can report that I was right. Three and-a-half more months of school, and Katie and I will be able to breath again.

Of course, school is intense. Between my six classes I had to buy 22 books; I'm on campus two days a week, from 8:30am until 6:45pm. But in many ways it doesn't really matter how challenging things get this semester, since it's my last as an undergrad.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to work full-time. As is the nature of retail, things are escalating toward an inevitable climax that will be reached on December 24th. I'm always reminded of that Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon that I used to watch each year as a kid. Remember how Snoopy capitalizes on Christmas by covering his doghouse in advertisements and lights? It's a little known fact that Snoopy is actually head of the marketing department for my company. There's no better way to condition oneself to hate the holidays than to serve a tour of duty in retail.

The pic is of me, enjoying a hot beverage at work. As you might have guessed from my tired expression, the beverage is caffeinated.

Just idling for now....

Not much to report here. While South Korea is on our minds everyday, so is work and school and everything else. I find it hard to devote lots of time to Korea when so many other things are going on. Not to mention that there isn't much we can do at this point except maybe start learning basic Korean and try to pin point a location where we would like to live. I'm trying mentally to feel more comfortable about these huge decisions like whether to use a recruiter or not, and where exactly we should settle down. We have mostly decided it would be best to fly over there on one way tickets and find Aaron a job when we land, rather than signing a contract before we leave and being surprised to find out that either the school or our apartment isn't quite like we were told. To me, this is rather freaky and could be a headache but "adventuous me" is kinda excited about it. We plan to save enough money to live in a hotel until Aaron can find work and I have read that it shouldn't be too difficult to find a job, so I'm crossing my fingers we are choosing to do the right thing.
I've been thinking about the securities I need to have with me while I'm gone that will help me through times like our unavoidable homelessness and here's what I want at all times:
God's word inbedded in my head ready to recite
God's word in my bible
A phone that can be used to call home at any moment and that can receive calls from home too (my parents don't use the internet.... they don't even have call waiting. My dad thinks it's rude :) - I heard from a friend that there is a phone through the internet with a local number from home that may be what we need. We'll have to look into it.
An IPod with all my favorite songs
Internet
My pillow
Pictures of all my friends and family
Money to fly home at a moments notice

So for the next few months, we're looking into learning basic Korean and saving money.
The nice thing about going over there first is that we are on our own time frame. We can decide exactly when we want to leave and be more prepared to leave the country. We'll have to quit our jobs and move everything into storage. Sigh, what a huge deal.....
-Katie