No Longer a "Lost Girl!"

I'm too excited to build up to this: I went to the Coatel and back all by myself!!! People who are confused by this excitement should know that I am *terrible* about finding my way around - and I've been especially self conscious since being in Korea. It took me a bit to find the subway station near Suji - I got to the building okay, but had a hard time locating the entrance. Still not sure I could do it again without having to look around first; however, the station map itself is really easy to follow. I'm especially grateful that the signs indicate not only the station name, but which station is next (and which one the train is coming from).

I'm so glad I struck out on my own - I had so much fun with Anna, Christi, and the rest of the small percentage of that GINORMO training group! I've decided that it should be a rite of passage for training groups to go to Dr. Fish - yes, that means I even found *that* (shocking, I know - I had help from Anna :)). It's a great bonding experience, plus it's so much fun. Didn't eat a fish this time =p But I did experience the "other pond" - I like that the fish are bigger, but they didn't attack my heels the way the smaller ones did. If I had to go back, I think I'd return to the pool with the smaller fish since they seem to be able to read my mind and tell where I most want them to attack.

We also went back to that bibimbap cafe - after eating in Suji for a month, I've decided that place is expensive! We can get good bibimbap here for like 4000 KRW, whereas my mushroom bulgogi bibimbap was 8500 at the place in Seoul. So glad I wasn't placed there - everything is so much more expensive.

This week flew for me, but I can imagine that it crawled for everyone at the Coatel. So glad that Anna and Christi made it through :). I'm not sure if training really is that stressful, or if we build it up too much in our minds. If it's the latter, then do we do that to ourselves, or is it something we've inherited from those who have already been through training? Did I make Anna and Christi's week harder because I went on about how awful training was? I also noticed that males and females attack training differently. We get all stressed out and blow things up (see above ;)), whereas guys take it in stride - or, if they do stress, they stress much more hardcore than we do. I just remember the males at our training acting like it was no big deal, and not even seeming to prep. The guys we have here were confused as to how people didn't sleep that week. Maybe they are right - maybe training isn't that big of a deal (well, not that you shouldn't blow it off, but that you shouldn't make too big of a deal of it all).

The whole "If I knew then what I knew now" concept is quite dizzying. As stated in previous entries, this is a *really* easy teaching job. This semester will be especially awesome for me - I have mostly English Chip and Bridge (odd because I was told upon hiring that I'd be teaching more higher level classes). I'm excited about my Alba+ class because the topics seem to be more open for discussion than what was presented in Alba (sidenote: can anyone explain to me how "Albatross" fits in with the golf terms?).