It's weird. This is the Monday of my second week of school. I feel both busy and in slow motion. I have the lightest schedule I've ever had at Handong. And that is exaggerated I think because the first week a lot of the things I'm going to be doing hadn't even started yet. I feel strange and strangely guilty like there is something I should be doing. At the same time I have felt preoccupied with my whole visa mess. I'm going to Japan to get a new work visa as soon as I get the paper work from my school. It looks like it's going to be a crazy ride though. Because I'm getting stand-by tickets from Ro's brother, who is a pilot. Stand-by is unpredictable and often stressful. I have only a short window of time to get the visa because of the most important holiday in Korea is coming up and the Korean embassy will be closed. But I have to get my work visa before Chusuk (the holiday in Korea) because my tourist visa will expire. So please pray for all the details that have to fall in place as I travel to Japan. A lot could potentially go wrong. well, I have got class.....

Wow, what a ride. I'm finally back in Korea. I had a lay over in Tokyo and it turned out that something was wrong with the plane so all the people on the plane had to stay in a hotel. (with all expenses paid) The hotel was about an hour and a half away from the airport and then it took another 45 minutes to check in. While waiting in line I really wanted to lie down on the floor by that time I had been up for a long time. (I didn't sleep on the way to Korea) The nice thing about going to the hotel though was that I got to sleep in a nice bed instead of a bus and a plane. I also took a hot bath, which was wonderful for my stiff back. Then I got up at 3:30am to catch the bus back to the airport which we were informed was now leaving a 9:50am instead of 7am. So more waiting around with the passengers of the plane that I was now well acquainted with. Then I got to Seoul and was told at the immigration booth that my working visa had expired. After sitting in the immigration office and having Joanne talk with the immigration officer (over the phone in Korean) I am still confused to what happened and worried about it. They let me in the country with only a 30 day tourist visa. This is actually quite serious. All I know is that I did what I was told and in Feb. when my visa was expiring I went to the immigration office in Pohang and renewed it. Obviously, something was seriously wrong. But I have no idea what happened, I remember specifically asking the immigration guy, "Is this a multiple visa?" We had a hard time communicating but I thought we both walked away with it solved. But I guess not. Please when you read this pray about this for me because I don't know what we are going to do. Jun-mo is going to call the immigration lady to find out what happened as soon as Joanne reaches him. I have the nagging feeling that somehow this is my fault even though I know it is not. Well, I'm still in the airport in Seoul so I better go and call Ro to see if she can pick me up at the airport in Pohang.

Oh great, suddenly I feel like I have nothing to write about. I've written a couple blogs in my head today, so where are they?
You know you are in America when:
*you receive the food you ordered and you gasp at its great size
*people drive so obediently and orderly
*there is an abundance of everything (you walk into Costco or Wal-Mart and can't believe the pure abundance)
*almost every young woman from 12 to 30 is showing part of her stomach (at least in Southern California)
* white people are trying to be really brown and somewhat succeeding (in contrast to Korea where everyone is always trying to be whiter)
It's funny cuz I a year ago I wrote a list like this for Korea (you know you're in Korea when...) to process some of the external cultural aspects when you first visit. I wrote it in my first semester in Korea and then later realized that I no longer noticed the very things I wrote about. But I wrote it mainly to illustrate the external things that usually strike the person who first travels to Korea from the West. And when I did this I tried to do it the other way and imagine what a person coming to the US would first notice. And to tell you the truth-I couldn't do it. I guess I couldn't become that objective. So today I realized that a year and a half later I have acquired some sense of objectivity about the US, so that certain things struck me as different or foreign.