Hi-this is a quick hi. Mostly because I'm writing on my office computer which usually for some weird reason only lets me write a couple sentences, then it won't publish anymore than that. Anyway, Ro, Joanne and Sandy-I love you and miss you! And I'm reading your blogs. It's a bummer that shout outs are closed for maintenance-eh! Things are going well and training MNE has been really great! Worth all my lost sleep :-) Look forward to more of your entries and I'll write more later.

Tomorrow is my first day of summer school and I kind of feel like "what's happening?" I just finished this semester's finals so it's just not in my biological time clock to have a class tomorrow. No purposeful reference to the entry before this one.:-) I just finshed a meeting with the leaders for the missions trip I'm going on. It's really exciting but it's going to be a really busy week. I'm teaching normal students in the morning then I'm teaching the students that are going on the missions trip at night. We are also having prayer meetings and team building meetings. By the way, I'm going on a missions trip to Uzbekistan from July 8th to the 22nd. My deciding to go happened so quickly. As I was working with MNE (missions and English) this semester I was generally not planning on going on their trip this summer because I was already going to the US. That was going to cost enough money. However, the week before finals the English department decided to fund my trip to Uzbekistan so then I decided I couldn't pass up such an opportunity. I'm still going to the States though. (Probably August 1-15) Anyway, I want to write more about this later. But for now I just want anyone one who reads this blog to please pray for me in this next week because I'm going to be going non-stop. However, thankfully it will be just this week then the team is leaving July1st. I'm joining them later because of summer school. To read more about the trip go to my Uzbekistan page.

While grading tonight I was struck with an anxiety that frequently rings in my mind. It goes something like this-why don't I just get a PhD in changing diapers? Wouldn't that be more practical and relevant to my future life? Here's the situation according to my calculations. I'm 26 and I'm planning on going to grad school not this September but the next. I'll be 27 when I start. I'm calculating that I'll be in school until I'm 30. Ok, so hypothetically speaking let's say I get married during grad school or soon after. Again hypothetically speaking I then would be ready to start my next step with my husband, which I hope and pray would be missionary work in the Middle East. At this point, sure, I can start to use the skills that I slaved away in grad school to gain but soon I'll have to have children. (I don't say "have to" begrudgedly as some duty I don't want to fulfill but just as a life fact that most likely I'll feel a) that I should have them sometime soon before it becomes a medical risk which I guess is after 35ish or b) I just get pregnant (whoops!-style) Then I assume I'll be hanging out with them at home until they go to school or even longer. Which would be about 5 years at the least. Of course, this doesn't have to be the case. But this is how I feel: I really want to have kids and I want to give them the best of me when I do have them. So I want to stay at home with them when I have them. Which leads me back to my dilemma. Why am I going to go to grad school and spend soooo much money and time when that education is probably not going to be the most valuable to my everyday life for the next 5 to 10 years after grad school? I'll be thinking about diapers, naps, feedings, how to discipline in a healthy way and how to lead them to the Lord.

There could be a lot of different answers to this question and the other questions hidden inside it (questions about the role of the woman in the family and society, a Christian woman's role, sharing parental duties and so on) depending on your school of thought. I can almost hear all of them in my head, not to mention the answers saying "Don't worry about it-you're not even married yet!" Right-but I still have to think about what I'm doing and why I do it. However, so far every time I'm struck with this anxiety I come back to that I'm just simply following where the Lord leads me and he'll work out those details. The truth but maybe not the most emotionally nor intellectually satisfying answer. On top of this answer I also believe that you should just follow your dreams passionately and everything will ultimately work out. Otherwise a person will just live in regret. One more note in addition to those previous semi-conclusions to my dilemma: Of course, I think it's important for a woman to be very educated (as much as she wants to be), even if she chooses to be at home with her children that education is vitally important for many reasons. One being that education is not only about if you use it in a practical way but it is a gain in and of itself---right? Right!

There is more I could say about that, but this a little bit about my “how am I going to do everything I want to in one life time” attacks.

Oh and by the way, Matrix: Reloaded was a disappointment. Maybe I’ll talk more about that later. But I am still glad we went to Busan to watch it though. We went to TGIF after!!! Yummy! That’s a special treat!

note: I'm not planning on getting a PhD...just 2 MA's and a web-designer certificate :-) I'm serious....or at least I'm seriously considering it. :-)...I think it'll take just over 3 years...

I just finished my html homework for this week and now I'm anxious to get out of my office. It's Friday but it's a national holiday. So everybody has off today. Next week is the last week of classes before finals. Man, the last week was kind of emotional and tiring. Thank goodness, it's the weekend. However, perhaps it's going to be kind of a burdensome weekend because I have a lot of grading to do. I guess that's not totally true though because tomorrow I'm going to Busan to see Matrix Reloaded. Yeahhh!!!!!!!! Finally. Ro and I refused to watch it in Pohang because the theaters are terrible. When a movie is really popular people actually crowd into the back of the theater room in the last 15 minutes of the movie your watching. They do it cuz they want to get a good seat for the next showing but it's super distracting for the 15 minutes of the movie you're watching. It's crazy-they're so loud. Anyway, needless to say we didn't want to deal with that with a movie we have been looking forward to watching for 4 years.
Here's the link to my html homework. Some of the content is nonsense because I'm just trying to practice the code at this point not trying to make great content at this time. html homework

I had my some of my students over to my house to make cookies. It was a new experience for them to make western style desserts. Check out the pics...

Today was a big day-I uploaded my first html homework assignment onto the net and I paid off all my bills. Not to mention, I also saw one of my good friends cry for the first time today and one of my other good friends saw me cry for the first time yesterday. These are slightly emotional times lately around my neck of the woods. In my opinion, it's a lot because we got our schedules for next semester this last Wednesday and they're pretty much lame for everybody. There's an administration squeeze which basically means they won't hire another person for this next semester yet that's what we need for everyone's schedule to be manageable thus most people's schedules aren't manageable. But on to what I want to tell you and I might come back to that later but you could say a prayer for our staff about that.

Yes, I did say html (which doesn't stand for have tomatoes melted lately nor does it stand for healthy toes moo loudly) Ha,ha...I'm so funny. It's a code that helps you to design WebPages. I'm taking an html class on the internet-so far it's really great. Just what I need -with not too much information but enough for me to educate myself about the stuff I want to know and the price is great, too. 20$ for a 6 week class -so far I'm pleased. http://www.lvsonline.com I've run out of time. I've got to go to sleep. I'm having one of my really active classes come over and we're going to make cookies (because they don't make cookies in the western sense...it's not in their tradition, they make Korean style goodies) I'm kind of nervous about it, though because I'm not really a baker and I hope I can find all the materials I need such as chocolate chips! Good night!

Right now we're having festival at my school. This is a time when my school has all kinds of activities, competitions and special food stands. Not to mention there are no classes on Thursday and Friday. The bummer is though that somehow ironically it seems every festival the weather decides to be unseasonably cold and rainy. So that makes the students sad because they put so much work into their performances but it's rainy and inconvenient. Well, me I'm trying to grade two classes of writing a day so I can be caught up. Right now I'm kind of sad because it just seems my time always goes right out the window. But I suppose I shouldn't be that bummed cuz I met my personal "grading goal" yesterday. This is also a time to try and hang out with students, so in 5 minutes I'm going out with a student to hang out.

hi Teen Mania people! Welcome to my site! I can see some of you have been visiting. It's good to see you here. Please feel free to look around and write me a "shout out" if you want. You can tell me how the honor academy was for you or ask me questions about "life 7 years outside the internship or honor academy" What do you guys call yourselves now? Interns?

I've added more links to my "LINKS" page. Check it out...

Ok...here I go again about super stars. But I was surfing the net today and adding some stuff to my site which caused me to take a look at this Christian site that I think does a great job of interacting with the arts from a Christian worldview. It doesn't just write stuff off as "bad" but interacts-particularly analyzing movies. Among other interesting articles I came across an article on a new movie coming out by Mel Gibson called, "Passion". It's a movie chronicling Jesus’ walk to the cross and in the movie Jesus only speaks Aramaic and Latin with no subtitles! You've got to read this interview-it's fascinating! Interview with Mel Gibson about his movie, "Passion" Write me a shout out about what you think of the interview...

I'm so happy right now because I just read this interview with Madonna. (Read the interview) I'm so happy for her. She's really come to so far in her emotional well being. It's interesting to read these interviews with stars and see some of them go through this cycle. Because they get to a point in their life where they have everything they could possibly want and yet they are still empty and their life is still chaotic. I think they get the unique opportunity to have a "Solomon experience" where they realize everything is meaningless without real love, truth and ultimately God. The interviewer asked her about her past and to summarize she said, "I was a buffoon until the age 40" and the reason was that everything was about her being the center of attention. The interviewer said, "What's wrong with that?" And she said, "Because that's not what were put on this earth for." She and her family have gotten really into Kabala, which is a mystical form of Judaism. Interesting, very interesting. So anyway I'm happy she's gained some stability in her life and I'm also happy about the kind of cultural impact this can have on people. Interestingly, I've happened to watch some enlightening interviews with stars lately. For example, I saw an interview with Bono from the band U2 on Larry King Live and wow-I was impressed. It was a similar thing, these are old stars and they've been there, seen that and done that. And it's not what everyone thinks it's going to be. So Bono is really into fighting AIDS in Africa and he gave a very persuasive argument for the issues surrounding that in Africa.

So I'm in my office because as you know this one of the only places I can get Internet access. The sound of students singing praise songs in Korean is drifting into my open office window. They often pray and sing praise songs in the plaza outside my window. I just got back a couple hours ago from Seoul. I was there with Sandy, Ro and Joanne. We had a good time. Right now it all seems like a blur. We went up there Friday night by bus, which was actually really fun. We got into really interesting conversations on the way there. Then the whole weekend we mostly shopped and ate Western food that we normally don't have access to. It's so nice to go to Seoul because in comparison to Pohang it seems like you can get and do anything. Oh yeah, we went to this cool college district and sipped drinks in the cool night air as we sat on the patio of a restaurant that looked like an old-style mansion. That area was "hopping". It reminded me a little bit of Spain because it was late at night and there were people everywhere eating at these outside cafes. I also bought a couple books, which I'm really excited about. I bought a book called, "What went wrong?" a book discussing and analyzing the historical relationship between the Middle East and Europe. It should be interesting. I also got a book by National Geographic called, "Islam" which has a lot of stunning pictures and stories from the 1900's till now. So I'm excited. Ro, Sandy, Joanne and I also had Bible reading and prayer times at night, which we never have had before (we've prayed together but never in this organized of a manner) so it was really great to pray for each other. I also love to hear the Word read out loud, it's beautiful just to hear doctrine and truth wash over you.

Also I was surfing the web earlier and I came across the website of the ministry I used to work for a long time ago, Teen Mania. It was so amazing to visit the world that for one year was my entire world. I also visited the website of the program I was a part of once called "The Internship" now called "Honor Academy". I'm going to get an ID soon as an alumni and see if I can chat with some old friends. Here's the website http://www.honoracademy.com

It's Thursday night. 9pm and I'm still in my office. I just finished a meeting with a sweet passionate girl that works for a student ran missionary group here on campus called MNE (Mission and English). We talked about exciting possibilities of me helping to train the MNE students to teach English. I already taught them a little bit last semester and it was such a refreshing change to teach people that spoke so well and were so motivated to learn. So I'm excited, humbled and honored about the prospect of teaching them this semester. Well, we'll see what happens because I've learned to take it one step at a time and not get too far ahead of myself.

Haha...right now I'm listening to "Manic Monday" by Cindy Lauper. It's really funny. It brings back memories of an era-doesn't it? "Just another Manic Monday...la,la"

Wow, Sandy came in here and we just had this big talk about the therapeutic benefits of writing (especially publicly) and then we had a big discussion about the nature of Christian freedom. So now we are both really tired and I need to pack because we're (Sandy, Ro, Joanne and I) going to Seoul this weekend because we all have Monday off. So we're going to go have some fun in the big city. Off to pack. Later

I went to church today, went on a jog, then hung-out in my office, made a test and played on the internet. (in my office is the only place where I can go online right now-I can't wait until I can connect in my house!) I'm about to go to sleep. I'm reading this interesting article called, "Gospel Community: Singleness, Marriage and Family" (Given to me by Allen when he was visiting Handong-thanks Allen) Here are some thoughts from the article,
"Ironically, Eph. 5:11 with it's 'exalted' view of marriage, also supports the ideas of the goodness of singleness! How? Ephesians 5 tells us that marriage is not ultimately about sex, social stability or personal fulfillment. Marriage was created to be a reflection on the human level of our ultimate love relationship and union with the Lord. This view of marriage points to the Real marriage that our souls need and Real family our souls want. No marriage will completely give us what we want or need. Ephesians 5 means that even those Christians married to Christians will do a terrible job of conducting their marriage if they don't have a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Christ now and an ultimate hope in a perfect love relationship in heaven."
Anyway, I actually didn't let him explain his point fully about the 'goodness of singleness' but I thought I would share with you just some of the insightful tid-bits from the article. Well, I'm off to bed! Oh no! It's almost 1am! I shouldn't stay up this late! Good night
**I wrote this Sunday night (well, 1am Monday morning) but I am posting it now

My Kyung-ju trip pictures are up. To check them out you can click on "online photo albums" on my website. The pics are so great, if I do say so myself. :-) Looking at them again makes me remember how beautiful it was there. Even though I was there, when I look at the pics again I think, "Wow, it was so beautiful." I'm at Ro's house on this relaxed Saturday afternoon. I spent the night at her house last night, after going out last night with Ro, Sandy and Joanne for coffee. Oh man, I should've taken a pic of the coffee shop so you could see it. It was really chic. I had a pine-colada. It was nummy. Last night was really funny. We were as usual being too loud and crazy at the coffee shop, especially in comparison to the Koreans trying to calmly chat in the chic atmosphere. I just realized that this entry is strangely reminiscent to other blogs I've written lately. Well, I suppose this is the time of week that I have time to write and my life on Friday and Saturdays tends to be somewhat repetitive.

I recently got a desk in my room which I'm super happy about. It's so nice to have a little work station in your room. It's made such a difference, because otherwise I would use my bed to read and write on (in which I would often promptly fall asleep on). So now my goal is to try to write a little on blog each day or every other day! Let's see how I do. :-) OK, Ro's distracting me right now showing me pictures of her cat that is in America right now. I've also got to go take a jog then I'm going out with some of the students that worked with the international ministry. They are such a fun group of girls. We used to meet together every Tuesday last semester. We had some really great prayer time and bonding times. Anna is from Russia, Grace is a Korean that speaks English excellently and Natalia is from Uzbekistan.

I also wanted to mention that I lived most of my life in a place that doesn't have the four seasons. So when you live in a place that has four seasons, it's just so amazing when spring comes. Spring is now in full bloom on our campus and the scorching heat of summer has not yet set in. A week ago I just walked out of my house to walk to my office and I was just struck with the sudden greenness that had seemed to spring up over night. For me I just get so used to one season, that I'm surprised when the next season comes. So in this case the trees were naked for so long but now our campus is bursting with color and the smell of flowers. I feel like I'm being overdramatic but really it's true when you walk outside the smell of flowers is in the air. So now I'm going to go on a jog and enjoy. I also need to mention something of great importance!! My dear friend, Alison and her husband, Ethan, had their second daughter, Olivia on April 15! (to see a pic of Olivia-go to "online photo albums" then click on "friends" album) So congrats Al and I'm praying for you!

Happy After Easter! He is risen! It's Monday morning and I'm about to start preparing for my classes. I think in the US it's Easter night. I had a good Easter weekend. I went to the crucifixion service on Friday here on campus. I was asked to be one of the professors that would give communion. It was interesting because in Korea when you give communion (or do many pastoral duties) you wear white gloves. The service was totally in Korean except some songs but it was still a great service-Koreans are very passionate in their prayers.

Well, next time I'll tell you about my trip to Chung-ju to see all the trees covered with cherry blossoms. Back to work I go!

Hey! It worked! Cool-maybe I'll write more later today. I've got to get ready for 11:30 class.

It's really strange but for some reason both my officemate and I can't publish entries into our blogs from our office computers. Our computers won't let us! We can publish entries from other computers just not the computers in our office. So that's why I haven't published lately. So hopefully it will work soon.

Hi, I'm hanging out with Ro and Sandy at Ro's apartment. We went out tonight to have "tac galby" (chicken, vegetables and spicy sause). It's interesting we talked about how we're really loud and hyper on Friday nights cuz we've been pent up in our offices all week. So it's a time to just "let our hair down" and be crazy. I didn't realize it but Ro was like, "You're really goofy on Fridays." I was like, "Really?". So we had a good time eating ice cream and giggling as we walked around the streets of Pohang. Then we went to a coffeshop and talked forever. Well, there's my random entry. Thought I would write since I hadn't written for a while.

Yeah!! I finally have comment ability on my blog!! Yeah! So if you want to comment on something I write, you can click "shout out" and leave a message.

So what's up with me? Hmmmm... Well, as usual at this time of day I'm watching the news while surfing the internet. I am deeply saddened by the war, as I am sure you are, too. My prayer today was that God would protect the helpless, innocent and defenseless (such as children) that are the most tragic victims of conflict. There is a lot more that could be said about that, of course. Maybe I'll talk about it later. Things are going well with my classes. I still feel a bit too busy but things are going well. I like my schedule more than last semester's schedule because I have fewer classes. Today I was teaching writing to my freshmen class. I'm really enjoying it cuz I like the way the book is set up. Today more specifically the students were editing each other's paragraphs and for the most part they worked very diligently. So I was pleased. Look here-I'm boring you with my teacher life!

Anyway, last weekend my friends and I celebrated Ro's B-day by going to the Hilton for a "western buffet" then went to a "Naori bong" which is basically Karoki in a private room. We had the best time. The food was great-we were able to have lovely rarities like cheese. Then I personally had the best time at the naori bong, we were dancing around with tambourines singing, "Remember when we used to sing- shan,na,na,na,na,na,la-de-da....Brown eyed girl" Well, I'm going to try to go to study Korean. C ya

Today the sun is shining beautifully. It's been raining the last couple days so it's nice to see the sun streaming into my living room. I just finished watching Larry King Live-more talk about the war, of course. It's the weekend after the first week of classes and I feel like I just survived through an ordeal. Ironically, it was a good week as far as my classes, their responses and my ability to keep my energy going but it was NON-STOP! Every minute was full and I didn't get back home until late every day but Thursday and Friday. Every teacher felt that way that was involved in the new freshman placement testing, I feel in essence the testing was successful but it was chaotic and exhausting for the teachers involved. I can't imagine what it was like for my supervisor, who had even more logistical work of placing everyone. It was a good week but I can't and won't keep that up-it's not healthy. I barely ate the first three days. (I know that's bad!! I'm stopping that promise!) I would get in to my office after my class and only have 15 minutes for lunch. Then have students coming in after classes about multiple issues and so somehow the time would go by and I'd forget to eat. Both my officemate and I are glad that week is over; along with all the other teachers involved I'm sure.

My classes are cool so far. I have two sophomore classes and 3 freshman classes. There are many interesting aspects to having sophomores this year, one being that some of them I have had since their first Freshman semester. So I have seen them grow in their English skills and also as a person. I've seen them go from eager, wide-eyed freshman to someone more adjusted to University life. It's interesting and endearing. My freshmen classes are also cute. They are so excited and giggly. Yesterday I had my first real class with them, because they are now placed in their levels. I went around reading off the list and usually in English classes students have English names but since they are all freshmen they didn't have any. So many of them asked me to give them English names so I ended up naming a lot of my class. It was funny. We joked it was like I was their mother. I do think, however, there will be for me at least a special memory about this class because I named most of them. Well, I'm going to go do my dishes then go for a run...lots of love