2007 ends and 2008 has begun........

goodness.......a lot can happen in 3 months! i took a rather long hiatus from blogging. didn't really mean to but i got lazy with it while doing other things.

december came and went and i had my second week-long vacation from dayelin. teddy, tobi and I decided to spend this week off in malaysia. what a great idea that was. malaysia was great. we had such a wonderful time. the people were so friendly and helpful. we found a great new place to stay and spent the whole week being as lazy as possible. there is a long stretch of approx. 11 weeks during october, november and most of december without a long weekend so by the time we get to the christmas break........we are ready to do nothing. we enjoyed great food, the beach and even rented scooters for the day. here are a couple of photos........

this is the three of us on the day we rented scooters to explore a bit more of langkawi island.

this is the beach where we spent some of our day, everyday we were on the island. this is the best frog i have ever seen in person. tobi found it in the bathroom of one of the restaurants we ate at a few times.

teddy and i on the beach getting ready for our evening ritual of watching the amazing sunsets.

tobi, out by the water's edge, trying her best to capture the beauty of the golden sky.

sunset.........

being in the tropics, it's not hard to imagine all the beautiful flowers everywhere you look.

there they are......the petronas twin towers. we had a day and a half in kuala lampur at the end of our trip. we went shopping and got to see the towers.

and after many failed attempts to get the photo ourselves......someone graciously did it for us.

there is a beautiful park behind the towers. we enjoyed that part a lot, as there aren't many city parks in korea.

the twin towers at night just before leaving to go to the airport. all in all, a place i'd go to again for sure.

i spent the beginning of january wondering what i'd do for the next school year, here in korea. (the school year here is march to february for any of you who aren't aware.) i've been getting frustrated with the private academy system over the years, but wasn't sure that i wanted to give up teaching preschoolers. after many hours spent looking on the internet at university jobs, talking to friends who teach at university jobs and applying to some, i decided that maybe uni teaching would be a good change for me. it would mean a fraction of the teaching hours (10-15 hrs/wk as opposed to 30+ hrs/wk), tons more vacation (4 months/yr as opposed to 2 wks/yr) and no complaining about trivial things from the administration. well i only heard back from one university and it was a bit of a roller coaster back and forth about the job and i originally turned it down due to low pay and no housing but they called me again in late january with housing and i took the job. so all of february was spent getting ready to move and finish at the preschool. on my last day, i witnessed probably the cutest thing to happen, during all my 6 years teaching preschoolers. i was about to walk into my last class with this particular class and they were scurrying around saying they weren't ready yet. (often these kids like to hide and jump out at me so i thought they hadn't hid yet.) so i covered my eyes and asked a couple of times if they were ready yet and they kept saying no. i closed the door and turned around to talk to another teacher about having our students play together at the end of class, when all of a sudden my door flung open and there were my 6 students jammed in the doorway all trying to hold onto a bouquet of 3 red roses and baby's breath and, in unison, they said "i love you loree teacher!". wish i had a video or picture of it. funny thing was that two of the students were probably my best girls, but the 4 boys were my worst---in that moment they redeemed themselves. so unbelievably cute!

yesterday was my first day at the uni and i can already say that it has been a very wise decision for me. as i sit here typing, i am on my first day off. my schedule is only mon/wed/fri. so tue and thurs are free time. i can do as i please. i can do nothing. i can decide if studying is a good idea and maybe start picking up some online or distance courses. i can pick up some tutoring or a second p/t job. i can get back into cooking more exciting things. i can get outdoors more........anything.

two of my best friends in korea work at this uni.......tobi and heidi. tobi just started as i have and heidi has been there for a year or so. i think we will have a lot of fun working together. the best thing about this job is yet to come though. i will be going to visit a friend in australia and going home in july/aug. yea!!!!! i have 2 months off this summer and i am already looking forward to it. so if any of you have time in july and want to hang out.....let me know.

this is all for now. i hope you all haven't given up on me. i'm back and with more time on my hands.......i hope to blog more often. (thanks for sticking it out to the end though!)