South Korea vs. Argentina

Whelp, we lost..

caught the game at Munhak Stadium with about 30 friends or so (including mothers, coteachers & Joe's students). Obviously, being in a soccer nation, things are a little crazier here than compared to the US of A. People cheer as if we scored a goal just for crossing midfield, though through the first half of the game crossing midfield happened so few times I can see the point of cheering.

I took some photos but haven't done anything with them yet. I did, however, steal a photo from Joe of my friend's, coteacher's son who came to watch the game with us -- so adorable.

Reason 1 Billion I love Elementary Schools

Walking back to my classroom, peeked into violin practice-- saw a girl playing the violin (poorly, as elementary school muscial-talents dictate) standing up with rollerblades on.  I found this awesome.

Birthday & GRE -- Jai Ho!

Mea maxima culpa for going MIA on any updates!

First of all, thank you to anyone who had me in their thoughts on my birthday!! I was quite the facebook celebrity yesterday, and enjoyed opening my email to find 38 unread messages or something like that. The celebration was relatively muted considering that tomorrow morning (the 12th) I take the verbal/math portion of the GRE. It was a good day though and I am happy I got to spend a great portion of it at school around the kids I love. I was able to eat Indian with Steve & Nara too which made me quite happy!!

So now I find myself going to sleep at 8:30 on a Friday night so I can get to Seoul by 8:30 AM.

I am really hoping, almost expecting in fact, that my GRE test-taking experience will mirror that of Jamal Malik's in Slumdog Millionaire. I'll get a perfect score by being asked questions that each link to a poignant story in my past.

Hope that my test results will be described as "a buoyant hymn to life."

The PC Bang Marathon

I, along with my friends Joe & Carmine, ran a PC Bang marathon last night that lasted from 8 PM - 8 AM. I could lie and say this was to keep with Korean culture but it was mostly because ideas like this fit our personality too well. It was a rousing success, though difficult in stretches. Oh!-- We were able to do this because today local elections were held so we all had off work, in case you were wondering why a 12-hour computer game marathon would be held on a Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.

Because Joseph so aptly broke down the night, the rest will be courtesy of his blog post -- my changes in turquoise::
The PC Bang Marathon
by Joseph Gutierrez

• 7:15PM - I met up with Carmine and Evan at Burger King. Carmine had originally wanted to eat at the kimbap place to get something healthy, but Evan and I out-voted him.
• 8:00PM - We checked our phones exactly at the moment we turned on the computers, and it was eight, so the most daunting task of our lives was made with a cigarette in [Joe's] hand and my belly full of bacon double cheeseburger (the burger doubles for both Joe & I).
• 8:10PM - The first thing I did was install Google Chrome. There was no way I was going to put up with Internet Explorer for the whole night. I quickly got to checking my e-mail, blogging, and deciding my character build for Borderlands.
• 8:30PM - We got started playing Borderlands. If you know nothing about the game, you should check it out. It’s a first-person shooter with MMORPG elements.
• 9:15PM - I bought a cherry coke. (I went with Dr. Pepper)
  
• 12:00AM - Originally we had planned to take a break at midnight to get something to eat downstairs and meet up with some friends really quick. That never happened. We played straight through it.
• 2:00AM - This was the halfway point. None of us seemed tired, but Plans to meet up with anyone have gone out the window.
• 3:00AM - I started to actually start to get bored of the game, but since there’s nothing else I really felt like playing there, I keep on. It’s around this time that I notice that there aren’t as many people in the PC bang as I’m used to.
• 4:00AM - Someone in the PC bang had been playing [crappy] music the entire night. The bands on the playlist included Nickleback, Lee Hyori, and Hoobastank (go figure). It was at this point that the music started to get annoying.
• 5:30AM - This is where it starts getting hard to stay awake. I bought another cherry cola (DP) to help me stay awake. Despite being so tired and how comfortable the chairs are at Tera PC, it’s getting hard to stay sitting down.
• 6:30AM - It was at this point I realized that the girl behind us has been sitting there the entire time and has been on cyworld for most of it. It was getting harder and harder to stay awake.
• 8:00AM - We were all glad to see eight come around. The sad part was when we stepped outside and the sun was out.
• 8:10AM - I was in McDonald’s buying a bacon egg mcmuffin.

Completing the marathon was a success and I probably won’t be going back to a PC bang for a while. To be honest, I could probably do it again and it’s not like I’m boasting about it. The hardest part was just staying awake. If it went from noon to midnight, it wouldn’t have even been a problem. You might ask why I did this, but even I don’t really know why I set arbitrary goals and then feel accomplished when I complete them.