Running

I've been channeling Forrest Gump lately. Seems like every day I wake up and think to myself "I feel like runnin' " (Of course you should say it in a Gump-accent in your mind. Pronounced "Runeen").

Some of my closest gal pals from school have agreed that we are going to attempt a half marathon. That's almost 14 miles. The half marathon we have chosen is the National Marathon To Fight Breast Cancer. It is hosted in Jacksonville and will take place in February (so I will be back from South Korea just in time!) For two months now I have been training and am up to a solid 9-10 miles before I feel like I need to walk. Ideally, I want to be able to run the whole thing! Training in Korea will be a challenge because it gets too cold to run outside. One of the first things I plan on doing when I arrive is to go and sign up for a gym membership. I have done some preliminary research and it looks like memberships will cost around 300,000 kw. (Which is about 25 bucks). One of the funny things I wanted to mention though: every gym I have found has a virtual golf course. What the? Well, as Dad explained, about 1/3 of the LPGA is made up of Korean women. Golf is like the national pastime over there. So whereas a typical American gym has some cardio machines and free weights, a typical Korean gym has huge tracts of plastic grass with projector screens propped up all around so you can practice "driving" the ball. I will totally take pictures and put them up once I get there.

I'm definitely starting to crave that "runner's high" that you constantly hear about. But it's a long road (no pun intended) to being able to run a full marathon. Korea is going to be an amazing opportunity to keep up a consistent training regimen though because I will have so much free time in the day. Honestly, how long can it possibly take to come up with daily lesson plans for the kids when classes are only 3 hours long?

Let's hope I don't have a running shoe blowout though... apparently the women's shoes in Korea are teeny tiny (As in size 6 would be considered large), and I have monstrous feet. Sounds like I'll be shopping in the Men's section at Korean shoe stores :o)

The Countdown Has Begun

It's official: Karissa and I have been placed in the same city: Dalseong, a very small town just on the edge of Daegu (which is South Korea's 3rd largest city and a whole province on its own). We leave August 1 or 2 and will return February 31, 2010 unless we decide to renew our contract for an additonal 6 months.

This whole South Korea idea went from half baked musings to a reality in a mere 6 months. Karissa and I have a saying, a pact with eachother. We like to say that life is a tapestry, and every new experience is a colorful thread. So, talking one night back in January, we both came to the conclusion that we wanted and needed to weave some seriously vibrant threads while we still have the time to do so together. The TaLK (Teach and Learn Korean) program seemed like the perfect opportunity to brighten the tapestry, so to speak.

TaLK covers our air fare to and from Korea, covers our housing costs , gives us a week's paid vacation and even pays us about $1,300 a month. In exchange, we will be teaching rural elementary school students English. It's going to be more pronunciation than anything, and it's an after school class (3 hours long) to boot. A good deal, no? Now the only obstacles I can foresee are a massive language barrier. -10 degree temperatures and homesickness, but we are too excited to think about that right now :o)

This blog will chronicle Karissa and I's experiences in The Land of The Morning Calm. We will eat some spicy food, play some golf, hike mountains, take up Tae Kwon Do, get lost on the subway, fumble with chopsticks, sleep on the floor, sing in some karaoke bars and maybe teach a little english and learn some Korean along the way. It's going to be a tumultuous half year... but we are confident that when we are old, gray-haired women in our rockers, we'll both have a pretty fantastic tapestry to show off.