The first few days

I remember how the boys became immediate friends over their love for Starcraft. There was a contagious, "awww," passing over the class as I walked in. It wasn't dreading, or jubilation, more a shared disbelief of my age, I think. It took a fortnight for one of them to ask my age. (I realized last night through my new friend Olly that British people really do use the word 'fortnight.' We had a shot to celebrate that.) I gave myself a couple of years, fearing some would be older than me and said, "27." Turns out they are all 19 or 20 year old freshman. The males will study for one year, then do their mandatory military service for two years and return to study after that. As I imagined they would, they spent most the class staring at their desktops, wishing the classroom was much bigger. I only meet these 40 students once a week so I'm forced to refer to them as "rainbow umbrella, pink glasses, lebron james or british patch" depending on their attire. They didn't seem to mind. I did the university trick of putting them into groups, walking around and commenting on their conversations. They were much better than I expected. I was beginning to feel worthless, thinking they had all the "practical english," (the name of the course), that they needed to survive in an English speaking country. One boy raised his hand and delivered a gold-medal question, "what did you do in Korea before you came to Busan?" Wow! They applauded when I told them I have a korean girlfriend and still the girls asked for my phone number after that. I just loved how respectful they were. I remember how they thanked me and bowed. The best part, after I ended class, they all remained seated, waiting for me to leave the classroom before they can go. How cool is that? 2 classes, 3pm to 6pm; that's my first day. I think this could be alright.
Outside of class, I'm starting to take advantage of the free-time with more reading, writing, guitar playing and Korean studying. Whenever it stops raining, I'll get on the campus courts and teach these students a different lesson. Actually, I played my first full-court game there a few days ago and an old, drunk and certainly crazy old man followed me up and down the court yelling, "Hey, America, GO HOME!" I used that as motivation and chalked up my first Busan triple-double. My fellow visiting professors all seem nice and not the least bit put off by my lack of qualifications. All but a few are over 40, married to a Korean women, have children and have worked at Pusan National University for 7 years or more. I've had to look elsewhere to find others more like myself. This weekend I met and hung out with a bar full of Brits. They taught me about the 'blokes' and the 'bees' as well as the new slang for gay, 'camp.' We drank along the beach with a gorgeous lit-up bridge dominating the view. Most don't believe me when I tell them I'm a teacher at PNU and then, after asking about my resume, we all share a laugh at how lucky I am. Probably the luckiest white-boy in Korea!

(I'll get pictures up as soon as the rain stops and I get a clear sky)