My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life, a simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

The Korean school year runs on a different schedule from what we're accustomed to back home. The new school year begins in March and ends in late December with a few extra classes in January and a final week or two of school in February.

A few weeks ago marked the official beginning of the new school year. It began with an official ceremony which I observed at the technical high school. The hours long ceremony began with Korea's national anthem in addition to the school song followed by speeches including one shown here given by the principal of the school. During the ceremony all the teachers went up on the stage and were introduced to the students. The school has off and on mistaken my middle name for my family name, which coincidentally is a Korean surname and therefore I was introduced as Mindy Jo.

With the onset of the new school year I have new students. MTHS has switched around it's classes and the 2nd year students will not study English their first semester - and so I am now teaching 1st year students. I was surprised to discover that many of the students in my winter camp were actually incoming 1st year students. At my other schools I teach the same classes with new 1st year students at Gaeun and 3rd graders at Yeongsun Elementary School. The school year has started off relatively well - other than at the technical school my students seem eager to learn English. I've taken the opportunity of teaching 1st year students at the technical school as a way to set my classroom behavior expectations. It's not easy because students are somewhat accustomed to a disorderly class and one of my co-teachers seems to think my expectations are due to "cultural differences" and not his lack of discipline within the classroom. All I can say is that it's a process.

It's been over a month since I last posted a real entry on my blog. I hadn't meant to neglect my blog for so long but as I've alluded in the Friday photo entries - I've been sick off and on in the past 30 days. I went to the doctor in mid-February after a fever, chills and overall feeling miserable and she diagnosed me with the flu - the first time in 5-7 years. Less than 4 weeks later I found myself again with a fever, chills and body aches over the weekend - which transitioned into coughing and sneezing in addition to a recurring fever. Thankfully it seems I'm healthy again and I'll be able to get out a bit and explore more of Korea.

However the other thing that has kept me from posting is that honestly I haven't been doing much. The part of Korea I live in is a bit gloomy throughout the winter. The air is chilly, the sun seems to be perpetually hidden behind clouds and everything around is in limbo waiting for the onset of spring. The weather has started to improve with longer days of sunlight and temperatures in the high 40's/low 50's. As spring quickly approaches I have already started planning future trips to southern Korea for the cherry blossom festival in addition to Seoul. I look forward to traveling more in the next month or two.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life, a simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

This post is a couple of days late - I've been sick for the past few days so wasn't able to update the blog as I had intended to do. I'm about to go to bed early again tonight and hopefully my fever will be gone by tomorrow and I'll be able to write an entry or two then.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life, a simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life, a simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life, a simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.