June 8, 2005

Well today started off pretty early. I had to drive to Camp Red Cloud this morning at 7 A.M. which is about an hour and a half from here. There I filled in as the Chaplain and briefed our BN Commander at his weekly meeting. As the Chaplain for the next few weeks, I have a lot of work to do. I am filling the shoes of a person normally about 10 ranks higher than me. I can handle it though. I�ve filled in for them before. My new boss won�t arrive until the end of this month, so I have to keep the office running by myself until then. Jung is still here to help me though.

One of the things the Chaplain gave me when he was moving was his fish aquarium. Here is a picture of it. I already had one in my office, so I decided to keep this one at work. The fish are named Bella and Dude. The chaplain�s kids named them.

After the meeting I went to lunch and then had to put together a prayer for a Change of Responsibility. I went to the rehearsal and said the prayer, and left. That was pretty much the extent of my day.

Here is the prayer that I said for the Change of Responsibility. I find it much easier just to put something together than to try and do it from thin air. It sounds better when it�s well thought out. I can make it more personal that way.

This is a little motivation that I cut out of a running magazine and taped to my mirror so that I see it every morning. It gives me motivation on the days that I don�t feel like running to put on a pair of shoes and at least get a few miles in.

I got mad today and punched this hole in my wall. I am so strong. See here I am in the act! Look at those huge, bulging arms! I�d be scared if I saw those. Haha

Actually this is what really happened. I opened the door too fast and the door knob went through the wall. There is a stopper at the bottom of the door but it bent when it hit the wall and the door knob just kept on going. I don�t know how I�m going to fix that one. It�s a pretty big hole.

A cheesy pose for the camera. I was getting ready to head out with Jung to go teach English class to the Mongolian kids today.

Jung and I caught the bus to the church where we teach the class

Here are some of the students that I teach. Usually we have about 8 or 9 students come to class each week. They are between the ages of 8 and 29, so it�s a broad range. Luckily they are all pretty much on the same level of English though, so I don�t have to make a lot of different classes.

Here is Jung. He helps sometimes, when the students don�t exactly understand what I mean and it�s too difficult for me to try and explain it to them. The students know how to speak Korean, so I tell Jung what I want to say and he tells them in Korean. That is how we communicate. Sometimes it�s an American teaching a Korean how to teach a Mongolian how to speak English. It�s fun though. Jung has invited me to have dinner with the school teachers at the church on Friday. The president would like to meet me and thank me for helping with the English. Some nights are harder than others. I sometimes have to hurry after work on Wednesdays and get a class project for the students put together before heading off to the classroom. I�m usually pretty tired after I get done on Wednesdays.

On the way home I went with Jung to his college. He had to pick up an economics book to study. We rode the subway home. In the staion I saw this odd looking poster. It�s supposed to be Peter Pan. I guess he�s turned into an old man because he�s smoking. In the corner it says �Welcome to Non-smoking land.� Only in Korea do you see stuff like that. You often see a lot of Koreans wearing T-shirt with English word on them, but they are spelled wrong or the phrase isn�t right. Today I saw one on a guy that read �Run around naked.� Jung and I laughed. Jung said that most Koreans have no idea what the words say when they buy shirts with English on them.