T-Shirts

Ok, so I MUST publish my collection of T-shirt photos. One thing you gotta love is a T-shirt that is hilarious because it's witty, hilarious because it's wild, or hilarious because it tries to be witty and wild, but accomplishes neither and ends up just being hilarious. Then there are imitation T-shirts which make me wonder if someone just got them wrong or if someone was intentionally trying to make a funny shirt. "Adidass" (note the 'ass' at the end!) shirts are a good example.

Ok...gotta get my Adidass back to work now. Photos coming soon!

Fulbright Fall Conference in Gyeongju

The conference was great and I left feeling even more hyped up about camp than I had been when I arrived! CF 09 / CF5 (our 5th year!) is going to be incredible!

On the way to the bus terminal in Gyeongju I looked around thinking how great it must be to live there--clean air, so much to do, and it's such a great place to hang out and take pictures!

At the terminal I saw my FIRST homestay mom and brother. It was great to see them after such a long time. Man, gotta call them up!

I also saw a foreign guy, and I don't usually stare, but he had red frizzy hair that was a near exact match in color and style to the old Korean lady sitting right next to him. Frizzy foreign guy and old lady with fading old lady hairstyle--seriously, from the back you'd think they were family!

I was gonna take their picture, but man, that old lady moved fast! By the time I had my phone on camera mode she had already stood up and walked out with her friend.

English Drama 08

For those of you that don't know, ever since 2000 when I came to Korea as a Fulbrighter and was placed at Pohang Middle School, I have been working every fall with school's English drama competition team, and we have been successful almost every year since at the city, provincial and national levels.

Our biggest year so far was 2002 when we went all the way to the nationals and beat out even the best HIGH SCHOOLS in Korea for the Grand Prize

Last year, the 07 team won the Pohang city and Gyeongbuk province competitions, and THIS YEAR the team won the Pohang city competition again!

Here is a photo of this year's team. I'll put up more later, but take a look at this year's champions! We're proud of you guys!

Ahhh...you gotta love Korean TV

Ok, so the most interesting things I saw on TV these last few days:

1. People who eat poisonous things and a guy who drinks snake venom
2. A girls who can pop her ankle and use it to launch things like chopsticks and candy
3. Kids with mad sword skills chopping stuff up on stage
4. Kids cracking glass drink bottles with their hands
5. On a game show with kids and famous stars together, the question: is it possible to BURP AND FART at the same time? 
   

Yeah, gotta love Korean TV...really!

Oh, and the answer to number 5, much to the surprise of most in the audience: it IS possible!

V

NPU HOMEWORK: CHUSEOK TODAY

NPU STUDENTS! Here is your homework. You must leave a TWO PARAGRAPH comment on this blog entry!

CHUSEOK AND TRADITIONAL HOLIDAYS TODAY

As a foreigner in Korea, one of the most interesting things for me has been experiencing the holidays, festivals, and other other celebrations of the Korean people. It’s one thing to learn the language and history, but it’s truly another (and often more meaningful) thing to see what people do. It’s much more interesting to see what people do on an everyday basis.
I now have some idea of what people do during Chuseok. I have learned what the traditional families do and what some Christian families do, I now have a feel for the holiday and its importance.
Here’s a question for you: What do traditional holidays like Chuseok mean to you? How important are they in the modern world?

cool stuff, not so cool, and just plain weird stuff

Hey,

So here are some cool things from this week:

1. Crazy taxi driver had a suction cup Spider-man on his window--nice to have something cheerful to look at when you're afraid you might DIE!
2. Check out this link: TWO Spider-man movies coming up, and possibly a Venom spin-off!  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080906/film_nm/spiderman_dc
3. 08 Pohang Middle School drama team is showing signs of teamwork.
4. Learned to make Yoda use the force and do a multiple flip attack in Soul Calibur 4
5. Gonna get to see Clone Wars during the LOOONNGG weekend coming up.  With Chuseok I have AT LEAST three days, possibly FOUR days off! :)
6. Students are working really hard (so far) so classes went great.
   

Here's what was not so cool:

1. Doozer vomiting, once on his blanket!  Bleh!
2. At the beginning of the week drama team kids were slacking off.  That was quickly fixed by making a couple of them do push-ups.  Yeah, they thought I was kidding too!
3. Apple announced a press conference for next Tuesday: they'll probably announce new iPods and/or Macbook upgrades...cool, but I just bought one of each recently!
4. My vinnieflores.com domain expired during camp and I had to renew it--so my website's dead for a few days...not that there was anything exciting on it...well, it's a good chance to revamp it, I guess
   
5. Doozer vomiting--it's worth mentioning twice

Here's something just plain weird (it starts off cool though):

1. So I was going through taekwondo videos on YouTube trying to find variations of a form I have to learn for a promotion test coming up later this year, and I started surfing all the cool videos--you know, the 540's, tournament clips, etc. 
   
   I ran across a clip of something that was on the Discovery Channel, I think.  Some guy from the States (well North America anyway) comes to Korea and has a few days to challenge some Korean Army tkd guys...right...  
   
   Anyway, he meets several masters, including several I have met!  He went to the Taekwondo master's association to and trained a little and I actually met some of the people in the clips. 
   
   There was one master he practiced with who later took him to a local spa/public bath.  As they were walking away from the training grounds, I heard the master's name and looked closely at his face: I MET HIM BEFORE during the Korea Open!  We actually had a long conversation...in the sauna...at a spa!  AAAaahhhh!!! 
   
   Yeah, I have bad memories of him actually doing kicks inside the sauna as we had the conversation. 
   

Ok, that's all for now...trying to get the blog and website back up and running, so this will be on vinnieflores.blogspot.com and possibly mirrored on the website once it's online.

Later!

V

CF Video test