A Good Weekend

I usually post on here for a specific reason, like if I want to work on my Rule of Life, complain about culture, talk about a problem with Sinae or sort through some of my negative thinking. But I'm not going to do any of that tonight.

Instead, I'm going to talk about my splendid weekend that was quite different than normal. Before I get into it, I am surprised that one of the events that I was looking forward to before, wasn't quite as perfect as I hoped, and then afterward ended up being a good experience.

The start to my weekend was attending the required KOTESOL conference which the university paid for, as well as our membership in the society. I almost renewed my membership with them, but I decided not to and I am glad I did. The two best presentations I saw were the first and the last. The first was about the narrative of those teaching English as a second or foreign language. She is an Australian doing Ph.D. studies on qualitative research. I found this interesting just because she's looking at how teaching in another culture changes one's own beliefs about a variety of things. The last one, which was related to a sales pitch though done much better than any I've seen before, was about incorporating English education with technology. After hearing the statistics about people who are involved with technology, it is no wonder that my students are having trouble communicating in English in my classroom. I'll be posting more about this on my "We Can English" blog. The most interesting and unfortunately, the most difficult for me to stay awake to, was the presentation by a well-known ESL/EFL scholar about vocabulary.

Today, I returned to that area again today in Seoul to meet Sinae for our weekly date. We intended to go to the largest Church of the Nazarene in Seoul but ended up missing that service after making a mistake on the subway. We went to a service at a church near her alma mater this afternoon. The preaching pastor was not the main pastor but she received grace through his sermon and she helped me by writing a few sentences related to what he was saying.

We had many good conversations today about our future and I finished the book, "In Love But Worlds Apart". This book lists a lot of practical questions which I'm going to start e-mailing to Sinae and perhaps posting parts of on here. I am learning that talking on the phone for 4, 5 or 6 hours at a time isn't always the best thing for our relationship because of the language barriers and communication problems that take place over the phone.

And now it's time to get myself to bed in hopes of getting up early enough to get geared up for Mid-Terms which start tomorrow as well as making a telephone call to my parents. It's hard to get a hold of my dad these days since I teach at 9am every Monday morning.

Things to Do

My life has become serious chaos in recent weeks due to poor time management. If you know me at all, you know this is a big struggle for me. When I was in seminary, I wrote a Rule of Life, which I think would be a good exercise to revisit. I don't remember the exact details but I'd like to start by making a list of all the things I need to incorporate into my schedule in a wholesome manner. Then I'll try organizing all of that and you can also tell me what you think I should do to organize these thoughts.

1. Respond to comments on my English blog.
2. Register attendance online.
3. Research Project
4. Study Korean
5. Devotions
6. Clean my apartment
7. Think about my future and contact the appropriate people.
8. Exercise
9. Read
10. Class Preparation
11. Class Reflection
12. Record grades for assignments
13. Prepare for a new Bible Study
14. Accountability
15. Initiate conversation with someone I don't know.
16. Practice Justice
17. Develop Relationships (i.e. family, Sinae, friends, colleagues etc.)