I'm apparently a Starcraft nut

I started a new school term last week, which means I have about 90 new names to learn. At the beginning of a term I start each class going around the room and trying to name every student a few times, and by Friday I was able to get most of them. Each term has been easier than the last. 

It's hard to believe I've been in Korea for over half a year already. I am really glad I decided to go to Korea- it has been a blast so far. I am thinking about staying another year- my school asked me last week if I wanted to renew my contract already, and I told them I would think about it. So it's time to figure out what I want to do next. It's hard for me to think about the future.

I realized a week ago that I hadn't used my camera in a month. I decided I needed to take some pictures, or else my blog would be pretty boring. But before we get to that, I'll show you a video of my brother and me on youtube. This video needs a bit of an explanation before you watch it.

When James came to visit at the end of January, he wanted to see a live Starcraft game, since he knew it was kind of a big deal in Korea. For those of you who don't know, Starcraft is a computer game. I knew nothing about Starcraft, but went along for the ride. It is such a big deal in Korea that they watch pro starcraft players on tv and have commentary to go with it. They love it when foreigners are at live matches (the younger generation of Koreans generally loves foreigners and anything western), so we found that the cameras were on us a lot. I didn't want to disappoint them, so I pretended I was a starcraft nut. James drew a picture of a dinosaur, which I guess showed we were going for "Stork". The video takes the Korean television and dubs it over into English. James and I are in the first 10 or 15 seconds, so don't bother watching more unless starcraft actually interests you.

I'll be honest, the highlight of this post is over, but if you're still interested, I have a few pictures. This is a picture of Afsheen and I playing shuffleboard at a foreigner's pub that I discovered last week. It has pool, darts, foosball, and shuffleboard, as well as card games and board games, including chess. So pretty much it's awesome.

These pictures are from a short hike I went on to Seoul tower. Seoul tower is not that tall, but it was built on top of a mountain, so it has a good view. You can hike there or take a gondola. 

This is Seoul tower, with a man flying- some strange artwork I think.

Peter, Amy, and I by Seoul tower.

This used to look like a normal fence, but it is now covered in padlocks with names written on them, and there are tens of thousands more not shown in this picture. Couples are supposed to go there, buy an overpriced lock, write their names on them, and romantically lock their relationship onto an open spot on the fence. Koreans obviously really like this sort of thing.