No more teachers, no more books

EDIT:New pictures posted.

No, this is not some ideological post about education. Though I feel one stirring.

Rather, it's a post about how it's Thursday, May 6, 3:08PM, and I don't have any class until the morning of Wednesday the 19th. About that, and how about it's not even summer vacation. How do you like the apples?

What will I do, you ask? Despite the temptation to sit around the house in my underwear fawning over my bean sprouts, studying Chinese characters, and playing my meditation bowl, I have actually made plans to go do something. I'm heading down to the area around Busan (3rd biggest city in Korea, Southeast coast) to go meet a parent-aged couple who retired and then to some degree renounced the world (I recently learned how to say this in Korean and I now try to throw it into conversation whenever possible),moving out to the mountains, tending a garden, and living like the ancients. Or at least, that's what I'm expecting.

Anyway, I'm gonna go hang out with some low-tech quasi-farmers for a week. Free room and board in exchange for some help every day with whatever they've got going on.

Lately I have been talking the talk - the "I hate industrial/post-industrial society and want to live in a non-destructive way" talk quite a bit, but aside from a few months at Sadhana, I have yet to walk the walk. So here's to trying it out for a week.

And yes, I will return to my old ways and blog and post pictures about it when I get back.

In case you aren't already jealous of my job

Up until now my school schedule has been pretty rough. I mean, 20 hours of class a week (one two-hour class, ten times), 4 office hours, 2 hour lunch breaks every day, and Fridays off. But here's what it looks like from here on out (unlisted days are class days, except weekends):

May 4 (Tues) - TOEIC Tests, 2 afternoon classes reduced to 1 hour rather than 2
May 5 (Wed) - Children's Day, no class
May 7-9 (Fri-Sun) - Weekend
May 10-13 (Mon-Thurs) - Spring sports festival, all classes cancelled.
May 13 (Thurs) - 4pm teach kids blackjack. 5pm operate Korean liquor tent and drink with students.
May 14-16 (Fri-Sun) - Weekend
May 17-18 (Mon-Tues) - Engineering "Membership Training" (Like rush week a little bit; all the kids in the same department go on a trip and bond over lots of booze and hijinks.) All 5 classes cancelled.
May 21-23 (Fri-Sun) - Weekend
May 26-27 (Wed-Thur) - Tourism MT (see above). 3 out of 5 classes cancelled.
May 28-30 (Fri-Sun) - Weekend
June 2 (Wed) - Election day, classes cancelled.
June 4-6 (Fri-Sun) - Weekend
June 7-10 (Mon-Thurs) - My only full week of work between now and September.
June 11-13 (Fri-Sun) - Weekend
June 15 (Tues) - Proctor exam in the morning
June 16-20 (Weds-Sun) - Weekend
June 21-24 (Mon-Thurs) - Appeals week. Office hours from 1-5 pm for settling grade disputes.
June 25 - September ?? - Summer vacation!

How sweet it is.