Long awaited update

Alright, so it's Monday and I haven't posted in almost a week. Teaching's been going very well, and I think I'm getting better each day. The kids are wonderful, and I'm learning how to be stricter. i just really hope they're retaining what I teach, and I'm looking for new ways to make things interesting. The older kids, of course, are more responsive, and therefore I enjoy teaching them more. The younger kids are tougher for me, as I have yet to learn to fully restrict my language usage to words they already know. On the other hand, I've unconsciously begun using my hands when I talk, drawing pictures in the air for every word I use. It's both funny and scary how quickly the human organism will adapt to new surroundings and to what lengths it will go to be understood.
Life's been treating me pretty well, and I'm preparing for my trip to Japan next week for my visa run. I've finally adjusted to jetlag, and it's been wonderful getting into a new rhythm here. Last Wednesday night, I had my first feeling that this was home, and I've already tried and found several things that I know I'll miss when I've gone. Korea's such a brilliant country in so many ways, from their public transportation system to their recycling system to the fact that the shopping carts lock their wheels on the moving sidewalk. It's all pretty wonderful.
I'm learning to change the way I live, as well. I've learned that big towels are ridiculous, because they take ages to dry and there's really no need for them. Hand-size towels do quite nicely for drying off and take up so much less space. In general, things here and people here take up less space, and have a smaller footprint. Where we each require a separate dish at home and countless other individual allotments, life and other things are shared here in a way I'm not quite yet ready to describe. To steal words from Valentine Michael Smith, there are many things here that I don't yet grok in fullness yet, but waiting is.
For example, I do not yet know whether soju is from hell or heaven. It tastes wonderfully like kool-aid, but washes reality away as quickly as you drink it. I'm taking a break from soju for a while, I think. I went out with Jason this weekend, and discovered that I no longer have the alcohol tolerance I once possessed. This is a good thing, and I don't think I'm going to try to push it back up in the other direction.
I met a great guy named Travis, who's Korean and from the province to the east (the name of which I can't remember at the moment). He speaks great English and is a really cool guy. I feel like I have more in common with him than with the other teachers I work with, and he's willing to do something like a language exchange with me, where I learn Korean and we fine tune his English. I'm looking forward to it. What I've discovered in first meeting him are the things I take for granted as a westerner that are pretty fundamentally ridiculous. I will probably never buy a pair of shoes I can't slide off again. I've also developed a heightened sense of minimalism, and don't really see a need to have more than I'm going to immediately use. They also eat out a lot more here, but it's far cheaper. If the restaurant buys all of the food, fewer containers are needed, and less is wasted. It's a pretty interesting concept.
Some time soon, I'll have to explain Korean side dishes and tell you all about the pepper incident last week that turned me into a cartoon with steam shooting out of my ears, but for now I've got to go back to teaching. I hope all is well back home, and wish that I were closer sometimes so that you all could visit and discover the life I'm living now.
Love to all
Joe