Chuseok holiday successful, back to school

The Chuseok holiday went well. The restrictions of the retreat were not as restrictive as I imagined they would be. Overall, I count it a success. Five of us shared a hotel suite(empty room/bedroom, kitchen area, living room area w/couch, bathroom) and it wasn't bad. It'd be cramped accommodations in the US, but with a Korean perspective it was luxurious.

Tyrell, Alex, Deron, Essra, and I all shared the room. We cooked our own meals with food provided by the school. They gave us some food at the beginning of the retreat, but failed to tell us that we would receive more each day. This initially caused some strife, as we thought the initial supply would have to last us the whole holiday. It turned out fine, and we had plenty leftover- though we might have cooked better the first day or two knowing that more was coming. We had a stovetop, sink, fridge, and a rice cooker. No oven though. That didn't stop Deron from cooking unconventional things in the rice cooker(cake).

Koreans don't use beds the way we do. The mat-on-the-floor is a popular sleeping accomodation, and that's what we had. Fortunately for me, however, I took advantage of man rules and called 'dibs' on the couch as soon as we entered the room, thus retaining it for the remainder of the holiday. We spent much of our time playing Counterstrike. For the uninitiated, CS is a first-person shooter game that simulates terrorist situations in which the player must stop the terrorists from either killing the hostages or bombing a target. It has an enormously popular multiplayer mode which is very fun. It's more realistic than most video games, approaching simulator realism rather than 'ray guns and rocket ships'. I like to think of it as grown-up cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, etc. Very violent. CS is one of those games the people throw their lives away playing(or used to be, rather-it's old now). We played a bunch during the holiday, and I'm pretty sure that we managed to get Essra addicted to it; much to his dismay as he didn't bring a computer of his own to play on.

So now we're back at school. Interesting note: I appear to have picked up a susceptibility to motion sickness during the summer. I spent 2 months on the ground in Alaska, not riding in any vehicles or riding any rollercoasters. Maybe that did it. I was almost ill on the plane ride from Port Alsworth to Anchorage; which in my defense was very rough. Uncharacteristic of me, though. I found myself dizzy on the bus rides to and from Handong for the holiday. Although I was trying to watch a movie on my laptop while the bus was winding up and down mountains and careening along crazy Korean roads. Maybe I'm making something of nothing. We'll see when I get back to Longview and start driving irresponsibly in my car.

School is boring. Today I got a 'great' sticker on my Lit assignment that was handed back. Totally a throwback to 2nd grade.