[Previous entry: "Ghosts and Tourism"] [Next entry: "Update"]

03/02/2005: "Back to Work"

Today marks the beginning of the new semester, so it's back to work, regular university classes starting after yesterday's Independence Movement holiday. So far this morning, I've had no students come to class, due to the fact that department orientations are taking place. As the day rolls on, more and more freshmen will sign up, so the afternoon classes should be relatively full. But Wednesday is my easy day anyway, with two morning classes and only one afternoon class.

I made a new Korean friend last week, Charlie, who spent 6 months in Australia recently. He's from Seoul and has very good English skills. He's visiting his family here for a while until he goes back to school. He and a couple of his cousins visited my apartment Sunday night and brought me some special rice made for the Full Moon Festival, which is a celebration of the first full moon of the lunar new year. Except for the fact that the rice was sticky and sweet, it almost looked like Cajun red beans and rice. Mmmmmmm! There's something I miss. Perhaps my next trip up to Seoul I'll buy some smoked sausage (very pricey) and ham hocks (if I can find some) and cook up a pot.

The weather is finally beginning to moderate, with highs in the upper 40s and lows in mid 20s -- nice enough to go bicycle riding yesterday afternoon, though going against the wind along the river was still unpleasant. In addition to keeping the weather for various Montana towns on my Yahoo personal page, I also have the Bangkok and Vientiane weather available for a quick glimpse. Mostly the temperatures in those two cities are in the 90s. I can hardly wait for July to roll around. More later.