Wow, it's been awhile. Yeah, I have no excuse, I'm just downright lazy. My apologies.

But it is time for another installment of Miah's Korea Adventures, so let's get right down to it.

First of all, it's been a weird past few months. I kind of had a falling out with one of my fellow teachers here at Dongsan High School. I get along really well with all of the others, but there's just one that has seemed to have had it in for me for a while now. I really think she just hates all Americans, because I can't pinpoint what I did to make her so mad. She's only 25 and it's her second year teaching. She's an English teacher as well and she was appointed to be the one to help me and do the interpreting for the meetings. But something broke between the two of us and she would get angry at me and not talk to me for almost a week straight before I would try to talk to her about it and apologize. (I have no idea what I was apologizing for, I just wanted to fix it so I could find out what was happening in the meetings.) Yet I would hear about her spreading rumors to students and other teachers about me. Well, a few weeks ago, she came to me and just went off, leading with "Who do you think you are?" It was a rough conversation that I have to say I couldn't keep my cool very well and ended up telling her "I know you hate me. I know what you say to other teachers and other students. I don't know why you hate me, but I have nothing to say to you because you wouldn't believe anything I said and you're just looking for a reason to go off on me..." Yeah, words were said and we basically haven't said much to each other since. The good thing is that I was told by my boss that they would do what they could to fix the situation and that they don't want to lose me, so it's been bearable as long as I'm not around her.

So that's been the little bit of stress I've had recently. I also went to a week long foreign teacher's conference in Yongin (about an hour or two away from Ansan) and it was a complete waste of my time as well as a horrid look into some of the people that are allowed to come here to teach. There were some shady characters and that's just being honest.

But I've been needing a nice vacation from it all and I finally got a chance this past weekend. This post shall be dubbed... "Mudfest II"

Last year, I went to the Mud Festival in Boryeoung and it was a lot of fun. Good times, good people and good mud. This year, Jeremy, Michelle and I drove down in my car late Friday night and threw down a tent in the camping area. Unfortunately, the tent we bought had screen windows only and no canvas covering or rain cover. So we knew if it would rain, we'd get soaked, but it wasn't too bad the first night.

For a little background info, the Boryeoung Mud Festival is just a giant week and a half party on the beach where they import this really expensive skin cleansing mud and everyone just covers themselves and goes to town. It's basically like Spring Break with Mud. Lots of foreigners and Koreans cramped onto a very muddy beach... good times. Here's the crew I came with.

This is Jeremy. He's from Vancouver and he and I spent a lot of time together. He's been in Korea for about six years, so he's an old pro. But it's his first time at the Mudfest, so he's due. I don't know why I haven't put more pictures of him on here before. He's like my best friend here.

And this is Michelle with Jeremy. She's another Canadian and she's pretty cool. Good people. This is them all mudded up and ready to go.

This is what the beach looked like. Packed with foreigners.

They had a decent foreign band on the stage playing a lot of cover songs.

Again, it really seems a lot like one of those Florida Spring Breaks, except that everyone's covered with mud and there's a ton of Koreans around.

Here's Michelle and I.

And another shot of Jeremy and I.

Oh, and there were these guys walking around in horse masks handing out these advertisements. I don't think he knew we were taking this picture.

And for those from Bethel, here's Derrick and Lavon Null getting into the spirit of Mud festival. They just got here over two weeks ago and they're feeling the love in Korea. It's great having some familiar faces here in Korea.

And here's the rest of the group we met up with. Chris, Me, Robbie, Lavon and Jeremy.

Here's me with Robbie and Caitlin. Again, Canadians. Again, good people.

Another shot of Jeremy and I.

Here's Maria and I. She's from Minnesota and she's pretty cool too. We met up with her and some others and watched the fireworks on the beach. I love this picture because my hair just looks huge. Seriously, I don't think I'm gonna cut it.

But here's where the story starts to take a turn. We had our fun on the beach and went back to sleep. I crashed pretty hard and Jeremy went off for a bit on his own. Around three in the morning, I awake to the screams of other foreigners. I hear them yell "What's going on?? This is supposed to be a waterproof tent." It kind of hits me right there that it's raining outside. It's raining really really hard. And there's standing water in our tent. Everything is soaked. I look down and I see all the water just running in from the top where there was no rain cover and streaming through the screens where there were no canvas covers and at that time, Jeremy comes running over and we haul everything to the car and try to drive into town to find a hotel. But as we get there, there's no room anywhere, so we have to find a sauna/jimjilbang where we can just catch a little bit of sleep.

Needless to say, it was a rough ending to what was a great weekend. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep and I don't think I'll feel dry for at least a few more days. But it was a great weekend and a great chance to get away from Ansan. So that's what's going on with me. Hopefully in August, I'll be in Australia. That's the plan anyway.