Joel: Yesterday felt like spring. Only for about three hours in the mid to late afternoon, but it was an unmistakable feeling. I took my coat off on the tube on the way back from a shopping trip and kind of hoped that my action would signal an ushering in of the Spring (and so by extension, the Summer) season. I should have known, today it's been bloody miserable.

Last weekend was the Korean New Year, always celebrated according to the lunar calander in the same way as Chinese New Year. On Friday, I had a lovely surprise. The principal's assistant, "Tom", came up to my room at the end of the day with a gift for me. I don't mean to be ungrateful, it's a very kind gesture I know, but once again my principal's generosity came in the unwanted form of an six-tinner Spam giftset. We still have the last one sitting in the spare room. We tried to palm it off on Luke for Christmas but, unsurprisingly, he wasn't having any of it. So now we have two of the beauties. A friend told me that, in a similar position, he gave unwanted food gifts to homeless people around Seoul station, so I'm thinking I should really do that.

Like at Chuseok, Korean's spend new year with their extended families and pay homage to their ancestors, often making long journeys to their graves. Consequently, the world as we know it shuts down and the day has that eery Christmas day feel. To celebrate (not really the New Year, perhaps more the fact we had a bank holiday on Monday) we invited Shano, Justin and Sam over on Sunday night and Rakhi cooked up a full roast dinner. It somehow turned into a late night poker game and I'm still suffering a bit today actually.

On Monday, we joined one of the little badminton clubs we discovered in the forest behind Rakhi's school. There are about thirty members, we're the only non-Koreans of course and probably the only under forties, and although the surface isn't that great, our gym membership runs out this week so we had to do something to avoid becoming lazy wasters. It's a cool little place actually and I think we're a bit of a novelty. As the weather improves (it's outdoor) I'm sure it will be a top little place to go for an afternoon game.

My Spring camp is going okay. Many of the kids came to my summer and winter camps, and I can definitely see a development - for some in their capacity to speak English but for most in their capicity for cheekiness now that they are so used to having this clownish Englishman in their classroom. I'm convinced that when we play games they actually have no idea that they are learing English though. They're just so desperate to win. It's a bit of a double-edged sword though in that, as much as I want them to really enjoy the lessons, they love to get rowdy and become impossible to calm down again. Still, I'd rather that than than have them go home telling their folks my lessons are boring.

After my class today, Bo-Hyun took me aside for a word to tell me that she's been told her new role for the coming year - she's going to be a grade four teacher. So, for my last eight weeks here, I'm going to be working with a brand new teacher for grades five and six, and one of my favorite teachers, the one who's really into table-tennis, for grades three and four. So, yet more changes. The last thing she said though was that although she won't be the English teacher anymore, she wants to help us in every way possible to sort things out over the next couple of months. She's a complete star really because some things would be quite difficult to do with out the help of someone who speaks good Korean who is so generous with their time and energy.

Still no news on the Thailand job which is a tad worrying, but no cause for major concern just yet. It would be nice to have something good arranged before we go there but I have also heard that it's very possible to arrive and find a teaching position with better conditions than you can usually find when looking to secure a job from outside the country. It would be a risk of a sort but also an adventure however things pan out. We'll do plenty of research though, keep applying for things now, and give ourselves the best chance of finding good jobs there.

Oh, and if anyone wants the Spam, I'll put it on Spam-bay with a starting value of 100won. Come on people, put your hands in your pockets!