Some good and eventful news

I was delaying this post until I [hopefully] had some more news about the application process for work. Not only have I gotten more information, I actually got a job offer. Since I'm pretty excited about that, I'll hop right into that part of the post.

Work:
I had originally been applying to places to the immediate west of Seoul. That would put me in a very convenient place to make it to Starcraft matches should I desire. Due to the presence of Starcraft there, it was an area of Seoul (that isn't the metropolitan area, but is close enough to Seoul that I would lump it into that myself) that I was familiar with. Gwangmyeong is the name of the place I was looking. If you zoom out a bit from that map, you can also see Bucheon to the west and Anyang to the southeast. Those were the other two places I was primarily looking towards. I've been working with a recruiting agency as you know by now because that's how it is done. In addition to recommending teachers to jobs, they also recommend jobs to teachers because some schools in less desirable places will put their school out there if nobody seems to be applying. The hunt in the areas I preferred was going well it seemed, though too slowly for my taste. During that process, a school was recommended to me in Dongducheon (you can zoom out a bit and see that I'm north of Seoul). The location is less desirable than what I was hoping for. Though I'm right along a subway line (that was pretty much a requirement for me), the ride into the heart of Seoul would still be about an hour or more. Fortunately the subway cost is pretty low, so that shouldn't be an issue. I just may not go to town on days other than weekends.

An added bonus about this school is the type of school. In the other areas, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would be teaching elementary school students. This would be very basic stuff and to be honest I didn't really mind that since I have no teaching experience. My only preference for age was to not do middle school (elementary school students have motivation, high school students have smarts, and middle school students have neither). This school is actually a high school. More than that though, it's a foreign language school where the students are supposed to be more proficient in English since they're planning on going to study in America for college. So I will be teaching students in a speaking/listening class and a writing class. I realize that all sounds normal, so you may be wondering what caught my eye specifically about this school? They are also asking me to teach AP microeconomics and AP macroeconomics. They were requesting someone that majored in econ. So this means that I actually will get to make use of my undergrad degree. I'm super excited about that. I'll probably need to refresh my memory on Asian economic development though. Fortunately at SU, I was on the IED (international economic development, not expolsives T__T) track, so I have a lot more information on international economic development than the normal standard econ major might.

So anyway, I start on the first of March and it seems like I might need to leave in mid to late February for an orientation period or something. I'll know more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, it will be good to spend as much time as possible with people before I go. Speaking of which.

People are here:
Davis and Orion are both in town this week which has been cool. We've been kind of formulating a plan to set up a big get together for everyone. In addition to that, Davis and I have been playing Halo 4 which has been fun. We're hoping to beat it before he goes, which is looking possible. It was also nice to catch up with everyone. I got to sit down with Eric, Davis, and Orion over the course of this last week which has been good because those three are notoriously difficult to facebook stalk.

Games:
I've been slowly starting the shift off of my Xbox to my PC because it's not going to be an option when I'm in Korea. I did pick up Assassin's Creed 3 because I put a lot into that franchise and I really like the games. That will likely be my last game on the Xbox though. I cancelled my Xbox live gold account after 9 years on it. I still have the account I guess, but now I can only access the marketplace to give Microsoft more money.

Over on the PC, I've still been playing a lot of League of Legends. I finally climbed up to gold tier, putting me in the top 5%. I haven't played as much ranked as I want to recently due to lag, but I'll start again soon. At the moment, I'm a higher current elo than Eric, though that will soon change I bet. He and I might duoqueue sometime. I was really happy about getting to gold though because it means that I've now officially become a better League player than I ever was in Starcraft. I haven't played Starcraft in a long time, but I still watch it really often. Terran is really weak right now, so I see little point in playing and just getting smashed. I'm holding out until Heart of the Swarm comes out in spring and then we'll see. I'd still like to get moderately good at that game. In the meantime, I'll be grinding at League trying to get better there. Keir is playing League now too and getting pretty good, so that's been fun to play with him.

A final note is that the four of us (Steven, Eric, Chris, and I) are finally getting into putting time into our four player co-op games that we've accumulated over the years. It's been fun so far and I hope this continues. It's nice to actually be playing games that we bought and shelved too quickly.

Well I don't have much else for you guys. Christmas was pretty nice, I got some good stuff that will be useful when I go to Korea. I stream games still at twitch.tv/runninginsquares and now have a webcam if you ever want to see my beautiful face on those dark, cold winter nights. Oh and on a side note, my phone has been having battery deterioration problems and now holds a charge for about 2 hours. I keep it on silent to prolong the battery life as much as possible, so the only way I would answer a call on my phone is if I'm actually looking at the phone as I am getting called. This crowd isn't really the crowd I need to be informing given that you know how often I'm online, but emailing/texting/instant messaging me is the way to go to get a hold of me. As a result of the phone problems, I've started getting myself into the habit of checking email more often. Also, my house phone is an option.

Ok well I need t go meet Grandpa for lunch today so I'm off to do that. Until next month (and next year!) peace out.