Hi! My coworkers surprised my friend and I with an ice crecream cake from BAskin robbins. The second picture is him and me jumping rope at our sports day at winter English camp. My friend took me to Jinha beach in Ulsan (third pic). We went to a an island that you can walk to (if you want to get your feet a little wet!). The fourth picture is some of our food at a Chinese restaurant I went to plus the traditional Korean side dish of kimchi. The dumpling/rolls were very good and pretty. The fifth pic is of a waffle that me and my roomie ate for her belated birthday outing. And lastly is a pic of my Korean language class! :) I love that class.

Katie Tyler

Room 704

Mokleyon Building

University of Ulsan

Daehak-ro 102
Nam-gu

Ulsan, South Korea

Thus is my address!

I had a great time back at home seeing my grandma off, reuniting with family and friends, and of course, eating. Here are some pics.

Now I'm back in the swing of things in the second week of three weeks of winter English camp at my elementary school. Regular classes don't start until February. University regular classes don't start until March, but my Korean class is still truckin' on through the break. I've missed a lot and it's actually irritating to go to class right now since I'm behind. Hopefully I'll catch up soon.

I will be saying goodbye to a friend who's going back to the states and also celebrating a few people's birthdays tomorrow night. Before I elft we had a Christmas party , which was so fun and great. I will put sveral pics up. Thanks for reading.

Time is flying by..

Katie Tyler

(680-749) Room 506

Moklyeon Building

University of Ulsan

Daehak-ro 102

Nam-gu

Ulsan

South Korea

My official address!!

Time is flying by. I enjoy teaching. It has it's stressful days. I love being a student as well. I haven't done much travel lately but that's okay. I enjoy the friendships I have been given here and I feel that is time is very good for me. I am so grateful to be here and I see quite often how God has planned this long ago. Today I'm going to a baby's dedication service party and then homework and lesson planning (it's Saturday)! I took my final in beginning Korean conversation class yesterday. I think it went okay. It was half written and half oral.

Thanks all for reading and love ya!

Well I guess you can see where I went! My friend Myca (from Fort Smith also) and I went with a couple of our friends on a tourist group trip to the DMZ. The train is a train which used to run N to S Korea but doesn't anymore. We got to go into a section of one of the four tunnels that N Korea dug sometime in the '50's (or '60's? I need to reread the info) to invade Seoul.

This week is midterms but thankfully I already had my two easy (comparatively) midterm tests so I am looking forward to enjoying the beautiful fall weather. The leaves are changing and I love being outside this time of year.

Teaching is going well. It is draining trying to come up with ways to make class more interesting sometimes but at the end of the day I feel that I have been doing something meaningful, which is what matters to me in the long term.

I went to Costco store in Busan yesterday with the church group and bought some instant oatmeal and popcorn. I ate western pizza (no corn or sugar!) and enjoyed browsing through all the western products. Then I had fried chicken and did noraebahng with some friends Saturday night. I am having a great time in this country and I cherish every friend I have made.

Currently my goals are to be a better teacher and more studious student. :) It's hard to focus sometimes because I'm so excited meeting new people and setting up times to get to know them better. But balance is always a challenge in life, no matter who you are or where you live or how old you are. We are always fluctuating and adapting our priorities and schedules, wouldn't you say?

Ummm okay thanks for reading. Email me at ktyler00@uafortsmith.edu or catch me on facebook.

These are pics from my trip to Ulleungdo and Dokdo, two islands on the eastern side of Korea. It is very beautiful. I went with two other TaLK scholars and met up with one of my friends who is teaching in another province.

The first pic: Natasha and Scott are standing on a bridge that we jumped off of into the beautiful clear water.

Ulleungdo is famous for it's squid and pumpkin taffy and bread. There is squid hanging and drying all over. The ferry took us to the island and also to Dokdo island, a famous island that Korea and Japan both lay claim to. They have argued about it for a while. Dokdo is actually two islands and they are very unimpressive (two rocks) but the issue is fishing rights in water surrounding it.

The sunrise pic with the rock pointing up is at Chuam beach, on the way to the departure site for the ferry to go to Ulleungdo. The guys are some friends who want to practice their English. We ate patbingsu, my current favorite. :)

I realize that I'm basically just posting pic on this blog. If you have a question, comment or email me. The two Korean girls are in my Spanish class. They just got back from a year in Argentina. :)
The Korean and Filipina are my friends- one works at the school I teach at and the other I met at int'l student orientation. We ate fried chicken together one night (yum).

I had never tried gelato (Italian ice cream)before and it is so goood.

The girls on ends are Russian and the woman in the middle is my friend Ricky from CA. We made mac and cheese, stew, and banana pudding for the foreigners festival. I can't believe we made all the food in her little apartment's kitchen. The festival was really great. The group picture has people from the church I go to. The worship band played in front of everyone too.

The two guys on left are my friends from Korean basic conversation class. They're getting engineering masters degrees and they are Bangladeshi. The guy in the green is Korean and the girl also goes to Simin English church and she's American.

Below are pics of the last week. The kids are from a school that I am telecasted to. I got to meet them face to face because my fellow TaLK scholar found out that I teach them and so I was able to come visit. We played baseball the day I came. :) His school is actually in the country more, like what I thought I'd be doing originally. There are 54 kids in the whole school. It's a lovely area with mountains all around.
You see my broadcasting room where the kids can see me, the ppt, and themselves on the screens in their room as well. My friends are in the next picture. The dress is a traditional Japanese yukata that my Vietnamese friend let us try on.

The last three of my dorm room here. This weekend I got to visit Busan, the second largest city (I think) with 3.8 million people. I visited Haeundae beach, which is really famous. I am helping a fellow American cook American food next weekend for a foreigners festival here in Ulsan.