One might think that having an insane dictator threatening to blow up one's country might be a bit of a concern, but the latest crisis doesn't worry me much at all, and here's why:

1) The North has a history of pulling this kind of crap whenever the South does anything noteworthy. It's a lot like a jealous little brother whose older sibling is winning awards. When big bro does something to be praised, little bro does whatever he can think of to get some attention directed back his way. There is a long history of North-South skirmishes, including that time the Norks tried to assassinate the South Korean president, the time they hijacked a South Korean jet, the time they captured an American ship, the time they murdered a couple of American soldiers who were cutting down a tree in the DMZ... all of which were more serious than the most recent incident, and none of which led to another big war.

2) My US Army contact has heard nothing out of the ordinary and the military as a whole seems to be reacting to the situation largely with indifference.

3) My Korean co-teacher is more concerned about whether or not the incident will hurt Korea's chances of getting into the World Cup than he is about being shelled by Northern missiles. I figure that since Koreans do tend towards having a bit of a hive mind, his attitude is probably representative. And if the Koreans aren't worried, I'm not too worried either.

Otherwise life is continuing exactly as usual. This is Test Week the First at school, so I have little to do all week besides giving speaking test upon speaking test. Boring, but not too difficult. Scores so far are about exactly where they were last term and so I feel neither amazing nor hopeless as a teacher. Next week I have one day of classes, which will largely be test prep classes given by my co-teacher, and then four days of nothing; one day of final exams (where I don't have to do anything) and then three days where all the classes I would be teaching will be off on a surprise field trip to "learn manners". Uh, okay.

After that it's another week of teaching, then a week of sitting around doing nothing at school, then a couple of days off for Christmas and then winter camp. I'm planning a fairy tale theme which means I get to show off some classic Disney and (hopefully) the Wizard of Oz, and this has got me thinking about stories and the role they play in our lives. I still remember my own personal fairy tale, the one where I played the part of the Damsel in Distress and the wonderful Dutchman Matthijs played the Knight in Shining Armour, just about every day.

In other cultural news, there's a Chagall exhibit coming to town and I feel like I ought to finally study some art history. I love art, but I never know much about it beyond "Look at the purty pitcher!" We'll put that up there with the Christian Reading Project in the list of "things I need to learn about someday when I get around to it".

My XBox is broken again. I'm going to ask for my money back from the repair place as they obviously don't have the same idea as I do of what "repair" actually means. But hey, this will help me with those reading projects, right? Right? Well, maybe. I do still have another functional XBox... it just can't play the game I've been addicted to lately. However, I've felt anyway that I've been overstimulating the "video game" part of my interests and understimulated in the more intellectual areas, so I've been trying to do more reading and studying anyway.