Snow in Seoul

It's gotten wet and cold enough that we actually have some snow on the ground now. Unfortunately it's warm enough that some of the snow melts during the day only to freeze later on making for some spots of ice.

Arlene and David are in the Philippines and are doing well. They are in Leyte in Arlene's home village. David is having a lot of fun as he gets lots of attention. The only problem is that it has been raining almost constantly.

Things have been pretty busy for me. I've been going to the office a lot as its too lonely to just stay at home and I'm more likely to be distracted here. On Tuesday I was supposed to have dinner with Professor Cho and Professor Yu. Professor Yu just had her first book, a translation of a journal kept by a French Bishop who was imprisoned in Korea in the late 19th century, published. Professor Cho wasn't feeling well so Professor Yu and I went out for dinner on our own. We had a nice time and I was happy that because of Professor Yu's patience, we were able to talk for two hours in Korean. My Korean still needs a lot of work but I felt like that was an accomplishment. Professor Yu is very interesting. She speaks French so well that her English has a French accent! When surprised, instead of saying "a-e-gu" like Koreans, she say "o-la-la"!

Here ia a picture of us at our dinner


On Thursday I boarded a van with 12 or so GE-Fulbright Foundation Leadership scholarship winners and some Fulbright staff members to go to Oak Valley Resort in Kangwon province. It's about two hours or so east of Seoul. As I understand it, the scholarship is a full ride for three years of undergraduate. My job was to give a talk to encourage them to be concerned with doing good over personal advancement. When first approached about giving the talk I was nervous, what would I, a person studying religious history have to say to people studying science and engineering? I thought and prayed a lot and some ideas came to me. I talked about two very different Japanese doctors, Ishii Shiro, the infamous head of Japan's biological weapon's unit 731 during world war two, and Nagai Takashi, a saintly man who used his medical knowledge to help people and who basically sacrificed his life in order to save lives. I also talked about the Korean philosopher Tasan Chong Yakyong (Tasan is his pen name, meaning "Tea Mountain") and about Socrates (any day I can talk about Socrates is a good day). I was nervous about the talk but the Fulbright head was happy and the students seemed to have received it well so thank God for that.

On Friday morning I returned so I could work. On Saturday I stayed at home and worked all day. Today was Sunday so I caught up on emails, went to mass, took a nap, and finished the movie "Eegah" which Chris and Beth kindly sent me. Tomorrow I will go to the office.