I was reading Geoff’s blog and laughed.  He is excited over Summer Break and I am wondering how the summer went by so fast.

I have been busy with the house, as you all know.  But I have been busy here as well and I still don’t have my summer projects STARTED!

Some of the things I must get done before classes start are:

• Make the changes in General Education for the degree progress reports
• Make changes for Supply Chain Management
• Change the BUS-Z 312 requirements
• Work on entering academic exceptions for students’ degree progress reports

All of these take a while to get done.  Along with this, I still answer e-mails, see student appointments, check those applying for graduation, help others in the office.  I keep very busy!

So, where did the summer go?  I’m not sure, but glad we still have a couple of weeks before classes start!

Friday, we traveled to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.   The DMZ is about an hour north of the Seoul area.  It was very interesting hearing the history of the DMZ and seeing the area around the DMZ.  Basically it is a 4 kilometer segment of land between North and South Korea that cannot be developed.  While there, I tried to scan the area through binoculars.  I have heard many stories of the variety of animals and birds that live in the area.  It was a beautifully clear day, but unfortunately I did not see the wildlife  I was looking for.  On a clear day, one can see well into North Korea.

Here is a picture of the North Korean Flag from several kilometers away.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/DMZ2.jpg

I we also visited a monument in hope of the unification of Korea.  The world split in two is depicted as being pushed back together by people from both sides.   Below is a picture of my family at the site.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/DMZ1.jpg

The picture below is the freedom bell
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/DMZ3.jpg

These two monuments demonstrate the desire by many to see the reunification of North and South Korea.  Learning about the information made me wonder if North and South Korea can someday be reunited like East and West Germany.

Tuesday after class, my boys and I decided to go for a hike up one of the many mountain areas in and around Seoul.  Rather than building developments on these mountainous areas in Seoul, they are kept as parks and hiking is a very popular past-time in Korea.  We went to an area known for its man-made waterfalls.  The hike and the scenery were great.  I enjoyed going through the woods and seeing the many vistas of the city.  It has been not rained in the week that we have been here, so many of the waterfalls in this area were dried up, but as I said, the views of the city were great and it was well worth a hike up the hill.

Some of the paths on the hill were steep enough that they placed ropes along the walkway to help you keep your balance and to pull yourself up the rocks on the hill.  I especially found two things very interesting on our hike.  One was the number of people on the trail.  We walked by many people as we went up the hill.  It was by no means crowded, but for a weekday afternoon, there were definitely more people than we had expected.  Many of the people went up the hill and had a picnic.  The second was the fitness centers at the top of the hill and several locations along the way up the hill.  Clearly, the walking up the hill gives a good workout for the legs, but with the equipment on the hill, you could also get an upper body workout if you liked.  It was something I would have never thought of on a mountain around the city.  It must have taken a bit to get all the equipment up the hill.

The boys like a fast paced walk, so I worked hard to keep up.  Once at the top we took several pictures of the city below. 
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea3b.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea3a.jpg

Then the decision, do we take the same way down or do we take another path and figure out how to get back home from wherever we end up.  It’s never any fun visiting a new city if you don’t let yourself get lost, so we decided on the later.  Once down the other side of the mountain (it was not a very tall mountain), we walked through the town till we got to a major street.  Once there, we looked for signs of the metro stations and checked out our map.  Under some of my poorly designed walking plans, it took a bit longer than we thought to get to the station, but we found our metro station and headed for Seoul Station near our hotel and a well earned pizza at the Pizza Hut near the metro station.

We spent about 30 minutes getting to the location on metro, 30 minutes returning, and a bit over 3 hours of fast paced walking up the mountain and back down. 

I don’t think I’ve looked forward to summer break this much since grade school. My summer classes ended on Wednesday evening with the Business Law final and for the first time in more than ten months I’ve officially whittled my major daily commitments down to, um, work (at least until late next month).

I was a bit surprised to find that summer classes are considerably different than semester classes. First of all, they meet for fewer weeks than semester classes (which is a good thing). However the expectations aren’t any less than normal so the class hours are extended and the out of class work and reading is increased. On top of all that, it’s summer time and sitting in a classroom a couple of nights a week after a full day of work is not everyone’s first choice when the alternatives are grilling out, boating, cycling, etc.

Anyway even though grades aren’t posted, classes are complete and so is Year One of the Kelley MBA.  It’s a good feeling to be this far but we still have a considerable amount to go (676 days for those keeping track).

Though it sounds a bit juvenile for graduate school, I feel prompted to ask the question “what do you have planned for your summer vacation?”

Personally, I’m going to make the most of the break. In a little less than two weeks I’ll be taking to the highways of my home state (the ones still intact after the floods) on my road bike with 10,000 of my closest friends for the 36th Annual RAGBRAI, a 471 mile trek across Iowa.

See you in late August!

Hey yall. I apologize for not bloggin on a regular basis, however, I have an excuse: I have been doing a lot of stuff. Here is my "2008, SUMMER SO FAR" blog. (Yes, caps and bold were an attention grabber. And yes, it worked). Anyway, here it is:

• Finished with summer class. Great feeling to be done, not so great feeling to get a grade I did not want. However, I learned a lot and that is what college is about.... Right?
• Went to the Death Cab For Cutie concert at White River with my brother. Walked there from my apartment while taking a tour of IUPUI's beautiful campus along the way. Short walk, did not have to pay for parking, great night, and most of all, it was a great show. 
• Worked soccer camps. Uhhh, I mean it was alright, but a job is a job. Long hours, little kids, and standing up in the sun all day = not to fun. Getting paid for watching and playing soccer = fun. In addition, I ate pizza everyday for about two weeks straight which is something everyone should try  once in their life. 
• Went to Disney World. Pretty great time. Have not been since I was ten years of age so it was cool to see the parks as an adult. Highlight of the trip: Staying in magic kingdom 'till 2:00am and riding Splash Mountaing, Big Thunder Mountain, The Buzz Lightyear Ride, and Space Mountain (only waited in line about 15 min BooYA) all in a row. It was a blast.
• Wedding. Just got back today from a great wedding up in the region. Saw a good friend from high school (he is a bit older) walk down the marraige path with a great girl. We had a blast at the reception dancing to "Jesse's Girl" and Soldier Boy all in the same night.

So that is what I have so far. In two weeks I am going to see my oldest brother get married which will be weird but amazing all in one. In addition, I am working on getting up to Cedar Point for some roller coasters. I got a taste at Disney and I need more. Thanks readers.

John

My two boys (both age 15) and I have been in Korea for about a week.  The flight was long, taking about 20 hours in the plane and airports as we traveled around the world.  We left at 8 am on Tuesday and arrived in Seoul about 3:30 pm on Wednesday.  As we flew, the sun was shining the whole time.  It was like following the sun around the earth.  3:30 pm Korean time is 2:30 am Eastern US time.  The jet lag disappeared after about a day.

The first evening in Seoul we went out to eat with some of our friends from the area.  Great Barbeque, a traditional Korean meal!  The first full day in Seoul we walked around for about 4 hours to see different parts of town.  There are some great sites in Seoul.  

Transportation is always my first concern in a new city.  Our hotel is near the center of Seoul and Yonsei University is to the Northeast, about 12 kilometers from our hotel.  The metro is the primary mode of transportation.   The entrance station is a bit more than 1 kilometer from our hotel and the exit station is the same.  So I’m getting in a great deal more walking than I typically do.  The metro is very easy to use with station names listed in Korean, English, and via a number system.

I only have 19 students in my Finance class, much smaller than the typical classes I teach.  I am enjoying the smaller class size, especially once we get to grading assignments.

Over the weekend, we used a tour bus to take us to some of the sites in Seoul. There are way too many to see in such a short time, so we focused on 3.  We visited

the War Memorial of Korea and museum,
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2b.jpg
Namsangol Traditional Korean Village
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2c.jpg
and Changdeokgung Palace.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2d.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2a.jpg

It seems like all spring and summer I have been getting ready for our trip to Korea.  I will be teaching a corporate finance course (basically F301) at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea.  The course will be 6 weeks, with classes meeting for 100 minutes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  This will be the first time that I teach outside of the U.S.   

I obtained my visa, allowing me to teach in Korea, my international driver’s license, prepared the syllabus and handouts for the class.  Also, I need to have more items with internet access through the syllabus hyperlinks, rather than OnCourse.  This is when I miss having OnCourse and realize the convenience of having our university system in place for linking articles, example assignments, and assignments.   The goal is to have as much in place as possible prior to going to Korea, so I can spend the 3-day weekends traveling with the family, rather than preparing materials for my class.  We also have a family living in our house in Indiana, so that the pets are taken care of while we are gone.  It’s great sometimes how things work out.  Our friend and her family have an internship in Indianapolis, so they were looking for a place to stay over the summer, and this works out great.

The whole family will be traveling and we hope to see as much of the country as possible.  We plan to mainly travel using train, but for some of the local travels, we may rent a car.  We will also be visiting with Hyunju, our foreign exchange student that stayed with us last year and several our kids’ high school friends (other exchange students) that our children met while attending Lutheran High School. 

A lot of planning and it is about to come to fruition.  I’ll type several blogs in the near future from my course and my families’ travels from Korea.