"It's when you cry just a little, but you laugh in the middle, that you've made it."--The Mraz

After getting a letter from Mema today, and talking to the whole fam on Thanksgiving (theirs, not mine) I'm definitely crying a little but laughing in the middle. I'm missing everyone a lot, partly because I've been gone for four months now (exactly today, actually) and partly because I've never been away for the holidays. Even as I typed that, I started tearing up. Anyway, I know that everyone at home loves me and is thinking about me and is proud of me, and, while it doesn't make being away from them any easier, it makes being away more purposeful and more... right, in a way.

By the way, let me go on record here: I love Saltines. And this melon popsicle ain't bad either. :)

Got home a few minutes ago from my Language exchange with Jade, rockin' some sweet Korean, like ya do. She is so dang sweet. But, I digress. Let me relate a little story that happened last week. Jade and I go to Starbucks after dinner to study, and she always makes me order, in Korean, whatever we want. So last week I'm stumbling through the order, and I get through it and Jade walks away to get the drinks and I'm there paying, and the cute Korean girl at the counter says, "So, are you like here learning Korean?" Perfect English, California accent. I nearly had a coronary. It was the craziest thing ever! I totally loved it. Anywho, she was there again this week and it made me happy, especially since I just ordered in English. SCORE!!

It snowed for about two seconds today. Kind of exciting, and magical, and made my kids scream for a full minute--longer than it actually snowed. NEAT. But still, the first snowfall of the year is magical.

Blogger HATES uploading my images, it's so clear. Balls. And also my iPod HATES video. Balls again. But on the plus side, my computer has decided that it loves LJ again. So... looks like I officially have two blogs again. :) I missed LJ...

Alrighty, I should get off to the showers and bed. Meeting and Performance Theater in the a.m. Easy day but gotta get in early...

Much love.

"Wanna meet my new boyfriend? His name is Rex."--me, on my iPod

So my week's been exciting, I guess. On Tuesday, with Jade, we ate at California, this Japanese sushi/roll place, and I ate eel and fish eggs, and it was delish. :) Ate there again last night and LOVED it.

Wednesday and Thursday you heard about, I think. Friday morning, Thanksgiving back home, I called home and talked to everyone. It was awesome. Even Marta, Abita, Raul and Tiffany and Megan. Yay! It was awesome, and really nice to just hear some people's voices. I only got sad for about five seconds, and then I pulled it together. When I think about not being home for the holidays, I just get really, really sad. But I get sad around the holidays anyway, so maybe it's not going to be so bad. And I have Vietnam to look forward to, so that's pretty exciting! Had lunch today with a friend of mine who's already been, and she kind of got me excited. So... here's hoping my first Christmas far, far away will be... happy.

Speaking of Christmas, I wrapped a bunch of presents today and it made me happy in my heart. :) Too bad there aren't any bows...

So one more bit of story to tell, then we can all move on. Last night, Jo and I went out with two of the Korean staff from school, Elly, my supervisor, and Jinni, Joanna's kindy supervisor and my ESL supervisor. It was a total blast!! We went to an area called Hongdae, where there are a bunch of bars and a university, and we just went to this one club, NB (not Envy, Joanna!!) and just danced for like, two hours. Joanna and I ended up getting boxed in by these three Korean guys, who used their three sentences ("What is your name? Where are you from? What do you do?") pretty early in the game, and then talked to us through Elly and Jinni. But it was really funny, and it's not like back home were guys are all up on you and you're like... GET AWAY FROM ME! People aren't... raunchy here, even if they're REAL drunk. So that's a really nice change. And the place we went was crawling with HOT Korean guys. I supported it. ;) But dancing was totally fun, and Elly and Jinni are a little bit my favorite. Came home and called a bunch more people, inlcuding my house where I talked to my dad for longer than I think we've ever talked before. This includes the time we took a 16-hour (one-way) trip to Georgia. But it was really nice.

Lunch with Kelly and church today, after a little stop to Namdemun market, which is quickly becoming my new hangout of choice. I might be a little bit addicted to pineapple on a stick and pizza off the street... I did buy a sweet coat for the equivalent of $9 though. You really can't beat that.

And finally, RENT was purchased, which destroyed my soul a little bit, but on the upside, my iPod, Rex, is my new boyfriend. He decided to start working on Friday and I'm totally obsessed with it. :) I was rockin' hard core on the subway, and I think people were afraid of me, but who cares? It's awesome walking around by yourself in a big city, with like, your own soundtrack. I feel like I'm in Sex and the City.

Much love, y'all.

"Ah la la la la la life is wonderful."--The Mraz

On this day of giving thanks, I figured I'd do the obligatory entry where I give mad thanks for what I've got. So, here's my Thanksgiving list, courtesy of Korea.

• living near the mountains--my mountains
• a steady job that pays me more money than I've ever been paid
• my class, which I'm totally in love with
• feeling loved by the people I left behind
• the people I left behind being healthy and happy
• $5 bootlegs--LOVE it!!
• not having to drive anywhere
• meeting new people from all over the world
• Not having student loans to pay off
• A new found appreciation for our neighbor to the north, Canada ;)
• having an opportunity to be immersed in a new culture and language
• having a once in a life-time experience I'll never be able to forget, no matter how hard I might try

While I'm feeling a little bit down that I can't be at home, I did have a nice dinner here, and I am happy. It's just a different kind of happy, I guess.

Anyway, wishes of happiness and a full belly.

Found this today: "Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving."--W.T. Purkisr

Now go out there and use those blessings. I'm gonna try.

Much love.

"Don't worry... it's par for the course."--me

So yesterday was fairly grand, as I not only bought myself an iPod video and three DVDs--one being a bootleg of the first season of Ally McBeal, a dream come true (not the bootleg part but whatev...). It took every fiber of my SOUL not to buy the new HP, but I'm gonna try to wait til Joanna and I go see it December 3rd... That's a looooooong way away. Balls.

Anywho, after a day of electronics shopping, which I clearly enjoy a little too much, Joanna and I went to church and after church was my Thanksgiving dinner!! It was soooooo good. There was pie, and turkey, and sweet potatos, and pie and stuffing, and pie, and greenbeans and almonds and did I mention pie? Because there was pie. Pumpkin AND apple. I ate it all in this crazy whirlwind of forks and knives and pie and potatoes, but it was excellent. I met some cool people and gave thanks and missed home. After turkey all I want to do is fall asleep watching footballk, but alas, no football could be found. But it was really worth it, and I was grateful to have it. And we even got a free thermal mug, which I totally enjoyed on my walk to school this morning, so that was awesome.

So I got home all excited to play with my new toy, my iPod video, and um, yeah, it doesn't work. I'm really glad I spent a bunch of dough on something that doesn't even work. And I'm pissed I'll have to go back this weekend and take it back, and go through all this rigamorale again. GAH!!! Why can't I just buy something that works? Honestly... I'm so pissed.

Today J and I stayed after school to attend the new hip hop class before our class, and while I did not particularily enjoy the class, I fell in love a little bit with the little Korean boy teacher. Whatever, it's fine. I'm just sayin' if he can do a Harlem shake, CLEARLY we are meant to be together. It's fine.

But I've gotta head to bed now, because it's nearly midnight and I haven't showered OR done my weekly plan that was due today or gotten eight hours of sleep in a few nights or, well, gotten over being pissed about my iPod.

Much love.

"I just don't have time. And by that I mean, I sit in front of my computer for two hours and just don't do it."--me, on updating

So I'm finally doing it. I know, I know, you probably all think I'm dead, but I'm in fact very much alive. I just haven't managed to find a spare minute to update until now, down time between one activity and another. I'm cleary so popular and busy, I barely have time to eat. It's tough being fabulous.

Okay, enough about that. I woke up to this IM this morning: TATiefGVSU: I am IMing you to tell you this....Coot, I am pregnant with your baby, and you need to come home and take care of businesss! It's kinda nice to know you're loved. :)

Anywho, here's what's been up. We had a fieldtrip on Thursday to Seoul Grand Park, where we watched an elephant show (Sadly, Sharon, Lois and Brahm were absent...). It was pretty cool, except for the ladies with the scary fingernails of death. But the elephants were fun, and I think the kids got a kick out of it, except my Eric, who hates elephants or something. But still, I had a good time. Here's our class pic:

And this is my little Jinni on the way home, bless her tiny heart:

James, who was "teacher's partner" for the trip, fell asleep in my lap on the bus ride home. They're so cute when they're sleeping... But then they're crabby for the rest of the afternoon. Blast!!

It's getting cold here, so the winter coats and hats and mittens are coming out. Funny thing is, though, that skirts seem to be getting shorter, rather than longer. But the boots are getting taller so... I guess that somehow makes sense. Cultural differences, cultural differences. Anyway, instead of taking 10 minutes to get ready to go home, it now takes my kids about 20 because none of them can put their own dang coat on, or button it or anything. Grrreat. But, on the upside, look how cute Willy looks in his coat:

If you just died of cuteness, I'll understand.

Hmm... Oh, talked to my mom and the BF this week, so it was a good week. Everything is good with everyone, and that makes me happy. :) I think this holiday season without everyone's gonna be rough, but I'll be cool to see Vietnam and see some more of the world. Yay! Joanna and I had dinner this week and talked about it, and I'm really getting geeked.

Today was our last Hanji class of the 5 we singned up for, so I've decided to post a pic of the ONE thing I made that I'm not giving to someone else.

This is the lamp I made, and I'm really proud of it. It's made of paper, a cardboard frame covered in colored paper. It's a light brown with little threads of different colors in it. It's really pretty and I might be a little bit obsessed with it. Who knows... YOU may be the next person to recieve some of my Hanji love. :) Joanna and I are taking a break for a bit, but I'll be back in January to make more stuff. Yay us.

Speaking of Joanna, the other day at school she's putting together this info on E.B. White's life to teach it to her class later that afternoon, and she's all, "Is this called a bibliography or a biography?" I was like... Are you kidding me?? It was too funny. I was like, "Um, a biography." She blamed in on a blonde moment, but I think she's just been in Korea too long...

My quest to learn Korean is going well, and school's okay. It's pretty much DramaFest 2K5 every week, but whatever. I just try to stay out of it and teach my kids and everything's fine. Oh! Also exciting news, bought a pair of jeans and felt JOY in my SOUL because they weren't hella expensive AND homegirl altered them for me, which is key because GAP failed me misterably. Score! Also bought myself a Tiffany necklace... whatever. It's fine. :D

I'll leave you all with this. It's a page from one of the beginning books we teach at my school. I'll just let you take a gander at it... and laugh. If you can't read it, it's a sheet called "Where are you from?"

I know I wear that ALL the time...

Much love.

Ciao.

"Did Alicia call him her daddy?"--Michele to Joanna

Well, I've had an interesting last few days. Friday was kind of crappy, even though it was a "holiday." Friday was Pepero Day (a candy consisting of cookie stick thing covered in chocolate...they're okay) and I got tons of the stuff. But the stupidness of the Koreans I work with is finally getting to me.

Me: "So I can play any game I want to in THIS room, but I can't play games in THAT room?"
My supervisor: "Yes."

Um... How does that make ANY sense at all? And then she's all like, "Well the Korean staff has meetings and I can give you some tips if you want them." And I'm thinking The only people here with ANY background in education are the foreigners. You have a job because you can KIND OF speak English. That's it. Um, no I don't want your tips, especially because you are STUPID. I'm talking, the principal gave two of my kids a sucker, because they were in her office for fighting. Um...YOU ARE AN IDIOT. Don't frigin' tell me how to teach when you don't have a CLUE about kids, let ALONE how to teach them anything. Seriously, I work with idiots, which I can normally deal with, but Friday I just couldn't. But I'm over it now.

Clearly...

Friday night was pretty nice. I went to a co-workers house because he was having people over for his birthday. I just think it's nice to be with my co-workers and NOT be at school. Steve, the British guy, told me he totally thought I was cute (clearly, he's in love with me, it's fine) and not to date army guys, and Rodney and I had an accent contest--I did his and he did mine. I won, I'm JUST sayin'... Don't mess with THIS. :)

Saturday class started up again (no cute boy... balls), and after that I went mad Christmas shopping with Joanna. I spent a lot of money (well, not TONS but a lot) but I got most of it done. Yay!! I only bought myself two presents, an earring and my first Korean pop CD (I resisted the $400 Tiffany bracelet...) and I'm excited about the stuff I got for everyone else. I even found wrapping paper at Costco, so I can wrap it all up and send it off before too long. I would think this is too soon, but since I already got my Christmas package, I figure the bar's been set. Shopping sprees are KEY to life.

Saturday night I fell in love. Joanna and I went to a bar with JohnandLindsay where they put on this show, like bottle flipping and fire and stuff, and one of the bartenders there was MY DADDY. He like, had this bottle on fire that he was twirling around and he, like, lifts up his shirt and runs the fire across his belt and it was just... enjoyable. I'll say that. So clearly I am going back as often as possible to beocme his BFF. Note to self: I need to learn how to say "Do that trick with the fire" in Korean. It was a nice, relaxing evening out with good people and I enjoyed it.

Today was cleaning, Starbucks, and church, and I think I found the church I'm gonna stick with. I haven't been in a month or so (okay, like two months) but I really liked this place and I met a new friend and I signed up for a Thanksgiving dinner next Sunday and that is AWESOME. I'm so excited about it I could cry.

I'm not even lying.

Much love.

"I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes..."--Ace of Base

So I don't really have much "life" stuff to say, but I just wanted to post some pics that I haven't really been able to find a place for, pictures of signs and just weird stuff I've seen here.

So... enjoy. :)

I decided to start with the big one. Not only did this store manage to find another hour in the day and is staying open 25 hours instead of 24, but above this one, the sign for the restaurant is spelled wrong. Nice. Japanes food anyone?

This sign greets me every day on the way to work. Yes, that is a young Dustin Hoffman. Yes, it's for a hof, which is like a pub, here, and yes, the Korean name of the place, if you read it, is Daw-suh-tin: Dustin. Nice.

This is a store sign. Um... I love sexy cookies, how about you? And on that same shopping trip, I discovered this:

A bag with Brittany Spears lyrics on it. Read them... They're Brittany. Greeeeaaaaat.

And finally, this little doozie is the sign for the bathroom at Soraksan. Who doesn't love a peeing Buddah? I know I do!

Always an adventure here, always an adventure.

Anyway, I should check my laundry and get off to bed. Costco tomorrow!!

Ciao.

"What are you? The adjamafia?"--some random kid on the trip

So, a full night's sleep under my belt, along with a day of work and a dance class, I'm finally ready to relate the events of this weekend. Saying it was fab will just not suffice.

Even though it was two early mornings in a row, the whole trip was great. We left the church at around 9, and I sat by Corinne, my class BFF, and behind Dan, my total class crush. His eyes are, in my own words, "crazy blue" and he's totally cute. Whatev. But it turns out the girl next to us, Julianna, was the queen of snacks and she fed us the whole way there and back. KEY!

So Corinne and I randomly have this conversation about adjama visors (adjamas are the old married ladies here who are allowed to shove you out of the way because they are old and married) and she's all like, "You should buy one." So at the next rest stop, after I played on the playground, she and I and Jenny, another girl from class, bought visors and ROCKED them all weekend.

And the adjamafia was born. Corinne, me and Jenny, lookin' fierce. Don't piss us off, or we'll whack you...

At the next rest stop, this crazy (drunk, I think) adjama starts dancing with me, and I nearly peed myself because it was so funny. If only I'd been wearing the visor... Anywho, Corinne has a video of the ordeal, so I'm charging man won (about 10 bucks) per viewing to make some extra cash. We watched it about 10 times on the bus that weekend. And the best part was, we got to the bus early so I'm all dancing like a fool, and then everyone starts coming back and there I am, dancing in the parking lot to some weird Korean pop song with this crazy drunk adjama. Secretly, I loved it.

Our first real stop was Ojukheon, this place where some scholar guy was born. Turns out he's the guy on the 5,000 won note, which was pretty cool, and the picture of the same building that's on the back of the bill could be taken there. And we got to see black bamboo, which was really cool.

After that, we headed to Sockcho beach (remember how I was there, like, a month ago?). I saw the craziest thing there: these HUGE, dead, jelly fish. Like, five or six of them. Turns out they'd been chopped apart by boats and had just basically washed up on the shore.

So then Jenny and I, being who we are, decided to try and pick it up...

But the dang this was way to heavy, and, well, made of jelly, so the mission proved quite impossible. But, I must say, touching a jelly fish is pretty cool.

After staring off into the distance and playing with dead jellyfish, we played these random weird Korean games, one of which required three people to form a "horse" that is really just a tri pod of people with a tiny Korean on top. Nice. But still, it was pretty fun in a dorky-I'm-big-and-white kind of way. Awesome.

So we made it to the hotel, finally, and it turns out to be this really nice place, and we just have dinner and do a little like, praise and worship singing, and chill out. A couple sweet games of Mafia were played and I must say, I RULE at that game. I died first in the first game, and I blame my insights into the mafia during the second game on my knowledge gained from "the other side." It was totally fun, especially when we won. Key. :)

The night was bad; I barely slept. The room was HOT and there was only one thick blanket, and I shared a bed with Corinne, and there was a mosquito who LOVED me, plus we stayed up talking until about 12:30. Balls.

Did I mention we had to get up at 6:15? We did. We were on the bus, and on the way to Soraksan by 7. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we didn't get to go up in the cable car :( but we did get to walk around, and see beauty like this:

And a picture doesn't really do it justice, but it was sooooooo beautiful I can't even describe it. Here's another one.

Notice my lovely rain poncho. It blended nicely with the fall colors all around.

Did I mention that I love these mountains?

Okay, let's take a cultural break here. We've learned about adjamas already this entry, but I've got one more bit of Korean culture for you. Here, boiled silk-worm larvae are considered a snack food. They're sold all over the place, including Sorak-san. Kids and adults buy them buy the cup full and just chow down. Not only are they, well, bugs, but they smell awful when you cook them. Anyway, I've always kind of said I would try one if the opportunity came along, and this weekend it did. So... I can officially say I ate a bug. It was pretty gross, but I can see how, if you grew up eating it, you would like eating it. It was kinda squisy inside but it was salty too... Basically gross.

Eeww. I ate a bug.

Anyway, we left right after that to try and get home, and everyone was tired and weary and the ride was looooooong but the weekend was so great, and all the people were excellent. I can't wait to see them all on Saturday at class.

SPEAKING of, even though I sat behind him all bus ride (about 8 hours in total) I barely talked to my crush Dan. BUT, turns out, we rode the subway all the way home together because he lives about 4 stops away from me. Um... hello? But we had a good chat, even though parts of it were a clone of chats we'd had before (I remembered, I'm sure he didn't), and he was talking about how sometimes it was lonely here, and I'm thinking Dude, you HAVE a room mate, I have roaches. Nice. But no numbers were exchanged, AND he's probably not coming back to class, so again, my quest for someone to, I dunno, go out once or twice with, has been crushed.

Balls.

But now it's back to the grind, and my weekend is just a bunch of good stories to tell.

Much love y'all.

Ciao.

"I just wanna squeeze you!"--Alyssa

I met Alyssa this weekend, and we are totally BFF now, as I am with just about everyone cool from my trip this weekend. It was totally fab for so many, many reasons, but I really can't recount them all now because, fab as it was, it did not include a lot of sleep. So this girl is gonna try and get to bed early... Fingers crossed.

Here's a brief summary of things you can look forward to: being ridden, becoming part of the Adjumafia, dancing with some adjumas, taking the real "mafia" down, seeing undescribable beauty, touching a jelly fish, eating a bug, and having my tiny heart broken... again.

Good, good times. :)

In closing, I'll leave you this picture to ponder. It's from my classroom; it's the sentences I'm supposed to be teaching my kids each week. Look at it closely, and actually READ what it says.

And people wonder why I don't teach them...

Nice.

Ciao.

"I'm like Carrie Bradshaw!"--Me

So I saw this the other day, but I couldn't grab a pic til this morning, and if you look closely in the bus window, you can actually see me, grabbing the pic.


Yep, that's my face, on a bus, adverstising for our school. Two bad that only three of the people in that pic will actually be there when the new year starts in February. Neat.

Don'tcha love how no one's standing behind me because I'm too tall and none of the guys wanted to? Neat, feel the love. In the words of Marky Mark, "feel it, feel it."

Nothing else too exciting to report. Wanted to go to Costco tonight but I screwed up my back picking up a kid, and I can't really walk or move without pretty much doubling over, which hurts even more. I'm standing up and sitting down like a pregnant lady. Nice. But, I did get a lovely PJ surprise after school, because one of my co-workers parents (the parent of one of her kids) bought her pizza as a "thank you" for helping with her son's speech.

The best thing about Korea is the presents. :)

Much love.

"No way November will see our goodbye..."--The JM

Okay, so here's the best I can do for a pic of me dressed up on Halloween. Exciting, I know.

And here's a picture of everyone I work with (well, almost everyone) so you can all see who I see every day.
From the back we have: James, Sean, Jonathan, Rodney, Chris, Steve, Julie, Ju, then go to the second row and on the left we have Nadine, Joanna, Lindsay, me, Rach, Christine, and Elly, my supervisor. The last row in front, from the left, is Angiek, Liz, Katie and Jinni. We all look so dressed up and professional and like an actual school where real learning takes place because it was the day of the dog and pony show, when cameras showed up to make the video to recruit new kids to come to the school. Big time show, as is the Korean usual.

Let's see, what else? Oh, I was out til 10 last night with Jade doing my language exchange, and she totally invited me to her wedding in March. Score! I really want to go to a Korean wedding, and I'm so exited I'll get too! Yay! Maybe I'll know enough Korean by then to have an actual conversation... Fingers crossed. AND this will give me ample time to find a date. Okay, let's be honest, this is me, I'll give me ample time to wallow in the fact that I won't have a date. Nice.

Also, some other exciting news. I FINALLY got my Victoria's Secret that I ordered literally 2 months ago. Neat. Anyway, I'm real excited for some new undies! I've discovered the magic of online shopping, and I can see myself doing MUCH more of it in the future. Let's just say there are a few tagged pages in the catalogues. It's fine... :)

Finally, I'm so totally OBSESSED with My So-Called Life I'm sooo depressed I only have 3 more episodes to watch. Unless you count this one, then I only have two... OMG... I'll need a detox program. I'm so serious. Also somehow managed to start my "St. Patrick's Day" ritual a bit early this year. Usually I wait til at least Thanksgiving... but this year it started at Halloween. That's a holiday, right? Anyway... balls. That's not a good sign.

Costco tomorrow, joy of joys, pay day on Friday, trip to the mountains on Saturday. Things are looking up!

Ciao.