stuff and junk

wow! i haven't updated in a while!


let's seee....we went to the devotchka concert at the granada and it was pretty cool. not too crowded...the music was fairly mellow but amazing and beautiful and there was a sousaphone with red christmas lights on it!

we recently saw the gogol bordello concert and it was much more fun even though it was in a much crappier venue - the house of blues in dallas- boooo :oP the drinks were incredibly over-priced so after a couple of those we resorted to drinking straight vodka. if you know anything about gogol bordello this was quite appropriate! :oD good times.

other than those two concerts i've just been working and going out with friends. i passed my 8 week review and now we have health insurance!!!!!!!! how strange.....


i'm liking my job but i think i like the people i work with more than the actual job which really explains why a lot of people stay in less than ideal jobs so much....the people really make it. that's something i didn't realize until recently because i was so isolated in my jobs in korea. i was the only FOREIGNER in the two schools in which i worked. i could pretty much only talk to ONE person and even that wasn't enough most of the time. either my co-teacher was too shy to speak much english or just didn't know enough to converse extensively. this is most likely why i had so much homesickness. i mean to not be able to talk about things with ANYONE at work? they were my link to korea and i couldn't fully utilize them. not only because of a language barrier but a cultural barrier too. most of the time my co-teachers just couldn't understand where i was coming from. and many times i couldn't understand where they were coming from. it was very complicated and looking back at it i'm surprised i was able to endure it at all.

don't get me wrong- the job itself was easy. but it was the living in a foreign country and having to deal with a completely foreign culture that was difficult. there are parts of it that were much easier than in america and parts of it that were endlessly frustrating. good and bad like everything else.

ANYWAY, i'm really enjoying being able to converse with my co-workers at half price. it makes the job so much more enjoyable than it would be if we didn't speak the same language and couldn't communicate...makes sense right? humans are social animals after all.

i've been going out with friends a lot. it's weird that i've been "partying" more with people here in texas than i ever did in korea. partying wasn't a part of my vocabulary then. it may be partly due to the fact that korea was just so exotic and exciting in everyday life that i didn't really need to go out and party to have fun. arlington on the other hand....well you get my drift ;o)

but yeah- we've been having lots of fun with all our friends and it's been great. we've finally been here long enough to establish groups of friends and get together with people on a regular basis, etc. it's really nice!

april 24th will mark one year back in the states and i think we've done pretty well. jens has finished fire academy and emt and i got certified as an event planner and now i work at half price. jens is testing for fire depts. in various areas and getting closer to getting a job so that's good.

i thought i would pursue event planning but i really think i mainly wanna do it in the capacity of university campus events which i can't do right now. we'll see what happens. i like half price books but i dunno if i'd wanna work for them forever. if we move i may pursue something else. may try some volunteer work to see what i like, etc. we'll see.

ok i need to go to bed. got work in the morning. just wanted to update a little. GOODNIGHT! :oD