awesome!

all of the sudden i am able to sign into my blog AT SCHOOL! i can update so much more now! although i only have 5 days of school left! lol

i'm currently waiting on my co-teacher to show up at school so we can go eat dinner and then go to the school concert- i think it will be the school orchestra and maybe some other kinds of performances. i'm happy to go to the concert but i'm afraid of what it'll be like sitting next to my insane co-t the whole time...sigh...lol we'll see.

i'm SUPER jittery right now because i had TWO tiny cups of the instant coffee that comes out of the machine downstairs. it's milk and sugar coffee and it must have a higher percentage of caffiene in it than regular american black coffee cuz it amounted to about 1/4 of a cup but i'm soooooo shakey right now! crazy!

i had lunch with almost all of the english teachers today. one of them treated us to yenal bodibap. old style bibimbap. it's really good. i had been to that specific restaurant 3 times before. it was really nice to be taken to a restaurant i actually like rather than an octopus soup restaurant or raw fish! yay!

tomorrow is wednesday! humpday! school's almost out! i'm just showing movies wed. and thurs. and then fri. we're off for xmas!!!

jens and i are going to abby and jason's xmas eve and jason will be making a traditional ukrainian dinner because his family has ukrainian ancestors. then xmas morning jens and i will get up, open presents, make some kind of yummy breakfast and then make sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie to take over to a and j's that afternoon. we're having a big xmas dinner with them and some other friends. should be great! we'll eat, play games, maybe watch an xmas movie and have a generally merry time! i'm so glad i've got great friends here i can spend the holidays with! last christmas in korea!

after that a and j just have a few days before they leave korea forever! they will be missed but we'll be visiting them on our huge road trip next spring! yay!

we leave jan. 3rd for our vacation! can't wait! jens and i have been planning the itinerary and booking bungalows, etc. SO EXCITED!!!!

i'm super relieved to finally have dog-sitters for the entire winter. thanks so much to all of you who are helping us out!

man it's almost 5:30 and my co-t is supposed to be here to take me to dinner before the concert starts at 6:30!!! i have a feeling we'll be late...dangit! i knew this would happen. she had to go all the way to gwangju earlier today for some reason and then was going to come back and get me for the concert. i should have just gone home for dinner and had her pick me up later. oh well!

anyway, there's a couple i'm in touch with that might be taking over for jens and i after we leave. i just sent them an email with a ton of info about our jobs, etc. but haven't heard back yet. we don't have to fill our jobs before we leave or anything. just kind of nice to already be in touch with our replacements (if they decide to replace us). this way they have time to decide if they wanna buy any of the furniture, etc. we're selling that does not belong to the schools.

ugh i'm so glad i only have movie classes left. the students have been driving me nuts! esp. the boys! but the girls too...they're just really inconsiderate. they steal stuff, they scream and yell, the boys have taekwondo matches in the middle of the room, they lose my craft supplies and won't look for them, they leave paper all over the place, they have races with the rolling chairs, they break chairs, they draw giant penises for x-mas ornaments, they talk back, they ignore me, they watch movies on mini flat screens during class, and just generally act like complete jerks!

i so don't wanna teach at all next semester. i'm worried about what the new 1st graders will be like....but i'm almost more worried about what the old 1st graders turned 2nd graders will be like because they're horrible right now. i don't think a vacation will change them into completely different people lol

i'll have a new main co-teacher next semester though. that'll be A HUGE change! it'll be like a completely different job! my other co-ts will change up a bit too. one of my favorite co-ts wants to transfer schools because the students are so bad but she don't know if she will be able to. it's not her time yet. teachers are supposed to stay at one school for 4 years. she's been here 3.

aaahhh where is my co-t??? i'm soooo hyper!!!!! lol

wonder what we're gonna eat for dinner...we're gonna have to scarf it down whatever it is...she likes noodle soups and deadly spicy stuff. i prefer the noodle soups lol they take a long time for me to eat though because it's hard to eat noodles with chopsticks and a spoon.

i'm beginning to wonder if i'm gonna be locked in this school all night! i'm like the only one here! it's getting dark out.

alright well i'm gonna go in case she gets here and i have to fly out the door!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

SNOW!

so it started snowing last night and has been continuing to snow off and on since then. i woke up to a winter wonderland! :o)

it was really cool at school today because we were making xmas ornaments in my classes and listening to xmas music but on top of all that it kept snowing like crazy and it just felt so wintry! it was awesome! :o) a couple time i looked out the window and could only see WHITE it was snowing so hard. never seen so much snow in my life!

and i swear my cold tolerance has totally changed since i've lived here! of course, i also have a really good coat this year! but even in the snow i don't feel that cold! it's nice! but i'm afraid i'll just be dying during this next summer in texas! ah! lol

anyway, the classes went pretty well. i have to watch the students like a hawk though so they don't steal my supplies! one girl even went over and took a snowflake sequin off of someone else's ornament that was on the tree so she could use it! the little bugger! teaching high school students makes me lose faith in humanity!!! lol

anyway, i had the big talk about vacation yesterday and i think we've come to the agreement with our schools that we'll just not come in to work all winter but also not get paid (other than the 26 days of paid vacation we're allotted in our contract). it sucks but it's better than changing our vacation plans!

we thought we had our dog-sitters squared away for the winter but turns out one girl had an allergic reaction to them after the playdate they had :o( so we're back to looking for someone for the 2nd half of feb.! we've got 2 weeks to find someone!

jens's band's concert is tonight in hadang (other side of town) and i tried to convince him to stay home with me because of the snowy, icy weather but he was determined to go! i thought about going but after my journey home after school i gave up on the idea. it's just too crazy out there. i really hope jens makes it to the other side of town ok!!!!

tomorrow they're supposed to play again at the xmas party up at that same bar but again- it's supposed to be snowy and icy so i dunno if we should go.

sunday i want to make a bunch of xmas cookies for my school. hoping i can get them all done that day.

then i'll just have one week and two days of school left! it's drawing to a close!!! woohoo!

i'm knitting a scarf for jens and have been since sept. i think lol it's taking forever! of course i don't knit everyday like i should. it's getting there though. i think next time i need to start it in june lol

ok well both the dogs want to cuddle in my lap so i'm gonna go snuggle up on the couch with them and watch tv. happy snow day everyone!

almost xmas time!

whew! this day flew by! i had the day off because the students would be taking high school entrance exams (now that i think about that it doesn't make sense lol ...well, anyway they were taking some kind of test and i didn't have to be there!) so that was nice.

i got up, had breakfast, did stuff on the internet and then i realized it was almost 12pm! so i did the mountain of dishes we had lying on the counter, took a shower and then started in on stuffing envelopes with our christmas letter and addressing them. it took forever! i'm still not done. i had to stop at 2:45pm to take the dogs to the vet to be groomed.

it's always funny walking down the street with two dogs- especially since they look so similar and usually walk side-by-side all cute :o) it's especially noticeable in korea since most people either don't have dogs or don't walk them outside. anyway, i told the vet the dogs might be staying with him for a few days this winter in between friends of ours who will be watching them and i let him know we'll need a certificate of health for the two dogs when we take them back to the states with us.

i keep wondering what the dogs will think when we get to the states!

anyway, after dropping off the dogs i went and mailed the letters that i had finished so far. it was only 11,000won so that wasn't too bad. i don't remember how many letters it was but it was quite a few- maybe 20!

at this point i hadn't eaten lunch so i went into paris baguette and got this cream cheese croissant thing that was pretty good. then i grabbed some potatoes at yeonsan mart for dinner tomorrow night.

the weather was really nice today which surprised me because the forecast was snow. it was pretty sunny and not too cold- either this texan has really adjusted to cold weather or it just really wasn't that cold lol

it was nice walking around that area- it's around where we used to live and there's this long outdoor market along the street. it's quite small but nice. we used to walk our dogs through there and everyone would ooh and aah lol

i walked back home and felt glad i had gotten out in the sunny weather for a bit.

back at home i started putting together the presents for my teachers. i got coffee mugs, mini candy canes and a small xmas ornament for all of my co-teachers, the 2nd grade staff room teachers (because my main co-t is a 2nd grade homeroom teacher and i have a desk in their office), for my english lab officemate and for the teacher's english class teachers'. all in all it's 19 mugs. plus i got a cute gift for the japanese teacher i befriended this year. after getting those ready i started assembling the goodie bags for my english club students. it's 10 students and i got them cute socks, noisemakers, firecrackers, erasers, xmas stickers and candy. it's pretty cutesy but high school students here seem to like cute stuff more than ones back home. i think they'll like it. if anything they'll appreciate the candy :o)

i took a break to go pick up the dogs from the vet. they're still cute but i like them more with longer hair. we needed to get them shaved because we're about to hand them off to dog-sitters for a long time and their hair would get really gross after a while.

at 8pm i took a break from wrapping presents to eat dinner. i just made a couple quick veggie fajitas and ate while i watched canada's next top model. i was watching season 1 and i was really disappointed to find out that no episodes past 8 are on youtube :o( so i just started the next season.

after dinner i wrote aaaaaallll the xmas cards for the teachers and by 10pm i was finally done! lol that took way longer than i expected lol

on another note- i found a bunch of pictures i thought i had lost forever!!!! way back in august i off loaded pics from ben and viv's visit to jens's computer really quickly and when it was done i just grabbed my camera and left. later i went back to find the pictures and they were nowhere to be found. jens searched his computer too and he couldn't find them. i was so devastated! it was all the pics from our trip to seoul with ben and viv and then some. i had totally written it off until today when i off loaded more pics from my camera to jens's computer and then couldn't find them. this time i knew the exact name i had tagged the photos as and was able to search for them and find them. turns out they were in the same place as my long lost photos! windows photo gallery! duh! lol i dunno why jens couldn't find them before lol anyway, i've got them and i should be adding them to facebook soon. so that was a nice surprise today :o)

it's back to the grind tomorrow. i'll be handing out all my gifts. (i already gave the principal and vp their gifts on tues. ) i'm gonna feel like santa! lol i'm hoping it goes a long way to persuade the p and vp that they should let me take the vacation i planned on. all the foreigners are having a really hard time with this vacation nonsense. the education office is basically totally changing everything at the last minute and making a lot of people very angry. it sucks. jens and i are gonna stand our ground and hope we get what we want but if it comes down to it we're just gonna quit. it's not worth it to stay. we have a great vacation planned that we've been wanting to take for years, the tickets are booked, it's pointless to hang out at our schools all winter doing nothing and i think it's just wrong of the educ. office to change everything on the foreigners at the last min. so that's that! we'll see what happens. i have a feeling my co-t will bring i up tomorrow.

anyway, i should get to bed. it's 11pm. i've managed to update a couple days in a row now so maybe i can continue the trend. i stopped updating for a long time because i just got really busy and i've lived here so long i feel like i don't have anything extraordinary to write about anymore. i'm so used to living in korea now lol but even the mundane might be interesting to someone. so we'll see.

ok goodnight!
ps- IT'S SNOWING! ^^

feeling creative

man i feel so creative right now! i want to decorate a house or plan a big event! wish i was back home so i could do both! can't wait to organize and decorate our little bungalow we'll be living in on my parents' land :o) and i want to plan lots of nice outdoor events in the BIG backyard like bbqs and fiestas, etc. aaaah it'll be so fun!

i've been looking at lots of home decor sites and party planning sites and getting lots of ideas.

i really hope i can become a wedding planning assistant or something like that when i get back home. i think i'd really enjoy it and be good at it. just hope the economy will provide those kinds of jobs!

i also hope jens can get into firefighting easily and i hope he likes it. it'd be a really good stable job. as much as i want to be a wedding planner i know it's not a very stable job :o/ it'll be great if i become successful at it but i'm being realistic. there's always the eco-friendly field! i'd love to do anything in that field so that opens up a lot more opportunities. it's hard to say exactly what job i would do - there's such a variety - but there are a lot of things i think i would enjoy doing within that field. anything related to food, farming, retail, recycling, education. if i do get into that field i think it'll take some research and experience to figure out exactly what i wanna do within it.

anyway yeah i just have all this creative energy and no outlet for it right now. i can't really do any major decorating and there are no more events to plan this year...guess i'll just stick to looking at stuff online and getting ideas for the future :o)

goodnight!

it's december!

another year almost over! crazy!

thanksgiving went pretty well! it took FOREVER to cook that turkey though! i didn't factor in the fact that i was brining the turkey and that makes it have to cook longer and i also didn't factor in how long it would take to prepare the turkey before putting it in the oven and then all the time basting would take up. it took 7 hours all in all! people were starving by the time we ate lol good thing we had appetizers though. we had hummus and crackers, homemade wheat bread, fruit and drinks.

the turkey turned out WONDERFULLY though! i was so happy :o) it was beautiful and i of course took pictures which i hope to put on facebook soon :o) with the turkey we had stuffing, sweet potato casserole, broccoli cheese casserole, green bean casserole, copper penny carrots and we were going to have this cranberry jello stuff jens's nana always makes but i forgot it in the fridge lol with the excitement of the food finally being done i totally forgot about it lol

everyone loved the food though so that was good :o)

a few days later we decorated for xmas :o) the tree was up a good two weeks before i knocked it over and broke an ornament lol it's in a new location now. the problem is the stand broke our first year so we have to put it in this ceramic vase meant for a plant and it's not very stable. it's our last year using it though so that's good lol next year we'll probably use the 3 foot tree i've used since high school. i don't think we'll have room in the bungalow for a big one. we'll have to wait til we have a house for that. but that's ok.

the first weekend in december i was supposed to go out to the island where the heaslips live with some girlfriends for amanda's baby shower/girls night but there were high winds and all the ferries were canceled :o/ so that sucked. don't know if we're going to be able to reschedule.

dec. 8th was anneke's 100 day dinner! abby and jason took us and some other friends out for beef galbi at bear garden and it was awesome! really good food :o) anneke looked adorable in her little yellow princess dress :o) so cute!

the past two weeks at school have been self-study week and finals week so that was easy. no real classes. i had to supervise 3 final exams each day for 4 days last week and that was pretty nerve-wracking (because it's so boring) but i got through it fairly unscathed lol went to lunch with the 2nd grade teachers the first day of exams- octopus soup! :oP the second day the teacher's english class students took my co-t and i out to dinner at this nice beef galbi place way out in muan (about an hour away) but it was really, really good! the 3rd day i ate the nurse's leftover lunch with her and my co-t...it was ok...lol old rice with black beans in it, dried seaweed, kimchi, mystery vegetables...oh and my co-t order laboki which is a mix of ramen and ddeokpoki; noodles, rice cakes, cabbage, onions, carrots in a really spicy red sauce. i could barely eat it it was so spicy lol by friday i welcomed the school's lunch lol it was just noodle soup with rice balls that had corn and seaweed in them, other veggies...and strawberry milk.

so those were my lunches for the week lol

today is the day of our christmas party! starts 5pm. i'm bringing wassail, cream cheese roll-ups and salsa. jens and i are gonna play two songs on guitar and flute and i brought the lyrics to some xmas songs all the guests can sing together. hopefully it'll be a good night :o)

next week at school i'm starting the 2.5 weeks of watching movies and making xmas ornaments out of paper. should be fun. hope it flies by :o) i'm ready for xmas and vacation!

the a.s. concert is still on for fri. the 18th, then moe's xmas party and a.s. acoustic show on the 19th.

we'll be spending christmas eve and day with the sauchuks and a few other friends which will be nice :o)

we're getting closer and closer to the end! arguments about vacation will be coming soon lol just part of working in korea. every dec. we have to spend days arguing about the vacation time we want. it's not pleasant. i'm hoping it's easier this year than in past years. not sure though because the seoul national education dept. (or whatever it's called) has decided that they want to do the same thing with all the native english teachers in all of korea and they think all of us should literally "desk-warm" this winter when we're not on our alloted 26 days of vacation that are in our contract. in the past only a few teachers have had to do this because their schools were huge douche-bags. now they want to do it to everyone. i have no idea why they think this is a good idea. having a bunch of people sit at desks all winter doing nothing seems pretty pointless to me. granted we could be making lessons but most of us don't need a month to make some lessons lol plus most korean teachers have the option of working from home. this option will not be afforded to us...don't know why. it's all very weird and last minute- just like everything else in korea. but jens and i are going to fight for our vacation and if it really comes down to it we'll just quit. losing my vacation to sit at a desk doing nothing for a month is not worth it to me. especially when they tell us about this last minute and we've already gotten everything booked for this winter.

i don't think it'll come down to us quitting though. we know our schools and we think they'll let us do what we want. it's our last year too so we'll be out of their hair soon and they can tell the new teachers the new policy in advance so they can plan for it (let's hope!) i will certainly be warning the new people about it.

uuumm in other news it hasn't been that cold in korea this winter! it was fairly warm for a while there and only just got cold day before yesterday or so and it's still not as cold as it's been in past years. global warming i guess. either that or i've REALLY gotten used to the cold lol i know the first time i go through a texan summer agian i'll be dying lol i miss it though :o) blacktops liquifying and not being able to touch your seatbelt in the car without getting 3rd degree burns lol good ol' texas! :o)

ok i'm gonna go. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

long time no update

i wrote this like a week ago or so but i'm just now posting it:

long time no write. i don't write as much as i used to because blogspot is always blocked at korean schools and i don't have much time outside of work. i've been trying to stay busy so i can get through the rest of my contract here in korea.

first of all - i've said it before and i'll say it again, i do not regret coming to korea one bit. sometimes i wish i had only stayed 2 years instead of 3 but that would have meant that we wouldn't have saved more money, we wouldn't have gone to japan a second time, we wouldn't be going to se asia this winter and we wouldn't have had all the fun times that we've had with our friends here. plus i might not have realized just how much i don't want to be a teacher or how much i'd like to be an event/wedding planner :o) so it's good we stayed a 3rd year.

i've experienced so much while living in korea i wouldn't change it for the world.

but...i'm ready to leave lol it's time! teaching has been driving me absolutely bonkers. what i can't stand is when i tell a students to do something like 100 times and they still act like they've never heard of what i'm talking about before. such as, bringing a pencil to class. it's quite simple- this is school, you need a pen or pencil! lol it's not rocket science. yet everyday i have to send students back to their classes to get a pencil and they act all put out. another thing is when i am standing at the front trying to explain the lesson and i know not everyone is listening. some of them are even talking over me. i can get them all quiet at the same time for about a nanosecond. so i say each directions at least 2-3 times and then it turn to my co-t who then explains everything in korean because they didn't listen to me. and then! i go around to see if the students need any help and about half of them are sitting there doing nothing. i say- why don't you start? and they're like what? how? i don't know! and i'm like...you've got to be kidding me. we just spent 15 mins. explaining this to you in english AND korean with visuals and you just flat out didn't pay attention at all. i don't have time to go around and explain everything to each individual student. i can't hold all their hands through everything ya know?

and it just comes down to them being lazy smartelics. they literally never want to do anything ever at all period. so what do i do with that? how do i do my job exactly? the answer is: i can't. i can stand up there and babble all i want but it's not gonna change a thing. the students are overworked and they have no respect for teachers. i blame the teachers and the parents. the parents work so much because they think everyone in korea MUST be rich or you should just kill yourself. so the parents aren't there for the kids. they have them stay at school or a private academy day in and day out for hours and hours at a time. my high school students are at school from 7am to 10pm everyday. i think they get to leave at 6pm on sat. woohoo. so my job is basically impossible. i'm getting paid to go through the motions. most students are probably not learning much. some of them may find my lesson interesting at the time but they won't remember any of the info later. it's ridiculous. so i've gotten to the point where i don't care anymore. i just have to churn out a lesson and get through my time here. sad but true.

my main co-teacher is still driving me insane. as soon as i start to feel for her and maybe even kinda like her she'll do something else completely insane/rude/clueless and i'm back to wanting to avoid her. again, sad but true.

some of my other co-teachers are cool. one of them is married and has a one year old son and she invited me over to her house for dinner one night. her husband had to work late and she doesn't like eating dinner alone, or cooking lol so i picked up some food and took it over there and cooked it. her apt. was SO NICE! i had never been in a korean's apt. before (believe it or not, after almost 3 years of living here...koreans just don't invite people to their houses much). well i take that back, i had been to ONE single korean guy's apt. once which was fun and interesting but going to a married couple's house is different. they have more money and bigger places lol she had a HUGE kitchen! it had a 4-burner stove, a normal built-in oven AND a dishwasher! none of a which a foreigner's apt. ever has. which i of course understand. the city/schools aren't going to pay for foriegners to have nice apts. with all the amenities. it was just so shocking to see a normal apt. in korea for the first time. lol i made moroccan veggies with couscous and she liked it. her one year old boy is so adorable! he has really chubby cheeks :o) after dinner we just hung out, talked, watched tv and the baby. it was fun :o)

anyway, here's what else i've been up to: we had a huge halloween party here in mokpo at p club. proceeds went to the local orphanage. jens and i dressed up as bond and a bond girl, honey thighs rushing lol at the party there was a bake sale, jack-o-lantern contest. costume contest, a dungeon, tarot cards readings (by jens lol he doesn't actually know how to read them but he made up funny stuff :o) there were drinks and dancing and lots of fun had! it was a great time!

we had a picnic on yudal with some friends one day. it was the last really nice day of the year. quite warm and sunny :o)

we've been riding bikes/taking the bus to and from school since we lost our scooter. i'm still pretty depressed about losing the scooter but biking and busing hasn't been too bad. i haven't biked in a while because it got cold but the buses are really warm.

jens got some guys together to form a band. they call themselves the amazing sex lol they had a concert on the 21st at a bar called moe's. it's owned by a canadian/korn couple (i think he's canadian...might be american). anyway, the show went pretty well. the sound system wasn't very good but it was still fun :o)

jens has also gotten some guys together to play dungeons and dragons once a week.

i had a betting pool going with some girls for american's next top model. we all put money in and bet on the girl we thought would win. if you picked the winner you got the money! we've done it 3 times now. it's pretty fun. i one the first time but not this time. we just watched the finale last weekend.

this weekend jens and i are hosting thanksgiving and we're making all the food! we got a turkey and everything! it'll be the first time we've ever done this - the first time to host it at our place, make all the food and make a turkey. hope it all goes well! abby and jason are gonna help us sat. so that'll be good :o) about 15 people will be joining us sunday for a late thanksgiving lunch :o) i can't wait! i love t-day food and festivities :o)

a couple days after that we'll decorate for christmas which i also love! it'll finally be ok to listen to xmas music ALL THE TIME! yaaaaaaaaay! lol i think the christmas season will really help me get through dec. without losing my mind lol i'm just really homesick and tired of teaching.

but we've got a lot going on in dec. every weekend and then some is already booked! the first weekend i'll be going to my friend amanda's baby shower/ girls night out on this island where she and her family lives and that should be fun. it'll be nice to get out of mokpo. we pretty much haven't gone anywhere since the scooter was stolen.

then dec. 8th is abby's baby's 100 day party (they have those parties for babies in korea because back in the day it was a real feat for a kid to make it to 100 days.) 2nd weekend we'll be having a big xmas party with two of our friends at their apt. we want to re-create jens's parents xmas party they have every year with lots of food, music, a mini talent show and christmas caroling. funfunfun! i can't wait! i think it's gonna be great! then the next fri. amazing sex will be performing an electric show at moe's and the next night on sat. they'll do an acoustic show at moe's costume christmas party. i dunno what costume i'm going to wear yet...can't think about that now lol then of course the last weekend in dec. is christmas! and thank goodness it's on a friday this year so we get a 3-day weekend. korean teachers/students only get xmas day off of work and that's it!

i dunno what our new year's plans are yet. two of our best friends here (abby and jason) are leaving dec. 30th so we can't spend it with them :o( but i think some of our other friends might be around so i'm sure we'll be able to celebrate with with someone. the reason we have to stay in mokpo is because jens might have a winter camp. we're not totally sure because they might cancel it due to swine flu. but all the kids at his school recently got the vaccine so they may have it afterall.

after that we'll be on vacation! i can't wait! it's gonna be so awesome! we're going to laos, cambodia, thailand, malaysia and singapore! :o) won't be back til end of feb. still in the process of confirming dog-sitters but i think it'll work out!

anyway, i'm tired of typing so i'm gonna go now!

6 months left in korea

i would have thought this would be a happy post seeing as how i only have 6 months left in korea but i'm afraid it won't be...

our scooter was stolen sometime last night. we've been driving it for almost 2.5 years in korea and today- the day that marks 6 months left in korea- it's gone.

not long ago our scooter had been moved and the front panel was taken off and the wires were all disconnected. we thought it was some kind of prank because the grounds keeper kept telling us to put a lock on it but we didn't because we thought a little bicycle lock wouldn't do much to stop a thief...well we were right.

after what we thought was that "prank" we started locking it up but it was still stolen!

we were planning on selling that thing for anywhere from 800,000won- 1 million won! that's a good chunk of change! now we're out that AND we have to start paying for public transportation!

i'm so pissed! we LOVED having a scooter. it was so convenient and fun! and cheap too! it was cheaper to drive the scooter all the time than to take taxis all the time and it was more convenient than taking a bus.

we only have 2 months left of the semester but i'm still gonna hate taking pub. tranport to and from school everyday. first of all there are two times a bus comes near my house and goes by my school and neither are good for me. the first one is way too early and the next one is way too late! i've been waking up later and later because i'm getting more and more homesick and when i'm homesick i want to sleep ALL the time! so that leaves taxis which are really expensive over time. i may do a combo of taxi and bus. taxi to school, bus home.

but i'm so outraged that these jerks are gonna get away with stealing our scooter! there's no way to track it because we didn't have a license plate but ya know- even if we did it's not like the police would go looking for it ya know?

i told jens we should walk around town and if we see a scooter that looks just like ours we should try our key in it and take it back lol jens thinks they probably sold it to a scooter store though.

it really really sucks. we only had about 4 months left of driving it because we'll be gone for two months during vacation.

which brings me to something else- recently we native speakers were told that even though our contract SAYS we can take 26 days of vacation outside the country in feb. it doesn't actually MEAN that lol so basically our contracts mean nothing and the government or education office or whoever can just make us do whatever they want. it's crap! i'm so glad i'm getting out of this country soon. i'm just getting more and more fed up with it.

i'm still glad i came here and wouldn't change it if i could but i'm just DONE! ya know? lol i'm just ready to get out of here.

we're still taking the vacation we planned on though. i've given enough to this country- i think i deserve a vacation lol plus we want one last big hurrah before we go home and can't travel internationally for a while (due to time and money).

uugghhh, korea is depressing me..........

it's not all bad of course...but again, i'm JUST...DONE!

i'm done with dealing with all of the run around, all the rigamaroll as my mom would say lol do this, don't do that, you can't do this, you need to do that, no i'm not gonna help you, etc., etc., etc. the teaching, the students who are jerks, my crazy co-t, the school lunches, the supervising tests, the "inspection", the random fumigations that are probably giving me cancer, the water that is probably giving me cancer, horking, the smells, the looks, the comments, the noise, the trash, the honking, the construction of things, the disorganization of everything, JUST EVERYTHING! i'm so sick of all of it! i need a vacation NOW! lol

next weekend is halloween...my best friend probably can't come so that sucks.

next month is american thanksgiving so that'll be nice. i may invite some of my co-ts. it may be too many people though. we'll see.

i DO LIKE some things about korea including some of my co-workers...therefore i would like to invite them to my house for different occasions. i don't wanna sound like i hate all of korea and all korean people because that's definitely NOT the case. i'm just bogged down in all the crap right now. just because there are some things i like doesn't mean i still wanna live here lol ya know?

blaaaaaaahhhh......

i'm hoping the holidays will lift my spirits....i'm hoping to just be on a christmas high for all of december lol maybe if i start drinking spiked eggnog everyday lol (j/k!)

ugh i need lessons for nov. and dec. there are a couple weeks where i won't need lessons due to exams but i need at least 5-6 more lessons and i have NO IDEA what to teach...any suggestions? if you read this and have ideas then email me :o)

i've done all the usual- introducing yourself, politeness, feelings, family, house, describing people, etc. and i just wanna do something different but i dunno what. and my stupid students are incredibly a.d.d. so i dunno what to teach them that they'll actually pay attention to. plus i'm homesick and depressed and don't wanna do anything any more so i want the lessons to be super easy for me too lol aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

this sucks.

i seriously CANNOT WAIT til vacation! then when we get back we'll just have two months left and we'll be starting a new school year so we can spend the first two weeks just doing intro stuff, teaching rules, etc. then my students may get a movie day in there before i leave so that'll be a 3rd week of no real lessons and my last week i may just do movies again for the heck of it lol so that's only like 4 weeks of lessons i'll need. and i can recycle some old lessons with the new freshmen. just need 4 new ones for the 2nd graders. it'll be easy.

and we'll be occupying the rest of our time with selling stuff off, packing, shipping stuff home, going to immigration, signing off for our pensions to be sent to the states, etc.

and then we'll be HOME at the end of april 2010- SPRING! we'll be in texas for spring and summer for the first time in like 4 years! we missed summer 2006 because we were in daegu, korea, we came home in fall and then left again for korea before summer 2007. so FOUR years without a TEXAS summer! it's gonna be weird...i may have adjusted to korean summers....although it sounds like texas summers are becoming more and more rainy rather than droughty lol maybe we'll become a rainforest! that'd be awesome!

after we get home we're gonna spend about 2-3 weeks getting some things settled in, etc. and then we're taking our HUGE WEST U.S. ROAD TRIP! all the way up to canada to visit our friends there :o) it's gonna be freaking AWESOME and i can't wait!!!!! we're gonna visit people all along the way and see all the sites we wanna see including state parks, national parks, etc. dunno how long it'll take us- a month or so maybe.

then we'll come back and jens will do the emt training to work on an ambulance and i'll start looking for jobs and we'll be starting the next chapter in our lives! in arlington! not so excited about the arlington part but that could be temporary. when we buy a house i think it'll be in ft. worth or austin...most likely not another state. but we have to see :o)

so that's that. i'm feeling a little better thinking about the future :o) so that's good! i'm gonna go do stuff now! byeeeeeeeee! UGH!

quick update

so things are going pretty well.

at school i had a week of self-study classes (where the students just study by themselves and i don't have to teach :o) then there was chuseok holiday (4 day weekend! :o) jens and i chilled most of the time but we went to gwangju for a night and that was nice. we took the pups and gave them a couple long walks around town which they loved! then when we went back to school i had a 4-day week of supervising mid-term exams. incredibly boring but easy. plus i got to leave early everyday which was great!

this weekend i had mostly to myself. jens had a guys night friday night and then went up to seoul with some friends for a guys' weekend sat./sun. it was nice to have some alone time. i had a very confusing girls' night and tonight is canadian thanksgiving! a friend of mine is making all the food, we just have to show up :o) so i'm excited about that!

this next week i'm just letting my students make halloween masks in all the classes because post-exams they're totally useless lol i need to find some pumpkins though! i want my extra class to carve pumpkins for the classroom...it should be interesting trying to get 3 pumpkins up to school on a scooter...lol may have to do one per day.

next weekend some of us are gonna make some halloween decorations for the big party on the 31st. the weekend after that jens and i might visit an old friend in daegu and then the weekend after that will be halloween! not sure what i'm gonna be yet. i've gone through a few ideas...

soon enough it'll be nov. and we can have american thanksgiving! i'm definitely doing something small this year. when things get big they can get messy lol we already ordered a turkey from the underground and i think jens and i are gonna try to make everything ourselves like my friend is doing for canadian t-day. i think it'll actually simpler that way.

i wish i could just cram the next 3 months into 3 weeks though lol just skip all the working and teaching and all the annoyances that come with that and just do halloween, t-day and x-mas! lol oh and finish it off with a new years bash! don't know what i'm doing for new years this year. i think we'll be in mokpo though. again, i think i'll do something small with close friends.

i'm starting to see the value of a small close group of friends more and more.

alright! gotta go get ready! <3

funfun!

so i'm feeling less homesick these days :o)

i had a girls night friday that was pretty fun. only a few girls came but we watched the latest episode of antm and made fun of tyra and that's always amusing lol

last night there was a pirate lebowski party and that was alright (it was national talk like a pirate day and the annual lebowski festival...i guess in the states...so a friend of ours combined the two and had a party lol we wore combo pirate/the dude costumes and watched the big lebowski) ...at first it was just a bunch of guys and me but some girls finally showed up a couple hours later and i had someone to talk to. the party did help me realize why i don't hang out with single guys who like to drink though! :o)

i had a HORRIBLE night's sleep unfortunately. i just kept getting woken up by jens, the dogs, drunk ajossis yelling outside, taxis honking, people using the elevator in my building, etc. but at least it was a sun. so i could sleep in! i'm amazed by the amount of noise in this country and how different it is back home. the most you ever hear back home is people driving by your house and that's not very loud at all. every once in a while you might hear something like people trimming trees, etc. but that's not an everyday thing. can't wait to get back to semi-silence back home! :o) but like i said i'm not as anxious to get back home now that i've got some stuff going on here.

today a bunch of girls met up to bet on the latest season of antm (america's next top model). we watch the first few eps. and then choose who we think will win and put 10,000won into the pot. if our girl wins then we'll win all the money. quite a few girls are in on it this season so whoever wins will get a good chunk o' change! i have no idea who might win so i picked fairly randomly. who knows though- my girl might end up winning lol

so i think i'm gonna try to have some kind of girls night every week...even if only one girl is available to do something. i just think it'll be fun and it'll help a lot with homesickness to plan to do things with friends every week. esp. gatherings with just a few girls or even one girl- so that it's not always big parties where you can't really talk to anyone for any length of time or you can't hear anyone that well, ya know? i like to go to parties and have time with small groups.

i'm happy that i've got all my lessons planned for this next week. i'm gonna have to plan two more pretty soon though. hopefully i'm motivated enough to do it lol but by plan i really mean - take someone else's lesson and adapt it to my classes lol so it's not that hard.

next weekend i've got girls night again, then a housewarming party and i might have jens take me out to practice driving the scooter. i drove it a little around a parking lot last night and did ok by myself but i absolutely could NOT drive it with jens on the back. as soon as i would push the gas i'd fall towards one side or the other. i really wonder if i'll ever be able to drive a scooter with someone else on it. i doubt i'll ever do it in korea. we're most likely getting a scooter back home though so if i practice driving by myself a lot then i may eventually be able to drive with someone on it too.

pretty soon it'll be chuseok and i think jens and i are gonna go with our friends to an island and just chill out for a few days which will be nice :o)

then soon enough it'll be halloween. the big party is already being planned! :o) fun fun!

anyway, i'm glad i'm getting over this homesickness. life is more fun when you're not depressed! haha lol i still get down about things here and there- things i'm tired of dealing with in korea - but now i'm starting to plan fun things to distract me from the negative. so that'd good!

if you're wondering about how jens is doing after lasik- he's doing great! he can see far away really well but still can't quite read a book yet- it's a strain to look at things up close. but over time that'll go away.

oh and the dogs are doing well! i'm happy to say that we can actually let jjang sleep in the bed with us and sadie now!!! we just decided to try it a couple weeks ago because he kept waking me up in the middle of the night scratching on his cage or making choking sounds (because he'd be eating parts of the cage) so i just threw caution to the wind and let him sleep in the bed with the door open (we can do that now that we don't have to use the ac anymore, since it's getting cooler) and he didn't pee on the floor! AND he hasn't peed on the floor once since then. i think he's finally gotten the fact that we only want him to pee on the pads. so that's exciting lol and i like being able to cuddle with him in the bed now. i felt so bad before that sadie could sleep with us and he couldn't.

i'm a little worried about when we get back home though because we wanna train them to go outside...so it'll be housebreaking them all over again :oP not looking forward to that! but we'll deal with it when we come to it.

for now i must go! have a great week!

well hey - i'm updating again...not sure why though since it seems like hardly anyone reads it...someone comments about 1% of the time...but whatever.

anyway i was feeling homesick recently but i'm starting to feel better. i'm getting a break from teaching this week since most classes have earned a movie day. i just teach classes on friday. also i've decided to start getting together with some girlfriends once a week if possible. first get together is this friday night at my place. we're just gonna do something really laid back- hang out, eat, chat, maybe watch a movie. i think it'll be really nice to get together with friends at least once a week and just have some bonding time, ya know? bond over our mutual lifestyle of living in korea lol

i'm thinking about MAYBE going to yoga at this studio that's like right by my apt. complex. i hear it's not as intense as that place i used to go to. i'd be more motivated to go if i could get someone to go with me though. one of my friends is thinking about it but she just had a baby so we have to wait and see.

oh and i've gotten some girls together for the annual america's next top model betting pool lol we've done it for two seasons so far- this will be the third. we watch the first few episodes and then bet on who we think will win. we put 10,000won each into the pool and whoever picks the girl that wins will win all the money :o) antm is pretty cheesy but it's just a fun, silly thing to do - esp. during free time at work - watch an ep. and then talk about it through email or facebook lol

i think things will start gearing up here pretty soon- with parties and then planning for halloween, thanksgiving, xmas and finally new years...then it'll be winter break and we'll be going on vacation and before we know it we'll be ending our time here in korea. as much as i want it to go by quickly i know that i'll be sad to leave and a bit scared to start the next chapter in my life.

i'm sure looking for a job back home will NOT be fun...and i'm worried that there's no chance i'll find something i actually WANT to do :o( i really wanna be an assistant to a wedding planner or event planner. if that doesn't work out i'd like to do anything related to the eco-friendly field which will probably be easier to find...so we'll see.

jens has A LOT going on! just got this lasik done and that's going well. he can drive and use the computer and play video games...just no reading yet. he's been practicing music with a friend once a week. they're trying to start a band. he also just joined a d and d group which meets once a week so that's two nights i week i can get him out of the house! ;o) lol not to mention he's wanting to start his 3rd novel soon.

hobbies that i would LIKE to have are painting, knitting, doing yoga but none of those seem to be happening at the moment lol maybe at the girls night i can get my friend to remind me how to knit and then i can make that scarf i wanted to make for jens...

as for painting i have all the supplies but i don't know what to paint. i kinda feel like i don't wanna waste the materials on a crap painting ya know? it's like - if i'm gonna use one of the two canvases i have i want it to be good...i want to be able to display it...i don't want to have to just hide it or throw it out afterwards...i also have two little cardboard covered in paper canvases...5x7 inches or so, which are a little less intimidating...i should just do it! just paint already! geez! lol

anyway i need to go take a shower and get to bed. goodnight everyone!

japan, ben and viv's visit, back to school, etc.

well it looks like i'm not going to get the time or motivation to sit down and write a really detailed blog about our japan trip and ben and vivienne's visit to korea but i figure my photo albums on facebook are pretty much a photo journal of those two thing so it's all good.

i'll give a brief summary of each.

jens and i weren't planning on going anywhere this summer because we knew ben and vivienne would be visiting us here but after a while we decided we should go somewhere (it always seems to happen that way...that's how it was last summer lol). anyway we decided on japan because we had only spent 4-5 days there and loved it and wanted to see more. this time we decided to just fly into tokyo and spend 10 days there and in the surrounding area. it's so expensive to travel across the country so staying in one city was more economical- plus there's plenty to see in and around tokyo.

we stayed with our friend kacie most nights. (we met her in university and she's been living and teaching in tokyo for 2-3 years now.) we also spent time with erin (another friend from uni, living and teaching in tokyo for almost 2 years, friends with kacie too).

we spent one night in hakone which is a very lush, natural, mountainous setting with a lake. very beautiful but very foggy while we were there. also, everything closes at 5pm so that made my birthday dinner interesting lol that's right- i had my 26th birthday in hakone. pretty cool! :o) that makes 4 birthdays outside the u.s. - korea, vietnam, korea again and japan. while in hakone we road a pirate ship, cable cars, a funicular and a few buses! good times!

we also spent two nights in nikko- another natural, mountainous setting but with more temples. still foggy though! apparantly summer is very foggy in the mountains in japan.

here's a list of things we saw in an around tokyo: an awesome 1-hour fireworks show, many temples and shrines, people dressed up in crazy costumes in harajuku, topless anime figurines in akibahara, fish on a stick, really tan japanese girls with big hair dressed up in ukata (summer kimono), a yo-yo trickster, an opera singer/accordionist in a park, lots and lots of cool mossy areas, we dressed up in ukata and jimbae (japanese style shorts and top) and went to a lantern float festival, art museum, zoo (where we saw a pangolin, giant anteater, mouse deer, tapirs, capybaras, and other weird animals), the original see no evil-hear no evil- speak no evil monkeys, went to a maid cafe, sang karaoke, and ate many different things...

including: sushi, dango (rice cake balls), matcha (weird green tea), monjayaki (fried...stuff...), yakisoba (fried noddles), yesaiyaki (fried veggies), whale!, ramen (way better than the 50cent stuff! lol), soba soup, grilled squid tentacles, octopus balls, okinomiyaki (veggie, egg pancake thing), yuzu ice cream, purple sweet potato ice cream, and of course tempura and i'm sure a few other things. japanese food is delicious!!!! (yes, even the whale! it was like steak Po:)

overall, i LOVE japan. both times i've been there i've felt- why don't i live here!!! then i remember i wouldn't save NEAR as much money. i'm content with living in korea and just traveling to japan (and many other places!) :o)

things i like about japan:
it's SO CLEAN!!!!! people even sweep up leaves and tiny debris outside their shops everyday!
japanese people seem to like being different from each other (much moreso than koreans).
the food is GREAT!
the traditional dress is my favorite out of all the other countries i've visited. i love kimono/ukata!
japanese people like to have a good time! there are festivals and fun things to do everywhere!
they have a funny sense of humor.
they respect others in public by being reserved and polite.
they are helpful and friendly.
they recycle EVERYTHING!
and many other things.

ok now for ben and viv's visit.

it was so great to have them come visit us!!! we hadn't ever had any friends visit before. we had had family - which was awesome! - but it's just different to have friends visit. we spent some time in mokpo, gwangju, jeju island and seoul! viv had a hard time adjusting to the time difference and food at first but after a while she felt better so that was good!

we went noraebanging (karaoke-ing) MANY times and that was fun, they met some of our friends, we rent scooters on jeju and drove around (including a harrowing trip over hallasan (dead volcano) in the rain and fog! lol), we ate all the good food we could find lol, went shopping, took them to our favorite temple in korea (yakchansa), went to the very interesting sex and health museum ;o) lol, and while in seoul we sent them off to see the war museum, cheongdong theater performance and art museum (since we had seen each of those at least twice).

and all in all it was really fun! i'm so glad they got to come visit us! :o) (i would write more but i gotta go to a book swap soon!)

the day after they left i had to go back to school! :oP it's been ok. the students were really getting on my last nerve the first couple of weeks but i'm starting to realize that i just need to calm down and not care so much lol sounds bad but that's what the korean teachers do! it's really the only way to survive the semester without going insane. so that's what i'm trying to do- just relax, take things in stride and get through it. it's my LAST fall semester in korea!!! it's so weird to think about that!!!

anyway, gotta run! have a great day! <3

update needed!

i SERIOUSLY need to update right? but jens just went to get pizza school pizza and when he gets back we'll be eating that and watching lost so i don't really have time.

but i just wanted to let all of you know that i know i need to update lol

here's a very brief one to give you a taste ;o)

jens and i went to japan for about 10 days - end of july to beginning of august and it was AWESOME! i LOVE japan! we stayed with our friend kacie (uta friend) most of the time and hung out with her and erin (another uta friend) so that was fun!

as soon as we got back we met up with our friends ben and vivienne from texas at the seoul airport. they were here for 2 weeks and we went to mokpo, gwangju, jejudo and seoul and had a GREAT time!

THEN! as soon as ben and viv left i had to go back to school BLEEEHHHH! school sucks i'm so ready to never teach again! lol my main co-t is as crazy as ever but there have been some other changes - apparently there's some new korean english conversation technical assistant guy that will be sharing an office with me come sept. or nov. i met him and his english isn't great which is weird since he's supposedly going to be the head of the english dept. ???? oh korea. also, another english teacher that was on maternity leave came back and i got to meet her for the first time - she's awesome! i think she's my favorite now :o)

in other news a bunch of new people have arrived (new foriegners to teach english) and i met some of them. i haven't gotten to spend much time with any of them yet though so i don't know any names and therefore haven't found them on facebook and therefore they may as well not exist, right? haha just kidding!!! :o)

let's see....jens sure is taking a long time.....guess i'll keep writing! we watched bella, amanda and ian's dog, for about a week and therefore had 3 dogs in the house. that was crazy! she just left today and while she is very sweet and cute i was glad to get back to only having 2 dogs again :o)

last friday was jens's 27th birthday!!! and he actually had a birthday party for the first time since i've known him!!! we had about 12 people over, ate finger foods, played video games, watched a kung fu movie, had ice cream cake (two cakes- one shaped like a whale and one made of ice cream cubes- very cute!) and then we all went bowling. it was fun! and i think it finally convinced jens that birthday parties are fun to have! lol

the weather is actually already getting chilly! i'm bummed because i barely got to swim at all this year :o( the two times i was at beaches either the weather sucked or the water was too shallow and cold. some people went to an island fri. and sat. but i had so many other things to do we didn't go and it seems sat. was the last hot day...and it wasn't that hot.

i'm kind of excited for fall though :o) i don't like sweating while teaching lol and i have more work-appropriate fall clothes than summer clothes. no more scrambling for something to wear! the only thing i dread is winter! it gets so freaking cold here! but! it's my last winter here so that's good :o) and we'll be going to se asia in jan. and feb. so that'll be a nice break! then i can get my swimming in! lol

alright well jens is back so i must go! hopefully i can get a chance to update about japan and ben and viv's visit soon!

i'm not the only one!

just had a really nice dinner with two of my co-teachers (not the crazy one lol ). they're both younger than i am i think- maybe 22-24- and i really like them. they're easy to relate to and talk to. oh and they both think my main co-t is crazy. in fact they said everyone at the school thinks she's crazy and they try to avoid her at all costs! i'm not the only one! that makes me feel even worse for my crazy co-t but really she brings it upon herself. if she were a little more receptive to other people she'd get the picture when she needs to chill out.

anyway, jens and i cleaned and shopped all day to get ready for tonight. after breakfast and a shower we went to emart because jens wanted to look for a summer hat. he's still been wearing his scottish wool cap and it's way too hot for the summer lol so he got this cream-colored semi-mesh fedora with a dark brown ribbon around it. it's pretty cool! i also finally bought a pair of shorts...i hadn't really thought about the fact that i didn't have any until jens was like- why are you wearing pants? it's really hot! lol so i got some shorts and they're great! :o)

after shopping around a little we got some mcdonald's to go (there's a mickey d's in emart). the place was packed so we decided to take our lunch to a nearby park. as we were walking over to some benches two old men spotted us and came over and sat with us...i was a little bummed at first because i was looking forward to having a a nice, private, quiet pic-nic with jens. it was really hot and i didn't feel like having to communicate with two hallabojis (grandpas), but it turned out to be somewhat amusing and not that annoying lol

it seemed like one man had all the ideas for questions and the other man had the courage to ask lol the one guy would quietly say something to the other and then the other would be like YAA- BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH!? and then jens and i would pause and try to figure out his question and then try to respond as best we could in korean. we had to talk really loud and slow because he was over 70 years old. we know because he asked us our age and we asked him his lol he asked by saying NA-EE??? really loudly. it just means AGE??? lol

his list of questions were: where are you from, how old are you, how many hours does it take to get from korea to the usa, how much does a plane ticket cost to get there, how much does it cost to get from korea to australia, and then he asked a question related to australia that we couldn't figure out...he kept saying da-ri which i thought meant leg...? lol he even wrote it in the sand for us with a stick. then he wrote his last name in english- KIM and then he wrote his first and middle names in korean and asked me to write the romanization of them- JEONG WEON. then he and his friend clapped and looked very pleased and jens and i moseyed on at that point (we had finished our lunch. )

from there we went to home plus and picked up some groceries and then we headed home.

the weather was great for a scooter ride today! finally sunny! it had been raining every day for at least a week so it was nice to have some sunny weather. it wasn't so great for cleaning and cooking indoors though! lol we were sweating the whole time :oP

we made chicken and veggie fajitas (with bell peppers, onions, mushrooms and green peppers). we had fresh salsa that jens made, plus some store-bought salsa, chips, cheddar, corona and faux-hitos ( we got some apple mint from emart but it still didn't make the mojitos taste minty enough...i'm starting to wonder if you're supposed to use some kind of mint liquor to make it mintier....either that or our ingredients aren't high-quality enough to make it taste right.) at any rate they were pretty decent.

my two co-ts came over about 6pm, we ate and then hung out in the living room while eating dessert- they brought a really good cheesecake (not like back home- it was fluffier and lighter) and we provided grandma harbour cookies and chai...mmmmm it was sooo goood!

they left kind of early (8:30pm) but it was a good amount of time. we had good convo :o)

so now jens and i have a little time to ourselves for the rest of the night. i'm on the computer and he's reading.

tomorrow night i think he's having some guys over for a movie night so i may do something with one or more of the girls. then wed. night we might go out with some friends and thursday we leave for seoul! yay!

one new thing we're gonna do while we're up there is eat at on the border!!!! lol

anyway, it'll be fun. then we'll be off to japan! you can definitely expect some updating and some pictures posted after that!

for now i must go! have a great summer!!

it's summer!!!!

and has been for a while but now it's officially my summer vacation!!!! :oD i'm so happy!

since i last posted we had our annual 4th of july tex-mex fiesta and it went really well! it was the best one yet! i think about 25 people showed and we had veggie fajitas, refried beans, black bean and corn relish, cheddar, sour cream, chips, salsa and "faux-hitos" lol we didn't really have enough mint to make them taste right. can't wait to get back to the states and have a good one! :o) anyway, i think we'll carry on this 4th of july fiesta tradition once we get back to the states! it's a great time!

i haven't done a whole lot since then. i was mainly focused on winding up the end of the semester. it was mostly spent not teaching lol i had one week where all the classes wanted to "self-study" for their final exams, then a week where i supervised the final exams, then a week where all the classes wanted to recouperate from taking exams by watching movies lol i tried to teach a few of the classes after exams and it just wasn't happening. they were impossible to teach. so yeah! easy last few weeks!

my co-t really got to me by the end of it though. i was getting to the point where i just couldn't handle her any longer. i avoided her at all costs and when i did have to interract with her i just tried to zone her out. sounds horrible but if you knew her you'd understand. one day i spent 30 mins. straight trying to explain a problem to her that i was having with my computer and she still didn't understand. i know that this had nothing to do with her english ability because it's a very simple problem and i was able to explain it to two other teachers- one with good english and one with no english and they both understood me just fine. she just has a brain problem! lol sad but true.

anyway- she actually asked me- can i call you OFTEN over the summer? and i'm like- maybe not OFTEN...lol i told her i wasn't going to be in mokpo that much but i'm sure she'll try calling me daily. i'm going to avoid her by never answering the phone. if jens is home he can answer it and if it's her he can say i'm not here. i just have to have a good long break from her so i can get through another 4 months with her next semester.

on another note- we're going to seoul next thurs.! we're just gonna eat lots of western foods and go to what the book. then on the 26th we fly to japan! i'm really excited! i'm so glad we're getting to spend more time there. it's such an awesome country! i wish we could have lived and taught there but it's just so freaking expensive! cheapest hotel we could find was over $100 a night! luckily most of the time we'll be staying with our friend kacie that we went to uni with. the only time we'll have to stay in hotels is when we want to take excursions outside tokyo. we're going to hakone for one night (near a nice lake with a view of mt. fuji) and nikko for two nights (temples). we'll also see our uni friend, erin and my high school friend anne and her husband martin while we're there so that'll be really cool. i know so many people in japan! lol the main things we want to do in tokyo are see temples/shrines, go to museums, go to akibahara (video game mecca), shop, see a sumo wrestling match, stop by harajuku and see some cosplayers again and eat wonderful food! aahh i can't wait! :o)

AS SOON AS we get back to korea we'll be meeting up with ben and vivienne!!!! another exciting summer event! i'm so happy we got some of our friends to come visit us in korea before we go :o) they'll be here from aug. 5th-19th. we're gonna spend time in mokpo, gwangju, jeju island and seoul. i think going to jeju with them will be the nicest. we're gonna take our scooter and once we're there they can rent a scooter too and we can drive all around the beautiful island, go to beaches, see our favorite temple in korea, etc. eeeeee!!!! so fun!

only thing i'm bummed about is i have to go back to the work the DAY AFTER they leave! it's like BAM summer over! :o( i won't even have time to plan anything. i hope i don't have to teach lessons the first week. guess i'll just start with "how was your summer?" lol and a review of the rules cuz god knows they will have forgotten everything by the time they come back. but! it'll be my last full semester in korea! :o) then i just have a loooong winter break and two months of teaching and i'm home!

i've already put a countdown on facebook lol i think it's something like 281 days lol

but i'm not dreading the rest of my time here. i'm going to enjoy it. it'll be great to show ben and vivienne around and then once the holidays get here i'll have fun doing holiday related lessons, having parties, etc. it'll be my last halloween, thanksgiving and christmas in korea! i'm not sure what we'll be doing for halloween. usually there's a huge party at p club but i dunno who's planning it this year. i would but i dunno if i really wanna do something on that scale. it'd be nice to have a smaller party at my apt. we'll see. as for thanksgiving i definitely want to do a small thing with just close friends this year and jens and i are already planning a christmas sing-a-long at our place- complete with wassail and xmas goodies Po: mmmm i love xmas time!

we're planning on going to se asia for all of jan. and feb. but we've gotta work out some things with jens's school first. they want him to do a winter camp but jens might be able to get out of it by doing some other things for them during the semester like extra classes, teachers classes, etc. i'm hoping that'll work out because it'd be really nice to have the 2 full months in se asia. we'd like to go to cambodia, laos, thailand, malaysia and singapore. jens's parents may even meet us out there for a couple weeks which would be cool.

ah! i love traveling! i hope once we move back to the states that it's not too long before we can travel somewhere again. i still wanna go back to france. but i wanna see a lot of the u.s. too! right now i'm reading the lost continent: travels in small-town america by bill bryson and it just makes me wanna take a long random road trip in the states. the u.s. is so HUGE! there's so much to see! i hope i get to see every state in my lifetime. that'd be awesome.

ok well i'm gonna go now. may be a while before i update again. have a great summer!

GOING HOME!

yes it's official!!!! jens and i are going home at the end of this contract! unfortunately that does not mean his book was picked up to be published yet. we just thought it all through and decided that no matter what we'll go home april 2010! i'm so excited!!!

it all started when i emailed jens and told him i was done with korea. that i couldn't take it anymore! lol korea has been a wonderful experience and i definitely don't regret doing it but there just comes a point when it's time to leave, ya know? (i emailed him because we always do that when we're both at work).

he wrote back giving me all the numbers- like how much we've saved, how much we could save this year, how much we would save if we stayed a 4th year, how long it'd take him to write a 3rd novel and go through the firefighter emt training he's going to do, etc. then he sent a second email saying he had just found out some more info about the training- turns out he has to do a boot camp (in person in texas of course) before he can finished the last 9 months of the training. originally he was thinking he could get ALL the training out of the way before going home so he could immediately start looking for a job when we got back. but since he can't finish the training in korea that changes things a bit.

but he was still sounding pretty pessimistic and wanted to know more from me- about why i wanted to leave now, what we would do in texas, etc.

long story short- i convinced him that this should be our last year! woohoo!!!!! i can't believe it!

it's such a relief! it's amazing how much it's changed my perspective already. i feel so much more optimistic. i feel like i can really appreciate korea more now that there's an end in sight, ya know? i find myself wanting to take pictures again like i did when i first came here! pics of random things like mailboxes and carts filled with cardboard boxes and little dogs with dyed hair!

aaaaaahhhhh it's so refreshing!

now we're thinking about all the places we wanna see and things we wanna do in korea before we leave. we're still planning to go to se asia in winter. i think we're gonna try to go for the full two months- jan. and feb. depending on how much we wanna spend. se asia is super cheap though so it should be doable. i mean some places cost like $5 a night lol

then when we go home in april we'll live in my grandma's old apt. that my dad built onto their garage. we call it the bungalow. it's really nice and we'll share my parents one acre yard with them. that'll be REALLY nice seeing as how we've had NO yard for 3 years lol it'll be great to be able to let the dogs out the front door to use the bathroom and run around. no more pee pads! (hopefully they'll catch on pretty quickly lol)

career plans:
jens will write his 3rd novel in sept./nov. then do part of the emt/firefighter training online in nov./dec. we'll go on vacation then he'll do another part of the training in march/april. once we get back to texas he'll do that boot camp and then he'll have 9 months left of training.
as for me i'm seriously thinking about getting into event planning/wedding planning. i want to try to be an assistant to someone who's already doing it so i can get hands-on experience right away. then if i really like it i can become a certified event/wedding planner and do it on my own. another option for me is culinary school. in high school i wanted to be a chef but gave up on it when i became vegetarian because i didn't want to deal with meat- plus i was young and wasn't sure what i wanted to do. but now that i'm not vegetarian anymore and i've really gotten into cooking the past couple years i think it's a possibility for me again. i'd love to work in the cooking school at central market. so those are two things i'm going to pursue when we get back. a 3rd thing i'm interested in is the eco-friendly field in general which opens up a lot of options. hopefully i can find a job in one of those fields right off the bat but if not i'll just take anything until i can find what i want and we can get on our feet.

so our to-do list so far is:
see and do things in korea
go to japan
have ben and viv visit
go to se asia
jens- write novel
jens- train to be a firefighter-emt
randi- look into job opportunities
sell stuff off
ship stuff home
prepare ourselves for culture shock! lol
go home!

yaaaaaaaaaay! goodbye korea! hello texas!

update

hey! i'm gonna make this short. just want to give a little update.

we only have about 4 weeks left of this semester which is nice :o)

classes have been going pretty well. i've been teaching a music lesson where i show lots of american music videos and a lesson comparing high schools around the world which have both been pretty fun for the students and i.

i'm realizing my co-teacher does have some very human parts to her so we're getting along better lol

i'm getting to know the japanese teacher, akiko, better and i think we'll start hanging out outside of school soon.

jens is still liking his job and he just started to edit his second novel.

we take things pretty easy during the week but we have stuff going on almost every weekend. last weekend jens and i went to a bachelor party and bachelorette party respectively which was fun. a couple americans here are getting married in korea next month. this weekend there's a b-day party and i need to get a lot of things done for a baby shower i'm helping to host next weekend. the baby shower is for my best friend here in korea and i'm having a lot of fun planning it! :o) i love planning parties! weekend after next jens and i are hosting our annual 4th of july tex-mex fiesta which i'm really looking forward to! should be fun! then we just have that wedding to go to and we'll be on vacation!

we're planning on going to japan for 10 days and then meeting up with ben and vivienne in seoul when we get back. they'll be visiting us for two weeks. i just hope all goes to plan despite all this swine flu nonsense! i'm hoping none of us have to be quarantined in japan or korea lol

in entertainment news - jens and i are watching the series madmen which is really good! it's about men in advertising and life in general in the 1960s. it's very well-done.

two movies i watched recently that i liked - revolutionary road and the reader. i like revolutionary road more. both are sad but good.

and the book i'm reading now is called - the girls. it's fiction but it's written like an autobiography of conjoined twin sisters. very interesting and good!

in other news- our basil plant is getting really big! i should take a picture! lol also, jens finished stringing and tuning our chromaharp today! i think it took him 4 hours total lol i made the mistake of telling my co-t we have a chromaharp and that i'm gonna try to learn it and she's told me like 3 times she can't wait for me to come up to school and play the chromaharp for them...oh boy lol

anyway, that's all for now i suppose. hope you're all having a great summer so far!

Good night with my co-t!

you may not believe this but i ACTUALLY had a good night with my co-t!

she finally took me to buy that hairpin she's been wanting to buy me for weeks!

we left school at 5pm and went to a shop in shinae first (old downtown)- apparently it's one of her favorite shops and she's familiar with the owner now.

as we were driving there she put on some music and surprisingly i liked it! it was like yoga-style, indian, buddhist music of some sort and i felt a little weird actually having something in common with her lol

anyway we arrived at the shop and it was a really cute place- half coffee shop, half clothing shop. very small and a somewhat expensive. it's one of those places that only has one of each piece of clothing and i think some of the items have been creatively altered by the owner- the hairpieces especially look handmade. pretty cool.

anyway i thought we were just there to look around for fun- you know, eye-shopping as they say in korea. so i looked around and found some REALLY cute dresses. they were so cute i wanted to know how much they were so i asked- one was like 40,000won or so so i didn't bother trying any on. that's a little out of my price range. so i finished looking around and then my co-t asked- are you finished? i said yes and she asked- are you not satisfied with these clothes. and i was like oh yeah i am. i like those dresses but i can't buy them. and she was like oh oh! try one on! go go! and i'm like ok whatever. i would like to see how they look (still thinking it's just for fun).

so i tried on a long dress on and it fit perfectly. i showed my co-t and she said- oh so however i would like to buy this dress for you! and i was like oh nono, you don't have to do that!! but she argued with me and convinced me that she should buy it for me. but she told me to try a few other things on and decide what i want. so i tried on two other dresses and decided on a short dress (similar to the first one, just short and a different pattern). i told her i liked it and she said something like oh you like this one? not the long one? and i was like yeah, i like this pattern more. she hesitated for some reason and i worried that the one i picked was more expensive than the other but figured if she really didn't wanna buy it she'd say so. but she bought it and then she bought us some drinks at the coffee shop and we sat down and hung out.

she started talking about the dress again and said she thought i would have picked the other one and i was like no i like this pattern more (the other one was way too bright and loud for me and i probably wouldn't have worn it much so i wanted to get the more subdued pattern so i'd actually wear it and get her money's worth out of it lol) but then she started talking about how the one i picked "showed the breast" (meaning it was low-cut) which i know koreans are squeamish about but the weird thing is the other dress was the exact same style so i couldn't figure out why she was surprised i picked the one i did. it wasn't even super short either. it comes down to the knee. i kept thinking it was more expensive than the other but i finally looked at the price tag and it was actually cheaper! so i dunno what her deal was lol she did say- oh you can't wear this kind of dress to my school because it shows the breast so maybe she forgot the other dress was low-cut too and was thinking i'd be able to wear it to school and she could show off that she bought it for me. anyway, i told her the other dress was also low-cut and that either way i could still wear the dress she bought to school if i wore a sweater over it. she didn't seem to really listen to me and proceeded to ask me what else she could say for "shows the breast" and i taught her the word cleavage lol as in this dress shows cleavage.

anyway, we moved on after while and went to another one of her favorite stores in hadang. this one was bigger and had many more pieces of jewelry, hair clips and clothes. the main purpose of this expedition was to buy me a hair clip so i looked at those first. i had already had in mind what kind of hair clip i wanted - a long, rectangular one to clip all my hair back behind me- since it's going to get hot soon and that hairstyle looks a little more professional than a ponytail. i found one i liked immediately- it was long oval clip made of black plastic with tese small, white rhinestones all over it. simple but shiny. at the same time my co-t and this other woman were showing me smaller clips i could use to pull my bangs to the side but i really wanted on to pull all my hair back and when i told my co-t that and showed her the bigger pin she hesitated again and acted weird...but i figured it was just her being weird for no reason again lol so i put the clip in my hair and went and looked at it and said oh i like this one. but then she took me back to the counter and showed me some other clips and said see you can see the prices here. each pin had a tiny little dot on it with the price and the long clip i had been looking at was....you'll never believe this....48,000won!!! (back when the exchange rate was even that would have been $48!!!) i immediately said oh! surprisingly and put the clip back lol i could not believe that cheap looking thing was almost 50 bucks! that's insane! so i proceeded to find the smallest clip they had and we got that lol it's a tiny version of the big one with multi-colored rhinestones on it an i can use it to pin my bangs to the side. don't know how much it ended up being because it was so small a tag couldn't fit on it lol

then she told me to look around some more. i looked at some of the clothes and noticed the prices were all 100,000won and up so i knew i probably wasn't getting any more clothes that night. she said i could try some stuff on though so i found one top i liked and tried it on. it was really cute and i thought for a moment she might buy it for me but she asked if it was on sale and it wasn't so she asked me- do you like this more or the dress we bought earlier more? i definitely liked the dress more so i told her that and i put the shirt back.

we lingered a little while longer and then left so she could take me to her favorite flower shop to meet the owner. random i know, but that's my co-t!

we drove a while and i decided that since she had bought so many things for me i would treat her to dinner. earlier that day she had said- oh and so however i am taking you shopping so maybe you will treat me?? (meaning for dinner) and i thought this was a bit rude to say that outright so i just said oh i dunno, maybe. but that was when i thought she'd be spending like 5,000won on me lol after she spent 35,000won for a dress and however much for that pin i decided it would only be right for me to treat her to dinner. but then she said oh maybe the flower shop owner will come with us and i got a bit worried about how much that would cost lol

on the way to the shop we were stopped at an intersection near this bedding store i always admire when jens and i drive by it so i told my co-t - oh i really like that bedding store! they have really beautiful bedspreads there. and she was like oh! shall we drop by there? and i was like sure! i hadn't been there in like a year and they had some new stuff so i figured what the hay. i like eye-shopping lol so we went in and looked at everything. at one point i was looking at one bedspread and i said - oh this is really nice. and she said oh i think we have the same taste. we both like beautiful things. and i thought- god, i guess we do have some things in common! aaahh!!!! lol after looking at all the bedspreads we found a section of houseshoes and started looking at those. she asked how much they were and i thought maybe she was wanting to buy some for herself. but no- she wanted to buy some for me! i said no- you already bought too much for me. but she wouldn't have it. she said no i want to honor our visit to this bedding store. and i'm like ok whatever! so i picked out some slippers and she bought them!

after that we went to the flower shop and the owner ended up not being there. two other ladies were there and we hung out for a while. at one point one lady said something to my co-t and kind of pointed at her stomach and mine. and my co-t laughed and said something i can't remember now but she must have gestured to my stomach cuz i looked down and realized the way i was standing my stomach was kind of pooching out and i was like oh ok and then the lady said in korean (is there a baby in there??) to my co-t and i said no! no baby! and they all laughed because they were surprised i understood her and then i think the woman was embarrassed that she had asked lol i wasn't really offended. it was probably partly because i'm of child-bearing age and she was curious if a foreigner was having a baby here. anyway we laughed it off and left shortly thereafter.

as we were walking out though my co-t looked back and that same woman was walking directly behind us and they laughed and my co-t said oh she is imitating my walk. many people say when i walk (and she demonstrating swinging her hips) and i was like oh you swing your hips? (which i had noticed before but didn't say anything cuz that's rude) and she was like yes! and we all laughed and left. i was really surprised that woman did that though. i dunno if she didn't mean to get caught and my co-t just noticed her. or if she did mean to get caught and that's a normal thing to do in korea. very weird lol

so then! it was finally time to go to dinner (at 9pm! lol) i asked her where she wanted to go and she couldn't decide. only thing she could think of was galbi- but i know she doesn't like to eat galbi because she has high cholesterol or blood pressure (don't remember which) so i tried to think of something else. then i thought of shabushabu. by some miracle we happened to be right by my favorite shabushabu place so that worked out nicely! we ate there and it was really very pleasant! she really liked it and praised my choice over and over and we talked about various things including the difference between my old school and my new one. she wanted to know all about that.

after dinner she drove me home and went the wrong way a few times so it took a while and the whole way there she gave me advice about marriage and friendships lol after a while she put in a different cd of korean buddhist music and it was really pretty but at one point she had me sing along a phrase with her lol from the outside looking in it would have been a really funny sight lol

i think i got home about 10pm and that was that.

overall it was a good night! she never really irritated me and i made out like a bandit! lol

now some of you may be thinking- ok she's obviously bribing you! trying to put you under her thumb little by little. trying to show you that she's better than all the other teachers because she buys you things. but i bought her dinner so it was more of a back and forth thing. granted she spent more on me but she certainly didn't seem to mind and in fact she seemed thrilled by just getting to hang out with me. you may also think she's just doing nice things for me so i'll do nice things for her but what's so bad about that? don't we all do that on a regular basis? i think it's more fun to do nice things for each other rather than not doing anything at all for each other and just have a robotic, work-only relationship. hey i don't mind paying for dinner if i get a dress out of it! lol

and it's situations like last night that i can actually see a positive side to my co-t. not just because she's buying me things but because we're outside of work, we're doing something fun that we both enjoy (shopping around) and there isn't really any chance for conflict, ya know? i think doing stuff like that with her will help balance the frustrating times at work.

yes, she's crazy but i think somewhere in there she has a good heart. she does say lots of nice things to me. she compliments me almost everyday (my hair, my skin, my clothes, my decorating skills, my teaching skills, etc.) she's always telling me that she wants to help me in any way she can. she's been much more open-minded about my foreigness than any other co-t i've ever had. it's weird but it seems that since she's so crazy and out there she can kind of relate to being foreign, ya know? and any time i do get upset with her she does what she can to mend the situation. not just having me say sorry to her but she'll say sorry to me if she makes a mistake too. and sometimes she'll make coffee for me or take me out to lunch or invite me places (like shopping last night). i really do think her intentions are good. they are misguided at times but overall i think she means well.

i know a day or two or a week from now i'll probably be ranting and raving about something she did that frustrated me but maybe i can come back to this and remember she does have a good side too lol. i think that's the only thing that's gonna keep me sane this year lol

anyway, the end!

Gas range fixed!

so the owners of our apt. bldg. and a repairman came to our apt. monday night and finally fixed our gas range problem. they put the cabinet back together and screwed on a metal serving tray to the side of it to protect it from the gas range fire. good enough i guess lol we didn't have to replace the gas hose because it's only slightly burned and now it can rest down low, far away from the range.

their visit was fairly uneventful. the only amusing thing was that they just bought a random metal tray to screw on there. instead of some kind of special metal sheet or heat-resistant tiles.

all in all we could have fixed the problem ourselves had we known the repairman wasn't going to have any more skills or ingenuity than we have lol we even have our own power drill!

that'll teach us! lol

Korean Workmanship

facebook note jens wrote about our gas range ordeal:

I'm not the sort of guy who likes to make broad generalizations about any culture without first saying how I don't like to do it - so now that's out of the way, here we go!
What's up with Korean workmanship? It's baffling. These people make very fine supertankers and mp3 players and economy cars, but in construction, quality is all over the place. Often one encounters maddening and bizarre cases where a minimum concession is made to necessity, and a maximum to laziness and getting the job done in as quick a way as possible, never mind how it looks (or functions).

In our first Korean apartment, back in Daegu, they installed the air conditioner exhaust hose, from which condensation drips, by breaking the window. They just smashed out a corner of the pane, snaked the hose through, and taped up the rest in a half-assed way. Mosquitoes leaked in through the gap, and cold air leaked out. In our last place, here in Mokpo, the bathtub was sealed improperly, and it leaked every time we showered. The balcony doors didn't seal - no problem with the doors, though, it was the very foundation of the building that was crooked. At my insistence, the handyman drilled the sliding screen doors into place, blocking out mosquitoes, but preventing us from ever opening the screen. Our hot water heater constantly conked out; after many complaints, the maintenance guys finally condescended to come and give the filaments a good scraping with a pair of needlenose pliars, fixing the problem for at least a week and a half.

Now, certainly Korea has a valid excuse for this sort of thing. The aforementioned trauma of the 20th century aside, they've only been industrialized for fifty or sixty years, or about two generations. In 1950, most of them lived in shacks, huts, or wooden houses, where such, shall we say, temporary repairs might have been acceptable. But this "good enough" spirit just doesn't cut it an age when everyone lives in fifteen-story apartment buildings.

When we moved into our current place, we noted some problems with our gas range and kitchen cabinets. The cabinet was too close to the range, so the side of it was blackened and peeling. It was also too close to the wall, so it pinched the hose for the gas range against the wall, holding the hose at such an angle that the hose sometimes dipped perilously close to the open flame. I believe life should be lived at the edge, and this existential hazard gave me a little thrill every time I fried eggs, but Randi is of a steadier temperament, and did not appreciate living under the looming spectre of devastating explosions. For some reason.

A few weeks of complaining got an apartment guy to come see it, who told us that he could do nothing with the hose, as it was the gas company's business; a gas man came, and told us he could do nothing because of the cabinet blocking it; the cabinet belongs to the apartment. Today we had a visit from the people empowered to move the cabinet. It only needed to go a few inches away from the wall to allow access to the hose.

The ajumma (middle-aged woman who wears a visor) pondered the problem, in pondering pose, hands on hips. Then, when my back was turned, she grabbed a peanut butter-smeared knife from the sink and hacked away the glue holding the cabinet to the sill behind the range. I offered a saw so she might not ruin the kitchen knife, but she merrily declined. Then she had me empty the contents of the cabinet, covering the dining table and ruining that room of the house unusable for the nonce. The repairman arrived, power drill in hand, and the real work began.

At first, the ajumma walked around the house, looking for another suitable place to site the cabinet; I stopped her when she suggested we put it on the balcony, on the other end of the house, where my exercise bike is. (Where would the bike go? Behind the refrigerator?) I didn't relish the idea of walking through the dining room and living room, and opening the patio doors (which stick) every time I want a spoonful of mustard (which is often). In the pantry, then, where the oven is, and put the oven in the bathroom. No, thank you. Please just move it a few inches out from the wall to unpinch the hose, and an inch or two to the left to remove it from the heat of the stove. Simple.

So they did! Problem solved. Thank you for your help.

And then they disassembled the cabinet, removing the two top cabinets from the bottom one, giving us two cabinets - one three feet tall, with no top surface, the contents exposed from above - and then another section about five feet tall that would go where the oven is. The oven would go on top of that one. And what about that expensive and totally functional oven shelf? Who cares? Why was this arrangement better than leaving the cabinet in one piece? They mused for a while, hands on hips, then realized that now we had access to the gas shut-off knob, which we didn't before. Much better.

So much better.

When the repairman got out his tape measure to prepare a new top for the first cabinet section - after first seeing if our now-displaced wooden floor grate from the pantry would fit (it didn't) - I knew I had to speak up. I explained in my pidgin Korean that we didn't use the knob before and didn't need it - what we did need was our cabinet in one piece. "Can you please reassemble it in this new location, a few inches from the old? That would solve every problem at once, easily." "Oh, sure, we can do that. On Monday, at 6:00. See you then!"
"Wait! Why can't you do it now?"
The ajumma had a good laugh, and I asked again. Finally, she gestured at the repairman, and said, in Korean, sotto voce, "He's stupid!"
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Of course. All becomes clear now.

And they left. Our cabinet is in two pieces, our oven is unusable, on top of the cabinet, and our foodstuffs are all over the kitchen. Until Monday. Then everything will be fixed.