new puppy and moving

hello! well since last post we got a new puppy!!! jens found him at his school!

here's the story he posted on facebook:
Expats in Korea have an itinerant habit of taking in stray animals, at which I always laughed in my Rabelaisian way. But yesterday I pulled into my school parking lot to find some first-graders tormenting (with love) a shaggy Maltese pup. I liberated the poor guy and realized, once I picked him up, that I could not put him down - not that I would not, or should not, but that it was simply not an option. I called Randi to okay it, and we had another member of the family!
He was in bad shape, with long streaky tear stains and muddy belly and sooty greyish fur on his back and snout - road pollution, like snow on the side of a highway. His hair was comically ragged - someone, a child or possibly retarded adult, had long ago tried to cut his hair with scissors, but given up partway through. There were bald patches and half-hacked patches; he looked like a mop run over with a lawn mower.
I took him to the vet. I didn't have a dog box with me for the scooter, so I tucked him into my jacket and zipped him up, with his shaggy head poking through my collar. The Koreans looked at me, shall we say, "with interest". But he rode calmly all the way to the vet, fortunately not urinating on my nice red-striped shirt.
I played with him in front of the vet's office while waiting for the vet to show up. He sniffed around the parking lot with lively interest and stuck his tiny head all the way in a drainpipe to lap up a little bit of water. The pitifulness of this TRANSFIXED me, and I ruminated thus: "Poor guy..."
The vet arrived and I deposited the pup with orders to groom and examine him. Randi and I toyed with names all day; initially I favored "Perestroika", but she suggested "Hobak," which is Korean both "pumpkin", but is also slang for "ugly girl". But it didn't quite roll off the tongue, so we went with "Jjang", which is Korean for "very good" or "awesome," and is fun to say.
After work, I returned to the vet's, and he told me that Jjang has a mostly clean bill of health, except for an inflammation of the anus. Wow! But a shot of antibiotics ought to clear that up. He weighs only about two kilograms, it turns out, after the shaving. I took him home, and he met Sadie. They warmed up to each other quickly and were soon chasing each other up and down the apartment.
Jjang slept in Sadie's old bed next to our bed - he won't get to sleep ON the bed until he's pad-trained. Still working on that. When I came home from work today, he went berserk and tried to climb up my leg. He's attached! So is Randi. Not I. I am immune to human sentiment.

so yeah, things are going pretty well so far! sadie and jjang play all the time! jjang is much tinier than sadie but he holds his own! he's 4 lbs. and she's 10 or 11. we're in the process of pad-training him. he pees on the pads about half the time and on the floor half the time :o( it's been quite a while since we've had to pad train a puppy so it's hard getting back in the swing of it and realizing we need to be veerrry patient! i'm hoping he learns faster than sadie did! it took her about a month or two to totally stop peeing on the floor.

now if all i was having to deal with was pad training a puppy it wouldn't be so bad but since we're also in the process of getting ready to move and start at new schools we've got some added stress. tonight i've been trying to clean the apt. up because my co-t is coming to inspect it tomorrow. i guess to make sure all the stuff is in here that needs to be in here. and it's been quite a hassle since i've already had to clean up pee twice and settle some fights over bones, etc. lol

i just hope it looks decent enough for her tomorrow and that we can get it all spic and span before we move (for the new people).

the movers are also coming by tomorrow to give us a quote on how much it'll cost to move the stuff we need to move. we're taking a few pieces of furniture with us that we bought ourselves like the dresser and bookshelves along with all our small junk. i think they might be dropping off the baskets that we'll be putting all our stuff in too (they don't use boxes here. they use these big plastic baskets.) i was surprised they'd be dropping them off so soon cuz last time we moved they didn't give us the baskets until 1-2 days before we had to move. so i'm glad we'll have longer to pack this time.

it's getting so close!! jens and i went to immigration today and extended our visas and alien registration cards for another year. that's expensive! 80,000won per person for a multiple entry visa. that's a little less than $80 these days. and the multi- entry is so that we can visit other countries and come back. everything went pretty smoothly so that good! :o)

i'll be getting a raise this year which is nice :o) jens doesn't get one because he's already at the highest level (well there's one more level but you have to live here like 5 years or have a masters in educ. or something to get there). and almost all the english teachers in jeollanamdo will be getting another raise in the next couple of months because the exchange rate is so bad right now. so that's really nice! we're really hating the exchange rate right now. we don't even wanna send money home because we'll "lose" so much. for example before the economic crisis if we sent 1 million won home it'd be about $1000. but now if we send 1 million won home it's only $755!!! we're hoping it'll get better.

anyway, we've got a busy weekend lined up! sat. we're celebrating little eoghan's first birthday in the afternoon and then that night the fighting mokpo all-stars (band jens is in) will be performing at alex and katrina's going away party at p club (that's the couple we're replacing). then on sunday there's a picnic on yudal mountain which i'm really looking forward too. i hope it's warm. it had been pretty warm for a few days there but today it was a little chilly because it rained over night.

then next week is my last week! i can't believe it! i don't even have to work the entire week actually. wed. is my last day and i might get out early because jens scheduled the movers to come then. we're off thursday! (yaaay!) so we'll get to unpack and settle in. then friday is our first day at our new schools. but i duno if we'll have to go in for the full day and actually teach or what. all the brand new teachers will just be getting into mokpo that day. so i doubt we'll have to teach. i wanna get my room set up with all the things i bought in the states when we visited. i got some big continent posters, abc cursive chart, a couple other posters, etc.

then that sat. we'll meet our replacements, show them around town and then there'll probably be a welcome dinner for all the newbies that night.

i think jens and i will have a housewarming party on sat. may 2nd which will be fun. i'm still super excited about having a bigger place :o) you'll definitely be seeing some pictures once i get time to load them.

speaking of pictures. i'm gonna go add pics of jjang to facebook right now! have a great week! live*love*laugh!