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!