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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
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!
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
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!
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!!
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!
