stuff and junk

wow! i haven't updated in a while!


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Random cool things

i found out tonight that one of my co-workers was in the peace corps and taught english in kazakhstan!

also i met a customer tonight that taught english in south korea in the 70s!

pretty cool, eh?

bonus: funny thing overheard in half price-

a young girl talking to her dad saw a book in true crime and said:
hey dad- you should get this book called evil wives so if you're really mad at mom you can read this and then think you are really blessed to have her!

lol kids...

English couchsurfers

we finally had our first couchsurfing guests wed. and thurs. night and it was really fun! if you don't know what couchsurfing is, go to: http://www.couchsurfing.org/

jens couchsurfed at a couple people's places in san marcos in the past month and it went really well so when we got a request from two english girls we accepted! they both just finished university and are taking a huge road trip all over the u.s. and canada for 6 months! it sounds so awesome! i really wish jens and i could do that!

they arrived wed. night and we grilled portobello mushrooms and other veggies for fajitas and they were a hit! we just talked all about their trip, some about our travels and various other random things. it was a good time! after dinner we had some intense chocolate cake that they had brought with tea which they said was the first "proper" cup of tea they had had since being in the states! score one for the rushings lol

we chatted til midnight and then went to bed.

the next morning jens had to leave early for emt school unfortunately but i got up and made a big breakfast of homemade biscuits, scrambled eggs and pepper bacon. it was good if i do say so myself ;o)

the girls went into dallas that day and visited the dallas museum of art. i didn't get to hear how their day went yet because i worked 3-11pm last night and only briefly met up with them after. jens, joel, patrick and selene took them out to potager for dinner and then caves for some beer. i met up with them at caves around 11:30p-12a. they had to get up fairly early today to hit the road again but i stayed out with joel, patrick and selene and we ended up talking to this funny, gregarious guy nicknamed hermes. i also saw two half price books employees up there which was cool! one of them said she goes up there every thursday for the karaoke. jens, joel and patrick did some songs but i much prefer the asian-style private room karaoke lol i don't like singing in front of strangers :oP

we crashed at joel's since we couldn't really drive home and there is of course NO public transit (BOOOO!) and then we had to get up at 6am so i could take selene to her car and she could get home and ready for work by 8:30am! i was REALLY glad i didn't have to work til 3pm today lol i got home and slept til about 10-10:30am. the english had already left and i felt kind of bad that i didn't see them off but i don't think they had much time to chat this morning anyway.

overall our first couchsurfing hosting experience was awesome! the girls were fun to talk to and it was really interesting to meet new people, especially from another country! i would definitely recommend it!

i work again today 3-11pm and i think jens and his band have a gig tonight at the health and harmony house coffee shop near uta. i may try to meet up with them when i get off work but i dunno if they'll still be out. i close sat. and sun. at work also but i have monday off. not sure what my plans are yet.

i'm hoping to do something really fun on sat. april 2 because it'll be my first sat. off since working at half price! woohoo! party time! :o)

ok i'm gonna go get ready for work now! happy friday!

Blogging again

hello! long time no blog, eh? i stopped around thanksgiving because the blog just wasn't going where i wanted it to. i thought i would be writing more about adjusting to life back in texas, etc. but i just couldn't get the motivation to make it super interesting. i'm much better at stream of consciousness writing about my everyday life. so that's what i've decided to do. i've re-arranged the blog a bit. i got rid of the "offbeat texan life" location and just re-posted all of those entries on here. one because my blog wasn't specifically about life in texas and two because i may not always live in texas. i'd rather have a blog i can use throughout my life, ya know?

so i'll briefly summarize what i've been doing for the past 4 months and move on lol

thanksgiving was fun! we spent it with jens's side of the family at his grandparents house and had lots of wonderful food and great company :o)

then the christmas season rolled around and it was pretty crazy! i had completely forgotten what christmas was like here. for the first time in my life i totally understood why people get stressed around that time of year and how they don't like the commercialism of it, etc. it's really in your face! i had gotten a break from it for 3 years in korea because it's quite subdued over there in comparison. here i felt like i needed to buy more and more which was bad because i still didn't have a job :o/ i tried making most of the gifts i gave but i still spent quite a bit. 

overall though it was nice to be home at christmastime and get to spend it with all my friends and family. there were lots of parties and festivities and we had a great time! :o) some of the gifts jens and i made were photo collages, capes for our nephews, pumpkin butter, all natural cleaner and wine charms. it was fun making things so i think i'll try to do that next year too!

new year's eve was a bit weird...jens's band, the small gods, had a gig at the bandwagon in the fort worth stock yards and NO ONE came out except me, joel's gf and david's gf - so they did a show for the 3 gfs lol the employees there only let them play for about 30 mins. since no one else was there so we were "kicked out" before midnight and had to figure out what to do. joel, katie and chris went home which left me, jens, david and his gf who is only 18. we hadn't been under 21 in so long we had no idea where to go so she could get in lol we tried the chat room but they're 21 and up and we only had about 15 minutes til midnight so jens and i stayed there and david and his gf decided to go elsewhere. we felt really bad but there wasn't much we could do. we celebrated new year's with a bunch of strangers but it was pretty fun lol i definitely want to do something better next year though! we need a plan b in case things fall through.

we started 2011 off with a trip to colorado with christopher, lorri and ben and had an awesome time!!! we drove up and stayed about 5 days in jens's aunt and uncle's cabin in winter park. while we were there we sledded down the street, went snow-shoeing, cross-country skiing and sledding on hills. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! i loved it! i thought it would be deathly cold but it's so dry there that it doesn't feel as cold as texas does in the winter! it was so strange! jens and i liked it so much that we started thinking about living there. i think he's going to test for their fire dept. in june. we'll see! 

when we got back from that trip i re-doubled my efforts to find a job. i was pretty shocked that i still hadn't gotten a job by 2011 and i started to feel pretty discouraged. but i got a couple interviews and was FINALLY offered a job in february at half price books! i couldn't believe it! i had heard from a few people that it's really hard to get a job with them but i did it! it was pretty much the only place that didn't require a degree yet didn't hold it against me that i had one. so many places that i interviewed for that didn't require a degree deemed me over-qualified :o( but half price books sees a degree as a plus which is the way it should be! hello! 

i've been working there for about 7 weeks now and i'm really liking it! it's a great company! i like the people i work with, i like being surrounded by books, i like the variety in the job and they have great benefits! my 8 weeks of training are almost up and then i'll get health insurance and library privileges (meaning i can check out $100 worth of books at a time for one month at a time for free! so awesome!) 

while i LOVE finally having a job it has been quite the adjustment! i considered my job in korea full-time but now i see that it totally wasn't! i pretty much only worked part time there. the other half of my time was spent surfing the internet/sleeping/socializing (and yes i mean AT WORK lol). now i'm REALLY working full time and it's definitely taking its toll. when i'm not at work i just wanna veg out. i've been pretty good about continuing to clean the house/do chores and have a social life but not as good as i would like. i'm wondering how long it'll take me to adjust. 

anyway- update on jens! he graduated fire academy with flying colors!!! he was the captain and valedictorian of his class and got the highest grade anyone has ever gotten at weatherford fire academy!! pretty amazing! i'm super proud of him :o) since then he's been applying to/testing for fire depts. in various parts of texas and the country. and last month (or was it this month) he started emt training online. now he's doing the 1-2 week class portion of that and then he'll start paramedic school this summer. we're really hoping he gets a job before paramedic school starts because it's really expensive and if he's hired the dept. will pay for it! he recently tested in san marcos and is 5th on their list so our fingers are crossed for that!

as much as i would love to move out of dfw or even texas i'm torn because i JUST got this great job at half price books! i knew i would most likely have this dilemma but it's still hard. wherever jens gets a job (as a firefighter) he will definitely make more money than me and maybe have better benefits so it obviously makes sense to move wherever he gets a job. i'll just feel really bad if i have to quit mine. they've been really good to me and it takes of time to train a new employee. we gotta do what we gotta do though!

on another note- i went to two concerts this month! first- lady gaga! which was awesome but i (and my friends) were super far away!!! i'd love to see another one of her concerts with better seats! the very next night i saw devotchka with jens and joel and that was great too! we were only like 20 feet away from the stage- much better view! lol next month we're going to see gogol bordello which will be cool! i've just turned into a concert-going fool! lol i never went to concerts this much before but i am now and it's fun!

i've done quite a few other things in the past four months but i think i've written enough for now lol hope it's not too much to read! i'm going to try to get motivated to clean the house now! we have house guests wed. night which i'll write about later! happy tuesday! :oD

Job search, class, Halloween, garden, Thanksgiving and fire academy!

Re-posted from November 11, 2010

my job-search is on-going...still unemployed.

my class is going pretty well. there was some drama for a while- people complaining about how the class was going, etc. but i think it's finally settled down. there are only 5 classes left and we're starting on our big final projects. we basically have to plan an entire wedding as if we're doing it for a real couple. we have a budget and we have to choose real vendors in the area and use real numbers for the cost of everything. my budget is $30,000 and i'll have 60 guests for a fall wedding. sounds pretty awesome to me!!! :o) i've already been looking up ideas for fall weddings and i've found some cool stuff.

the more i think about event planning the more i think i don't wanna do it full-time. i just like my weekends too much! i like the freedom to plan my OWN events, ya know? i want to be able to plan a big halloween party for my friends rather than for strangers. so i think event planning is either something i'm going to try to do THROUGH another kind of job (like working on a uni. campus) or something i do on the side every now and then.

i'll be glad to be certified though because it certainly can't hurt in the job department. plus i'm learning a ton about event planning that can help me just in the creation of my own events!

halloween:

the friday before halloween we went to a friend of a friend's party and it was fun! jens and i dressed up as japanese people and i finally got to wear my second ukata (summer kimono)! i actually had to watch a video to figure out how to tie the obi (sash) lol

the sat. before halloween we co-hosted a party with some friends of ours and it was really fun too! i dressed up as a female mad hatter and i actually won the costume contest! i gave the prize to the runner up though since i was co-hosting the party lol it was my friend who dressed up as a female sherlock holmes! very cute! jens was mario from the mario brothers and he wore a fake mustache and everything. it was funny!

me and another friend are already talking about next year's halloween! we're thinking of getting a bunch of people together and renting out a place for a masquerade ball! nothing too fancy- the key element would be everyone must wear some type of mask.

i wonder if we could even turn it into some sort of charity party like the halloween party we had in mokpo, korea every year benefiting the local orphanage. we might even get more people to come that way! i really miss that party in korea- so much fun! if we did it here we could raise money for the local shelter! hhmm....

garden:

it's going well! i have 4 buttercup squash growing! i planted onions which won't be ready til next spring, the cabbage and carrots are getting fairly big and the oregano and basil are AWESOME! i've had to give away cuts of basil it was getting so big. i should really freeze some of it for the winter cuz it'll eventually die off but i've been too lazy lol

growing a garden has been so much fun though! it's really rewarding and i would recommend it to anyone who has the space! even just growing some herbs in pots on a windowsill or porch would be fun! the biggest surprise with gardening has been how easy it's been. after the initial work of digging the bed, putting up the fence and putting the seeds in he ground it was a piece of cake! i just water every day and throw some leaves out of the bed and that's it! nature does the rest! i have been lucky though- i haven't had a lot of pests. something was eating my basil for a while but it quit and now i think grasshoppers are eating my cabbage and squash leaves a bit but not too bad. they say you can spray this organic stuff on them called garrett juice but again, i haven't taken the time to make it. you have to get things like manure-based compost tea and seaweed juice....the grasshoppers haven't been too much of a problem yet so i'm going to wait on that.

we have our compost heap going too...not sure if it's the right ratio of "brown" and "green" items or if it has the right moisture level but i'm not too concerned with it lol it's basically just a place to throw my food and yard scraps. if it turns into some awesome compost then great! if not, whatever. it must be fairly rich in nutrients though because i think a squash seed i threw in there started growing! :oD unfortunately i have to stir the heap up every now and then so i dunno if it'll get a good chance to grow but that's cool it sprouted!

thanksgiving:

i can't believe we're almost halfway through november! time has been flying! i'm excited for t-day though! i LOVE all the wonderful fall foods and it'll be great to be home with family this year! my parents work alternating days throughout t-day week so i'm spending the time with jens's family and then i think we're gonna do a christmas decorating dinner with my family later.

fire academy:

i think the reason time has been flying by so quickly is because jens has been in fire academy! it's been keeping us both pretty busy! i do housework all day and when jens gets home he and/or i have to do showers, dinner, ironing, homework, cleanup and bedtime! then every weekend is packed because it's the only time we can do fun stuff together or with friends. he's doing really well in academy though! he was just bumped up to captain of ALL his classmates! :o) pretty awesome!

he's testing for cleburne fire dept. this sat. and i'm hoping he passes! it would be GREAT if he got a job there because they'll pay for his emt and paramedic training. so fingers crossed!

i'm hoping one of us has a job before x-mas so we can actually buy a few things for people. i've been trying to think of things i could make but i can't really think of anything i haven't already done...and i'm not SUPER crafty...like i'm really slow at knitting and i have almost no experience with sewing...

anyway, that's all for now!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Garage sale, class, job search, social scene, urban planning, etc.

Re-posted from October 11, 2010

wow! a lot has happened in the past month! we had a HUGE garage sale that took days to set up and we made some pretty good money at it!

i also started my event and wedding planner certification course at uta's continuing education building. it's only on monday nights so we've only met twice so far. i've been surprised how much i've learned already. it's not only about learning how to plan events but how to start your own business, getting vendors, dealing with clients, the whole nine yards! and there have been tons of assignments! i can barely keep up but i'm glad to be busy :o)

i've really delved into looking for a job lately. i applied to several event planners and professional organizers as an assistant as well as the library and central market. i'm still waiting to hear back from most of them but i do have one lead on an organizer assistant position.

i just hope i get some kind of job soon because i don't wanna spend all our savings!

jens has been SUPER busy with fire academy! it's taken a while for him (and me for that matter) to adjust to the drastic change in lifestyle but he's doing really well! he's been making great grades on the tests and he was appointed lieutenant of his shift (or group)! so that's exciting! he'll do emt in jan./feb. and then he'll start his paramedic training which may last til nov. of next year. it's a long process to become qualified but it'll be worth it in the end. he may do some substitute teaching during emt training and then ambulance work after that.

as for our social life it's been pretty good but it's been really hard adjusting to the different social scene here. in korea we had one big group of friends. everyone knew everyone and we all had the same job and most of us had the same schedule. so it was super easy to get everyone together not only on weekends but on week nights! for the majority of us our jobs were fairly easy so we weren't too tired to go to dinner on a week night or go camping all weekend. stuff like that.

whereas back home we have various friends who don't all know each other, they all have different jobs and different schedules some of which are super tiring and stressful so it's hard to get people together. i might be able to make plans with one person every two months! granted there are friends of ours that are more available and we see more often and that's great. i just wish i could get more people together, more often. i wish i could call someone up on a wed. night and go to a bar for a drink.

but that's another difference here- things are super spread out! the people AND the business we wanna go to. plus there's no public transit! so it's this huge ordeal to get people to meet at a place (some having to come from far away) and then be able to drink whilst worrying about being sober enough to drive home! korea was so much more conducive to relaxed, fun nights out! everyone lived within 15-20 minutes of each other, they could take a cab all the way across town for about $5-6, there were tons of bars, restaurants, karaoke places, etc. all near each other, there were pedestrian areas to walk around and at the end of the night you could just take a cab home with no problem!

i really, really miss that! that's probably what i miss the most in fact! i wish i could wave a wand and turn DFW into a more compact city with great public transit! lol that would make all the difference in the world! because the longer i'm here the more i realize that there ARE fun things to do in the metroplex, they're all just really spread out. we love the museums, performance halls, theaters, the few bars, etc. there have been arts festivals, beerfests, latino cultural festivals, free concerts, eco-fests, etc. it's just that they're in all different cities and the way the area is set up it's actually kind of difficult to find out about them. you don't have people out and about on foot, mingling, looking at flyers and such. the only way i find out about anything these days is facebook and the internet in general. it's so impersonal :o/ i'm happy that there's stuff going on at all. i'm happy that i can find out about it at all. it's just that i miss that sense of community and closeness and ease of having fun.

jens and i are still thinking about eventually moving to portland or the surrounding area but i don't think it'll be for a while. jens won't even be fully qualified for a firefighter position until the end of next year and then he may need to work for another year to get experience before applying in the n.w. which is fine. i'm happy to stay here and get our careers established before we start to move again. i just need to adjust to the car culture here.

happy halloween if i don't write again before then!

Our garden!

Reposted from September 19, 2010

we started a garden at the beginning of august. i knew nothing about gardening whatsoever so i bought some books, talked to some people, looked stuff up online and then just jumped right in. jens and i tilled a rectangular patch of soil behind our little bungalow. we weren't sure where to put it in order for it to get maximum sunlight and we ended up having to dig the whole thing over again when we realized it needed to be 4 feet closer to the house in order to get more sun lol oops!

let me tell you- it was hard work! we got all the weeds, grass, etc. out, put a wooden frame around it that jens nailed together and then mixed the soil with compost and other soil we had bought. then we put this little white picket fence up around it to keep the dogs out. the fence was pretty dingy and dirty so we decided to paint it some bright cheery colors! grassy green, bright fuchsia and sunny yellow! it took several weeks before we were finally done painting!

around aug. 15th i transplanted our basil and oregano into the garden and planted some winter squash seeds. the herbs flourished but the squash never sprouted! then around sept. 10th (i think it was...) i gave up on the squash and raked down the hills i had formed for them. i planted carrot and cabbage seeds and hoped they would do well.

then we had that day of torrential rains! my garden looked like a pond and i feared my seeds were done for! but that was in fact exactly what they needed! i had sprouts one or two days later INCLUDING the winter squash sprouts which were now all over the garden and not in a neat row since i raked them out lol i transplanted two of the squash sprouts to be near the others and not interfere with the carrots.

all the sprouts have just been getting bigger and bigger and it gives me hope that i might actually grow something edible! woohoo!

i still don't think my garden gets as much sun as it needs because there are so many trees in our yard but the leaves are falling like crazy so maybe the garden will have more light soon enough.

later i'm going to plant onions, garlic and spinach.

we started a compost pile too. we just got some rolled up wire fencing stuff, formed it into a circle and wired it to the side of our fence (so it would stay standing up). then we just started throwing all our produce trash and garden refuse in there, like leaves, etc. you can't put meat, fat or grain products into it i don't think. but you can put paper products in there- used napkins and such. some websites say you have to be careful about the percentage of produce trash to garden refuse you put in but we haven't really been worrying about it too much. it seems to be doing it's thing!

when i'm cooking and i have peelings and bits and pieces of veg. leftover i throw them in a groc. bag in the freezer and once it's full i go out and dump it in the compost pile and kind mix it in with a pitch fork. maybe one day it'll be some really good compost for the garden or yard. it may be a year or more before there's anything usable and we may not even live here anymore but i wanted to go ahead and start it so i could see how to do it, etc. and my parents can continue it after we move.

so that's my gardening adventure so far! it's really exciting to see things sprouting and growing and to think i might actually be able to eat a vegetable i grew myself! i'm doing it all organically too. i won't be spraying pesticides, but there are organic sprays you can make if you have certain bugs, etc.

i'll keep you all updated about how it's going! til next time!