Update. Stat. :)

Wow!

It turns out I am moving Saturday evening! The new guy at work (Ben) is moving into my apartment that night....they can't get John gone and me into the apartment fast enough, it seems like! It will give me a day to settle in on Sunday though so that will be nice. Tomorrow and Saturday morning will be jam packed with packing and organizing! The new guy seems nice, he was a little jet lagged when he came to the office this evening--and you know me, super perky and smiley. :D I hope I didn't scare him too badly! :)

I also decided to post some pictures since I've sadly neglected doing so for....almost my entirety of my stay here. I've been trying to center myself this week, changing my diet a little bit, reading some spirituality texts, and trying to release some guilt I've been harboring (thanks for helping me out Momma!). So, I will hopefully be on the fast track to getting organized, healthy, and happy around the time of this move. :) I know there will always be stress in life but instead of letting the "woe is me" attitude take over, I'm going to stay my cheerful-Jesse-self. :)

How about some random pictures from Jan-Feb-Mar! I'll add pictures from Patrick's visit in the next post. :)

Students from my 2-S2 class. :) This was in February right before about 5 of them leveled up (doesn't it sound like I'm in a video game?!) My class is still huge, I have more kids now (must remember to take more pictures of my newer classes).

These are students from my 2-P1 class. :) Don't they seem...err....sweet?!

Korean blizzard at the end of January...harrrr...!

This picture is from Alex's (pictured here) birthday celebration. To make a long story short, the BBQ chicken from the street vendor should not have spicy sauce added. My laughter at my friend's pain and torment ensued for the next 10 minutes. Also, I was able to capture this amazing photograph!

I took a trip to Myeongdong (a shopping district in Seoul) with LeAnn! It was really cool and had all kinds of shopping, tiny street vendors and random racks of belts, shoes, shirts, scarves, sunglasses, and sparkly bangles squashed between loads of people haggling and sifting through the mounds of items to find a hidden jewel. It was so fun to look and watch people as well as look all the different stores from around the world. (I picked up a couple of presumptuous sundresses at a Western store--my first time in a normal fitting room in nearly 5 months!)

We got hungry and stumbled into a side street with a cute restaurant wedged between a greasy spoon kinda place and dull eyed cigar smokers. They had different kinds of kimbop, sushi, and soup....decorated very uniquely! >.< What a find! My yummy "salad" kimbop. Mmmm, I'mma eachoo!

Work birthday cake, mmm! The nifty "happy birthday" candles were arranged by the lovely Heather and Monica (some of my Korean teacherbuddies!). Hehe, I swear they love me!

Birthday cake #2! This was given to me by my friend Karen for my birthday party...it's an ice cream(strawberry and chocolate) cake, my first one ever! I seriously want ice cream birthday cakes from here on out. From Korea. Stat. ;)

March is over, hello April!

It turns out I'm unable to get out of the country for my 4 day weekend, quite unhappy about it but I'll just do something in the country. We didn't know about our extra day off until all the airline tickets had already been eaten up by other Koreans. Apparently this 4 day weekend is super huge for them to travel. Sad panda.

Maybe I'll go down to Busan to the beach or do a 2 night stay at a temple somewhere...or the combination of the two?! That would be exciting. :)

Found some mold in my apartment. Okay, a lot of mold. My apt is practically infested in it and my boss doesn't understand that this is why I've had so many health problems during my stay here. Moving on Monday but I don't know if I'll get to stay in the apt for more than a month. Men trump women, even if they aren't Korean here (which I knew coming in but it seems moronic to make me move twice just because someone else wants the apt because of the "view").

I'm just happy I'm going to be healthy.

Started another health kick with my diet as of....yesterday, so I can't tell you how it's going so far yet. Ask me as of May 1st. :)

I'm going to be busy this weekend getting all my ducks in a row with getting packed and such this upcoming weekend! Work is a blur when I'm there, sooo busy all the time. That's a good thing in itself though in a way.

The weather goes back and forth between springy and below freezing, I just want to get outside one morning and not be chattering!


Things are beginning to bloom now though! I'll take more pictures this weekend of the pretty buds and tiny flowers starting to come out. :)

Off to work!

March 09

Believe it or not, the best way to sum up my past 2 months (other than the 2 week hiatus while I had a great visit with Patrick) that I've been ridiculously busy with nothing in particular.

Work has been all consuming at times. First it was intensives in January and the beginning of February, then we were catching up, then preparing for the Korean school year to begin in March…now it is nearing the end of March! Whoa! Things have been changing a lot! As I said, the Korean school year begins in March instead of Sept like the states so we started several new classes at my hagwon and had about 50 new students enrolled. O.o There are so many students in my classes now! I’m enjoying them now but it has taken about 3 weeks to adjust and get everything in order. I don’t like having my life revolve around being sick and my job but I guess that’s life!

I’ve been here almost 5 months and don’t imagine things are going to change too much more now though. Well, except for staff perhaps? We had 3 men leave, received 2 guys (friends from Orange County, Cali) to replace them and had an old teacher come back, then another teacher resigned at the end of February so he’s leaving at the end of next week. The replacement is a guy from Boise, Idaho and that's all we know!

In recent developments I may be taking over his apartment here very soon. I looked at it this morning before work and it’s much nicer than my apartment but I’m still trying to figure out whether I want to move or not.

Pros: fantastic location between Sunae and Sohyeon overlooking the park, walking path right out my doorstep, farther from work (so I don’t feel so sectioned off), right in town, close to my friends, more updated, more spacious, and more storage, building security, doorbell and camera for my front door (right now I have no way to know who is at my door or to look out of it), increased social life, close to transportation for the busses and subway, the doctor, etc.

Cons: I would have to pay 200,000won/month extra for rent, around 50,000won for extra utilities (building security, etc) adding up to around 2.1mil extra ($1.6G) over the next 7 months out of my paycheck. It seems pretty steep but it is much nicer and great location. Farther from work (I would get my exercise…yet monsoon season is coming up), and I’d have to figure out how to move (though I figure I can do it for around 30 bucks using a cab twice since I don’t have to move any furniture), closer to shopping boutiques = more temptation of extra shopping ventures, possibly nixing China (??)

That 2.1mil could be used to pay for my China/Japan trip. I feel a bit frivolous even considering taking the apartment (see economic crisis) but I really am tired of my tiny, old, odd-layout of an apartment stuck on a remote hill that no one ever visits me on. So far my friends and boyfriend think it would be a good idea for me to take it, for comfort and mental health sustenance. We shall see, I have to make a decision THIS WEEK. >.<

I have a 4-day weekend coming up at the beginning of May that I’m quite determined to get out of the country to do some exploring for! It will be 6 months at that point and starting the downward slope of my contract! That will kick off my traveling! I have been good about saving so far and want to either go to Japan or the Philippines for the long weekend. I don’t know if I’d go to the Philippines at a different time if I don’t go now but I remember stories of mom telling me it wasn’t so nice when she was there 7 or so years ago.

I’m going to Bali, Indonesia (I’m pretty sure) in July for one week of my vacation with Patrick when he flies out here again, then will take my second week of vacation to go to Cambodia or a joint Cambodia/Thailand trip in the fall after their monsoon season ends. After I get done with my contract is my possible China/Japan adventure I want to take a week or so to do. That will put me back in the states in early to mid November! The national holidays in Korea aren’t working in my favor this year, it just so happens most are falling on the weekends and you don’t get a Monday thrown in for the sake of a holiday here. So my only 4-day weekend I’m getting is the one in May so I really want to use it! Don’t worry; I’ll still have money saved Momma!

In other news, I’m almost 23! Whoa! I’ve been saying I’m Korean age 24 since January so I think I’ll transition well enough. I have had fun teasing Squish about being so much older than I am for a month and a half though (an archaic 26 compared to my current 22)! ;)

I will upload some pictures of what's been going on in my next post!

In conclusion, I think I've hit the homesick-ish stage but have decided that no matter whether I move or not, I'm going to make at least SOME changes in my life, the weather is supposidly warming up (though the clouds spat some snow at me while I was walking to work today), and it's almost time for spring and summer and beautiful weather!

Hello February!

Intensives are almost over, only 2 more days of my extraordinarily long work days left! Phew! As is the Korean way, I still am not sure what my schedule is going to be on Wednesday...which will make preparations even more hectic on Tuesday evening. :) Hopefully the new schedule will be out on Monday but I can only cross my fingers right now.

Intensives are rough but doable. I did have a few cups of coffee now and then but they were more for comfort and a thrill than for necessity of the caffeine. I won't have to do intensives again until August which makes me smile. I'll be able to have a week of vacation before that time which is exciting, too!

I went to a casino last night for my first time ever and gambled! It actually is pretty close to where I live, only about 40 minutes on the subway inside the big hotel in COEX. It was quite pretty with lots of neon rainbow lights on the ceiling and walls but was not what I was expecting. No loud sounds or lots of people screaming and laughing, much more hushed and none of the slot machines made any noise. I grew comfortable with this atmosphere after a little bit and felt a little overdressed at first but hey, it was my first time! We played roulette which I find maddening but fun. I decided I would only bet 20,000won that night (around $18 with the exchange rate right now but still $20 worth in Korea) since it was my first time and didn't really know what I was doing. I'd be up and down but proceeded to lose more (as is the game). There was free food and drinks but our food didn't get ordered the first time. I crashed into a bloodsugar headache that didn't feel too well and wasn't cured by my little kiwi fruit drink. I started feeling better after my food finally came (3 hours after we arrived) but my betting had suffered (haha, at least that's what I'll blame it on, yeah?).

5 of my friends and I went so we had a whole sitting side of the table to ourselves. I felt very important having a sitting position and it made me feel more comfortable without some hardcore gamblers surrounding me or having to stand and not really have a good view or be able to relax. Yes I had a petty amount of chips but I had a good experience which meant the world to me! It was fun watching and talking with people around the casino. There were blackjack tables where people were betting thousands of dollars worth (millions of won ooh, ahhh), foreigners from China and Thailand, India, Japan, the states, all over.

We sat at the 1,000won minimum bet roulette table even though there were some people playing with chips that equalled up to about a grand each at the surrounding tables. WOW! There was a guy at the table next to us who literally had my entire college tuition sitting in front of him...an proceeded to lose most of it as the night wore on.

I lost 14,000won overall but I had a really good time! That is my exciting story from the weekend! Now I'm just doing laundry and cleaning up my apartment to get ready for the work week ahead of me!

I love you momma, miss you and hope you're feeling okay!

O-bam-a!

I stayed up to watch the inauguration on a school night! Oooh, I'm such a rebel (It came on at 2am for me).

It was good to see Obama become my new president (yes, he is personally mine) even though he did have to redo the process due to a glitch.

My students asked me if I hated "Bush-ee" and I told them no, I don't hate anyone, but I really really really like and support Obama!

They think it the name "Barbara Bush" is a complete crackup; "barbara" in Korean means "to stomp" so they love to say "Barbara Bush-ee" and stomp on the floor, laughing all the while. Silly Konglish humor!

So cheers to my country's new president: Barack Obama 01/20/09! It's going to be a long road for the USA to get back on track but it will happen! We'll working on living within our means.

Obama and I last October!

New Year Round 2

Happy New Year x2!

Lunar New Year is this weekend so I have a lovely 4 day weekend; my last public holiday until April or May. My weiguk friends are headed to China tomorrow (Saturday) morning but I didn't figure I could swing it with intensives, finances, etc. Instead I'm going to relax, catch up on some hobbies, organization, and spending time with my Korean girlfriends from work (I am soooo lucky to have them at my school--I love my Korean coworkers! They are the sweetest women and I have created very good and unique friendships with several of them. We are expecting 2 new teachers at school at the end of February. Harry (my boss) said today that they would be "perfect" for me since they are men around my age--I'm already taken though Harry!

Work has been a bit crazy this month, as expected. 9 hour days stretching up to 13 hour days...yucky. This was the last full week! Intensives won't really be over until the end of the first week of February. I found out I had a tiny bump in pay so that's nice; I've been working really hard for it! I'm still saving and budgeting well, to those of you that may be worried (Mom, Paul, Granddaddy).

I have started buying little things to make my apartment more homey...I figure if I'm going to be here for the next 10 months why live bare-bones when I can spend 50 or 100 bucks little by little and get some things that will make me happy...So far I have bought 2 pretty dishes, a dish drying rack, new soap container, a kettle, nice little hooks to put up around my apartment, a yoga mat, hat/scarf bin etc. They are silly but make me feel better and more organized. My next trip out I will be getting the laundry bin I've had my eye on. I found a store that's along the lines of a Korean Dollar General which has helped get more bang for my...won!

The weather was nice yesterday, around 42 degrees but dropped back down bitterly today again. It is currently 5 degrees outside and I have no idea what the wind chill is. I want the weather to get warmer again so I can go exploring!

I'm FINALLY getting a Korean cell phone in 5 days! I have been looking for a used one because I want to pay as I go so I don't have to sign a contract and pay $500 for a new phone plus deposit of $100. The area I live in is smaller so they have either been too expensive even used or in bad condition. Christine from work has a friend who is getting a new phone and I'm buying his old one. I'm glad, it's not mine until next Wednesday but I won't have to go hunting in Seoul to find a good deal on one. :)

I am having my first visitor soon; Patrick bought his plane ticket! I woke up to the message "I have a surprise for you in your email" the other morning. He will officially be here on February 20th at 9:10pm!

OH! My hair has been lopped off. Significantly. Right now I have a love-hate relationship with it and 3 weeks later am still trying to figure out exactly how to style it. It's much higher maintenance than what I'm used to. The combination of intensives and my new haircut have spurred a dropoff in pictures I have taken so I only have photos of when I first had it cut and styled. The experience of getting my hair cut was really funny, I just am not used to having hair this short--not since middle school! There are layers up to the tops of my ears and about 6-8 inches was taken off the bottom....it's more like a shag cut than layers in my mind, though. Here's of it cute and curled....something that won't ever happen to this level of professionalism again!

New hairs!

The back

Good morning 2009!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Wow, it's really 2009, my little brother just turned 16 today, and I start intensives tomorrow!

I'm going to try and not stress over intensives too much. Things became a little hectic at work right before my 2 long holiday weekends. Intensives schedule changed about 2 dozen times (which makes it hard to prepare for your classes and make syllabi if you don't know which classes you will be teaching!) and we had a runner at my school.

I feel bad for her in some ways since it was Christmas time but then when it came down to the job she was here for, she didn't do anything! I am currently trying to "fix" one of the 12 classes she royally messed up and she had NO grades and NO attendance for an entire month! The folder was blank and journals, workbooks, and speeches were only half graded with no scores! Kids were complaining and my boss (and other teachers) had to talk to her multiple times. At the end of the month after we realized she hadn't done anything, my boss decided it would be best to find her a job at another hagwon in the area. He was helping her find a new job....but she called into work sick on NYE (which meant we had to cover her classes). By pure chance I ran into her the following Sunday (as my arms were loaded with groceries). She had her biiiiiig suitcase and was walking over to the taxis. I was shocked! We told my boss the next day but it was far too late to do anything about it then. We're all pretty sure she's back in the states...Eep! It is kind've sad it all happened around Christmas time but it really couldn't be helped. She was hired 7 days after I was....wow.

The moral of this story? If you decide to come and work in Korea, you really are going to WORK!

So that's the drama with work. Other than that, my life is pretty basic (except for the part about being in Korea!). I have settled in, have been hanging out with friends over the past two 4-day weekends, preparing for intensives, keeping in good communication with Patrick, and TRYING to do better about my communication with my friends back in the states. Paul sent me some pictures from back home including cornbread! It made me smile...and miss it!

Granddaddy and BeccaJane sent me a care package that arrived on Christmas Eve so that made me feel special. Thank you so much! Hot chocolate is hard to come by so it's a fun treat during these cold months.


Patrick and I mailed our packages after Christmas so it should be at work for me tomorrow! Belated Christmas, woohoo! My Korean coworkers say that I receive the most care packages out of anyone and it made me smile. I have a very loving group of people at home! Oh, and I found the post office--a less than mind-boggling experience which made me feel a little better. I also learned how to pay my electricity bill. Cable tv for only 2,500won a month, wow! (Around $2.30) My gas bill was a little high and I'm not sure whether all the heating is done by gas or not. That's okay, I'm proud that I'm learning how to figure things out on my own! My "mailbox" is really an open box for my entire floor at the front of my building. Asking for help is always a choice but it makes me feel good about myself when I force myself to read out and rationalize things for myself, even if it takes a couple of extra minutes here and there. I also have figured out the local bus service which makes transportation down to the subway/Sunae easier, too. It stops just a house or 2 down from my front door and runs every 15-20 minutes.

Mom, Paul, and Grandparents: the CD I put in your "Season's Greetings" letters is the Christmas CD they made for all the kids at HR (my school). I haven't had time to watch the entire thing yet but of what I saw it was cute! Some of the classes are mine and others aren't, but I think you'll get the gist of what the kids at my school look like! It will all change for this next month--many more kids. Phew it's going to be interesting to say the least!

So how was Christmas this year?

Christmas 2008

Christmas Eve: I worked on Christmas Eve til around 8pm and afterwards we had a Christmas Party at my work!

I was really tired on Christmas Eve but still had a lot of fun and got to know my coworkers even better!


Silly Jesse humor: doesn't it look like the shrimp took a bite out of the strawberry?! (hardyharhar!)

After the party we went to a Norebang! There were 2 Westerners and 6 Koreans--which you KNOW means it's going to be a hot time. :)

This looks silly because it looks as if we're the only ones in the norebang--but we weren't! We sang Christmas carols so that made me feel a little better. I kept around friends all the time though and that kept me from getting blue.

Christmas Day: I had spent the night over at LeAnn's so I wouldn't wake up on Christmas by myself. We opened her stocking and she had given me some post-its and I gave her some socks. :) We hung out with some other weiguks over at Austins and were just all kinds of lazy, watched The Royal Tennenbaums, etc. It turns out I DIDN'T have an actual Christmas dinner because what I ordered from the Chinese restaurant and brought into the fried chicken place (because that's traditional Christmas here in Korea apparently) had shrimp in it...a big nono for Jesse. :(

So for both Thanksgiving and Christmas I am 0-2 for having a big festive dinner.

Oh well, I just know that next year I'm going to be going waaaay out and overly excited to decorate and make food for Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family. :)

Here are some pictures from December!

A pretty building off the Dongdaemun Stadium exit of the Subway! You can see in the right corner where it says "Good morning 2009!" So funny!

We took pictures in front of the lights because they were so pretty! Here's one of me!

One day the girls and I headed into Insadong before Christmas--it was cold and a little crowded as you can see. Insadong is a traditional area of Seoul where you can get some neat gifts. We had a good time!

My favorite meal! Dolcet bibimbop. :) I eat this all the time and some foreigners ask me "Is that the only thing you can eat? Do you get tired of it?" The answer is NO, it's just my favorite dish! How could I get tired of spicy veggies, egg, and rice? It's basic and tasty! :)

Ooh, a really recent photo: 2 nights ago! (I know, I need a haircut--working on it!)

Some of my wieguk buddies! We don't have family here so we were each others' family for the holiday season. :) In the far left corner drinking a beer is Neal, in the far background is Mark, then up front from left to right is Brian, me, Alex and the 2 heads up on top are LeAnn and Vikki.

My first taste of breakfast food in 2 months at a brunch restaurant called "Butterfinger". It was so tasty!

Part of my New Year's Resolution for 2009 is to keep in better communication with friends and family back home as well as to update this blog more often so I don't forget anything and to keep ya'll in the know!

Intensives start tomorrow so I'm going to go get some sleep, though!

I love you all!