Vacation

And not a moment too soon! The thought of tossing some students out the window these past few days has been almost too much to bear.

I haven't even begun to pack for Bali yet, haven't done laundry, not even really sure what suitcase I'm gonna take. Though I'm sure that whenever and whatever I decide to pack, it will be much more organized than my method for Thailand last year, which consisted of me going out to the bar, getting drunk and then packing in a rushed, drunken haze to get on the 4 am bus outta Daejeon. Ah last year, I kinda miss it these days, I've become too reclusive lately and my New Year's resolution may in fact be to drink and party more.

I'm almost over my cold. I've been taking it easy this week, which has really just meant refusing to go to the gym (and the cold was a wonderfully convenient excuse) and sleeping for extreme lengths of time, which I kinda feel guilty about but I'll get back on track once vacation is over.

ANyhow hopefully the internet connection in Bali isn't awful so that I can post at some point!

Ta-ta for now!

Merry Christmas!

Once again I've been shit at posting lately, but in my defense I was knocked on my butt due to a bad cold this weekend and then Christmas time is hectic, even in Korea, especially when ya only get one day off to get in all your celebrating.

Starting to feel better now, have a bit more energy and can almost breathe normally, and I made it through yesterday's festivities which was really all I cared about.

Christmas Eve a few of us had planned to go to Outback for dinner, but apparently so had the rest of Daejeon and we couldn't be bothered to wait for a table. The line up at Bennigan's was worse and we didn't even attempt TGIFs and instead up at a Korean dukgalbi restaurant, which is normally my favorite Korean meal, but this restaurant was awful and it was probably the least favorite Christmas Eve meal I've ever had, including air plane food on my way to Thailand last year.

Yesterday Chandrie, Heather and I had planned out a Christmas brekky at Heidi's, and it ended up including Jeff and Thomas which was good cause we had way too much of everything: french toast, bacon, cinnamon rolls, fruit salad, tangerines, coffee, and grits (courtesy of Jeff, the Texan).

After breakfast I had to make a mad dash over to Costco to grab some rotisserie chickens which were acting as turkey's for our Christmas dinner. Once I got back I started on making the stuffing and potatoes and all other things yummy, while others watched tv and continued to eat, drink and be merry.

Around three Richard and Ashley arrived and we ate some cheese ball and crackers, bacon wrapped chestnuts, bacon wrapped dates (btw mom...not such a hit over here in Korea, I think I actually lost some credibility because of them), some cocktail shrimp and some tempura shrimp.

Then we proceeded on to dinner, which had all the fixings and I proved what a big geek I was by admitting that I had brought gravy mix from home with me, specifically for the purpose of making xmas dinner.

Despite the fact that we were all beyond stuffed and groaning with discomfort we proceeded to eat fudgey, candy cane ice cream cake that I had made the night before. After that we ended up watching Indiana Jones, which is not on my top ten list of favorite movies.

All we could talk about at work today was the amount of food that was consumed yesterday; somehow we managed to cram all of our holiday eating into a 12 hour stretch.

Tonight we went back to Heidi's for leftovers, which was maybe even better than last night cause it wasn't quite as excessive as yesterday's binge.

Anyhow I have two days til I'm on vacation and then I will be off to Bali and hopefully between then and now I'll get some phone calls into people... for now though, I'm off to rest.

Merry Christmas! xox

1 Week until....

Santa Claus comes to town!!!!!!! Actually he arrived last week and I tore into the presents about ten minutes after I got the package... guess if Santa was more on his game he would have realized I should've actually been on the naughty list.... In typical Diana fashion the first thing I did was send mom an email informing her of the "send back" pile.

Christmas day is actually shaping up to be a festive day. We are starting out with a Christmas breakfast, complete with Tim Hortons coffee (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa), french toast and bacon. Then we are gonna watch Christmas movies and then I'm making dinner for Richard, Ashley, Heather and Chandrie, which I hope to be doing at Heidi's apartment, cause she will be home in Canada, and my apartment doesn't have nearly the room to accomodate everybody.

Going to Seoul this weekend to do some last minute running around and get some essential food items like cranberry sauce, possibly hit up a book store, and try and find a pair of shoes that will fit, my apparently gigantic, non-Korean feet.

Oh and just incase you were wondering how the poker tournament went on Saturday, I sucked. Not really, came 14th out of 28 people, but apparently 14th place doesn't warrant any money. I think I should get money for being the first placed girl...or the only girl for that matter. ANyhow it was a fun day and nice to get a big crew out for it rather than our smallish group of late.

And just in case you're counting 11 days until Bali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Year Olds Are Gross

I'm sure I don't need to tell people by now that I'm not a huge fan of small children. When it comes to things I don't like I'm probably the least subtle person ever, but my kinder kids never fail to amaze me.

I've become rather desensitized about them wetting themselves, their snotty little noses still bother me to no end, and the fact that they are always trying to touch me with their hands that have been in their mouths, noses, and who knows where else, but I have one kid who never fails to amaze me.

Her name is Hamin and she is the most angelic looking kid you've ever seen. Her mom sends her to school dressed in brand name outfits, including Ralph Lauren hair ties, yet give her half an hour in class and she has glue smeared all over herself, her socks are missing and her pants are falling down. She is also the biggest space cadet I've ever seen and it takes me screaming "HAMIN, HAMIN, HAMIN!" before she even registers that someone is trying to get her attention.

Today we were in the elevator at school with about 20 other five year olds and she crouches down onto the floor and licks the wall of the elevator. I yell at her to get her to stop, she looked at me, and then went back to licking the wall. There were to no words to describe it but aside from being totally grossed out by it, I think it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen and had I had my camera with me it would have made a fantastic video to show you guys what I deal with each day.

16 days til Bali!!!!

and we've got no place to stay! woohoo! (don't worry Beth, I'll get it sorted :) : ) :)

I need a vacation. I'm drained, not because I'm doing anything particularly strenuous, but because my mind knows a vacation is approaching and it is making work harder to bear... either that or I'm fed up with kids peeing on their shoes and stuff like that. On that note, I'd like to congratulate Lisa and Matt on their big news and remind Lisa that she's not allowed to have the baby until I'm home in August. I'm sure it's perfectly natural for some women to carry a baby for 11 months or so...

Big weekend this weekend! Tom is back in town for a few days and we've decided it's our duty to go out and drink our faces off. (classy, I know!) Then on Saturday there is a big poker tournament at Brickhouse and there should be about thirty people in it and it will probably go on most of the afternoon and night. I can't wait! Wish me luck!!!

Ruckus! (well not really...)

In a matter of 48 short hours since my last post I suddenly have all sorts of things to say... I kind of want to pace myself though because as Beth pointed out to me today, I've only had two blogs in the past two weeks. Although technically one day I did change my page to reflect the holiday seasons so that should count for something, especially since nobody even bothered to comment on it. Jerks.

So anyhow, in some exciting news, Beth is coming to Bali with us! Woohoo! (Guess she's showing some of you up who thought it was sufficient enough just to throw a Christmas card in the mail, huh?)

Last night was our Christmas work party and it was pretty crazy. In Korean fashion we went to a galbi restaurant and had Korean BBQ, sat on the floor and everything that we drank was consumed from a shot glass. For some reason, even after doing many, many, many shots of soju and rice wine I could not get drunk. After we left the restaurant we all went on to another bar where we drank many pitchers of beer, and ate fried chicken and ice cream. After that the crew continued on to downtown to spend more of our director's money, I, however, was exhausted and bailed out. Good thing to, cause when I woke up this morning I was not a happy camper, despite not feeling drunk at all last night I certainly had a hangover that was in proportion to the consumption.

Heidi and I had made plans to go ice skating with a teacher from the other Poly school in town, but I was having none of that with the way I felt, so instead we went and had coffee, went to a bookstore where I bought far too many books, and then we came home quickly before heading back out to Costco. Upon getting home I reached into my pocket to grab my keys, which weren't there. Searched my purse, they weren't there. Researched my pockets, researched my purse and started to have flashbacks to last year when I was always locking myself out. Unfortunately, my spare set was hanging on the other side of the door which really didn't help me out at all, so we had to call a key guy who jimmied his way into my apartment. As for the keys, I can only assume that when I was pulling my gloves in and out of my pockets I lost them somewhere in Daejeon.

Finally Heather, Chandrie, Heidi and I were on our way to Costco in search of all things western. Due to none of us being in great condition we decided to stock up on snacks and yummy food, and make a night of lounging around watching tv and being cozy.

So I guess I didn't cause my ruckus, but I honestly don't know how I managed it all the time last year... the thought of doing it once a week is kinda fun and always ends up being fun, but how I managed two or three nights in a row last year is beyond me. I think I'm getting old. :(

F-f-f-f-f--f freezing!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to stomach another Canadian winter. I was pretty much a baby when it came to winters in Canada before, but after missing three consecutive winters I fear my Canadianess is gone. It is just below zero here and I'm dying. Dying.

In other news, I'm still pretty boring. Maybe even more boring than normal cause I've been hibernating under my blankets a lot lately.

Made it out to poker last night and it was a really fun night. Only six of us showed up but it was a good social group and despite suffering a bad beat at the end of the night that bumped me off the table it was a fun night.

Friday night we are having a staff Christmas party/good-bye party for one of our directors. There are gonna be like forty of us there so it should be interesting to say the least. All the foreigners and Koreans are going which will be the first time we've had a mixed gathering since I've been here. The Korean teachers seem like fun so hopefully it will be a good time.

There are less than 20 days till Christmas now! I have four packages on my floor waiting to go out but it's too cold for me to go out get some mailing tape and boxes so here's hoping that I get them to the post office in time for xmas. I don't know what I'm doing for xmas day yet, we only have the one day off so a few of us girls were thinking about doing stockings and breakfast and Christmas movies in the afternoon. I'm sure there will be some foreigners' thing going on at the local bars but as of yet it is still up in the air...

Anyhow I'm getting bored writing this so I imagine you are pretty bored reading it too... I'll have to cause some ruckus this weekend so I have something to write about!

Bali!

Another week gone by, not much interesting happening around here so I'll summarize in short blurbs....

Got my Christmas plans booked! For six glorious days I will be living it up in Bali, Indonesia! Woo hoo! Going with a girl from work, Chandrie, and so far we've just got our flights arranged and are currently looking into hotels and hostels. The front runner so far is a place called Swastika Hotel... pictures look nice so trying not to be too judgmental about the name.

Had snack parties in class today because classes switch next week as kids are placed in classes that reflect the marks of their past level test. Snack parties are pretty much an excuse for teachers to download a movie, bring the kids a treat, and chill out during class. The kids also bring in their own treats to share and it is disgusting the amount of food that gets brought in. Two of my classes had pizza, one kid's mom sent a dozen krispy kreme donuts for the class, and an additional box for me, which is just what I needed so I tried to pawn off as many as I could on the other teachers, but it was a little more difficult than usual as everyone else was loaded down with cookies, cakes, sodas, and chocolates. Plus I watched Mr. Bean's Christmas special, some Tom and Jerry and Shrek 3... so it was a pretty productive day.

Not got much planned for the weekend so far. I haven't been drinking since before I started my cleanse three weeks ago so on one hand I'm tempted to keep it up until the tenth of December to make it a month, but we're doing a girl's day tomorrow, started off with the gym, some shopping, then some girly facials and whatnot, and finally we're getting glammed up and heading out for the night so I have a feeling I might fall off one wagon and jump on the bandwagon for partying it up!

Other than that not much is going on around here, if things keep going this slow I'm gonna start making stuff up.

Everland!

I think this video contains all the proof that Everland is awesome! Well, it made me feel Christmasy at least...on the ride front I think Wonderland kicks it's ass. Apparently it is the 4th best amusement park in the world based only on attendance, and attendance rate is helped by the fact that it's really the only amusement park in the country. But the roller coasters (all two of them) were pretty scary, but I think that's partly cause I wasn't all together confident in Korea's safety measures. But it was a fun day out and despite the cold we managed to stay there until 9 at night and then had a three hour trek home by buses, trains and taxis.

Yesterday I played poker with some guys from the neighbourhood and won $70, which is the first tournament I've won since being back so it was loooonnnngggg overdue.

Also got my hair highlighted yesterday cause my kids have been pointing out lately that, "Teacher, hair here...yellow...hair there...brown," unfortunately I don't think the hairdresser actually knew what I meant by highlights and other than a few extra strands of blond it looks no different. I had a moment of sheer terror when the hairdresser was mixing the dye, looked at me and said, "Ivory!" and I almost bolted.... so I guess at the end of the day I am happy the difference in my hair is not noticeable, verses sporting ivory hair. But on that note, anybody who wants to send me a few boxes of dye I would be very appreciative, cause the roots have got to go.

Everland!

So I'm off to Everland today, which is Korea's Disneyland and is apparently the fourth greatest amusement park in the world! Yay!

It's not too cold out today which is good, and there is a Christmas lights display at night! I'm hoping there is Christmas music playing throughout the day as well! This is my third Christmas away from North America, which is apparently the amount of time it takes somebody to miss the overplaying of Christmas cheer throughout the malls, on the radio, and anywhere else you go.

Anyhow will probably post some pictures later tonight when I get home or tomorrow morning.

1 month and 1 day until Christmas!!!!

Prolly Not Gonna Happen....

So I get to school this morning and one of kinder kids comes bouncing into the teacher's room with a brochure for a ballet recital that she is in. Seems the thing to do around Korea is invite everyone and their brother when you are participating in any kind of performance.

Seriously? I'm getting invited to a student's ballet recital? Part of the reason I don't want kids is cause I don't wanna have to fake interest in the stupid things they do, and somebody thinks I wanna go watch their kid prance around a stage??

I think someone needs to set these parents straight about why I'm in in Korea cause enriching the minds of young children is NOT at the top of the list....

Brrrrrr!

It's too cold....so cold it kinda makes me wanna quit my job and go teach English in Barcelona... but you know, that's just a thought ;) (damn you for putting ideas in my head, mom!)

My open class went well on Monday, there was no crying, peeing or name calling (by the children or their mothers) and the comments by the mothers afterwards were fairly positive; they seem to think I'm trustworthy with their children and not warping their minds too much. I was a little bit worried during the class cause the kids were out of control with excitement and trying to show off for their moms, so much that I turned the lights off on them and told them they were gonna get a time out...which the other teachers thought was a gutsy move to do during an open class.

Made a big pot of chicken ginseng soup last night and it is sooooo good, especially with this crazy weather. I don't know how I'm ever gonna survive another Canadian winter because it's only November and I already feel like it's too cold.

Haven't finalized any Christmas plans yet but hopefully I'm headed to Bali with a girl from work. We are on a waiting list right now and if it doesn't pan out by the end of the week it will be time to find a plan B because I am not wasting a week off stuck in Daejeon. Chandrie suggested India as our plan B but I'm not too sure about that...

I should be going to poker tonight but so far there has been no text which means I could be stuck inside all night playing Facebook poker which is not nearly as much fun :S

Case of the Mondays (on Sunday night, nonetheless!)

Why must weekends be so short???

So the cleanse is done. Made it seven days and though I kinda wish I'd stuck it out the full ten days I'm still pretty happy I managed to do it for seven.

Yesterday we had a little bit of a late start to Seoul. By the time we got our bus and everything we didn't actually get to Seoul until mid-afternoon, and despite having beautiful weather in Dajeeon, we were greeted by rain there. The first thing we saw when we got to Myeondong, which is a huge shopping area, was a Stone Creamery, which is apparently the "best" ice cream ever and as we walked by, the aroma of waffle cone and chocolately goodness came drifting out the door. We looked longingly through the window and contemplated how our stomachs would feel if we ended a 7 day fast with rich, creamy ice-cream....then we went to Starbucks and begrudgingly ordered peppermint teas, which were the only things we were allowed to drink other than the lemonade concoction. After that we darted from store to store, in and out of the rain, we checked out The Gap and Roots and other ridiculously over priced stores and couldn't find anything to spend our money on. Finally we ended up at a good store and I got some sweaters and shirts and was happy the day wasn't a total wash out. As the day wore on both of us started to feel pretty drained and we decided that maybe it was time to incorporate some fruit into our diets so we finished the day with some banana smoothies, which tasted fabulous!
After that we grabbed the bus home and I settled in for the night with some tv and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Today Heidi and I headed to Costco to stock up on some healthy foods so that we stay on track with our good eating and then after that I met Richard downtown for a coffee and then we went for a hike, then for dinner and then a movie. Now I should be getting ready for bed so that I can hit the gym in the morning but I'm not ready to accept the fact that the weekend is over because tomorrow is open class which means all my kinder moms are coming in to watch my science class and I have a feeling it might be somewhat disastrous...

Half Way

So day five and I'm still holding strong. I'm not even hungry which is bizarre, and I thought I would be going crazy for coffee by this point but I'm not missing it at all. I miss chewing food though, I love smelling the food people are eating, but the urge to eat it isn't that overwhelming.

And I'm in a good mood. Like a really good mood, even with my students. The things I had read before starting this said that you would not be hungry and would be happier on it, but I thought it was all bullshit, turns out the people knew what they were talking about.

I have been going to sleep fairly early lately, mainly cause I'm bored at night and don't have much to do...poker was cancelled this week, I don't have any reason to go to the grocery store and it's not much to meet up for people with dinner, so I guess what I'm missing the most is having a social life.

I think Heidi and I are going to go to Seoul on the weekend and do some shopping so that we aren't stuck around here being bored and lame. I never got packages in the mail this week so that's another thing on my checklist to do...but don't hold your breath...

Day 3

Day three of the cleanse and so far it is going pretty well. Hasn't been as difficult as I expected, although other people's lunches were looking especially good today as I sipped my lemonade concoction. Yesterday had a bit of a head ache and was less than impressed with my drink, but last night I used Heidi's juicer for squeezing the lemons and it improved the taste of the juice 100%. Heather bailed on it before we started and Chandrie quit after day one so it is only Heidi and me left now. Heidi is convinced she is making it the full ten days... I'm a little unsure about myself..we will see. It is making me "slightly" crabby with my students and today my legs felt like jelly on the treadmill and I couldn't even muster the energy for the stepper. But they say day three and four are the hardest so once I get over the hump, who knows? I just think the weekend might be especially long and boring if I have no energy for anything and can't really go out and socialize.

Anyhow just on my lunch break now so gonna relax a little before heading back to work.

Weekend!

Another week has flown by around here. It's crazy how fast time goes, I've been back for over three months now!

Today we had a kindergarten field trip to the zoo. Small children and animals. My two most favorite things in the world. It wasn't actually that bad, last year when we went it was so hot out that all the animals were hiding, at least this time on the safari bus ride there were actually animals roaming about. Unfortunately because I teach the babies of the school, after we got off the safari we had to take the kids over to the washroom and then get them sorted for lunch, which meant we had no time to walk around and look at any of the other animals. Then after lunch we had about twenty minutes before getting back on the bus so we were gonna take a wander around but one of my kids peed himself, so we were delayed again. So my trip to the zoo consisted of a safari bus ride and looking at 4 seals.

After work tonight a few of us went out to TGIF's and had hamburgers, which were delicious. On Sunday four of us are starting a cleanse, which involves not eating for ten days and drinking water, cayenne pepper, lemon and maple syrup. I'm kinda looking forward to it, yet terrified at the same time. I like that there is a group of us as I think it will make it easier to get through it. We are gearing for ten days, most likely we won't make it the full duration, but we're gonna try.

Tomorrow Heidi, Heather and I are gonna go around town and do some shopping and hopefully I will have a few packages in the mail for people by Monday! Bondaggi (silk worm larvae) and dried squid for all!!! Then at night I think we are going to have one last hurrah before we start the cleanse.

Right now I've just finished cleaning my apartment and am going to put a movie on I think. My next post will probably be bitter and cranky as I'm getting into the cleanse. I'm sure you are already looking forward to reading it ;)

Random

Well I managed to make it the rest of the weekend without burning my apartment down. Hurrah!

Richard's dinner was nice; we just hung out watching some movies, drinking some wine and eating food. Unfortunatley the movie Richard picked was Gremlin's and I was less than entertained by it to say the least. After the movie was over we had a discussion of what classified as good movies and the consensus of the group, after I'd voiced my opinions, was that I am a hateful person and don't like anything. Richard really wanted us to watch Jaws as well but after dinner was over I asked him if knew what would be fun, and he was less than impressed with my answer of, "Not watching Jaws." Heidi and I left shortly after that :)

One of the guys from work has been talking about this skin clinic downtown that he has been going to have a mole removed from his face, he broached the subject to four of us girls at dinner last week by starting out with, "Now I'm not saying that you need it, but you girls should really go to this skin clinic..." so Heidi and I decided to go and check it out. It is called Milk and Juicy, which is a bad name for a business, no matter what the business is, but we thought we'd see what the doctor had to say. Heidi had a mark on her face that she wanted to get rid of and I decided I wanted to get rid of the bump/mole on my lip. Thirty dollars later and ten minutes later I was being prodded with a needle and laser. Everything is so cheap here! Who knows, a year from now you might not recognize me, get rid of all my freckles and and bumps and whatever else!

Anyhow I just got a text to say that poker is starting soon so I gotta run but hope everyone's weekend was good!

Fire in the Hole

So today is Richard's birthday dinner night, and if the title is any indication, preparations for it are coming along nicely.

Woke up at 7:45 this morning and was out the door by eight so that I could hit up the grocery store before the crowds started. I was in front of Emart by about 8:20 and was quite disappointed to see that it didn't open until 10. I walked over the bridge and across the highway to Homever, only to find out that it too, did not open until 10. Refusing to admit defeat I walked back past Emart and headed towards the other Emart that is open 24 hours. By about 9:20 I had finally made it to the grocery store. Got the ingredients I needed to make spaghetti and broccoli salad and jumped in a taxi for home.

Spaghetti sauce came along nicely as did the salad. I decided to make use of some other ingredients I had kicking around and make some brownies for dessert. Brownies in a toaster oven, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, the first problem was that my teeny tiny kitchen was full of my other preparations, so I moved the toaster oven into my other room and set it on a chair. The brownies I made (from scratch) were meant to fill a 9 x 13 pan, but the pan didn't fit in my oven, so I put all the batter into a smaller pan. 30 minutes later the top and bottom of the brownies were smoking, batter was running over the side of the pan and my bedroom was filled with smoke.

I turned the oven off and headed out with Heidi for a bit.

Upon getting back I decided to see if I could salvage the brownies. I scraped off the crispy bits and turned the toaster oven back on, then jumped in the shower. Ten minutes later the room was filled with smoke, yet again.

I gave up.

After letting the mess cool, I managed to scrape the charred on the outside, gooey on the inside brownies into the garbage and finished cleaning up my apartment. I moved the toaster oven off the chair and discovered that the smoke had not been coming from the inside of the oven, but from the cushion of the chair that is now burnt beyond repair.

So other than dessert, dinner is ready to go, all I need to do is make a quick stop at the bake shop and we will be ready for birthday festivities!

Happy Halloween!

It's 7a.m. (A.M!!!) and I'm up and ready to head out the door to the gym... some of the girls at work have decided that it's too easy to bail on the gym at night because something social always comes up so the best solution to this is to hit the gym before work. This was my plan for this year all along but up until now I've followed through with that plan right up until my alarm goes off and I hit the snooze button. Now though that it is a group thing it is a lot easier to get up and go.

I actually woke up earlier than intended so I've had time for all the important things like coffee, breakfast, dishes and hanging up my laundry. Plus a few other unimportant things...like this.

Today at work is the Halloween party for the kindergartens to which I've decided to go as a witch instead of Sailor Moon as that costume may be on the provocative side for four year olds (or their mothers that come to pick them up).

Tonight is Heather's birthday so we are headed out to Cin-Cin's, which is this great little Italian place and I can't wait for it!

Richard's birthday is also this weekend and originally he said he was going to make dinner for a few of us but that plan has turned into me making dinner for a few of us, which is okay because I always jump at the chance to cook. Not to sure what I'm going to make yet but it's a bit of the pain in the ass for me to carry all the stuff over to his place on the other side of town, but since my place is so small it's really the only option. It also doesn't help that as far as his cooking equiptment goes he is only armed with a teeny tiny pot, a questionable frying pan and a mircrowave. I think I've got my work cut out for me on this!

Halloween!

So I decided on Sailor Moon as my costume and it turned out pretty well, I think. Heidi and I went downtown yesterday and got our hair done, she was Raggedy Ann, and then I pulled red tights over my boots and threw on the shortest blue skirt I could find! Here are a few pictures, I might find better ones as the day goes on but this is what's been posted on Facebook so far.

* someone finally posted a photo on Facebook of the whole costume, where I'm not being blocked by another person

I Need Help!

Thursday night and still feel like I haven't caught up on my sleep yet, to which I am paying the price of an oncoming cold.

Tuesday I headed out to poker, because I definetly value poker more than sleep, but after getting crap hand after crap hand I went all in with Ace/Jack and was quite happy when I lost so that I could go home.

Last night I met up with Richard and Lorne for dinner, but because I've been neglecting the gym all week I decided I would walk over to my old neighborhood which took about an hour and a half. Then I went into YBM and my old students were surprised and confused as to how I could still be in Korea yet not at YBM. It was good to see them; shocking to see how much some of them changed in just five months. After Lorne and Richard were finished work we headed out for dukgalbi and I got a chance to catch up with Lorne, as it was the first time I'd seen him since getting back.

Tonight I came home and gave my apartment a much needed cleaning and now I'm trying to figure out what to be for Halloween. Brickhouse is having a big Halloween party this weekend and apparently the "cool" thing to do is to dress up. Bah. I need ideas people! And no dorky or lame ideas either... I can come up with those on my own!

Sleep??

Thank God Monday is over. I swear Monday's get longer with each passing week. A few weeks ago someone pointed out that we have to work 11 weeks until our next holiday, which is Christmas Day, so now that count is just looming over my head and slowing down time a little. (9 weeks and 1 day until xmas, so you better starting looking for my gifts now... I'm pretty fussy).

Had a really great weekend. Friday night we had a staff party at a bar in the neighbourhood and it turned out to be a lot more fun than I was expecting. Made it an early night as I had plans to go to a birthday party on Saturday and knew I was gonna need to rest up for that.

Did a bit of shopping on Saturday and met up with Richard for lunch at a really great Italian place downtown and then headed back to my place to get ready for the night. Despite the fact that it was nearing winter temperatures I deemed it appropriate to put on a short skirt and knee high socks and decided fashion was more important than feeling in my legs.

Anyhow the night started out at David's, who is kind of a coworker of mine, only he works at a different campus. His apartment is wayyyyyyyy nicer than mine, and bigger, as he managed to fit over 20 of us in there. After a few hours there we headed over to Santas to watch the rugby match between England and South Africa, as everyone is pretty keen on rugby here (other than me, of course), so because of the time difference the game didn't actually start until 4am, and I don't really know what time it was when we arrived there but the sun was out when we left. After getting a few hours of sleep I met up with some people to go watch the foreigner's soccer game and then we went for lunch/dinner, then back to David's for awhile, and then despite the fact that I was super hungover and was relishing the idea of a nap, I got a poker text and headed off with everyone towards Brickhouse. With the one or two ounces of common sense I seem to have left I managed to get home just past midnight and dove into my bed.

Waking up this morning sucked. And after what, as previously mentioned, was an excrutiatingly long day, Scott and I headed to Costco because I needed a warmer jacket and he needed to mooch off someone with a membership.

Now the night is almost gone and I gotta get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Boo....

The Grand Tour

I'll have you know I got home after work and scrubbed my floors just for these photos.....

Home Sweet Home!

I think I finally have my apartment just the way I want it!

Got a new comforter at Costco this weekend, along with some matching sheets, a new shelf last week, so that most of my stuff is off the floor, and some more pictures blown up for my walls. Right now there are some apples baking in my toaster oven and fresh flowers in my window. My apartment is way better than my apartment last year!

And that's about all I have to say today cause everything has been pretty routine lately.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!

(Insert Title Here)

Well it's 1:50 in the morning on Saturday and I'm actually home from the bar. That is what we call an early night here in Korea, which I still find amusing because at home I am always ready to leave the bar pretty much as soon as I get there.

I wasn't really up for going out at all tonight but our academic coordinator, Jason, wanted to have us all over for dinner and drinks and to show off his fancy dancy apartment. Can't say I blame him, as his apartment kicks all of our apartments' asses. Anyways he had SO much food for us: fried chicken, fried pork, pizza; if it had trans fat in it, it was on the table. Then he had beer and soju and all the makings of a good party. I had been saying all night that I wasn't going to drink as I'm still trying to piece parts of last weekend together (but I've seen pictures, and trust me, they're not pretty!). Things were going smoothly with that until a game of Kings broke out and people started calling Shenanigans on my water bottle.So I gave in and had a few but nothing major. Eventually we ended up downtown but not much was happening so I bailed at the first chance I got.

I'm pretty excited about this weekend as tomorrow we are going to have a girly day full of shopping, first at Costco and then downtown for some clothes. Heidi and I are going to make a trip to the gym in the afternoon and then tomorrow night is Tom's goodbye party... which I have a feeling might be a repeat of last weekend, but it's for Tom so that is okay.

Anyhow I am going to get some sleep, enjoy the rest of your day!

Is It Friday Yet?

It's funny how fast we get used to having breaks in the middle of the week. After only two weeks of having holidays midway through the week I feel like I've become accustomed to a three or four day work week, and yet, apparently I still have three more days to go until the weekend. I do love my job, but sometimes I really wish I had opted for a slacker job over here instead of the long days that are required at Poly. This week at our weekly staff meeting we were informed that our hagwon owner doesn't want us going home for our lunch break; we should only leave the school if it is to go to the bank, post office, doctor's, etc. After a mild uproar amongst the teachers we decided we don't really care what Casey thinks and we all headed home for lunch. What are they going to do, fire and hire 20 new teachers? Doubtful...

Not much else is going on around here; had a lasagna dinner on Sunday night at Ivan's house because he leaves on Thursday, and even though I was "mildly" hungover it was still pretty enjoyable. Slowly but surely my group from last year has disentegrated :( Most people have left, and those that have come back have gotten busy with new people, myself included. After Ivan, Tom leaves on Tuesday and then Richard will be soon after. It's crazy how many people come and go here and most people I'll probably never see again but at the same time it's such an amazing opportunity to meet people from all over the world and at least it's nice to know that the internet makes it a little easier to keep in touch.

Hmmm... this started out as a happy post but now there's just a big grey cloud over my page :(

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wanna hear my thoughts for all of you eating yummy turkey dinner and spending time with the family?

Jerks.

Just kidding, but Thanksgiving is probably my favourite holiday and this is the fourth year that I've missed it now.

Yesterday a few of us went to Songsinon mountain and did some hiking which was awesome and the weather was near perfect for it. There was a massive gold Buddha statue and tons of temples around which was all very pretty and for some reason it gave me a Thanksgivingy feel, though I'm not sure why because I can't remember ever celebrating a Thanksgiving that involved a Buddha or a temple, but it felt like the appropriate way to spend the holiday over here. Even if you're really lazy you should go to my flickr site and check out my photos cause they are really nice and for some reason Blogger keeps resisting my attempts to post photos on here.

We left for the mountain at 9 in the morning and didn't get back until 8:30 at night so it was a pretty exhausting day as about six of those hours were spent climbing. Probably should have had a nice low key night but I never seem to opt for the sensible thing anymore.

So we met up at Heidi's and drank some red wine and introduced one of the new teachers at our school to soju. (soju = really awful tasting alcohol that is about a dollar a bottle and is responsible for most hangovers in Korea) I can't drink soju on the best of nights because it wrecks me, and I think I am also mildly allergic to red wine because it knocks me right out, so why I chose to start the night off with soju and red wine is beyond me. After sitting around and playing cards for a bit we headed off to Brickhouse and met up with some of my old gang and proceeded to drink the night away. Before I knew it, it was the wee hours of the morning and I was seeing double. It was a very classy scene. So due to all of this I slept through the morning and some of the afternoon and missed the chance to call the cottage during Thanksgiving dinner :( So I hope everything was delicious and I will talk to you all soon! Love yoU!

Field Trip

Tomorrow morning our school is taking about 200 small children to some park for a sports day. Not sure what it entails really, as the Korean teachers have planned it all, but apparently one of the teacher's husband works at some sports centre so we have some pretty cool activities planned.

One of the more questionable activities that they explained to us, and I can only hope that something was lost in translation, but apparently we are going to have neck races. Which entails putting the kids in groups and then putting some sort of board/rope thing around their necks and then they have to race together to beat the other team... so kind of like a three-legged race only with their necks. Now I'm hardly the next advocate for child safety but it seems to me like somebody will probably be leaving the field in an ambulance tomorrow.

Okay, You Told Me So (Or at least thought it, I'm sure)

Just a few quotes from yours truly over the past few months:

My hopes for this year are to do more travelling, party less, and get more sleep...

I am kind of over the whole "lets go out and get hammered" stage of Korea, it's gotten kind of boring.

I'm still not drinking, which I'm rather enjoying, and as long as the people I'm with are lively enough, I still manage to stay up just as late as I normally would.

That's right, not only am I so lame that I've given up drinking, but I also go to pot lucks. And I joined a book club. (You only wish you could be as cool as me).

Saturday night I was drinking red wine out of a bottle at 6am in the morning outside of a bar with random friends and then proceeded to go into another bar, which resulted in me sleeping in until 3:30 in the afternoon on Sunday.

Last night what started off as a work function turned into Brickhouse poker, which turned into staying out until 5 in the morning drinking copious amounts of vodka cranberries with all the foreigners who were as thrilled as I was about today's holiday.

So apparently all that nonsense of me thinking I could hang out with everyone and not drink and enjoy hang over free mornings was really just a silly illusion.

I need a nap.

It's COLD!

Cold like, "Put on a jacket, Diana," and "Why are you still wearing sandals in October, Diana??" I am not impressed. And you jerks in Canada are apparently still having glorious weather. It's not fair.

And to make matters worse, I forgot to turn my air conditioner off when I went back to work at lunch so walking into my apartment tonight was not the cozy den of iniquity I was hoping it would be. Alright it's not a den of iniquity either, damn me and my boringness lately!

Anyways, enough complaining (for now, not forever), after work I went for dinner with a few guys from work which was nice because this year my coworkers don't seem to be as close-knit with each other which I really miss from last year, so it is good to get to know them a bit better. Although there does seem to be a love of poker among my coworkers which resulted in a neighborhood game last night, which means I could routinely be playing (*cough* losing) poker two/three nights a week this year! So slowly but surely I guess bonds are starting to form, it took a while last year as well, sometimes its just easy to forget that...

Anyhow this should be a pretty low key weekend; tonight I'm staying in and trying to warm up, tomorrow is a birthday party potluck for Talithea and Sunday, I don't really have a clue what's going on, but I'm sure something will come up between now and then.

Hope you have a good weekend and are thorougly enjoying your Indian summer, because I am really jealous of you right now :(

Canada, Eh!

For my last day off I decided to head downtown and do a bit of looking around and shopping. I was walking through the downtown when suddenly I was stopped dead in my tracks by a GIANT billboard for Roots and a clothing store right beneath it!
Now this is one of those traveller's moments I've talked about before; where something that holds no particular interest for me at home excites me to no end over here. At home I might take a quick look around Roots and then mutter about how expensive their stuff is and not even that stylish.

Today I was all about looking around, even though all of their stuff is Asian sized and I probably don't have a hope in hell of fitting into any of it, I was still excited to be surrounded by clothing that had "Canada" splattered all across it.

Then in all my excitement I got caught up with looking around and found the watch/jewelry stand and started trying on watches. About two minutes later on a total impulse purchase I had acquired for myself a brand new Roots watch! In all fairness to my impulses I have been looking at watches a little over the past few months seeing as the last time I got a watch was from my parents in grade eleven for winning some cheesy school awards.

Anyhow, I'm thinking that if there's a Roots here today, who knows what tomorrow might bring??? Tim Hortons? Canadian Tire? La Senza?? Just imagine...

One Day Left...

And then back to the grind :( Actually the remainder of the week will consist of a kindergarten birthday party and field trip, and the afternoon classes will be monthly tests, so really I will be spending my two days at work eating pizza and cake, and the afternoons playing on Facebook and getting paid for it. I guess it could be worse. Then next week I get Wednesday off for Foundation day...not even really sure what Foundation day is??

So Saturday night I went out and lived it up after taking a month off. It was Heidi's, birthday so we started out at her place with some drinking games and I was armed with a bottle of Sutter House zinfandel which made me a happy girl. I should have been behaved and headed home early because I had to meet Talithia at 8:30 Sunday morning to head to Seoul, but at 3 in the morning I was all up for heading downtown, where we bumped into Tom and his visiting friends from England and had some good times in a noraebang until about 4. Sunday morning I stumbled down the road to meet Talithia and cursed myself for not learning anything after a month of sobriety.

Actually had I had more than 3 hours worth of sleep I probably wouldn't have had any difficulties through the day but sleep deprevation hit me hard. Seoul was pretty good, saw a palace which bored me to no end, but then headed on to COEX mall where I spent a small fortune on books and then on to Itaewon to hit up the foreign food market and eat some Indian food.

Arrived back in Daejeon just before nine and I was dead tired but knew there was poker happening so decided I could sleep later and headed on out to Brickhouse. I was pretty happy about that because it was the first time since I've been back that I haven't had to watch my watch because of early morning starts, unfortunately by 3 I was dead tired and still ended up being the first one to bail out of the game.

Yesterday slept the morning away and then wandered for some of the afternoon before meeting Ivan and Richard for dinner at Vips which is a great steak restaurant. Last time I ordered steak there I ordered it medium rare and it was almost well done, so this time I ordered it medium rare and it was so rare that it wasn't even juicy, it was just a cold piece of meat on my plate; which strangely enough, I still find more appealing than well done.

Today I have done nothing, less than nothing actually... I showered and put my pyjamas back on and it's been fabulous, and these are the days that I LOVE living alone cause I can just veg out and not feel guilty about it (well maybe a little but oh well...all the stores are closed today, and I've got nowhere to be).

Tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm gonna get up to but it's bound to be more productive and exciting than today was!

Chuseok!!

Happy Chuseok to me! Five days off!

Today felt like the longest day in the world because I was just waiting for vacation to start. Got a few gifts for the holiday. About 20 pounds of Dokpyung....which is rice cake filled with red bean paste. Now you are probably thinking of rice cakes like crispy chip things we get at home. Here rice cake is made of gluten and is gluey in texture and Koreans go nutty over them. So one of my kindergarten's mother gave me a box of fifty of them, which is a pretty expensive gift, but I don't have a clue what I'm gonna do with them. I don't mind the first bite of one but after that they are pretty gross. They look like raw perogies and they are even coated in flour, the texture can really put you off.
As far as other gifts go I got socks (the typial Korean gift), a few tubes of lipstick (maybe the moms are trying to tell me something) and some hand cream.

I don't really know what I'm gonna get up to these next few days. Originally it seemed like we were all gonna be around but gradually everyone has gotten busy, so as far as my plans go I am going to Seoul on Sunday with Talithia and one of the other days we are going to have a poker tournament at Brickhouse, but other than that I will probably be hanging out, going to the gym a bit and being pretty lazy, whilst enjoying being kid free!

Oh Korea

I don't think I've posted an "Oh Korea," moment yet this year, have I?

Well the last time I was at my favourite store, Skin Food, stocking up, I was given some free samples with my purchases which is a pretty common thing here.

So today I'm gathering my things for the gym and I throw some of the samples in my bag for showering after.

One of the samples I received was, "Apple Vinegar Fresh Foam," which sounded pretty intriguing. I read the back of it to make sure it wasn't a whitening product, which is pretty common here and this is what it had to say about Apple Vinegar Fresh Foam:

Transparent-type foam cleanser containing a large amount of potassium, minerals, and citric acid that makes drab skin caused by horny substances smooth, and whose honey extract provides more moisture to your skin, and thoroughly removes make-up residue.

Now I don't really know what horny substances are but I gotta say, my face did look much brighter and feel smoother after.

Crap

So I've been trying to upload photos of my students on here so that you don't have to go to my photo website but for some reason the pictures are taking forever and a day to upload which is crap... so I'm giving up.

It is raining like crazy and I suppose I have myself to blame for that cause I was kind of happy about it when I woke up this morning thinking it would give me an excuse to have a lazy morning... 12 hours later it is still pouring and I no longer find it relaxing.

The Poly workshop was even worse than anticipated. Because my phone is broken I have no alarm clock, which meant I was relying on my internal clock and a cheap little stop watch I bought down the street to wake me up at 5:45 yesterday morning, my internal clock woke me up at 4:45 so I went back to sleep. My stop watch didn't go off at all, which meant I woke up with enough time to get to the school, but not enough time to get there looking decent. So looking like a bum I hopped on the bus for a long two hour ride to Seoul. The first presentation was crap. Lunch? Crap. The three workshops in the afternoon? Crap, crap, crap. The bus ride home in traffic? Crap. All in all it was not a pleasurable learning experience.

After getting home and having a long, hot shower I glamed myself up and headed out to meet everyone for Becca's birthday which was good fun. I almost caved and got a drink cause it had been that kind of day but then reasoned it was kind of like running a marathon, getting to that last mile and saying, "Meh, maybe I won't finish." So I drank Coke. Crap.

Was contemplating going to play poker tonight but without my phone I was out of the texting loop to know if it was actually going on. One of the guys sent me a message on Facebook about 10 minutes ago, but it's already passed eleven and I'm all snuggly and ready for bed so I am missing out. Crap.

On a brighter note, next week is Chusok so I work a normal week this week and then have five days off. I would have liked to have gone somewhere outside of Korea but this is the main Korean holiday and everything is booked up because all the Koreans are on the loose. So I'm stuck around Daejeon not doing a whole heck of a lot. But I will take that over going to work any day.

I'll work on those pictures later in the week if you are too lazy to check out Flickr.

Happy Birthday Beth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I have your attention, let me remind you that this blog is about ME, so too bad for Beth!!! :P (jokes)

In some other exciting or totally exagerated news, I have found myself a husband. As far as Costco Korea is concerned I am now married to one of my coworkers in an effort to save some money on the membership. It's a pretty good deal really, $35 for the two of us, and then a $10 gift certificate as a "Thank you for joining, congratulations on your wedding," gift. So when all was said and done I got a Costco membership for twelve bucks! Sweet!

And the best part of Costco here is that it is EXACTLY like Costco at home, with real English and everything! So trips to Costco are kind of like my portal into North America (which is way cheaper than Air Canada).

I didn't get anything terribly exciting tonight: some fajhita shells, Kashi cereal, a big ol'block of Kirkland Cheddar Cheese and a Swifter Wet/Dry mop, but with my membership I will definety be a frequent shopper there this year.

Tomorrow is Friday but without the excitement it normally holds, as Saturday there is a Poly School workshop where all the teachers across Korea get together in Seoul and pretend to listen to speakers all day. To make it even worse my phone broke and is getting fixed so I can't even break up the day by sending texts to people. Not only does it ruin my Saturday, but I have to be at the school by 7am to get on the bus! Disgusting.

And on a more positive note, as of Monday I will have been alcohol free for one month and on Tuesday night I plan on having a big glass of white wine at poker!

So if I don't post all weekend you can assume I died of boredom at the conference. Have a good weekend and if you see Beth make sure to say Happy Birthday to her...and say it loudly; she's getting pretty old, she might not hear you.

Thinking...

How was I supposed to know my bed was a queen, not a full. God damn bottom bed sheet doesn't fit :(

Payday!

Hooray for payday!!! Not that I've been completely strapped for cash or anything but I have been putting off buying a lot of neccessities until I received my first pay; I figured the money that I had with me was better spent on poker nights and dinners at The Outback (which by the way, is way better in Korea than it is in Canada).

So right after work I headed over to HomePlus and got some food and home neccessities...and some things that were rather unneccessary but oh well...caught up in the excitement of it all I wasn't really watching how much voluminous and heavy items I was putting into my cart and getting up four flights of stairs was no small accomplishment. For some reason my sense of logic deemed it alright to buy two 5kg handweights and throw them in the same bag as my milk (which miraculously survived the trip. I also bought an oversized microfibre pillow because I figured luxurious sheets and pillow cases deserved nothing less. And in amongst those things were several other items that made me teeter and totter out of the store and towards the street for a taxi. Just as a cab was coming up to the curb a Korean lady stepped up quickly behind me and I was expecting her to push past me to grab the cab first, as usually is the Korean way, and I was already to let her have it (and possibly throw a 5kg weight her way) but she surprised me and opened the door to the cab for me, pointing to my bags saying, "heavy." So that pretty much made my night cause stuff like that doesn't always happen here and my arms were about to fall off.

In a somewhat related topic, my sheets arrived today!! My 1200 TC Egyptian cotton sheets and oh my god, they are the nicest sheets I've ever touched in my life. They are in the wash right now and I cannot wait to make my bed and dive in! They are so nice that I seriously contemplated taking them to the dry cleaners to have them cleaned (which is super cheap here anyhow)but then I thought that it might take a few days and I didn't want to wait that long.

Alright, it's quarter past ten and I still haven't eaten dinner or called home or really done anything since work ended so I gotta get to it but hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

Same Old, Same Old

The sun is shining!!! Hooray! I am so sick of rain, due to the full week of it we just had.

The weekend is here again and I'm just lazying about this morning. I went out for dinner with some work people last night and then met up with a bunch of people from the old neighborhood, including Korean David and Richard from my old school. It was great talking to them again. David bought a Mini Coop car and it is sooooooooo cool! I tried to convince him to let me drive it but he just laughed at me... I'm not sure why.

Monday is payday! Woohoo! Can you believe I've already been back for a month? That is just mental. All month I've been saying about things, "I'll buy that after payday." So next week I am going to spend, spend, spend! Well not really, but I do need some necessities for my apartment and a Costco membership is at the top of my list. Plus I found a really great gym this week right behind my school so I'm gonna sign up for that and get into a better routine than coming home from work and watching episode after episode of Prison Break.

Anyhow I think I'm heading out to find a mountain or walk along the river to enjoy the sun and try and catch a little bit of colour.

Have a good weekend!

Tuesday!

Poker!

I think Tuesday might actually be my favourite night of the week. It's such a good break in the middle of the week from the day to day routine of things.

This weekend was fairly low key due to the monsoon-like rain we've been having. It's done nothing but rain since late Friday night, and on Saturday night some Korean stole my umbrella! So I then "borrowed" my neighbour's umbrella that was in the hall and forgot it at a friends house....oops... either way I'm getting wet on my way to and from school now...

The rain was actually kind of nice over the weekend, it gave me a good excuse to hole up in my apartment and relax. I was also quite domestic as I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom and then set about to making perogies for the freezer and a broccoli/chicken salad for a potluck I was going to on Sunday night. That's right, not only am I so lame that I've given up drinking, but I also go to pot lucks. And I joined a book club. (You only wish you could be as cool as me).

Anyhow an hour or so into the book club meeting I got a text that said a game of poker was brewing so I used the excuse of having to work early and high-tailed it over to poker.

And tonight I'm off to win back what I lost on Sunday...

Whoosh!

Time is flying by already! I can't believe another week is gone. If anything, the weeks actually seem to pass quicker this year, which I think is due to the longer hours, but I think it's great cause I'm not sitting around all morning and afternoon doing nothing. I actually kind of feel like I need to schedule myself to fit everything in because I don't have all that time to kill in the morning this year.

Not sure what is on board for this weekend. I'm heading over to the old neighborhood in a few minutes to do some socializing and what not. I'm still not drinking, which I'm rather enjoying, and as long as the people I'm with are lively enough, I still manage to stay up just as late as I normally would.

The weather has made a turn for the better around here, I have managed to sleep the last two nights without my air conditioner on, and although there are flood warnings for South Korea I think that is way better than the sweltering humidity that we had been dealing with before.

My parents day went fine yesterday. I think it's all pretty ridiculous really, I can't imagine wanting to go in and watch my kid's class, in a language I couldn't understand, but I guess maybe that just shows my lack of maternal instincts. Then again, my mom never even bothered to go to parent/teacher interviews, so maybe it's hereditary. The only part I didn't like about the parents day was that afterwards all the moms went into another room with a manager and myself and I had to go around and talk about each kid's strengths and weaknesses and the mothers seemed to take it so hard when I would say that one wasn't paying attention or another was writing their Ss backwards and I just wanted to scream at them, "YOUR KID IS 4, the reason he/she is not paying attention is because he/she is 4...asking a kid to sit at a desk for four hours each morning and expecting him/her to have a full attention span is ridiculous!" But what do I know... Then they were also asking me my opinion on what they could do to help their child learn faster and the urge to say, "I don't know, I'm not a real teacher; I'm just doing this cause I couldn't find a real job at home," was almost too much, but I resisted and instead said that I could make their kids extra work sheets for home practice and that seemed to please them.

Anyhow I'm off for now...ta ta!

Hmmmm...

Sometimes people know me way too well!

In a bitchy email to Matt this morning over why Paypal had frozen my account thus stopping me from being able to pay for some "nice" sheets (giving him no more details other than that they were nice)that I had ordered. This is how he responded:

isn't there a paypal korea that you can do all of your fraudulent activity through? you'd think that there would be. the things you do for 1000 threadcount egyptian sheets that are sewn together by migrant workers in the phillipines that get paid $1.50 a day (in their local currency no doubt, which is probably about 3 cents canadian) to slave in a sweathouse next to cattle and scorpions all for YOU. you do know that you'd be providing them with a better life if you imported them into the country, doubled their wage to 6 cents a day and went into business for yourself selling said egyptian cotton sheets, right?

Other than being off on the thread count by 200 I would say he's pretty damn good at reading my mind...(or maybe pillaging through my email account, which would also explain why Paypal suspected fraudulent activities???). Meh, either way I have 1200TC sheets on order... I'm gonna sleep like a princess!

A Small Addiction...

No I didn't drink this weekend, but I'm sure that's what you thought by the title. Asses.

What I'm talking about is Facebook, and yes Facebook in itself is addicting enough but everyone at work has been talking about the Travel IQ application, which I hadn't paid any attention to because I suck at geography. But the craze was taking off so I figured I would pry myself away from Facebook poker and check it out.

Travel IQ is crazy! You get a picture of the world map and as random places and cities come up you have to find the place on the map. You can only progress to the next level if you score a certain number of points, and I don't mean to put anybody down but ALL my past geography teachers must have been awful teachers cause I don't know a thing... I couldn't even find Seoul the first time! You can choose specific areas if you don't want to deal with the whole world. I figured I would have an edge on the map of Canada but apparently I must live in a bubble inside of Ontario cause I don't know squat about the rest of the country.

So what I'm trying to say, if you want a really fun, addicting, learning game you should definetly check it out, and don't worry you won't come in last place cause I've got that spot in the bag.

Friday Friday Friday!

Have a I mentioned that I love Fridays? Or to be more accurate, Friday night at 7:25 when I am free for the weekend?!

My first week of teaching went pretty smoothly; no broken or lost children. All in all I am pretty happy with my new school. I was a little worried about such long hours at first but we get 10 minute breaks between each 40 minute class in the morning, a 40 minute lunch break, an hour and a half go home and sleep break, and then a few more hours of teaching. So it's not like I am surrounded by children the entire day.

Next Thursday is my open kinder class, which means the parents are going to come and criticize observe my class and teaching skills. I am pretty much dreading it. Its not that I think I am doing an awful job, but I could have their children reciting Shakespeare and the parents are still going to complain that: "She called on that kid way more than on my kid," "She looked at that kid's work for 10 seconds and my kid's for only 7." And other ridiculous things like that. It will be forty minutes of awfulness, followed by another forty minutes of listening to what the parents have to say (which will be translated into English for me).

But enough about that, I have all of next week to dread it. For now it is the weekend and I am just excited about relaxing. I have downloaded the first two seasons of Prison Break and I love it so far, so that is what I plan on doing tonight. Then tomorrow I want to walk around and try and recoup some of the tan that I have lost, and tomorrow night is Marta's going away party.

In other news I have finally figured out how to get blogger back into English which makes my life much easier, and the bigger (more questionable) news is that I have decided not to drink for a month. I am kind of over the whole "lets go out and get hammered" stage of Korea, it's gotten kind of boring. Plus I had anticipated not drinking much while I had been home, but I forgot what a big bunch of lushes you all are so I just feel I need to give my body a break from it and have a nice low key month. My resolution started last Saturday, which has evolved from "I'm never drinking again," to "Lets give it a rest for a month." I'll still go out, of course, but I will stick to Coke Zero or water.

Other than that, not much to say, I have some kid pictures to post this weekend, as well as some from while I was at home, and maybe I'll tinker around with my layout a little more. So until then, have a good weekend! :)

Kindergartens....Meh...

For someone who said she never wanted kids I'm a little confused as to how I've ended up with twelve little rugrats all under the age of five to contend with each day. (I must have been a very bad person in a past life)...

Today is my second day of real teaching, as opposed to watching other teachers. The hours are quite a bit longer than last year, which means I'm up at a reasonable hour and too exhausted at the end of each day to contemplate staying out unti an unreasonable hour.

The kids are actually quite cute and pretty smart, there doesn't seem to be the language barrier that there was last year. My kinder kids seem to love me so far and have taken to calling me princess and shouting out, "Diana teacher, I love you." (to which I respond, thank you). They also make the heart motion over their heads with their hands which is pretty cute so I can't complain, other than that I find them a little bit exhausting.

In the afternoons I teach older kids and the school is so structured that I find I am not really teaching but clicking buttons on a computer and reviewing their homework with them. Might get a bit boring after awhile but it cuts down my prep time. The one thing I will find a little bit difficult from last year is that last year I was working with very little material so I was constantly trying to draw out lessons in an effort to waste time, whereas this year it seems that there is a ton to cover in forty minutes and will end up blazing by some of the important grammar issues.

All in all I think it is going pretty well, I got out for a run last night after work which gave me more energy for the rest of the night and got me out of the apartment for a bit. Poker is on tonight and I am contemplating going although I think I should put it off a bit until I'm more used to the long days and have also acquired my first pay check.

Anyhow I'm just on a lunch break so going to eat some noodles and drink some coffee and prepare for round two!

I'm Back!

So I've been back in Korea for a week now. I just finally got Internet connection at my place which makes me a very happy girl; however, blogger has detected I am in Korea and has transformed all my posting details into Korean for me which is not so handy. You think the would at least give you the option if you want Korean or English...

As for the layout, I was playing around with it before I left, it probably won't stay this way but I figured a new year deserved a bit of a change.

I could probably write a novel or two about everything I didn't post while at home and all the new happenings around here but I am far too hungover to do that right now.

So to sum up the past few months here are a few of the headlines you might have read had I been posting:

Canada
~ Mustang Convertibles Rock!
~ Lisa Shields and Matt Dryden get married...Matt required to take Lisa's last name after being horribly defeated at bowling
~ Diana gets a puppy: mom and dad graciously decide to take care of it, train it, and pay his expenses but will hand him over once I am back in the country
~ The Keg...still delicious
~ Donna Ratz fakes bad back in attempt not to take Diana to the airport... still faking it after a week of immobility and bed rest (just teasing mom...hope those percocets haven't numbed your humour!)

I'm sure there were a few more newsworthy events but the time at home went by so fast that I can't seem to think of any. It was so good to be home and see everybody, and recharge for the upcoming year.

My new school seems pretty terrific, as do my coworkers so I'm looking forward to starting over again here. My hopes for this year are to do more travelling, party less, and get more sleep, but we will see how that pans out, there is always something going on around here and it is easy to get caught up in the fun.

Anyhow I will write more later but right now I need to rest up for tonight!

Oh Yeah...

And two months since my last post....

Meh, nobody wants to hear about Canada, you all live here, you know the fun and excitement that it is...

But I am headed back to Korea at the beginning of August. I will be in the same city but in a different area.

As you know from previous posts I said that if I were to go back a second year I would NOT teach kindergartens, I wanted less hours, more vacation and more money.

Well... I am getting more money, more hours, same amount of vacation and kindergartens EVERYDAY....what am I thinking????

2nd Last weekend in Korea - Last Weekend in Daejeon

And the countdown begins. I've cleaned out my cupboards, given away various food items, books, toiletries, and any other junk I refuse to pack up and bring home. All my cards have come off my walls and the pictures are next... I'm starting to feel a little more confident that most of my stuff will fit back into my suitcases. My abilities to carry them down the three flights of stairs is a different story altogether.

It was a surprisingly relaxed weekend again... we must all be getting old or something. Had a birthday dinner for Tom on Friday and then went on to a bar called Monkey Banana where the drinks are really cheap and the atmosphere is nice, despite the fact that we seem to be the only people who know the bar exists. After that we went on to Jay Club which was also rather quiet so I decided to call it a night and head home. The others continued on at Jay Bar, went to a club called Boobi-Boobi, sang their hearts out at noraebang and finished the night with McDonald's breakfast at around eight in the morning...so it must just be me that is getting old.

Saturday we went out for our work dinner to a place called Kingdom Buffet. It was fantastic. Sushi as far as the eye could see, salads, potatoes, spaghetti, chicken, beef sashimi, everything you could want at a buffet. Brian, the owner also gave a short good-bye speech in Korean, and when asked to translate, all David said was "Bye-bye Diana," but I'm sure that was the gist of it. After that Richard, Martin and I met up with Tom and Trey and headed to Brickhouse for some British soccer match that was being shown there, which eventually led to the poker chips and felt being brought out and that is how I spent the remaineder of the night.

Yesterday was beautiful weather and we had a bbq at Tom's, along with some scary movies. It was nice and relaxing and allowed me to neglect finishing all of my report cards that are due to today.

This week is a short week. Wednesday will be my last Monday, Wednesday, Friday class, and then we are off to Jeju island until next Monday morning. Then I will finish packing on Monday afternoon, go for my last day of work, go for my last night of poker and head out of Daejeon on Wednesday. I'm not too sure when I'm going to disconnect my internet so this might be my last post for awhile...

See you in Canada!

TGIF

Friday! I am finished my last full week of work as of 9:10 tonight!!! Next week I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then head off to Jeju on Thursday. I come back the next Monday and work the Tuesday as my last day! Originally I was going to be done the Wednesday before Jeju but my boss was able to switch my ticket which means that I have to work my last day. That itself isn't such a bad thing, but it makes me think about crowded that plane is going to be, being that it had a waiting list. I enjoyed my flight here where there were only a hundred of us or so on the flight and I had three seats to myself.

My replacement teacher arrived yesterday, Martin, and he seems like he will settle in nicely. He seems to have a much friendlier attitude about children than I do, (hard to believe, eh?) so I think he will probably enjoy the job quite a bit.

Not to sure what we are doing this weekend, it's Tom's birthday, my last weekend here, and the welcoming of a newbie, so whatever happens I'm sure it will be pretty wild. Tomorrow night we are going out for a work dinner for a farewell/welcome party. We are going to some place called Kingdom Buffet, and I don't know much about it but some friends have been there before and they thought it was the greatest place ever so that is good to hear.

I also need to start thinking about packing this weekend and geting rid of some things from my apartment. It's amazing the things I've accumulated in the past year.

Anyhow it's already noon here and I need to get ready for work. Have a good weekend!

Third Last Weekend

And what a lazy, lazy weekend it was! I don't know if I've had a less productive weekend since arriving in Korea. Friday night Tom, Trey and I went to Santa's Bar across town and met up with some friends for a few drinks. It was okay, though nothing terribly exciting.

Saturday morning I got up and headed downtown prepared to do some shopping and spend a bit of money. I went into Innisfree, which is my new favourite store for shampoos, face washes, etc. Made a few purchases and gave the girl my card, which she declined. I was slightly confused but I know the swipe on my card has been tempermental lately so I chalked it up to that and paid for my things with cash. Next I jumped on the subway and headed to the other part of town where I wanted to get some groceries and various other odds and ends. I decided to grab cash out of a machine just to be on the safe side and when I used my card the machine's (not so perfect) English read: Sorry, card is unusable this time. Excellent. I didn't have a clue why but this meant I had no money on me, other than bus fare home, so defeated I headed back home. I called David and he had no clue why this would happen but promised to take me to the bank first thing Monday morning. My biggest concern was that the last purchase I had used my card for was the flights to Jeju and maybe there was some sort of problem with that. Fortunately I checked our reservations and they were still good to go. Anyhow later that night I tried again and the cards worked fine so it must have been the bank having a minor meltdown earlier in the day.

Last night was Trey's birthday party so we all went to his place for the greater part of the night. Had a good sized crowd going for most of the night and then around two we decided it was time to hit up a noraebang (singing room). We got outside and half the group decided they were headed downtown instead which left only three of us for noraebang. Despite my being tone deaf it was a pretty good time and we sang our hearts out for an hour or so.

Today I did nothing. Nothing. I woke up, I showered, I went back to bed. Tonight I went and got pizza which was the highlight of my day, despite there being no sauce on it and the picture showed it would have tomatoes, mushrooms and various other veggies, yet all it seemed to have was pineapple and meat. Meh, it was alright, I guess.

Don't have much planned for this week, other than poker on Tuesday. I suppose I need to start figuring out what to pack and what to throw out and doing a general clean up of my apartment in preparation for my departure, which is May 29th at 5:25 pm, in case you hadn't heard. Anyhow hope everyone had a good weekend, see you soon!

Hurray!

We got tickets for Jeju!!!!! My last weekend in Korea will be spent in a tropical paradise!!!!!

I Won...sort of

Okay well win might be a strong word. I placed fifth. So I beat four people and I lost to four people. So I guess I didn't really win at all. But I still got 100 000 WON for it, which is better than I had hoped for. Though I did pay 100 000 WON to enter the tournament so I guess I'm even.

It was kind of crazy because we had all payed the money to join six weeks ago and there were 14 of us at the time, which made our pot worth 1.4 million...that's right million; it's so easy to be a millionaire in Korea! So before we started playing Eoin got out the winnings to show what we were playing for and being that they don't have bills higher than 10 000 in Korea, it was A LOT of cash. There were 4 Korean men sitting at the bar and seeing that pile of money on the table sure got their attention. It was a good night, everyone was in good spirits and it was a nice end to the past six weeks. I guess I will miss out on the next tournament but hopefully there will be some cash games before I leave, as I would be lost without something to do on Tuesday nights.

Unsure about Jeju at this point :( Apparently all the flights are sold out from all four airports near us. Our other option is to take the ferry but that is over eight hours, right now we are looking at maybe being able to fly there and ferry back...but it doesn't seem hopeful. Might have to wait until I'm back in Canada for some tanning and casino action...

Fourth Last Weekend

At least the countdown stops me from thinking of original titles...

Went up to Seoul on Saturday for some wandering around and shopping. Richard's mother and brother are here, so Tom and I went up with them and then split up to do our own wandering, versus getting stuck in the tourist trap. It was so hot out but we managed to walk around for about five hours and picked up some boot-legged dvd's and some English books. The plan was to meet up with Richard and crew around seven for some dinner in Itaewon, the popular foreigner spot in Korea because it is located near an army base and thus full of Americanized goods. Being that we had been walking around all day, in the sun and hadn't eaten at all we were STARVING, but Richard and them were still in line to go up Seoul tower a few subway lines away. Tom and I went in search of a restaurant to eat at once everyone arrived and we would hungrily press our faces up to the windows or menus trying to see what looked good. The international food festival also happened to be going on so we walked down a street full of delicious smelling food which only made things worse for us. Finally we sat down in a bar and had a drink while we waited and drooled over the appetizer menu; we were just about to cave when we got a text from Richard saying they were on their way. At about 9:00 we ended up in a buffet Indian restaurant which was fairly good but I had waited so long to eat that by the time we actually sat down and started eating most of the hunger had subsided and I had a dull stomachache.

Yesterday I went for a walk around town before meeting up with Tom to watch one of the movies we bought and then ended up over at Trey's for dinner for even more movie watching. And he taught me how to play Black Jack because in a few weeks we are headed to Jeju-do island which was been noted as Korea's Hawaii and Korea's vegas, so it should be good times with fun and sun during the day and some gambling at night.

Tomorrow night is the final poker tournament as well, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Oh Really...

Before I get started I just want to brag , say that I made it to the final table of the poker tournament!!!!! Hurray!!!

Okay, that's all I will say about poker...for now.

So in a few weeks it is Mother's Day, which I will miss, but I missed Father's Day last year, so it's only right to keep it fair for everyone. That way there is no favortism. In light of the upcoming Hallmark holiday I would just like to point out that over the years of being a kid, I always asked if there was a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, then how come there was no kid's day??? And the response? The cliched answer of: "Everyday is kid's day."

Well just so you know, May 5th, this Saturday, is kid's day in Korea. So there.

Fifth Last Weekend

Oops, I was wrong last week. Just because I teach English doesn't mean I can count.

You might remember when I arrived here last year that I was kind of excited about having bought a bike. Then you might have wondered why I never wrote anything about the said bike. Well, I was waiting for the perfect day to take it out for a ride. That day came about a month ago and when I went to pump the tires the valve-stem fell out and I couldn't pump them up. Last weekend Tom and I decided that we were going bike riding this weekend, he would borrow Lorne's bike and I would get mine fixed. The week passed by and my bike sat down stairs, collecting more dust and I didn't take it to get it fixed. Yesterday Tom showed up, looked at my bike, pushed the valve-stem back in, and pumped the tires. Turns out the stem is supposed to come out, some weird Korean style tires. Anyhow we collected Lorne's bike and we were off! It was a beautiful day out and I don't know how far we went but we were all over town, riding down by the river on the trails and throughout the city. I even got a bit sun burnt on my shoulders! It is kind of funny riding through the cities because bikes are expected to go on the sidewalks, along with scooters and the occasional car. Pedestrians rank last on the totem pole of sidewalks, so anytime we came across a lowly walker we dang our bells for them to move. I've been contemplating a scooter for next year because it would make getting around a lot easier, not to mention how fun it would be, but I was pretty hesitant just being a biker on the sidewalk I don't know if I should be trusted with anything motor operated.

Then later in the day we had a barbeque on Tom's deck and it was fantastic! We had picked up salmon a few weeks ago at Costco and it tasted just like salmon from home (which is another item I can cross off my food list for what I can't wait to eat when I get home). It was delicious! Ended up at Brickhouse for a Red Cross fundraiser and it was kind of boring for the better part of the night until about 1:30 when everybody just seemed out of control and it was pretty amusing.

Not sure what I am up to today, have completely wasted the morning but would like to get outside and catch some more sun, maybe another bike ride even. Might as well get two rides out of it before it is time to pack up and head home....

Motorcycle Helmets are the New Black

I've had a ton of comments and messages about this photo on Facebook so I thought I would circulate it a little further. This is from my Friday night antics...

Fifth Last Weekend

Another weekend is over :( This weekend was quite lowkey, but enjoyable at the same time. Friday night we had plans of movies and drinks before heading downtown. By the time we had finished the movie (and a bottle of wine on my part) we decided to head out for a bit and ended up at our friend, Ivan's, for a few drinks. Turns out he lives in the apartment directly behind mine, we've known each other for 3 months and knew we were in the same area but was surprised just how close we were. We stayed there until about 3 and then Tom and Richard headed downtown and I came home to get some sleep.

I got up fairly early on Saturday and walked to Dunsan, which is the opposite side of town. The weather was like a summer day and I got a nice tan and many many freckles on my face because of it. When we had been at Ivan's the night before I saw that he had a real stove, like oven, four burners, everything! It was so exciting! (I'm such a loser) But I promised them I would make lasagna for Monday night with the help of Ivan's oven so I was in search of ingredients. Had to make a few improvisions, but found most of the right stuff, plus havarti cheese which I haven't seen since being in Korea. Anyhow after I had got what I needed I grabbed a taxi home and spent the rest of the day lounging around. Tom, Richard and I went back to Indian restaurant we had attempted to eat at a few weeks before and it was pretty delicious. After that we headed to Brickhouse to meet a few others but didn't stay very long because we were feeling the effects of the night before.

Today we went to the World Cup Stadium and watched a soccer game. It was a lot of fun. I had never seen a professional soccer game before and surprisingly I really enjoyed it. Daejeon is in third last place and the team they were playing is fourth last, so they were evenly matched and ended up tying 2-2.

Tonight I assembled my lasagna and am about to settle in with a movie and maybe a face mask and try not to think about going to work tomorrow. Bye!

Blah Blah

Hello! Been slacking in the posting area again, haven't been around much and haven't had a lot to say either. We did go hiking last Saturday and the view from the suspension bridge was great. The only problem with the trip was that it took us over four hours to get there, each way, so I saw far more of the inside of buses than I really ever cared to. By the time we got back to Daejeon it was nearing midnight and we were wiped so the excitement of our night ended up being a trip to HomePlus and doing some grocery shopping. I know, I know, we're wild!

It was nice being home so early on a weekend night and not having anything to do the next day, it was a relaxing feeling I haven't enjoyed in quite some time. Sunday I got up and did the mountain around here and then went over to Tom's to watch some Korean film and test out his new barbeque...delicious!

Other than that I haven't been up to much this week, still doing the mountain each day which is far more enjoyable than the gym, played poker, though not well, and met up with the normal group for a few drinks last night.

This weekend should be fairly low key as well, I think there is bowling in the works for Friday night, not sure about Saturday yet, and then Sunday we are going to hit up Yuseong Hot Springs and then go to the soccer game at the World Cup Stadium, not that I am really a fan of soccer but I am a fan of sun and tanning, so here's hoping to great weather!

For any of you counting the days (come on I know you are!) I will most likely be home around May 28th or 29th. My last day of work is May 24th so I will stick around for one final hurrah and then endure the long plane ride home where you can all shower me with attention because you've missed me so much ; )

Anyhow hope everyone is having a good week!

Goodbye Winter

The weather has been so great lately, nice and warm, don't even really need a jacket during the days. It is, however, yellow dust season, which I'm not sure I understand but apparently it's dust that blows over from China. Personally I think it might just be pollen and typical hay fever and Korea is just trying to pass the blame onto another country for nature's problems.

Anyhow on the weekend we went to Gyeoraksan National Park for some mountain climbing and it was great because it was actually the Cherry Blossom Festival because all of the trees are in bloom and it was quite beautiful. We weren't, however, prepared for the instensiveness that was the mountain, we got caught up in the tourist moment and forgot about the endurance mountains can sometimes take. This mountain took us five hours to climb! We got to the peak in just under two hours and then discovered that to complete the trail we actually had to go up and down three peaks in total. By the time we reached the third peak night fall was setting in and we were starving for some Indian food that we had planned on afterwards. The entire way down was all rock and my joints were killing me by the time we reached the bottom. We made it to the Indian restaurant by about nine o'clock and were turned away because they had had a busy night and didn't have food left. We were heartbroken, but hungry, so we went and devoured some Chinese food, which was a close second to Indian.

Even though the mountain was pretty intense I was disappointed with my exhaustion afterwards, so I decided that I was going to start doing the mountains in my neighorhood on a more regular basis. So each morning I've been out there hiking up and it's been a great change from the gym, plus I think I'm even getting a little bit of a tan on my face, which is great being that there are no tanning beds here. This coming weekend we are going to a different national park, in a different province and going to tackle the mountain there, which is supposed to be a good hike and there is a suspension bridge which I'm excited about because we had planned to go to it way back in November but never did because it was so far away. Plus I only have six weeks left here so we are trying to make the most of them so hopefully I will have some entertaining things to write about in the coming weeks, besides drinking and poker!

Blow

Ended up at Brickhouse last night after what started off as a low key night in our neighbourhood with dukgalbi for dinner (chicken with rice cake and cabbage in hot sauce) and a few local beers, but after we had sat around for a few hours and we were feeling kind of sleepy we decided we needed to get out and liven ourselves up a little.

Brickhouse was having a fundraiser for a local foreigner who was badly injured on his motorcycle so it was pretty busy and full of familiar faces. There were three Koreans near the bar who were doing some sort of testing or survey and they asked us if we wanted to participate. Turns out they were sampling personal breathalizers and if you participated in the testing you got your own breathalizer. I filled out the paper and blew a 0.05% which meant that I was right on the Korean limit for drinking and driving, although I guess since I don't have a car it doesn't really matter. Anyhow Tom, Richard and I all got our breathalizers and we were planning all the fun games we could do with them: who can get the highest score, who is the most drunk, who gets drunk the quickest, etc. Then someone spoiled our fun by telling us the highest they can detect is 0.12, which we conceded after was probably a smart thing judging by the stupid things we were planning to do with them. Anyhow that was the excitement of my night, I didn't stay out too much later because I was exhausted and still haven't shaken this cold, plus we have plans of mountain climbing today at a nearby national park so I wanted to be in top form for that. I think after the mountain we are going out for some Indian food and then maybe having a movie night and tomorrow I have plans to climb a different mountain with Kevin so it should be a good weekend to get out in the warmer weather and do some physical activity.

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Oh Korea...

I haven't posted one of those "Oh Korea" moments in a while, but school is always a good breeding ground for those types of stories.
We have this student Ron, he is about eight years old. He has been at our school for about five months and hasn't learned a word of English (which is NOT a reflection on our teaching!). He could be a poster child for ADD, I have him two days a week and Richard has him three, and each day we dread going into Ron's class. Sometimes we make bets how long it will take for him to be sent out into the hall, or how many times. My record for sending him out is three times in one 40-minute class. Anyhow, he is also this way with his Korean teacher and nothing seems to get him to behave, so when the Korean teacher was calling parents last week, he mentioned the problems we have with Ron, and his mother's response to Richard was, "Well just tell the teachers if he is bad in class they should just hit him."