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.