Over the weekend, Aska and Zach and Heather and I went into Seoul. I would tell you where if I could remember the names of the places. (Insadong was one of the places). We went to Kyobo books where I bought a beggining Korean book so that Aska and I can start our lessons. She's getting all excited about putting me to the test and assigning me to real-life scenarios. I think it's gonna be awesome and I can't wait to speak Korean!!

I moved into my new officetel last night and it is much cleaner and nicer. Plus, my window looks out onto the street and the bright lights of the bordellos. (I'm not kidding). There's also a large red-orange neon cross on the building directly across from me, so it's a nice combination. Oh, about the "bordellos." Apparently prostitution is pretty common here and if you see several barber poles on a building that are spinning and lit up at all hours of the night, you can be sure that there is some shady business going on inside. In fact, I'm positive that we have this going on in my building. Right next door to the PC bang on the 2nd floor is this nice restaurant-looking type place. (How do you like that English?) However, I only see women in really short and slutty dresses greeting the men in business suits who seem to frequent this "restaurant." There also seems to be a lot of drama going on in there as I often hear yelling at the back door before I see one or more of the scantily clad women abruptly leaving. (Ok, so this has actually only happened twice. But c'mon. I've only been here 3 weeks and I don't even live on the 2nd floor). So....I can only assume.

In other news, it snowed the other night and it was so pretty. But it only lasted a few hours before it all melted. I was sad to see it go. Since then, it hasn't even been that cold outside.

I wanted to talk about Linda, my boss. I absolutely love her. She gets in these hyper moods every once in awhile where she sits in people's laps or spanks people. She is constantly telling me I need to drink beer and that if I need a drinking partner, she's here for me. She also refers to Zach as her boyfriend. She is hilarous. I feel really blessed to have her as a boss. It's about time I have a boss who isn't underhanded or conniving.

Well, that's the update. I had to force myself to write this so I hope you enjoy it!

KIDNEY STONES

Ok, because I am so frustrated at the moment with my inability to even manage this blog (I somehow deleted the title bar AND obviously I don't know how to put pictures with text), I will make this short. On Tuesday, my kidney started hurting like crazy and my co-worker Aska was nice enough to take me to the hospital and sit with me while I was hooked up to the saline drip and receiving painkillers to the buttocks. I am now on 5 different meds, recovering nicely, and tomorrow will be my first full day back at work.

The hospital did not seem sanitary but it WAS cheap. And my doctor was really cute and talked to me in Korean in this nice, soothing voice as if I had a clue what he was saying. The doctor that accompanied him who was supposed to be his interpreter told me I had a tumor, at which point Aska and the doctor waved him off and shushed him and the main doctor looked at me and said, "Joke. Joke!"

So that's all I got for now.

THANKSGIVING

My Thanksgiving was celebrated on 2 days. The first was on Thursday night when I went to Incheon to meet up with my GEC friends, Jenna and Ashley. Their co-worker (and now my friend), Sarah, came to dinner as well. Sidenote about Sarah: she used to be best friends with one of the main actors from Degrassi so you know I was immediately fond of her.

We went to a restaurant called "Can More" where you sit in hanging porch swings at your table. We ate spaghetti and fondue and it was DELICIOUS. Not to mention, I love these girls so spending time with them was well worth the outrageous cab fare I was cheated out of on the way back home. NEVER, NEVER let a cabbie NOT run the meter!

The funny thing is, Jenna is from New Zealand and Sarah is from Canada so I'm glad they were willing to celebrate our American holiday.

I experienced more foreigners (foreigners as in anyone other than Americans) willing to celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday night at my co-workers' house in Paju. This time we had real Thanksgiving food. Oh, and thanks to two of the other Texans there, we watched the Cowboy game as well. Didn't even feel like I was in Korea!

After the food, a group of us went out to a foreigner bar and then the die-hards (5 of us) ended up at the norae bang til 6 a.m. I loved it. I didn't love sleeping all day Sunday, though, so I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon.

BILL PASSING OUT AT THE NORAE BANG WHILE STILL SINGING:

This leads me to my next issue: kidneys and what alcohol will do to them. Despite the fact that Koreans believe beer to be good for the kidneys, I can assure you that this is not true. In my next blog entry, I will tell you about my kidney stone, UTI, and my experience at the hospital :). Don't worry, I'll live to tell the story!

English Takes All Forms

Today in my kindergarten class, as I was writing on the board, the smallest kid in the class paddled me on the behind while singing the ABC's. I was so happy he was singing the ABC's, I ignored the inappropriate touching.

In one of my afternoon classes, my student got off the assignment by talking about China and melamine. She told me she hates China. She said melamine was in milk and chocolate and more or less said that the government was trying to cover it up and say that their milk and chocoloate were safe to eat. She was not that eloquent, but I got her point. Then she shook her head in disappointment and said, "Lies. All lies."

My last class of the day is one student named Anna. She is shy and quiet and never speaks in complete sentences, even though she is more fluent than probably all of the kids at Oe Dae combined. Today, however, she was obviously not into the book work because she miraculously held a conversation with me. We talked about amusement parks and wooden roller coasters and Hawaii and Dokdo. She said that she hates most countries (including America and South Korea) and would like to live in Ireland, New Zealand, or England. I told her she better start speaking more English.

Time to catch up

Ok, so let me give the rundown of everything that has been going on thus far:

I got into Incheon last Monday night. Mr. Park picked me up from the airport (he's my boss Linda's husband) and he drove me to the school in Paju. He's a very sweet man and very fatherly. The first couple of days he was very worried about my runny nose, my lack of sleep, and my ability to take the bus. I haven't seen him a whole lot since Tuesday when he took me to the hospital to get my checkup, but he's around. So anyway, he took me to the school in Paju and Linda met me at the door and hugged me. She showed me my classrooms and my desk and then she and Mr. Park and one of the Korean teachers Aska (also known as Junghee) and I left together to go to Ilsan. Linda asked me what I thought she was going to be like and I told her I pictured her to be very pretty (she's gorgeous) and she laughed and reiterated the fact that she is very popular, too.

Linda is pretty much AWESOME. She only wants to help and she doesn't second-guess anyone's abilities. She came into one of my classes the other day after I openly expressed that I did not think these students knew one bit of English and she yelled at them to stop speaking Korean and that she was going to tell all of their parents how they weren't speaking English. Then she turned to me and said, "Elizabeth, if you have any problems, you send them to me." Then she left. She wasn't just pretending to be on my side (like those snakes at St. Augustine Youth Services). She IS on my side. Talk about refreshing!

Anyway, I don't think I'll really need her, anyway, because my kids are WONDERFUL. They are incredibly respectful and except for the older ones, they actually like learning English.

Ok, back to my narrative: Linda and Mr. Park showed me my officetel (it's screaming for a makeover to put it lightly) and they left me to get situated. My co-worker Heather, who oddly enough graduated from Flagler, came by when she got off of work and we talked a bit and then we went to her room so I could borrow her iron and ironing board. In the morning, Heather and I went to Starbucks and then she showed me the different buses I could catch to work. She was extremely helpful. (And she had only been in Korea for 5 or 6 days so this was all new to her, too).

My first day was pretty easy because I had to leave and go to the hospital for the checkup (and also, I have big breaks on Tuesdays and Thursdays). The rest of the week was just as simple. The books are really simple and good, the kids know what they're doing and listen well, and the school is just set up in an organized fashion so that there's not a whole lot to worry about.

As for food, I've tried some Korean (I usually just point to a picture that looks good) and for the most part, I've liked it. So far, I do not like kimchi. I dislike it so much that I've gotten to the point where I won't try it anymore even though people keep saying you just have to eat it until you find one you like. I think that's terrible advice. I ate at KFC last night. I'm sorry, I had to. I just wanted to see what it was like. I didn't see Original so I had Crispy. It was good :). Thursday night I went with two of my co-workers, Zach and Abueng, to eat Indian food at La Festa in Ilsan. I met Abueng's friends that were displaced from Nova in Japan when it shut down. They were extremely fun and cute. They invited me to go with them on an overnight trip down south but I ended up not going because I had to recover from Big Bang.

So on Friday when I got off of work, I took the subway to Hongdae. This sweet little Korean woman came up to me to talk and use her perfect (but slow) English and she told me I was brave and cute. I wanted to hug her. The subway is really clean and the seats are lined against the walls so there's a big aisle and everyone faces eacother. And you can go from train to train while it's moving. Once in Hongdae, I met up with Jenna and her friends from Incheon and we stood in line for 3 whole hours to see Big Bang. We almost didn't get in. Once we were in, we stood another 3 hours waiting for them to come out. Then they did 3 songs. It was fine with me, though, because "Haru Haru" is the only one I know. It was really fun. I took a cab home to Ilsan and slept all day Saturday. Then I woke up and went to Lotte Mart to buy a shower curtain for my officetel. I bought it to use as a regular curtain so I could peel the hideous Winnie the Pooh tape off of my windows. I really, really hate Winnie the Pooh.

Anyway, at the Lotte Mart this cute Korean guy followed me all around the store, upstairs and downstairs, just feet away from me, pretending to text message on his phone. At first I was totally irritated but then I just found it hilarious. I tried to talk to him but he didn't speak English. He followed me for a whole hour. Then, when I was walking out, he ran up behind me and offered to carry my bags. On our little walk back to Daewoo City Plaza, he told me I had a "prettyeu smileu." We used a lot of hand motions during the "conversation" that ensued. I found out he was 27 and that his name has a lot of those r/l Korean letters in it that I can't pronounce. I told him I was sick and pointed to my nose and throat--he told me the Korean word for it but of course I can't remember. When we got back to my place, he asked for my number. I told him I didn't have one and shrugged. He looked at the sign next to the elevator to figure out where I lived and pointed to the penthouse. I shook my head and said, "sa." Four. I wanted to ask for his number but for some reason I didn't. I just took my bags, said thankyou, and went upstairs. Then I immediately regretted it. I thought about how we could've gone to a Sunday movie. We could have seen "Australia" together and then discussed our opinion of the movie by shrugging or giving the thumbs-up sign. I went back outside, but he was gone. I've been looking for him all weekend to no avail. I'm seriously bummed about it. He was tall and cute.

Sunday Heather and I walked around LaFesta and went to eat Korean. We went to a coffee shop afterward and had a big delicious waffle with ice cream on top. Then we went back to the officetel and she let me use her computer. Sunday night I went to 7 Monkeys at the Western Dom and met up with my Korean language study group. One guy, Maarten, is from South Africa. Danielle is from Detroit. Chad is from Knoxville, Tennessee. And Bunny is from the Phillipines. We are all going to Costco this week for some outrageous savings and some hot dogs. Good times! On my way home from the meeting, I bought a calling card and called Mama and Daddy (and Ashley but she didn't answer). It was good to hear their voices. I want everyone to visit me and see how cool Korea is!

Today was my first Monday and it was a fantastic day. I'm so excited about my life here. I just feel like I belong in some weird way. And I feel all warm and fuzzy when I'm on the bus and the driver is playing talk radio and I don't understand any of it. For some reason, it feels safe.

Ok, that's the first week update!!!!!!

BIG BANG!

I met up with Jenna and her friends in Hongdae for the opening of Club Vera! Big Bang was amaaaaaaazing:

MY KIDS

Ok, so there has been NO time to update this wretched thing but luckily Ashley hacked into it and redesigned it for me so that was nice.

The plane ride was great. I flew Singapore Air and had a whole row to myself. I watched this English teeny-bopper movie called "Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Smogging." Let me tell you, it significantly bettered my life.

I got here Monday night and immediately began working Tuesday morning. I feel like I've been here for months! (In a good way).

Here are a couple of videos of one of my afternoon classes. They love The Beatles:

People In San Francisco....

ARE RUDE! Remind me not to ever move there.

Last night was awesome. My whole family came to see me off. I love them :). I wouldn't be able to do this without their support.

I'm writing from the airport and it's costing tons of money so I'm gonna go. Just wanted to update quickly. Getting through the international check was easier than domestic. SCARY!

I'll write again from Korea!

I'M LEAVIN'!!!!

I'm leaving tonight!!!

I drove to Houston yesterday in hopes that they would interview me and they did. My passport is stamped and my flight is booked. Unfortunately, I'll be spending the night in the San Francisco airport. I don't think Linda was paying attention when she booked it. Won't be the first time I've spent the night in an airport!

During my interview yesterday, Consul Min asked me what my style of teaching would be. I told him that first and foremost I wanted to make my students feel comfortable and not embarrassed to speak English. I explained to him that because of my embarrassment in speaking Spanish, I haven't progressed. He then asked me in 3 different ways if I did indeed speak Spanish and I told him I was somewhat conversational. Then he busted out with, "Pues, habla espanol un poquito?" And I answered in the affirmative (in Spanish) and then there was no stopping the man. Fortunately, I understood him. He told me that I have a good accent in Spanish and that it will be useful in speaking Korean. I had no idea I'd be speaking Spanish at my Korean consulate interview. Good thing I wasn't lying!

Oh, I also made a friend at the consulate. He'll be teaching at a university in Jeju. Pretty exciting....

Next time I write I'll be in KOREA!!!!!

Adios,

Elizabeth

P.S.

I plan to see Big Bang live.



And please notice my boyfriend Kenny Wormald in the following video of Korean pop star Boa:

ARRRRRRRGHHHH!

I'm getting frustrated not knowing when I'm going to leave. My principal told me that she has spoken with someone at the Houston consulate and that there's a possibility I don't need my official transcript after all. I don't know. I just know that I'm ready to go. (Except for the fact that I'm still trying to figure out which of my family members is going to buy my car since Carmax tried to lowball me).

Until then, I am buying things I can't afford and worrying about my lack of work clothes.

I just remembered that God says not to worry about things. So scratch all that.

Official Transcript

So I have my visa number but I can't do much with it right now since I don't have the 3rd official transcript that I was supposed to have already gotten. Once I get it, I'll send all of my documents to Houston (because lo and behold there is no Dallas Korean Consulate) and then wait for them to call me for an interview. THEN I'll go to Houston for the interview and hopefully be on a flight the next day. Interesting, no?

Korea Looming....

I'm moving to Korea in 9 days! It's so strange how it came about so quickly but it feels completely natural at the same time. Basically, South Korea wanted to hire me and I have to go where the money is.

I just received a call from the owner and principal of my school. Her name is Linda and she is super, super friendly. I think I'm going to love her. My visa has been processed and she's sending me the number. That means that tomorrow I'm going to make an appointment with the Korean consulate. I'm leaving November 13th. I thought I was leaving the 15th so now I'm kind of freaking out. I just got light-headed and almost cried.

I know that this is going to be challenging in so many ways but I also know that I WANT to do this. Just....please excuse me if I'm emotional. I'm a big Mama's girl and I hate being separated from her. The upside to this anxiety is that my sister Ashley and I just cooked a pizza and I now have no desire to eat it. So the weight-loss begins NOW!

I'll be living in Ilsan, South Korea but teaching in Paju City which is about 30 minutes from my officetel. My school is called Oe Dae and I'll have 5-7 year olds in the morning and 10 year olds in the afternoon.

Wow. It's really happening....