I've come down with a little flu. I call it the 'winter time blues' flu.
It's been lingering around for a bit now; never too bad to keep me in bed, but just enough to make my smile dim a bit.
Symptoms include but are not limited to: fatigue, boredom, increased: annoyance, bickering, complaining, frustration, etc etc etc.
This seasonal bout of blues is brought on by many things, different for each of us. At home I'd say lack of sun is the lead culprit, and being that home is seattle, it's a devilish one. Here in Tongyeong, the sun falls to fifth of sixth on my list.
1) Tongyeong is the smallest city I've ever lived in - equating to little (read: NO) nightlife, excitement, fun. Bowling holds me for a bit, but isn't quite the pique of excitement.
2) It's frigid cold here. Sunny during the day, but cold none the less. To make matters worse, they don't heat the schools but little. The rationale is 2 fold:
- They (heard from one person) believe that sickness is brought on (or sped up)
when the body goes from a hot environment to a cold one. Thus, it is for the health of the students and teachers to be as cold inside as we are outside. (side note: galen told me the other day that a study done on learning environments showed the number one hindrance of learning was .... being cold.)
- The government controlled energy company (the only company) has recently changed their billing system. Now schools must pay a fixed amount every month. However, this amount is equal to the highest usage month of the year, and if you use more than that amount, the new high becomes the new monthly payment. No one seems to think this is unfair. Odd because I smell a monopoly of the worst kind. A government run monopoly. Do not pass go, do not collect 200$
3) Being that I live in a rural town, the closest thing I have here to international cuisine is pizza covered in corn and peas. Man what I would give to have a subway here. There's nothing like a sandwich to curb that hunger for home.
4) Time difference from home is just right that I can't call anyone when I have free time unless it's the weekend.
5) And finally lack of sun.
This build up literally caused me to question being here just days ago. I headed to Seoul for New years and it was like a slap in the face reminding me of what I was going back to. I can't imagine ever getting bored in Seoul. Fantastic clubs, restaurants, shops.. enough foreign people moping around to avoid the 'white girl stare'. I had sharwarma for the lunch. Middle Eastern food. Ahhhh...
So I went through all my options. Leave after 6 months and pay for my own flight home, move up to seoul and get a job up there, look into 3 month gigs in Tokyo, skip out after my 6th month mark and head straight to Spain. The possibilities were both sweet and enticing.
But wait.. There is a light at the end of this long somber winter tunnel. I can hear it on the horizon and feel it on my nose - winter is waning. And with the end of winter comes the beginning of a divine life of beach front living. Tongyeong may suck in the winter, but I've staked out the executive spot for island beach bumming. Soon I will be hard at work laying still and absorbing rays. until then.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that I'm head to Thailand at the end of the month for a 2 week 'relaxation therapy session', meaning, I won't be more than a 2 minute walk from: the beach, the bar, the hammock at all times.
So as all moments of weakness are, this was just a moment. We'll see if I crack under pressure again.
Adios.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sweet Caroline
Okay, so per the request of Ms Caroline Jesus, I will write something actually pertaining to my life.. here it goes.
In two days I'll have lived in Korea for three months. Seems impossibly fast, yet it's true. Yikes.
I made 3 girls cry yesterday. Not sure why that was the first thing that came to mind to write about, but there it is. I am a ruthless, cold hearted teacher. But the be fair, they made me cry last week, so I call it a draw (They were being so disrespectful that I stormed out of the room, came back in, and made them write "I will not talk when ms. K is talking, I will listen and be respectful" 50 times - that took pretty much the whole class. Then when I went off about why I was so angry, I lost it.. we all know how stoic and unemotional I am. However, there's nothing like a teacher crying to bring about copious amounts of guilt and regret. Point for me.)
Back track about a month and we come to the oh so wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I decided to teach the little kiddies about why we celebrate thanksgiving (the Disney happy ending version) and came to one conclusion: don't teach anything that involves the word 'Massachusetts'. All us Weygooks (foreigners) met up for a potluck style thanksgiving feast the saturday after the big day, and I will proudly say, for having no ovens or turkey, we did a damn fine job. They don't have turkey in Korea, so we subbed in Chicken. In true Lauren style, I welcomed 2 friends from Busan and 3 couch surfers in on the fun for the weekend (and then pawned them off on friends due to a severe lack of space). It was an odd, but great bunch. We had a couple from France who sold their house and had been biking across Europe and Asia for 2 years (pedal not motor), Natalie and Kathleen from Busan (see first(?) blog for our first meeting), and Dao. Now Dao is one of a kind. I'm not sure how to describe him. He went to Berkeley (or so he says) and has been traveling for years now. His real name fails me at the moment, but Dao is the Asian name he took on while touring the region. Good man.
So being that I live in a very small town, there aren't the amenities you might find elsewhere. This poses a problem. See, it hasn't happened often (because I'm cheap), but on those few occasions where you drink til dawn and wake up hungover, there is only one thing on my mind: delicious greasy breakfast - Patty's Egg Nest veggie omelet with sourdough toast and black coffee. Well that is impossible to find. So a few weeks back, my friend Steve and I decided, after about 30 seconds of discussion, to hop a bus to the nearest town for McD's. It was glorious. Of course, it took an hour and a half to get there, and then the same back. And by the time we even arrived at the bus station in Tongyeong, breakfast was no longer being served. There has to be a petition going around somewhere to get McDonald's to serve breakfast all day. If not, someone start it.
I'm beginning to hit a wall with some Korean food. It's all still delicious, and in all respects healthy, but I wouldn't mind not eating it some days. Talk to me again 6 months from now, we'll see how I've fared.
Big news, I ran in my first Korean half marathon. I was really psyched for it when I signed up, then found out temperatures in december are near freezing.. It didn't stop me. It just made me cold. In preparation for this big day, I bought new asics (READ HERE: NEVER buy asics. I'm writing a complaint to the company right after this) which, after 5 weeks of "breaking them in" still left me with 7 (7!) blisters on my feet by the end of the 21k. I have since thrown them out. Donating them to the poor would just be cruel punishment. A note about Korean races: people don't enter these for fun or with the plan of walking/attempting to finish. I was one of maybe 100 runners who was not associated with a marathon running club. 100 out of 7,000. As you can imagine, my half ass training (the longest run I went on before the race was 14k) left me running with 60 year old men. Despite that, I finished in a respectable 2:07:59. Or I think it's respectable.
Christmas is a week from today! (for you kids back home, a week from tomorrow). I officially feel sorry for Korean kids.. Most families here don't get a tree, don't do any big family event, and do one or two (if any) presents. There's no christmas songs and no decorations in store fronts. From what I hear, Koreans think of it more as a day off from work (or another day to get drunk for most of the men in my town). Speaking of, I have seen quite a few drunk people in my time, but Tongyeong takes the cake. I have never seen more staggering drunk people roaming the streets of a city on week nights. It's an off day if I don't have the pleasure of running into a man walking with his eyes closed. Anyways, back to christmas. This year my plans are as follows: 1) christmas eve at our friend's house for a christmas movie marathon, 2) christmas day brunch at a different house, 3) Nutcracker christmas evening. Then New Years will be a grand event up in the big bad Seoul. Oh, speaking of Mariah Carey, I get 3 weeks off over the holidays! whoo hoo for public school teaching! I'm taking 7 days off over christmas/new years, coming back to Tongyeong to work 2 weeks of english "camps" (don't be fooled, they are in their classrooms at school and include homework), then.... I'm off to THAILAND! I managed to swing 2 weeks off in a row in January, so now will be spending my birthday in a hammock with a coconut beverage in hand. My only goal is to do as little moving around as possible.
My next post is going to be something about the good, the bad, and the ugly..
Oh, and Caroline, I permed my hair. Cheers!
In two days I'll have lived in Korea for three months. Seems impossibly fast, yet it's true. Yikes.
I made 3 girls cry yesterday. Not sure why that was the first thing that came to mind to write about, but there it is. I am a ruthless, cold hearted teacher. But the be fair, they made me cry last week, so I call it a draw (They were being so disrespectful that I stormed out of the room, came back in, and made them write "I will not talk when ms. K is talking, I will listen and be respectful" 50 times - that took pretty much the whole class. Then when I went off about why I was so angry, I lost it.. we all know how stoic and unemotional I am. However, there's nothing like a teacher crying to bring about copious amounts of guilt and regret. Point for me.)
Back track about a month and we come to the oh so wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I decided to teach the little kiddies about why we celebrate thanksgiving (the Disney happy ending version) and came to one conclusion: don't teach anything that involves the word 'Massachusetts'. All us Weygooks (foreigners) met up for a potluck style thanksgiving feast the saturday after the big day, and I will proudly say, for having no ovens or turkey, we did a damn fine job. They don't have turkey in Korea, so we subbed in Chicken. In true Lauren style, I welcomed 2 friends from Busan and 3 couch surfers in on the fun for the weekend (and then pawned them off on friends due to a severe lack of space). It was an odd, but great bunch. We had a couple from France who sold their house and had been biking across Europe and Asia for 2 years (pedal not motor), Natalie and Kathleen from Busan (see first(?) blog for our first meeting), and Dao. Now Dao is one of a kind. I'm not sure how to describe him. He went to Berkeley (or so he says) and has been traveling for years now. His real name fails me at the moment, but Dao is the Asian name he took on while touring the region. Good man.
So being that I live in a very small town, there aren't the amenities you might find elsewhere. This poses a problem. See, it hasn't happened often (because I'm cheap), but on those few occasions where you drink til dawn and wake up hungover, there is only one thing on my mind: delicious greasy breakfast - Patty's Egg Nest veggie omelet with sourdough toast and black coffee. Well that is impossible to find. So a few weeks back, my friend Steve and I decided, after about 30 seconds of discussion, to hop a bus to the nearest town for McD's. It was glorious. Of course, it took an hour and a half to get there, and then the same back. And by the time we even arrived at the bus station in Tongyeong, breakfast was no longer being served. There has to be a petition going around somewhere to get McDonald's to serve breakfast all day. If not, someone start it.
I'm beginning to hit a wall with some Korean food. It's all still delicious, and in all respects healthy, but I wouldn't mind not eating it some days. Talk to me again 6 months from now, we'll see how I've fared.
Big news, I ran in my first Korean half marathon. I was really psyched for it when I signed up, then found out temperatures in december are near freezing.. It didn't stop me. It just made me cold. In preparation for this big day, I bought new asics (READ HERE: NEVER buy asics. I'm writing a complaint to the company right after this) which, after 5 weeks of "breaking them in" still left me with 7 (7!) blisters on my feet by the end of the 21k. I have since thrown them out. Donating them to the poor would just be cruel punishment. A note about Korean races: people don't enter these for fun or with the plan of walking/attempting to finish. I was one of maybe 100 runners who was not associated with a marathon running club. 100 out of 7,000. As you can imagine, my half ass training (the longest run I went on before the race was 14k) left me running with 60 year old men. Despite that, I finished in a respectable 2:07:59. Or I think it's respectable.
Christmas is a week from today! (for you kids back home, a week from tomorrow). I officially feel sorry for Korean kids.. Most families here don't get a tree, don't do any big family event, and do one or two (if any) presents. There's no christmas songs and no decorations in store fronts. From what I hear, Koreans think of it more as a day off from work (or another day to get drunk for most of the men in my town). Speaking of, I have seen quite a few drunk people in my time, but Tongyeong takes the cake. I have never seen more staggering drunk people roaming the streets of a city on week nights. It's an off day if I don't have the pleasure of running into a man walking with his eyes closed. Anyways, back to christmas. This year my plans are as follows: 1) christmas eve at our friend's house for a christmas movie marathon, 2) christmas day brunch at a different house, 3) Nutcracker christmas evening. Then New Years will be a grand event up in the big bad Seoul. Oh, speaking of Mariah Carey, I get 3 weeks off over the holidays! whoo hoo for public school teaching! I'm taking 7 days off over christmas/new years, coming back to Tongyeong to work 2 weeks of english "camps" (don't be fooled, they are in their classrooms at school and include homework), then.... I'm off to THAILAND! I managed to swing 2 weeks off in a row in January, so now will be spending my birthday in a hammock with a coconut beverage in hand. My only goal is to do as little moving around as possible.
My next post is going to be something about the good, the bad, and the ugly..
Oh, and Caroline, I permed my hair. Cheers!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Today is the day
Just a quick note:
Today is the Universal Declaration of Human Right's 60th Anniversary. Today a campaign call will be made to the UN General Assembly regarding this issue...
If you think this is important, please sign your name on the pledge at this address
I believe that Every Human Has Rights! www.everyhumanhasrights.org”
Here's to change.
Today is the Universal Declaration of Human Right's 60th Anniversary. Today a campaign call will be made to the UN General Assembly regarding this issue...
If you think this is important, please sign your name on the pledge at this address
I believe that Every Human Has Rights! www.everyhumanhasrights.org”
Here's to change.
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