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it’s been a while.
okay. mom got on my case today, and reminded me that this blog was here. (oops.) so, i figured i should update you all on the past month or so. get ready. it’s going to be long.
let’s see. after the blizzard, it got really cold. wind chills as low as -22°C during january. my work schedule was changed for the month because the kids were on a break from regular school. so, we taught from 9am-5pm (earlier and longer hours) instead of the usual 2pm-9pm. it was tiring, and really busy. but the month flew by.
in the middle of the month, one of my good friends left the country. he was the first korean i met here, and probably one of the sweetest guys in the world. he thought it was hilarious that i could always understand him, even when he forgot to speak english to me and started rambling in korean. he’s been gone for over a month now, and i miss him a whole lot. i may have to take a trip to australia at some point over the next year!
also, during january, i started really trying to find some indie korean music. korean music is overloaded with enough pretty boys and pop princesses to make you want to kill yourself. not that i don’t love the upbeat, techno, bubblegum-y style in a certain place and time. but i was dying to find what decent music korea actually had to offer. so i made an effort. i saw quite a few live shows in hongdae (an area near one of the bigger universities in seoul). i have yet to be disappointed by a korean band there (the foreigner bands are another story). i also found a few blogs that critique new albums, etc. my ipod is now full of music i can’t even totally understand. but somehow, i feel like i gained a little bit of myself back last month. feeling comfortable in korea has been easy, but getting back into music has made me feel even more at home.
hm. what else… i’ve been learning quite a bit of korean recently. my vocabulary has probably quadrupled. (but i guess that’s not a lot, since i only knew like 8 words before. ha.) i’ve also almost completely memorized hangul (the korean alphabet). i’m way behind on that. i should have done it months ago. it’s so easy. but, by the end of the week, i should be literate. i also tried a couple of new foods recently. let me introduce you to 감자탕 (gamjatang, aka potato soup).
…potatoes, pork spine meat absolutely falling off the bone. it’s delicious. i can’t believe it took me 6 months to try it. i’ve also come to terms with kimchi. and when i say “come to terms with”, i mean i love it now. my tolerance for spicy food has also gone way up. sometimes, in the middle of a meal, i’ll just stop and think “what on earth am i doing? my mouth is burning. why don’t i care?” strange.
also, michael and i have been trying to find cute coffee shops for our sunday meet-ups. a couple of weeks ago, we tried a little place near my apartment called “classico”. it was so cozy.
if i wasn’t so attached to joe’s (my regular place), i would probably go there every day.
but speaking of joe’s… i adore the girls that work there. we’ve always been friendly to each other, but since they barely speak any english, it’s just kind of hard to actually be friends with them. so, when one of the girls told me it was her birthday a couple of weeks ago, i decided to jump at the chance to be nice, and i made her a mix cd. it was so great. now, every day when i go in, they almost always have questions for me or things to tell me (that they’ve looked up in english). then, the other day while i was eating, i could see them looking things up online and writing on a little piece of paper. when i got up to leave, the cd girl handed me this:
it was the greatest thing. if anything makes me want to learn more korean, it’s my relationship with them. these girls are so lovely, and they are my age. i just wish we could actually communicate and be friends. ahhhhh. so frustrating.
anyhow. it’s now mid-february, and the weather is slightly warmer than frigid. we’re back to our regular schedule at work. i’ll be saying goodbye to another good friend in the next couple of weeks. i’m starting to fix up my resume. and i’ll be applying to some public schools within the next couple of months. this year is flying by! it will be july before i know it.
