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i am losing my face!
2007-04-22 11:07:00
for the last month and a half i have been working on losing weight. this is a lifestyle change more than a diet, and it's working. i have lost just over twelve pounds - which is a healthy rate. but more than losing that i have apparently "lost my face" - this according to a bunch of various koreans.the first time i heard this was back when i first arrived in korea. i wasn't well. i wasn't eating and i guess i was probably a little depressed, so i lost a couple of pounds. one day i walked into school and one of the teachers who sat across from me said, "you have lost your face." i didn't get it at first and she had to try and explain that it looked like i had lost some weight. that was an interesting conversation! i didn't quite believe her, but then my pants were too loose. i started to gain back what i had lost (unhealthily ?is that a word?) so decided to give getting healthy and thin a real shot... so now that i've been at it for six weeks, it's nice to hear that i've lost...
More About: Face , Sing

picture posting insanity...
2007-04-19 11:38:00
and another walk...as promised... since the weather was beautiful today i took pics on my lunchtime walk. i won't narrate like i did the other day but rather just let you imagine. the walk today took me about an hour - so i'm only posting a tenth of the pics that i took - 110 in all... enjoy!the front entrance of school #2.the wall blocking in the school and the pedestrian path next to it.the "big" street i have to cross on my walk... i go up the little alley across the street.another pedestrian street. the funny looking wall is a "kindergarten" or as we call it, daycare.a pretty park.a typical korean house. (though most koreans live in apartments... and this house is probably divided.)a funky front gate.one of the roads i walk down. the mountain is to the left.a neighbourhood garden... i'm sure in a month this will be full of veggies!koreans LOVE recycling and will go through the garbage to pick stuff out... i was surprised when this man looked at me and thought he might get an...
More About: Picture , Sting , Insanity , Posti

yup, i joined...
2007-04-18 12:15:00
i feel like the newby in a cult. i finally joined facebook. all these people have been going on about it for ages... i kept saying there was no way i was going to join yet another personal profile messenger type thing... they eat up your time and you end up not having a life... but the last straw was today... and so, i'm out there - again - in cyberspace. i never use my "myspace" and figured that maybe the same would end up happening with facebook, but it's a much better program.i'm really liking it so far and have found lots of old friends that i haven't talked to in years. i'm even part of a group for my elementary school!!! anyway, i'm working on getting lots of photos up there... i love that i can upload directly from my iPhoto program... awesome! and it's so much faster than so many album sites out there... now i just need to get everyone i know to join! argh! see? i've been sucked in!!! and you! yes, you. you know who you are... it's all your fault!***in other news, t...

let's take a walk
2007-04-17 12:03:00
so i've told you before that i've started going for a walk on my lunch break. today i (finally) remembered my camera so we can take a walk together!this is the wall below the playground when you leave my school. the kids aren't allowed to leave school grounds, but when a ball goes over the fence one of them has to run down here. there are always trucks parked here - i assume their drivers are eating lunch at one of the restaurants across the street. we turn left at the end of the wall.these are the bottom steps of the climb up to gimhae college. you'll get a better view of that soon.this is the school (fourth floor) from up the steps. i caught a kid climbing on the fence here last week... looked like he was going to jump the four storeys down to the field. but i made him go back to school...when we get to the top we turn right towards the college. it amazes me that they have any students! with a hike up like this... the nearest bus stop is still an eight minute walk from school....
More About: Walk

thieves
2007-04-16 12:36:00
somebody STOLE my umbrella at school today. f*!%ing kids!!!! i mean, WTF? it was in my 'shoe box' which means that someone opened the door (which has my name on it) and took it out. i didn't leave it lying around, it was IN my shoe box... what's next? my shoes? no one at school seemed to think it was a very big deal. but i do. i just bought it. not to mention that this means there are thiefs at our school... you'd think someone would be at least slightly concerned about that. but, no! it's just the waegooks umbrella. i bet if a korean teacher had something stolen they'd be searching every kids house. argh. just pisses me off.i have been offered the opportunity to teach extra classes at another middle school for ten weeks. it'll be two classes on monday afternoon from 3:30 to 5:15. they're going to pay me very well for it, so that makes me happy. though it will be a lot of work - four days with five classes!!! and i'm already complaining about having three! but it's only t...

goodbyes in ulsan
2007-04-15 12:26:00
went to ulsan yesterday to visit with kat and say goodbye to chris. he's leaving korea on thursday to begin a new adventure with the peace corps. i met chris in september while i was visiting kat. we were at the local WA bar having a beer. i felt a presence next to me, looked up and there was chris. he looked like a deer caught in the headlights - we were the first foreigners he'd seen in two weeks! i knew that feeling... so i asked him if he'd like to sit down... the rest as they say...the night we met chris... so happy to see other waegooks!!!so, last night was the big "leaving party" in hogye, ulsan. i took the bus there in the afternoon - standing room only, so i sat for a lot of the trip on the front step of the bus!me on the floor of the bus.the crazy part is that one of the teachers from school 2 was sitting in the front seat! so i had someone to talk to for the hour and a half long journey. when we got to ulsan, he drove me to kats house too, so i didn't have to take the...
More About: Good , Goodbye

rain, rain, go away...
2007-04-13 11:53:00
when i woke this morning i knew it was stormy. the sunlight usually streams in and wakes me up - sometimes a full hour before i have get up... grr.. but today i only woke up four minutes before my alarm, which is set for the latest possible time that i can get up without being late for work.before leaving i looked out the window. sure enough, it was overcast, but it wasn't really raining. i grabbed my umbrella and headed out. i started thinking how great it was that i have these fancy hiking shoes made with gortex *guaranteed to keep you dry - or so they say. i figured this was the best way to see if it's true... a fifteen minute power walk in the rain. as i was walking the rain started getting heavier until finally there were just massive drops of it. i couldn't believe the size, i've never seen anything like it before. is this a glimpse of what is to come in the "rainy season"?anyway, there was thunder and lightning and the whole deal along with the fat raindrops... but with m...
More About: Rain , Away

just a matter of time...
2007-04-12 12:34:00
today was a pretty good day. it was sunny on my walk to work, and i remembered why i always tell myself to bring my camera everywhere and then promptly kicked myself for leaving it at home!!! oh well.third period was the national english listening test for the grade two's. so i was free... but i wasn't really. i teach five classes a day at school 3, my co-teacher agreed that it's a lot and we came up with a solution. (sorry if i've written about this before) one period in the day i have "off". what this means is that i visit a class that i don't normally teach, just to say hi and meet them. this is great for me because it's only about 20 minutes - and then i'm free - it's also great for the kids, because they all feel cheated that i'm not their teacher. i feel like a rock star again! (when i first arrived i was bombarded with "i love you" fifty thousand times a day, a round of applause and cheers every time i entered a class, and kids who were just crazy (like in the beatle...
More About: Time , Matter , Matt

the trip you don't want to make...
2007-04-11 12:06:00
one of my stitches has been consumed by my skin... that might be a problem when they take it out. stupid doctor.i guess i still haven't actually written about the hospital... according to one of my students korean hospitals are either "really good" or "really bad". i guess i ended up in one of the latter. oh well, lesson learned, right? but really, when it's a emergency do you have choice?the hospital was kind of dark inside when we got there. it wasn't even 7 PM so i'm not sure why it was so dark... the lights may have been turned off or simply insufficient, i'm not sure. i walked up to the counter and there was a young man. he didn't speak any english, so it's a good thing i had the korean man with me... even though he didn't speak english either. at least they could communicate together and the korean man knew what was wrong with me, so he explained. they wanted my passport, which i didn't think to bring, but he was relieved when i handed him my health card. (which isn'...
More About: Trip , Make , Want

wise words
2007-04-10 11:42:00
i don't ever do this, but i'm posting a forward that i got from a friend. i really liked it and rather than send it on, i'm posting it here...**An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house." The old wom...
More About: Words , Wise

Easter Sunday at a Buddhist Temple
2007-04-09 12:15:00
well, darn it if i didn't go to church this easter! they may not have been celebrating easter but it was holy ground nonetheless! i was supposed to hike up the mountain with kiwi Dave (these are the dave's i know, i know, these are the dave's i know ;) ...) but i just wasn't up to the task. we were already up there when i realized i wouldn't make it to the top, so we went to Dongrim Temple instead. there are actually three or four temples on Sineo Mountain (the one next to my house that i'm always going up). i went to dongrim once before but my batteries died when i got there so i didn't actually look around, but i had the opportunity to get a good look yesterday.125 steps to the landing, another thirty or so after that... gotta work to get to the temple!me and the giant bell. they have these at all temples.detail at the top of the bell. isn't the painting gorgeous?the giant Buddha at dongrimsa. (sa is korean for temple)part of a chandelier that i found in the back of the ma...
More About: Easter , Sunday , Hist , Buddhist

just another drunk...
2007-04-08 03:20:00
the longer i'm here the more i realize that people are essentially the same everywhere. last night i was taking the bus to meet some friends. it was the number eight which never comes when you want/need it to, but last night it did.as soon as i got on i noticed a man standing right behind the bus driver. it appeared that he was yelling at someone - i assumed it was the lady sitting next to him, since she said something back to him. he was like one of those nutters you see on the bus/metro who are just yelling for no good reason. of course, i had no idea what he was saying, so he could have been making some kind of valid point about something... but then a woman sitting a little further back in the bus piped in and said something that sounded like she was really annoyed... probably a polite way of saying shut up (i know it was shut up cause i know that in korean). then i figured he was just yelling and not at the woman just at everyone.i could see the bus drivers frustration in the ...
More About: Drunk , Another

the hand...
2007-04-06 10:23:00
i can't beleive how much i wrote yesterday. with one hand typing is a real pain... so this will be short. the stitches don't look too bad. i think he could've put another one, but there are only four. my hand is swollen and aching. it hurts to move my forefinger and middle fingers. but i'll survive...as long as they cleaned it properly and i don't get gangrene or something! knock on wood. i bought some alcohol swabs and gauze to clean and dress it myself. so far so good. the pills they gave mee made me feel pretty loopy and tired all day which made for difficult teaching, thank god for nice co-teachers. anyway, this weekend seems like a wash because of the stupid hand... was supposed to go feed the sharks at the busan aquarium... but that won't happen now. i'll get there eventually, i hope. i was going to post a picture of the stitches, but i'll spare you... unless you want to see... let me know. have a good one.
More About: Hand

a shout out
2007-04-06 10:01:00
just want to shout out to an american in geoje for having an awesome blog... i get so many of my cool sidebar stuff from him! like my all new neo-earth map... lower down on the left... it shows where my visitors are from... might be a couple of days before much of anything shows up on it...thanks a million!
More About: Shout

drama...drama...drama...
2007-04-05 12:30:00
no, i'm not leaving teaching for acting... there was a little drama here this evening.i was making dinner - a yummy "mexican" stir-fry (chicken, peppers, onion, cilantro, lemon juice, pepper). i was going to put it on one of my three tortillas that i still have in my freezer with some salsa and avocado. mmmm.... yummy, right? of course!everything was done and i was prepping the avocado. 1. cut in half. 2. remove pit. this is where the drama comes in... you know how to remove the pit? stick a knife in it and pull it out of the half that it's stuck in, right? that's how i was taught anyway. so the problem was when the knife went straight through the avocado instead of into the pit... what was on the other side of the avocado? that's right, my hand.i saw it happen before i felt it. it actually took a couple of seconds to hit me. i'm not a squeamish person and i tend to remain quite calm during emergency situations; this was no exception. i quickly put my hand under running water a...
More About: Drama , Dram

ahh... the sounds of home...
2007-04-04 12:25:00
my last apartment in montreal was home to me for about seven years. for about four of those i lived next to a construction zone.the city was re-building a highway overpass across the street from me. the Decarie Expressway in Montreal, which, where i lived was below street level - kind of like a giant moat. they were re-doing the overpass that went across it on the corner of my street. it turned out beautifully, but the four years of construction all spring/summer/fall wasn't very fun.summer was the worst because you couldn't open the windows without hearing the trucks beeping, or the jack-hammers drilling... all through the night. that was the only time they could safely close the highway below without interrupting anyones' busy schedules - other than the people who were trying to sleep that is! thankfully (for me, not my room mates) i had an inner bedroom that didn't get ALL the noise.i remember one night my roomie actually called the number they had posted on the signs outside...
More About: Sounds , Home , The Sounds

it's only tuesday
2007-04-03 12:35:00
all day the one thought that continued to run through my head was that it is only tuesday. for some reason i felt like it was at least wednesday... but no... my first five class day of the week and it went on forever.my first two classes of the day were great - well-behaved, attentive, and smart. i had third period off and went for a little walk. fourth class was pretty bad. they kept pretending like they didn't know anything - i don't know if they just don't understand me, or if they just really don't know the answers, but we're doing some pretty basic stuff that other classes already had a great handle on. anyway, it wasn't the best... but it wasn't the worst.my lunch break was destroyed by a "meeting" of some group that i'm a member of just because of where i sit in the office. of course, no one speaks english, so the conversation was lost on me for over an hour. not to mention that i couldn't eat most of what was available at the restaurant. i managed to eat some fish a...
More About: Only , Tuesday

because i LOOOOOVE laryngitis SO much!
2007-04-02 11:47:00
i can't believe it.as you probably know i have laryngitis. i spent the weekend (for the most part) resting my voice and taking care of my throat. but today it was still bad, and the doctor told me on friday to go back today regardless... so i did. he said that it's looking a little better, but that i need to continue to rest my voice and take more medication until it's better. when i told him i'm a teacher and i can't rest my voice he looked worried. so did i. i was sure that the school doesn't really believe that i'm sick, they think i just have a sore throat and that i'm making a big deal about it. so i got the doctor to write me note. i figured this would at least legitimize my not being able to talk in class.well, of course not. this is korea where people get sick for three hours and then are better again. does no one in this country realize that my body is different from theirs? physiologically asians and caucasions have different reactions to different things, and i'm...
More About: Because , Much , Cause

smog or fog? (or that pesky yellow sand...)
2007-04-01 09:57:00
i wish i knew the answer. there were a lot more koreans wearing face masks today... something you see on a regular basis, but it seemed like almost everyone had one today. here is a 'before' picture from the roof of my building:and here is what it looks like today:i like to think that it's fog... but i can't be sure. maybe this is the asian dust finally raining down on us. these definitely aren't storm clouds as there is no rain, and doesn't feel like it will rain. it's actually quite warm out. kind of scary to think about what i'm breathing in...just had a call from a friend, and she says someone else told her it's the dust. and looking out my window i can see a buildup of it on the window... don't know how i'm going to manage to clean that off... i hope it rains! anyway, here are a couple more pics of my walk through the park today:the colour seems a little off because of the colour of the sky... but i didn't adjust it so that you could see it... anyway, guess i'll st...
More About: Sand , Yellow , That , Smog , Yell