We had a staff dinner after the last Open Class that went interestingly. Many got drunk and were hung over the next day, though of course I wasn't. I drank a little but one of the Koreans didn't like that I didn't toast with water during the toasts, but then another didn't like that I was toasting with water and not alcohol so it was a no win situation for me. At first they were considering doing karaoke and I would have joined them but they changed their minds at the last minute so went clubbing instead. That was my cue to go home so I got a good nights sleep unlike many of the others.
We had a field trip to a science center which was a lot of fun. We were going to go to an agricultural park but the weather was too hot so we changed it to something indoors. I think I had more fun than the kids and it was less intensive as it let the kids play in this play science area for an hour. There was a robotic dog that danced, pipe telephones, an animal section, a sand pendulum type thing, animal bones, etc. I thought it was really cool. I drew a lot of things with the sand pendulum. Took a few pictures while sitting under this dome thing with mirrors and colored lights. Otherwise, we had lunch outside and I honestly didn't need to pack a lunch as the kids' parents provided me with plenty to eat. It was really nice of them. Also, I only had six out of ten kids so less to watch. First, one was getting ready to go to America, one went to Everland, one was sick, and one was running late and missed the bus. Oh well.
So Anna and I went on a Meetup group trip to some thrift stores in Jongno. Now you need to understand that thrift stores are hard to find in Korea so this can be a rare treat. Now, I didn't really find anything I was looking for but Anna found a few good items. Also, we met some fun people including a Japanese lady named Mirei who recently moved here and a guy named Dave who kind of reminds me of my boyfriend to some degree. Speaking of my awesome boyfriend, I finally managed to get a picture of the two of us. Thanks Amber for taking the picture. ^.^ I really like it. Also, he introduced me to this great Indian restaurant so I've been eating yummy Indian curry every weekend. It's called Asia Asia and is in Seohyun which is a lot closer than the other Indian restaurants that I knew of and reasonably priced, too. I go there quite a bit.
I got in the idea to exercise more (which by the way I am failing at miserably) so Greg and I took some nice walks in some parks near his place. The parks were really nice and Greg ended up getting me this cute fiber optic light thing. We walked around the woods a bit, too. Otherwise the exercise thing is not going very well. Come to think of it, neither is the studying Korean. I really need to get better at doing those things now that I have a bit more free time. I also finally found yakisoba in a store near where I live so I can actually have one of the foods that I missed from my stay in Japan. Yay!
I got in the mood to have smores after talking about them with my first grade so I invited Anna over to roast some marshmallows over a candle and make smores at my place. I kind of burnt my chopsticks that I got in Japan as I lit the marshmallows on fire but that's okay because the smores were worth it. ^.^ Sadly Anna went home for a month or so but she will be coming back for more craziness soon. She even had me send my cosplays here from home so hopefully I will get a chance to cosplay some here in Korea as I am missing going to conventions. (Hope those of you at Otakon this weekend are having a lot of fun!) I actually caved and bought $500 worth of manga for $150 (150,000 won) so I will have lots to read for a while.
I came home from work one day and plugged in my charger. It kind of exploded on me and I barely got my hand out of the way in time. It only flamed up for a few seconds but it was enough to startle me. Thankfully nothing too serious happened and my boss sent Mr. Hang to check the outlet just in case. Seems to have been just the charger but it goes in well with the fact that we had a field trip with the kids to a firehouse. The kids listened to a firefighter for a while and learned how to use hoses and fire extinguishers both at the firehouse and on the roof of our building. I was a little disturbed that they told the kids to go up instead of down so I made sure to tell the kids to go down not up, especially since smoke rises. -.- I feel like people here just don't know how to handle emergencies. Granted many things are not organized here. Either way, at least they told the kids to cover their mouths so that they don't breathe in smoke. I also taught them how to stop, drop, and roll should their clothes catch on fire. They enjoyed that a little too much so I don't quite think they understood the seriousness of a fire. T.T
So I have been learning a lot about golf by the way. And first off, let me say that I am really bad at it. Granted I am bad at most things. I tend to swing the golf club hard like a baseball bat which ended up leaving me in a lot of pain after the first time I tried screen golf with Greg and Tony. Screen golf is basically like real golf except you hit the ball at the screen and it calculates where the ball went. It has the rough and bunkers, too. The second time we tried screen golf, we had Amber along so we did teams. It was kind of a funny game because Amber and I handicapped Greg and Tony and Greg and Tony were hitting in all kinds of places, too. They didn't make Amber or I play in the rough or bunkers because we were having enough trouble hitting the ball very far. But according to Greg, I seem to be good at putting because I hit straight. Either way it was a lot of fun even if I didn't do well.
Greg, Tony, and I also tried out Ajushi (old man) golf a while back where they use clubs that are more like mallets in my opinion. Though the distance was short, it was pretty hard because the holes were all on hills so, unless you sank it, it was nearly impossible to get it in. A lot of Koreans stared at us as we played in and we got some angry stares. I don't think the Koreans liked the fact that young foreigners were playing THEIR game. Greg said a few of them yelled at us to move faster and I know a few groups just passed us instead of waiting their turn. But still it was a lot of fun. ^.^
Not everything that has happened has been good. I am sad to say that my step dad, Fred, died right before Fourth of July. I asked my mom and she let me write his obituary and a memorial letter that Kelly read for me since I couldn't be there in person. This is sadly the third funeral I have missed since coming to Korea, the first being my grandfather and the second my grandmother, both from my mother's side. It makes me really glad that I took the time to go home last Christmas to see him. I would have really regretted it if I hadn't. My boss and a few other coworkers were understanding and took me out to dinner to get my mind off of things and Megan took me shopping. And then Greg kept me busy as we went to the Harp for the Fourth of July as I didn't want to sit around with time to think much about it. I met a friend of Amber's who was visiting for a few weeks.
The other sad thing was that Greg found out that he had to return back home to America to help run the family business. He had to leave right after my summer vacation (which should be the next blog post) and I have to say I'm quite sad to see him go as he is a really great guy and one of the best friends I have made since coming to South Korea. Thankfully I got to enjoy my summer vacation with him before he left. Since Greg was leaving, we became a lot busier as everyone wanted to say goodbye to him.
We had a surprise party for Greg at the Harp, run by this nice Irish guy (I think his name is Joey but I could be wrong). I was in charge of keep Greg away until Tony and Sujin had finished setting up the reserved area. I remember being a little annoyed at one of his coworkers who kept leaning over me to get his attention. I'm not the jealous type normally but when the person knows he is dating someone else, it can kind of be annoying, especially when I am sitting right there in between them. -.- But that's okay because the night went well. There was also this drunk Australian guy who was looking for some action that kept hitting on the girls in our group.
Speaking of getting sick, a nasty stomach virus went around work. First Megan got it, then Chuck, then Chris. All of them had to leave work to go to the doctor's office and some missed work because they were so sick that they couldn't move. I was lucky enough to get it during the weekend so Greg took care of me. My bosses were not happy when I told them that I had gotten the stomach virus, too, despite me not having to take off work. In Korea, you are expected to work when you are sick but this is really bad with very contagious illnesses like this stomach virus which pretty much incapacitate the person where they physically can't work. By making those people come into work only makes it easier for the virus to spread. I'm just glad Ashley and Laura didn't get the virus, too. I ended up making Greg sick though he tells me it was not as bad as mine and his work is a little more flexible.
But mine was pretty bad. I was fine after dinner on that Friday night and then suddenly started feeling sick. The doctor tried to say it was food poisoning but I really don't think so with three others from work (who I rarely eat with) also got a nasty stomach virus within the last week. I remember puking a lot and having other issues. I could barely move and ended up getting a really bad fever that even worried Greg. I ended up sleeping on the floor so I could be close to the bathroom and not jostled on the bed. It took till late afternoon before I could move enough for Greg to get me into a taxi and take me to the doctor. And then the doctor tried to yell at me for not coming in sooner. Not that I had much choice as I couldn't move, eat, or basically do anything but sleep. It was bad enough that they ended up putting me on an IV to try to break the fever more quickly as it was pretty high. I vaguely remember asking Greg to rip my stomach out and he says I asked him to kill me, too. I was sick enough that I believe that I probably did say that. Greg was nice enough to make me rice porridge or whatever it is so that I could eat something without making myself sicker.
So Greg is a really good baker and he knew that I liked cheese cake. Sadly I couldn't enjoy the cheesecake he made me the first time as I ended up with that nasty stomach virus. Ironically, it turned out the kind of cheesecake he makes I don't actually like. T.T Go figure. The kind of cheesecake I like it lighter and sweeter and is what Greg considers to be bad cheesecake. ^.^ hehe Anyway, it's the thought that counts and he ended up making me his strawberry filled cupcakes with cream cheese icing that I really like. I'm going to miss that icing. T.T I got to try his red velvet cupcakes, too, before he left.
Recently I have been trying to catch up on anime. My weekends have been so busy that I haven't quite had the time. I have also been getting the chance to read more lately. Yay. I am enjoying teaching Percy Jackson to my sixth grade class. Though we are only doing the first two books, I ended up buying the last three and have already finished the entire series. One of my fourth graders enjoys the series as well and has read the other series from that author (Rick Riordan). I bought a new dress, some new shirts, and a nice flower headband that I really like. It is simple, with little bits of color here and there. I had bingsu with Megan, which again I seem to not be a huge bingsu fan. It is not bad, but I don't really care to eat much of it. That might be because of the red beans in the dessert. One of the parents supplied cake and stuff for her son's birthday so we had a little birthday party for Ian in first grade. The first graders like to bring snacks to class and we have a new girl named Sophie who I really like because she is all smiles and seems to enjoy being there.
My class really liked the insect monthly theme we did so we made butterflies in class and I let them use my nicer paper. They really enjoyed that. We also had a water gun fight to let the kids have fun once in a while. They had water raced and pretty much attacked me with the water guns. Olivia somehow managed to stay dry until the very end. They kept hitting my glasses with the water so it was really hard to see what was going on and attack back. The water gun I was given didn't do me much good but Chuck has a good idea to use the buckets so I got even by dumping entire buckets of water on them when they tried to attack me with the water guns. Though I remembered a change of clothes, I forgot undergarments so had to rush home at lunch to change clothes. Thankfully, my class did it last with Chuck's class so I wasn't in wet clothes all day.
We went out to dinner for Ashley's one year anniversary which makes me realized that my two year anniversary is the 29th of August and will be here soon. Technically I arrived really late on the 28th because of a typhoon that had occurred that year when I flew to Korea but I don't count it because by the time I got to the hotel it was midnight and I went straight to sleep. So in about two and a half weeks, I will have been here in Korea for two years, having gone home for Christmas this year for a week.
So Jordan's birthday actually happened the week after summer vacation but I'm going to write it here since I'm actually writing my blog today. Jordan is adorable when you aren't teaching him and his mom stayed to take pictures. He was making a lot of adorable expressions and it was a fun time. Thankfully, my class has finally seemed to catch up in work so we aren't having to rush all the time anymore. Also, I learned that Bella understand the sit command and will sit most of the time when I tell her to. I've been rewarding her with treats on the off chance I may be able to train her to do something new. Anyway, hopefully that is everything since my last post besides what happened on summer vacation. Maybe next time I won't be so bad about remembering to write here. ^.^
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