I'm no culinary goddess, but...

gotta type fast tonight. I just hopped myself up on good ol' Nyquil (to stop the assortment of symptoms that they painfully list off in their commercials - "sniffling, sneezing, coughing, spewing etc etc") so I figure I have between a half hour and 45 minutes before I drop like pants at a poker game.

so, about my most recent culinary experience - as the title suggests, I inflicted it on myself. Let me begin by saying that lately, I've not had the best diet in the world. Why? Pure laziness. I'm too lazy to cook anything half-decent for myself so I habitually eat things that are about 1/4 decent. Thank goodness I eat lunch at my school. Anyway, with a bothersome cold (not terrible, just annoying), I've been craving the hot soup, but instant Ramien noodles (think Mr Noodles, but spicy) just doesn't cut it. I've been told on more than one occasion that soup is the easiest thing to make, you just throw whatever you want into a pot and boil it. I decided to test this theory. I will say this - if the Koreans can throw a bunch of little clams in hot water and call THAT soup, then I can't do much worse.

The verdict...not bad, not bad at all. Actually, it was a lot more pleasant than I expected. I had a couple of chicken soup stock packs, so I through those in. The other ingredients included onion, potato, carrot, garlic, egg and Korean noodles called su-je-bi (surprisingly, NOT rice-based). Anyway, the only complaint I would make is that it was a little bland. Other than that, it was delightful. Things it was notably missing: chicken (bones and meat), celery and dill (Sari I miss your soup!!!).

Maybe there's hope for me yet!
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Today/yesterday (nov 22) is/was my Mom's birthday.
She's awesome.
I just need to type that so that all my readers can understand. AWESOME! She makes 54 look good. I wanna be like her when I grow up (if that ever happens).
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The other day at volleyball I saw the awesomest ass grab ever. Now, the guys get patted on the ass (by the guys) quite often. I don't see any of that action. I could go for a nice pat-and-rub combo...it's comforting. Anyway, SamChon (uncle, maybe 35) walks on court to play and he walks up to Chong Hyeon (young guy, 25) and fully pats and rubs his butt. Then, seeing that I can see, he gives it a hefty grab-and-squeeze. At this, Chong Hyeon wheels around to see who it is and catches my eye. He knows I saw the whole thing, blushes and gives SamChon a "WTF?" look. gotta love it.
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Last weekend, three of my girls came to stay with me Friday night - Mary Katherine, Carol and Mel. Friday night was an awesome slumber party and then Saturday I introduced them to a few of Boseong's tourist attractions (there are a few!!).

One of the pearls of wisdom we discovered during our Friday night talk was the following:
Things you should not put in you mouth
1. Fire
2. Road Rocks
3. Feet
4. Pocket lint
5. Acorns
If you can think of anything else please feel free to let me know!

First thing Saturday morning we headed to the Green Tea Spa where we whiled away 3 hours, alternating between soaking in one of 4 tubs (hot green tea, hot water, lukewarm water and cold water), the sauna and getting scrubbed by a stout Korean woman. It was fantastic in so many ways. After that we headed to the Greean Tea Fields where we had a yummy lunch. The last stop of the day was the pottery place that I mentioned in my previous post. Here we spent a few hours crafting all sorts of cool things.

All in all, the weekend was awesome..mostly because of the company!

Now, here are some pictures:


This is part of the view on my way to school everyday.

Here's my schoolioolio. All schools in Korea look pretty much the same.

Carol's masterpiece. Really good for a first go at it!

My creations the second time around. two tea light candle holders, a heart-shaped box with a lid and a bowl.

Yu Kyoung hard a work!

And last, but not least...The bowl/mug! in all its glory!

Ah, I think the Nyquil's kickin' in....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I made a bowl/mug!

Hello!

That's right! A bowl/mug! Park Seon Ae, a fabulous woman from my Tuesday afternoon teacher workshop, took me to a nearby Pottery ...uh...farm? factory? palace?... where we proceeded to mould clay earth with our bare hands. Now, it was nothing like that famous scene from Ghost; there was no Unchained Melody, no Patrick Swayze and no sweet, sweet lovemaking...but it was still quite fun!

The lady at the place asked me what I wanted to make and I said a cup or a bowl. The end product looked like a bowl and a mug had a baby and said baby was horribly deformed. It was like the mule of pottery. Actually, I equate it to Quasimodo... unique and loveable, but oddly disfigured. I'm quite proud of it. I don't have a picture of it now, as they have to keep it there to fire it (as in cook, not like The Donald), but rest assured that as soon as they deliver it, I'm going to have a photoshoot so you can all feast your eyes on its majesty.
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Useless drivel that keeps me from actually doing any work:
Here is a list of fun/weird/disturbing ringtones that are automatically programmed into my cellphone :
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Every Breath You Take
Love Me Do
Right Here Right Now
Mambo No. 5
Dream a little dream of Me
She's So High
Uptown Girl
YMCA
Happy Together
Jinglebell Rock
Step by Step (NKoTB!!)
Hangin' Tough! (NKoTB!!)
Surfin' USA
Sing Sing Sing
Singin in the Rain
I left my Heart in San Fransisco
Please Mr Postman
The Greatest Love
I Love Rock and Roll
Super Freak
We Will Rock You
Lady Marmalade

Muryoro Anah Deurimnida!!

This translates to: FREE HUGS!!!

Where: Downtown Suncheon
The Crew: Carol (insitgator), Mel, Juliann (Mel's Korean Student), a slew of Carol's boy students, Mary Katherine, Vanessa S., Nina, Virginia, Lana, Bryce, Kristin, Nancy and myself.

Why? Watch this video:
Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story! (music by sick puppies)


After seeing this video on YouTube, Carol became inspired to do this in her Korean city of Suncheon. So, armed with signs and bigs smiles, we headed out to the downtown shopping area to distribute our free hugs.

Now, I should tell you, Koreans aren't really huggy people. They bow, they handshake, but for the most part, hugs are not in their interactive vocabulary. This has been one of the aspects of Canadian life that I miss the most. I love hugs...giving and receiving. In this one afternoon (about 3 hours), I more than made up for my 15 months of hug-celibacy.

To be honest, I'm sure that I got more strange looks than I did hugs, but it didn't matter. I couldn't stop smiling and laughing...it was so therapeutic. I hugged old women, young children, lots of students and some very confused looking men. Some people kept coming back for more. Some people would walk by, look scared, then they'd come back because they had changed their minds and wanted in on the free hugs.

There was a video camera going to catch the love and hopefully, once Kristin finishes the edit, I'm going to post it on here, but until then, here are a couple of pictures:




Some funny situations:
Children running away screaming.
Shop owners looking out at us with disapproval, but then us winnig them over with a nice hug.
People giving us a wide berth to avoid the hugs.
Old women patting my bum.
The "cold fish" hug. This is when the person just stands there and has no idea what to do.

Here's a description of the best hug that happened:
A Korean (let's say a young woman), is walking towards me as I'm holding my sign. At first, she looks confused, then skeptical. Suddenly, her eyes brighten, a big smile spreads across her face and she actually runs into my arms and gives me a great, big hug. Oh mercy.

I can't even describe fully how good this afternoon made me feel. I want to thank Carol and give her many, many cudos for having the gumption (yes...GUMPTION) to organise something like this in a very foreign country. I hope that our effots brought a little bit of light into some peoples lives, if only for a short while. I know it will stay with me for a long time.
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In other news, my school finally got me my new washing machine!! w00t. It's a beautiful thing. It's about twice as big as my old one and it purrs like a kitten (not really, but you get the idea). I never thought I'd actually be excited to do laundry!!

Along the "home improvements" front, all the units in my building all got new cupboards in the kitchen and a new sink. Holy Heck!! What's going on?! They do look quite a lot nicer than the old (REALLY old) ones, and there's a bit more cupboard space too. Unfortunately this surprise has a few drawbacks that keep me from fully enjoying it. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I think you all agree that the following points would kinda burst your bubbles too:
I walked into the working dudes smoking in my apt. smelly!
One of the new drawers has no handle to open it.
My new sink leaks.
They unplugged my fridge and didn't plug it back in and didn't tell me. I realised this the following morning.
*sigh* Ah well, it happens. Thanks for the new kitchen, Korea!
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Last week my workload picked up significantly, which resulted in my body screaming "WTF?!?" by the time Friday rolled around. To be perfectly honest, it's not any heavier than the work schedules of you folks in Canader (in fact, it's prolly still less), but I've become accustomed to f-ing around on the computer during my free periods at school. Well, until the end of this semester, MSN and YouTube are going to have to take a back seat to "the real world". You see, I agreed to do an after school class for some students. The pay is pretty good and I finish at 5:20, so it's not so bad. I also do a regular extra class during the school day (as do almost all the teachers I know). Anyway, these extra classes radically change my lesson planning regime. Without them, I have to plan a whopping ONE lesson per week, plus teacher workshop activities. The reason for this extremely light prep schedule is that I teach all of my student classes (all 9 of them) the same thing. Each extra class I do needs its own lesson, so, that bumps my prep time to 7 lessons per week plus teacher workshops. I'm not all that good at math, but I think that's a 700% increase in busyness. I like being busy (I get more done that way), so bring it on!! (Just let me complain a little if I'm tired, ok?)

Right now it's Sunday, it's 1:33pm and I'm still in my PJ's listening to David Bowie. Life is good!