a veiled world

in the span of less than 12 hours it appeared. No warning (ok, maybe warning for people who speak Korean). I'm talking about the yellow dust. Thank you very much, China, for blowing it over our way. It happens every year just as Spring is trying (for the second time) to join the party. The first time Spring came around, Winter got a little jealous of all the attention it was getting, so it kicked Spring out. Now Spring is back, feeling little stronger. There are buds on trees, magnolias, some gorgeous white and pink cherry blossoms, even some azaleas. Pretty, no? Then this yellow dust blows in overnight, blocks out the sun and essentially shits all over everything. A Korean friend implored me to wear a face mask (popular items here for filtering air pollution. They look like surgical masks), but I'll tough it out. Hey, I'm not about to cover up this precious mug for something as silly as my health...that's just nutty. Anyway, it's my hope that the dust runs its course relatively quickly as it means I have to clean my house more often...BOO! Yes, even though my windows are closed, it still gets inside...it's sneaky that way.

Anyway, it's been about 2 weeks since my last post à cause de my nutty schedule. I have a lot of side projects on the go, which include a lot of meetings away from my school. For 4 consecutive Fridays (2 down, 2 to go) I'm away from school for meetings. This is good for me, but not so awesome for my 4 Friday classes who will be so far behind my Monday classes. I've been working with my head teacher to try to keep up, so as a temporary solution, I've dropped my grade 3 classes and squished in an extra class on Tuesdays in order to teach all my Gr1s and 2s. Sucks for the Gr3s, but what can I do, eh?

Anyway, after my Friday meetings finish, I'm off for 2 weeks to teach a Teacher Camp (like I did last year and in the winter vacation). Basically I'll never be at school this semester and get paid extra for it! w000000t!

As busy as the sched is, I'm really enjoying it right now. The work I'm doing (mostly curriculum development for a summer camp) is somewhat creative, so I get to flex that muscle.

Speaking of flexing muscles (awesome segue!!!), volleyball is going well. My technique sucks, but my motivation and effort are way up there!! If I were in gym class, I'd get an A just for the amount of times I throw myself on the ground to try and save the ball. The Koreans love it!

I saw the movie 300, which is really popular here and I must say, I REALLY enjoyed it. It was ridiculously entertaining. I have no idea about how this movie faired in the Western world, or how it was critiqued, but I'm willing to guess it wasn't received well by the uptight, esoteric, pretentious film critics out there. It was eye candy, and I'm fairly certain it knew it was eye candy. The fight scenes were unique and awesome, the blood was gratuious, the cinematography was pretty unique (from my limited experience), and the music was perfect. At some point mid film, my boyfriend (I'll get to that in a sec) leaned to me and said "I'm sorry. This is a man's movie, I think." I scoffed and said "Are you kidding? This is AWESOME!!" Sure, it may be considered more of a film for dudes because of all the fighting and blood and whatnot, but let's be honest: a) I LIKE a good fight scene (it's the only reason I'd ever watch Troy again) and b) the ENTIRE film was a bunch of scantily clad dudes - only wrestling briefs and capes - with bronzed, ripped bodies. Why is this a man's movie? More women should see it to be exposed to the completely unrealistic, unattainable physical male image equivalent to that of women portrayed everyday.

Ok, so yeah. As most of my blog readers have gathered, I don't really talk too much about personal happenings. It's not the cyber world's business BUT seeing as how this new dude has become an integral part of my life here, it naturally follows that I should introduce him. An attentive viewer would've picked up on something through the photo links. "hhhmm, who is that handsome asian fellow who shows up in all of Vanessa's pictures?" Anyway, we've been seeing each other for 3 months now (which is a milestone that inspires me to finally share the news cyber-ly), and it's wonderful. He's 26 (27 Korean age) and his name is Kim Hang Bin. He's studying computer graphics currently and he lives in Gwangju. I met him through Young Min, because they went to high school together. He is very open to my cultural and personal oddities, and there are many of both ^^ (<-- this symbol it the Korean equivalent of :), it's "smiling eyes"). Here's a fun picture from the moustache party:

Don't be fooled by his "normal" (and handsome!) appearance...he can be just as silly as moi!!

In conclusion, April is set up to be a nutty monthy. The weekends are booked with the following events: weekend in Gwangju and Easter Brunch @ Matt's, Girlz night chez moi, Carol's Birthday, Lecture to the incoming group of Native Speakers, live music partay in Gwangju. PHEW!!! Stay tuned for news aboot it all :D ^^