Bought a blender Monday

I had a really nice weekend again, but I felt too sick and tired to go to the baseball on Sunday :( This virus is STILL kicking my butt. On Saturday I skyped Jenni, then met up with Courtney, Nyasha, and Nyasha's workmate Casey (a guy) to go to the mall, have some ice cream, and then we went to Suwon, did some window shopping and went to a very nice wine bar in the evening. I had to go home about 11, though, as my cold was revving back up. Sunday I skyped Mum and Dad, did grocery shopping, etc. It was so good to catch up with everyone over the weekend - Mum, Dad, Jenni, and Brook! Really nice.

No teaching again today, but I have made progress with other things. First thing I went and asked Mr B about my holidays. He was super vague, and indicated they'd be sometime at the end of July. I asked if he'd asked the principal about the 5 extra days and he said he find out by tomorrow. I told him I REALLY need to know, and he seemed to understand. So, tomorrow I'm going to go to him with my work schedule sheet and ask him to confirm dates. He won't, but I'll keep going to him until he does. May is my month of getting stuff done.

In this vein, I've decided to try and write something to get published. Not sure at the moment *where* exactly this publishing will take place, but hopefully some ESL magazine or journal will take my work. So, this morning I started researching for an article on motivating/empowering students using choice, like giving them some control over the class so they like it more and stuff. Haha, I say this in a flasher way in the actual article. I've planned out what I want to get done each week, so that in about a month's time I should be finishing it up and submitting it. Academic writing, it seems, is something like riding a bike :)

Because of my cold, however, I've got a serious case of brain fog. My sinuses are so blocked it feels like a big pressure build up inside my head, which is not really helping me digest the first scholarly articles I've read in over a year :) I am very much enjoying exploring new ideas though, and I'm really looking forward to producing something with my down time - something that may even help my career. Win-Win!

Also, I may have found someone to adopt Kyle! I'm taking her into Seoul on Saturday to meet the guy. Hopefully he doesn't pull out and I'll have gotten her a nice new home. I just don't get rabbits. I think that animals that urinate in their own food supply are probably not the kind of pet I'm looking for.

So, five things:

1) I'm reading academic articles about classroom motivation and enjoying it.

2) I've found a productive way to spend some of my at work down time.

3) Sunny weather with a warm breeze - makes me happy.

4) There's been progress on the holiday dates - even a vague estimate is better than nothing.

5) Lunch today was yummy. They do this amazingly smotth baked egg thing with black sesame seeds in it. I took two squares :)

BONUS!

6) I went to E-Mart after work to buy some salt, and on a whim decided to see how much blenders were. I got one for $20! I got home and immediately blended up a frozen banana and an orange - wow! So yummy! The blender is really cute too, just a one person sized thing. I'm happy with it.

Also, I bought a sauce bottle. You know, the plastic squeeze kind with a nozzle? Well, I want to do some sinus drainage, and had to get salty water up my nose. Who needs a fancy tool when I can just squirt it up with a sauce bottle? :-D

Fish Bone Friday

Again, no teaching for me. Yet another day at my desk with nothing to do. So far I've caught up on every blog and message board I visit, done some research, and am now reading some more of 'Good Calories, Bad Calories', which is still very interesting, but is so intense I have to read it in small bits. It really should be re-titled  'Carbohydrates don't seem to be very good for you', or 'Too much insulin is pretty bad news'. It sure sounds like eating carbohydrates (other than those in fruit and vegetables) is, for the most part, really not good for your body, mostly due to the effects of on-going raised insulin levels. Looks like that causes no end of problems. Which is good to know! And I'm finding it easier and easier not to eat them :) I haven't eaten a processed carb food (on purpose - school lunch is suspect, but I'm too lazy to pack lunch each day when it's put in front of me) for maybe over a week. I'm not counting dark chocolate, which I am really starting to enjoy.

Today's school lunch was fish, which I am learning to be able to take the bones out of. I don't think I managed totally today, though, because I feel like I maybe have one stuck way down in my throat. It hurts when I swallow, anyway, and feels swollen. Not sure what to do about it, or even if it is a fish bone.

Today is also the day my co-teacher said he'd have my holidays sorted out by, but no sign of it. I'm going to start e-mailing him so I have a record, just in case I have to ask an outside source for help (like GEPIK of the MOE or something). So, this afternoon I'm going to write him a polite email reminding him that I need to know my holiday dates soon, and that if he doesn't sort it out himself I'm going to write a letter to the principal :) Not to tell on him or get him in trouble or anything, just to ask about my holidays.

Today's 5 things:

1) I got up and out the door fast enough to catch the early bus, which means I get to go home early today :)

2) It's Friday! Yay for the weekend.

3) I wore my Carebears t-shirt to work. It makes me happy.

4) It is nice and sunny again and I lay in the sun at lunch time.

5) Only 2.5 hours of boredom left until home time.

Fire Drill Thursday

I'm back at my desk all day for the next week or so :( Testing is coming up and Mr B. insists on teaching all the classes alone. Luckily, I went to class and was having a chat with the students before he came and kicked me out. I asked why all the classes had been moved forward today, and they managed to tell me it was something to do with fire safety and that they had to listen to a long talk about fire safety or something. It's REALLY good I happened to ask, because at exactly 2pm all the sirens started going off and all the students started running around a leaving the building. Mr B. never thought to tell me not to worry about all the noise and sirens (and they must be doing something outside because it smells funny (like fireworks?). If the kids hadn't told me, I would have thought North Korea was attacking of something! I could have been really scared. It's official, Mr B is a dickhead. So, now there's been loud sirens, the teachers office smells like fireworks, and their broadcasting the fire safety talk through the whole school, so all I can hear is a whole lot of Korean and smell chemicals. Not the best afternoon ever. 

Seriously, did he not think to tell me? I'm kind of starting to actually move towards hating the man. And, I don't even get to take part in the fire drill, which sucks for two reasons, 1) it's nice and sunny outside and it'd be nice to escape my desk and hangout out there for half and hour, and 2) I have no idea what to do if there actually was a fire. Unlikely, the building is all brick and stone, but still. This job sucks donkey balls.

Anyway, in the spirit of my 'five things' goal (today's going to be a tough one though):

1) Sun! Seriously, I am not made for winter.

2) I think I'm starting to look different, and I'm pretty sure my tight pants are fitting better.

3) I bought some chicken bits at E-Mart yesterday and I'm going to roast them with lemon and garlic for dinner.

4) I had a fantastic dinner out with Courtney last night. We went to the 'nice' galbi place and it was so, so good! Had a really good time talking to her too, she's such a nice person :)

5) The fire drill is finally over, and I can hear myself think again! As I wrote that one of the nice ladies in the office came and told me 'fire fighting training - alarm - you scared?'. I said thanks, but I was ok, the kids had told me it was going to happen. Um, a little too late yeah, lady? 

Open Class Wednesday

I just finished teaching the open class. No parents came at all, but three of the other Korean teachers were there for most of the lesson. They also decided at the last minute to video it all. Wow, thanks for asking if it's ok to tape me. Haha. I don't actually mind, but it's not nice to record someone at work without at least telling them. Anyway, the lesson went really well, the kids were great and it was actually a lot of fun. I doubt I'll ever get any feedback, but it was an enjoyable lesson. And Mr B. was very helpful and actually acted like a competent co-teacher. Which makes me think he does actually know how to co-teach, he's just really lazy. Which is sort of worse than not knowing.

The weather today is really crappy. It's cool and rainy, and overcast. Not cold though, so that's ok :) I wore nice clothes to work today, in honour of the open class (thought I'd better make some effort) and all the kids noticed and told me I looked pretty and beautiful. I also wore my hair down for the first time in ages and they all told me I had a small face (which is a complement over here). What suck-ups :D

I went to dinner with Courtney, Nyasha, and Nyasha's workmates last night, for duk-galbi. It's chicken and cabbage cooked in a spicy sauce at your table. It's not my favourite Korean thing, but it was a nice night. Nyasha was aghast at the fact that I'd never watched an Aerosmith music video (I'd probably be familiar with their most famous songs, but I couldn't name any of them). I don't think she actually believed me that I didn't know them. I mean, I know they're a rock band thing, but I really don't know anything about a bunch of those famous bands - The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, etc. I don't like their music at all. Haha, apparently I'm culturally stunted now :) Probably like how I felt when I met a girl who'd never seen any of the StarWars movies! But then, Nyasha said she didn't think Ricky Gervaise was at all funny, and I realised we're from different planets :D Seriously, anyone who doesn't find Ricky Gervaise both hilarious and intelligent thinks about things very differently from me! Mum gets it :)

At lunch today I accidentally ate the anti-christ of the type of food I'm trying to eat. I'm going no grains, no sugar, no vegetable/grain oils. Well, at lunch there was this unidentified fried thing. I thought it was a meat dumpling. I'm still trying to live without too much trouble, so I compromise a lot with the school lunches, so I took it even though it was fried and battered. I figured it was meat and meat is good. Haha, how wrong I was. It was a deepfried super sweetened battered bean paste ball. I am glad I tried it because now I don't feel like I missed out, but next time I'll give it a miss. So super sweet, and pasty. The kids went crazy over them. I probably would have too, at their age. Now I feel old :-D

Ok, today's five things:

1) I'm going out for dinner again tonight, to the 'nice' bbq place. Yum.

2) Open class went well.

3) I've gotten to teach (partially) 5 classes today! What a record!

4) Only an hour and a half until home time.

5) I have a small face :)

Warm Tuesday

It is fantastically worm today :) I'm in a skirt and t-shirt at work, and it's so nice. Today was a late start day for me, because I've got after-school class until 6pm. This morning I got lots of cooking done, like making soup and roasting my 'on-sale-for-being-a-bit-wrinkly' capsicums. Also, boiled some eggs, which have become my favourite 'go-to' snack. They're so tasty and portable. I like to marinate them in a bit of soy sauce in the fridge.

Today has been really normal, so far. Although, my teaching prospects for today aren't looking good. It's test week next week, and I think Mr B is going to want to do a heap of to-the-test teaching by himself. He's done it with one class today, so I'm hoping the other two will be different. Especially since the grade two girls just came and found me at lunch to beg me to come to class and teach them. Poor buggers... like I have any control over what happens. They also now thing that Mr B. has been lying to them about me being sick because when they asked me if I was ok, I said I was only a little bit sick, and they said he'd told them I was basically on death's door, and they think he lies. I tried to tell them he was being nice to me, and I was pretty sick a couple of weeks ago, but I'm not sure how much got through. I'm a little worried about them saying bad things about him, and associating it with me, because I don't need my relationship with Mr B to be any more frustrating than it already is. Well, I can only do my best, I suppose.

Lunch today was disappointing. If I had had the rice it would have been a tray full of rice, mashed sweet potato, and noodles... carb/starch overload! I had my own cauli-cabbage-butter-garlic mix with me, didn't eat the mashed kumara (other than one mouthful to determine it was globby and tasteless), but did chow down on the noodle tentacle stirfry. Yesterday was a good lunch - one of my favourite dishes pork and quail eggs in a yummy ginger sauce. Those quail eggs are the bomb! Anyway, to make up for lunch today I've got a boiled egg and some pork in my bag for an after school snack. I can't wait to eat it!

So, today's five things:

1) I watched the film/documentary 'Fat Head' last night. It's a reply to the movie 'Supersize Me' where the guy eats fast food and gets all sick and fat. Well, this guy refutes that guy and it was a really interesting and entertaining film. It made some excellent cultural points, as well as taking a good look at the carb/low fat/high fat/cholesterol... well... fuck up for want of a better term. Good film, I'd recommend it. I'm also reading Gary Taubes' 'Good Calories, Bad Calories', which is a bit heavy going at times (his writing style is a bit complex for my taste, and also pretty scientific), but the points he's making are kind of shocking and VERY interesting. Haha, but you'll have to read it yourself :)

2) It's so warm and I spent lunchtime sitting in the sun.

3) With all my down time today I've written myself a really good reference letter. I'm thinking that at some point I'm going to ask Mr B. to write me one for when I leave, but also offer to write one myself for him to read and sign. I'm hoping he takes the second option :) I'm going to get around to updating/upgrading my CV in the next few days, too.

4) I'm going to my first ever baseball game on the weekend. I've never seen a baseball game before, and I don't really know the rules or anything. Apparently it's hugely popular here, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm going with the 'Lost in Seoul' meetup group, which seems to attract nice people, so that'll be cool.

5) Banana, plain yoghurt and almonds. Enough said :)

P.S. Nope, turns out no teaching for me today.. I assume I still have after school class. I'll ask next period. I just tried to go to class, and Mr B. told me to take a rest 'for tomorrow'. Our open class is tomorrow, which he has told me in passing, must be 'perfect'. Not sure why, and it should be fine. The class was great the first time around, and should be even better the second. As long as Mr B. can keep his 'teacher talk time' (ttt - it's a real thing) to a minimum, the timing should be fine, and I expect it to go well. It's certainly not something I'm going to stress over. Having been through the lesson observations of the CELTA, this doesn't even register :)

Man, that CELTA course is one of the best things I've ever done. It was so practical and challenging. I loved it! Maybe one day I'll go for the DELTA. I heard that it's mega intense. I still worry that my time teaching here is making me crappier, not to mention lazier. Hopefully my next job can give me more valuable learning and teaching experiences. I'm certainly going to choose it with more care.

Monday's Five

I will not vent about the crazy Mr B. related frustrations of today. Instead I will simply compile a list of five nice things that have happened.

1) My neighbour's internet is back - yay!

2) I ate a really nice banana.

3) I bought some asparagus at E-Mart and had it with garlic butter.

4) I moved on to doing unassisted squats and inclined push-ups today.

5) I drank some tea. It was relaxing.

Dogs on a Sunday

It was still raining today, but that didn't stop me from hopping on the train to Seoul to meet Laura in Hongdae. We found each other no problem (I'm quite glad I've got the phone now!), and headed out to find not only lunch, but the dog cafe.

We ended up having lunch in a really cute Mexican place. It was very quiet, we were the only customers, but the food was fine and it had a nice view of the street and all the Korean people driving weird in the rain.

After filling up on quesadilla and tacos, we had to find the dog cafe, Bau House. Stuff in Korea can be really tricky to find because addresses don't work, and shops change so much that giving landmarks can be a problem. Anyway, I managed to get us pretty close, and after only a couple of minutes of wandering back streets, Laura spotted an awning in the distance with a dog on it, which turned out to be the cafe. Wasn't too hard to find after all. Although, they're moving in a month, so I'll probably never be able to go again :D

We had to wait a while to get a table, but were allowed in to see the dogs while we waited. We soon got a table, ordered a couple of hot chocolates, and I bought a bag of dog treats. We chatted, drank and played with the dogs. It was fun and the dogs were very tame, friendly, and well behaved. However, all they were interested in was food. No food = no dog love. So, it wasn't really a fulfilling dog experience, as the dogs didn't really care who you were or even want pats, just dog treats. Made me miss Jessie!!

Here's a couple of photos:

Drool hand :)

So, today's top five:

1) Met up with Laura and had a great chat.

2) Finally made it to Bau House!

3) Got a seat on the train the whole way home!

4) Spent time with cute dogs.

5) I'm going to dinner with Courtney tonight :)

Rainy Saturday

I had such a nice Saturday! I'm not sure where it went, though! It rained all day, so I stayed tucked up in my apartment nearly the whole time. In the evening, though, I went into Suwon to meet up with Amy, a girl I met when I went to Lotte World a few weeks ago. We had dinner at Outback Steakhouse, which is a seriously over-priced restaurant! In true Korean fashion they put sugar where it doesn't belong. I'm really wondering if South Korea has any kind of problem with type 2 diabetes, the amount of sugar in stuff here. Well, I had a gorgonzola steak, and the steak was cooked (or not cooked in my case) perfectly! However, the gorgonzola was whipped with cream, and it was sweet. I had to scrape it off and just eat the steak :) So, I paid about $30 for a bit of rare steak. Ah well. Amy was good company, and after dinner we wandered around the shops and she bought a dress and I got this awesome Carebears t-shirt! Sadly there was no My Little Pony ones, but I really like this one :)

What else did I do yesterday? I mainly ate, surfed the web, and did some exercise. Oh, I've discovered that whole roasted kumara eaten with butter makes a really yummy breakfast! It tastes a lot like a hot muffin with butter. So, I've been roasting a batch of sweet potatoes in my toaster oven and then keeping them in the fridge. Then, when I want one, zap it in the microwave for a minute, grab some butter and eat. It's really nice. I think if you ate it with berries, or sprinkled some ginger or cinnamon on top it might be even better. I'll give it a go :)

Also, for yesterday's lunch I had some pigs feet! They're called jokbal (족발) and they're quite popular here. They take the pig's trotters and boil them for ages in a secret sauce and then chop it up and sell it at the market. They come out really sticky, gooey, and tasty (though I have to put salt on mine. Korea has too much sugar and not enough salt). I reheat the jokbal under the grill and it's very tasty. However, it is VERY fatty, which I enjoy, but it's even a bit much for me sometimes. Yesterday I finished off my pack, I'd left the bones until last, so I had a heap of gooey, tasty pig foot bones for lunch. yum!

What else? Well, it looks like I won't be going to the Lady Gaga concert, after all. I just found out that you have to be there four hours before the concert starts, or you lose you place and have to take whatever space is left after everyone is inside the stadium. Also, Nyasha found out she has to work that day and can't come with me. It sucks because I can't get into Seoul that early, and there was no mention of this when I bought the tickets. I'm not terribly upset because I'm actually not that super keen on the new Lady Gaga CD anyway. It would have been cool to go and see her, but I'm not really a huge fan, so to have to go alone and have crappy standing room positions makes me more interested in getting my tickets refunded.

And here's a few photos of stuff I've talked about this week but haven't put pictures with:

This is the exercise park by the river.

Footpaths are covered in seedlings for sale.

Today (Sunday) I'm off to Hongdae with Laura to visit a dog petting cafe. Interesting!

More complaints on a Thursday

Korea gets a bit of flack from expats for being so proud of it's 'four seasons'. A really common questions, after 'where are you from', 'how old are you', and 'do you like kimchi', is 'does your country have four seasons'. It sometimes seems like Koreans believe that no other country has four seasons. However, they might be onto something, at least in regards to New Zealand. Now, New Zealand has four seasons, but after having been in Korea for 3 out of four seasons, NZ's are really not well defined. In Korea you really know what season it is, and the changes are rapid and drastic. In in it just kind if gets more or less rainy, and slightly warmer and colder. I'm quite enjoying the 'four seasons of Korea' :D

It's another beautiful day, and I'm once again stuck in the stuffy teacher's room with nothing to do. My neighbours Internet connection went down last night, prompting me to try and get my own fixed - AGAIN. Mr B. says someone might come round tonight to 'fix' it. Really, I don't know that it needs fixing so much as upgrading. Oh well, we will see. If this works, great. If not, tomorrow I will insist on getting a new, fast plan.

I booked some accommodation in Busan for the long weekend at the end of May. I'm planning on hanging out at the beach and eating ice-cream for a couple of days. If it stays at this temperature or gets warmer, it should be perfect! All I have to do now is book the train tickets to get down there. The website won't let me book more than a month in advance, so I'm going to do it as soon as I'm able. Long weekends here get insane and everything gets totally booked out. Though, I've heard that no one's interested in the beach unless it's the middle of August, so there's some slight chance that it won't be too manic. As long as I can get an ice-cream and find a spot on the beach to laze on, I'll be happy :) 

In other news, my uncle Mark, who lives in Phuket, has invited me to stay with him when my contract finishes in Korea. That'll be awesome! I'm a sucker for warm weather and sunshine.

*       *       * (Written Friday morning)

All I ever seem to do these days is complain! I can't seem to help myself... there's so much to complain about, and sometimes, once I've written it down on here, it kind of gets out of my system. So, here are two more of my 'frustrations in Korea' from Thursday.

The first one comes from the lesson plan I did for the open class. As you know, I gave it to Mr B. the other day and asked him to read it over and let me know if he wanted anything changed. Well, yesterday, he again wouldn't let me teach, but asked me to come and explain the lesson plan to the class we're going to do it with. I assumed he's read through it and was happy. So, I explain it to the class, and then he explains it in Korean, only as he's doing so, it becomes clear it's the first time he's even looked at it. I've got 10 minutes set aside for a 'test' (really just a worksheet), and he told the students it's be small, like one or two questions. I gave him copies of all the materials, and it's more like 15 questions (but they're EASY fill in the blank things). So, he turns to me in front of the class, during class time and starts telling me that that's too long, it should only be 5 minutes, and the game should be longer. Then he asked which activity was the game, and blah blah blah. I was just like "well, what if I call it a 'worksheet' and not a 'test'? Is it ok then?". He said we'd talk about it later, haha. I seriously doubt that. So, I'm just going to leave things as they are. If he isn't going to read it over and discuss it with me, I'm going to go ahead and do my own thing. If he wants a collaborative plan, he needs to collaborate. If he wants to have things his way, HE can plan the damn thing. Seriously, how hard is it to check over the lesson plan before telling me to present it to the class? 

The second one is my screwy internet. My awesome neighbours' connection is down again, so I have to use my own, which sucks. I can't play or even skype well on it. So, once again I went to Mr B. and asked him about he. He seems super reluctant to let me change providers. So, he calls someone, and then tells me someone will call me in the evening to come around and fix it. I asked if they'd speak English. He was like "no, sorry". Lol, so I get this phone call from a guy who seriously speaks no English, somehow work out he's coming round. So he does, he clicks around my network settings (turning my wireless on and off appeared to be the majority of the clicking), and then swaps my ethernet cable for a shorter one, then says he's done. I asked him to wait a sec. I logged into Starwars and showed him the massive lag that makes it unplayable. He said, well motioned, that he didn't know what the problem was, sorry, and left. Sooooo, I need new internet! But, it's Friday and I don't want to go totally without a connection all weekend, so I'm going to tell (not ask) Mr. B. to cancel my internet on Monday and then call the company that has an English help desk and get the 'fast' plan from them. Once again, what is the common frustrating denominator in this equation of Korean inefficacy? Yeah, Mr. B.

Ok, my complaining is done for now.

Here's five things from Thursday that made me happy:

1) Sun!

2) I started reading the Hunger Games books. They actually aren't very good in my opinion, it feels like the author's been really lazy, the pacing is a bit off (what was supposedly weeks in the book read like it was about 4-5 days), and a lot of really interesting avenues have been left totally unexplored. But, they are an easy and entertaining read and made my day quite pleasant.

3) Some of the second grade girls came and talked to me at lunch time. They were really sweet and said they liked me teaching them and stuff. It was nice :)

4) The blossoms are still out and they're beautiful.

5) I went out for dinner with Courtney, Nyasha, and some of Nyasha's workmates. The food was good, as was (most of) the company :)   

*Cough cough* Wednesday

I'm still coughing and Mr B. still won't let me teach :) I tried to go to class this morning, and he kicked me out (in the nicest way). He goes "are you ok to teach?". I said yeah, I just might cough a bit (and then had to cough), and he was like "Oh, no. You go take a rest and work on the lesson plan for the open class". *Sigh*. OK.

Well, we finally had THAT meeting for the open class lesson. Well, Mr B. took 2 minutes to tell me information he'd already given me, and then told me to make a lesson plan. Seriously.  Oh, and he asked if I knew the game 'pin the tail on the donkey' and could we play it during the open class. I said that yes, I knew it, but that no, we couldn't play it. Aside from the fact it has no English component at all.... 30 12 year olds running around with pins during a demo class? That is a very bad idea! I told him I'd find a better game :)

So, I spent a few happy hours yesterday fully engaged in making this lesson plan for the open class. It really made the day fly by! I made a nice powerpoint, a small test, and a couple of games (which actually use the target language of the lesson!). I also had to make a formal lesson plan, with learning outcomes, lesson timings, etc. Haven't done that for ages! The lesson Mr B wants to focus on from the book seems to cover a bunch of different target language, and I couldn't make much sense of it to tell you the truth. It seemed to focus on greetings, how to say thank you, asking 'really' and 'is that right', the correct use of 'has/have' and 'do/does' as well as the subject of families. Which, if you ask me is a bit much for one 45 minute lesson. So, I chose to focus really closely on just using 'do/does' and 'have/has'. I like the lesson I've designed, but we'll see if Mr B. wants something different. He didn't really give me much to go off :)

So, I had all of yesterday to make one 45minute lesson plan. Not hard at all! So, I printed out the draft and gave it to Mr B. this morning. He was like "What!? Already???". Um, yeah. What did you think I was doing for hours yesterday? 

I've been thinking about my old job a bit recently. I used to teach a lot more hours that I do now, and also had to do more planning, but I spent way less time at work. I used to teach for 5 hours a day, and do maybe 4 hours of planning (including materials prep) time a week. So, that's a 30(ish) hour work week (though much of my planning was done at home). Here I'm at work 40 hours a week and do jack-all. Earnings were roughly equivalent. I think I really need to start 'making the most' of my time here in Korea to kind of make up for this. Otherwise I'm left with a crappy job, and not much reason for being here!

Anyway, the spring blossoms finally bloomed for real yesterday. I got off the bus early to walk by the river a bit after work, and the trees looked amazing. It's very pretty and I took some pictures. Because it's spring, the footpaths have been taken over by people selling seedlings. It makes me want to garden! Sadly, not enough light gets in my apartment for me to even grow a healthy succulent plant, so no home grown vegetables for me. To tell the truth, I actually hate gardening, and I'm pretty sure my plants would die. It sure is warming up though. It's like someone flipped the switch, and all of a sudden it's spring! Almost time to do some summer clothes shopping...

Crazy with boredom Monday

I had a nice enough weekend, but didn't do much. I'm still sick. Just the swollen throat has turned into one mother of a cough. It's not making me feel super awful, but it is so tiring coughing all the time! I went to the park to see the cherry blossoms, though I think I'll try again next weekend because they were only sort of out on Saturday. Saturday night was snacks at Courtney's house, which was fun. On Sunday I went for a big walk in the sunshine and played the computer.

Today, because of the excessive coughing, Mr B. wouldn't let me teach again, so I had to sit at my desk all day and just read, surf the internet, and cough. To top it off, lunch sucked. It was the horrible fish thing with bones in again, and salad. Yuck. Horrible day, really. 

And we still didn't have that super urgent 'you must come to work' effing meeting.

Some days I'm really not sure how much more of this I can take. I'm convinced that if I can just start seeing things in the right way, I'll be as happy as Larry, but right now I'm stumped.

To make myself feel better I bought some steak for dinner. It was expensive, so hopefully it's nice. If it's no good, then the next time I have a bad day, I'm just going to shell out $20-30 at the steak restaurant along the block. With bacon.

Here's some flower photo's to counteract my shit-tastic mood:

These yellow one and the purple ones seem to grow wild all ove r the place.

Very bright!

I cheated, there were in a hot house.

I'm not an expert photographer. I point and shoot with my camera on automatic mode.

Blossoms!

Add caption

Technically nothing to do with spring, but orchids are amazing.

Ok, I'm off to cook my steak. With butter. With garlic butter. And bacon. Mmmmmmm.....

Arrrrrrg! Friday.

That's a sound of frustration, not a pirate :D

After being so good to me yesterday about being sick, my co-teacher has once again turned dumb-ass. Yesterday he taught all my classes, and then when I attempted to teach my after school class, he cancelled it halfway through because he was 'concerned about my health'.. That was really nice of him (though it would have been a lot nicer if he'd cancelled it beforehand and just let me go home early). Anyway, I woke up this morning in a really bad way. My throat was so, so swollen, I could barely swallow, and my voice was wall weird. So, I texted Mr Baek and told him I was going to the doctors, and wouldn't be at school.. He rang me and told me I had to come to school so we could have a meeting about the open class (a class that parents can come and watch) that's happening in two weeks. He could hear my voice, and knew it was bad, but insisted I had to come for this meeting. So I asked if I could go to the doctor first, then come in. After he sorted that out in his head, that's what I did.

So, the doctor's given me some more medicine. Because the last stuff didn't 'cure my virus' he's now given me antibiotics to take for three days. I'm a bit wary of taking them. I know I'm no doctor, but I don't feel very confident I have a bacterial infection to cure (Doc was like "Hmmmm, maybe this will help?"), and if I take the antibiotics they're going to cause me other problems :( So, I've got my three days worth of pills, but I'm not going to start taking them until Monday, just in case things improve on their own. Nurofen knocks the symptoms down to totally bearable, so that's ok.

Back to Mr Baek. So, I'm pretty sick, he insists I come in for some meeting that's just me and him. The class isn't for two weeks, and I don't have to work on it over the weekend or anything. What I'm getting at is that it could certainly wait until Monday. I've been at work since 11, he said we'd have the meeting after lunch, and it's now nearly 3pm. He keeps asking me if I'm ok, because I look bad, and sound bad. I've tried all kinds of variations, and just get sympathetic non-committal noises in response. "I'm O.K", "Well, I'm not dying", "No, not really" - I don't think he's actually listening to me at all. And when I got in this morning he wanted to see my note from the doctor, and for me to go and say hello to the vice principle with him, So I went, VP asked me in Korean if I was ok, I said "Yes", and I was dismissed. 

Soooo, now I've just been sitting at my desk since 11am. Luckily I've actually had some work to do! I've had some exam questions to write for all the grades, but I'm all done now. I'm going to have to proofread it all next week when I'm not so sick to make sure there's not spelling errors all over the show. And now I've run out of work, feel crappy because I ate a chocolate muffin after going to the doctor (it wasn't even very good and made me feel kinda sick), and am waiting to see if this Very Important Meeting is even going to happen. My bet is it will, in maybe an hour, and will be a total waste of time and he probably could have just emailed me what he wants or waited until freakin' Monday.

What makes me so frustrated (I nearly cried in frustration at the water cooler!) is that Mr B will come over to talk to me, and hear my voice. My voice sounds like you'd expect a person with an innertube instead of a throat to sound (Ew, just freaked myself out with thoughts of 'The Stand'). Anywho, he can hear my discomfort, so he say - EVERY TIME - "Oh, are you ok? Are you sure you're ok?". NO YOU RETARD! I TOLD YOU, I'M REALLY SICK. I WANTED THE DAY OFF WORK. NO, I'M *NOT* OK!!!.. And then, I'll stab him with my jumbo-sized ballpoint pen, just to make my point.

Ahhh, cathartic. 

FYI: Crappy chocolate muffins are not cathartic. I made a conscious choice to eat them, but it was the wrong decision. Ah well, BBQ with Courtney tonight. I'mma order that fatty meat and make it alllll better.

Today's five things:

1) Imagining stabbing Mr B with my pen.

2) Imagining stabbing Mr B with my collection of flower shaped push-pins.

3) Imaging clipping bulldog clips to Mr B's nose.

4) Rubbing kimchi in all his tiny stab wounds.

5) Then ask, "Ooooh, are you Ok, Mr B?".

Mwahahahahahahaha.


*                    *                     *
I'd just like to add to this, now that the day is over. There was no meeting.

I'm Tired Thursday

Strangest thing, ever since I stopped eating grains and sugars, like the very day after, I've been waking up between 6 and 6.30am every day. I'd been having a lot of trouble waking up, especially when it was very dark during winter. I'd adjusted my mornings to let me wakeup with as much light as I could. This helped, but I was still waking up very groggy and unwilling to get out of bed. Which is really unlike me. I used to just wakeup, spend a minute or two coming two, and then be up and at 'em. Now, it's light much earlier, I'm waking up earlier, and feeling better about it. Not sure if it's the food, or the light, or both, or neither, but it's good.

I'm at work today, but my co-teacher offered to do all the teaching. I think I probably look and sound like total crap, so that was really nice of him. I am very tired. I've been having a lot of trouble getting to sleep in the last few days - maybe the medicine the doctor gave me? Not sure, but last night I was semi-awake for hours. Poo.

I'm going to try and go out ti dinner tonight. Hopefully I don't feel too sick. It'll be a nice distraction :)

Five things for today:

1) This is actually from Tuesday, but I only remembered just now: Mr Baek texted me in the evening saying "Are you ok? I've been worried about you all day", which was really nice and thoughtful of him.

2) He also did all the teaching today, though I am going to try and do my after school class.

3) It was so sunny this morning! I opened the window on the bus and looked at all the fields starting to turn green.

4) I can see buds on all the trees, just ready to burst into flower.

5) We had roast pork for lunch at school today - yum! No cracking, but the meat was nice. Plus lots of fat, which is keeping me nice and full. Normally I'm starving by now.

Signs of Spring Wednesday

Today was election day in Korea, which is great because it means those damn annoying trucks won't be at the bus stop any more. Seriously, I'm pretty sure it's a good way to get people *not* to vote for you - park in the busy bus area, where there's only just enough space for all the buses and people, and blare loud, obnoxious noise at the at 7am. Not cool! 

I didn't feel well at all this morning, so I stayed home most of the day and didn't go to the park as planned. I did go on a big walk around Osan, though, and found a few signs of spring! Also, I only wore a normal jumper, no down jacket required - woohoo!

Yeah, so a nice day. I feel like whatever this virus I have is, it's about to turn into a world class cough, so I'll probably be taking cough pills FOREVER. Back to school tomorrow, hopefully it is an easy day!

Today's five things:

1) Sunshine

2) Flowers

3) I ate a really yummy hard-boiled egg

4) I saw a cute puppy

5) I did one or two for real-almost-got-my-nose-to-the-ground girl push up. 

Getting Better Tuesday

My myriad magic mystery pills seem to be doing the trick. My throat is still swollen, but doesn't hurt much, and the fluttering and body aches have stopped as of this morning. Which is awesome, because that was seriously weird! Tentative +1 for the Korean doctor :)

Not much to report today. Just stayed at home apart from a half hour walk around the block in the rain. I'm going to the park tomorrow (assuming I'm better), for a nice stroll. Also, today, managed to skype mum for the first time in a whole month! Last time we talked was March 10th. So, that was fantastic! I got caught up on home happenings :)

And because I don't have much to say today, here's some (random) photos:

My bunny (official name: Kyle, but I just call her Bun-bun or hop-along)

Entrance to Lotte World

Part of the inside section of the theme park.

Disneyland rip-off much?

Looked awesome in the evening.

I made pork-belly and roasted beetroot in my toaster oven for Easter dinner.

I promise to try and take some more photos of stuff!

Also, just to compare to my meal examples below, here's the type of thing I've been eating for the last week and a half:

Breakfast: None, or a seafood omelette.
Lunch: School lunch, but I take my own vegetables and swap out the rice.
Dinner: Beef patty (home made), egg, lettuce, tomato, cheese, eggplant, and some mayonnaise.
Snacks: Almonds (oh, they are so delicious!), fruit.

Today:
Breakfast: Boiled egg and left-over roast pork, and a banana.
Lunch: Tuna and pumpkin hash with tomatoes, almonds, and beetroot.
Dinner: Not sure yet. Not very hungry. Maybe just some of my coconut jelly.
Snacks: an orange, small amount of dark chocolate (and I mean really small).

Much better!!

Sick Monday

Saturday night was heaps of fun. I was invited by Coutney's boyfriend, Mike, to go to a Cameroon gathering. Sadly, there were apparently way fewer people that unusual, and also much less food, but I still enjoyed it. They had a really formal meeting before hand, and I felt totally anthropologist-y for being there and watching. I felt like I was sitting in a chapter of 'Mama Lola', only with no Voudou. I honestly did find it interesting, but it did only add to my ideas that one of the major things wrong with the world today is poorly functioning committees and overly democratic leadership. Nothing every gets done and everything gets nit-picked to death. And this meeting was no different, which meant we didn't get to eat until 10.30 at night.

When we were able to eat dinner, it was delicious! It was rice and a chicken dish in a creamy, spicy sauce. It actually tasted very much like a spicier version of my mum's baked cream tarragon chicken. I enjoyed it a lot. However, I though there were going to be vegetable options, so I could avoid eating grains, but there weren't so I just ate the rice. Not the end of the world, and I enjoyed the food a lot!

However, I started to develop a sore throat over the evening, and a funny, mild chest flutter. It got worse over Sunday. I was so sore and achy (even my skin hurt) that I had trouble sleeping last night. I woke up this morning and I thought it was getting better, but once I got off the bus at school, I could barely walk up the hill, and my chest flutter came back quite persistently. I gave it over an hour to clear up, but it didn't, so I left school to go to the doctor. Mr B wanted to know if I'd come back to work after I'd seen the doctor. I said I didn't know, it's depend on what the doc said. Mr B said ok, I could have four hours leave, and to text him if I wasn't coming back. That's fine, but it was 11am, four hours would mean I'd get back to school at 3pm. Classes are over at 3pm, and I'm obviously sick and going to the doctor... why would I go back to work for two hours for no reason? 

Anywho, because of all his fussing, I missed the bus and had to wait over half an hour for the next one. Then I got to the doctors, waited a while, and got in. I told the doctor my symptoms and he goes "Oh, that's really not good". Haha, things you DON'T say to a patient who's worried about a fluttery chest, right? Anyway, he checked me out, and took one look at my throat and decided that it was so swollen it was causing a heap of my symptoms. He said I've got a bad virus, and that my throat swelling was making my lower oesophagus spasm lightly and giving me a stiff neck. He wrote me a note to get off work tomorrow and a prescription for some mystery drugs (though no antibiotics, I checked this time). 

So, I am very sore, achy, and swallowing is a bit uncomfortable, but at least I'm fairly confident I'm not about to have a heart attack or stroke. Also, it cost me under $4 to see the doctor and just over $2 for three days of assorted pills. No wonder everyone goes to the doctor for everything over here.

Luckily, I have a whole lot of food pre-cooked sitting in the fridge, so I don't have to try and convince myself to cook something healthy, it's all just there :) I am totally not exercising though!!!

Long time no see Saturday

I know, I know, a whole week with no update. Shame on me.

Well, all I can say in my defence is that nothing really happened. The week was a bit of a struggle in its overall blandness, hit a hight point on Thursday, and then hit rock bottom on Friday, and today, Saturday, is very nice, so far.

Last Sunday I went into Seoul and got a cute pair of handmade earrings from the craft market and some lunch from Taco Bell. I also had a nice browse through the book store, but didn't buy anything.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were so same-same I don't even remember them. Mr Beak seems to have totally thrown my teaching schedule out the window and now just tells me right before he wants me to teach that I'm on. Or he'll come into the classroom when I'm five minutes into a lesson and tell me to 'take a break', he'll teach it alone. So, because I have next to no schedule, and no was to know what they're up to in class, and no real way to plan for all that uncertainty, I've stopped caring a little bit. Last week was full of 'get in there and teach from the book and somehow get through 45 minutes. It is not the teacher I want to be, but I can't see too much choice.

Thursday was a good day because all my classes (all two of them plus after school class) were enjoyable and there weren't any major mess-up, interruptions, or discipline issues.

Friday sucked because it was the exact opposite. And then there was some kind of sports afternoon for the kids, which no one told me about, and I was left alone in the teacher's room with nothing to do all afternoon. To make matters worse, lunch wasn't very good that day, so I hadn't eaten much, so I was tired, bored, and hungry. Sucked all round!!

Today, Saturday is a really nice day, though. It's chilly, but the sun is shining, and the sky is blue. I spring cleaned the whole house this morning, including totally scrubbing down my rabbit's living area and washing all her towels. Then I went for a walk, window shopped, and then stopped in at LotteMart to see if they sold gelatin. Score! They do! So no I have some home made pineapple-coconut jelly setting in the fridge.

Why have I made jelly, you ask? Well, I had a bit of a life revolution last weekend. Possibly why my week has seemed so non-existent - I've been concentrating so hard on other things.

Well, it all started with my friend Jenni (I blame her entirely). She's a qualified personal trainer, and she wrote me an awesome indoor fitness plan that I can do in my apartment. It's been so cold outside, I've been pretty inactive these last few months. So, I started exercising. Then I though, why not keep track of how much of stuff you can do? I've always been awful at push-ups and whatnot (I actually can't even do one). So, on Sunday I got a notebook to write it down. So, that was healthier me, step one.

Now for step two, and it's a biggie. My diet in Korea has been downright awful. Like seriously appalling. One days food might be: 

Breakfast: Sugary cereal with strawberries and milk.

Lunch: School lunch with tonnes of rice.

Dinner: Two slices of combination pizza.

Snacks: Chocolate, chips, biscuits (often the whole box).

Or:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with lots of sugar and milk.

Lunch: School lunch with tonnes of rice.

Dinner: 2 minute noodles made with packet cheese and processed fish cake.

Snacks: choco-pie biscuits, marshmallow-fluff mixed with peanut butter.

Notice the almost total lack of vegetables or meat (or any actual 'food' for that matter). I'd never eat like this at home! I realised something had to change when I reached my highest weight in 3 years on Saturday. It's not the most I've ever weighed, and I'm still a totally healthy weight, but that'd change pretty quickly if I kept going. In the middle of the night on Saturday I woke up starving and ate a big chocolate mellow-puff type thing. I'd been eating them all week, and I realised that they were horrible, and that eating them in the middle of the night was definitely NOT healthy behaviour.

By pure coincidence at some point on Saturday or Sunday I stumble upon this website. I wasn't even looking for anything health related, I followed a link at Zen Habits, one of the blogs on my sidebar. It's about eating 'primally'. Now, I am super totally completely not a fan of labelling like this, and I'm also not keen on following one guy's word on a subject (like this Mark Sisson guy, or Atkins, or Jesus). But... what he says (Mark, not Atkins or Jesus) makes sense to me. In fact, I believe my whole family believes in much of what he says, I'd just never really thought about it and how it affected me. I've always been a healthy weight, and have just assumed that meant more or less 'healthy'.

I think I've been kinda wrong, though. I've read Pollan's work, seen Food Inc., and lots more through my Masters research, and always agreed wholeheartedly with their 'eat real food not this processed shit' philosophy. I'd just never thought to try. Plus there was a ton of stuff mixed up in there about vegetarianism (which I disagree with), corporate blah-blah-blah (I don't really want to mix business and food), and the fact that I actually like/love ice-cream, cake, and home made pizza. So, I agreed with the philosophy, but in no real way felt motivated to pursue it with any real intent to change.

So, not sure what changed. Maybe it's that I live alone for now, so changes seem less daunting. Maybe it's that I've dedicated the next few years of my life to myself and doing whatever makes me happy. Maybe it's because I have no way to make a home made pizza in my tiny kitchen. But, the stars have aligned, I'm most of the way through Mark Sisson's book 'The Primal Blueprint', and I haven't eaten a grain or sugar in six days. And I'm exercising like a caveman :D

Now, I am notoriously flaky about some things. Hobbies, food, and exercise are the top three things I always (seriously, without fail) never stick to. At least I'm consistent in my inconsistency. But I don't really intend to stick to this 100% FOREVER. I want to do it as much as I can, as often as I can, and return to it whenever I want to. It'd be great if I could just commit, but I think that trying to do that might create more of an urge to rebel. I've thought about it, and yeah, I'd actually prefer to die a bit earlier and eat pizza and ice cream sometimes.

It's all very new and shiny, and we'll see if I can actually feel any of the benefits that this 'blueprint' is supposed to help  me achieve. They are all things that are wrong right now and that I need to fix anyway, so I figure, give it at least 30 days to see if it's going to help.

What I want to achieve:

Lose the 5kg I've put on in the last 6 months.

Maintain weight.

Sleep better.

Have more, and more consistent, energy levels throughout the day.

Be stronger/fitter.

What I'm doing to achieve this:

All kinds of exercise.

Not watching TV right before bed.

Eating no sugar or grains.

Yeah, so, my current goal is to make it to Wednesday without deviating. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.