Sunny Side Up

Ian and I haven't been having the best week.  So, instead of writing yet again about what's going wrong, I'd rather tell you about some of the cool plans (or very vague plans) that we have in the future.

First, though, I do want to share a short Julia story from today.  She showed up at Ha So with (real) coffee for all the teachers, which was really nice of her.  Then as I was preparing for my classes she came into my office.  She wanted to know what I was doing in each class so that she could make worksheets.  I told her that as today is Wednesday (the last day of our week, unit-wise) that there was no need for her to do that.  Actually, I explained that three times because she didn't understand me.  When she finally understood, she made me go through each book and explain what I was doing next week.  She'll make worksheets for those days.  Her worksheets are almost never comprehensible and always useless.  After informing me of how helpful she was going to be she left my office.  I went into the lobby to make copies for my classes.  When I came back to my office she was standing in it.  And- and this is the best part- she had rearranged my office.  She move the table and the bookshelf, but that's not all.  She even moved the things that were on my table and she put my jacket and backpack on the other chair.  She thought she was helping, saying that the office looked bigger her way.  It does, but it is inconveniently arranged now.  But, I told her it was fine and continued my life.  I can't believe the level of control freak that woman is.

Now on the the fun stuff.

On Saturday we are going to Seoul for Christmas shopping.  We'll be spending most our time at Namdaemun Market because it's got soem great shopping for traditional and nontraditional stuff.  Any ideas for what you want?  Suggestions are happily welcomed.  We'll have Indian at a place called "Tandoori" that's supposed to be super vegetarian friendly.  We're excited.

On December 5th we're joining a bunch of foreigners that we don't know at Lotte World in Seoul.  Asia Sohn, our recruiter from ESL Park invited all the recruits she "kidnapped" to join her there.  She wants to meet us all as she's moving to California on December 17th.  I can't help but feel a bit abandoned.

We are going to Japan (Tokyo) for Christmas break, but our plans are not finalized yet.  I asked Chun wha to help us with a Korean website that would get us cheaper fares and she finally talked to me about it today.  All she said was that she didn't know how to help us.  So, we'll end up paying more than we'd like to.  So, we're going to the bank Friday morning to transfer money to the states to buy our tickets.  We want to use our American account because it's easier for us to keep track of it that way.  It's tough to think about the holidays since we're not going home, but I'm glad we're not staying in Korea.  That would be far too difficult.

We will be using a three day weekend in February to go to China.  That's how we'll celebrate Ian's birthday.  Ian wants to go to Beijing, so that's our first choice; but, we've still got to shop around for prices and destination ratings.

Summer break is a long way away, but we've still thought about it.  Australia is on the list because we want to see it and it is very expensive to fly there from home, but not so much from here.  We've also talked about South East Asia.  Maybe Thailand?  It's all still very up in the air.

It will be a jouyous day (August 31st, 2010 to be exact) when our 영어숲 contracts are up.  It may sound crazy, but we're not coming straight home.  Our plan is to use our "finishing your contract" bonuses to see a few more countries as we head in the direction of the USA.  We know we want to see India and maybe Nepal.  Other ideas are Germany, Czech Republic, Romania, France, Ireland and so on.  It's what we look forward to.  It keeps us pushing through this.

You now know as much about our future as we do.  Good night!