Stringy Not Loopy

Today was the start of Korean lessons! And so Heather, Chris and I trudged to our respective bus stops at ten this morning, two of us a bit under the weather (the two soju participants, heh heh). Armed with coffee, pepero, and Coke, we headed downtown, chatting merrily. I was pleasantly pleased to have an easier time squeezing into the small bus seats. Yay broken leg diet!

After grabbing a deeeelicious McDonald's breakfast, we headed over to the YMCA where we had our first Korean lessons. It was definitely entry level, but I enjoyed the class, practicing my pronunciation, and putting some hoity-toity brat in her place. "I just don't get it! How is this being conjugated!" she proclaimed in the first lesson of an entry-level class when we are trying to master the ALPHABET. After confusing our four instructors and getting excessive eye rolls from Heather, I explained, "It's the command form." It kind of wasn't, but she was quiet after that and I was established as the Queen of the Universe once again.

Then H, C, and I went to an Indian restaurant. I'd never had Indian food before, and it was delicious! After teaching about curry and nan to my kids in Carnival 4, I finally got to experience it, and it was really, really good. It was spicy for sure, but in a very interesting and flavorful sort of way.

Throughout the afternoon I puttered around, played some computer games, and in general relaxed my foot/ankle/leg/knee. It's time to stop living in denial: my leg isn't 100%, and it's okay to have a low key day. To reward my inactivity (haha), I made a truly miraculous invention: The Camembert Bagel Bomb. I took 126 grams (whatever that is?) of Camembert and warmed it through and through until it was all melty, then smashed the daylights out of it between a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel from Costco. If you're having troubles with too many trips to the bathroom in a day, I recommend it! Deeeeelicious~

Saving the World

One shot of soju at a time? Actually, today wore me out so much at school that I fell asleep during physical therapy. I also fell asleep after dinner, and decided to skip out on tonight's festivities. I'm glad to have my leg up (for some reason a muscle in my shin is just killing me), and to be able to spend some quality time with lolcats.

Maybe trade out "predator" for "globe traveler," and you've got me. :)


more animals

Miss Chris is Making me Blog

I thought about trying to think of something this morning, but per Kate's usual, I procrastinated up until the moment someone brought my inactivity to my attention. (Those who have known me for a while may remember the Senior Thesis of '04. And '05. And '06.)

School has been a flurry of transitions. In seven of my classes, we changed to new books, and I'm having fun seeing that my kids have actually learned, and that they are able to apply the past to the present. Now not only can we say, "Mike is reading a book," we can say, "Mike is reading a book in the library." Sometimes it's "Mike is read book in library," but it's all a long learning progress.

The countdown has started for when Mel and Kevin will flee the peninsula for greener (whiter?) pastures. Mel will be headed to Canada for a while to hang out with her previously-departed BFF Ashley, while Kevin will embark on an adventure on a trans-Siberia train ride. I'd hate to copycat him, but it actually sounds pretty cool. I'm very interested in the idea of taking some sort of slow transportation to see some countryside: train would be cool, but I'm also kind of interested in taking a boat home. (Slow boat from China anyone?)

For dinner today, Yuria and I reconnected and we went for chicken galbi. It was totally different from the regular galbi! It was chunks of chicken (no really?) with cabbage, rice cakes, and red pepper paste (of course). They brought out this HEAPING platter and of course we cooked it in front of ourselves. Instead of a dangerous (potentially leg-burning) pot of hot coals, it was more like a shallow, wide slow cooker, and we pushed the stuff around, scraping the bottom, for about five minutes. Then we let it cook down and enjoy! There were about ten side dishes, including squid tentacles (do they have tentacles or legs?), cold radish soup, weird tofu + kimchi concoction, broccoli in some sauce, and others I didn't recognize. I do think it's interesting that in the past week I've had six side dishes I didn't recognize, even though I'm on my sixth (!!!!!!) month in Korea.

I have pictures, but again, we're facing the lazy/procrastinating issue, so stay tuned...

New Year Birthday

By the way... January 1st of every year, everyone in Korea flips their age tag up another year. By the Korean calendar, I'm not 25: I'm 27. Blech.

That said, I had my boys all riled up about turning eight, and I asked them, "How old is Kate Teacher?" "One hundred!" "Forty-seven?" "MY DAD IS EIGHTY-SEVEN!" "My mom is thirty-two." I love kindergarten.

Are you naked sittin' in a bean bag chair eatin' cheetos?

Well, no, but close. For those who aren't familiar with the title of this post, it's a line from a Ron White skit. Crass and delightful.

So I thought I had my epiphany relating to what I want to do with my life, but now I wonder if it was the rumblings of a tired girl looking forward to going back to her six-year-olds (who think they're eight). Something that I hate about democrats' economic policy is the "rob the rich and give to the poor" strategy. For instance, I don't want my hard-earned money to be taxed and given to undeserving artists or wasted on a new library when the old one still functions very well--particularly as paper circulation of books peters off with titles available electronically, now. (And how is abandoning one library to build a brand new one "green?" Just how many building materials and irreplaceable resources would we destroy for aesthetics and the privilege to call it green? To be honest, I think it's very green in its current state--it's a recycled bowling alley!)

People counter with, well what about the genuinely poor? I strongly believe that we should help the genuinely poor--those who really are physically or mentally incapable of holding a steady job. (As a bagger at a local grocery store, I saw my fair share of people paying with food stamps then having me carry their groceries to a car newer than my parents' and was once instructed not to set the groceries on the "new subwoofer.") I think that the power of deciding who is worthy and who isn't should be in the hands of local charities and not in those of big government. Seriously, we can financially support artists (and billion-dollar bailouts of private companies) but America has between 700,000 and 2,000,000 homeless people each night? That is like the entire city of Denver being turned out of their homes each night!

The post got a little more politically charged than I anticipated, but I'm still in my youth and likely to leave it.

I want to work for a charity, I think in fund raising. When I was in high school, I volunteered hundreds of hours at Deaconess-Billings Clinic. I infinitely preferred going to work for free there than my aforementioned job of bagging groceries at Albertson's. I pushed wheelchairs, took pictures of crying babies, folded gauze, and ran X-ray files all over, spending my free time talking with the terminally ill in oncology. The whole conversation is lost on me now, but I remember a comment mom made about how I could be a philanthropist when I grew up. And now, nearly a decade later, I think she's right.

Beyond that, I don't really have much insight, other than I feel relief not to focus on a high-powered job as a lawyer, judge, or doctor anymore. It feels like some day in the not-too-distant future, I might be able to have a job, husband, and family that I love. And I don't think I could ask for anything more. Well, except for maybe a bean bag chair.

Epiphany Brewing

I have nothing brilliant to say because I'm mulling.

In other news, Mel walked out into the middle of the street and wrangled a taxi going the right way but on the very opposite side of the five-lane street. Pretty cool.

Happy New Year!

So it's a little late, but my internet was down. I had the most forgettable night of my life, apparently, New Year's Eve thanks to some evil Italian poison. Fortunately there was a Gossip Girl marathon on yesterday, and aside from a quick jaunt for BBQ chicken so hot it made my tongue burn, I spent the day with the remote and enjoyed a blissfully uneventful day.

Today, then, I had a whole day's energy stored up. I woke up, took care of my internet problem, and bounced around my apartment waiting to go to a new Mexican place with M & H. They took TWO HOURS to get ready, and by then they were in the mood for fish and chips. ... I still got a breakfast burrito, so it was all good. Then we shopped and shopped, looking for phone charms, raiding sales, and I found the first blush I've ever really loved. Mineral (mom would be so proud) and perfectly pink. I love pink.

Oh, yesterday I did do some soul searching. The way things stand right now, I see a motherly trait in myself, that I can look at a person and see what they could be at their best and desire to help them achieve that. Just wish some of them would stop resisting... Also, I see that while life is an incredibly long journey to discovering who we are and how we work, I can feel proud of what I've accomplished so far. Yeah, I'm not married, no, I don't have any kids, and yeah, I still haven't gone to law school, but I also spend more daily time with God than ever before, and I show more love on a daily basis than I ever thought I possessed.

On a lighter side, I saw two pretty dragonfly bobby pins that I saw, liked, bought, and am now wearing. Yay shiny~