Scared... of this???

Can you believe that some people are actually afraid of these guys... sometimes when I'm walking Maggie down to the yard I pass people (women AND men) who actually jump to the side of the hall and say "OhMa! OhMa!" (like OMG, OMG) while screeching and trying to scrabble up the wall itself...



This is just a clip of Maggie and her friend Deacon outside... they're like this the whole time they play together, it's hilarious! And I think it'll make you smile :)

Relaxin' at Home

May is kind of a 'family month' in Korea, with Children's Day, Parents Day, and Grandparents Day all in 'holidays' within it. The only one that gets us the day off work is Children's day, which was yesterday. I made my kids a little present for children's day using the photos I took of them at the beginning of the year. Of course I forgot to take a picture of them, but they were pretty cute. I'm sure their parents appreciated the little present, if only for the time taken to make them. :)

It was nice to have a day off in the middle of the week and I didn't fill it up with plans because I've been feeling a little draggy lately. Thankfully I'm almost to the end of the 3rd season of a new show 'Army Wives' that I downloaded... I've been stuck to the computer since I got it and I think it's been affecting my moods spending so much self-imposed time inside!!


I took Mags in to the vet to get fixed. They did a bunch of preliminary tests just to make sure she was 100% in the health department, which she was (yay!). I can't imagine the stress of bringing a child to the hospital for a health check with bloodwork etc., as I just had my puppy and my stomach was in knots the whole hour I waited there for the results. New amount of sympathy for parents I tell ya!! Mags is coming home tonight after my Korean class, so I'll keep you posted on how she's doing. They called me yesterday of course when she came out of surgery and said that she did well. They kept her overnight to allow her a bit more rest, I really missed her last night!!  :)

The temperature here was incredible yesterday, we got up to 27C... I checked the weather at home on my little weather network icon and it said Alberta was -1C... ugh!! Was I ever happy to be over here and not there!! I enjoyed the weather out walking around in my tshirt, shorts and sandals... the air was thick with moisture, it was so muggy, but I loved EVERY second of it!

HaYoung and TaeJeong came over yesterday to hang out. It's the first time I had anyone visit me at home, so it was a little strange, but nice! HaYoung manicured me all up with pink and white polkadots (very cutesy Korea-style) and then I taught her how to write in cursive (she said it looked like arabic script, lol, I didn't see the resemblance!). When TaeJeong arrived we cooked up some ramyeon for dinner (you know Mr Noodles? Same thing but spicy instead of chicken). I was relieved I had bought an extra set of silverware last week, lol, at least the 3 of us could eat at the same time!! Once it was cooked we didn't all fill our bowls, like we would at home... the pot went into the centre of the table and we just served up noodles into our own little side bowls a bit at a time, it was funny to me... eating like at the Korean restaurant, lol...

After we ate they spied my pile of card-making stuff on the bookshelves so we spent most of the rest of the evening stamping and making stuff, spread out all over the floor, lol... I actually had lots of fun, and got to practice my Korean a bit - yay! Korean class tonight and then tomorrow is Friday - yay!!  I was going to head out to a temple stay this weekend, but due to the puppy situation I think I'll be rescheduling for a bit later. I'll fill you in on my trip into Seoul last weekend too once I get all caught up... I started writing but I didn't get it finished!

I'm off to pay my bills for the month (wish me luck, I haven't attempted that yet and it all has to be done IN the bank where nobody speaks English!)... Hope you're happy (and warm!), talk again soon... S.

This is Why I Am a CAT Person

Because there is a little creature in my apartment that is apparently suffering from separation anxiety (ironic, considering the client in my latest case study is dealing with the same issues), I feel like I now have to build my entire life pretty much around her.

Since moving my pup just keeps getting wierder and more tightly wound, and now she's peeing in the house, whining a lot, and practically on top of my *all*the*time. Now she's cute, and looks like such a sweetie, so you might find yourself wondering, "how could something so cute and small and sweet be so much trouble?" I tell you, I find myself wondering the same thing every time I have to clean up a new puddle, or rewash the blanket that JUST came out of the washing machine.

SO, after getting some advice from friends (screw Ceasar, he's useless!), I have decided that maybe it's just that she needs some regularity to her days like she used to have, and that we need to have a schedule. I'm going to try it for a month, (a) to see if I can live with it, and (b) to see if it makes things any better for my poor pup.. If it does, great, we'll both adapt and carry on. If it doesn't work, I guess I'll be looking at alternate arrangements for her, as I'm actually starting to get worried about my little peanut's psyche!

So cross your fingers for me, and have a good laugh when you see how I'm structuring my comings and goings around my puppy... but, it'll really be worth it if she's happier and I can stop stressing about her!!

So for now I'm off to bed early, cuz we're back to RUNning in the morning! Hope you're having yourself an incredible weekend... S

School Today

Though I am now exhausted the day went (mostly) according to plan. The first pickup (bus) of the day was quick since I had only 2 returnees this morning. I got the best bus driver of all, he's friendly, kind to the children, and even speaks a bit of English... we (the 2 kids and I) decided he should have an English name, so they chose Daniel, he thought that was pretty cute and then told everyone at the school when we got back, heheheh.

My kindy kids are cute (there are 10 of them). 2 cried for most of the first class (Sean and Becky), and the rest were good - thank god it was only an hour today! We just had to entertain them in our classrooms while boss talked to their moms, so it was pretty easy. Actually, all of the morning was pretty easy: even the standing and smiling and nodding only lasted about 10 minutes TOTAL! Once the kids were out on their way I had the rest of the morning to prep and plan and photocopy and all that good stuff. A couple more meetings with the boss about the same books and the same pages and the same stuff as the past few days :) and then I had break with Maggie.

She has now decided that when we're in the house "go pee" now officially means "sit on your pee mat and look cute, but don't under any circumstances go pee"... as you can imagine, I am loving this new development! We went for a run after shopping tonight and guess what? She loves running if she gets to run with me off the leash, she was a little speed demon in the park, and you should have seen her race me on the stairs!! It was  adorable, very cute.

After lunch I taught my first 2 'real' classes with boss bopping his head in umpteen times to interrupt me. Needless to say we didn't get even CLOSE to enough of the bookwork done today, but that was to be expected. I love my 2 early afternoon classes, both groups were wonderful and I had a really good time meeting them and getting everything started. Boss repapered our classroom walls over the weekend so there's nice clean paper, also a nice bonus as ugh, they were awful on Friday! Done teaching for the day at about 5 and I*was*wiped! (but very happy).

Went shopping almost immediately this evening (lest I sit down on my bed never to get up again!) for a few things for school. I found the stationary store in the E-Mart (uh-oh for my paycheque) and just bought a few things to make lesson planning and such a bit easier. Mostly I just enjoyed looking around, it was much fun! Also ventured over to AK Plaza a couple of subway stops up from me but (wow) was that ever (mostly) a waste of time. It was fun to see a new neighbourhood but the mall was WAY out of my price range... EVERYthing in it was from Prada or Burberry or Gucci and such, and the grocery store must have been organic or something because WOW it was mah-ni pee-sah-yo (very expensive)!!! Fun though, and I took a couple of videos I'll upload when I figure it out!

So I enjoyed my time after school, and Mags is doing very well in her kennel at home now. I'm no longer worried about her being an only child, I think I have it under control now! I rearranged my apartment because my windows have a bit of a draft that may be contributing to the huge congestion I have going on - it feels SO much BIGGER in here now!! I'll post photos tomorrow, it's late and I'm tired and going to hit the hay I think. Tomorrow after work I (might) go to Costco with some of the other teachers just to look around (and maybe have one of their world famous very-same-as-at-home hotdogs from downstairs!!) and find another new spot near home. We'll see, it's on the 'maybe' list anyway...

So that's all for today, good night!

Short days with much napping!

Shopping was pretty good yesterday, at least I had fun while I was out! Can't say I did much that was culturally interesting. Tried out my Korean (which needs MUCH MORE work!), picked up a couple little things (a softer pillow, soft bath mat, towels, a blow drier, sushi for dinner) and just enjoyed being out. I went to both Lotte (lo-tay) Mart and E-Mart, and found neither a power adaptor or a jacket (everyone is wearing puffy quilted coats here and I just wanted something simple!). Oh, and I stopped at the food court for some lunch before making my way back...

So after the 2 stores it was about 2 or 3, and I headed back down the subway with my arms full of bags (and a pillow!). At the platfor there were 2 young middle school girls who moved where I moved, sat where I sat, while giggling and whispering the whole time, it was very funny. They never did get up the courage to say hello, so I put in my earphones and turned up the tunes. Once home I took Mags for another walk (which she enjoyed much more in the sunshine!) as we checked out our new neighbourhood a little more. Found a vet up the block (with some very badly behaved but CUTE puppies in the window), and about 50 european cafe-style restaurants that will be fabulous in the summer (open air patio seating etc, gorgeous!). There are a whole lotta restaurants round me, and the boss tells me the BEST bbq place is right up the street as well, we'll apparently go there for parties and such in the future. I was a bit disappointed not to find much in the way of shopping (a lot of convenience stores, but not much for "real" shopping). Surely there are a couple of department stores nearby, I'll ask when I meet the other teachers. But I digress!

The weather as the day went on got nicer and nicer, but no so much so that you could take your jacket off. I am of course wishing that I brough some kind of coat to accompany my sweater and vest, as there was a really wicked wind around most of the day, so I had my toque and my hood up and probably looked very silly (but at least I was warm!). I'll hunt around again today for a coat and see if I can pick up a windbreaker or something at a sports store. At the bottom of this page I've added a little weather box, so you can scroll down and type in "Seoul" to see what the weather is doing here if you're interested.

We were back at the apartment again by about 4pm, played fetch for awhile, and I fed her some purina soft food (which she loooooooooved). I unpacked my bit of shopping and played my DS for a bit, and then decided to lay down for a nap around 6 o'clock. Unfortunately my nap didn't end until 1am, so I haven't really done a bang-up job of getting over jet lag to this point! I played DS for awhile, played fetch with Mags a few times, and then forced myself back sleep until a more realistic wake-up hour. We got up about 6:15am and had some sushi for breakfast - Mags, it turns out doesn't like sushi: She took the first little piece I gave her, swished it around in her mouth for a bit before spraying it out on the floor. When I handed her a 2nd piece (maybe she just didn't like whitefish!) she ACTUALLY made a gagging sound before opening her mouth, I was laughing and laughing and laughing, poor dog... she was still going to take it, but I just gave her some scratches and took it away, lol... I thought the sushi was actually really good, but it's an acquired taste in our household!

So otherwise this morning has been uneventful. Went and got another Vanilla Latte from Starbucks (even with the $4.60 price tag, it's gooooooooooood!!) and walked until Maggie's feet were cold. I've taken to bringing her bag with me when we walk because she happily hops in it when she gets cold, or when we go into shops and nobody objects. At the department stores there are special pet lockers with vents and windows so you can stow your pet while you shop - handy dandy! Then we hit the PC room to drop a few lines.

On the docket for today:

1. Write a couple of emails before leaving the PC room
2. Find a power adaptor and an alarm clock
3. Find a jacket of some kind (even if it's a puffy terrible one)
4. Find a "Skin Food" shop for some toiletries
5. Have a nap this afternoon (with an alarm set!!) so I can stay up past 6pm
6. Get in touch with a couple of friends this afternoon to make weekend plans
7. Meet up with a couple of old friends at a "school's out" party in Seoul later this evening

That's all I've got for now. Depending on how late I'm out I might write again today, we'll see! Hopefully by the end of the day I'll be able to use my computer at home and I'll send some pictures your way (either here or on Flickr)... Talk Soon!

6 More Sleeps

So there are 6 more sleeps until I leave. I have to be 2 hours early they say since I'm taking an international flight, and since I'll have Mags with me I'll need another 30 minutes, so the plan is to be at the airport for about 7am. Not so bad, but that means leaving Mom's around 5am, yuck! Oh well, adventure awaits, sleep can come later!

Mags conquered her carrier yesterday, I put her in it for the 3hr drive to mom's place, and after feeding her a couple of french fries (and later a TimBit) she was a perfect angel! (no lecturing me about feeding the dog people food, it was just a bribe to make her think the bag is a happy place!) Who started that whole thing anyway, ordering your dog a TimBit at Tim Horton's? And why is it that I feel guilty if I stop there and don't bring one for my pup?? Can't say I've ever watched a commercial or heard a radio ad about it, those guys are sneeeeeeeeeeaky!

After much conversation with S. I think I've come to the point where I am happy to bring 'less' with me to the airport, rather than heading out to buy more before I leave. I'll have my clothes, my puppy, my cameras, laptop and Wii, that's probably enough "stuff," and I'll just get the rest of what I need when I arrive. I'm getting SO excited to see my apartment, I'll post a couple of the photos here so you can see it empty - eeeee! Though it looks small it's bright and open, I can totally imagine it working out. I'm already busy decorating it in my head and scanning my memory for the location of a particularly great plant shop I saw in the neighbourhood once before so I can outfit the window ledge!

While I had wanted to spend a week somewhere hot and sunny with a chance of scuba diving, it became more important to spend time with loved ones, so here I sit with cold toes and frozen fingers, staring out the window at the snow-covered yard. Puppy is curled up sleeping in my lap, mom and her dogs are still asleep, and I'm thinking it's about time for that first cup of coffee, and I should probably get started on that assignment I have due tomorrow! Here are a couple of photos of what are most likely my new digs (most likely because in Korea you can't really be sure until you actually get there!)... Have a wonderful day!