It's been a while, eh?

It's been a few days since I posted last. With my life changing and Halloween weekend, I've been a smidge preoccupied.

Where to begin??

Halloweeeeeen!!!!

By the way...

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEN!!!!!

It's been a fun one, for sure. On friday night, my friend, Veanessa came to Suwon and we rocked it out. I <3 that girl. She's awesome and I always have fun with her. And I feel like she's one of those people that just gets me. She's half black/half Korean as well...so we share a background and personality wise she's just wonderful. We went to the BC bar, which is the "foreigner" bar here in Suwon, not knowing it was Halloween/costume party! It was awesome, but I wish I had dressed up! However, we only stayed for like an hour or so...and after we left, I would have been super embarrassed if I were in costume.

Korean's don't really celebrate Halloween. It's a tradition brought over from the western foreigners.

Saturday, I taught then went to Hongdae, which is in Seoul. I went with my Suwon friends and it was awesome to get to hang out with them for a little while. But then I had to go meet M and the Bundang crew. That was an eventful/hilarious time. Well, it was funny in the beginning while I was still sufficiently intoxicated..but when the buz started to wear off, I got a smidge annoyed. You see..what had happened was...! I went to this club with Clancy and Alyssa (Suwon people, Alyssa's one of my new favorites as well, she's great!), to meet M. From there we tried to head back (apparently there was some kind of drama or something that happened) so we tried to go back to meet up with the Suwon people again...Alyssa and Clancy went ahead of me because I was with M and trying to wait for the Bundang people. We then tried to go to this park party. There were both Bundang and Suwon people there, so it was the perfect meeting point for all of us. The problem was that some of the Bundang boys were hammered and kept following little Korean women down dark alleyways (that's an exaggeration! They just followed them down the street). So we kept losing track of people. We would walk about 10 feet, then have to turn around and coral everyone. This went on for about 2 hours. Eventually we gave up and ate some TACO BELL!!!! Best decision of the evening...until I laid down to go to bed and my stomach wanted to release the alcohol/taco bell combo through the entrance. Luckily I kept it down and was able to somewhat fall asleep.

Bedtime was hilarious fun. M, Aaron and I ended up all at M's house. Aaron was planning on sleeping on the floor, so I tried to offer him the bed, thinking I could take the couch, since I'm considerably short. Then the man on man action put me in the middle of the bed (although, I think that both M and Aaron would be cool enough to share a bed without a girl in between them...not gay, just relaxed). It felt like a middle school slumber party (except that in middle school I never slumbered with boys!) I kid you not, however, at one point the three of us were spooning. It was really funny. And I couldn't decide if I had dreamed it or not. Then in the morning we discussed the spooning and decided that there are a variety of spooning options...probably the most interesting/fun morning after conversation I've ever had.

I then spent Sunday with M being lazy, watching a movie..well..kind of. He was in the midst of domestic chores and I was attempting to watch a movie but ended up sleeping through most of it. Then we went to dinner with some of his friends, to TakGalbi...or chicken Korean BBQ (?). It was DELICIOUS. <3 it.

Today was kind of difficult. I have the next month off work, and just knowing that I don't have to work tomorrow, I was essentially checked out. Some of my students annoyed me beyond all reason. Especially the middle school/high school class. I walked in, being happy having prepared some fun Halloween activities..but intended to first go over their quizzes (which they all failed miserably!..hence the going over). And they were all super moody. Didn't talk, just all stared at the table quietly. I had the sincerest desire to tell them to either shape up or ship out....Cheer up, or get the F out of my classroom...freakn Debbie Downers!!! But of course, I'm not "allowed" to do that. They then told me that on the last day of the month, the school provides some money to get some food, so I asked my cousin about it...and the answer was no... Sorry Kiddos. We played some games, ate some candy and then called it a night. Then the next class...I was annoyed...for 50 whole minutes, just wanted to scream and yell at this guy. He has no idea what being rude means...and he's kind of a know-it-all.

Finally, my favorite last class took me out to Samgyupsal (BBQ pork) and Soju. That honestly made my day. They are most definitely my favorites and the coolest students I had the pleasure of working with (in my very brief time here!). I <3 hanging out with them. It's not work, it's fun. And it always ends up being more of a language exchange, they teach me Korean, but we speak in English. :) They make me heppy...and I'll miss them a lot.

That's my story and I'm stickn to it!

Halloween Shenanigans

Halloween stupidity has already begun. I was putting together my costume...and put it together while wearing it, so now I'm stuck in my costume and unless I want to repeat the entire process, I have to just wear the thing for the rest of the night. It's almost 3pm. Which means more than 24 hours in this getup...without wrecking it!

But I have a new dream for you to analyze!!

There were four of us in this weird limbo space...everything was white and there were white pillars in the empty space around us. My "boyfriend" broke up with me and my friend broke up with his girlfriend at the same time. I don't remember the reaction from the other couple because I was distraught beyond all reason. I was sobbing and screaming after him, begging him to stay. My friend and I then looked at each other and kind of shrugged, saying "what do we do now?" So we walked together out of limbo and into the real world. But the minute we made plans to do something, I slipped away at the first chance that I got to sit on the other side of my bed and cry.

I awoke from this dream in tears.

Any ideas? This one legit perplexes me. What is happening in my brain right now?

Dead as a Doornail

What is a doornail? Did I totally screw up that idiom?! Doorknob?? Either way, how is a doornail/knob/other dead?

Anyway.

I think I finally killed the last mosquito that's been suckin' up all my juices. I killed him with great happiness too. I'm so itchy because of him and his little brother/sister/cousin/frand. There are two bites on my right pointer finger knuckle alone..totaling 15 mosquito bites between what I assume to be 2 mosquitoes. Serious dislike.

And because I scratch at them my skin, especially my legs, are pockmarked. No bueno, mosquito, no bueno.

Oh the Memories I'm Making

This weekend was probably the first weekend I didn't go to Seoul since I've been here! It was actually kind of nice.

I went out on Friday night (first with my class then with my friends). And had a lot of fun. Got to know some new people. There are actually some pretty cool people here in Suwon.

Then Saturday, my friend Matt came up to Suwon and we had a lazy weekend. We laid around watching movies/sleeping/eating for two days straight. It was pretty wonderful. And a nice break from drinking! (He can't drink at the moment..antibiotics). Not that I dislike drinking, but the drinking culture here is a little rough on my digestive system, blood stream and liver (which I suppose is a part of my digestive system!) I felt bad though because he stayed longer than he should have and didn't get any of his work done this weekend :/

But now on to my big story of the day!! (or weekend)...

My washing machine broke!!!!

I have no idea what happened, I was just washing some towels, just like 3 so the machine wasn't full at all, not even close. I turned it on, and sometimes it overheats and turns off. But this time, when I tried to restart it, it stopped, made a continuous humming sound and flashed EF. I tried to turn it completely off, but none of the buttons worked! So Matt and I went down to try to find the maintenance man..but it was after hours so he wasn't working. We tried to ask the convenience store man..but he had no idea and told us to ask the guard. We tried to ask the guard, but the guard (being the grumpy old...I mean OOOLLLDDDD man that he is) just kind of brushed us aside. Even my neighbor, who's so nice got in on the action. She spoke a little English so she tried to help us. But to no avail.

The result: Saturday-Monday morning I had to listen to the weird humming of the machine and be constantly distracted by the blinking lights. I was also enveloped in a constant fear that the machine would just go up in flames or explode. I have such irrational fears.

Finally, today I went down to the maintenance office and found the man working. I tried to ask him in my very limited Korean to come look at my washing machine...he didn't know what I was saying, go figure. At first he thought I wanted to rent an apartment so he walked me to the leasing office. Then he started pulling out paperwork and everything concerning my apartment. And I tried making hand motions and sounds...just looking crazy! Eventually he understood "AH! Washing Machine trouble?!?" "YESSSS!!!!!!"

He then came up to my apartment, took a look, played with the buttons (yes the ones that don't work). Opened one of my closet doors, flipped the electrical circuit breaker, turned it off, turned it on and it was done. Two seconds to fix what consumed my entire weekend with annoyance.

Communication is essential to life.

*EDIT*
ANNNDDD more to add.

I didn't know mosquitos could survive in such cold conditions. But I slept with my window open the last two nights and I'm covered in mosquito bites!! AGAIN! And I see them flying around..I've already killed 2...who knows how many are currently in my apartment, breeding.

Now that That's Done

Now the allotted time for venting my anger through any and all necessary channels is up, time to resume life as normal. Looking forward to the weekend. And next weekend is Halloween!! Still debating on my costume..it might be a little controversial and I may overhear a lot of gossip about it. But they gossip regardless!

Most days I'm ok..but I have these days where I miss you beyond all reason, beyond all words. I wish you were here, and I'm terrified I may lose you forever.

To Lighten the Mood

Sooo to lighten up the mood from my last post...I have a new funny story.

I went to the bar and this girl comes up to me and says "HI!!!!!! Do you remember me?!?" And she looks familiar (she's Korean) so I say, "yes, of course..." And then she reaches in to hug me..and it suddenly dawns on me as to who she is. She is the cult member that STALKED me into my apartment building and tried to follow me onto the elevator crying about how much she wanted to save me...yep..in my bar.

and now to dampen the mood again!
I confronted the cuzzo about what happened..and she denied it. 100% denied it..even though my mom specifically said that the cuzzo called her and told her exactly what happened. WTF. But I called her out and told her my mom has health issues and that she just made my mom's health issues worse by stressing her out (which is true). But..someone in this situation is lying...and it ain't me!

Venting Time

I'm so ridiculously angry and will honestly probably have a screaming fit with my cousin later. I'm so angry I'm crying because I'm a stupid girl and I cry when I'm mad.

Sooo..I've been late to work right? I know this..they know this..we've all had happy wonderful discussions about it filled with rainbows and butterflies. They even bought me a shnazzy new alarm clock that is ridiculously cute and matches my apartments decor perfectly. And having tested it's usefulness this morning, I can attest to the fact that it is quite effective at making me jump out of bed and run across the room to silence it before the entire building wakes up and runs outside for the fire alarm that is my clock. So, as long as it's trustworthy and doesn't fail, I don't think I will have trouble waking up any more.

But back to me being angry. My cousin, who I work with, yesterday called my mom to tell her about my tardiness (by the way, people who know me...including my parents know that this is a recurring theme in my life. I'm just not a morning person..never have been, probably never will be). My mom kind of dismissed her because she was busy. The my cousin comes to tell me that my mom called her...a bold faced lie. So then, she calls my mom again today. We weren't sure if she was calling because she needed some other information from my mom or something..but no..she was simply calling to tattle tell. Yes. Tattle tell. Just to reiterate, she called my mom JUST to tell her I was late to work.

WHAT THE F. DOES MY MOM HAVE TO DO WITH MY WORK LIFE?! It's not like my mom is here and can wake me up in the morning. My mom can't even call me to wake me up in the morning because my phone isn't capable of sending or receiving out of country calls. So my little spiteful tattle tell cousin just essentially sent my mom into a spiral for no reason whatsoever.

And just to make matters even more fun. My relationship with my mom has been a little strained since I got here. I'm not sure why really. Perhaps she's just worried..but we went from being bff's to barely being able to talk to each other. Soooo...now I can't talk to my mom for a while...it'll probably be a good two weeks before I can even attempt to talk to her.

Way to go, tattle tell cousin, bravo.