Hair today, gone tomorrow

I tend to get bored with my hair rather quickly. I got in the habit of cutting my own hair in the states, but when it's curly you can make small mistakes and no one will ever know. So since I decided to straighten my hair, I've been going to a shop to have someone cut it for me. The lady who owns it is the only one that works there, and she doesn't speak a word of English. But she's nice, and she knows what she's doing, I trust her, and cuts, styles and coloring is cheap. Anyways, I decided I wanted something completely different, as the one she'd given me before was a bit...well...Asian. So, I printed a few pictures and brought them in to her, and left with something a bit funky and a bit more... me.


I like it, and my friends seem to like it too (which is always a good thing). I went out with some old and some new friends on Saturday night for dinner and an open-mike. It was Ben's first time eating galbi - a common Korean meal where you put meat on an open grill at the table.

Ben and Hong with their Hite aprons.

Laura playing music on the Coke and Cass bottles

Dayna and Ill-Quon with their jiggae and galbi

After dinner, Ben went home, and the rest of us went out to an open-mike, where Christian was supposed to play his guitar and sing, but through a misunderstanding was taken off the bill. I did get to see everything from spoken words to belly-dancing to techno music.

Dayna and I at the open-mike. She lives in Seoul now, so I won't get to see her as often.

Today I slept in all day because I got home so late from Saturday (the subway stops running at midnight, and doesn't start again until 5:30am), and woke up just in time to go to my weekly Korean lesson. I've only had 3 so far, but I'm slowly getting better, and I know a bit more basic vocabulary. Like, they don't have names for months, it's just 1st month, 2nd month, etc (which makes it easier to remember.) Afterward I went to a coffee shop to grab some coffee before going home, since I wanted to stay awake long enough to study. Apparently I go to the shop more often than I thought (it's right across the street from work and a 10 minute walk from my house), either that or not many foreigners come there. Either way the girls at the shop recognized me, and the fact that I'd gotten a hair cut. Their verdict was "New! Oh, good job!"

So that was my not-very-exciting weekend, but then again most of my weekends aren't nearly as exciting as skiing, going to Japan, or meditating with monks.

No title required

I am currently doing everything in my power to avoid packing. This includes, but is not limited to, writing this blog, and going to James's apartment to watch movies and eat dinner with him and Cherita. I've known for a few weeks that I have to move apartments this weekend. Normally this would be a looming task that would require at least a week's worth of preparation and packing. But seeing as how I brought 2.5 suitcases with me, and haven't purchased anything of any significant size or worth in the past 3 months, there's very little of my own things to pack. Everything is else is also minimal, and mostly furniture. Therefore, I have very little actual work to do, so I've been putting it off until tomorrow - the day before I move. 

I'm not really looking forward to moving - It'll be about a 25 minute walk from work now instead of a 10 minute walk. There's also an overpass that I have to walk up stairs and then down, and I'm on the third floor. Normally all these stairs and walking wouldn't bother me, but with my knee, it's just gotten to where I can walk the 10 minutes to work without too much problem. I am, however,  looking forward to being in the same building with Gina, my partner teacher (I'll also be three doors down from Cherita). I've been helping her with her homework, so now I'll be able to do it at home, instead of staying late at work. She's taking two classes at a Univeristy in Seoul, both educational theory taught in English, and she's having to do A LOT of work. It's pretty close to the stuff I had to do for my bachelors. But it's in her second language. So I've been sumarizing some things in her textbooks, and checking her grammar on her assignments. It's fun, really, and it's gotten us talking, which we didn't really do the first month or so I was here. I sit next to her in the office every day, and we share Lemon and Cherry class, so I think it's really important to have a good relationship with her, in and out of work. 

So James is cooking "spag-bol", which is short for spaghetti-bolonase? It's just spaghetti and meat sauce. He calls it minced meat, we say ground meat. Either way, he's cooking for the three of us, and then we'll watch movies until it's time to go home. We invited the Korean girls, but they all have schedules and can't ever seem to get together with us (probably because we're always last minute with these movie nights). I did manage to get out of all of them that the 6 of us will have dinner together the Friday after Chuseok (a harvest holiday here that we don't have to work). It'll be the first time that the 6 teachers have been together, without our boss, since I got here, and apparently since James or Cherita got here too. Julie is taking the 6 of us out to dinner on Tuesday to a galbi restaurant, but it's a different atmosphere when your boss is there too.