Wednesday, January 03, 2007

ringing in the new year with a bang

New Year's Eve has come and gone - 2007 seems to hold so much adventure and loads of promise! Spent New Year's Eve in Busan with Liz, Chris and a variety of others, partying late into the night. Check out Liz's blog for photos of the evening - I didn't really take any but Liz sure did!

Chris and I were still getting served at 5am, but decided to head on back to Ulsan, to watch the sun rise. And proceeded to fall asleep on the way home, both on the bus and in the cab. If there's one thing I wish I had taken a photo of, it was Chris at the bus terminal walking about 2 steps behind me and then POOF! he was gone -- he had decided to take a nap in some nearby bushes! Poor guy, I'm always telling tales of his misadventures (and never my own!) here...

I'm quite enjoying my 2-hours-a-day work schedule right now. Last night, went for tuna and stayed out until late into the night... met many wonderful Koreans, and was (sometimes) expected to act in a much more demure way than I ususally do. Y'all would laugh, because it's coming second nature to me now. Knowing when it's appropriate to sip my soju delicately, covering my mouth when I'm giggling, editing what I say and even how I react - and deferring to the males in the group. It drives me nuts, but I understand that it's important and don't even notice when I'm doing that kind of stuff anymore.

Tonight, off for the weekly foreign-teachers-pint-night at the local bar. It's a nice hump-day thing but I'm the only middle school teacher in the bunch, so I don't even want to mention my work schedule tonight (most hagwan teachers have a very full load during winter vacation!)

On the knitting front (because you all care SO much) I've finally finished Chris's hat, my first attempt at fair-isle style knitting (on double pointed needles, I was just asking for hell there) and am trucking quite quickly through the sweater I'm making my co-teacher. I am no longer afraid of the knitting store, and they are no longer afraid of me (wooo!).

Another haircut by the way, and this time, when I went in, the girls rushed to the counter and pulled out a phrase list that they had compiled -- I have to assume just to speak with me, as I'm really the only waygook in my 'hood, everyone else is on the other side of Hogye. SO sweet!

This country drives me nuts, any time I want to be frustrated with things, the niceness of everyone makes it impossible.

However, I still feel like, some days, my life is like a korean film without any english subtitles!

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