i had a dream

a very scary vivid sunday night dream the seemed to last for hours and hours!!!
i had to get to school, my phone credit was gone, and it just wasn’t happening.
people would offer to help me and then like stroll to the bus with me -
it was the worst seoul nightmare ever and i never ever made it to class.
i had such a time this weekend, i just DID NOT want it to end.
needless to say, my date went reeeeeally well, and this boy is a unicorn among boys. he’s gentlemanly AND good-hearted, a good talker AND a good listener – both surprisingly rare combinations in my experience. we’re climbin a mountain together next weekend ^-^ RIGHT NOW, my korean life is a good one – my job is good, my friendships are good, my health is good, my apartment is good, my mind is good, and my love life’s good. everything is good! things were pretty bad for me for awhile around march and april-ish after i lost my job, hated my new town and new apartment, felt like i had no friends, got dumped, and stopped exercisin, so here’s to things workin out for the best!

i don’t even remember mine :/

but this is so good!!!

do you remember yours?

surprises

none of the videos of my favorite hits show anyone playing a musical instrument.
please refer to this mash-up of about 20 current top songs.

last weekend my plans somehow morphed from a peaceful day reading at lake park (near my old home) with michelle, to a quiet dinner in insadong (the traditional/arts/temple neighborhood) with two coworkers which actually never even materialized, to rooftop beer drinking in itaewon (foreigner/military area) with 10 emily-friends, to partying it up in that neighborhood. and honestly, that was LAST on my list of things to do – i haaaaate itaewon at night. just a bunch of dumb military guys, offensive misogynists in polo shirts looking for one-night stands, and screechy girls. but GUESS WHAT. i had fun, i met a guy i like (at the rooftop, not the clubbbb), and we have a date next week. i’d been kind of laying low and avoiding datey type things, but now, i think i’m ready to rock! since i haven’t been on a first date since …september(!) with m-k, wish me luck!

me me me me me

so things have been revolvin and spinnin and metamorphisizin on the work and the friendship fronts lately, but i’m not in a so this happened and then this happened and then this happened storytelling mood. i just want to talk about myself. because really, isn’t that the point of the overly self-indulgent personal blog anyway???

so remember how i grew out my hair so it would be its natural color for the first time since i was 13? and i was so proud of myself and kept saying “NEVER SAY DYE!!” all the time and thinking i was really funny and above it all, above all those petty vanities and social constructs of artificial beauty etc.? that i would NEVER EVER BEND TO SOCIAL BEAUTY NORMS AGAIN (with hair color).

well, i dyed it last weekend! i’m blonde and it’s a great color. an embarrassingly expensive korean salon color. boys on the street now tell me i’m beautiful. which is nice but also sad that no one noticed me when i was REAL. c’est la vie – i feel more comfortable with the blonde i’ve donned for most of my life, including my childhood. is that so wrong??? yes. ah, i am so ashamed. to cling to my old diy low-maintenance values in the face of my own hypocrisy, i gave myself a really weird haircut. i actually quite like it, and i could post a picture, but i will just say it’s pretty reminiscent of this:

oh, yeahhhhh. you can’t wait to see my hair craftsmanship!!

plus, i’ve gone running 15 times in the past month, go me! i feel pretty in control and on top of things in the small world of just me right now and i like it.

bad news korea

1. on saturday, the ex-president hurled himself off a mountain,
reportedly in the face off the very real danger of going to jail for a financial scandal.
the shrines have only gotten bigger. near the main square of my town are a few tents and many candles and christian churchy music and guard people in suits and incense and a giant picture of roh moo-hyun, a film with him playing guitar etc., and most impressively, lines branching all over with so many yellow pieces of paper with messages written on them flapping in the breeze. people seem to be sad about the death, but still going about their lives as normal. like my students all went to the movies etc. on the weekend. my korean coworker said he thought the conservatives who are currently in power indirectly caused the death by going after their old enemy so intensely. “i don’t know much about politics, but i do know that it can get so dirty,” he said. personally, i wonder if he wasn’t just killed! there’s a suicide note, but it coulda been forged! maybe that’s the american love of conspiracy theories sneakin in though because koreans seem to not have any doubts it was suicide.

2. the swine flu has arrived and 50 FOREIGN teachers have been quarantined in a seoul hospital for at least 14 days. a teacher from america carried the flu and may have infected all the other teachers at the orientation training. a local branch of this big chain even closed its doors over the flu. some friends of friends in a nearby town are on lockdown and can’t go anywhere except work and home. not that schools aren’t to germs as cancun is to college students during spring break. partyyyyyyy! i swear, we teachers are gonna be the first to bite it as the non-handwashing kids drink out of our bottles when we aren’t looking, cough into our faces, and stuff shrimp chips from their pockets into our mouths. and when we teachers eat dinner together, we all dig our chopsticks into the same saucy side dishes. so one teacher goes down, we all go down. not to make my readers worry, but ahhhhh!

3. i live really close to north korea. like reeeeeeeeally close. i could probably bike there in a couple of hours. and now they’re testing nuclear weapons and shooting off missiles.

WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT IS GOIIIINGGGGGG ONNNNNNNNNNNNN!?!??!?!?!?

claire smaaaashhhh!!!!!!!

ah, running around with specific shopping goals in korea is ridiculously frustrating.
i got these new running shoes from nike because the heel cushion thing of my old ones herniated.
so the new shoes are really comfortable and fast and i ran my fasted 5 k ever!!! (which was not the fast, but it was the shoessss!!!)
ok, so. so. i found out the shoes are shoes of the FUTURE!
they have computers in them.
and you can wear a special watch with a tiny usb drive that will record all your run stats so you can upload it onto this sweet nike+ running site.
so, i wanted to get the watch thing and ended up spending four hours on a wild freakin goose chase through seoul, which eventually ended with a guy at the big nike store telling me they don’t even sell the watch things in korea. maybe in like four months. so why did the nike store give me the nike+ pamphlet!?
so i went to three nike stores and two apple stores (they kept sending me from one to the other) all for naught. and i was sooooo psyched!
should i just give in and get an ipod? the nanos are compatible with the technology :/
i have a korean mp3 player but it’s not that awesome and i have to manually delete EVERY SONG if i want to delete music to add new stuff. i guess i don’t really need to use my computerized shoes like that, but it seemed soooo cool!

works?

taxes are cool

sometimes i’m amazed by my favorite free things.
like libraries and parks.
how are these wonders possible?
can you imagine if other things were free just because we deemed them necessary for society?
like a hats library? check out a fancy hat for two weeks?
i mean, yes, that would be disgusting, but i think you know what i mean.
after reading THE ROAD, i’ve been thinking about all that society gives me
and how without government funding, i would be in deeeeep trouble.
like i would have to take taxis to go to seoul and my job might not even exist without the public schools doing a crap job of english teaching.
and there’d be no sidewalks or water in the pipes and and and so many problems!!!
in korea, you can rent comic books, which totally blows my mind, but i guess why not?
what do you think should be a public service?
what is your favorite free thing? (don’t say love or something intangible!!!)

middle school dreams

i told my favorite (shhh, don’t tell the others!!) middle school class that they could have a party on the final day of the semester.

they said they wanted a
COOKIE PARTY.

like everyone brings in different kinds of cookies.
and we just all eat 15 cookies.

all i could think of was

and i felt a bit strange because i got the five second cookie party song stuck in my head. i think i may be the lone sarah silverman fan in korea.

wah wah

middle-aged men,

please stop fighting outside my building at 5 am.
why so much shouting?
can’t you just shove each other and pull a knife or something so someone gets freaked and fight is over?
like we do?

and a few hours ago it was a couple of ladies for about half an hour. they were saying the korean equivalent of F U!!! a lot and the one woman was shrieking a lot. i also heard sounds like patio furniture being thrown against walls.

i’m starting to come to terms with the idea that i will never ever be free from auditory disturbances in the middle of the night.

but i have to enter grades tomorrowwwww. and i already stayed at work until 1:30 am today to be HALFWAY finished, wahhhhhh. wah wah wah.