Ergh.

Toof wath yanked a week ago. Ith sthill huths. Yuck, but ith getting bettah. Tomorrow I go to Seoul after getting the stitches taken out. Hurray for appointments at the dentist, a perfectly valid reason not to attend the 10 am school meeting I was informed of via text messaging at 6pm tonight. Hahahahahaha. Oh, yeah, that and the reason that I am ON VACATION!!! Thanks to time and some good examples to follow in my fellow teachers, I am learning to navigate and live with the last minute craziness which is working in Korea. I believe the technical term is lastminititus. It infects a huge portion of the population here. Thankfully, it is a largely non-threatening, though frequently annoying, infection that can be avoided with simple, practical precautions. That is not to say that I haven't met several previously uninfected individuals who did not take proper precautions, unfortunately.

I have another invite to return to Seoul on Monday for dinner from a woman I 'met' on Knitty who was living in Mokpo for 3 months. Her husband ships out to sea and she gets a great trip from a family member. It would be great to actually meet her. Her letters home, which she forwarded to me, where descriptive, interesting, and sometimes laugh out loud funny. I could really relate to a lot of what she said. I am not sure if I will make it, but I may try. I just get so sick of being on the bus, and I have moving to think of, utilities to get switched, and eventually, basic lesson plans to be pondered.

I frogged the 1st sock about when it was 40% through because I decided that part of it was too big. If it had been the whole thing, then I would have just shocked it into shape, but it was only a large area after the inside end of the toes. It would of been too floppy, methinks, but I am far from a sock knitting expert. The blanket still sits in the box it has been exiled to. Pardon me for ending a sentence with a preposition. Life goes on, even for English teachers-my apologies to Sarah K., one of the best teachers in the world, and my English teacher for 4 years in private school. One of my favorite not-exactly-a-rule English rules is that once you know the language well enough, you can break the rules. And it is for this reason alone that I may start a sentence with either 'And' or 'Because,' or end a sentence with a preposition.

Had a most fabulous internet chat with T. last night. She finally got on Skype and bought both a mike and camera for her computer. It was so cool to see her and hear her. As she said, we are finally in the age of the Jetsons'. No flying cars on the market yet, but as I saw on 60 Minutes last year or so, there are several prototypes with promise. How cool is that? Maybe, just maybe, my dream of flying will finally come true. So I won't be breaking the sound barrier, flying Tomcats off of air craft carriers or piloting shuttles to space (with role models like Lisa Nowak, that might not be a bad thing!) but I might be able to fly my personal aircraft to the 200 meter (high) tier parking level someday!

Alright, time to get to work on that sock I recast. Well see how much I can get done whilst watching a subtitled movie. And for those of you who think that Americans using 'whilst' is snobby (I read this the other day), kiss my gluteous maximus (private joke, sorry y'all).

I'm tired. And silly. Haven't played with photobooth since resurrecting The Lifeline (aka, my computer).

After looking at this I realized, "Look, Ma, no arms!" I'm sick. Hehe. There's lots happening, but I'm pretty tired today, for no good reason. Met the new teacher, seems like a nice guy. He's from Texas, and I know any time I talk to him for 10 minutes, I'm going to get my southern twang back. Apparently, his wife speaks English quite well, so I am looking forward to meeting her as well.

........

Doorbell rang it was Anna. She is always bringing me up goodies she's cooked. I am a terrible cook, so I don't reciprocate (at least not with food-I try to keep her in mind for other things). Tonight's offering was noodles in cream sauce. Smells good. My last good meal before I get the tooth yanked! ;) R&A have said I ought not eat in the morning, though the doctor didn't mention it. But then again, his English (and my Korean) made it easy to miss a few things. Can you tell I am nervous?

Anna was nice enough to offer to go with me. A good thing, too, because I forgot to have Halla U. written down so that I could hand it to the cab driver. Can you imagine if I tried to tell a taxi driver in Korean where to go after having a tooth extracted? As if I don't mangle the language enough, right?

So, I think I will enjoy this and then try my hand at knitting the socks once again. I have cast the darn things on about 8 times. Lorna's Laces Shepherd sport in Aslan. I'm using 2's and despite my best efforts, I keep messing up the increases (the pattern is toe up gauge free by Stasia that I got off a website recommended by some folks at Knitty.

Moving

Well, it is official, I will be moving. Charles is leaving to work in a new town and school, and I will take over his apartment when he leaves. The people who run the building where I currently live are great and I will miss knowing that getting someone to take care of something, or getting packages delivered is no problem, but the new place is walking distance to school and is in an area with restaurants, coffee shops, etc. It is closer to downtown as well, and is still close to my friends who will continue to live in Unisville. Hopefully moving will not be too much of a hassle, and I will be able to just switch the utilities into my name. I will probably cancel my landline and couldn't get cable in that building if I wanted it. The owners have a deal with the satellite company, but satellite is too expensive to be worth it, and I will not pay to get cable in the new place-installation is expensive and I hardly use it. So, internet is my main concern.

Once I move my packages will be delivered to the school rather than my home, and I will get the new address out to anyone that wants it. Hmm, I will miss having a dryer, but I will have my own washer, and the utilities will be cheaper, so I can turn on the floor heat to dry my clothes in the winter. :)

Also official, this school year is over. A new teacher that will be coming in tomorrow to look for an apartment for himself and his wife. We still do not have a replacement teacher for Charles. At this point, most reputable teachers have positions lined up for the new year. We may well all be pulling down some overtime to cover classes for a bit. That should be interesting. How much overtime I am williing to do, quite frankly, depends on how well my classes are blocked and what grade I will be teaching. That's right, I still don't know.

The new head of the English department has been chosen-a Korean teacher that I do not know at all, except by sight. She doesn't speak English. My current co-teacher will be her assistant (basically overseeing) immersion classes, J. will oversee regular English classes, and D. will oversee English specail classes. I do not think that my current co-teacher will be my co-teacher next year. Who that will be remains to be seen.

All in all, things are looking pretty good. Now, I am just waiting to get the darn tooth pulled. It hasn't bothered me much, but has been just troublesome enough that I have decided to keep my appointment to have it pulled. If all goes well and I am not in pain, then I will make it the Stitch and Bitch on Sunday too!

KT still sucks

Yup, they sure do. First, Eddie and I both lost internet at the same time on Friday night. We could only get to an all korean web page that was clearly asking for an ID and passqword, which neither of us had ever set up. So, she souldn't even check her email. I knew I still had an actual connection, because my email worked, since I do not got to a weebsite, but use a separate program. The "engineer" (read, tech, as I well know from back home-if you had called the techs at Adelphia engineers, oh, the hilarity that would have endsued!) arrived and got us both bak online and gave us both IDs and passwords for future reference. He said they are having server problems affecting all customers, which was to be fixed by today, but let me tell you, moving from one site to the next is like watching paint dry right now.

Hmmm, so one teacher is leaving to get married and move, and the school is frantically looking for a replacement, who will get his apartment rather than a more senior teacher (read, me, because I asked for it and don't have other forms of compensation that others have accepted-selfish, probably, do I care? Not really. I want to be able to walk to school and pay 2/3 less for heating bills). So, we are losing a good teacher and a great guy. Also, our director is leaving. Losing a another great guy who really cares about the teachers. Heaven only knows what will happen now. Did I mention that I probably won't know wjhat grade I am teaching until a week before term starts? Ugh. I'd rather prepare now and be done with it.

Sorry folks, too lazy to get some pictures on from a walk in the area. Maybe next time. It would take for-frackin'-ever for them to upload anyway!

Imagine This Scenario

Mallory Teacher: " Goo morning, childwen."
Children (giggling): Goo morning, Miss Mallory Teacher!"
M.T.: "How ahh you (sounding like the true Bostonian she isn't)?"
C.: "I'm fine," and a few, "teacher talking funny, hehe."
M.T.: Ahh you weady to get stahted?"
At this point the highest level girls will begin giggling uncontrollably.
Ever curious, never shy male student with great English raises hand and says, without waiting," Teacher?"
M.T.: "Yes, Wyan?"
Half the class giggles. The 2 lowest level students have quizzical expressions.
Ryan: "Teacher, why do you sound funny?"
M.T.: "Because my wisdom toof hurts, Wyan."
Ryan, looking interesting and ready to crack up: "Wisdom toof?"
M.T."No, 'toof, Wyan, toof....Errr......(trying to pronounce what should be 'sah-rahng-nee' or 'love tooth' in Korean)
"......Sahwangnee...."
Everyone sitting in an orange child sized chair at an undersized desk starts laughing and hooting. This goes on for a while, until Mallory Teacher gives a teacherly glare and says,
M.T.: "Fingahs on lipssss!" Before she can put her on finger on her lips she starts laughing until it hurts her toof.

Yep, the next 2 weeks should be interesting. It hurts A LOT and I'm really nervous about getting it pulled, since I have never had anything but a cleaning. Ah, well. My coworker went to the same place in December. As long as I can find some one to go with me so that some one can actually pronunce the destination to and fro to the cab driver, I am sure I will be OK. Without that, all will be lost!