Happy Boxing Day!

I don't know what Boxing Day means. Merry Christmas! I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! I'm pretty pumped for 2011, I don't know about you, but I'm not that sad to be moving on from December. This month sort of kicked my ass. I've been an expat for 51 weeks. Next Sunday will officially be my one year mark. Yay. 14 months to go. Yay.

Let's see. This past week we had a birthday party and 2 Christmas parties, sort of. On Thursday after school the teachers dressed up in Santa suits and went to four housing places. We sang and danced and Santa gave all the kiddos presents. They loved it. We were cold. Then on Friday, we did Christmas type activities including a newspaper "snowball" fight and crafts. Then we ate lunch early and had the "Christmas Party" which entailed trying to keep everyone in their seats and eating a lot of junk food. With our elementary kids, we watched movies and ate pizza. Pretty fun.

For Christmas Eve, I went to Ian's and made him watch White Christmas. We skyped our families and went to dinner and to a bar for a bit. Christmas morning, we did some more skyping then went to see Harry Potter with some orphans. After the movie we went back to the orphanage and had dinner. I wish I could give you more details about that whole situation, but I can't really. I don't really know how I got into it and don't really know what to say about it. I do feel pretty good about it I guess. It was strange.

This week, I am NOT in Thailand. I don't know what I'm going to do. I need a haircut and I need to go to the post office. That's all I have.

Other big school news is that Rex will no longer be attending our hagwon. (English kindergarten) His mom has some issues with some teachers at school and just decided that Rex was finished. I'm pretty sad about that.

Still working on getting a new teacher here as soon as possible. That's been fun. I'm the go between for my boss and the new guy. I feel like it's sort of counter productive considering that 1. I barely have my shit together and 2. I came to Korea as a result of the following Google search : Jobs in Korea. So hopefully it will all work out. I'm frustrated with it all though and am just ready for 2011. Yay.

I always wonder about breaks. It seems like every year that I can easily recall, especially college and now working at a school, that the week leading up to break is always terrible and break gets here just in time to keep me from going off the deep end. My question is, if break wasn't coming, would things be as terrible? If they were, how would I recover? Do they just get bad because you know its almost over? Does that make sense at all?

Enjoy the holidays! 5 days of 2010 left to go! Woah. Skype me. kadale09. Email me. Facebook me. I love you! I miss you!

The Boy with the Golden Fingernails

안녕하세요!! (That says hello...an-yang-ha-say-yo)

By now you have seen my amazing video and may be thinking to yourself, "Katie, what the F!?" Let me explain. To be fair this has the potential to be a long and mixed up post. I'm currently dealing with more emotions than I am used to dealing with and it's messing with the reasoning portion of my brain I think.

So as you may recall, Jason, my close friend and co-worker, returned to America for his best friend's wedding and a week with family. He left on Friday afternoon. On Monday night, he called me on Skype and asked me to call his girlfriend, Carly, and have her get on Skype because he missed her. I did and it did not connect. My phone only works about 50% of the time, so I told him he'd after to get someone else to do it. Ten minutes later he called me back yelling "did you know?!" I said "know what?" Turns out Carly had a panic attack about the tensions on the peninsula and made a mid-night run back to Canada on Sunday night. Midnight runs are when the foreign teachers leave the country with no notice, breaking their contracts and essentially black-listing themselves from the country. So Carly is gone. One Thailand-trip partner gone.

During the week Jason started to freak out about returning. The US media and his family's fears were getting to him and he didn't know what to do. Remember, Jason, Carly, and I were going to Thailand together for Christmas and Jason and I were re-signing our contracts for another year. The day before he was supposed to get on the plane to come back to Korea, he flipped out and we talked for a while. I was attempting to be rational and convince him to come back to Korea and at least finish his current contract, which is up in March. He went to bed with the promise to contact me asap with his choice. At this point I was a wreck. This call woke me up on Saturday and my day was shot. So I called Ian and told him he needed to make me laugh all day. Hence the movie.

I went to Ian's and we watched movies and TV and drank vodka and the Legendairy movie was created. First I banged on the guitar, then I banged vodka bottles on the ground, then I whistled, then we did the jokes. He mashed all those recordings together and we put it to the video. There was zero editing, which is why we are laughing and talking at the same time. Sunday morning, I checked my messages and we thought we were in the clear. Ian and I were watching soccer when I got a call from Sophia. Jason stayed in Canada. He made the flight from Texas to Canada and couldn't talk himself back on the plane. She was crying. To be fair, Jason and I decided not to tell her about his debates because she was already dealing with some boyfriend drama, so she was totally sneak attacked.

I came back home and Sophia and I cleaned out Jason's apartment and called our boss. This week at work was terrible. Our friend, Elise, works in Suji (the town I used to live in) and she works at her school from 2-8, so she is able to fill in for the morning classes. This has been a god send. Sophia and I are working a lot more and it has been very hectic.

On top of the work stress, I am very confused about how to feel about one of my best friends bailing on me like this. I'm hurt and mad and sad and frustrated and exhausted.

I canceled the Thailand trip. Ian looked into going with me, but his plane ticket would have been too expensive.

We got a new teacher signed up and he should be here in a month or so. He actually worked in Suji and has been home for a few months looking for a new job.

I have been promoted to head teacher, which essentially means that I am really good at charades. I am the go between for the Korean teachers and foreign teachers. It's really just cool because now I can put something sweet on my resume.

This weekend I met a Chinese-Korean man who went to Purdue. Small world.

Because of the stress and the weather, Sophia and I are both fighting some fairly annoying colds. Lots of snot.

I may be moving into Jason's apartment. It's bigger. But I'm fairly lazy, so I'm not sure.

Rex had his fingernails painted gold all week. That's why that's the title of this post. It's also going to be the title of my life in Korea, Volume II. Volume I being "Knitting with Chopsticks".

Sophia and I found a gym in our apartment complex. It has like 6 treadmills, 3 bikes, and some weight machines. We signed up for 3 months. It was about 60 dollars. I have only been once so far because I was so tired all week. But it felt good to lift and use some muscles. I'm going to try to add it to my daily routine at least 3 days a week. We shall see.

Just to be clear, I do not think a war will happen. I have registered with the embassy and have asked my co-teachers to promise to tell me when it is time to leave. Noone here is worried and Marco, my Wooster track friend who has been here for 3 years and speaks Korean has promised that there is nothing to worry about. He also promised that if something does happen, we will be able to get out and he will get me before he leaves. So, I'm not worried. You shouldn't be worried. Things are fine.

Line 1- KAtie Dale
Line 2- Green Tower Building 495-3
Line 3- Jukjeon - 1 Dong
Line 4- Yongin-Si
Line 5- Gyeonggi-Do
Line 6- South Korea
Line 7/Zip Code line- 448-803

I hope you're all doing well. I love you. I miss you. It doesn't feel like Christmas at all. It's strange being away from family and friends. I love my friends here, but I have known them for 11 months at most. It's all weird. Kisses!

Legendairy

Happy December!

Happy birthday GrandpaBob!! I miss you and hope you're doing well!

On another note, Ian and I made a movie. I played the guitar, banged bottles on the ground, did the whistling, and told the jokes. The process was a combined effort and I would like you to watch it. My stomach hurts from laughing at it so much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqsKng77Ss

I can't figure out what to do to make it an active link. Copy and paste please. Totally worth it.

Next week I'll have some more news to share with you. Be prepared!