the past week and a half has been a struggle to maintain a sense of calm and steadiness, but i think i am finally beginning to re-find some balance and peace in all of the change that has occurred. so hopefully i can get back into regular blogging again. work has been an adjustment, but i am getting used to the busy days, and am actually enjoying it. the day flies by and it's friday before you know it. and have a mentioned how CUTE those kids are?
and i finally got back to yoga class this week! hooray!!! my 3 week hiatus (i just had to look up the word hiatus in the dictionary b/c i was pretty sure it sounded right in this sentence, but i was worried it was actually a rare disease from india or something like that, and people would start thinking me of the girl who can't spell AND the girl who doesn't know what words mean and uses them anyway) had taken a real toll on my body. i couldn't sit straight during music class and my back and legs would get tired within a few minutes of sitting indian style and my neck was all jammed up and all in all, my entire body--inside and out--felt like the scrunched up snake inside one of those toy cans where when you take off the lid, the scruched up snake comes all unscrunched and flies out of the can like water rushing through a broken dam. i was the scrunched up snake. yoga is the giant hand that took the lid off the can. i can't believe that i used to live a life that was void of yoga. and void of amelia, my amazing yoga instructor. (sigh of happiness.) it's a beautiful thing to find something that makes life so much better.
i'm having a super wonderful weekend. last night after work, i biked through the snow up to the downtown shopping area of ilsan (we woke up friday morning to huge snowflakes quietly falling from the sky and covering the ground, trees, roofs with a soft and beautiful layer of white. the moment i saw it, i burst out of my groggy just-woken-up-state and clapped my hands together and said "ooooohhhh! it's so PRETTY!" and just for fun, i asked myself if i like winter or summer better and to my utter surprise, i exclaimed without hesitation, "WINTER!!!" who knew.) i was on a mission to find new yoga/running/incredibly comfy pants and was feeling pesimistic after telling lucy, our korean teacher, my shopping plan at work and having her look me up and down and say "you cannot find your size here. maybe you can find a unisex shop." a unisex shop? please. the men here are just as small as the women. if i can't find women's clothes, i'm not buying clothes that don't fit AND aren't pretty. after trying 5 different sports stores and running out of each dressing room in despair and frustration, i realized i had had enough. korean tiny-ness was not going to get me down. so after my pilates class and a wonderful conversation with amelia about the importance of meditating everyday and a wonderful order of juk (my new favorite korean dish--a steaming bowl of rice porridge with vegetables and little flakes of seaweed--oh so delicious and oh so easy on my tummy) to go, i headed home with heated enthusiasm and spent the next 4 1/2 hours shopping online and ordering everything from pjs to yoga pants to tanktops from american clothing stores where i am a size medium, not extra large. take THAT korea! i don't need your unisex shops or your disapproving stares. i happen to like the way i look.
and today, i woke up and went for a run (lake park is really pretty lately--it's frozen over and all the trees are lined with snow), cleaned, and had my first stress-free grocery shopping experience in the 5 months (is it 5 months already?) i've been here. i found everything i needed, didn't freak out that the organic products are 3 times as expensive as they are in america, and fit everything in my backpack to make for a smooth bike ride home. and i have spent the night enjoying my clean apartment, enjoying another order of juk, and enjoying the book i'm reading--eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert. it's the authors story of how she traveled to italy, india, and indonesia for a year to search for God in the pleasure of italian food in Rome, the spiritual devotion at an ashram in india, and i don't know what she does in indonesia yet. haven't gotten that far. :) i love the book. i see so many similarities to this woman in myself in her desire to travel and her desire to search for God. i would like to spend some time at an ashram sometime. maybe more than once even. i'd like to spend time in a lot of places, but that may be near the top of my list.
and it's 10:42 on a saturday night and i'm about to call it a day. there's something so great about nights with hot take-out, a clean apartment, and a good book. it makes me go to bed with a smile.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
sicko
i only had a 3 day work week, and yet, by the end of it, i was completely exhausted. i got home from the philippines on tuesday night and went back to work wednesday morning, very curious to see how things were going to work with half the amount of teachers. they hired a korean teacher to help out with the kindergarten in the morning, but in the afternoons, mary and i have just had to combine classes and add more to our teaching load. we've managed to keep a music class (which i am so happy about), but now on top of music, i teach some in the classroom as well, and what it comes down to is that neither of us have a moment throughout the day where we are not teaching. no prep time, no down time, no breathing time. it is an adjustment. i think i'll get used to it. i hope.
but i think all the stress from before christmas and traveling for a week and a half and coming back to work doing twice as much work as usual caught up to me b/c by the time i got home friday night, i felt completely beaten. i woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible fever and i was sweating and shivering and turning up the heat and then running downstairs to turn it down and putting on big socks and layers and then ripping them off 5 minutes later. it's been awful. i haven't left my apartment in 2 days. i think my body finally saw a moment to show how exhausted and stressed its been. it's sunday night and tomorrow morning i have to wake up to an entire week of intense teaching and being sick is just not an option. so pray for my health, paleeeeeaase...
but i think all the stress from before christmas and traveling for a week and a half and coming back to work doing twice as much work as usual caught up to me b/c by the time i got home friday night, i felt completely beaten. i woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible fever and i was sweating and shivering and turning up the heat and then running downstairs to turn it down and putting on big socks and layers and then ripping them off 5 minutes later. it's been awful. i haven't left my apartment in 2 days. i think my body finally saw a moment to show how exhausted and stressed its been. it's sunday night and tomorrow morning i have to wake up to an entire week of intense teaching and being sick is just not an option. so pray for my health, paleeeeeaase...
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
a filipino christmas.
have you ever wondered why philippines is spelled with a "ph" but when you say filipino (like a filipino person or a filipino meal) it is spelled with an "f?" i have.
i have been in the philippines 10 days now and am preparing to head back to korea tomorrow morning. to avoid turning this post into a short novel, i will try to give a brief summary of the past week and a half:
i arrived in the philippines on saturday, dec. 22 and spent from then until dec. 26 at my cousin's apartment in manilla with his wife and 4 year old daughter. they live in an BEAUTIFUL apartment complex, with an amazing pool in the backyard, which is where i spent most of my time. it was nice being with a family for christmas since i wasn't with my own. the morning after christmas, i took a 3 hour bus ride to batangas pier, trying to pretend that i wasn't being stared at the entire time. (i was most definetely out of place as the only white girl and blonde on top of that.) i then hopped on a little boat that they call a "ferry" but i do not b/c when i think of a ferry i think of a big white ship with people hanging off the rails waving to their people on shore and places you can sit inside and a deck where you can stand outside and little men in boat uniforms saying "matey" and a big horn they toot as we sail away. the boat i took was about the size of two canoes put together run by 3 filipino boys who are younger than my little brother. and it rained the whole time.
so after a 2 hour "ferry" ride, i arrived on the shore of puerto galera, on the island of oriental mindoro. as i gathered my bags and made my way from boat to beach, i was bombarded with filipinos asking me if i had a place to stay or if i needed a ride, and i was led by a young man who said he could take me to my beach via trycicle. i was brought through very suspicious looking alleys and told to "wait here" and 10 minutes after standing in the rain being stared at by every passing filipino, just as the panick was starting to set in, my faithful ride came with his trycicle. i will put up pictures when i get back to korea, but the only way to describe this thing is a moped from the 1970s with a barrel attached to the side, which is where i was to sit as he took me on the worst, most pot-hole-filled, most up-hill down-hill, windy roads i have ever seen.. i'd like to say i was scared, and i was, but mostly, i was so full of adreneline and excitment that i was doing something that felt so appropraite to traveling in country like this, that i had a huge smile plasterd to my face the entire time. there was also a little sticker inside my little barrel that said "God bless our trip," which just made me smile more--the driver must realize the fear they often instill into their riders.
i got to talipan beach and the bamboo house that i was staying in and although i was relieved to be out of the rain, my little room i was staying in was much like camping. no frills, no toilet seat, a trickle of cold water coming out of the shower head, which completely soaks the entire bathroom everytime i use it, no air conditioning (and it was VERY humid--i woke up every morning bathing in my own sweat), and it looked liked i could get attacked by any number of bugs at any moment. but this, too, just made me smile, b/c it felt so appropriate to the experience. (and i was only paying 10 bucks a night so what do you expect, really?) but all the filipinos were so kind right away and did everything they could to make my stay unforgetable.
so the island. wow. i have seen many beautiful places, but this was the most exotic. have you ever seen the show "lost?" the island was so lost-ish i nearly started listening for big roars from the jungle and keeping my eye out for "the others." it was mountaineous and full of palm trees and rocks jutting out into the ocean and there were little huts made of straw everywhere and it felt slightly surreal. but there were no frills. the beach i was staying on was not the kind with resorts where you order pina colados from the middle of the pool, it was quiet, authentic, and restful.
what was maybe the best part of my trip was the people i met. i spent a lot of time with a couple from denmark who was staying at the bamboo house. we went out for dinner every night together (there was an italian place just at the end of the beach jutting into the ocean with AMAZING food that people come from all over puerto galera to eat at--seriously, how is there such a good italian chef in the middle of an island in the philippines?) and they were fantastic. i also spent some time with a family from manilla who are missionaries. we took a boat out to the reef and went snorkeling (which was really more like "dodge-the-jelly-fish" b/c they were EVERYWHERE--just little jelly fish floating around stinging us everywhere not enough to make a scar and did a little beach hopping. we also went hiking up to some waterfalls (guided by three 12 year old filipino boys who made us all look like fools as they climbed the rocks and hopped through the rivers with no shoes as we held onto the rope they had for us with dear life) and those were fantastic. on our way there we went through some areas where really poor filipinos were living--their "houses" were smaller than a kids' tree house and the kids running around were so skinney it made me want to cry.
i read 3 books--prep by curtis sittenfield (or her last name is something like that), into the wild by jon krauker (his last name is something like that) and a spot of bother by mark haddon. loved all of them and they were all very very different. i also got a killer tan. i look like a chocolate bar. milk chocolate not dark chocolate. that would just be an exageration.
and now i'm back in manilla and tomorrow i leave for korea. i'm eager to get home and get back to my normal life. it will be very interesting to see what school is like when we get back. hannah and raquel aren't coming back, which all came about the day before i left for vacation, so my apartment is absolutely covered in stuff that they couldn't take back to canada with them--dishes, food, pans, detergent, fans, drying racks. and we have gone from 4 teachers to 2, and my guess is they haven't found anyone in the time that we were gone, but i could be wrong. vacations are wonderful, but coming home and getting on with normal life is wonderful as well.
we're leaving early tomorrow morning for the hospital where asli (my cousin chad's wife) is having her baby (a c-section). i may even get to see her before i have to leave for the airpot. cool. :)
happy new years everyone!!! whoop whoop for 2008!
i have been in the philippines 10 days now and am preparing to head back to korea tomorrow morning. to avoid turning this post into a short novel, i will try to give a brief summary of the past week and a half:
i arrived in the philippines on saturday, dec. 22 and spent from then until dec. 26 at my cousin's apartment in manilla with his wife and 4 year old daughter. they live in an BEAUTIFUL apartment complex, with an amazing pool in the backyard, which is where i spent most of my time. it was nice being with a family for christmas since i wasn't with my own. the morning after christmas, i took a 3 hour bus ride to batangas pier, trying to pretend that i wasn't being stared at the entire time. (i was most definetely out of place as the only white girl and blonde on top of that.) i then hopped on a little boat that they call a "ferry" but i do not b/c when i think of a ferry i think of a big white ship with people hanging off the rails waving to their people on shore and places you can sit inside and a deck where you can stand outside and little men in boat uniforms saying "matey" and a big horn they toot as we sail away. the boat i took was about the size of two canoes put together run by 3 filipino boys who are younger than my little brother. and it rained the whole time.
so after a 2 hour "ferry" ride, i arrived on the shore of puerto galera, on the island of oriental mindoro. as i gathered my bags and made my way from boat to beach, i was bombarded with filipinos asking me if i had a place to stay or if i needed a ride, and i was led by a young man who said he could take me to my beach via trycicle. i was brought through very suspicious looking alleys and told to "wait here" and 10 minutes after standing in the rain being stared at by every passing filipino, just as the panick was starting to set in, my faithful ride came with his trycicle. i will put up pictures when i get back to korea, but the only way to describe this thing is a moped from the 1970s with a barrel attached to the side, which is where i was to sit as he took me on the worst, most pot-hole-filled, most up-hill down-hill, windy roads i have ever seen.. i'd like to say i was scared, and i was, but mostly, i was so full of adreneline and excitment that i was doing something that felt so appropraite to traveling in country like this, that i had a huge smile plasterd to my face the entire time. there was also a little sticker inside my little barrel that said "God bless our trip," which just made me smile more--the driver must realize the fear they often instill into their riders.
i got to talipan beach and the bamboo house that i was staying in and although i was relieved to be out of the rain, my little room i was staying in was much like camping. no frills, no toilet seat, a trickle of cold water coming out of the shower head, which completely soaks the entire bathroom everytime i use it, no air conditioning (and it was VERY humid--i woke up every morning bathing in my own sweat), and it looked liked i could get attacked by any number of bugs at any moment. but this, too, just made me smile, b/c it felt so appropriate to the experience. (and i was only paying 10 bucks a night so what do you expect, really?) but all the filipinos were so kind right away and did everything they could to make my stay unforgetable.
so the island. wow. i have seen many beautiful places, but this was the most exotic. have you ever seen the show "lost?" the island was so lost-ish i nearly started listening for big roars from the jungle and keeping my eye out for "the others." it was mountaineous and full of palm trees and rocks jutting out into the ocean and there were little huts made of straw everywhere and it felt slightly surreal. but there were no frills. the beach i was staying on was not the kind with resorts where you order pina colados from the middle of the pool, it was quiet, authentic, and restful.
what was maybe the best part of my trip was the people i met. i spent a lot of time with a couple from denmark who was staying at the bamboo house. we went out for dinner every night together (there was an italian place just at the end of the beach jutting into the ocean with AMAZING food that people come from all over puerto galera to eat at--seriously, how is there such a good italian chef in the middle of an island in the philippines?) and they were fantastic. i also spent some time with a family from manilla who are missionaries. we took a boat out to the reef and went snorkeling (which was really more like "dodge-the-jelly-fish" b/c they were EVERYWHERE--just little jelly fish floating around stinging us everywhere not enough to make a scar and did a little beach hopping. we also went hiking up to some waterfalls (guided by three 12 year old filipino boys who made us all look like fools as they climbed the rocks and hopped through the rivers with no shoes as we held onto the rope they had for us with dear life) and those were fantastic. on our way there we went through some areas where really poor filipinos were living--their "houses" were smaller than a kids' tree house and the kids running around were so skinney it made me want to cry.
i read 3 books--prep by curtis sittenfield (or her last name is something like that), into the wild by jon krauker (his last name is something like that) and a spot of bother by mark haddon. loved all of them and they were all very very different. i also got a killer tan. i look like a chocolate bar. milk chocolate not dark chocolate. that would just be an exageration.
and now i'm back in manilla and tomorrow i leave for korea. i'm eager to get home and get back to my normal life. it will be very interesting to see what school is like when we get back. hannah and raquel aren't coming back, which all came about the day before i left for vacation, so my apartment is absolutely covered in stuff that they couldn't take back to canada with them--dishes, food, pans, detergent, fans, drying racks. and we have gone from 4 teachers to 2, and my guess is they haven't found anyone in the time that we were gone, but i could be wrong. vacations are wonderful, but coming home and getting on with normal life is wonderful as well.
we're leaving early tomorrow morning for the hospital where asli (my cousin chad's wife) is having her baby (a c-section). i may even get to see her before i have to leave for the airpot. cool. :)
happy new years everyone!!! whoop whoop for 2008!
Friday, December 21, 2007
a doozy of a week.
this is going to be short and sweet, but i just wanted to post before leaving. what? leaving? yes, i'm heading to the philippines in about 8 hours to spend 11 days soaking in the sun and celebrating christmas on the beach. i'll be flying into manilla and spending a few days with my cousin, chad, on his pregnant wife and 5-year-old daughter. i'm hoping to do a lot of day trips--there's a famous volcano thing not too far away, some famous mountain thing not too far away, and also just check out manilla. (i really don't have a set itinerary, i'm just gonna go with the flow like they do down there. i don't really know if they do down there, but it just seems like they would since it's hot all year round. there's really no logic in that but whatever.) and then i'm heading to an island called puerto galera and staying in a little bamboo hut right off the ocean that you can check out here. (that will take you to some pictures of it, but if you look further down the page you can click on something called amenities that shows what the rooms and such look like.) i'll be staying there for most of my trip, hopefully waking up every morning, walking out my front door, and laying on the beach for the entire day.
i really cannot express how excited i am to be out of the country for awhile, see a new place, spend some time with family, and lay on a beach for an entire week all by myself and completely refresh my spirit and rejuvinate my soul. it has been a horrible week that i don't even want to begin explaining, but 2 out of the 4 of us teachers got fired, leaving 2 of us to do double the work that we are capable of, and dumping a pile of stress from both our co-workers' end (who are also our friends) and also from the administrative end. i don't think i've been this stressed out for awhile, so this vacation comes at a perfect time.
i've also never had a christmas away from home before, so it will be a new experience for me. i'm quite excited actually to see what it's like and so far i have felt ok about it. i think it will be hard when my sisters get home and my whole family is together without me there. i really can't imagine my family doing christmas without me. i like to think i'm the glue that holds it together, but that's what every member of the family likes to think. :) i'm sure they'll get along fine without me and i'm sure i'll get along fine without them, but it will be different and sad as well. i will miss them. :( merry christmas family.
i really cannot express how excited i am to be out of the country for awhile, see a new place, spend some time with family, and lay on a beach for an entire week all by myself and completely refresh my spirit and rejuvinate my soul. it has been a horrible week that i don't even want to begin explaining, but 2 out of the 4 of us teachers got fired, leaving 2 of us to do double the work that we are capable of, and dumping a pile of stress from both our co-workers' end (who are also our friends) and also from the administrative end. i don't think i've been this stressed out for awhile, so this vacation comes at a perfect time.
i've also never had a christmas away from home before, so it will be a new experience for me. i'm quite excited actually to see what it's like and so far i have felt ok about it. i think it will be hard when my sisters get home and my whole family is together without me there. i really can't imagine my family doing christmas without me. i like to think i'm the glue that holds it together, but that's what every member of the family likes to think. :) i'm sure they'll get along fine without me and i'm sure i'll get along fine without them, but it will be different and sad as well. i will miss them. :( merry christmas family.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
happy birthday, merry christmas.
friday night, we had a big tango pango work party hosted by the four of us teachers. we introduced korean to a progressive dinner (we did appetizers at mary's, main course at my place, and dessert and hannah and raquel's) and to mexican food. i made fajitas and they were all very much impressed.
i was also given the "employee of the month" award by my fellow
teachers. before you all start thinking i'm the greatest little teacher there ever was, i feel the need to explain that it was a joke. i also got a stocking full of presents to open on christmas. as if i'm waiting till then. 
it was our last weekend before everyone takes off for the holidays. so, needless to say, there was many a party taking place in the city saturday night. conveniently, both parties i was suppose to be at ended up at my favorite bar, bricxx (i may have had a hand in the planning...) and it was a really fantastic night. party #1: hannah's birthday. 20 people. started at mad garlic (pictures on your left) for dinner and moved onto bricxx (pictures below).
this is bricxx.
on left, hannah and annie. (aren't the walls rockin'?) on the right...hookah anyone?
lydia, bruce, raquel, and mary.
trees! with lights! in an underground bar! so cool.
this is party #2 that was quite literally a 2 steps from the other party. we eventually just combined them b/c we were so close. i love it when things work out like that! this was a christmas party with a gift exchange and everything--like my new scarf???
debbie and i.
Friday, December 14, 2007
tis the season to post funny links.
so here's some things to brighten your day. they sure brightened mine. you must, oh must, listen to them. you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cringe, you'll cheer:
from andrew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8
from kristin...Messiah organist on crack:
http://www.btinternet.com/~tim.johnson77/rambler/Messiahorganistoncrack.mp3
from andrew:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8
from kristin...Messiah organist on crack:
http://www.btinternet.com/~tim.johnson77/rambler/Messiahorganistoncrack.mp3
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