there's a mop on my head.

today, i am taking the bus to my private lesson after school. i don't want to be one of those people who can't "get back on the horse," but i think i get a few days. and besides, it's cold, and i'm in a disgruntled sort of mood today, and besides that, i like public transportation. i always feel like i'm connecting with all the other people who can't afford a car, are trying to save the environment, or just got hit by a car while riding their bike.

saturday i'm getting my hair cut!!!! and colored!!! i haven't done a thing to it since early august, and i have actually been enjoying my longer hair. i feel like it's been relatively healthy, shiny, and i've even felt that it's maintained it exuberance from being in the sun all summer. UNTIL. the other day, i woke up, took a shower, let my hair dry a bit while making my trader joe's steel cut oatmeal that was sent to me in a christmas package from my loved ones chicago, and when i approached the mirror to do my hair, my eyes popped out of their sockets and i had to sccop my jaw off the ground as i looked at myself in horror. how had i MISSED this!?!?! i look TERRIBLE!!! my hair was limp and uneven and straggly and resembled the color of a rat's fur after rummaging through the trash. it was quite startling how quickly my attitude transitioned from one of content and approval to one of disgust and humiliation. had i really been sporting this hair with pride and satisfaction? how embarrassing. so! my friend choee is a hair dresser in apujeong, one of the wealthiest parts of seoul, and she is giving me a mega discount to do a cut and color. as much as i'd love to hot pink like last year (or actually, i think this time i'd do electric blue), i think my school would book the soonest flight and send me home. but i want to do short and edgy. sort of uneven edgy. maybe with a longer piece in the front. and PLATINUM blonde! bright blonde! as blonde as blonde can get! so that i can fit in here more. (ha ha.)

the sybesma women take a hit.

today i was talking to my sisters (yes, both at once--kristin on skype and then tricia called her so we put her on speaker phone and it was like we were all in the same room chatting away!) and we discovered that it was a bad day for sybesma women. my mom thought her purse got stolen at the local grocery store (seriously! who steals in sioux center???) and after going home in despair, realized that she actually put it in her cart, put her bananas on top of it, and when she came back to put in more produce, she put it in an empty cart next to hers. so for hours her purse just sat there gaurded under a bunch of bananas. i knew no one would steal in sioux center. (sorry mom, if you wanted to keep that story from getting out--it's just too funny not to tell. and don't worry, i understand. remember the "my car got stolen" incident???) tricia left her lights on and her car battery went dead. kristin lost her keys somewhere in the northwestern parking lot, and cousin jen flashed an entire parking lot b/c the wind flew her skirt up, and later, as she went to shake up her water/crystal light packet in her water bottle, she forgot that the lid wasn't screwed on and dumped the entire thing all over her head. my contribution to the day was that on my way to school this morning, my purse got stuck in my front bike wheel just as i was taking off and it caused a sudden stop and a jolt and a loud noise from me as my body went flying forward, shoving my ribs into my front handle bars. my wasn't really noteworthy, but i thought i needed something to fit in.

well, it turns out that my turn hadn't come yet. tonight i got hit by a car. on my bike. i was on my way to the apartment of the private lesson that i teach after school and i was almost there and i was going onto a crosswalk, a big black lexus didn't see me and ran me over. well, not me, my bike. but both me and my bike got pushed over. and he ran over my tire. the most important thing was that it wasn't my fault. (just kidding, the most important thing was that i wasn't hurt. and that it wasn't my fault...) but it was really scary. a rich looking older korean man got out and said what was probably one of the only english phrases he knows "i am sorry i am sorry!" which really sounded like "i im solly i im solly!" i was so shoke up i just walked my bike to the side walk and he got back in his car. the next thing i knew there were about 5 korean women yelling and i thought "are they yelling at me? was it my fault after all?" but they were actually yelling at him as he drove off for not taking me to the hospital and giving me his phone number. a very kind korean woman helped me and hugged me (b/c i cried a little--nothing hurt, i was fine, but who doesn't cry when they just got hit by a car?) and she had taken down his driver's liscense. i don't know why i don't think properly in those situations! like, when he got out of the car, i just didn't want to make him feel bad, and i wanted to just laugh it off. it's just like the time i got bit by that dog last year in chicago. and i felt so bad for the owners b/c they felt so bad so i just told them not to worry about it b/c "i needed a new pair of shorts anyway." i still have the scar. so anyway, i walked my bike to my private and my two little high school kids were so concerned and it turned into a family affair. the dad and the son took me to get my bike fixed and then to the police station and we reported the whole thing and 3 hours later, i'm back at home, wondering if it was worth all the effort for $30 of damages. the worst part was that after going to two different police stations and listening to two korean men talk for an hour, i had to bike 30 minutes back to my apartment. not only was it freezing, but i was UBER paranoid the entire time. i'd be annoyed about the whole situation, but every time an annoying thought comes into my head, it's immedietely replaced by a voice saying "JUST BE GLAD YOU AREN'T HURT!!!"

however, my back has been extremely sore the past few days (i went running sunday after a running hiatus and have been feeling like i gave birth through my back ever since) and i can see how easy it would be in this situations to make it a whole lot more than it actually was....

i wouldn't. would i? no, i wouldn't. but it's tempting. free massages? free acupuncture? free chiropractor? too bad i've got such a big conscience.

the luckiest girl in ilsan.

last thursday, i became the most envied person in the entire greater area of ilsan. why? costco made it's grand opening and it just happens to be RIGHT across the street from me. there are 4 costcos in korea, and one of them happens to be just a skip and a hop away from me. i cannot tell you how fantastic this is as a foreigner. i have been making trips an hour and a half away to costco every couple of weeks just to get the american products i love and miss. boneless skinless chicken breast, frozen blueberries, 100% cranberry grape juice, organic peanut butter, chicken broth, pesto, gaucamole...mmmmmmm!!!!!! the list goes ON and ON!!!! and as of last thursday, i will never have to break my back getting my costco groceries into the taxi, onto the bus, and the 5 block walk home. i love convenience!!!! i also saw the most hated little korean boy from tango pango shopping with his parents. i spotted him and he smiled and turned all red (or red-ish brown b/c when your skin is brown it doesn't really get red), and i ran up to him sitting in his parents' shopping cart and hugged him and he was just so cute! joey is his name and every day we tell the administration "oh please oh please oh please kick joey out!!!!" the boy has hate in his eyes. evil in his heart. so i thought. but when i saw him tonight amidst big bags of rice and boxes of strange korean cereal that is green, so excited and embarrassed to see me, i just couldn't stop hugging him and trying to tell him how cute he looked in that grocery cart and if he was excited for school tomorrow and forgetting that he doesn't actually speak more than "hello" and "see you next time." so i decided that maybe he hates b/c he knows we hate him. so i am going to try to love joey this week.

and just as a side note, what kind of parents take their kid grocery shopping at 10 pm on a school night? or any night for that matter? korean parents. that's who. you wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of kids that are running around in my courtyard at 11 pm every night. kids that would be in bed by 7:30 in america. atleast it's comforting to know that when my kids are falling asleep in my class it's not b/c i'm boring.

i had a really wonderful weekend. debbie came back from her month long stay in america, and it's so nice having her back. we went for vietnamese food friday night and then met up with amelia after she was done with her yoga classes and saw the late showing of sweeny todd the demon barber of fleet street. (and i mean late--started at 11:45 pm) the acting was great and i couldn't believe this was johnny depp's first musical. he was fabulous. what i found not so fabulous was all the throat slicing. i mean what do you expect when the title has 'demon barber' in it, i know, but it was just a little much for me. i don't do well with blood. even when it's bright red and fake looking. saturday i got accupuncture again, which went better this week. last week i felt really terrible afterwards and the entire week, but apparently that can happen after you do acupuncture for the first time. it's getting rid of all the bad in your body, and re-arranging all your body's energy, and that can take a lot out of you. oh, and today, i started my private yoga classes with amelia! she taught me about ashtanga yoga and then we did the entire standing sequence together. we were by big open windows and it was so quiet and the sun was going down, and i just felt very happy. then we went to a cafe and we spent some time going through the english grammar book that she's learning, and enjoyed our tea and coffee and it was just a really nice afternoon to end my week. i feel grateful that i've found some people here that i am getting close with. it takes a long time to get comfortable with people and really get to know them, but i feel like i am gaining a support system here, and it makes this place feel more like home. it's good to love and be loved. :)

i go to china in 9 days!!! i feel like i am barely back to a normal pace since being in the philippines. i think after china, i am going to take a couple months off from traveling. which is a convenient decision since i don't have any breaks after my trip to china until may...:)

a fright night out.

friday night i went clubbing. on a bicycle. that's right, i went clubbing on a bicycle. this is how i would describe my first every korean spinning class. for those of you who aren't familiar with spinning, go here for a good explanation. basically it's a class that provides stationary bycicles (they are specially made just for this sort of class) with really loud music and usually dimmed lights and an instructor in front yelling you through the workout. sometimes you peddle as fast you as you possibly can and sometimes you turn your resistance way up and stand and peddle really slowly to the beat of the music (the music changes throughout so there's always a different beat to peddle to), like you're going up a hill. anyway, so i went to some spinning classes when i lived in australia and it was intense and all, but NOTHING compares to my experience friday night. it was completely dark, there was a disco ball, strobe lights, and the music was so loud that i literally could not even hear how hard the struggle of my lungs to try to get in more air and how loudly my heart was pounding. the instructor in front was doing a form of bicycle-dancing that i had never seen before, and yelling out all sorts of korean words that, although i didn't understand them, the sheer enthusiasm and energy behind her voice was enough to give me the most intense work-out i've ever had on a bicycle. i LOVED it! i found myself smiling uncontrollably for nearly the entire workout.

in other exercise news, amelia is going to start giving me private yoga classes for FREE! she's going to teach me all the steps to ashtunga (spelling?) yoga so that i can do it on my own. i'm beyond excited! in return, i'm giving her free english lessons. she needs some serious help with grammar and tenses. i think it's a fair and wonderful trade-off. she teaches me her language, i teach her mine! fantastic!

acupuncture was...an experience. i was stuffed in a room with about 12 other koreans where we all sat on the floor against the wall in the shape of a square and this korean dude who looked all healer-esque came around to each one, sitting across from them, asking them questions about their pain, and sticking needles in their hands and feet, and occasionally their arms and legs. bus mostly hands and feets. thank goodness amelia was with me to translate! the entire room listened in on the entire translated conversation with curiousity and humor as the only white girl in the room faced her fear and got stuck with needles. i am planning to go back next week, so hopefully we will see some results. i did feel quite relaxed when i got home last night. and today. hmmmm....from acupuncture? it's hard to say...

I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK TOMORROW!!!

charlie bit me.

no, not charlie my boss. it's the name of this you tube that you HAVE to watch. i got it from my friend tara and it got funnier and funnier every time i watched it. watch the expression on both the boys' faces. click here.

i have decided to re-think my impulsive outburst that i like winter better than summer. it's cold. really. really. cold. and my life requires a lot of biking. i've started doing some tutoring after school, which requires an extra hour of biking three times a week, and i just can't seem to find a way to cover up enough of my face. it's always this time of year when i get a little down. i just want to go for walks and play outside and leave work at 6:30 and atleast see a glimmer of sun left in the sky. and it feels like winter has just begun. spring isn't even on the horizon. sigh.

saturday, i am getting acupuncture. it's my first time. i've wanted it done for years, especially with all the stomach problems i've had in the past couple years, but it's so expensive in the states! here, i can get it for 5,000 won. (approximately a little over 5 bucks.) i'm so excited and so nervous! amelia (beloved yoga instructor) is going with me to hold my hand so i don't freak out when i roll my eyes across my body and see a bunch of needles sticking out of my skin. i have high hopes that it will cure me of every possible thing that is going wrong in my body. i could be a nice person by noon on saturday. brace yourselves.

balance in the new.

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.

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...

picture time!!!

ok, so here's my philippines photos! just click on the albums and enjoy!

album #1

album #2

album #3