ode to a mixed tape.

today i was headed out the door for lunch when mary reached inside the tango pango mail box and pulled out a little birthday package from my friend dena (a little late, in typical dena-style, but uber fantastic and thoughtful, also typical dena-style.) anyway, among a wonderful cookbook, wonderful underwear (the wonderful part is that it's not korean and therefore is made for people who actually have existant thighs, hips, and bums), and...brace yourself...a MIXED TAPE!!!! well, a cd actually, but for some reason it's just so fun to say a MIXED TAPE!!!! doesn't it just take you back to freshman year in high school when the boy you really like gave you a cool mixed tape with songs like "glycerine" by bush and "i'll be your crying shoulder" by...whoever wrote that song. and all your friends were like "oooohhhhh, that's soooooo cute. you're so lucky! you guys are totally going to get married!" and in that single mixed tape, all of your romantic dreams and fantasies came true.

so dena's mixed tape did just that for me. well, not exactly, but i've forgotten how great a mixed tape can be! (i'm going to keep calling it mixed tape. i just can't stop.) this is the second mixed tape i've gotten in the past month (the other from my friend ali who i met in beijing--also a ridiculously fabulous mix that i can't stop listening to) and i am LOVING them!!! i know that when you listen to an entire album you get the whole story and the emotional flow and all that, but how great is it to go from simon and garfunkel (a dena classic) to outkast to radiohead to that awesome hit from once (baaaa! i hate to jump on the once soundtrack wagon, but that song nearly makes me cry every time) to under the sea (random, i know, but come on people, that song is SO FUN to belt out on a road trip...) to over the rhine. it makes me happy.

today at school, i had my kids paint a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up. as i was going around the table, saying things like "oooo, jae-won, what's this? a police man? wow, you would make a great police man. and what's this rocket (yes her english name is rocket)? you want to be a big rocket ship? (now you understand why her english name is rocket.) i can definetely see that as a possibility." and then i got to lindsey and kristen, who just had big blobs of different colors all over their page. "and what is this? hmmmm, let's see, you must want to be a...um...uh..." and they screamed out "teacher carolyn!" in exasperation as if it was sooo obvious and how could i not get that out of their blobs of color. there was not a trace of a human body to be found on that page. so. atleast now i know what i look like to a korean 5 year old.

remember my birthday?

it's a week late, but here's a little taste of the big birthday bash from last saturday night. it was a good time, complete with big party hats, a ginormous traveling cake, an inevitable cake fight at the end of the night, and some very angry bartenders cleaning up the damage.

so here's mary and i, 2 out of the 4 birthdays we were celebrating.

my girls! debbie, mina, amelia, and me.








here is the beautiful cake at the beginning of the night. (i picked it out myself. i was trying to find one that said "happy birthday" in korean, but apparently it's much cooler here to have it written in english.)




here's the cake at the next place we were at. very neat slices taken out. people casually taking bites from the edges.





and here is my lovely cake at the end of the night. and this was before people started taking handfuls and throwing it into each other's faces. i found chunks of frosting in my hair when i got home. (but secretly, i brought the cake hoping this is how the night would end. a great cake fight makes a party memorable.)

rain rain go away. come again NEVER!!!!

things that bother me:

• the fact that 2 days ago it was 64 degrees and today ice fell from the sky while i was riding my bike.
  
• rainy weather all day when i'm already in low spirits. or maybe that's why i was in low spirits. which came first? the chicken or the egg? the rain or the bad mood?
• people who don't know proper lap swimming etiquette. like the water-splashing little korean woman last night who, for 6 solid laps, swam so close behind me that her hands hit my toes on several occasions. i finally stopped in mid-lap, let her run into me, and said "STOP DOING THAT!!!!" i will forever be known at that pool as the girl who yells things in english. or just the girl who yells. that's enough of a novelty in korea.

things that made me smile today inspite of my bad mood:

• discovering these dot thingies on my blog and making cool lists with them.
• going to teach my private class to mi-ho and thomas after school and having them write about their favorite birthday memory and hearing thomas read "my favorite birthday was 2 years ago when my parents took me out for robstar." robstar? do you mean rock star? your friend rob that's a star? the constellation called rob? "no you know, robstar. the red thing from the ocean with the claws. it was the first time i'd ever eaten it." ah. lobster. almost as funny as me saying "horrible sex."
  
• yoga!!!! the only time all day that i had a clear head! amelia and mina! hooray for good friends who do yoga with me.
• this. watch it watch it watch it!
  

bring on year 24!!!

"happy birthday to me.
happy birthday to me.
happy birthday dear me-eeeeeeeee.....
happy birthday to me!"

(it's mary's birthday tomorrow so we're sharing a birthday toast on the left.)

so technically it was yesterday (well actually, technically technically it is today since i was born in america and in america, it was march 20 today), but who has time to blog on their birthday? actually i totally had time, but i had so many birthday e-mails, facebook messages, and phone calls to reply to (i felt SO LOVED!!! thanks for that to all who remembered...). here were some of the cool things about my 24th:

• talking to katie and dena and my parents on the phone! (gotta love skype)
  
• getting an i-tunes gift certificate (brilliant) from kristin, grant, tricia, jen, and andrew. thanks guys! can't wait to go music shopping!
  
• walking into the doors of tango pango to be bombarded by 19 sets of arms grabbing my legs and screaming "happy berday calolyn!!! calolyn is or berday!!!"
  
• getting 19 very artistically decorated birthday cards from those same sets of arms with very intense efforts of writing "happy birthday carolyn" that looked something like "hajky bfetday canaiyn." or in some cases, just "~~__`>c~~_" or something like that.
  
• a gift from a friend who was traveling through india that included a little brass bottle of holy water from the ganges river. how many people get holy water for their 24th birthday? not many i bet. thanks ali!
• taking a beautiful walk through lake park (it was 60 degrees and sunny yesterday) with debbie as the sun went down.
  
• and to finish the night, hanging out with matt and mary and wicket (their dog) for drinks at the GS (a little convenient store type thing in our courtyard where people often sit outside on little plastic chairs around little plastic tables--very classy) and lots of laughs.
• getting a big can of fruit cocktail as a birthday gift at about 1 am from my security gaurd mr. kong, which you can see in this picture on the bottom right. definitely the strangest gift i recieved this year.

so all in all, a great birthday! we're celebrating saturday night in the city with a big birthday bash b/c mary's birthday is tomorrow and our friend lydia's birthday is this week as well, so the celebrating has only just begun! (birthdays can be so exhausting...)

freudian slip.

so last night i was at my private lesson teaching my two high school kids, and the topic of horoscopes came up. they were unclear of the meaning of the word, so i attempted to explain. i said something like this: "horoscopes often predict the future and sometimes you see them in magazines saying things like 'you will have great success at your job next month' or 'you will have lots of luck with the number 34 tomorrow' or 'you will have horrible sex...'"

did i just say the word sex?

yes. i did.

i just said "horrible sex" in front of a 16 year old boy and a 14 year old girl.

ok, so i didn't mean to! i think i was trying to say success, and i just said it to fast and it came out as "sex." but maybe i was thinking that a lot of horoscopes do predict your love life and so i was thinking about sex and it just came out? i don't know! but it was not on purpose! the result of my slip was about 10 minutes of uncontrolable laughter from all ends and stifled laughter for the remaining 45 minutes of our class.

this may sound like no big deal, but let me tell you, it WAS! you do not say "sex" in front of a 16 year old boy who was probably already thinking about sex to begin with and to a 14 year old girl who is sitting in the same room as her older brother. it was SO awkward. and thomas, the boy, could NOT stop laughing for the rest of the hour. the worst part was that the topic of our article for that day was "what is success?" so i probably had to say the word success about 27 more times, and every time i said it, thomas put his head down and started laughing and mi-ho (the girl) looked like she was about to cry.

our relationship will never be the same.

i do.

today i went to my first korean wedding. wow. so. funny. it's totally vegas style. it lasts about 10 minutes, there's about 4 different weddings in the span of one hour, there's people from all the weddings talking loudly through the entire "ceremony," they
all use the same flowers, the same set-up, the same pastor guy
(who sounded like he was comanding a group of soldiers ready to go into battle rather than two people in love who were about to spend a life together..."DO YOU TAKE THIS WOMAN TO BE YOUR LOFTLY WEDDED WIFE. WELL!?!? DO YOU!?!? DO YOU!?!?! IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH!?!?!? you listen and you listen good. you may now kiss the bride OR ELSE! KISS THE BRIDE!!!!" it was obviously in korean, but that's what it sounded like to me.) and then they played some star wars type tune and two girls in flight attendent outfits held up big shy swords and out they went. mary missed 3/4 of it cuz she had to go to the bathroom.



so after the wedding, everyone who attended got up to take a picture. mary and i were the only foreigners, so naturally people stared at us. but it may have helped if i had worn black like everybody else. (if this is what koreans wear to weddings, i'd like to see what they wear to funerals.) but instead, i was wearing a bright red dress with white polka dots, purple tights, red striped shoes, and yellow cardigan, and blue jewelry. needless to say, i did not blend in. no i did not. not at all.



this is random. but isn't it funny? you know, just your friendly little squid and octupus inviting you into the resturaunt. mmmmmm.

what?

today i was so warm at school, i TOOK MY TIGHTS OFF!!!!!! that's right. off with the gray and black checkered tights, with only my bare legs poking out under my blue skirt. it's only march 12!!! HOLLA!!!!!!

carrot juice and apples muffins.

today, i met elly in hongdae for a little shopping and hanging out at her friends' cafe, which is where we are on the left. the cafe had a volkswagon bus inside of it. SO COOL! and also some of the best carrot juice and apples muffins i've ever had. yum.




my entire weekend, actually, was just really fantastic. saturday i had accupuncture at a new place, and i REALLY like my korean medicine man. he has very kind eyes and and a gentle smile. unfortunately, he doesn't speak an ounce of english so i spent a solid 20 minutes watching my friend amelia and him have an intense discussion about me and my health and how i can help my stomach and they talked very fast (korean always sounds very fast to me) and looked at me a lot and it all sounded very detailed and extensive. i sat there quietly looking from one to the other, nodding like i knew what was going on, and finally, amelia turned to me and i said, "ok, what did he say?" she said, in these exact words: "he wants to know if you ok with drink a korean medicine that taste very bad." i looked at her. i looked at him. i looked back at her and said..."really, that's all he said?" "yes," she said with confidence "it taste very bad, but it will help you." it's times like these where i've learned to just smile, take a deep breath and say..."ok. sounds good."

saturday night we had a girls night that consisted of an exciting trip to costco and amelia, debbie, mina, and i squishing on my little couch for dinner and a movie. sometimes i think that's my favorite way to spend a saturday night.


I LOVE TEACHING KIDS YOGA!!!! i had the time of my life. they were so IN to it! it was the cutest and most beautiful thing i've seen in awhile. i even taught them how to meditate at the end! it was just so rewarding and i'm so pumped i get to do this every
week. hooray! i've found yet another calling! :)

i feel a change comin on...

lots of good stuff happening in life:

*there are a few 50 degree days in the 10 day forecast and i say with full confidence that spring is ON IT'S WAY!!!! i don't think it's a false alarm thing like you get in the midwest this time of year. i have a suspicion that korean spring comes sooner, and it also comes with less drastic weather changes. every morning as i'm biking to school, the air has more and more of that earthy dirt things-about-about-to-start-growing smell.

*because i no longer what to curl up in a ball and hibernate every time i step out the door, i can start running outside again! i took a bit of a break from the running game this winter (about mid-january i felt my body screaming at me..."HEY!!!! CAROLYN!!! we need a break. we're tired of running. let's do something else for awhile.") but the past two mornings i have been able to run outside and i feel very refreshed. (and a little sore.) it's just so nice to connect with nature again and listen to my feet crunch the dead leaves and hit the dirt path around the lake. i think i might try to go hiking this weekend so that me and nature's relationship can get fully back on track.

*we started the new kindergarten this week (no, this is not the good thing b/c it's adding more work and taking more energy energy from my life), but the good news is that every friday, guess what i'm teaching my little korean chatter-boxes? YOGA!!!! that's right, i am officially a kids yoga teacher. how did this happen you ask? they suggested we bring someone in to teach the kids yoga on fridays (you gotta love the difference b/t physical education from americans and asians), and somehow it came about that i do yoga, and while i tried to hold back my urge to lunge forward and scream "I'LL TEACH IT!!! I WANNA TEACH IT! ME ME ME!!!!" it became quite clear that i would become the tango pango yoga instructor. i've got oodles of ideas from the internet and from my yoga teacher, and i am anticipating hillariousness mixed with utter chaos mixed with me feeling depressed b/c the kids are better at it than i am.

*it's my birthday this month!

*every day after school, i teach private lessons and they have turned out to be a wonderful thing. on mondays wednesday and fridays, i teach my boss's son, who actually is turning out to be one of the coolest people i've met in korea. he's 20 and is heading to america for college this summer, and i'm helping him become fluent and learn how to write english essays. out conversations are stimulating and honest and inpsiring and i always leave feeling energized and that good feeling when you've really connected with someone. on tuesdays and thursdays, i teach 2 kids ages 14 and 16, and last night i shared with them the beautiful gift of gaucomole, which they'd never had and never heard of. (mexican food hasn't really taken off here for the obvious reason that there are no mexicans.) they loved it. if they remember nothing else from our lessons, they will remember that gaucomole.

a new look.

i got new glasses! i've still been wearing the ones i got when i was 17 (which are most definetely not strong enough anymore) and i am so excited! i can actually wear glasses out and about again! they are red--sort of a darker red, and despite the very difficult time i had during the eye examination trying to communicate with the korean dude (even though my korean friends were there to help me translate), it was all quite quick. i was in, i found the ones i loved, they made the lenses, and i was out. ya! korean glasses shopping seems much simpler than in america. WHAT!?!?! i found something in korea that is easier to get done than in america!?!?!? WHAT!?!??!