baby tomato starts lagging behind...

"so there's papa tomato,momma tomato and baby tomato walking along the street. baby tomato starts lagging behind, and papa tomato starts getting really angry. so, he turns around and squishes baby tomato and says, 'ketchup.' (catch up) "

yeah. ketchup is what i need to do.

my internet has been out off and on for the past week, which was getting really annoying. i called the internet company one day about two weeks ago and someone was supposed to come fix it when i got home from work, but then i got home and it was working again. well then last weekend it was out again so someone finally came today and changed the cable connector, apparently that's where the problem was. so, there you go, internet problem is fixed.

but because of that i didn't have much time to post anything. i shall try to ketchup now.

nothing too exciting has happened, can you tell?

i did have an amusing moment last week, apparently worthy of a standing ovation, because that's what i got. so this is what happened: last week i decided my hair was too long to do anything with except for get in my eyes and be annoying, so i decided to get a haircut. no big deal, right? i'd already gotten my hair trimmed once here, at a hole-in-the-wall place for just $5, but i wanted to do something a bit different and went to mod's hair paris near timeworld. i always see the place and thought it'd probably be a fun trendy place to go. so i brought with me a few pictures i printed out of winona ryder and jean seberg, wanting to go pretty short and pixie-ish. i walked in, the only megook in the place, and showed them the picture when they sat me down. now, koreans just don't really get the idea of short hair on younger girls, so the woman actually kind of laughed when i showed her the picture of winona ryder. i didn't really care though. anyway, there was only one english-speaking person in the place, and her english was a bit shaky anyway (well i didn't think so, but she was kind of shy in using it) but they stationed her right next to me to brush the hair off while the woman cut it. anyway, long story short, as they were cutting, stylists kept passing by and saying beautiful, and then by the end of the cut, they were all standing around me and when they took the cape off everyone started clapping. classic korea moment... getting a standing ovation for a haircut. and the best part? it was only $10, pretty good because it was a nice place and i would have easily spent $40 or so in dc for that.

here's another funny korea thing: it's a huge compliment for koreans to tell each other their faces look small (or their heads for that matter). apparently having a small face is a beauty ideal or something. it's actually quite amusing- in the past when i've taken pictures with koreans they'll demand to retake it because "their head is too big." when my kids want to butter me up and get me to play a game, they'll say "oh teacher, you are so beautiful. your face is so small and eyes are so big." little suck-ups.

in other news, i've joined the gym in my school's building. it's really nice- all of the treadmills have tvs attached to them so you're not at the mercy of other people and get to watch what you want to watch. and if you're stuck running indoors, the time goes by much quicker when you have a tv to watch. i really like this gym though because they give you a shirt and shorts to wear so you don't have to worry about laundry, and i also rented a locker to keep my shoes and shower stuff in so i don't have to lug it back and forth all the time. god bless korean efficiency.

three days off this coming weekend! finally! i was beginning to feel a little bit of burnout working the intensives schedule (we've had no holidays off since september i think). still sucks though that every holiday this year seems to fall on the weekend. this weekend is lunar new year, the biggest holiday in korea, and we only get one day off because new year's day falls on sunday, and i've heard that if it just happens to be on the right day you could get as much as 5 days off. what a lousy year for vacation.