long time, no speak-uh

well, i obviously haven't been too good at keeping up with this blog. not much has happened, but at the same time, i don't have the energy to fill everyone in on every little detail of what i've been up to.

so, in a nutshell (help! i'm in a nutshell! how did i get into this bloody great big nutshell? what kind of shell has a nut like this?):

katherine and steph came, saw, and conquered. it was a lot of fun, though it sucked that i still had to work when they visited. surprisingly, they liked the spicier food like kimchi jigae, but they weren't as keen on korean food as i'd hoped they be. they took a trip by themselves to busan and gyeongju (i had to work, therefore i had to stay here). we went to seoul the second weekend- that included friday night in itaewon getting sketched out by all of the shady foreigners, spending the night in a yeogwan in insadong, going to a tea museum the next morning, sending katherine off on her merry way, and then steph and i western-ed it up at the marriott on saturday night. it was HEAVEN... we're talking swimming, playing on the aqua gym machines, and hot tubs... where you can wear your swimsuit! god bless western hotels where you don't need to see millions of koreans naked for the sake of a relaxing day at the spa. we ordered room service for dinner (it was absolutely amazing... i'd never really ordered room service before, who knew it was the same price as eating in the hotel restaurant?!) and ordered a movie- the perfect man- that's right, totally a hilary duff guilty pleasure movie, and we loved every second of it. anyway it was nice doing that with steph because she's finishing up her year in thailand so she appreciated the western-ness just as much as i did. she's actually going home in early may, hard to believe her year in asia has come and gone... speaking of, as i was leaving for daejeon that sunday, it made me feel homesick because katherine was going back home, steph is so close to going home, and i have no one left to come and visit me, so now it's just the final stretch for me. can't believe it's 14 weeks left!

anyway, the weather's getting nice and springy, which is awesome. i'm getting major summer fever, all i can think of is spending days outside, and going home and spending a week at the cape. oh, i'd kill for a day at the beach. turns out, though, i have cinco de mayo off! children's day here falls on may 5th, which means a 3 day weekend for us. alisun and i are thinking of gathering everyone maybe on her rooftop or something and making a fiesta out of it... i have two old el paso taco kits from costco and some guacamole in the freezer that i have yet to use... i'm saving it for a special occasion, and i think this might just be it. i'm also thinking mojitos would be the perfect drink for the day.

ok what do i have left to mention... oh, salsa is home for the week for a friend's wedding, so i've been filling in at her morning job at 2 public elementary schools... it's an easy gig, working with a korean co-teacher, and you're basically there as an example/object... the kids watch videos, you ask questions about it. not much actual "teaching" involved for me. it's been fun seeing how the korean public education system runs, and the schools are surprisingly more cheery than i imagined they would be. i'm also really happy with getting this opportunity because the more teachers i work with, the more ideas/inspiration i get for my own classroom. which reminds me, i read about a program called nyc teaching fellows, where you work for your masters degree in education while teaching in a public school, and the government pays for most of your schooling plus you make starting teacher's salary. kind of like teach for america. anyway, it's something i'm really interested in, and i'm thinking (didn't mention this before but i'm moving to nyc) of applying for that within the next year... the next program starts in june so there's no way i could do that, but maybe i'll work on some language like spanish, get esl certified, and then apply for the program to hopefully be an esl teacher. tough thing is this program is pretty competitive.

ok, i guess the last note of interest is that the stupid tonsillitis came back. of course it came back last week when i started filling in for melissa so i had no time to go to the doctor until friday afternoon. the doctor kind of scolded me because i was kind of talking about the swelling of my throat in a joking manner and she it was serious. anyway she gave me two weeks-worth of medication, they're different pills this time and unfortunately they didn't kick in until yesterday, so i spent all day saturday inside too tired to do anything. i just can't get over the fact that i NEVER get sick, yet i come here and tonsillitis strikes three times. awesome. i shall leave you from some inspirational words from my momma: "'tough titty,' said the kitty, 'but the milk tastes good.'"