The David Blaine of Avocados

* I signed up for an on-line Korean class. The class consists of 12 videos for the price or 27,000 won / $25 and half of the tuition money goes to Haiti earthquake relief. Since the money is going towards a good cause I thought I would try it out. So far so good, I completed the first class, and will probably do another class tonight. The teacher is Canadian and has been living in Korea for 6 years. He learned the language and knows exactly what challenges an English only speaker faces. Its pretty good. The videos are of him teaching westerners in a classroom. I can e-mail him questions but basically I am free to go at my own pace, there are no assignments or grades.
* Speaking of grades, on Friday at work everyone was gathered around the bulletin boards looking at lists of peoples names. I visited the floors 8-6 and it was the same scene on each floor. Apparently, these were the lists of everyone in the company who received a promotion. It reminded me of going to school back before teachers began posting grades on-line..... One-pon time, when the man in the moon was just a little boy, and ducks walked with webbed feet, much as they do today, teachers use to post your grade publicly. They would use the last four digits of your social security number and then put your grades up out side of the classroom. Well seeing everyone crowded around the lists at work gossiping about who got promoted and who didn't reminded me of this. But in this situation, your full name is posted, along with your new title; no attempt at privacy at all!
* Today I went to Costco with Chin. (Coincidentally, Chin's name is on the promotion list.) I bought all the western treats I have been missing. I got a huge box of Ritz crackers, a thing of frozen hash browns, Parmesan shake cheese, spinach and cheese raviolis, feta cheese, and a big bag of avocados! Total comfort foods that remind me of home! I also bought a box of those tinny paper towels that you just add water and they grow like a marshmallow in a camp fire (Shereen and Henry know what I mean, P.S. congrats again on the baby!)Way better than carrying a big pack of baby wipes, I always have water with me anyways so its perfect!
* On Thursday I came in to work and there was a ripe avocado on my desk! It was the first avocado I've had since I moved out here! And no Allie, it was not the avocado fairy, though I do believe they exist, it was actually Chin. She had gotten them at Costco last week. Since it was ripe I had to take it home to eat, I couldn't leave it another day; it would have gone bad. But, after work I was meeting Hui Kung and Sayheung to see the movie Abata - Avatar so I put the avocado in my coat pocket; I didn't want it getting all smashed up in my purse. Sayheung pre-ordered us sandwiches from Cafe Comeon(Melissa's favorite place for pumpkin lattes)and Hui Kung and I went to pick them up. I realized that if I cut up the avocado we could all put pieces of it on our sandwiches. So I showed the avocado to Hui Kung and told her my idea and she was really excited, she had never even seen one before! In fact, ah-ba-ka-doe was her new English word for the day.
I asked the girls working at the cafe if they could cut the avocado for me. They took it to the sink and washed it first, not a good sign, and then tried to cut it in the middle. I thought oh crap, they don't know how to cut the avocado. They too had never seen an avocado before. So I motioned to them to cut the avocado around the side but they were trying to cut through the seed. I asked them to hand it over to me so I could show them how a girl from California would cut an avocado.
I twisted the top half of it reveling the seed inside. All three girls made a gasp, they were surprised by the size of the seed. Then I held the half with the seed in it in the palm of my hand and hit the seed with the knife. Next, I gave a little twist and the seed popped out still attached to the knife. You would have thought I was David Blaine performing street magic! The girls were amazed by my avocado cutting skills! Next, I showed them how to hit the knife on the trashcan so the seed would pop off, another round of gasps. Lastly, I cut the avocado around the shell, made long vertical cuts, and then squeezed the shell so that the piece I cut fanned out, cheers and clapping ensued. I am officially the David Blaine of avocados!
* So I was warned early on not to ever sit in the front seat of a cab. Driving a cab is one of the few jobs available to people with criminal records, so I figured this was a precautionary measure. I have heard stories about women who sit in the front of cabs are just asking a driver to make sexual advances. So, I never sit up front. Well when Hui Kung and I came out of the cafe with our sandwiches Sayheung was waiting in his car. I told Hui Kung that she could ride shot gun. She said "No, I will sit in the back with you." I thought this was really strange, I mean, Sayheung is driving us to the movies but he is not a cab driver! It seemed rude to me. But then Hui Kung said that she didn't want to sit up front because then she would be his girlfriend. I was so surprised! I guess the passenger seat is reserved for the significant other and even if that person is not there, you don't take their seat. No wonder you don't ever sit up front with a cab driver!
* Tokey Pokey is no longer a free-range rabbit. He got in trouble when I came home one day to find shreds of wall paper on the floor. That's right, he decided to start ripping off the wall paper. I was so freaked out! I thought I was going to get in trouble because of what he did! But then I looked at the pieces of wall paper and found that there was mold all over the wall behind the wall paper!!! It was in the kitchen, not near a wet area so I am really worried that there is mold behind the wall paper everywhere in my house! No wonder there is even wall paper on the ceiling!
So I told some people at work, and brought in a sample that Tokey Pokey had taken down, so there would be no misunderstanding what I was talking about. (I put the sample in one of the princess baggys you gave me Sophia.) Hopefully they will be able to find me a new place to live. So maybe Tokey Pokey was helping me after all; but he certainly wasn't helping when he jumped up on the shelf and ate 3 library books!!!! Like I said, no more free-range rabbit! He now lives in a large gated community out in the laundry room.