Day 17

• So here they celebrate the 11th of November like its valentines day. Everyone gives chocolate sticks (pokeys) for 11/11 day because it looks like sticks. I think I will take Jane’s holiday treat, white chocolate dipped pretzel sticks, and introduce it over here.
• Speaking of pretzels, today Chin treated me to a corn and cheese pretzel (calzone) that you dip in caramel. Surprisingly great flavor combination! Think of caramel corn flavor but with cheese and bread.
• Today I went out to lunch with Bu-nyun, Hee Kyung, and Sunny. Hee Kyung is one of the girls I went out with that very first week of work. Bu-nyun is one of the people who comes to visit me with difficult grammar questions. Why wont she just take “because that’s just not how we say it” as and answer?
• I feel pretty good about work today. I completed my files, although not by the deadline. And I sent them off to the computer programming people. They are now going to take my files and turn them into programs that a teacher can project to his or her class and guide the students through the writing activities. Next week I have to design the workbooks that the students will be writing in as they follow along with the computer file I designed. It’s a lot of work but it’s really cool to know that dozens of teachers will use my graphic organizers and sentence frames to teach hundreds of kids English.

Day 16

• Yesterday at the pharmacy I saw some of those Korean beauty masks (the ones where you put a mask on your face that contains the facial ingredients). I told Hye Jeung that I loved them and last time I was in Korea I bought a bunch and gave them out as gifts. She said she has a bunch too, and today at breakfast she gave me 2 of them!!! She is so sweet! Speaking of sweet, someone on her floor of the office brought Krispy Kream donuts so she brought one up to my office for me. I am so lucky to have her as a friend.
• Today I went back to the pharmacy by my self and picked up the Korean birth control. (Although it’s over the counter they had to order it for me.) I was surprised to find that the 2 people at the pharmacy both speak English really well, and that my new birth control is made by the Bayer Aspirin Company.
• Today I came home after a stressful day trying to meet a 5:30 deadline to find my fridge no longer works, and everything in it is bad and needs to be thrown out. That was the last straw for me! Thank goodness I was meeting Sunny after work today to go to the gym because she was able to call and talk to my landlord. Sunny actually looked at my apartment this summer when she was looking for a place to live so she knew where the landlord’s office was. She wrote down everything that is wrong with my apartment (the heater, the fridge, and the water pipes) in Korean so that I can give it to him when he comes to my apartment tomorrow night. I am also very lucky to have Sunny as a friend. And it is nice because she lives one block away from me.
• So remember how I wanted to go to the free gym because it has all the same equipment just less of it? Well Sunny and I went to work out there tonight. Unfortunately, only the treadmills work. Everything else is not plugged in, and in most cases, missing its power cord all together. You can imagine my disappointment. But I guess that’s what you get when it’s a free facility. Angela would be proud, we stayed and worked out on the treadmill and then abs work.

Day 15

• Today I made sure to scan my badge on my way in to work this morning. Hye Jeung said that when ever she forgets to scan her badge at work she gets a reminder email sent from the company. So that is what those Korean memos were about. I was getting one every day but since I can’t read Korean I figured that if it was really an important memo than it would be in English. Guess not, ooops! I’m just so used to getting my memos read to me in a funny accent by Melissa that I just naturally assumed that the memo was not important.
• At lunch Hye Jeung walked with me to the pharmacy so that I could get some birth control. I managed to leave my 4 month supply that I had gathered specifically for the move over here at home. I need birth control so that my face won’t break out. My skin gets really bad if my hormones are not controlled. Anyways, apparently here you don’t need a prescription for birth control, it’s over the counter and costs about $13 U.S.
• I tried on Chin’s hiking boots today, even thought they are a 7.5 they fit! Maybe that is a men’s 7.5? I was thrilled! Now if only we were going hiking this weekend 
• Sunny and I are going to a conference on Saturday. It’s free, and you know me, always adding to that curriculum vitae. It is nearly novel length now, at least short story length for sure.
• After work Sunny and I went to the gym and I am not impressed. I will try to get her to go to the free gym which has the same equipment, just less of it and not TV’s to watch as you work out. No big deal, I can’t understand Korean television anyways, I’ll stick with my ipod.

Day 14

• Today for breakfast at the office, (they serve breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria at work, which saves me a lot of money) they served fried, sugared, seaweed. Don’t knock it till you try it! I was shocked at how much I liked it.
• Also at breakfast this morning I learned that I was suppose to be swiping my badge each morning so they will know I arrive at work on time. OOOOOOooops! Today was the first day I swiped my badge, asides from on the weekend when I come in to work to use the internet. On the weekend you need to swipe your badge to make the door open, so right now it looks like for the past two weeks I have only been to work on the weekends! Hahahah! Chin said she can vouch for my when I told her my little oversight.
• Today I went back to Y’z League and trained the teachers in how to make the graphic organizers and sentence frames. It is so strange to actually have people working for me. Each one of the 6 teachers will be filling out the same weekly reports I send to Chin, but instead they send it to me for review. I can’t believe I actually have people who report to me!
• After work today Hye Jeung and I went to the English graduate school to look at their gym. We are not sure, but we think that we can use the facility for free because we work for Yoon’s. Hye Jeung will call someone tomorrow to find out if we can actually work out there for free. That would save me 80$ a month. It doesn’t have any instructors teaching fitness classes, but it does have all the different machines like treadmill, elliptical, stair steppers for use. There is a bookshelf in the gym where everyone leaves their gym shoes! I won’t even have to carry my shoes to work with me, I can leave them there and use them when ever I go work out.
• After we checked out the gym near my house, its 2 blocks away, we had dinner. My first dinner guest in my new home! When we arrived, to my great surprise my curtains had been installed!!! Yeah!!! Hey Jeung also tried to fix the ghost in my TV for me. She thinks she was able to cancel the timer that was set. I guess we shall see on Saturday whether it worked or not.
• Sad news, the weekend hiking trip has been canceled. I hope they schedule another hike before the weather gets even colder. Chin left a bag on my desk today that had a walking stick, backpack, and hiking shoes. These were a gift to her that she has yet to use so she offered to let me have them. Unfortunately the hiking boots are too small of a size for me, but I’ m sure I will be able to buy some boy size hiking boots that fit me here. Hiking boots aren’t very gender specific so I should be good. They don’t make any shoe size for woman above an 8; I’m 8 ½ so I wont be buying any of the cute shoes there.

Day 13

• Today was freezing!!!! No, seriously. It actually was freezing; it got down to -2 C which is something like 30F for those non Celsius users. I am warming up by drinking a nut tea. It has chunks of walnuts and pumpkin seeds floating in it.
• I wish my toilet seat was heated like the one at work. Yes, that’s right, they have heated toilet seats (unlike Mark and Anne’s outhouse in Fairbanks Alaska). I have hardwood floors in my apartment and the floors are heated by coils under the floor boards. Nice and toasty! Melissa and I found that the floors also work well to lay your jeans out on to dry since there are no dryers.
• Today Chin and I went to Y’z League. It is an after school program that has 6 English teachers, two of which are Americans. Tomorrow I am going back there by my self to teach the teachers how to make the graphic organizers and sentence frames I am currently working on.
• So Sunny from work wants me to go to work out at her gym with her. I am more than willing to, but the only problem is it costs 80,000 won a month!!! That’s about $80 American!!!!! I think Lucas and I were paying 30$ a month at Marina Del Rey fitness. I just don’t know if I can do $80 a month for a gym membership.

Day 12

• Today Chin and I walked along Olympic park. It is nice even in the fall. The trees are changing colors, and the carp are still swimming (the river should freeze by December) and there are public exercise machines to use. These machines are amazing! They use your own body weight as the resistance!
• After our walk in the park we stopped by a street vender who was selling the Korean version of a churro for 50 cents a piece. They are round and have cinnamon, brown sugar, and toasted sesame seeds inside of it. Mmmmmmm!
• For lunch I had a sweet potato and cheese pretzel. Wetzel’s Pretzels needs to get on that because it is soooo good! It’s almost like a calzone. Melissa, when you come here make sure to get one because you’re gonna love it!
• Once done with lunch we took the subway to the shopping hub known as Dongdaemun market (Melissa this is the one you took me too). It’s nice because I can use the same bus pass I got the other night for the subway, and it also works to pay taxis too. So convenient! Anyways, Chin got a new purse and after selling it to her the vendor proceeded to remove its original metal tag and attach a Prada one! So now it looks like an authentic Prada handbag! I was shocked! Also at the market, they sell nylon stockings that look like jeans. Which brings new meaning to the phrase “those jeans look like they are painted on.” They look so much like “skinny jeans” it’s hard to tell if they are real or not!
• Outside of the Dongdaemun market they sell something that can only be described as a Korean corn dog. It is the strangest looking food I have ever seen. It looks like a big wad of French fries served on a stick. Apparently nestled within the mass of fries is a hotdog. I don’t know how they make it, or how it tastes, but I do know it is very popular.

Day 11

• Today is Halloween! Unfortunately they don’t celebrate it here. Apparently something like 1/3 of the workers at my company are Jehovah Witnesses so no coming to work with a silly hat on or anything for me. Today is also the first rainy day I’ve experienced, good think I packed an umbrella. It wouldn’t be Halloween without a light rain.
• Make that heavy thunder and lightning storm.
• I went to E-Mart with Chin and Richard and outside they have machines that you put your wet umbrella into and it wraps it in plastic so you won’t drip water in the store. So smart! It has plastic bags for both large and small umbrellas!
• I wanted to get a bunny rabbit today but because it is so story I decided not to. I couldn’t carry a bunny, cage, and my umbrella successfully in the pouring rain so I will wait till next week maybe.
• I came home from the office this afternoon and once again the TV was turned on by itself just like last Saturday morning. So instead of a poltergeist or someone breaking in to my house to watch TV my new theory is that it’s on a timer. I have no way of fixing the problem because the menu is in Korean. I will just have to remember to unplug the TV before I leave the house on Saturdays.