Day 22

• You know what I miss? (Asides from my wonderful family) I miss fabric softener. My clean underwear feels like it is made out of cardboard. There is just something wrong about having clean clothes that can stand up on their own.
• Today was stick day! I gave a box of sticks to both Chin and to Hye Jeung. It really is like Valentines Day here. But instead of people walking around with boxes of chalky conversation heart, they are walking around with boxes of chocolate covered bread sticks. Since I couldn’t find pretzel sticks to make Jane’s famous chocolate covered pretzels I just bought some coffee flavored sticks to give out instead. Without knowing it, I picked the box that says true friend in Korean.
• You know what else I miss? (Asides from my wonderful family, and fabric softener) I miss wearing flip flops every day. I hate wearing high heals! Argh! Apparently, girls wear high heals year round here. Even in the winter when it is snowing women wear high heal boots not flat, safe, comfortable ugs. My feet hate Korea.
• Today I took the subway all by myself! And I didn’t get lost! Ok, I almost got lost. I almost got on the wrong train. Ok, I almost got on the wrong train twice, but it’s really tricky. The subway line that goes to my house is actually a ‘u’ shape so you need to make sure you take the correct train when you get to the fork in the road. I went to Y’z League to mentor some of the teachers there and help them with the writing projects I assigned them. It takes 2 subway lines and about 45 minutes to get there. Hye Jeung let me barrow her cell phone so I would have access to help if I needed it.

Day 21

• Today I went out to lunch with Hye Jeung, we went to a Thai food restaurant. Although it smelled like Thai food, it was just more Korean food. I really wanted eggplant, tofu, and basil leaves, but instead got more soup, rice, and kimchi.
• Oh my goodness Angela! They have a yogurt drink here that tastes exactly like red skittles!!! Oh, it’s my new favorite! You would love it!
• Speaking of things Angela would love, tonight was movie night at my work and I saw a movie that she would love. After work the staff went to the roof and watched the movie “Once.” It was such a great movie! The ending is so good because it’s not the typical happy ending; it’s more true to life. Angela would love the music; the whole movie is practically sung. Apparently my work has movie night twice a month and provides snacks like roman noodles, beef jerky, popcorn, and even beer. Although the movie is played outside in the garden I was wearing my super warm coat (the one with the huge cigarette burn on it) so I wasn’t cold. I also had a little lap blanket that Hye Jeung gave me to use at my desk to keep warm when I’m in my office. It’s great, now I have a little blanky and slippers to wear when ever I work at my desk.
• When I got home today I had a new refrigerator! And yesterday someone came and fixed my water heater and I got new hoses for my water pipes so they won’t leak any more! Everything’s coming up Millhouse!

Day 20

Day 20
• Today I sat with a man at work who belongs to the company hiking club. I asked him if he had trouble finding my email address in the company listing because he was suppose to email me information about the club. He said it was his first day back to work in a week. His daughter caught H1N1 and apparently if someone in your family gets it my company makes you take a week off of work and be quarantined too. With mandatory ear thermometer checks and quarantine periods I’m not too worried about catching the virus. Watch, now that I wrote that I’m going to contract H1N1.
• So I was headed down to lunch today and the elevator door opened revealing an elderly Korean gentleman. I said hello in Korean and bowed my head. He asked me in English what floor I was going to and I said it was lunch time and I was headed to the cafeteria. The doors opened again letting in two managers who work with Chin. They began talking to the gentleman in Korean but I recognized my name and Chins name. He then turned to me and said, “Oh, so you are Renee.” I said, “Yes, and you are?” He smiled and the two managers were dumb struck by my comment. Once one of the managers recovered from shock he informed me that, “this is Chairman” and I realized my error. The Chairman, founder of Yoon’s English Academy simply smiled and got off the elevator. I was absolutely mortified! Chin called me a few hours later to say she received a phone call from Chairman Yoon. I told her how embarrassed I was. Apparently he said I seemed nice. Chin said it was good that without knowing who he was I said hi in Korean and bowed my head; it showed I had good manners. Luckily he didn’t get a chance to see my table manners eh mom?
• After work I picked up 2 items that my local dry cleaner tailored for me. Grand total… $6 U.S. Now I know where to get all those suits dry cleaned, what a deal!

Day 19

• Nothing too exciting today. It was raining for most of the day so I stayed inside and cleaned the apartment. When the weather did clear up I went to my favorite dollar store and bought a few items. I just had to take a picture of the socks I saw there. The white girl is saying, “Hi Tom,” and the black boy is saying “Hey, yo baby.” Can any one say “stereotype?”
• The rain seemed to keep the Christians at bay today. Usually as you walk by all the churches on Sunday people try to stop you and hand you tea so they can talk to you about how great their church is. A lot of youth groups will stand out on the streets and sing much like the Hare Krishna's at the airport. I guess there are a lot of churches in my neighborhood and they are very competitive against one another.

Day 18

• Today I went to Cambridge Day held at Korea University, Seoul. At the door there is a person who takes your temperature with an ear thermometer to make sure you don’t have H1N1 to give to everyone at the conference. Sunny and I went to a few lectures on English Language Development. It was very informative and I even got some good ideas to use at work. I was shocked to find that the English Language exams given for students to enter the Universities in both Japan and in Korea are actually at a harder reading level then their first language. That means that students are required to read much harder texts in English then they are in Korean, which is ridiculous when English is your second language!!!!
• Today I went to E-mart with Chin and Richard today; it seems to be our Saturday ritual. I got to the checkout with all my food and Chin insisted on buying it for me because my fridge had broken and spoiled all my food. I told her I would only let her do it if she makes the company reimburse her for it. I thought it was really sweet of her to do that. She also gave me some plates, bowls, utensils, pillows, and blankets from her apartment because she is moving and didn’t want to take everything with her. She also offered to give me her refrigerator next week when she moves to replace the one that broke. I have a little college dorm size fridge for now, but once I have her refrigerator I will bring the little fridge to our office.
• On the subway today, Sunny taught me how to read a few characters in Korean. Now I can recognize: D, D’oh, ‘ee’, ‘oh’, ‘oo’, and ‘r’ which is kind of an ‘l’ sound. I felt like I was three years old; every time I recognized a letter I would point it out and say the sound. Sunny would just laugh and said I was learning so quickly.
• Sunny also taught me that 11/11 is just another made up holiday corporations came up with to sell more crap. They also celebrate Valentine’s Day, and two other Valentine’s Day type holidays, white day and black day. I can’t remember which is which, but one of the days the girls give presents to the boys, and the other day boys give presents to the girls. It’s just like that Simpsons episode… “Happy Love Day everyone!!!”
• I am so glad that I am the kind of person who just presses buttons until things work. It’s good that I never look at instructions, because here the instructions are in Korean so they wouldn’t help anyways. I was getting really frustrated because I couldn’t get my washing machine to drain the water. But after 10 minutes of pressing different buttons it finally did what I wanted it to do.

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.