Lazy Saturdays

I love the weekend.

  For me nothing beats the weekend, except holidays. There is nothing more relaxing that being able to wake up naturally without an alarm. I mean, I love a hot bath or a massage as much as the next person, but I find I am most truly relaxed when I have no where to be at a set time. I am a big fan of dinner or lunch plans, but mornings? Get faaarked... 

  And its not even that I sleep in for a stupid amount of time - today I woke up at 7:30 and still felt the same level of relaxation. It's the stress associated with having to be somewhere in the morning that ruins it for me. Although Milky annoyed me a bit, he wanted to get up before I did, I ended up taking him downstairs to pee then went back to bed for a while. And I was cool with that.

  It has been a beautiful day here today, a top temperate of about 8 degrees Celsius but sunny and happy. I have discovered that my mood is directly correlated with the weather, in the sense that a rainy, cold day makes me grumpy whereas a sunny day makes me happy. This has been proved time and time again in different studies, read more about that here.

Beautiful autumn day in Songtan

  I had a great night last night in Itaewon with Cheng, Mathilda, Carolina and Michael. Cheng found a great place for us to eat called Braai Republic, which was a South African resteraunt. Itaewon is known for its foreign resteraunts and for foreigners in general. The food was amaze-face, between myself, Cheng and Mathilda we got a meat platter which had a selection of meat plus some sides like garlic potato which was TO DIE FOR. I really just ate my lamb-chop, I don't really like sausage that much (insert dirty joke here) but it was probably the best lamp chop I have ever eaten. Although that might be more because I have not had all that many decent feeds since I arrived. either way, the dinner was great and the company was even better. 

  I caught the train back home, I wanted to assess what damage Milky had infliceted on my house, but the girls and Michael stayed out later. I believe Cheng and Mathilda pulled an all nighter, I am waiting to hear how the night went :) I hope they have some sordid stories for me!!!

  At some point I want to go out on the town properly and have a big night in Itaewon, I hear it is a really good night. Lots of foreigners and the bars/clubs are supposed to be really good. But I just can't at the moment - I am too cold!!! Such a lame excuse I know, but thats just how it is. i am a fairly lame person at times... I also haven't been out partying in Hongdae yet (party town in Seoul) for a similar reason. Also, I don't feel like I have anything cool to wear, and the biggest deal breaker is the distance. If the trains ran all night then I wouldn't mind so much, it means I can get home. But there is no way in hell I would get a taxi all the way back from the city, and if I decide to call it a night it means I need to wait for the first train back to Pyeongtaek anyway. It is just a really long night. So i will need to work myself up for it and make sure its a sleep in day the next day!!! In the meantime I will continue to be a hermit. I really need to save some money anyway...

  I am not making anywhere near as much money as the TESOL people led me to believe. I mean, it didn't help that i bought a dog, but in general I thought I would be able to send more money home, and be buying all my friends at home gifts all the time. At this stage people will be lucky if they get xmas presents!!! I just really need to get some security money behind me before I start splurging. Not that I have no cash, but I thought I would have more. Lucky my bills are not too extravagant. 

School

  I am not too happy with how things are going at school. I am not super impressed with how my co teacher teaches, but there is nothing I can do about that. I am not here to change the way he runs his show. But he doesn't give me any opportunity to teach, and there is an open class coming up and I will be expected to take the class to show that it is worth having a foreign teacher here. Now I am super apprehensive about this - having had no practice teaching I don;t know how the kids will react. He doesn't like or use any of the lesson plans I have offered him. Weeks ago he mentioned the open class and asked me to prepare a lesson plan. I did it that same day but he never asked for it, or took it when I offered it to him. So then the other day when he finally asked to see it he asks me why I wanted to cover a topic that had been covered weeks ago. To cut a long story short I am not impressed. I wonder if he is hoping I will do badly to make himself look better... 

  I hear from a good source that he was not popular at his previous school, and I know he isn't super popular at this one either. But I really hope the relationship will improve because we will be working together for a long time yet, and I hate tension. I tend to just hang back and let him do his thing, but for next year I will try and make some changes. I don't know how I am going to do it yet but I will. 

  I have often heard the expression the God would not send us certain challenges if He didn't think that we could overcome and learn from them. Now, I am not an overly religious person, so I don't know how I feel about that statement. But if there is a lesson to come from dealing with my Co I hope I learn it soon! 

  This whole year is challenging me in different ways all the time. And this is why I know it will be so rewarding... 

In other news...

  Milky ate my shoes last night while I was out. My Sketches. So I need to get a new pair of runners tonight. Gah.

  I had a teary this afternoon while watching "How to Train Your Dragon" which makes me cry every time I watch it. I don't know my, something about how much they love each other I suppose, and then at the end when both the boy and the dragon are kinda disables. And the dragon reminds me of Pawpaw too. And now while I am wasting time until dinner I am watching Lord of the Rings - The Two Tower. I love OCN channel, it always has English movies on! Some mornings I put it on while I am getting dressed and watch stupid movies. For some reason they often repeat movies, I have seen King Kong at least 3 times now. And the other morning I was watching Twilight. 

  At home, Billie is going to her first big show tomorrow. I wish I was going too to help Georgia prepare and to see her do her workout. But I will just have to wait till next year. It's only 41 days now until she (Sissy I mean) arrives here in Korea and I am so excited! Some of my friends here also have friends or family visiting at that time, so New Year should be amazing!!! Plus I am looking forward to relaxing for a week - not having to get up and go to school will be bliss!

  I still need to get a warmer jacket. I cannot believe I have left it this long, but the thing is that it will still get colder! The average temperature for the last few days has been around 7-8 degrees C but the mornings are often below 0. So within the next few weeks winter will really set in. Seoul has apparently had its first snow flurries and the resorts all have snow on them and the ski season has opened. I think the opening of many of the resorts was this weekend actually. I fully intend to go to to the snow at some point, but the good resorts are a fair while away and its not cheap, so I might wait until December or even January, Some of the girls have said they would be interested in doing a weekend to the snow so that would be fun if we culled get a group together! Snow makes winter worthwhile :) They are predicting a cold winter too, so fingers crossed for a white Christmas!!!

  Christmas this year I will spend with Mia and Tyler - they have already invited me over there for Christmas lunch so thats good. i was worried about what I would do with myself. And Milky can come too which is nice. 

Anyway, thats about all for now. I am having dinner tonight with Shanda and then maybe tomorrow going to the zoo... Jess said to me that this isn't a great time of year to go because the animals tend to hide out in their shelters cos of the cold. but I will ask around and if people are still keen to go then I am too. I need to get out and do something this weekend!!!

Till next time

xoxoxoxo

Milky - butter wouldn't melt in his mouth ~