so i've been busy lately--lots of editing, writing and drawing/painting shitty pictures that entertain me waaaay more than logic should allow.
i do, however, have one relatively significant nugglet to report: i paid off a credit card yesterday! as someone who stresses about money every single day it was quite the warm and fuzzy feeling to go to my bank website and see $0 in the current balance section. 1 down, 1 to go. and then only $23,000 worth of student loans to tackle. sounds like a lot, but here in the korea, i can actually pay that off by the time i leave. i was sure able to survive in columbia on significantly less. i remember the days of shakespeare's pizza with only $10 to my name for two weeks. my $10 drinking budget.
i've gotten a lot of emails lately from peeps asking me if korea has pretty fall foliage like missouri, or elsewhere in middle america. and the answer is yes. the trees here turned ruddy and brown, seemingly overnight. fallen leaves clinging to the curbs and drains--quite the pleasant view on ilsan's tree-lined pedestrian streets, despite the smell of raw sewage likely wafting out from the depths....
summer here seemed mild and tame in comparison to the horrific, hell-like conditions i heard about back home. and then fall just sort of happened. there's a crispness now that only fully materialized this week. things escalated from mere jacket weather to jacket AND scarf weather, a transition i wholeheartedly welcome (unless yer a fashion over function person, and then it's always scarf weather.).
my daily walk to and from work has become pleasant again, reverting to the good old days when ilsan was new and beautiful to me, and the near canopy over the pavement was new and beautiful to me. i do declare, i am officially out of my funk.
this isn't to say i don't miss missouri. in my mind it will always be the most beautiful place to witness the changing seasons. but i guess my scope is pretty limited. oddly enough, fall makes me miss football. i don't even like football, but i miss seeing it on tv at a bar and resenting the fact that i was forced to watch it and feel some sort of team allegience.
my school had a halloween party on sunday. the preparation leading up to the big shindig was both annoying and impressive. i guess what i've learned from my co-teachers is that they don't really do anything half-assed. which is to be admired, except when it's a saturday and i've already taught for 6 hours and feel obligated to spend the next 7 hours of my free time hanging out at work, helping with decorations. even when i left on saturday night, the rest of the korean teachers stayed, as more work needed to be done. i don't think i was ever actually that involved in halloween at home, so it's hard to muster any sense of dedication to so insignificant a holiday.
so on sunday, i rolled into work with a pretty sorry pirate costume designed for a small child. i didn't bring my halloween "a" game. but i guess you only really need an eye patch, heavy eyeliner and some pirate spirit, whatever that means. i think i had all three. but i was greeted by a witch, dracula, a zombie, a werewolf, some creepy old woman and what appeared to be a professional makeup artist (okay, i'm exaggerating that last part a bit. she was just someone's friend. but i'm trying to reiterate, there was nothing half-assed about it). the entire academy was filled with balloons and dry ice.
my official position that day was pumpkin carver. i had never actually carved a pumpkin before, so i was a little uneasy about wielding two brand new, extremely sharp knives around a bunch of little kids. but i managed to carve two pumpkins, with little peeps joyously scooping out the insides. and i didn't even really fuck the pumpkins up too badly. although one didn't have a lid.... beginner's mistake.
so it was great to see lots of happy little kids, who were thrilled that i was there. of course i'd be there, it's my school, and i'm sort of required. but i don't know that i've ever been happier to go home. sundays are my only day off, so no matter how fun the halloween party, i was still pretty bitter that i'd had to sacrifice some of my already scant (and desperately needed) personal time. there are weeks when i feel like i live at this school. this is one of those weeks, and it's only tuesday.
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