um so

It’s post-iced-coffee afternoon, when I’d like to be taking a siesta (seriously, what culture/time should I have been born in? not this one) but instead I’m watching my foot swell from the cooking pot I dropped on it this morning. I mean it’s not that bad and yet. Also the children are playing with slime, which was well-conceived until little dots of it found their way onto the rug. It’s glue-based. Yes. Also, chemistry experimenters, don’t add pink play-doh to your slime, even if your purple pancakes beg for strawberry chips, don’t do it. The consistency will be ruined and you’ll soon have soup. And then you’ll have to make it again and then soon you’ll be all out of glue. Yay, impending back-to-school sales…

And why is it that at all times, one child desires to be put up for sale, while the other is so sparkly and dear. K.Lo might be a ball of anxiety about so many things, but it’s N.Lo who is a walking whine this summer, and it’s driving. me. nuts.

I made bread this weekend, and it miraculously turned out good, so now I’m trying cinnamon bread. I’ve never had luck with bread, until I did. It’s the magic kitchenaid dough hook, which takes all the overthinking (the sabotage) out of kneading. But I do have my doubts about the cinnamon, so we’ll see if it rises.

Also I realized that with the giant bookshelf that is being built, the living room will have to be painted sooner rather than later. Vaulted ceiling and all, I’m cringing just thinking about it. I think I have colors picked? Bamboo and crocodile tears, which translates to off-white and greeny beige, but that doesn’t sound nearly as interesting does it. And the shutters outside will still be black and the door will be a very specific shade of blue. Because they’re all related you know. It’s a painting snowball. Paintball? I don’t know.

I haven’t really yet found anything on Netflix that’s as good as Switched at Birth, so I’m all sad now. I had high hopes for those aforementioned series. I mean maybe they’re good, but the dance one is a little young and the Jane one is a little farfetched. As delightful as they are in theory. But 21 Jump Street amused me? (Non-Netflix.) There’s this whole thing about Korean Jesus.

Time to make eggplant pizzas, which I suspect is really eggplant parm. I really ought to blog at the time of day when I’m surrounding by all these philosophical/spiritual thought bubbles, and clearly post-iced-coffee is not that time. The bubbles all pop the second I sit down to post.

xoxox

well exactly because,

I am an empath after all, so I was clearly suppressing emotion along with you.

Is it really $2000 to go home? Will it make homesickness better or worse, is my perhaps moot question. Does K have Craigslist? Perhaps you could find a suitable cat owner in this way. Let petfinder, international style, or something. Oh poor kitty, and poor you. I am assured a solution will present itself however, as ever. Sending up kitty prayers.

We’re watching Emily of New Moon, which I feel you would find delightful. Anne of Green Gables author. Put it on your someday list, either the books or the movies or both.

No one tantrummed at bible school today, miraculously. And also, um… rummaging through the misadventures archives, I found THIS POST. Just take a minute to skim.

Now. Somehow, in a most bizarre twist of blog/life-fate, it turns out that I now live in the same town as the aforementioned weirdo reality star? Which I’ve known for awhile. But today I discovered that the aforementioned weirdo reality star’s child is in N.Lo’s group at bible school. What. The what.

Understandably, it’s not that big of a deal, but at the same time, if you brought out your crystal ball 4+ years ago when I drafted that post and forecasted where we are today, I would have been befuddled. To say the least.

So anyway. What else. Oh, I found fabric today for living room pillowcovers – gorg, gorg, a warm cinnamon color, and soft, and sort of wrinkly-textured for a little interest. And $2 a yard! So I’ll be sewing again soon, and maybe I’ll even take pictures thistime. Nothing I’ve sewn so far has been particularly photogenic. 

I love that you have a basket. And that lunch picture! Is the most brilliant capture ever. Hmm photo requests, besides more you? I feel like more of school, like some wider shots so I can fully imagine the environ. And an outside shot. And also pics on your walk to school that you keep promising. And the hole in the wall coffee shop. And the Starbucks. Annnnnd….

xoxox

Well,

you sort of made up for your vodka induced, frothy but lovely post- by this Postscript since admittedly i don't know how that wasn't the first thing out of your mouth. i can only imagine you were so horrified by the turns of events and all the anxiety that surrounds it that you empathized with me so much about why this cat continues to be a source of wide eyed confoundedness, that you were calmly supressing it as i do or try when i can... though i have no tolerance of the other m's going on about massively swelling reactions to mozzie bites and her new charming bedsheets... i simply can't though i understand she needs to relate it.

i do however, appreciate the all important fact that netflix added a korean category- i can say no they probably didnt and i think it's awesome. (heart warming mayhaps)

i broke my pinkie nail madly searching and organizing papers for students and its throwing my typing game. i should say in preface to the welling and surging anxiety within me that i spent the evening with two lovely women P and M... oddly. now that i see their initials there. we had the last of my corn pasta with chicken/a spicey italian sauce with eggplant/redpeppers and a blueberry/pineapple smoothie/ followed by tea/ followed by soju on the beach as the tide was high and the random shipping boats were blarring their lights. this morning P saw me having a moment on the beach- which i recall exactly in me trying to be calm, or maybe actually being calm before the hammering in my body began again.

everyone here is calm and reassuring about the ward situation. equally perplexed when i tell them the scenarios...but sure that it'll work out. currently she's at a church friends apt who has a cat, but her husband doesnt like cats and even more mine who is coming out of heat- i swear this should be her next to last- i thought because of summer. that's what the internet tells me. it has me contemplating coming home for a week because the mental churning and perplexing thought of how and when to get her spayed, to find her a home is headache inducing. as it is, unless k and her husband have a change of heart-- i'm pretty sure i'm pushing it by having the cat there as long as saturday... i have to find my way to a friend of a friend of a coworkers house who agreed to take the cat for a month or two-- she's a hairdresser. the taxis are all on strike but somehow on saturday i've got to find my way to her. and get cat food and finally buy a litter box and ask k if i can borrow the cat carrier. this alone is enough to have me going why not spend $2000 to visit LA and drop the cat off. the mental stress alone. and a good excuse to assuage my homesickness. which hasn't really abated annoyingly.

anyway since i finally got my micro chip thing i will give you a brief look at work. at long last.
and try not to talk about the cat and how its freaking me out and how seriously- i mean sg- i mean REALLY and the "tenant"-- who! sigh. deep breath. ok it's almost my bedtime (past) but here:

this was my halfass lesson plan on monday:

this photo despite my surly depressed self made me gafaw. it captures the daily attitude of the lunch time so SO SO well. i mean really. it looks posed but isn't. that's just how IT IS.

 i'm not having it. neither should you. this is one of my new tops too but the whole thing just really captures the 20 minute break suckitude. and monday. and everyTHING.

 joon-hyun is one of my fav fave students. such a sweet spirit- the rest are the lord of the flies class- i want them to be ministers of peace and yet i'm sure they'd kill tiny kittens for sport.

 my make shift desk which i have to abicate for the classes of 12 of which this class is one.

 i have a basket... yes.

 here is my desk of postcards, a prayer of abandonment, etc, etc.

 all our resource material and the other M walking as a whirl blur that she is. aw my my flatmate.

 yep. just my daily gut check in the elevator.

any other pic requests ? let me know. ok really. so late .

xo, m.

P.S.

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR CAT?

Like where is she now, I mean. Sigh.

good your morning/my evening,

I was sipping cake-flavored vodka but then kicked the glass over, so that’s no more. Not tipsy, just my usual klutzy. And I just watched up 2 of B-nheads, which, I mean. Is like Amy-S-P on an acid trip. Character-wise, and dialogue-wise, and setting-wise: I will follow where she leads. But plot-wise? I seriously do not get it. Gilmore was so grounded in reality, and this show is like a writing exercise. Let’s see how creative we can be, wee! No no. Just stick with what you know please. And thank you.

But I’m still watching. And after blowing through Season 1 of Switched at Birth, discovered a treasure trove on Netflix in the form of Dance Ac@demy, which looks like the Aussie TV take on Center Stage, beloved teen ballet movie of yore. And like five other shows between N-Flix and the ABC Fam channel, all enticing me. Is this what life has come to? Or is it where I’ve always been. I’m kind of jazzed about it, really, as it’s been forever since I’ve been excited to watch an-y-thing over the summer.

And did N-flix always have a Korean category? Because they do now.

Am so glad you liked Pillars, and so now you have to read the prequel, or the sequel, or whatever it is. Not *quite* as good, but almost. Pillars will always have my heart.

And the summer is steamrolling on, although I feel like I may be hitting a wall this week, due to someone’s unfortunate tantrum-throwing at Vacation Bible School (and it’s not even K.Lo, this time). And the heat. The soupy air. When it’s not even tolerable to visit the mailbox, I’m so over it.

However, the new tomatoes/cucumbers/corn are planted and mulched and growing. They at least appreciate the soup.

I’m not sure I’ve said anything of substance, but it’s bedtime already. But I hope this was more than a soundbite, at least a little bit. I’m really becoming allergic to those things.

Yours always,

pen

It's Rainy Season,

The weather flipped a switch on Saturday and apparently its all rainboots and umbrellas. I think i'm just going to roll up my pants and wear my flipflops. So what have you been up to? It's been a long time since your last letter. Though i know what with the uprisings, city riots and seiges you arefacing resistance in getting mail out of the settlement. But I still wait and hope.

I have news- My ward the cat was complained about and the landlords called sg and her husband and he forgot ? to say something until they called again? and then sg became righteously indignent and exasperated and offended and all the things that include the high drama of betrayal hands to chest, wide eyes. How could I! And thats OUR place! And if you'd asked we wouldve told you!! and and and...  I Just looked at her dubiously as she accused me of keeping my ward secret, and I shrugged my shoulders and said I rescued her and had been trying to find her a home and then get her spayed and time passed. I felt all the heaping of emotional unhingement as i sat there taking it all in. She came back again explaining she didnt want me to be upset, and that obviously the first talk didn't go well since she said i had to get rid of IT- but she didn't really let me get a word in besides "well I mostly find..." and i just nodded and was like hmm ok. The energy coursing through me was a string of explatives but mostly- of the what am i going to do with the cat. Which is exactly what I've been wondering since she meowed at me months back. But it was at a 10. I found most offensive the fact she chose to tell me on a monday morning before 2 hours of lesson planning and a full day. When she couldve emailed me over the weekend. Or asked my flatmate to call me. I just sighed and tried to calm down. Get online. 1/2ass my lesson plans and email a girl I know who has a cat on the island to watch my ward until I figure things out.

I suppose short of paying her to keep the cat until I leave in Feb... I mean that's best case scenario. Besides flying home over the summer break which is fairly tempting also. Or finding someone to adopt her. Let's just pray that my friend will be able to keep her and that the ward gets along with the lady of the house- stella. a massive blackcat of awesome. Otherwise it all just seems more of a pain in the ass then it already was will be or wahtever it is. I mean I try to be annoyed at sg but really it's all just part of the problem isnt' it. It just is. It's one more thing. And then the minute I start i'm like please, you can't be bothered about it. It's just not worth it. Since I've got to spend more of my emotional energy on the kids, on hoping they dont get sick of the ward... etc.

Anyway deep breathing and meditating commencing. Now. Some tea mayhaps. It's all just a bother. Besides that I mended some pants by taking the back pocket backpart out and attaching it to the tear. I finished PillarsoftheEarth and I enjoyed it. It ended on a goodnote of life going on- though i wish they couldve drawn it out just a bit more. Butwhatever it was mainly because my ipod powered down right at the last 5 minutes but i wasn't sure if it was or not. Then i went to listen to it on the way to work and my ipod froze bcs i rushed it and the file was too big. Anyway-Now i'm on to discovery of witches. Which is pretty-good so far.   

What else. . . it's only Tuesday. Everyone at work seems to hate being there. And it's not just i suppose that its at sg's but that they're all collectively groaning over wanting to do and be and go otherly- Y was like, i find tues and wed the most difficult. I can't decide if it would be annoying or inpsiring if someone there actually enjoyed working there and didn't just merely tolerate it.

Besides the weekend was spent in a haze. i felt mildly poisoned on sunday and overspent the minute i tried the word budget- i think the trick is to not say the word... ok i suppose that's it. I've just become a clockwatcher- and i hate that- how long before work, how long until classes, how long until bed, rinse repeat...

From the saltmines,
xo,m

i,

left work pretty quick. it's almost like, if there were a fire what would you take scenario. and i 1/2 the time am always looking for a taxi as a game maybe so i can get thefuckhomeasfastasfuckingpossible. obviously. i did just budget for the month sort of. and really money for taxis and during the week purchases is pretty nil. and yet. i come home to ridiculously low energy bills- at least these next 3 until july and august bring me back down to my knees. but i digress. i manage to walk down the hill which my flatmate sarcastically says, "the slope" you mean. and in my head i'm all goFyourself. but i dont have any patience after work and that was another day. anyway i just missed the early bus. he barely stopped and then wouldn't even look my way. so annoying. and another bus driver was like come on we can catch him with a gesture but i was so pouty i was like ach NO. be on your way 26. and i caught a taxi. and we caught the 100 bus. it only cost me $1.50 more but still. I came back to the family mart oppa telling me a swallow had just shat on his head, to which i looked up on the wire and there the offending bird was. Pretty< Ithought. I said<goodluck! But i couldn't be sure it was translating as i felt the exchange was probably too complex for us to broach. As it includes fate, timing, synchronicity, irony, a certain sense of insult, and chagrin, ... what else?

anyway i left him, picked a hyranga that is gorgeously blooming near my twitchy finger tips and went up. for the cat- again- to go crazy with the smell of something? and yet be absolutely uninterested in anything i offer. after that i saw my $10. (epically low) bill. stabbed at a frozen beverage until it was like eating a snowcone and finished a miss marple mystery. i was going to watch bun/heads but im writing to you instead. (saint!)

besides that i avoided a meltdown- seriously i was i dont know- in denial or? but my computer was like "shut me down immediately or else" why!? "oh because i sensed my cooling system is malfunctioning!" well- whatever! thank god my phone is all wi-fi-ish so i checked my email because i had to wake up first except there was like barely anything in there, along with toshiba-overheating blah blah-. AND i was rewarded by getting a seriously righteous gift basket from cath with new shirts. seriously dont' deserve you guys. (family mart was holding it hostage.) they pointed to the shelf it was on and was like- for days! blah blah! i mean i swear i go in more often than that but whatever. eeee! packages! and then horror- no compressed air.

i took my mighty lungs and did some uh blowin' and thank god after a bit it worked.
ok you're online i see.
i will chat you there.
though still- a letter WOULD BE NICE. (Hint HINT).
M.

hey babe,

it was an odd day. i dont know. i'm not feeling spiral oriented exactly but eh. just eh. maybe just a long come down from the enthusiasm of volleyball and the busyness of last weekend. and after all today is wednesday. not even a weekend. so maybe that was throwing things a bit too. i didn't want to go to a beach on the otherside of the island and so didn't have an orbit to get sucked into and apparently i was left floating into space. and then doing bad math about when our next random break was which is exactly 7wks away when i'll have a week to be bored? i dont know. i'm really going to have to come up with a plan. i thought about going to japan but i've been spending a bit too much this month and a week there would do some damage to the downward trend not to mention the won not doing well anyway... like my eating habits in the last 2 wks. along with a lack of water. i mean i'm here but now i have "goals".

so today, i went hiking and that was good. (messy warmth and growth and vertical challenge and time with God) and then my enthusiasm for independent travel sort of tanked into an inefficient mess of wandering and being completely noncommital with myself. nothing really appealed. i thought i would go see a movie- when it came down to it: wrong times, too many people, not quite the right movie, but i did go to at least 2 movie theatres just to stare into space trying to convince myself it was something i should do. i went to see where the foreigner clinic was in shin: i walked right by it because i just didn't want to go inside, i kept walking, to the next unsuccessful event, though eventually on my way home, got off the bus, to see the hospital mostly quiet bcs of the holiday and reluctantly peeked in just to see the layout and then left just as fast to catch the next bus home. the two sure things after the hike were my enjoyment and eventual regret of the frap (cool tasty relief/too much sugar) and that the ipod battery hung on long enough to let me listen to the book both coming and going from shin where i did nothing at all for hours, but walk and reject things i thought about doing so suredly hours before. i did have a good lunch in btw. i suppose the day took a turn around 130. i was back by 6. it was amazing how much i failed to do in that amount of time. i probably should've turned around after lunch and went to sleep on the beach. but they're bulldozing it for summer? or uh? somesuch?

anyway- i think overall i just kept expecting something- to run into someone, for something to catch my eye, for something outoftheordinary to happen? maybe? so hard to say.

oh and i have a veracose vein, and my cat's in heat again... shocking. oh also- woh to your snake story?! i'll uh, pretend it made it out alive. i remember as a kid at my school people flipping out and killing snakes- it always made me a bit sad- they were always harmless gopher snakes... now the one time the guy killed the rattlesnake with a shovel and then cooked it at camp...i mean ok... and no words for fake recycling. it's like you've discovered the other reality neo. just know that i'm having to ocd trash it for you- white bags we buy for combustible "trash trash", the compost bag which is foul and dumped into an equally foul bin, and then the paper bin, and then the plastics/metal/glass bin... so yah.

also also, trying not to fear the humidity and yet i do. you know i do. dread. non-evaporative non-coolingness. it comes. it comes. the weekend promises to be warm. and though the battery on my new/used phone is acting up i did finally acclimate to wi-fi access. small victories.

ok enough- my love,
xoxo, m.