A quiet morning ...

My 5th graders went on a field trip to our local planetarium (a place I plan on taking myself soon; who cares if I won't be able to understand anything? Stars are still stars, no matter the language) which means that I have had a fairly quiet morning all to myself in my shared office.

So far today I have been hard at work cleaning out my Google Reader, checking out Pintrest and debating the merits of baby girl guinea pigs names with my cousin via Facebook photo comments.

So far the main contenders are Maxine and Ginger. Isn't she cute??

I also recently acquired the entire Beatles discography and have been listening to it on shuffle for the last two hours. Auditory bliss. The White Album is my favorite cooking/baking music. I have also realized that my cooking and baking habits have some very specific rituals attached to them. Ryan is just glad that I'm going to start playing something other than Ghostbusters (another cooking time favorite) when I cook dinner.

This afternoon should be a little more productive, however. I (hopefully) will have all my lessons planned and worksheets made and emailed to my co-teachers, will have made it to the bank to get a piggy bank's worth coins turned into cash and have Skyped with BFF Hilda - who I have been missing more than normal lately. I really hate not being able to call her whenever I want to, stupid 8 hour (or so) time difference.

I would be a much, much crazier person if it weren't for Hilda.

On a completely unrelated note:

I think I'm going to change the format of my blog posts a bit. I've realized that when I feel like I have to write about something, I can't (won't?). For example, I've taken two HUGE vacations in as many years and have written a total of 2 posts about them. Combined. That's just sad.

So look for this space to evolve into a bit more of a weird stories about my life/weird pictures of my life/hobby type things rather than the life journal type thing that The Flip Side has been up until this point. The beauty of this being my blog and all is I get to change it up whenever I feel inclined to do so. HOORAY!

Health Day

I have a terrible cold and as soon as my co-teachers told me we were going to climb the Mudong Mountain (our local mountain - a 30 minute bus ride gets you to the base) for our health day, my nasty cough suddenly got nastier. I'm not really one for climbing mountains and, just so you know, Ryan and I climbed Mudong during another little break we had from school on a day when the weather was nice.

See? We even made it all the way to the top!

Even though getting back down from the top almost killed us. The path up there was caked in ice and if a nice Korean man hadn't stopped to give us his hiking spikes we would have ended the day black and blue and with me in tears. But! I didn't cry even one time! In fact, I would go so far as to say I enjoyed it. Weird right? I don't even know who I am anymore ...

Anyway, I opted to come home and rest. And by rest I mean clean. I don't know what has gotten into me but I have become obsessed with getting our hamper to be empty for at least 15 minutes before we fill it back to overflowing with dirty clothes.

I don't think that's too much to ask for, do you?

And when you have to hang up all your laundry to dry it, you're kind of limited in how many loads you can do in a day. And while I'm all for saving electricity and line drying your clothes (I used to do it all the time in my apartment back in the states) it's a smidge depressing/aggravating when you're really motivated to wash and fold everything that's in the hamper you can't because there just isn't enough space on the rack.

Black and white makes pretty much anything look interesting and arty.

And I would totally invest in some extra floor drying racks but there is just not enough floor space. So instead of being a crazy laundry lady, I settle for washing as many clothes as I think I fit on the rack at once. And usually that's too much. But I look at it like a challenge. Usually I end up the winner. Take that laundry.

The Return of Zombie Caroline

After 3 weeks of vacation and 3 days of being back at work (which means staying up because you can't sleep and getting up at 6:30 - gag - to go deal with kids who don't really understand what you're saying and don't care because they are only in school for two weeks before we have another 2 1/2 week break) I can honestly tell you that I am tired.

So tired that I don't really remember the walk from the bus stop to my apartment. I do remember that I wrote about 6 different blog posts in my head about my vacation and how wonderful it was and my birthday and also about how I have a list of things I have to do tonight and about the kind of blogs that I love to read because they make me laugh ... and now I don't remember what this post was supposed to be about.

The long and short of it is that I am (dead) tired (heh) and that I have many wonderful things to tell you about my vacation and about how I did not have a breakdown on the morning of my birthday even though I am now the oldest I have ever been.

... I just re-read that sentence. I am now going to bed. Here are some pictures of said (much missed) vacay in hopes that they will lure you to come back when I have have recovered enough to write a post with fewer (possibly none but I'm not promising anything) parentheses and run-on sentences.

Entrance to the Bantu Caves, Malaysia


Boys in skirts.

Monkey friends!

P.S. - I realized as I was putting captions for these pictures that they sum up my vacation quite nicely: we saw some temple-y type places, there were boys in skirts and lots of monkeys. Awesome.

Cultural Differences

There are a number of things that Koreans do differently than Americans. Which, duh Caroline. Anyone with a brain in their heads can tell you that different cultures do things differently. For the most part I like to think that I am a pretty easy going person. I'm not so set in my ways that I can't be a little flexible. Besides, it's kind of fun to do things the Korean way (I have the rest of my life to do things my way, amIright?).

Since I got here I have tried extra hard to be patient and to try new things. I have tasted foods I never would have otherwise (hello, kimchi!) and have had experiences that I would never have been open too a few years ago. But, there is always another side to each story. Along with the good that being here brings, there are still a few things though that I just can't deal with:

• Constantly being asked to explain myself.
• I have to explain my opinions (Do you like this? No? But why?). Or why I don't want to eat a particular food (You don't want it now? But why?). Or if I had breakfast that morning (No? BUT WHY? - also, this is always followed by a sad shake of the head. You always eat breakfast in Korea, apparently).
• Fish.
• For every meal. Sometimes with their heads still attached. And the bones. All the time forever and ever, ugh ... can we please just eat some chicken for lunch?
  
• Leaving the windows wide open while the heat is blasting.
  
• Or leaving the windows open without the heat on at all. Really, the whole idea that I have to wear a coat and scarf while I'm in the school building.
• There are no sick days until you are actually dieing. For real.
• There is no toilet paper in the bathroom stalls.
  
• You have to get it from the community roll that is next to the sink. Not taking enough paper is a huge pain in the ass (also, gross).
• Speaking of bathrooms, they aren't heated.
  
• At all. In fact, the window to the bathroom on my floor was open up until last week.
  
• There are still mosquitoes in this freaking country.
  
• MOSQUITOES! Don't they know it's DECEMBER?!

But for all the little things that bug me (or make me really, really cold) I still am having a super awesome time here and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Baskets and Babies

It's that time of year again, folks. The time of year when you put all your pocket change into the little red kettles (because the ringing bells make you feel like they're calling you out if you don't). The time of year when you get phone calls asking you to give to a good cause. The time of year when just about everyone is trying to get their hand into your pocket.

And I'm here to toss my cause into the mix as well. I promise it's a good one. It involves babies. And you love babies, don't you?

Midwife Lilly and my god-daughter

When my friend Ashley found out she was pregnant, she decided that she wanted to give birth in the most natural way possible. So she went out and found the Women's Health and Birth Center in Santa Rosa. They provided her with pre-natal care as well as emotional support to make sure that she was ready, both physically and mentally, to have her baby.

Due to some complications during labor, however, Lilly (her midwife) made the call to have her transfered to the hospital. It was a call that ultimately saved the lives of Ashley and the baby. Lilly even was kind enough to stay with her during the rest of the birth to help out however she could.

But, because Ashley was transfered, the center will not be getting the delivery fees from the state for Sephie's birth. Belly Baskets for Babies is a way for us to give back to the Women's Health and Birth Center for everything they have given us.

My totally sweet flyer.

Please consider buying a Santa Belly Basket this Christmas to help the babies. And you can't help, please send the information along to someone who might be able too.

15% of every basket sold between now and December 20 will be given to the center. Plus, the Santa Belly Basket is adorable and will last you (seriously) forever. Adding assecories to the basket, like a lid and protector, will increase your total donation!

To order, just go to Longaberger.com/carolinepaul and type Santa Belly Basket in the search box. Or you can shoot me an email at cjepaul [at] gmail [dot] com and I will take care of you.

Thoughts on a Thrusday

This is my actual journal entry from yesterday:

December 9, 2010

I hate this day.

- Caroline

Pretty much sums it up.

Korea is a silly place episode 1: Attack of the Recorders

In between the last two classes I teach at my main school, my co-teacher and I go and sit in the music room. It happens to be on the same floor as the 5th graders that we teach and at that point in the morning we are too tired to walk down all the stairs to our office.

The other day, however, instead of coming in and sitting to stare at the kids who are cleaning up her classroom during the 10 minute passing period (child labor builds character!) we walked in to find the music teacher seated on a piano bench while two students were taking turns smacking her back and shoulders. At first I was completely shocked, but the look on the music teachers face made it pretty clear that she was actually enjoying getting beat on by her students.

My co-teacher later explained to me that she was getting a massage. I guess she had had a rough morning and needed some TLC ...

After about 5 minutes of non-stop back slapping, the boys were clearly tired (smacking your teacher is hard work, yo). They grabbed their books and their recorders and started to head out the door.

But then their eyes locked and they slowly glanced down at the recorders they had in their hands and (I'm not even kidding) both their heads swiveled, horror movie style, back to their teacher, who was still sitting on the piano bench waiting for more of her "massage". They grinned at each other as one of the boys walked over and tapped the music teacher to see how she'd react. When she didn't say anything, both of the boys started to wail on her (and I mean wail) with their recorders.

And she was smiling. She actually looked relaxed.

And that's when I almost fell out of my tiny, Korean desk chair crying from laughter.