Sunday, March 6, 2011

Wow back to back weekend posts!!!

Hey! I might actually be able to get back into this...just kidding. Don't get too excited this probably won't happen very often. I would be shocked if it does. So much happened this week I just have to share!

So Monday was horrifyingly busy!!!! All of the foreign teachers left school, so Max and I had to cover all of the foreign classes. That means, no breaks. Thankfully, Tuesday was Independence Movement Day or something which means NO SCHOOL! I needed that break after Monday.

So Tuesday night, I go to the gym. At the gym, I'm told that one of the girls that has been coming to the gym for one month is going to test for two stripes on the next test. You are supposed to wait about three months for the second stripe. Kwanjangnim said that since I'm her senior classmate he wanted my opinion. I told him that it didn't matter what my opinion was because he was the boss, and my opinion would not be fair or unbiased. Because truthfully, I've worked my butt off more than anyone else. I've trained harder than anyone else, and I've tried harder because I had to. For ten months, I've been going to this gym and never once have I gotten a break like that. I even had to wait even longer for my third stripe test. I am still really angry about this. If she receives two stripes as I'm receiving my third stripe, I will most likely quit the gym. The gym has been so good to me this year, and Kwanjangnim has been great. So I hate that something like this would make me want to quit. But the truth is, lately I've been feeling really left out at the gym. For several months, I was pretty much the only foreigner and the only girl at the gym, but it didn't seem to matter I felt like I belonged. Lately, there have been a lot of new people at the gym, and they have formed a sort of clique or something. I'm not the only girl any more and there are some more foreigners, but I get left out of good spars. I have to spar with the new people and the girls. For several months, I sparred with only the guys, and now, I have to spar with people that cannot challenge me. On top of that, Kwanjangnim wants to give the new girl two stripes???? That's not cool, and it really hurts that he didn't think it would hurt me. It was nice that he asked me for my opinion, but why would he not think it would hurt me?

Anyways, so after that, I really needed to go out! So Jeffrey and Mr. Park met me at the gym to go hang out for a bit. While I was waiting for them, these two guys walked by and wanted to talk for a minute. One of the guys, Glen, and I exchanged numbers and then I left with Jeffrey and Mr. Park. And like most good Korean boys, Glen texted me ten minutes later. Hahaha. While I'm hanging with Jeffrey and Mr. Park, Alex decides to come and join us. We had so much fun we stayed out till 5am. Which sucks for me because I had another busy day at work on Wednesday starting at 9am. Hahaha. Oh well, I survived.

Nothing really big or special happened on Wednesday, but I did receive about 15 text messages from Glen! I was kind of happy about that. He seems like a really nice guy!

On Thursday, Glen called me and asked if I would meet him later that night. Of course, I said yes! His friend, Jun Pyo, came along too which was perfect it made it quite a bit more comfortable. Those guys are amazing! Jun Pyo has a diplomatic girlfriend literally, that's her job. It was interesting learning more about them. Both guys are Korean, but they speak English amazingly well. They both are from Seoul but have jobs and live in Daejeon. They promised me next weekend they would show me around Seoul. I'm kind of excited about that because people always offer to show me places, but they never make plans to. At 2am, Jun Pyo decided to head home because we all had to work early, but Glen asked me to stay out a bit longer. So I did, we stayed out till 4am just talking. It was crazy! He's a super nice guy, and I really like hanging out with him. He's so much fun.

Which brings me to Friday, Friday sucked! It might have been because I was super tired, but most likely it was because I got all of the new, non-English speaking students. That's right, all of my lovely English speaking students that I trained to behave well went to all of the boy teachers. Who gets stuck with the untrained ones? Me. Ok, two of the classes aren't bad. The baby class killed me!!!! Seriously, one kid was grabbing my butt with both hands while another kid was pulling down my skirt yet another kid was stepping on my feet and still another kid somehow managed to reach up and pull my hair all at the same time. I wanted to scream, and I spoke Korean. I'm not supposed to, but it was necessary. Apparently, that's the standard baby class here in Korea. I'm told that sort of thing happens often. The only thing that brightened my day was text messages from friends and Glen's phone call. The end of school could not come soon enough!!!

Now party people, its the weekend!!! Friday night was Lindsey's birthday so I went to Yellow Taxi for a minute to tell her Happy Birthday. Seriously, it was probably a minute. The place was crowded, I was feeling sick, and I was tired. So I went home and slept!

Saturday, I met up with Alex and Ji Hyun for lunch at an Italian restaurant. Yummy! Then, we went for some coffee. Later Saturday night, we met up again this time with Douchi. We went to Musa's in Hannam. Musa is one of our favorite bars. They serve both American dishes and Korean dishes. Our favorite order is a combination of Korean and American dishes. It comes with gimchijan which is a sort of pancake thing but not really...its so yummy!!! It also comes with sausage, cheese sticks, french fries and tater tots. Yay! When we got there, we noticed that the whole staff was new. As usual, our waiter brought us some free soda as a "service". Normally,they do it when the owner is there because he's friends with us. However, we didn't see him. So we asked about it, and they said that the owners had changed. I'm not exactly sure why they gave us free soda then. Hahaha. It was really funny because all of the servers kept looking at us. One of them stared at me for the longest time. It was really kind of funny because he wanted me to look at him, but I wouldn't. So then, he took out his phone and started fixing his hair using the camera. It was hilarious. I mean he's not a bad looking kid, but seriously he's probably 19 in Korea which is 17 internationally. I would go to jail. When we left, he raced to the check out counter, so he could be the one to take our money. To my surprise, he spoke in English of course he had an accent that showed English was not his favorite subject in school, but at least he tried. I'm not so harsh that I'm not going to give the kid credit for trying, but still he's probably at least 5 years younger than me (I can almost guarantee he's 9 years younger). Anyways, it was a good time. I love my friends!

So I guess all that is left is today. Today, I went to Costco. I found New England clam chowder and chips and salsa. That's the jackpot in Korea. Then, I came home and did some housework. Later, I decided to go to Time World and spend my gift certificates from my students. I had received 300,000 won gift certificate to the Galleria which is all of Time World this year. I spent 100,000 on a backpack. So I had about 200,000 more to spend. Thankfully, they gave me mostly cash back when I didn't spend the whole thing this time. I bought some pearl earrings because I left mine in the States, and I bought a Swatch. I still have 20,000 left in gift certificates, but like I said they did give me a lot of cash back. It was definitely a good day for shopping! I am proud of all my purchases!

My wish for next week, please let the baby class be better.