Sunday, June 26, 2011

The Beginnings of Summer

So after a long and brutal winter, summer has arrived. I'm pretty sure we skipped spring. At least, I didn't notice it being here. I love summer. I love the hot weather. However, I am not a big fan of the humidity here in Daejeon. Mostly because the humidity outside effects my apartment significantly!!!! Laundry takes a very long time to dry and often starts to smell bad before it dries completely, and the bathroom does not dry well after showers so mildew develops. In order to keep these things from happening, one must buy a dehumidifier or run the air conditioner. I opted for the air conditioner because dehumidifiers in Korea are super expensive. Unfortunately, my air conditioner did not come with a remote control, and the setting on the air conditioner was so low that it wasn't effective. My school provided me with a similar remote control that I was able to get to work randomly one time. However, I set the temperature super low because I thought it wouldn't work. Then, I couldn't get the remote to work anymore so I had to leave the air conditioner on, and my apartment got really cold. Well too cold for me anyways. 60*F. I was walking around in sweatpants and a hoody. Ugh. If this wasn't bad enough, my sink in the bathroom kept shutting off while I was taking a shower. Seriously? I was so grumpy! I walked into school almost in tears. My boss was like ok we'll fix it. Really? I had asked many times in a month's time in a calm cool manner, and it takes me almost crying for them to do something. Whatever, I got my remote for my air conditioner, but the landlord wouldn't do anything about the sink. So yours truly had to do the handy work for that one. Really, all of this added stress could have been avoided if they had given me the new apartment I had asked for when I extended my contract. I think my boss just hates me.

Anyways, now that everything is fixed, I'm a pretty happy Melanie. Just hanging out with my friends. Doing the same things I always do. Nothing really new. Oh except, Monsoon Season is here which means constant rain! It has rained almost non-stop for the past several days. All of the weekend plans got canceled because apparently everyone likes to hibernate when it rains. Thankfully, today we had a little break. So I went to the bike shop and got some splash guards for my tires and a basket that I can take off whenever I'm not using it. I really liked the shop owner. He spoke English really well. So naturally, I was curious as to how he could speak so well. He said he used to work for Microsoft (yeah, he was one of those guys that you called customer service and talked to...although, you probably actually would have understood what he was saying). He also had many foreigner friends that he trained and competed in triathlons with. He suggested that I should train and compete too. He told me of some public swimming pools in the area. It would be interesting. I love running and biking, both I do on a daily basis, but swimming...eeeeeeekkkk! I've only done swimming with friends before. Not that I've ran races or biked races before, but still. Maybe? It seems like it could be fun. I don't think I would race seriously to get first place, but just do it to challenge myself. It would be good. So really, nothing big and exciting going on. Just being me!