I so should have worn a suit like that into work today. Go out with a bang!

Thought of the Day: Days Remaining: 0
Song of the Day: Queen-We Are The Champions

I treked all the way over to 분당 this weekend. Not only did Enoch take very good care of me,

but I also got to have excellent American breakfast

with Dave & Esther Lee!

It's always a surreal experience when you meet up with old friends from back home in Korea. After a few minutes into conversation, you forget that you're in the motherland. Then when you get up to pay the bill or step out of the restaurant, you remember that you're not in California. It's always good to see familiar faces again and hearing about funny experiences. EVERY foreigner has funny experiences!


Since I won't have any Enoch for the next three weeks, I decided to trek all the way down to 강남 and grab dinner with him too. We have fallen in love with the "disgusting" 순대국 of Korea. We actually crave this stuff now...one step closer to becoming more Korean.

One thing we both agreed was that it's going to be weird going back to the states whenever the heck that is. Sometimes, I feel like the longer you stay here, the harder it is to leave. Although I originally planned on staying for about two years, I find myself starting my third. But to be honest, I have a strong feeling that it's going to turn into a fourth and possibly even a fifth.


This is a recent picture that I took of my favorite corner of my place. I think it's very symbolic of my life these days. Messy. So many tentative plans and schedules. Many things should be cleaned up by the middle of October though. Middle and high school kids will be done with midterms by then. I'll be decently settled into my new place in 영등포 (안녕, 정원!) with my OWN ROOM! Maybe even the love interest will show some real answers. However, my life never ever turns out the way I expect it too. As soon as I pick up my last piece of trash, there are always more rubbish bins tipping over.

Fall is here. My lips chapped today!

Days Remaining: 2

Thought of the Day: 원고바름
Song of the Day: Wonder Girls-Nobody

Jae shares various movies with me, and my favorite one that I recently watched was "Stranger Than Fiction." This movie really made me want to consider living my life as if I were going to die tomorrow. Here's my favorite scene in the movie:


"This may sound like jibberish to you, but...I think I'm in a tragedy." What a great quote!

At work, Johanna said that her official song for this month was Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends." But shortly after, we all agreed that it was more appropriate for me to take that song.



Days Remaining: 8

Thought of the Day: 팔락팔락
Song of the Day: Modest Mouse-Float On

I had some very random reminiscences in the past couple of days. The first one was about the time that I had gotten a $50 gas card from Shell after accruing all these credit card points for several months. But the same day that I had gotten it in the mail, I had somehow lost it and thought that maybe I had thrown it away along with the envelope it had come in. I spent hours burrowing through my apartment dumpster in the dark (multiple times) because it was just so 아까워 to lose $50 over such a careless mistake. In the end, I couldn’t find it and gave up totally disheartened. I know my brother clearly remembers that day since I made him help me look for the card too. Haha. So miserable! But after a day or so, my mom found it in the bottom of our laundry basket. Gah!

The second reminiscence comes from a time when I used to listen to DMX back when he used to be cool with “Ruff Ryders Anthem” (1999). Anyways, in the album version, at the end of the song, he goes “TALK IS CHEAP, MOTHER__________!” *machine guns going off* Well, my brother and I used to think that line was so cool that he actually once used it after getting into a dispute while playing basketball. “TALK IS CHEAP, FATBOY!” I believe were the exact words he used. That just about won the dispute too.

I am officially done with writing my final comments for my final set of report cards at Elite Educational Institute. Before that, I shared the good news about finishing up my contract to my good friend, Mike.

“nice nice

that is awesome that you have some forward momentum

get yourself out of Elite prison”

-Mike Catinari (former Elite co-worker)

Days Remaining: 9

Thought of the Day: Outback.

Song of the Day: Green Day-American Idiot

4:12 A.M. Insomnia strikes.


Haven't finished, but so far so good.

Today's Elite stories:

In one of my classes, I have a student who loves to say "poo poo" all the time. It's really immature and disgusts the class every time, so we decided to make a rule. Every time that student says, "poo poo," he must go to the bathroom and drink all the water from the toilet. This rule not only works but amuses the crap out of us (no pun intended).

"One of my students likes to write comments on his tests. Last time, he wrote 'Margaret = Hitler'."
-Margaret

"Today, he wrote, 'To Johanna' and drew a picture of Hitler. So I wrote, 'To Sunny: RETEST'."
-Johanna

Days remaining: 12

Thought of the Day: 영등포구
Song of the Day: Younha-한 우산 아래

Happy birthday, 정원.

Happy 2 years, Seoul.

Thought of the Day: Won Mo.
Song of the Day: Younha-기억 (Rap Mix)

lan·guid
/ˈlæŋgwɪd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[lang-gwid] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1.
lacking in vigor or vitality; slack or slow: a languid manner.
2.
lacking in spirit or interest; listless; indifferent.
3.
drooping or flagging from weakness or fatigue; faint.

2 weeks and counting!

Thought of the Day: Auto Logon
Song of the Day: Lifehouse-Everything

If you were watching SBS around 11:30 or 12 last night, supposedly I was on TV for three seconds. Haha. I don't even remember walking past any cameraman.

Today is September 11 also known as 9/11. Seven years ago, I was late for school in the morning and Greg Choy asked me if I had heard that the World Trade Center had blown up. To that, I simply responded, "What's a 'World Trade Center'?"

I don't know how well some of you guys think you know me, but I am actually pretty dang ignorant with a lot of things. Did you know that I didn't know what the word, "stubborn," meant until my senior year in high school? I actually did not know how to do high school geometry until I started tutoring one of my kids in college. It's actually quite fascinating how much I've been able to get away with it.

One thing that I did not expect to be good at was teaching the TOEFL. Ok, "good" is being too generous, so let's just say that I'm not so ignorant about the test. But after teaching it for 1.5 years, I finally had my first student to break 110 today. I don't know whether to feel proud or sad that it took that long to have my first successful student.

Tutoring...

Me: So what's the difference between this story and an encyclopedia?
Daniel: Well, an encyclopedia is boring and...

I totally guffawed.

Thought of the Day: Herb.
Song of the Day: Idol-환상 체험

정원 and...
my dad share the same birthday. Look at this guy having soju with his birthday cake. What a Korean.

Very well written play! I recently learned how something like this can play out in real life.

"All the men who alluded to the matter declared most emphatically that she was unattractive sexually to a degree that seemed to them miraculous, considering that she was in the bloom of youth, and neither ugly, awkward, deformed, nor unpleasant in her person."
-Bernard Shaw

Life is tough, Joan.

1 Corinthians 5:11-But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

I recently learned the meaning of this passage in a much deeper way.



I long for October.

Thought of the Day: Mustard Seed.
Song of the Day: Ugly Duckling-I Wanna Go Home

So my coworker, Johanna, can't speak a lick of Korean since she's a Filipino American. She calls the furniture company and someone picks up.

Johanna: Uh...hi (hands the phone to our secretary).

End of story. SO funny!


My gay coworker, James, quit Elite one month shy of finishing his contract. We were supposed to finish together, and I didn't even get to say goodbye. End of story. Not so funny.

Thought of the Day: Jobama.
Song of the Day: Green Day-Brain Stew