we are only made of air and dust

sinonymity nudged me about making a holiday wish list (and if you guys have made one, please let me know in the comments - I'd like to see if there is something I could do for you) and it was hard, probably harder than the anonymous comment meme (which I think I may not do after all. Oops.) Mostly because it's the circumstances I'm in and the chill in the weather and how I just seem to be in a half awake state these days. I'm so tired.

if wishes were horses - I'd be galloping away

1. Someone to go to Japan with me. I like South Korea a lot. In fact, I'm looking out for a way to stay for another year, but with another school (PUBLIC) and another boss (A MILLION TIMES THIS), but right now it is very much WORK to me. I want to play and get away. I'm done with being an independent lone wolf, I need to be up with people. In Japan. I'm thinking of doing a mini break in February. This wish may be adapted to become Seoul if funds become tight, but yeah...a traveling companion.

2. My co teacher really likes gummy bears. The gummy candy they have in Korea is fine, but it's not gummy bears or Swedish fish, and since she's been a life saver in some tough jams, I'd like to get some gummy bears for her (and swedish fish!). amezri is sending me gummy bears and also American Junk Food (TM)

3. An email or a letter (pending my new mail address, obviously). Tell me about your life. I've been a shitty correspondent and lost touch with some people - I get it, we're all busy, but I'd really like to reconnect/or connect with you again. Why are you my friend? Or if you don't feel like that, tell me a story. I love stories.

4. A jetpens.com gift certificate or a pro flickr account upgrade

5. Mix cds. I used to love making these. It was one of my many semi-useful skills and I made them for everyone regardless of whether I had a crush on them or not. I even used to make mix tapes (this was in the dinosaur era and there are some embarrassing ones I made for a boy I was in love with internet flirting with when I was all of seventeen years old) and usually I made them because I wanted to share some music I really loved with the people I loved/liked/wanted to impress my musical inclinations on/just thought their day needed something.

I think I was pretty good at making a mix cd but there's always the worry that some people just aren't going to get it - musical taste being subjective and all, but I like to think I had more hits than misses. Then I got this amazing email from mistakency, who graciously let me quote her -

But this CD - it's just! Four years later and the transitions are perfect! I cannot believe no one else gets to enjoy them! That's a crime.

This afternoon I was listening to the untitled one that begins with Esthero raging about Ashanti, and I want to tell you that I played it during a high school trip once and everyone went silent and listened when "Calculation Theme" came on. AND THEN THAT ENTIRE ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE I LOVED WENT HOME AND DOWNLOADED THEMSELVES SOME METRIC. aaaaah favorite moment for life, and you were responsible.

And then I remember the time I was in Scotland on a tour bus and I brought along some mix cds and I sidled up to the (unnervingly attractive) guide/driver and asked him if he could play the cd and he smiled at me and said yes, and we listened to a lot of Scottish indie and good old fashioned anthem rock and yes, I snuck in Travis - because SCOTLAND. I may not remember all the songs that were on the cd - I have a bad habit of not writing down lists for many of my mix cds when they're for me, but I remember the feeling of being on that bus, my head against the window watching the highlands blur and being so happy that I was there, in that moment and place.

Music to me is as necessary and food and air and someone I love saying my name. It's essential.

If anyone was thinking of sending me anything in the post - please hold off or don't send it, my school is moving Dec. 11/12 and I won't know the new mailing address until then. I may also be moving to another apartment (for those of you keeping track at home, that's the fourth time).

I will be mailing packages and cards this week and next week.

And making lists. Lots of lists of little things that keep me happy, sane, content because I feel that I am going to be needing those lists very soon.

cheers to lauds for letting me know ~ Tom Mcrae's live appearance on Janice Long's BBC Radio 2 programme. Tom is the guest for the November 24 programme, and 20 minutes in, they read my email as the introduction for Tom.

look Ma, I'm internet famous!

in other news, I'm fine - the North Korea terror tactics are nothing new here (unfortunately) and I didn't get anything from the US embassy, so it's a wait and see situation. As it always is.

I think I need to find myself a copy of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber.

from Tofugu's 5 scary Japanese things for Halloween post.



Littlest Hobo shout out, you know it.

So, I'm going to write about the Halloween Party in another post, but yesterday I hung out with a new friend I made at the Foreigners/Koreans dinner. We ate lunch at Outback Steak House, we talked about the difficulties of work and what we loved about being teachers in a foreign land, and then we spent the rest of the day shopping, browsing in book stores, buying presents for other people (me - there are going to be some care packages winging their way westward soon), and eating yummy Korean fried chicken at the end of the day. With crinkle cut fries and tater tots. I also got a wooly hat with a bobble on it and it is bright turquoise blue. It is the best hat in the world.

I have to go finish grading papers and online homework, but pictures, Halloween Make Up (though I am not going out, I can still do this at home!) and more later.

Also I am following JYJ on twitter and the fact that Jaejoong tweets that he can't wait to fly home to see his cat makes me kind of melt. I love people who love animals, and when they are ridiculously attractive men who love their cats, I melt more. TRUTH.

this is totally me, only I am not as cute. And my bathroom is not as immaculately scrubbed. And THAT is what the past two weeks felt like.

Apparently one of the Korean receptionist/back up teachers wants to quit now. It's a regular free for all.

I'm attending a foreigner/Korean dinner tomorrow night where I will dust off my 'networking' skills.

Hate to say it though - Ed, you're just not my type. But I had to screencap for posterity only because it made me cackle at 2 in the morning, and it seems like less and less makes me smile these days. Deep we go into my embarrassing fb emo-badlands.

Hopefully I'll be going to the wilds of Seoul with F this weekend, so the craptacular that was this week will be a distant memory.

...I'm not Kanye.



I meant to post this yesterday, but I was sidetracked by a number of things.

( yes, I'm a year older )

Finally saw Toy Story 3. You are all fired.

I haven't really kept up with the Runaways, but I hear that there is an inevitable movie adaptation, because I guess picking over the carcass of the X-men and other random costumed superheroes wasn't enough. I am not looking forward to it because casting is so crucial to it - there are characters of color and different sexualities in it, and it's a big mainstream Hollywood production. Plus, one of the main leads is Japanese-American.

I found the two months worth of pictures that I thought I'd accidentally deleted - they were on my netbook instead of my port. harddrive, and after looking through the pictures - I think it was the memory of what I thought had lost that was more dear to me than the actual pictures. The photographs are all ordinary snapshots - what I ate, my new (well, worn in now) blue chucks, the housewarming/Congratulations! You've survived 4 months and haven't had a total nervous breakdown cake, and mostly always of places and things. I don't take a lot of photographs of people and it's not that I'm a self-hating hermit who wanders out from her cave to send the occasional postcard - well, not always.

It always happens, I have these long rambling travelogues planned out and then when I have free time, I end up eating ice cream and watching youtube videos. When I'm away from the children, and on my free time, my life here in South Korea is not that dissimilar from how I was living in California. Which is....not bad, but not exactly great, I think. I left because I wanted to go on adventures, to change, to learn - and while I've learned that my tolerance for bureaucratic bullshit is remarkably high if there's a language barrier involved, I don't know if I've really changed. I am always my worst critic however, so take this with a grain of salt.

( think smaller )