we are only made of air and dust

meganbmoore and calixa I most likely will not be around for the City Hunter watching as there is a food truck festival in town and I must eat with two hands the most carnitas, tacos, bacon thingies, Filipino fusion food, banh mis, that I can. Because being stuck out in suburbia, food trucks are more of a city thing and I'm not traipsing off to LA just to stalk the kogi truck.

FOOD + SAFF = MOST GLORIOUS OTP THAT EVER GLORIED, YEAH

in other things: I watched all of Misfits, and after some random rewatching last night along with Green Wing - Nathan is the writerly baby of what you get if Sue White and Guy Secretan had a baby from all the hate sex. Seriously. The hair, the eyebrows, the hilarious inappropriateness, the annoying factor.

Robert Sheehan on his own looks like the bastard lovechild of Shia LeBouef, James Franco, and Cillian Murphy, and possibly a Jonas Brother. This is not a bad thing though.

He definitely had all the funniest lines, but he took so much away from the rest of the cast and the storylines (I preferred Season 1 over Season 2, definitely). It was an ensemble show, after all.

Simon still looks like a serial killer in training to me, but well done to the actor for bringing that kind of intensity to it. When he's being himself and Welsh - oh my god the hotness.

I will say episode 3 of series 2 - the way both Simon and Nathan were drawn and performed in that episode? Brilliant. I can't recall laughing that hard at scripted television in a while.

and the blasphemous reboot of Hanazakari no Kimitachi e's first episode FAILED to bring in the so called built in fanbase of the lead, so perhaps they and the rest of Japan realized...we've seen this show already, AND IT WAS BETTER THE FIRST TIME. OH SNAP.
(continue to FAIL, SHOW.)

something weird happened Wednesday night and so I'm in the library checking email on the free wifi. calixa D: - I haven't had a chance to watch episode 10 of City Hunter yet, and I won't get my new modem/router from AT&T until next week (that is a post for another time) and there was a huge screaming match in my house over it just prior to me calling customer service.

This is why I hate being tech support in the house - if anything goes wrong, it's automatically my fault.

I'm back in the states, have been for a week now and my sleeping patterns are almost back to normal! Knock on wood. An early birthday wish shout out to mistakency. May it be full of delight and pastry and intelligent conversation. ;)

Making this post very short as I don't know when LJ is going down again. My dreamwidth is bluelovesorange, and if you need an invite, I think I have some...?

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.

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 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 )

Buddha's birthday was celebrated in Korea yesterday, so it was a nice beginning to a three day weekend here. I went to Daejon yesterday to visit my friend G. I met her in training in Seoul, and we became quick friends, bonding over love of discounts, music, and the ridiculousness that is official training. We had a nice day out in Itaewon while we were in Seoul, and once we got posted on our positions (I went back to Gwangju, and she got a school in the city where she lives), we made informal plans to meet up again soon. I wasn't expecting it to be this soon, but luckily G was game to show me around her city (official motto: "It's Daejon!").

We walked around the downtown area, I shopped a little, and then we went to Costco. COSTCO. Incidentally Costco's entry in the Gwangju handbook is "there's a Costco located 2 hours away in Daejon."

( I am a person of simple interests and loves )

Oh Korea.

Good news, I went back to track down my Uniqlo bag at Joybox and it was there. A very bemused manager had to deal with my delighted, "IT'S MINE!" and pantomiming hands of joy.

So the day part of Friday was utter awfulness. The ginger plague flared up something fierce, I sat down for most of class, lost my temper twice with different classes, which caused them to tailspin into chaos, had a huge headache, and basically regretted not eating lunch - I had no appetite. Well when I was heading into the 7:00 hour, I was hollow inside - a little delirious and a lot irritated - at the stupid training non-issue, at my body's inability to get over illness, and assorted other pettiness. So when I shut off my computer, I was determined to go out and have dinner with Gravy and Dr. J (the other American teacher, who replaced Gina. He's not a doctor, but he has a professor's way of speaking, he loves his vocabulary and he's a fellow English major, so I teased him that he basically liked being pretentious. Hence, I shall call him Dr. J from now on.)

Gravy invited Su-Min (the math teacher) to go out with us, which was a great idea, as she took us to Kimbap Nara (and because the boys had no preference and I said bibimbap when she asked me what I liked to eat) and due to my discovery of this just a day ago, I was eager to try out some comfort food with a local to help guide me. Also, I've discovered for eating out, I'm less likely to eat by myself here - cooking at home is one thing, but when you eat out, I really feel the social isolation factor.

( cellphone pictures of dinner )