April Showers Bring Late April Flowers?

Spring has sprung, and was then subsequently drowned in two days of continuous rain.  The cherry blossoms started coming out last week.  The street where I lived was beautiful, with pink blossom covered trees lining one side.  I was planning to go see the blossoms in the park this weekend, but I was interrupted by the rain that started in the middle of the night Friday and continued through Sunday.  Unfortunately, the rain knocked most of the flowers off the trees, so they're not so pretty to look at anymore.  There seems to be a little recovery, with new blossoms opening, so maybe it will be nice again by this weekend and I'll get to go.

I started taking official Korean classes on Saturdays, as well as having language exchanges once a week with my Korean co-teacher, whose name also happens to be Sarah.  I am extremely determined to make the most of my last two months here and I should at least be functional in Korean by the time I leave.  I'm crossing my fingers.

My internet was turned off on Friday.  It is entirely not my fault.  The internet company is trying to force me into linking my internet account with my bank account, but I whole heartedly refuse.  Instead, I seem to recieve my internet bill quarterly, not monthly.  I when I first noticed that they weren't sending them monthly, Jamie spent a half hour on the phone with them arguing about who was to blame.  They said that it wasn't their fault, it was the delivery service's fault so they wouldn't take any late fees off my account.  This is when they suggested I hook it to my bank account so I never would have late fees again.  I hadn't gotten my bill for 4 months and they finally decided to turn it off.  I was planning on calling them tomorrow, when surprise, my bill was waiting for me when I got home.  I really don't understand.  Hopefully they'll turn it back on after I pay tomorrow.  You may be asking yourself, "Then how is she writing a blog post?"  I am using my phone as a hot spot.  Thank you iPhone.

For those of you that I have not been informed, I am coming home at the end of June, instead of July.  I have too many things to do to get ready for grad school.  I am also overly stressed and have developed a chronic under-eye twitch from what I assume is a combination of not enough sleep, too much caffeine and stress.  It needs to stop.

Speaking of graduate school, I have been accepted, and will be attending the University of Southern California in the the fall, and I couldn't be happier.  Okay, well I could be happier if they give me a large scholarship, but I'm still pretty darn happy.

And now, to clean my apartment!

Korean number of the day: 십사 (sheeb-sah) or 열네 (yeol-nay) - fourteen
Korean word/phrase of the day: 봄 (pome) - spring, 봄이에요 (pome-ee-yay-oh) - it's spring

I went to my first Korean wedding yesterday.  It was very nice, but I definitely prefer the Western version better.   It was the wedding of the art teacher at my school, Tiffany, who was the designated punisher of small children.  She recently quit because she didn't have the new principal in her pocket and there wasn't going to be a class of four year olds to teach this year.  It was apparently a huge wedding in terms of Korean weddings.  There is still a ceremony, that is similar to a Western ceremony, but it is much shorter, and there wasn't even room for everyone to sit.  Also, many people skipped the ceremony all together and headed for the food.  There is a public ceremony and a private, more traditional ceremony afterwards while people are eating, but basically the focus of the wedding seemed to be food.  It was all held in the same building with the food buffet a floor down from the ceremony.  They had huge screens of the ceremony set up in the banquet hall so that you could eat and watch.  The bride and groom didn't even eat with the rest of the people, they came in much later and said hi.  There was no dancing, no cake, no speeches, nothing like that.  It just seemed really impersonal and more focused on the food than on the union of the two people getting married.  It was also ridiculously crowded.  I personally prefer the Western style.

After the wedding I had some lovely shopping time with Kelsey and finally fulfilled my dream of owning a trench coat.  It is blue and lovely.  I also got some awesome polka dot heels.  The trip reminded me why I don't go shopping often.  I have a problem.

A new teacher arrived last week.  Her name is Carly and she seems very competent and has a lot of experience teaching already so I'm fairly excited.  She moved into her new apartment and apparently during cleaning they had taken away all of her towels and sheets and things that Erik had left, like most of the foreign teachers leave for the new teachers.  I mean, what are we going to do with a pile of bedding and towels, take them back to the US?  It's just not logical.  It's also much more helpful to the new teachers because then they don't have to worry about finding these things right after they get here and haven't been payed yet.  It's not in our contracts that they provide these things so I guess they thought it was okay to throw them out.  Still sucks though.  I gave her some pillows and blankets.

The weather really sucks lately.  Today it's rainy, windy and disgusting.  It wouldn't be so bad except for the wind.  Thank goodness for rain boots.

Korean number of the day: 십삼 (ship-sam) or 열세 (yeol-say) - thirteen
Korean word/phrase of the day: 짜증나 (jjah-jeung-na) - How annoying!/That's annoying!