Well, I was hoping to split this into a few posts and make it look as though I had posted our events in a timely manner. Instead, I've pretended to do so in two bursts of posting. This is the second burst (for the first, see the two previous posts, below). Please forgive me if I am repeating myself a little.
Since New Year's, we've had a few interesting events. I've been given a few more advanced classes (Pschool Intensive Program, or PIP classes) teaching reading and writing in addition to speaking and listening. This means that I'm with the same group of students for either two or three hours each day of the week, and have actually begun to feel like a teacher. At first, I felt torn in many different directions and spread a bit thin, covering three or four different activities in an hour rather than presenting one long activity like in the conversation classes (Speaking, Listening and Expression, or SLE classes). Now, the SLE classes seem slow and monotonous in comparison.
While I was adjusting to these new classes, we got a piece of ... interesting news. While we were at work, a pipe burst in the apartment above us, causing water to stream down our walls and onto my laptop. Jon discovered this in the afternoon when he finished work (one of his classes was cancelled so he formally finishes work at 3pm). I got the call at work at about 4. My computer was fried, about one or two months after buying it. And yes, because I made some stupidly impulsive decisions, it was already the second laptop I had bought since I arrived in Korea.
To make a long story short, we were moved back into our old studio for five days while they re-wallpapered our current place and fixed the flooring. Keedo had been sent to a dog hotel overnight to make this move easier and to test out a place we've had in mind for him during our upcoming holidays. During his overnight stay, the trainers noticed a bit of blood around his mouth, took him to our vet and found that he needed a tooth removed. Lets call this surgery number one. Jon then took him back to the vet for a follow-up visit and the vet suggested that the other K-9 also be removed. Surgery number two. Keedo came home to a different apartment feeling drugged, woozy and a little bit abandoned. All of this on the day before and during Jon's birthday.
Jon's birthday!
January 14 is his date, and it was celebrated with lots of food gifts and 'Happy Birthday' serenades from his students (especially the girls ;) ) and a pre-wrapped corporate gift from The School. Turns out it was a ladies' perfume set - whoops! For dinner, we went to a traditional Korean restaurant nearby with our close friends David and Richard (others were still working through dinner) and had some makkoli (Korean rice wine) and padjeon (a giant Korean pancake mixed with vegetables and slices of octopus - deelish!). Then we all hurried off to bed to ready up for a big Thursday ... we'll continue to celebrate Jon's birthday this coming weekend.
A few days after Jon's big day, we moved back into our apartment to find they'd just cranked up the heat to dry the floorboards (heat comes through the floor in most Korean homes - AC from the ceiling. Heat rises and cool air falls, right? It just makes so much sense ...). I got a new laptop identical to my old one within three days. Keedo got new toys from the dog hotel and Jon got ... a year wiser.
So now it's the night of Friday the 22nd and we're resting up for the last day of a 14-day working streak. We're a little pooped and would probably be grumpy, too, if it wasn't for our weekend plans. We're going to Shanghai for the lunar new year.
It's been in the works for about a month now. We got a great deal on the plane ticket, have our visas ready and secured travel insurance long ago. We invited some friends to go with us, so there will be seven of us in all. Jon got in touch with an old coworker, Ken, from the university he worked at in China to help us find a place to stay, and the plan is to meet up with Ken and take it from there.
We're pretty excited! We'll be back on the evening of the 27th (and start work early on the 28th) so will have photos and stories to share in the near future.
Oh - one last thing. For the first (real) time and maybe the last, it snowed!!!
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