speak no evil, see no evil: so i went to my first bar in korea! (clapping in the background) yay, joyce actually went out! and let me tell ya...it was verrrry interesting...

but first, i can't believe saddam got captured. alive. amazing. while all ya'll were sleeping, in korea it was breaking news here. i seriously got goosebumps when they were showing the video of him getting his physical. i dunno why. i guess i always thought he was so uncatchable. maybe we'll get bin laden next. but man, yeah, that was pretty cool.

so yesterday was our school (faculty only) Christmas party. back home while i was working for NCH, i didn't go to ours. i expected the party at my school to have the most awkward atmosphere b/c there's so many cliques. and i was right. we ate around 8:30 eating one of the coldest (cold b/c it was waiting outside in a truck) buffets i've ever eaten. so yeah i t wasn't that good at all. but then they had alcohol for the teachers so people forgot about that. haha. me being a good girl, i didn't have a sip. well afterwards, most of the foreign teachers and a couple of korean teachers decided to go clubbing in hong dae. hong dae is a huge college party area. lots of bars and clubs. i decided to go along so i could see what clubbing/partying in korea was all about.

first we ended up leaving so late that i wanted to change my mind, but it was too late. we found a bar called ska. funny thing is, they don't even play SKA music. it was a 1-room bar with black lights. ooh. i hated the music. you KNOW you're at a crappy bar when their playlist includes the following:

*the mitsubishi car commercial song: "start the commotion"(?)
*that "hey now you're an all-star...get ur game on..." blah blah blah crap
*chumbawumba(?)'s "i get knocked down, i get up again" crap
*"video killed the radio star" song

and what was MOST appalling of all...BARRY MANILOW!!! "copa! copa cabana!" i seriously wanted to leave after that. they played NO HIP-HOP at all. the CLOSEST thing they came to 2003 was justin timberlake's "rock your body". gross. what was funny about that was one of the teachers from my school, a KOREAN-CANADIAN MALE, REQUESTED that song. i give him all sorts of crap for being a "jt" (as he calls it) fan.

while everybody was downing beer, i could see inhibitions running out the door. 4 teachers suddenly became 2 couples. 1 couple was irish & canadian (both white). the other was most shocking: 1 korean-born female & 1 US-born korean male. what was shocking is that she's 30 and he's 25. and she even told me a couple of days ago she thought the "jt" guy was hot (he's my age). but i guess i was wrong, huh? i guess i wasn't the only one shocked b/c the korean female teacher (my age) was telling the taxi driver (on the way home) all about it. the taxi driver then gave us words to live by:

"a guy will succumb to a woman even if she is older or not attractive (in a females' opinion) if he has alcohol running through his blood. age don't matter. if a girl is willing, then the guy is too. unless he absolutely HATES the girl. but that rarely happens. even tho he knows he's making a mistake, he'll just shake it off the next morning and forget about it."

funny how girls don't think like that. well i don't. if some guy was trying to seduce (like the above couple) me, i'd DEFINITELY look at who's coming at me.

anyways, i had a fun time dancing. sober. people said to me, "i wish i was you. i wish i could dance and have a fun time without alcohol." ha. oh and as another said to me, "you're probably drunk from all that coke you drank." maybe. haha.

NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW for the "thing" that happened the other day...

at our school, teachers get a calendar/planner thingy right before the beginning of the new year. or so i thought. i saw a teacher's 2003 planner a couple of months ago and she said in dec, go ask for one. so that's what i did.

i get to the front desk where all the secretaries handle all the books and materials to be given to teachers and asked for the planner. she, actually 3 of them, said that i couldn't get one b/c i didn't sign-up for one. so i asked when was that and they said it was before i came. my boss comes over and tells me the same thing. i was a lil disappointed, but what could i do? i was late and that's that. or so i thought.

i go upstairs with my boss to the faculty room. i see on her desk 8 planners. she then announces, "come get your planners that you signed up for." immediately the korean teachers all get theirs. being on my rag, i musta been more pissed than i realized. i was fuming inside. one teacher even waved the planner in my face saying, "you wish you had this right?" UGH! then i overhear 2 things that pissed me off even more: "i didn't even sign-up for this." and "why the heck did they make it so thick? geez!" i was mad. then i see the teacher who joined the school at the SAME TIME AS ME flipping through hers. i was seriously pissed. another teacher saw that i was a lil down (i tried not to show my anger) and i told her what was wrong. she immediately said, "i'll try to get you one". i told her that i didn't care about the planner. another teacher overhearing our conversation said, "they usually don't give it to foreign teachers." so freakin' WHY DIDN'T THEY SAY SO IN THE FIRST PLACE? WHY DO THEY GOTTA LIE ABOUT IT? i was so mad that when i finished for the day i was about to go and confront the secretaries about it. i did a back-and-forth dance down the hall deciding what to do. i decided to be the bigger and better person about the whole situation and just went home.

it totally ruined my day. i really didn't care about getting it. what i cared more was that they weren't honest with me. i guess they might of felt kinda bad for saying something like that, but lying to my face isn't better. i just forgot all about it and went to sleep. (oh and the teacher apologized to me for bragging in my face that day.)

the next day i go to school and on my desk is a shiny new planner. but i wasn't happy to see it. i wanted to just throw it off my desk. a teacher gave up hers b/c she said it was too thick. i looked inside it and it's not what i thought it was. i just wanted to have one since i thought they just gave it out to everyone. but yeah, i got pissed that day, but i think more so since i was on my rag. serious pms-ing which was a first for me. weird.

ok i think i grossed out the male readers in this entry, but oh well. my female readers understand me. now it's time for me to watch a sad korean drama.

oh and gonna see "love actually" tomorrow. want to see "lord of the rings 3", but tickets are impossible to find right now. crazy, huh? well if you've read this far, you're AWESOME!! (^.^)V

Squirted 6:55 AM by E-J Yi

sticks and stones: i must be going through the same thing as ann...

i let some lil thing get me down all day yesterday. i WILL write about it in detail when i get the chance too. but right now i'm "derrty" so i gotta take a shower.

not many days 'till Christmas and still it doesn't feel like it. miss everybody back home! (^.^)v

Squirted 9:04 PM by E-J Yi

1 snow day and that's it?: it hasn't snowed again since...sheesh!

so britney liked (or so it seemed) to like her stay in korea. she was like super-nice during all her interviews. she even sang a lil in one of them after telling producers that she wasn't going to. i can't wait to see her special on Christmas day tho. btw, i dunno why i'm getting so crazy about her right now. but yeah, she seemed really down-to-earth in her interviews. :)

had my second dance lesson today. learned about 12 more seconds of the routine. hahaha. gonna get harder my dance teacher said and i'm worried about the other kids. JUST KIDDING.

i'm actually getting used to the cold these days. but then again, my relatives and co-workers say this is nothing. and i still gotta buy me some long underwear. i guess i'll need some new pants, too. i have no time to go shopping! i guess i could go in the morning, but dunt wanna take all my clothes to my school. argh. and next month i'm goin to be especially busy. working from 10am to 7:30pm each day. if i don't pass out and/or get sick next month, it'll be a miracle.

this past week, we had our first spelling bee at our school. no, it wasn't like that national scripps-howard one. our boss said that puts too much pressure on them. then what's the fun in having a spelling bee? anyways, a foreign teacher would just say the word and the kids wrote down the words on a big sheet of paper. i had a couple of kids get all 50 words right and some missing only 1, 2, or 3. then i had those that missed EVERYTHING. some of the funny spellings i got were "boob" for "bomb" and "sh-t" for "shirt" and "short". kids can be so funny sometimes.

i ate chili's this past week! i didn't know they had it here. i just HAD to order their chips & salsa, but i was kinda disappointed. the chips were corn chips so they weren't that good. the salsa was the same like back home which was GOOD!! and you know it only costs $1.49 back home? freakin' like $7 here!!! and no lettuce wraps. boo hoo. so i got the chicken crispers.

i lost (but found) my wallet/planner this past week, too. my first time. (julie, if you're reading this, don't tell umma & appa!) i was eating dinner at friday's (cuz i had a free coupon for their crispy chicken salad) with one of the teachers from my school and when it was time to pay, i grabbed my wallet, but the teacher insisted on paying (since she would only be paying for 1 dish). well, i put my wallet/planner on my backpack instead of INSIDE of it. we talked for a while and my backpack fell down once while eating. i didn't realize that my wallet fell down, too. i got home that night and was thinking about balancing my cash book (i write all my expenses down), but decided not to. the next morning i woke up and got ready for school and couldn't find it. luckily it was still at tgi friday's and i got it back the next day. my cousin said nobody would steal it cuz 1) it was too big and 2) it had english writing all over it. lol.

FREAKIN' GREAT GAME this past saturday (friday in dallas). mavs fans, YOU KNOW what i'm talkin' about! i had a bet going with tommy and if dallas lost again, i'd be paying for 2 dinners. i told him to watch out. he said he wasn't worried. i told him payton got ejected. he said he wasn't worried. he looked so disappointed when i told him dallas won. hahaha. josh howard did such a great job. i like how he doesn't get intimidated even tho he's a rookie. and dirk did better than i thought since it was his 2nd game back. man, shaq looked MAD when walker and him got into a lil scuffle. you couldn't wipe my smile off my face that day. hehe. :D

alright i'm hungry now. dunno when i'll be able to update again, but have a great week my loyal readers! (^.^)v

Squirted 2:42 AM by E-J Yi