At Least It's Over

Good Lord, what a long freakin' week.

I've got no clue if I have my pension money, but it appears that I have health insurance, which is the more important of the two. But I swear this work week had at least eight days, and 5 of them sure felt like Mondays.

To be fair, it hasn't been all bad. On Wednesday night Jen had a little girls night, so Mike and I went to a party that a friend of mine was throwing. One thing I do like about cities: rooftop parties. This was the second one I've been to, and it's pretty cool. This one was mostly European students at Korea University, right around the corner from me. Not only was it great fun, but it left me with a great quote to share. Mike stayed the night at my apartment, and the next morning, as we're just waking up, Mike says:

"You know what Germans don't like to talk about? Hitler."
He seemed genuinely surprised by his revelation.

Last night Jen and I went to a good-bye dinner for Claire, one of our Korean teachers. She has been an absolute sweetheart, and she'll be missed dearly. Ironically enough, she's leaving Korea to go do nursing in the US. Poor girl is headed for Minnesota. I love the U.S., but if I had a choice between the two, I'd probably take Seoul over St. Paul. Just sayin'.

These two bright spots are what kept our sanity for what was otherwise one crappy crappy week. And tonight we're going out to dinner with one of the PLUS managers, and we don't exactly know why. Best theories put it as an olive branch to try to avoid having the teachers at my branch start rioting. Which, to be fair, is a valid concern.

Ya know, I hear foreigners here complain about getting stared at all the time. While it's true that Koreans stare at us a lot, after six months of being here I'd stare at a blond haired person too.

English is an obnoxious language. My students constantly ask me why we have one rule or another, and ya know what? There isn't a good reason. Do we really need articles? Really? (a, an, the) I'd say Korean is an easier language, but they have a considerable Chinese influence, and anything with Mandarin involved instantly becomes 3 times more difficult. Let no one tell you Chinese will be the world's language. It's only spoken by the largest number of people because there's so many of them. But even the Chinese are learning English by the boatload.

I know this hasn't been my best blog, but it's an honest one. This weekend should be a lot of fun- we've got a pig roast with 97 other people on Saturday, and my boss at RMT just got engaged, so we'll be partying with him Saturday night before work. I'll have something happy and picture filled soon, I promise.

Much love,
Al