Sarah

New Years Eve at Subway

2008-01-01T06:34:00.000+02:00

Got to work at 10pm - which was weird enough since the store usually closes then - to be informed that they'd been flat out all night, were only part way through the prep list and hadn't done any of the closing list. Joy. So Elise and I start at 10 and it promptly pretty much dies. Had a few rushes of people. Mainly of the somewhat drunk but not overly obnoxious kind for the most part. At least til about 1.30 or so when the fun began. Sitting on the stairs on my break while Rosemary and Elise are serving when we get a bunch of drunk off their faces idiots coming in. 1 in particular was really obnoxious so Elise told him to get out. Naturally he got worse so then Rosemary kicked him out. Asshole came back more aggressive and worse than ever at least twice and then decided that provoking a fight with another customer, ramming a table into the window and cracking it was the way to go. Cops got called and showed up but by then he'd run off. Gave them a description and they eventually got the dude who is probably still sleeping it off in the cells at Nelson Police. The cops actually bought another guy in for an ID because he was wearing the same clothes as the drunk. So since the whole thing was caught on the cameras in the store and they guy'll probably end up having to pay for the window damage it's been an expensive New Years for him. Dumbass. Cops came damn quick so they must've been just round the corner. They were 2 of the regular cops who come in all the time. Knew there was a reason we gave them 1/2 price food. Not much drama after that aside from more drunk, loud morons but that died off about 4.30 or so
Was meant to finish at 4 along with Elise but stayed on til 6 so Rosemary wasn't there by herself. Naturally since I stayed on it was totally dead but also meant I got paid for an extra 2 hours which is all good.
And now I'm off to sleep for a few hours before I get to start work at 3pm. Joy. Or not.

Evil

2007-11-28T23:46:00.000+02:00

Thats what the tomato slicer is. Evil. Saturday at work was bad enogh when 2 staff had a fight which ended up with 1 of them walking out so we were a person down then on Sunday not only did I drop the tomato slicer and break the handle but then was using it later and sliced my finger on it and ripped part of my nail off. Great fun. Got no bloody sympathy either. Not impressed with that. Then today ended up having to close by myself after the other Sera had to go home sick. I'm having just such a great time at work. Not.
Had Jen's 21st last week. Was good but got stuck in several photos. Not so good.
Next Monday should be interesting if nothing else as we have our work Xmas party up the Maitai.

Dammit

2007-10-21T22:32:00.000+03:00

After a crappy nights sleep I get up at 8am - depressing enough in itself - to go to Boys College. Get dressed and am about to head out the door when I realize it's Labour Day and the stupid College isn't even open so didn't have to get up at all. Dammit! Least I realized before I got there and had to come all the way back. OK, so it's only a 15 minute walk but that's not the point. I'm sure as hell not doing exercise at 8am if I don't have to.
Had the close from Tartarus last night with a stupid family of 6 coming in at 9.50 - we close at 10 - and ran out of bread 3 times. Running out of bread was good in the fact that most people left when they heard we didn't have any so we didn't have to serve them. Got to tell 2 teenage boys that no we weren't giving them refunds after we gave them what they wanted then they
didn't want it. 1st was a teenager who wanted cookies the second they came out of the oven so we gave them to him and warned him they'd be soft since they'd just come out of the oven. 2 minutes later we get '' I want a refund, these cookies are too soft" Fat chance you little brat. 2nd was even better. Brat asked for all the sauces excpet Sweet Onion and Red Wine Virginia (don't actually have Red Wine Virginia, it's Vinagerette moron) so Sharon gives him exactly what he asked for. All the sauces including Mint and Satay. Needless to say the sandwich had sauce everywhere, he ate about 2 bites, didn't like it and wanted a refund. Which Sharon refused to gove him since she'd given him exactly what he asked for. Since we both hate teenagers it was somewhat amusing for us.
One of my friends came up from Chch for a visit. Min, if Ads ever comes to your place don't let him anywhere near the windows. He was leaning against one of the sitting room ones and it suddenly shattered. Scared the crap out of us and I've been hassling him about it ever since.
Now, back off to bed to see if I can go back to sleep for a few hrs. Oh, and Kat, answer your damn emails dude.

Birds are blind

2007-09-27T03:10:00.000+03:00

Evidently birds, or the ones at our house have seriously crappy vision. Either that or they're just plain dumb which could also be a possibility. Either way, have just had about 5 of them crash into the window of the study in the last 5 minutes or so. Hear this thunk every so often and sure enough it's another one. While the window isn't real dirty it is a bit dusty so you'd think they'd realise but no apparently not because tehy just keep crashing into it.
have the joy of trying to change shifts next week after I got rostered on for a day I'd asked for off so that should be fun. Especially since there're only about 2 people that could possibly do the shift but not too worried about losing those hrs since I managed to pick up an extra 6 for today after Moira realised she hadn't put enough people on for tonight so get to have most of the day off since i don't start til 4 and get extra hrs. All good.

2007-09-17T21:15:00.000+03:00

Really have nothing to say. Have been sick with the flu for the last 5 bloody days. Very not fun, especially since I still had to work on Saturday. Had been sort of getting better but work soon took care of that and ended up worse. Think I'm finally over the worst of it, just have a stupid cold now. Joy.
Kaz, will get your books back as soon as I get off my ass to send them down. In other words fon't hold your breath,
Kat, have to agree with Kaz: quit playing WOW and answer your damn emails!

Dunners Post

2007-08-18T15:58:00.000+03:00

Decided it might be time for an update. Am currently in Dunners for Bec and Simon's grad and am at Kaz's flat stuffing around. Kaz somehow managed to lock me in the car. Rather impressive actually since the door wasn't locked at the time. Go home tomorrow, well actually go to Ashburton then home on Monday and don't have work til Thursday. All good.
And since aside from Kaz locking me into the unlocked car I have nothing else to say so I'm off to eat Kaz's biscuits. Later

weddings, work and ball throwers

2007-07-09T07:43:00.000+03:00

Went up to Wellington last week for Mins wedding. Had the usual Wellington weather although it didn't actually snow til Saturday which was the day of the wedding of course. The wedding was great and both min and John looked really good. Stayed with Rach and Simon and their kids - very cute at 6, 3 and 1 but don't ever want any.
Started working at Subways last week. Was somewhat stressful at first but getting better at doing everything.
Just bought fun throwing thing for the dog. It's a long thing with a place to put a tennis ball in at the front so you can throw it miles and don't have to pick up the ball. Brilliant. Cass wasn't too interested in the throwing part of it when I bought it home but thinks the tennis ball's great.

A miracle

2007-06-14T09:19:00.000+03:00

Not only did the blog actually let me in first time but I have finally reached 100 posts. I'm ignoring the fact that although we started the blogs at around the same time Kat's reached over 300.
Anyway, we have 4 boys from some choir in the States staying with us for 2 nights. Originally we were having 2 and then we ended up with the other 2 after a billet never showed up so we figured since we have spare room and live so damn close we may as well take them. Were informed they weren't allowed to go bungy jumping, sky diving or swimming, Since they arrived an hour and a half late when it was freezing cold and getting dark don'r think that'll be much of a problem.
Wandered off to the careers advisor people the other day and according to the little quiz thing I did I should do library, museum or animal work. Hardly a huge suprise there although it did manage to also suggest statistician. Since I can't do maths to save my life not too sure of the logic there.
Kaz, not sure if/when I'll get to Dunners but Rob's coming back home next week so you can give it to him. I'll email you his address and ph number.

I HATE computers

2007-06-01T07:13:00.000+03:00

Thought I'd finally update before Kat strangled me but as per usual the stupid computer took about 5 tries of me tryping exactly the same thing in before it would let me into the dashboard to update. At least the stupid thing isn't in Turkish any more which is something.
Arrived home last week after about 35 hrs travelling time. So much fun. Not. Flew Emirates. They're a good airline but they seem to have their priorities screwed on which planes they use for which parts of the flights. All the seats have the individual TVs which is all good but not all the planes have the selection of movies etc which is the good and huge selection. Oh no, of course not. So I get the good version from Istanbul to Dubai and then from Melbourne to Auckland and the crap version that only has set movies on the long parts of the trip from Dubai to Singapore and Singapore to Melboune.
Had 3 days in Istanbul with Bec and Simon so did all the tourist stuff - went to the Cistern, (a hig hole with a bunch of pillars where whover designed them is somewhat confused about the concept of putting things the right way up. Out of the 2 carved Medusa heads one was sideways and one was upside down) Topkapi Palace which is huge, the archaeology museum, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and did a Bosphorus cruise. Had good weather too. Nice and warm. Then I come back to NZ where it's bloody freezing cold.
Going to the Bay for Queens Birthday this weekend and the weather is meant to be crap which means I have a feeling I'll spend most of the time under lots of blankets.

Excuse me Kat

2007-04-30T15:40:00.000+03:00

But what, pray tell, do you call this? Personally I call it an update.
Stupid blog has suddenly decided that it want's to a) be all in Turkish and b) not let me into the stupid site half the time.
So depressing being back at work after having 5 days off last week.
Got to Istanbul on the Monday and went for a wander to the Grand Bazaar then we left for Gallipoli on Tuesday morning. Had a bus tour round Istanbul first - saw the Hagia Sophia and went into the Blue Mosque where one of the Aussie guys on the bus had the suggestiong that since it's called the Blue Mosque they really should paint it blue so people could recognise it.
Got to Channakle and then went to drive to Anzac Cove but the bus broke down. There was a leak or something in the air tanks or brakes or something so they fixed it with sellotape. Yes, sellotape. No fancy stuff here in Turkey.
Managed to get to Anzac Cove though and got there pretty early at about 7-8pm. A group of us got some grass rather than have to sit in the stands. So settle down in our sleeping bags for the different videos they had on about the campaign and what sleep we could get. Actually managed to get to sleep and then at 2.45 the MC dude informs us that we should all wake up because the service was going o start soon - yeah, in 2 1/2 hrs! and we should move up to fit more people in. So we move up and make space for about 25 or so people and then a bunch of older Aussies come to sit tehre. All good except that they had the great idea that they'd sit on stools. Right in front of us. Their reasoning for it was that it was all on TV anyway so it didn't matter if we couldn't see anything. Needless to say that didn't go down too well and after everyone round us started yelling at them they finally sat on the ground like the rest of us who'd been there for 7+ hours.
Service was all good and then after the Dawn Service we went to tne Aussie one at Lone Pine Cemetary then the Kiwi one at the top of Chunuk Bair. Gotta love the organisers logic. They give us 4 hrs to walk 2.5km to Lone Pine but only 90 minutes to walk 3.3km from there to Chunuk Bair. ALL uphill carrying sleeping bags, gear etc. Have to say that was not the most fun part of the day.
Proof that Kiwis and Aussies are easily amused came on the bus there. Everyone got a t-shirt, a crappy CD that was meant to be about Gallipoli but was really a promotional video for Turkey and a torch. It was the torch that provided the amusement and probably pissed the guide and driver off no end. To get it to work you have to wind it up. This makes rather a loud noise. 46 people all doing it at once? Fun for us but probably not so much for the guide.

A miracle

2007-03-21T16:55:00.000+02:00

Well 2 actually. The 1st being that I've finally got around to updating and the 2nd being that for once in its life Hollywood has actually managed to make a Classics based movie and it's actually pretty much historically accurate. Nice change. Went to see 300 last night with a couple of other teachers and aside from a few minor screw ups it was pretty accurate to what actually happened. Probably a 1st for Hollywood.

Have booked my trip to Gallipoli for Anzac Day so I get a 5 day weekend at the end of April. All good.

Hey Kat, what's up with you smiling in photos? Are you trying to scare us or what?

The vanishing bills

2007-02-28T14:57:00.001+02:00

First they screwed up the Digiturk bill so we got cut off, then it was the electricity bill which they didn't send us and now it's the water bill which has either never been sent or has vanished somewhere along the way. Whatever happened we never got the bill so couldn't pay it and we now have no water. Supposedly it's meant to be put back on today but they told us that yesterday so we're not holding our breath. Means no showers, can't do dishes and the bathroom is starting to smell really bad. Glad I can't smell at the moment. Complain to the school and the response is ''you should pay your bill'' How the Hades are we meant to pay the bill when we don't get the damn thing? Kat or kaz, you wouldn't happen to have anything to do with this would you?

The post office mission

2007-02-22T16:00:00.000+02:00

Was a good child and posted some of the presents off today - Bec and Rob, you's will get done next week and Kaz yours will be done when you either send me your flat address or your parents new address.
So, go to the post office to send 3 presents to NZ, 1 to Taiwan and 1 to Korea. Easy right? Of course not, this is Turkey. Nothing is ever easy or logical here.
Go up to the guy who does the big packages. Of course he doesn' speak any English and originally thought everything was to go to Thailand of all places. This is despite me saying (partly in Turkish too) where they were meant to go. Eventually he got the idea that they were going to Thailand, Kenya and Israel. Israel? OK, Thailand and Taiwan, I can see how you could make that mistake, even Kenya and Korea but NZ and Israel? That I just don't get. Eventually said Yeni Zelandia which is NZ in Turkish and he got that. Took about 45 minutes with the guy getting more and more pissy when I didn't understand him. What was even dumber about the entire debacle is that there was someone who actually spoke English there! Of course the logic of getting her to translate didn't occur to them. No, much more fun for everyone involved to waste time and get grumpy because nobody understands anybody. How do I know there was an English speaker? Because ı had to go over to her to send Kat's and Van's presents.
Am now off to buy some chocolate cake - figure I need it after that mission. Plus I haven't had anything to eat today and I'm hungry.

The facial

2007-01-25T15:40:00.000+02:00

Knew there was a reason I never bothered with all that skincare and makeup crap and left it to Aphrodite. It's a waste of time. From what I can tell it is anyway.
Last week when we went to the spa I went to the dermatologist since my skin is not exactly great. Was given a whole bunch of pills and junk to buy and told come next week for a facial before you start the other junk - which'll probably last about a week before I start forgetting to take them like usual.
So anyway, go off to the spa and for about 2 hrs have this woman poking at my face and afterwards it didn't look any different from what I could tell. Plus I have to go back in 20 days for another go. Oh goody. Can't wait. Really.
Note to self: leave all this crap to Aphrodite and people who actually give a damn how they look.

Back at work. So depressing

2007-01-07T18:40:00.000+02:00

Am depressingly back at work now. Am on the last hour of a 9 hour day and my 6 hour E2 class so the students are looking pretty braindead. Get to give a quiz next hour which is brilliant for me because I get to sit there and do nothing for 40 minutes.
Got back from Cappadocia on Wednesday. Can highly recommend Cappadocia for anyone coming here. Did 2 full day tours, went for a wander around a couple of valleys, did a 2 hr horse riding tour - good but since I haven't ridden for over 10 years had a somewhat sore butt and legs afterwards - and a walking tour. Also spend lots of money and got the rest of my xmas presents for people which will be sent after next payday (in theory at least)
Have to agree with Kat about the whole WAYN thing. Get the same crap she does and it's a pain in the neck. They're at the top of the hit list now.
Off to sit and do nothing for 40 minutes while my class does a quiz. Fun. Well, for me at least, for some reason the students don't seem to agree. Funny that.

Christmas in Ankara

2006-12-26T08:30:00.000+02:00

And what did I get to do? Work. Grrr. Not impressed. Did get a call from home so got to talk to mum,dad, Bec, Rob and Annie which was all good. But still, working on Xmas Day is so not fun. Didn't even get snow. Unless you count the tiny, tiny amount that started when I was leaving work at 9.30. Did get a white Boxing Day though so I suppose that's better than nothing. Actually it was a white Boxing Day morning because all the snow's gone now. The cold however hasn't gone and even though it's sunny and the middle of the afternoon it's still about -5. Not fun when you hate the cold like I do.
Am off to Cappadoica for a week on Thursday. We get a 9 day holiday for the Kurban Bayram. 9 days of no annoying E1s or E2s. Brilliant. Both my flatmates are leaving in about 3 days and some new dude arrives the day after I go to Cappadocia so will get home to a new flatmate. Joy.

Quick wee update

2006-12-16T09:15:00.000+02:00

This'll be a really short update because a) I'm on lunch break and don't have much time and b) I don't have a hell of a lot to say.
Same old, same old here in Ankara. Had a somewht amusing last hour with my E2's. Did describinh a past holiday so divided them into pairs and gave each a country to have as their holiday destination. Among other things the Egypt group managed to get there by camel and see the pyramids without seeing the desert. Pretty impressive considering the pyramids are in the desert. Their person covered their eyes til they got to the pyramids.
Am 6 hrs into a 9 hr day. Only 3 to go and the last 30 minutes is quiz time. Don't imagine they'll be too happy with me considering they've already had 1 quiz today and they're getting another tomorrow. Not my fault we're on an intensive, 4 week program and 3 weeks through with only having 1 quiz. Couldn't do 2 last week because 2 students weren't there on Sunday and had mentals at the suggestion of doing a quiz without them.
Off to get food now.

the long awaited update

2006-12-12T22:15:00.000+02:00

Since Kat is bitching at me to update (actually suprised it's taken her this long to start complaining, getting a bit slack dude)here it is.
Nothing is happening here in Turkey.
Have 2 classes tonight and because they've both being annoying me lately they're both getting quizzes. Hopefully this means I'll get out early as well as not having to teach for the last 30 minutes of class.
Have Bayram coming up in 2 weeks and am going to Cappadocia for 6 days. Doing a couple of tours and a horse trek - this was the main reason for going to Cappadocia. Was a choice between a hot air balloon tour and a horse trek but the balloon was too expensive and horses are better than balloons anyway.
Xmas presents will either be sent before or (more likely) after Bayram so in theory they'll arrive sometime in January.
Actually have to go teach now. Damn.

Exam day

2006-11-22T09:50:00.000+02:00

Gotta love exam day. Have 2 classes Mon-Wed. a 9.30-2 class and a 7.30-9.30 class and today is exam day for both. Which means that aside from explaining the exam I get to spend all lesson reading. Well, actually spent the 9.30-2 class marking their listening tests (which took about 2 seconds), planning for s stupid workshop we just had and then seeing how many words I could get out of supercalafragalisticexpealadocious. Unsurprisingly I managed to get rather a lot. So tonight will probably be much the same with me reading, drawing pretty pictures or possibly writing Kat another boredom letter. Depends how it all goes.
The class this morning all passed axcept for 1 and she never had a hope in Hades of passing anyway. What's somewhat annoying about the evening class is I have to come in tomorrow to mark the exam since I ain't staying here past 9.30. Somewhat unimpressed with this. Tomorrow is my Saturday. Saturday means sleeping til at least lunchtıme not getting up early to come in and mark stupid exams. Not impressed.
Have managed to do pretty much all xmas shoping so in theory will be sending prezzies in the next couple of weeks but not promising anything.
BTW, mum, any more photos of Annies party?

I survived

2006-11-13T08:15:00.000+02:00

Since I'm sure everyone has been worried about my safety this is just a little post to let you all know that yes, I did manage to survive the earthquake on Saturday night - actually technically it happened at 4.30 in the morning but that's nor the point. Rather inconsiderate of Poseidon to send one at that time I thought. Since it took ages to get back to sleep I was not impressed. The quake lasted a grand total of about 2 seconds so it wasn't exactly a huge one and as far as I know there was no damage to anywhere - funny that.
People should probably sit down before reading this: today I walked to work. This achievement is somewhat impressive since a) meant I had to get up at 7am which is impressive by itself since I hate mornings b) takes just over an hour to walk to work from where I live (an hr of exercise, SO depressing) and c) since it's winter (or rather the weather can't decide if it's winter or still autumn so it's alternating) it's getting damn cold in the mornings now so not only did I walk for an hour but I walked for an hour in the cold. Actually the main reason I walked is because I have about $3 to last me til payday and can only afford to get the dolmush either to or from work but not both. Since I finish work at 9.30pm when it's dark damned if I'm walking home then so at least if I walk to work in the morning it's light. Might get the ticket bus to save money tonight instead of the dolmush but then have to wait for the stupid thing for ages or get the slow one. Not so good. Fortunately Wednesday is pay day. Actually can blame my family (both Olympic and mortal) for me having no money since I went to the Ankara Handicrafts Fair on the weekend and bought most of my xmas/bday presents for people. So, Kat, Kaz and co it's all your fault that I have no money.

Snow

2006-11-05T11:21:00.000+02:00

Woke up this morning and there was snow! I like snow. At least I did until I had to walk for ages to get to a bus stop on the main road so I could have a hope in Tartarus of actually getting a bus. Usually I can go to the bus stop just up the road from my place but because of the snow and the fact that it's a Sunday there were few buses and all the ones that went past were either full or not going to the right stop. Grrr. So had to walk for about 10 minutes til I got a bus and by that stage my jeans were wet and my shoes had started getting water/snow in them. The joys of only having sneakers in winter. Therefore tomorrows mission is to go boot shoppıng and actually get me a decent pair of boots.
Have managed to get me 4 classes (this is good) but they're all E1s and don't know anything (this s bad)so have about 30 hrs a week plus more when I get extras so it's all good for money but Kat, looks like you'll have to come here because don't really have enough for the whole Rome thing. Unless you want to help pay for me, your favourite sister...? Am still looking into it but don't get your hopes up. Besides I've been to see you 3 times so it's your turn to come see me.
Nothing else is happening and it's freezing in the teachers room so I'm off home to my nice warm apartment where I plan to do nothing all night.

I'm still alive OK?

2006-10-27T17:30:00.000+03:00

Since I would hate for Kaz to spend time and effort worrying about where 1 of her favourite family members is (yes Kaz, I am talking about me and not Kat here) I thought I'd very kindly update. So Kaz you an stop stessing, I'm still alive.
Went on a 4 dat tour with 1 of my E1 students for the Bayram. Was a so-so tour because the guide didn't speak English and my student's only E1 so he doesn't speak that much English, the hotel wasn't too flash and was only 2 stars and we only had 1 hr to see Troy!!! As kat already knows from the email I sent her I was NOT impressed and and still annoyed about that. The Tuskish view is there's not much there and 1 hour's plenty. Not for me ıt's bloody not! Only got 20 or so photos! Which as my parents can attest after going around Greece with me is a record for me and from my point of view not a good one. Had to hire an English speaking guide as well which cost 60YTL for 1 hr since my tour guide spoke no english. Not that that stopped him from having that he spoke English on his little guide tag necklace thingy. Grrr. Still, good excuse to go back to Troy again. Hint, hint Kat, come over at Xmas.
Went to Assos, Eiderne and Gallipoli as well on the tour. Gallipoli was pretty good but only went to Turkish memorials and they completely ignored all the Allied ones. Did get to see an NZ site but only because ıt was right next to a Turkish one.
Was a good child and only bought 2 of the 4 owls I saw on the triy - probably another record for me not to buy every owl I see - but 1 was ugly and the other was nearly the same as the 1 I got in Ephesus in July, plus it was 16YTL but not really worth it. Did get me a wooden horse from Troy. Actually it was a ceramic wooden horse and it was from Chanakkale because didn't get time to get anything in Troy since we only had 1 hr but that'Ss not the point. I still have a wooden horse from Troy. Got a wooden wooden horse keyring too. Even managed to do some xmas shopping and got Robs 21st pres. Xmas pressies will go when I get money and probably after the xmas Bayram but will try to send Robs 21st pres home in time but no promises dude.
Anyway, off to buy some winter clothes since it's getting colder and I only bought summer clothes with me. Stupid Northern Hemisphere people having winter at the wrong time of the year.

Would like to point out

2006-10-15T08:10:00.000+03:00

Kaz, that I never said I wasn't lazier than you are, I just said I'd updated more often than you lately. And Kat, just who are you superior to? Besides mortals that is because have to say I'm alot more important than you.
Nothing is happening here aside from the fact that I annyed my 1st class today by giving them a quiz and jsut spent the last 10 minutes making my other class write out a whole bunch of preposition sentences. Fun, for me at least if not them.

Knew there was a reason I stayed

2006-10-14T00:15:00.000+03:00

Finished work at 5.30 tonight and got the choice of either leaving to get home during rush hour or of staying an extra 5 minutes to mark the quizzes from my afternoon class and then heading home during rush hour. God thing I stayed because today's one of the secretaries birthday so the staff had a cake for her and since I was here I get some. Brilliant really since I haven't had any food today. And am now putting off having to go outside and get the bus home in rush hour.
The qizzes. You'd think that since we had just - as in the 1/2 hr just before the quiz - done alot of the stuff on the quiz they'd do OK. Of course not, most did OK, some made really dumb mistakes and then there's the 12 yr old kid who's total out of the 2 quizzes and therefore 50 points is 8. Might just be me but somehow don't think he's going to pass E1 anytime soon
Got a new flatmate yesterday, a 40 something Irish dude called Kieran who actually has an Irish accent unlike the other Irish teacher here Mick. Since he has no other way to get to work tomorrow he has to come in with me. At about 8am. Fun, at least it means that if I have to get up at that horribly early hour other people have to suffer too.
Have conclusive proof that I'm lazier than Kat - she has 250 posts on her blog, I, counting this one, have 82. And no, that's probably not going to make me update more often but I would like to point out that I've updated more than Kaz lately.

Finally

2006-10-09T01:15:00.000+03:00

After tying on and off for about 2 hours this crappy computer is finally letting me update! Probably a good thing since apparently Kat and Kaz are worried that I haven't been updating and since I'd hate for them to worry about me here's the update.
Nothing much is happening. Real exciting huh?
Have to pack tonight to move into a new flat tomorrow. 2 new teachers are coming so I'm moving into a new place with one of them - a 40 something year old Irish dude called Kieran - and the other one Julie is moving into my room. So tonight I get the fun of packing and have to move tomorrow morning. Fortunately Uljay, Carols son who's moving my stuff for me, is considerate and won't be coming til about lunchtıme so I get to sleep in.
Went out to a bee farm and an apple orchard on Thursday last week. The bee place breeds queen bees and sends them all over Turkey. Saw one getting artificially insemenated. It2s done by microscope if you're interested. The orchard didn't actually have any apples but did have 4 dogs which was better as far as I'm concerned. A small mutt thing and 3 Kengals which are huge, as in at least as big as St Bernards but not as fat or fluffy, and are used as sheepdogs because they can fight a wolf and win. Good guard dogs but won't fit in the flat, dammit.
Now get to go off to an oh so exciting E1 class where the concept of not speaking Turkish is still eluding this particular class after 3 weeks.

Don't even try it Kat

2006-09-27T00:48:00.000+03:00

If Kaz is having a bad day (and Kaz, after reading your blog I sympathize dude) the most obvious goddess to blame it on - and the one conveniently passing the blame onto others by the way - would be Kat. After all she IS the OTMLS here. Obnoxious and trouble making among other things. So I blame her.
Kat's theory is that because I'm happy that my flatmate is going away and therefore her jerk of a boyfriend will be away for 3 weeks it means that a balance of happiness and unhappiness has to balance out and so Kaz seems to be getting all the bad stuff. Kinda convenient that a certain OTMLS didn't get any bad stuff if you ask me. So therefore I'll take some credit but not all of it
But, yeah Kat, I did email you to annoy you for the rest of the week.

The perfect job

2006-09-19T08:00:00.000+03:00

for me and Kat for when we get sick of teaching is spies. As anyone who has either read Kat's latest blog and/or ever had to listen to a Kat and Sarah conversation will no doubt agree, our conversations tend to be, well, let's just say somewhat odd and unusual to say the least. Therefore my random thought for the day is that if there's ever another war - and let's face it, with Bush leading the US it's not such an unlikely possibility given his talent for pissing off practically every country on earth - the govt doesn't need to worry about expensive code machines, all they need to do is have me and Kat emailing/MSNing each other about any important battle plans, troop movements etc. The enemy won't have a hope of figuring the messages out. Admittedly our side might have problems too but the enemy will have much bigger ones. And considering that a Kat, Kaz and Sarah conversation can be even more confusing than just a Kat and Sarah conversation, if Kaz were to get involved as well... highly annoying for the enemy but so much fun for us.

The stalker

2006-09-18T10:10:00.000+03:00

Had a grand total of 1 lesson today. So got the bus into town as usual. All good so far. There was this old woman a few seats away from me on the bus. Still all good. She needed help off the bus so helped her. Still all good. After getting off said bus she wouldn't let go. NOT all good. Short of pulling away and making her fall over there wasn't a hell of a lot I could really do so ended up going into work and getting the Turkish staff to talk to her. Apparently she was convinced we were friends (how can you be friends with someone you've never met before and don't know?)and wanted me to go have a cup of tea with her - so NEVER going to happen! -. The staff tried telling her I had to go teach. Which I dıd. Just not for another hour but there was no way in Hades we were telling her that. Eventually got rid of her although she was waiting outside for a while. So I evidently have my very own stalker. This wouldn' be the work of certain Olympians would it by any chance?

Well it's true

2006-09-16T08:10:00.000+03:00

Sweetie is NEVER I word I appreciate being used in relation to me. The Goddess of wisdom, war, arts and crafts and Athens is not, never has been and never will be sweet or any variation of that word or any simiiar to it. For those who have no clue what the Tartarus I'm going on about my otherwise nice flatmate Laura has an extremely annoying habit of occasionally calling me sweetie. Me sweet? You got the wrong goddess there dude. Go try Aphrodite or Irene. They might tolerate it. And unfortunately I can't kill her as she speaks Turkish and so still has use as a potential translator. Darn it. Emailed Kat about this disturbing habit of Lauras which she found highly amusing and therefore posted part of the email on her blog. (Eris in the links section for those interested)
Pretty much nothing's happening here, still only 2 classes plus extras so not exactly a heavy workload. Got paid for August yesterday. A grand total of 23 bucks. That's what you get when you only do 2 hrs for the month. Dammit.
Off to investigate finding food now. Later all.

The magic weight changing suitcase

2006-08-31T09:50:00.000+03:00

I left NZ with a 17kg suitcase, by the time I left Hong Kong it'd magically gained 9kg, then when I checked it in at Santorini is was back down to 18kg and then when I came over to Ankara it'd gone up to 30kg. Am somewhat impressed by these weight changes since İ haven't actually bought any souveniers. Like Turksh Airlines because they didn't charge me anything for having a 30kg bag, guess their limit must be higher. All good for me.
So far things are going pretty good. Am sharing a flat with 2 Americans, Laura and Pam and the school is a nice one with only teens and adults. No obnoxious little brats! Am VERY happy about this. Funny that.
Will only have about 2 classes a day. This is good. What is not so good is that the shortest is 2 hrs long, the longest is 4 hrs and sınce we teach mainly adults the morning classes are 9.30-2pm for the intensives and then the evening ones don't start til 7.30pm so unless İ have extras I'll have a 5 hr or so break which is probably a good thing since it'll mean I can plan lessons etc.
Everyone should feel sorry for Kat because she's sick. And Kat, regarding my sympathy or in your view lack thereof probably, wouldn't you be just a little scared if I started giving you lots and lots of sympathy? After all I don't want to traumatise you too much. Not all at once at least.

Stupid flights

2006-08-23T02:35:00.000+03:00

Am having great fun at the moment trying to get a flight from Athens to either Istanbul where I can get the bus to Ankara or just straight to Ankara that a) is cheap and b)doesn't get in at 1am.
Do you think I can find one that doeas both? Of course not. All the ones get in at midnight or later and all the expensive ones get in at nice normal times in the afternoon. The cheapest one to istanbul gets in at 8.55pm. That's no problem, it's the 5-6 hr bus ride to Ankara which IS the problem. Somehow don't think anyone wants to get up at 2am just to meet me at the bus station. Funny that...
The phone interview with the school today was basically them wanting to know when I can get to Turkey. Since I'm doing nothing at the moment and am only booked into the hostel til the 26th I'm aiming to leave then.
Will have to have a word to Hermes about his handling of flights and gettignt ehm in at civilised hours. Some god of travellers and travelling he is.
Still, I have a job! Finally! So people can now visit me in Turkey instead of Greece.

Don't you start Kaz

2006-08-22T02:10:00.000+03:00

Get enough bitching to update from Kat, don't need it from you too.
Still in Athens, still no job, still doing pretty much nothing and still really REALLY hot all day/night. Makes trying to sleep in a non air conditioned room great fun.
Have a ph interview with the school in Turkey so hopefully if that works out I'll be going there maybe next week. Other than that nothing is happening job wise since all the schools in Greece are on holiday and noone checks their emails on holiday in greece apparently. Somewhat annoying.
Kat, emails and MSN work just as well as anything else for working on DB although might not happen til I get settled wherever I eventually end up.
OK, since have nothing else to say I'm going off to find somewhere to eat that has air conditioning since the stupid internet cafe doesn't have any.

Still in Athens...

2006-08-13T16:20:00.000+03:00

And still no damn job! This despite Angeliki promising as in a direct quote being " I guarantee I will get you a job" NOT a happy little goddess here people. I mean, I like Athens nad all, after all it is my city but when you have very limited money and have done all the main sights and are rather quickly working your way through ALL the museums purely out of boredom it gets a but boring.
Went to the Cycladic Art adn the Beneki museums to day and the Byzantine museum for the second time yesterday although they did have a new temporary exhibit on ancient China so did get to see something new.
Am currently sending CVs off to any random school that's hiring both in and out of Greece. Had an interview with a school in Poland but need a work visa and have a feeling that I have to get that from NZ not Greece so Poland probably isn't happening. Have to call some director tomorrow for an interview and Angeliki is supposedly still talking to other schools for me... All the idiot directors are on holiday at the moment and Angeliki doesn't seem to comprehend that people from outside Greece don't necessarily come over with heaps of money and therefore have no problem doing nothing for a month while waiting for a) a job and b) for said job to start which is September at the earliest here since they go by the US school year.
The hostel I'm at is OK as far as hostels go but since there's no plugs in any of the rooms can only use my laptop for about an hr at a time before the battery dies and have to recharge it so can't even waste hrs playing suduku or solitare. Am VERY quickly getting through all my books which is very very not good since I didn't bring many with me.
BTW, before I forget and you start bitching at me, happy birthday Kaz. You'll get your pres when a) I buy it and b) I get around to actually sending it when I do buy it. In other words, don't hold your breath for getting it any time soon

In Athens

2006-08-06T13:15:00.000+03:00

Figured I'd better update before Kat starts bitching at me yet again.
Course is over!! Is somewhat strange to have a weekend without stressing over what reports I haven't yet done and how I'm going to say the same crap in a different way.
Am currently im Athens with Elaine. Left Vrahati this afternoon and got here a coupld of hrs ago. We're staying at a youth hostel here. Only 12 euro/night which is pretty cheap escpecially considering the next cheapest was 18/night. Since I have to stya here til the end of Aug, 18/night was SO not gonna happen.
Angleliki's given me 3 schools to interview with in Athens and is still trying to get hold of this school in central Greece for me. Only problem is the owner, like most of the stupid school owners in Greece is on holiday. Why the Hades people go on holiday when they're also trying to find teachers to work at their school at the same time is completely beyond me. Should know about a job for sure in the next few days though hopefully.
Kaz, don't get your hopes up for a bday pres any time soon since I have bugger all money. Might just send your bday and xmas pressies at the same time. Too bad if you don't like it.

guess who's bitching yet again?

2006-08-01T00:10:00.000+03:00

Yeah Kat, i'm talking to you here.
Went to Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris on Saturday with most of the group and trainers. Was a really good play with 1 minor problem: it was all in greek and didn't understand a damn word except for occasional names. The theatre was pretty much full and the accoustics are brilliant. We were at the top and could hear everything they said even without them having microphones. Couldn't take any photos because it was too dark. Grrr. Managed to scare Phil on the way home when he thought, for some strange reason, that I hadn't recognised Athena when she cameonstage. A goddess+helmet+spear. Who the Tartarus is she going to be but Athena? Not to mention the little fact that I know the stupid play and was well aware that Athena was in it.
Had an impromptu concert courtesy of Amanda and Petra on the trip home when they decided that it was too quiet and sang random songs most of the way home. Mainly just the first verses and with random comments like "key change here" "this song was written 4/by..." etc. Highly amusing for the rest of us.
Nearly finished the course! Have the test on Thurs. SO not looking forward to that!
Only have 2 teaching practises this week. Both with Patrick - a cute, hypo 8 yr old - which is good, and both with the dickhead of the course which is not so good. At least the other trainees for each lesson are all good (even if they are inferior women)

And the prize...

2006-07-26T07:30:00.000+03:00

And this years award for biggest dickhead this side of, well, anywhere really, goes to... Chris.
There are 14 people on this course, 4 guys and 10 girls. Girls outnumber guys 2 1/2:1 so the logic would be that you would NOT try to alienate over 1/2 the people on the course with you within the first week right? Uh, no. Apparently not. Chris is of the opinion that women are weak and inferior! WTF!!?? This was the general concensus. (funny that) so for that reason, along with the fact that he has a bigger superiotiry complex than all the Olympian gods combined means that everyone hates his guts and seriously want him to be voted off the island. Unfortunately this can't happen. Dammit! Despite this C21 B.C opinion of women he still had the nerve to bring his laundry over (the guys flat has no washing machine) to the house and leave it with a note saying please do my laundry and bring it back to me. As Amanda so eloquently put it: Hell no! Fourtunately he's not in the main house where most of us (6 girls + Bill) are. Good thing too since he probably couldn't survive with so many weak and inferior people around him.
Aside from Dickhead Chris everything is going all good. Nearly 3/4 of the way through. Yay.
actually have to go do work now. Later

halfway thru

2006-07-21T06:50:00.000+03:00

Am now halfway through the course. Not sure if that's a good thing (ie, nearly done, can get a nice little certificate in 2 weeks and then a job) or a bad thing (ie, have a mock test next Fri and the real thing the week after)
Same old stuff's been happening. Boring grammar stuff in the mornings and teaching practises most afternoons but since today's Friday have the Greek class, feedback and job guidence instead. We'd usually get to go home early today but nearly half the class had students through the week who had to cancel/change classes so have to stay til 8. Grrr. Looks like I'll either be writing up reports (maybe) or playing sudoku (much more likely) So glad I have a laptop. Present record for sudoku is 3.55 mins.
Kat, I'll be nice and wish you good luck because although it'd be much more fun to wish you bad luck I'll probably need you to help kill people who piss me off and annoying the goddess of spite isn't always the smartest thing to do... Although it is fun

2006-07-19T09:50:00.000+03:00

Since I am updating I can now bitch at Kat to update. Finally! So Kat, update!
Don't have a teaching practise today so in theory I should be typing up my reports, doing my phonology thing, preparing for my lesson tomorrow or actually doing work instead of updating this stupid thing. Have actually been good and done 2 1/2 reports and started preparing for my lesson tomorrow but then got bored so figured I'd update and put off doing some more work for a while but since I have about 4 hrs before we get to go home will probably get round to finishing the rest of my work at some point today. Joy.
Not too much is really happening here. The course is going pretty good and Angeliki was talking to everyone about C.V's and possible jobs in Greece. There's about 3 or so ones she's thinking about for me. Not huge cities which is good for my crappy sense of direction and all a little north and west from Corinth. I don't care where I go so long as it's in Greece.
Going to ancient Corinth this weekend and to Epidauros next weekend to see Iphigenia in Taurus by Eripides so will get to see just how good the famed accoustics there really are.

end of the first week

2006-07-14T07:20:00.000+03:00

On the last day of the first week! Finally. Means that after having to get up at 8am every day this week tomorrow I get to sleep in and do absolutely nothing all day. Could go on the archaeological trip they've organised but a)don't have money and b) we're going to the same places we went on the bus tour so it's somewhat pointless and if I go I'll probably end up spending more money than I can afford. ie anything.
The course is going pretty good so far, have had 3 teaching practises so far and passed all 3 and have another 9 to go.
Have the first foreign language class this afternoon. In theory the idea is that you know none of the language whatsoever but since we have alot of people this course who know some Greek I get to do the Greek course instead of the Czech one because otherwise there'd be a grand total of 2 people in the greek class. Instead there're 5 of us doing the Greek because Helen and Andrea who know a little (well Andrea knows more than that considering she's 1/2 Greek)are doing it too. i know the alphabet and about 5 words. One of the trainers Petra is from Czech so they're doing Czech as the other option.
Kaz, when you see Nig tell him if he doesn't give me more details about the subject of our MSN conversation I will seriously hurt him!

Quick update

2006-07-10T10:40:00.000+03:00

Only have about 10 minutes so his'll be a real quick update.
Am now at the Corinth school and everything's going all good so far.
Had the 4 day cruise round Mykonos, Ephesus, Patmos, Rhodes, Crete and Santorini last week. Rhodes was really good, had no time in Mykonos and there were far too many tourists at Crete. Got me a Turkish owl from Ephesus.
Had the wedding on Saturday which was good but 2 certain cousins Suzi and James are in serious trouble for a)making me dance and b)taking photos of me. Kat, Kaz and Nick if you want to help me torture/kill them you're more than welcome too.
Have to go back to the class now. Might update tomorrow if I can

Greece so far part 2

2006-07-03T16:25:00.000+03:00

Finished our first tour today. Went to the monastaries at Meteora today and then stopped off at Thermopylae on the way back to Athens to see the statue of Leonadis. Was not impressed with the fact that we were on 1 side off the road, it was on the other and we couldn't cross to get closer because the road is too dangerous to just randomly cross so couldn't get any close ups. Grrr.
Yesterday was Delphi so saw the museum, the temple of Apollo, the theatre and then went down to the tholos and temples of Athena although there's pretty much nothing left of the temples to Athena just the foundations. The tholos is in better condition with the foundations and a grand total of 3 columns.
Day before was Olympia where they had the first Olympics. We had a family of 9 on the tour and their kids wh ranged in age from 9-24 decided that they'd have a race the length of the staduim. This was despite it being the middle of the afternoon and more than 30 degrees. Crazy americans. Went to the museum as well as all the ruins. Kaz, got some photos of your temple at Olympia if you want them.
Day before that we went to Epidauros and saw the theatre there. The accoustics were really good but we decided that we wouldn't really like having to sit through a whole day of plays considering the heat and the fact that the seats would get damn hot after a while.
Poured with rain last night and there was a pretty impressive thunderstorm as well. Kat and Kaz have you guys done something to piss Zeus off again? We blamed Marty, a guy on out tour because he took a stone from the Sacred Way at Delphi so we figured it was either Zeus or Apollo pissed about that or it's Kat, Laz or Nicks fault. Started raining on the way back to Athens as well so again Marty got the blame for that because he took photos in the monastaries when you're not meant to and got yelled at by the guard. Or again it's one of you guys. After all it can't be be, I'm perfect. Plus I'm his favourite daughter.
Tomorrow we start our 4 day island tour. Spend the whole day getting to Mykonos. Not so impressed with that part of it since we don't get there until about 6pm so don't have time to go visit Delos or really do much. Grrr
So that's Greece so far. Fascinating isn't it?

Greece so far

2006-06-29T03:40:00.000+03:00

Got here finally! he plane was late getting in and the guy from our tour place that was picking me up hadn't wanted to wait but dad made him fortunately cos otherwise I'd have been somewhat screwed since didn't know what or where the hotel was.
Didn't do much yesterday, wandered round a bit but that was about it.
Went on a morning tour of Athens today, saw Hadrians arch, Temple of Zeus, acropolis and Theatre of Dionysius. I went the national museum after the tour and mum and dad went to the agora but couldn't actually get into it because there was some strike on.
Tomorrow we go on a 4 day trip to Delphi, Olympia and the Meteora monastaries where apparently women have to wear skirts. Not so impressed with that but fortunately do have a couple for the wedding. Mum doesn't so might have to have a skirt buying mission before we get to the monastaries.
Kat and Kaz, let me know if you want photos emailed to you and Kat, relax, the chances of me actually going to Italy after the course are bloody small (think snowballs chance in tartarus) because don't have shitloads of money and have to save it so I can actually live before I get my 1st pay.

The day in Hong Kong

2006-06-26T12:05:00.000+03:00

Well, finally finished packing on Saturday night and made Rob get up at 6.45 to take me to the airport. Rob, being Rob, decided that despite the fact that it was early, winter and freezing cold decided that shoes weren't a necessary item to wear and wwent barefoot. he son=mehat regretted this oh so smart deision when we had to walk from the carpark to the airport across freezing cold concrete.
Got to Hong Kong and then had to get a taxi to the hostel which was bloody expensive and I was so not impressed with especially since the dude didn't really seem to know where he was going and kept asking me. How in Tartarus should I bloody know? a) I've never been to Hong Kong before and b) travel/transport is not my responsibility, it's Hermes'. Hmmm, that could explain the moronic taxi driver...
Spent today shopping and have found that Hong Kong is at least as bad for owl stuff as Japan is. So naturally I now have even more owls to add to the ever growing collection. Got an owl change purse (I'll probably never use it but that's not the point), an owl phone charm which is currently on my bag since I haven't got a cell phone, 2 owl figurines, 1 big and 1 small, made out of the same stuff as the salt and pepper set I got in Singapore, a gold and crystal owl that sits on a branch and opens to put sonmething small inside, a clay owl incense burner and some cones, a new owl tummy button ring t replace other one that came off the ring and best as far as I'm concerned a silver owl ring. Been looking for an owl ring for ages and finally found one. I am a happy goddess. Also got a top, a pres for mum adn a birthday pres for dad along the way too. Soo, all in all, it was a god day for shopping.
I leave tonight at 11.10, get to Munich at 5am then eventually get to Athens at 2.45pm.
BTW Kat, I'll probably have a month or so between the course and actually working so plan on travelling a bit, including Italy. Might send you a postcard if you're lucky.

I hate packing

2006-06-24T11:55:00.000+03:00

Am currently in the process of trying to pack. Great fun. Especially when I have to pack both work clothes and normal clothes, along with shoes, textbooks and stuff for the course, spongebag etc. I really hate packing.
This time tomorrow I'll be somewhere over the ocean going to Hong Kong where I have 1 day but have the feeling that I won't be able to do nearly as much shopping as I'd like because a) lack of money, have to save most of it for Greece and b)won't be able to fit lots of stuff in my suitcase and still be under 20kg.
Am highly unimpressed with the fact that I have to be at the airport at 7am tomorrow morning. Grrr. I hate mornings even more than I hate packing. Still, at least I get to share the torture of having to get up hideously early with Rob because I'm making him take me there. Got to share these things round you know.
Smyths got back yesterday so we're about to go over there for tea and then I get to come back to the joy (or lack thereof, depending on your perspective) of packing.

So glad I'm not in Canterbury at the moment

2006-06-21T12:35:00.000+03:00

Zeus is once again having a temper tantrum and has sent a shitload of snow down south. They have the whole, no power, no school, icy roads etc. It's cold enough up here so Rob adn I are pretty much living in the lounge cos it's the warmest room in the house. Gotta love heat pumps.
Haven't started packing or getting organised yet, figure that's Saturdays mission although in theory I'm only going to pack clothes I'll actually wear as opposed to stuff I won't wear but take anyway. At least that's the theory whether or not it actually happens is another thing alltogether...
Freezing cold in the study so I'm going back to the nice, warm sitting room

And the curse continues...

2006-06-15T13:15:00.000+03:00

Only this time I have managed to spread it, after all you have to share the fun around. Mum and dad went from the USA to Ireland and the airline managed to lose all their luggage. This was despite dad writing all the flights in vivid on the masking tape that he put on his bright red suitcase so he could tell it was his when it came through in the baggage claim area. Only problem was it never arrived. Needless to say mum and dad aren't overly impressed by Emirates at the moment. Haven't heard whether they've found it yet or not. Might have to put Emirates on our hit list as well as all the other people we have on there.
Bugger all happening here, looked after the kids and worked at the SPCA today and yesterday.
Only 8 days to go!
BTW Kat: if I do join this myth strategy game thing and you (or anyone else for that matter, ie Nick and Kaz) go near my cities I will kick your ass from here to Tartarus. And no, the fact that we're family won't mean a damn thing either. You have been warned

I'm cursed

2006-06-09T15:50:00.000+03:00

That's the only conclusion I can come to. Either that or it's Kaz or Kat's fault. Took my suitcase in to get fixed yesterday. They can't fix it. Took my bag in at the same time to see about getting a zip fixed that won't close. They can't fix it. The wings on my owl watch came off so went to see about getting that fixed. Suprise, suprise, that couldn't be fixed either therefore either I'm cursed or certain family members are to blame.
Mum and dad left this afternoon. They fly to Minnesota for Carries high school graduation and then go from there to Ireland to see Auntie Netta and Uncle Ken, then to Switzerland to see Anita (AFS student), Fabi (AFS student) and Kate (cousin)then they meet me in Athens on the 27th.
Had a possible problem with part of our tour in Greece when part of it isn't on the itinerary. One of the reasons mum and dad chose the tour they did was to go see the monestaries at Meteora in Thessally. They were on the brochure, they were on the website, they weren't on the itinerary. As dad said we bloody better be going because that was one of the main reasons for doing the tour. Besides I want to go to Thessally. So the travel agent's looking into it for us.
Emailed Amazon.com about the missing parcel and since they can only reship to the original address they're giving me a refund instead so Vanessa, let me know if you still want the books and I can see about ordering them again and having them shipped straight to you. Amazon also hopes that I will continue to use them. Well, duh. Let me think, use amazon and order or pre order new books in about 5 seconds or have to either wait til they come out in bookshops and then buy them, which is usually nearly impossible since most of the series we read never show up in NZ stores anyway. Hmmm, tough choice. Think I'll go with Amazon, if only or the fact that it means I have to do less work finding the books. Good enough reason for me although mums not too impressed with this theory as she thinks I already have enough books. Serious question: is it EVER possible to have too many books? my thinking is no. besides it's not my fault all the Steph, DH, Anita, Merry etc series have so many books in them. Blame the authors. Actaully, don't because they might stop writing and that would be a very bad thing.
By the way Kat, email me so I know you haevn't dropped dead from shock or something over seeing me update 2 days in a row.

An update. Satisfied Kat?

2006-06-08T14:40:00.000+03:00

Since Kat is yet again bitching at me to update here it is.
Went to the bay for Queens birthday weekend. Had shit weather most of the time but it was nice on Monday. We were going to take the boat out on Monday butthe battery was dead so that stuffed that idea.
Have now booked and paid for all the flights to Greece. have a day stopover in HongKong and a few hours in Munich on the way. Have a feeling will be doing a bit of shopping in Hong Kong.
Bought a new suitcase today since my other one is completely crap. Mum's comment was isn't it a bit big? I'm going overseas for a year and considering all the boxes I've had to send back from Korea and Japan I figure the bigger the better. this new one is big, expandable and has a shitload of pockets to stuff crap into. Mum and dad leave tomorrow for America, ireland and Switzerlad and then I meet then in Greece in 2 weeks.
Kat, got your pres. You do realise that since it's a Greek to English dictionary that you need to know the greek word before you can look it up. Figure it'll help with building vocab etc when I'm learning Greek which in theory I'm actually going to do unlike in japan and Korea when I planned to learn the language but never did. And sorry Kat but you don't get to kill anyone about not saying happy birthday to me. Although if you want to kill people for other stuff I'll help you.

Happy birthday to me

2006-06-02T11:35:00.000+03:00

Not that anything exciting has actually happened today. Kat informed me that I had to update so here it is.
Going to the bay tonight for Queens birthday weekend and since the weather forecast is for crappy weather have a feeling I'll be doing alot of reading and x-stitch, in theory I could get my acropolis finished
Had to have Smugs put down yesterday because of the cancer so we're taking him to the bay to bury him there. He only actually went to the bay once when he was a kitten and the neighbours dog chased him first up the chimney and then under the house but knowing Cass if we bury him here she'll dig him up or something. That's mums theory anyway
Only 3 weeks til I get to leave freezing NZ winter for nice sunny Greece and summer. Counting down

Think dad's getting Alzheimers

2006-05-26T15:45:00.000+03:00

Emailed Bec today with a recipe she wanted from mum and then she rang tonight so talked to her for a while then passed her off to dad. Only thing is that now dad doesn't actually remember the phone call so i figure he's either going senile or getting alzheimers.
Had the fun of babysitting the kids again yesterday, joy. Wasn't too bad since it was actually nice weather which considering the weather we've been having lately is nothing more than a miracle. Took Annie, Matt and their neighbour Celeste to the BMX track which was all good until we had to come home and Annie had the theory of they'd either walk or bike homw while I drove at 2km/hr along side them down the main street of Wakefield(admittedly not very big or busy but with 5 pm rush hr coming up not the best idea she's ever had...), either that or I could drive home, they'd bike and we could meet back at the house. My theory was no bloody way and if you want to get run over by a car then fine but do it when someone other than me is looking after you. Annie was not impressed with having to drive home and consequently sulked the whole way home and kept it up til her mum got home, not that the sulking stopped her asking for a sandwich after the others wanted one.
Only have to babysit them on Thursday next week since Nicky'll be home the rest of the week, all good but means I'll get roped into doing stuff round home like walking Cassie (no problem), cleaning my room (big problem) and sorting out all my books (possibly an even bigger problem considering how many I have). Fun
My birthday's next Friday so if anyone feels the need to send presents (or more presents in the case of Kaz and Kat) please feel free.

Graduation, rain and gogo juice

2006-05-24T03:40:00.000+03:00

Since Kat is once again bitching at me to update here it is.
Had Becs graduation down in Dunners on Saturday so spent the weekend down there. Drove down to Ashburton on Thursday with mum and becs friend Jodie, stayed the night with my aunt then went the rest of the way on Friday with a detour to pick up grandad Bob and Shirley in Timaru and to see Dot and Bill at Rosewill.
That was somewhat amusing as we learned about the wonders of "gogo juice" Some friend had sent them this stuff (which is actually called goji juice) and apparently it cures or at least helps with everything - makes you better in bed, stonger, happier and cheerful (reason not to take it I would've thought), helps with cancer, diabetes (and everything it seems except arthritis and rheumatism cos they weren't mentioned, but hey, nothings perfect), makes you live longer - some dude supposedly lived from 1638-1930 and scientists proved it. I want to know how, I mean, noone else was alive back then so what did they do? carbon date his bones or something?
Anyway, this juice does everything so Uncle Bill is trying it and figures he'll end up being 200 yrs old and bouncing off the walls. Should be highly amusing for whoever gets to see him at least.
Got down to Dunners and dropped Jods at Becs flat, Grandad Bob and Shirley at my great uncle Rex's then went on to Tony and Brons house.
Had Becs graduation on Saturday, all good as far as long, boring ceremonies go, least it wasn't as long as mine and Kats was. Went out for dinner with everone on Saturday night
Had Stellas 90th luncheon on Sunday, she's gone downhill alot since I last saw her 2 yrs ago but apparently is better than she has been.
Had the joy of coming the whole way home on Monday. About 10 hrs or so in the rain.
Rained the whole way up from Dunners to Nelson. Great fun to drive in.
My theory is that NZ is now at the top of Mother Natures hit list. The flooding seems to be moving up the country, 1st Dunedin, then Christchurch, then Nelson, well Tahuna really but it's still Nelson, so I figure it'll head on up to wellington in the next week or so.
Is actually fine today, at the moment at least. Hopefully it stays that way since I have to babysit Nicky's kids today and would much rather they can kill each other outside instead of in. much easier to clean up the mess.
Have to go see the travel person now as at the moment I'm booked to fly to Greece on Lufthansa which is all good but not sure if they have the mini t.v's in each seat. Each flight is about 11 hrs or so long, damned if I'm reading the entire time, don't have that many books for a start, so if they don't I'll change airlines. Singapore is good but means I have to stop over in Singapore and having been there for xmas as well as every flight except 1 in the last 2 years you might say I'm just a bit sick of Singapore.

2006-05-13T20:30:00.000+03:00

Just got back from lunch out with my cousins because Tor is leaving today, probably about now actually, to go over to the UK and live there for a couple of years nursing. She's going to LA for a few days first and doing Disneyland, Universal Studios etc then going on to London and then we'll see her in July anyway when she goes over for our cousins wedding in Santorini.
Not much happening here, getting colder though. Not impressed about that.
Am very depressed at the moment as I found out on Wednesday that my baby (ok, so he's 14 yrs old but that is not the point)has cancer of the spleen and it's spread to his lymph nodes so we have a choice of a) doing nothing in which case he'll get worse and die in about 5-6 weeks b) giving him moderate chemo which will make him sick and might give him 6 mths c)giving him really aggressive chemo that'll make him really sick, make him lose all his fur and might give him 1-2 yrs - 50% chance either 1 yr or 2 yrs or d) having him put down before we go overseas. Oh goody, what great choices.
Mum's theory is it's you cat you have to decide. Great, thanks mum so either I kill my cat quickly or slowly. Joy. Got bugger all sympathy from Bec although she claims to be sympathetic. Hmmm, not sure about that one, she's never really been a cat person and wouldn't really care one way or the other.
Kaz, haven't heard back from Amazon about the books, will email them again later but since it's freezing in the study at the moment am going to go read in bed with my nice warm electric blanket on.

2006-05-04T13:25:00.000+03:00

Am very glad that I don't live in Gisboune. Was watching the news tonight and the top story was about the tidal wave that was meant to hit Gisbourne this morning and which never happened.
There was a quake in Tonga at 3am and then Hawaii sent out a tidal wave warning for NZ and the Sth Pacific to all the international media. All good except that the NZ civil defence decided 15 minutes after the quake that there wasn't going to be any tidal wave at all but also decided that it would apparently make more sense to not actually tell anyone that there wasn't any disaster coming and instead sit back, highly amused no doubt, and watch as everyone in Gisbourne freaked out and ran for the hills after hearing about it from various international news shows. First I even heard about the whole debacle was on One news tonight and had I been living in Gisbourne would have had serious problems since I didn't actually get up until 10.30 and that was only to feed the animals and then I went back to bed. So now the civil defence dept is having to try and come up with reasons why they didn't tell anyone there was no tsunami coming.
May 17th should be interesting since NZ and a whole bunch of other countries are doing a drill for what to do if a tsunami actually hits.
Babysat Nickys kids yesterday, all good except that Matthew who's 6 was convinced that if he just kept on trying he'd be able to beat up Daniel who's 10. Given that Daniel's 4 yrs older as well as bigger and stronger this didn't happen (funny that) and Matthew spent a good while alternating screaming his head off at his brother and trying to beat him up while Annie who's 8 joined in on whichever side she felt like, usually Matthews.
Am now heading back into the lounge since it's freezing in here

Finally an update!

2006-04-27T15:55:00.000+03:00

Noticed that I hadn't updated for a month or so so finally got off my butt and updated.
Am back in NZ now, left Korea on Sunday, had 20 hr layover in Singapore for Monday and finally got to Chch on Tuesday morning. Kat, Nick, Min and John met me at the airport and had to wait for about an hr because the plane was late and had to go through customs.
Had the weekend in Seoul with Kaz, all good but would've been better if Kaz hadn't been sick. Went to Seoul Tower, the National History Museum (not good, wouldn't recomment it) and some palace that I have no idea of the name on Saturday and also did some shopping. As opposed to Vanessa and Nigel who walked up to the Seoul Tower KAz and I decided we were too lazy to do that and took the cable car up instead. Aside from the 45 minute wait for the cable car took about 3 minutes to get to the tower as opposed to the 2 hrs or more it would've taken had we walked up.
We were lucky we did everything on Saturday as it started raining on Sunday when we were doing even more shopping.
Haven't done much since I've been home but from next week will be looking after the kids of one of the office lawyers for a few days a week. Apparently the kids are somewhat excited about having someone who isn't 70 yrs old looking after them.
Nick, will drop your prezzie off on the way through Chch in May and Kat and Vanessa, will send yours as soon as you give me an address.

She is EVIL

2006-03-27T15:48:00.000+03:00

She is evil, evil, evil.
My evil now ex-boss (otherwise known as the wicked witch of the east) decided to do what many Korean Hogwan directors do to get out of paying their teachers the severence and airfare home they owe them and got rid of me in the 11th month. Having less than a month left in Korea I was informed on March 17th that I was fired. The reason? A messy apartment. Not exactly sure how this affects my teaching. Oh, wait, that's right. It doesn't. It was a lame excuse to get out of paying me my bonus and trip home. Anyway, Kaz came over on Friday night to help me clear out the apartment and now all of my books are on their way back to NZ and I have another box of clthes to send home since it's either that or take 2 suitcases and pay extra baggage fees when I eventually do leave. Since she owes me 2.5 million won I ain't leaving til she pays me. Evil witch took 800,000 won from my last pay on the excuse that I broke the washing machine (works fine), kettle (never used), toaster (never used), plates (hardly ever used) etc. All were in the apartment when I got there, all are perfectly fine and damned if I'm paying for new ones. Not that she'd actually buy new ones.
Have been told by the NZ Embassy that they can't help. What exactly are embassies meant to do then? Been told by the labour Dep last week that what she's done is illegal and they'll send her a letter, maybe this week or next week. Going to see them tomorrow about exactly when they plan to send this letter. ie, this millenium or next considering that I went to see them about this whole thing last Monday. And have been told by the International Centre in Gwangju that they might actually be able to help! SHOCK, HORROR! They will at least come to talk to the evil harpy with me. Hopefully, with someone else there who speaks Korean she will actually talk to us rather than just either ignore us or hang up the phone as soon as she hears English which is what she has been doing for the last week.
Since they need a teacher at the moment, have been (illegally) working at Kaz's school for last week and this week for extra money, plus it means that I have somewhere to stay.
Am now off to think up even more fun ways to kill the evil hapry

Stupid computer

2006-03-13T16:34:00.000+02:00

Was being a good child and updating and talking to Kat on MSN when my stupid computer decides to do one of it's favourite things which is to unplug itself from the internet. Not exactly sure how it manages to achieve this but I get the little bubble saying a network cable is unplugged and there goes the internet and conversation with Kat. Grrr. Usually takes several goes to get the dumb thing to reconnect because after all, it would be far too easy and considerate just to work first go wouldn't it?
Am not impressed with Zeus either. I think he's a little confused about the seasons. It's meant to be spring here in Korea and yet today was not only freezing but also snowing on and off for most of the day. Snow and cold are for winter Zeus not spring! And if you have to make it snow that at least give us a huge dumping of it so we can get time off work.
Nothing much has been happening here, met up with Kaz on Saturday to get her new monisor from Kumho World then went out to WA Bar with the Chumdan people on Saturday night and now have 2 more books I want from Amazon thanks to Jeff lending me 2 classics books. Just what I need, more excuses to go on Amazon.
Kat, have Micah for you, will send it with the other books when they arrive which is meant to be in a couple of weeks.
Had OK classes today, as opposed to most of last week when they all decided to be little brats for most of the week. Had my new class (which consists of a grand total of 2 kids) again today and once again had the fun (or boredom depending on your point of view) of teaching them the alphabet. Now, this would be somewhat OK if they hadn't been doing it for the past 2 weeks, can already say the stupid thing and are therefore completely bored by it now. Did make them happy though by doing mix up the alphabet cards and then try and get them back in the right order before the teacher does game. Since they're 8 years old they thought beating the teacher was brilliant, especially since they got an extra dalant out of it. I thought it was brilliant because it meant I didn't have to go throught the stupid thing for about the millionth time.

I'm updating. Are you happy?

2006-03-05T18:30:00.000+02:00

Since both Kat and Kaz are complaining about the lack of updates here's an update about life in oh so exciting Chumdan.
Marco finally got off his butt and did the quiz on Wednesday. 3 weeks after he won the stupid thing. First week after he won he was in Japan and 2nd he never showed up so we decided that if he didn't do it this week he was going to get hurt badly. Actually won the quiz last week which is all good because you get the money but means I have to make the damn thing up for this week. so like the other couple of times I've won it it'll get done on Tuesday night or just before I go out to Billboard on Wednesday.
Had last Wednesday off because of a public holiday so got dragged off to Kumho world with Kaz to look at computer stuff then went to see Brokeback Mt.
Sue has finally gotten back from Canada. Yay! She works at the Uni here so had 10 weeks holiday (which everyone hated her for) and went back to Canada for 6 weeks so Wednesday was her 1st night back at Billboard since she got back last week. She was told on Monday that she had to move out of the uni dorm that she's been living in for the last 3 years and that they'd rent her an apartment. All good except she had to move out that night. The Korean theory is that being a foreigner she will naturally be able to fit all her stuff into a couple of suitcases and it'd only take about 5 minutes to pack. Problem with that theory? Sue's been here for 5 years and has a heck of a lot more than 2 suitcases worth of stuff. Funny that. So she's being put up by the uni at a hotel til her apartment is ready and all her stuff is somewhere in the new building of the university. Sue hasn't actually been told where because after all why would she want to be able to get at her stuff?
In theory since it's 1.30 am I should go to bed, in reality I'm probably going to read and do x-stitch for the next few hours since I'm on the whole not sleeping til about 3am thing again. Great fun.

I am NOT impressed

2006-02-21T15:45:00.001+02:00

Sometime between yesterday and today I have managed to pick up a cold. Consequently I have completely stuffed up and not happy about it at all.
Actually did stuff on the weekend for once. Went to Yeosu with Kaz, Vanessa and Nigel on Saturday. Since we were only there for one day only got to see the lighthouse and the Dragon Cave. Did manage to find an owl though. Aside from the owl key holder it's the 1st one I've found here. Korea is not the best place for finding owls. Went to a tiny amusement park in Yeosu where the others rode the bumper cars which was highly amusing for me watching them crash into each other. Got a helium filled dolphin balloon as well which has been named Poseidon since Kaz decided that it needed a name and since it's a sea animal it gets named after the sea god. Poseidon is currently floating around my ceiling at the moment and will til I get sick of it and either get rid of it or give it to Vanessa for her dogs to play with. She got a Sponge Bob balloon. The last one, which Nigel wasn't too impressed about as he was going to get it. The balloons were amusing when we went to Shinsegae for dinner after we came back from Yeosu as the little kids wanted to see the balloons but weren't quite so keen on getting too close to the scary foreigners to do so.
Saw Kaz on Sunday when we met up in town for food at the Outback Steakhouse and then went to do shopping but didn't end up buying anything.
Have all the other Steph books except 11 if you want them Kaz, I'll give them to you next time we meet up and you can get 11 off Kat.

It's Feburary not April fools Day people!

2006-02-17T16:15:00.000+02:00

Got home from work tonight at about 9.30ish and found that some little (insert whatever insult you wish here) can't tell the difference between April and Feburary and deciding that it was April fools day and therefore would be highly amusing, filled my lock up with some sort of glue. Naturally this meant that my key wouldn't even fit in the lock, let alone unlock the door so went upstairs to the landlady to see if she had a spare key (she didn't) and then she came down and tried, then the next door neighbour tried with the key, Vanessas key (not quite sure of teh point of that but oh well) and a coathanger. None worked. Eventually the landlady rang a locksmith and he came over, took the entire lock off and put a new one on. Whole thing took about 2 hrs and ended up costing me 30,000 won for a new lock which isn't expensive but thats not the point. Plus Vanessa's bveen trying to ring me for the last 2 hours and was starting to get somewhat concerned that I wasn't answering at 11pm at night.
Am now going off to Billboard for food and to plot the downfall of whoever did this. And Kat, Kaz and Nick, if I find out that one of you was behind this... let's just say it won't be pretty. You have been warned. However if you weren't behind it but want to help me kill whoever did it then all good.

Valentines day is all good

2006-02-14T16:00:00.000+02:00

Ok, so it's a day to celebrate air head Aphrodite and not me but considering the Korean custom is to give chocolate to your teachers I have no problem with it at all and by the end of work today had managed to get quite a considerable pile of chocolate. All good
Was highly unimpressed that I had to go in to work at 9am on Saturday morning. 9am! I am the goddess of war and wisdom, I am not the goddess of getting up in the morning at some ridiculous hour like 9am or any time before lunch. We had the dalent market day on Saturday so had to go in early to set it up. The actual market didn't start til 1.30 but had to set all the things out and blow up the balloons. Fortunately we had a helium blowing up machine so that made everything a hell of a lot easier than it would've been otherwise. The parents must love the market days because the kids get to use all the dalents they've saved for 6 months or so of doing their homework and buy various things with them, usually school type things like pens, erasers, notebooks etc and since we have the market days at the end of the summer/winter vacations the parents get to save money by not having to pay for school things.
Was meant to go to Yosu on Sunday but then we decided that we really couldn't be bothered so in theory we're going this Saturday so Kaz, ring me if you want to go as well. If we go I'll go to town with you on Sunday and if we don't we can go Saturday
Have decided to rename my hamster from Beaucephalus to Argo since noone could either a) remember it or b) pronounce it not to mention the fact that Kat insisted on calling him the STD hamster. Still not impressed with that by the way Kat!

2006-02-08T18:38:00.000+02:00

Well, since I haven't updated for a while I figured I'd better do it before Kat starts complaining at me.
Pretty much nothing has been happening since the last oh so exciting update. Won the quiz again last week so had to do this weeks one. Marco, Vanessa and Chris all won so they did Kai Bai Bo and Marco won so it's his quiz next week.
Was informed by my director tonight that I have to go down to immigration tomorrow with my alien card and degree so they can check that I am who I claim I am and that my degree is from a real university since they've been having a big problem with teachers with fake degrees coming in. Only problem is I don't have my degree here so am getting a copy faxed over tomorrow from dads office and hopefully can go down on Friday and hopefully they'll accept a faxed copy cos if they don't then I'll have to wait for a week or so til I can get another one sent over.
Been snowing again for the last few days but there's not enough snow to close the schools down which I am highly unimpressed about plus makes the roads and footpaths all acy which means it's great fun walking to work.

Bribery works every time

2006-01-26T16:36:00.000+02:00

Am talkining to Kat on msn when she starts bitching at me to update. Highly unusual for her I know but this time when repeated update, update, update via msn didn't work she bribed me with getting a book when she sends a apckage to Kaz. And you better deliver Kat, I still have your book on the steppe warriors remember.
Had my quiz last night. Calgary Sarah won and got a grand total of 7/20. Reike was very happy with the quiz, she didn't win the actual quiz but she did get 2 out of the 4 teasers and therefore made 4,000 won. Since the only thing I have any real clue about is Classics most of my questions were completely random ones such as how many countries are there in Africa, (there's 54 in case you care) what's the richest country(Luxumbourg) and other fun questions like that. Was impressed that I managed to limit myself to only 2 Classics questions. One, (what's
Athenas bird) has got to be the easiest question on Classics there is, I mean, this is me we're talking about here. How many owls do I have now? Heck, I even have an owl kite. Lindsay for some strange reason put down dove. Uh, no. That's that bimbo Aphrodite's bird not mine. Admittedly the other question was something of a mean one. Which goddess started the Trojan War. Calgary Sarah and Linds were sure it weas Hera, who although isn't the nicest of goddesses on Olympus can't take the credit this time. Although that theory ws better than the one Nig came up with which was Demeter. Only problem with that is Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, seasons etc. can't quite see her starting a war somehow. No, the somewhat dubious honour of starting the war goes to Eris, Goddess of trouble, strife and being ageneral pain in the butt. Kat was highly amused by the Demeter answer and the fact that noone got the right answer and that Nig got confused between Ares and Eris adn thought it was Ares who caused the war and that the question had been which god started it not which goddess. The whole thing was amusing for me anyway.
Nothing else is happening, have a long weekend this week because of Lunar New Year so get Monday off and plan to spend it doing absolutely nothing.
Get the joy of end of unit tests for 4 classes tomorrow which while it means I only actually teach 2 classes and just interview the others also means I have to write stupid comments for all the kids. Being me, and therefore lazy, I write basically the same BS for every kid, just changing the name, the order of the BS and a few words of it. Have done about 1/2 of the comments because I had a freee lesson today and will do the others before classes start tomorrow so will be able to leave on time if not earlier tomorrow night. The logic of doing the comments before class never seems to occur to my KT's so they end up haveing to stay for an hour or so extra doing them all. Of course logic isn't exactly a strong point of Korean culture as Kaz would no doubt agree...
Kat, seeing as this is a long post I expect a nice big classics book for the effort. Hint, hint

2006-01-18T18:32:00.000+02:00

Sorry to dissapoint you Kat but this blog is not being updated because you complained about it in yours. It's being updated because I just won 15,ooo won from winning the quiz tonight at Billboard. Won by 1 point which I got because I was able to include D'Artangen as well as the 3
actual Musketeers. Knew knowing about him would come in handy one day. Did a heck of a lot better than last week when I got a grand total of 2/13 so went from my worst score to my best. Only problem is I have to make next weeks quiz and have been informed that I'm not allowed to have only Classics questions. Can't imagine why... If anyone has any ideas for questions email me, less work for me is all good.
Nothing much else is happening here and since I now have extra classes and have to get up early I'm going to bed.
Kat, you might be updating your blog but what about Dragon Butterfly? You're not even up to hshmhj yet or the sending Carrie away. Update!

2006-01-10T15:03:00.000+02:00

Since Kat will no doubt start complaining about me not updating soon, here is the latest exciting update of life in Korea.
Got a grand total of 3/13 in the last quiz, worst one so far which is somewhat depressing.
Get a 3 day weekend this weekend because the director has for some reason decided to give us a holiday so have no problem with that at all.
Everyone hates Sue at the moment because she works at the university and therefore gets 10 weeks off so is going home to Canada for 6 weeks so had leaving party for her at Billboard last night, have a bday party for Marco tomorrow and the quiz night on Wednesday and there's usually something on Friday and the weekend as well. There's a reason we're Wong Chei's favourite customers...
Since have nothing else to sya I'm going off to read my new books from Singapore although I want to point out to Kaz that the Queen of the Gods is now living in Korea not Taiwan so she really should change that

Singapore is better than Korea

2006-01-01T15:08:00.000+02:00

After spending a week in nice, sunny, snow/work free Singapore coming back to freezing cold Korea was not fun.
Got to Incheon Airport at 1am on the 24th and then got to wait hours til my flight at 7.15pm. When I finally got to Singapore it was 1am and again got to wait hours before I could check into the hotel and then had the problem of apparently not having a reservation under either my name or Kats. When she arrived the next day we managed to get it sorted then went off for the first of the many shopping trips.
Next 2 days were pretty much the same, have a whole heap of new clothes that I can't wear here because it's too cold and lots more owls then on Thursday we met up with Michael Perry and his girlfriend Evelyn and went to Singapore Zoo. Was highly unimpressed when it started raining. Of course as soon as I bought an umbrella it stopped raining. Was happy that it stopped raining 5 minutes before the elephant rides started. OK, so it was 100 metres up the track and 100 metres back but that's not the point, I got to ride an elephant so was very happy about that. And Kat was even able to get photos of me smiling!
Kat had to leave before me on Friday so wandered round Orchard Rd and did even more shopping and then went to Fort Canning Park for a couple of hrs.
Got back to Gwangju at 1pm yesterday and met up with Kaz for a few hours then went to Billboard for New Years where everyone was shocked to see me since for some reason they all thought I wasn't coming back til tomorrow.
Have done nothing today and am now off to watch the new series about Rome called by the very original name of Rome

2005-12-25T09:08:00.000+02:00

I am really sick of airports. Spent all day yesterday in Incheon airport and most of today in Singapore airport. Since you can't check into the hotel until 2pm was stuck at Changi for about 12 hrs since I got in just after 1am. And since it was 1am there were no stores open and therefore nothing to do. Great fun.
Am currently having problems checking into the hotel because they don't seem to have any record of reservations under either mine or Kats names. Considering Kat doesn't get here til sometime tomorrow this is somewhat of a problem for me since I kinda need a bed for tonight. Aside from crappy sleeping on the plane and bus haven't slept since Thursday night so am not the most happy of goddesses at the moment. Am a very tired and jet lagged goddess instead.
Get to go back to the hotel now and see if I can book a room for tonight at least. Joy.
Merry Xmas and happy New year.

Xmas at Billboarde

2005-12-21T18:37:00.000+02:00

Had our gift swap at Billboard tonight. Ended up with Wong Chei's gift which was gloves and a hat. So now I have 2 hats and 3 pairs of gloves. The gloves I got tonight are ski gloves so they're better than the woollen ones I have because a) they're warmer and b) they won't get cold/wet when the snow gets on them.
Got a semi day off work because got there and it was snowing but the director didn't want to close so taught my 2pm class (a grand total of 2 kids) and then found out after that class that the school was closing for the rest of the day. Had no problem with that but wasn't so impressed with the fact that was still stuck at school til about 6pm. Did pretty much nothing for most of the time and then in the last 45 mins or so did a bunch of photocopying new schedules and stuff for new classes.
Has been snowing all day and doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon so am hoping that school will be closed tomorrow. Unless there's a blizzard though I highly doubt that'll happen because we've already closed for 2 days but miracles might happen and since the snow is almost totally covering cars could be interesting trying to get a bus through.
Still, only 2 days til Singapore!

2005-12-18T16:04:00.000+02:00

Only 5 more days of work then 9 days of holiday!!!!
Went downtown yesterday with Vanessa and Kaz to do shopping for the gift swap on Wednesday. It was crappy, snowy weather like it has been for the last 2 weeks so instead of taking 20 minutes to get back by taxi it took 1hr and 20 minutes. Great fun. Especially when the hill came and the driver nearly didn't make it to the top. What his theory was on going slowly at the bottom instead of trying to get up speed to get to the top I'm not sure but he was probably worried about the ice on the road. We made it to the top and then had the great fun (not) of going down the other, steep, very icy side. Eventually made it home though. We felt sorry for the dtiver because he had to go all the way back as well so gave him extra money.
Was meant to go see Kaz again today but started snowing on the way back from Big Mart with Vanessa so decided not to go, mainly because didn't want to speand another hr or more in a taxi on icy roads getting back. Instead of seeing Kaz I've spent the last hr or so making a model of a Korean Armoured Turtle Ship. No idea where I'm going to put it or how I'll get it back to N.Z but it looks cool and was a great way of procrastinating about packing and cleaning the flat.

2005-12-16T16:24:00.000+02:00

Was talking to Kat on MSN tonight and she was bitching at me for not updating recently so here it is.
Not that anything has really been happening. Had the usual quiz on Wednesday. 10/20 for me, my high score so far. Next week we have an xmas quiz and a gift exchange. Should be interesting if nothing else.
Only 1 week til Singapore!!! Am having great fun trying to book a ticket for the bus so I can get up to Seoul to get the plane. Slight problem is that you apparently can't book tickets online or if you can the sites are in Korean. Will have the joy of sitting at Incheon airport for hours because will probably get the 2am bus to Incheon rather than run the risk of getting a morning bus and it being delayed because of traffic or snow and me missing my plane.
Nothing else to say so I'm off to read my new books that arrived from Amazon yesterday.

Snow again

2005-12-12T15:31:00.000+02:00

Although it's been snowing off and on all day with the end result being lots of snow and majorly icy roads which are really not fun to walk across in sneakers which have no grip it probably won't snow enough to close the school tomorrow. But, hey dreams are free and miracles have been known to happen.
Got the usual boring meeting at work today. Why I have to go at all is completely beyond me as it's all in Korean so I usually sit there bored and not listening to a word of it. We get the joy of extra winter classes coming up too. Great fun. My idea for the winter classes? don't have them and actually give the kids a holiday. Naturally this idea was met with blank and confused stares from my KTs and the theory that the parents would complain if we didn't offer classes. Depressisngly this is probably true since when the government came up with the idea of giving kids 2 Saturdays off from school a month (they only get 1 at the moment) the response of most parents was great idea but we want you to offer some sort of extra schooling instead. Uh, people, the idea of a school-free Saturday is just that: no school. Koreans don't tend to do logic too well and the idea of kids having free time when they could be at some sort of school is pretty much beyond them and yet they see no problem with little kids running around with no parents at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Koreans have pretty much zero logic and also don't get the concept of sarcasm either which is a pain in the butt for me because I like sarcasm and tend to use it but it doesn't work so well when you either have to explain it or you get blank faces.
Anyway, I'm freezing so I'm getting into my nice warm (I love my electric blanket!) bed.
Later all

2005-12-11T16:26:00.000+02:00

Well, it didn't snow on Wednesday, was highly disgusted by that since it meant I had to go to work and Wednesday is my busiest day.
Haven't posted for a while but then nothing has been happening so it's not been worth it.
Had the joy of getting my wisdom tooth out (finally!!) yesterday morning so now have a really sore mouth. Got to scare Vanessa when she rang up about 1/2 an hour after I got back from the dentist to see about meeting up for lunch. Since the aenesthetic hadn't worn off I sounded terrible and could hardly talk so needless to say lunch didn't happen. The time it took to get the tooth out? about 3 minutes. The time it took for him to numb it enough so he could take the stupid thing out? about 20 minutes. Korean logic seems to be that just numbing 1 side of the tooth will work. Considering my tolerance for pain is pretty much non-existent this logic didn't work - funny that - so after numbing one side and trying to take it out and having it not work because it was too sore he finally hit upon the brilliant idea of numbing the other side as well and was then able to take the thing out. His comment on seeing the huge bloody tooth? Beautiful. Might be just me but beautiful is not the 1st word that comes to mind when I see a huge, bloody tooth.
Did get an xmas present from the dentist though. An ice pack and pills for the pain/swelling. Joy.
As a result have done nothing all weekend and although it's just started snowing I doubt it'll be enough to close work tomorrow unfortunately.

Fingers crossed

2005-12-06T14:56:00.000+02:00

Since it had startd snowing again by the time I went home from work tonight I'm hoping that it'll snow enough so that there'll be no school tomorrow. For starters, tomorrow is my busiest day and although I have 3 of my favourite classes tomorrow if there's a choice of working or staying at home in my nice warm bed and doing nothing I'm going to take staying at home in my nice warm bed doing nothing which is exactly what I'm off to do now

It's official

2005-12-05T09:04:00.000+02:00

Kaz and I are both totally over the snow. Yesterday morning having the snow was great, kept snowing all day and by night when we had to wait over 1/2 an hour in the freezing snow waiting for a taxi for Kaz to go home and all the taxis we saw were either going the other way or already had people in them we decided we were very much over the whole snow thing.
Good thing about the snow is that the schools are all closed. Had to go in to work for about 3 hrs today but plan to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day.

It's snowing!

2005-12-04T07:45:00.000+02:00

I'm very excited. Unlike in Japan when it snowed for 1 day and was a grand total of about 1mm that lasted less than an afternoon this snow is sticking. And there's a whole heap of it too. What's not quite so good is whenever I go out it always seems to blow right into my face and also made my hair freeze. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to go out in snow with long wet hair.
Had the joy of waking up with an earache yesterday. Great fun. Really. Not a bad one as far as my earaches go but still not fun. Went to the dr and got the Korean cure all injection that they use for everything, the usual heap of pills that all Korean drs love giving out and have to go back on Wednesday. He put some sstuff in my ear, no idea what but it's stopped my ear hurting which is all good. Feels blocked instead but can cope with that.
Am now going to meet Kaz at LC tower so we can go to some performance that a kid from
Vanessas school is in so she got free tickets from the kids mum.

It's a miracle

2005-11-24T15:12:00.000+02:00

I have finally met someone who a) understands netball and b) understands the joy of beating Australia. We have several new foreign teachers in Chumdan and one of them is South African so she actually understands the concept of netball and loves beating Australia just as much as I do. Needless to say I was very happy about this. Got a grand total of 7/20 for the quiz which was actually about the average for last night. Aside from that and the leaving party for Ian that's on Saturday there's nothing else happening so I'm going to go get food

I decided to be nice...

2005-11-20T14:30:00.000+02:00

Don't worry, it won't become a habit but thought I'd be nice and point out that since xmas is coming up (not to mention future xmas'/b-days) there is a very nice webpage that has an entire shop devoted to owls. www.owlpages.com. And since anyone who has even met me once knows that I collect them... this is a hint people. Since people are always complaining I'm hard to buy for - which I might point out is totally not true, anything relating to owls, classics or books is all good, easy - this is the ideal place for you all to shop and get my lots more owls.
Aside from buying some warm clothes and headphones for MSN/skpye since my other ones mysteriously died have done nothing lately and intend to do nothing for this week too.
If anyone wants to read anything funny go read Kats book Dragon-Butterfly (www.hshmhj.blogspot). Highly amusing

Hope everyone's sitting down

2005-11-13T13:32:00.001+02:00

Hopefully, this won't give anyone a heart attack but I actually got off my lazy butt and went to the gym. Shocking I know. Did nothing else all day other than the gym. Sue was meant to go too but never showed up. Grrr. so had the joy of being the only foreigner at the gym and therefore got the usual stares from the Koreans. Great fun.
Since a certain Queen of the Gods is bitching at me about it: Kera came up with the name for my hamster. There, I gave you credit, happy now Kaz? Too bad if you're not
Well, after the gym this goddess is dead so am now going to watch T.V and do nothing.Much more fun than the gym

Hope everyone's sitting down

2005-11-13T13:32:00.000+02:00

Pepero, the gym and hamsters

2005-11-12T04:55:00.000+02:00

I now have a hamster. He's small, grey and white, fat and his name is Beucephalus. Got him from 2 teachers who were leaving Korea. Don't worry mum, he won't be coming back to N.Z with me. Prmise.
Yesterday was Pepero Day here in Korea. You have to love a country who makes a holiday out of the fact that the date 11/11 looks like 4 sticks of candy. pepero is the same thing as those Japanese Pocky sticks Mika and all our other Japanese students used to bring us. Hard chocolate covered sticks. Anyway, people give boxes of them to friends, family etc so thanks to my students I now have about 30 or so boxes of the things. Won't need to buy snacks for a while.
Had the joy of going to the dentist again today. Supposedly to get a wisdom tooth out but all he did was have a look, tell me (yet again, like he has for the last 3 or so visits) that I need it out or it'll be a pain later and that was it. So, am now getting it out in 2 weeks. Maybe, unless he does the same thing, in which case I'm giving up.
As shocking as this will sound to everyone but I am being good and finally joining the gym! How often I actually go is another matter entirely... but the point is I at least have the intention of going and getting fit. Since there's about 5 of us joining the same gym I figure we can go together (provided it's not in the morning that is. I don't do mornings, never have, never will) and since I've paid I'll be more likely to go. Maybe. Will let you know how this theory works out

I'm being a good child

2005-11-08T16:20:00.000+02:00

Am being a good child and updating my blog. So what's been happening in my life recently? Well, not a hell of a lot really. Had a trivia night at Billboard on Wednesday. Got 5/20. Depressing thing was that that was the best score. Sue was somewhat depressed that noone knew most of her questions which she thought were easy. Actually tied with Vanessa so we each got 7000 won and did paper, scissors, rock (aka the asian solution to virtually any preoblem) to see who'd do the quiz for tomorrow night. She won. Since this means I don't have do get off my lazy butt to make up the quiz is all good especially the only questions I can think of are all classics or history ones which noone'd get.
If anyone wants to read a highly amusing account of how the Trojan War was started and who really caused it (Kat and I are still highly unimpressed at the moron who suggested it was Helen, grrr. For the record, It was NOT Helen, it was Kat) go to Kats blog (Eris on the links) and read it. Very amusing and done in typical Kat style with Sarah adding bits and pieces too.

The Halloween Party

2005-11-01T17:17:00.000+02:00

Ended up going to the Halloween party as Kat. Yes, as depressing as that sounds I went as Eris, the goddess of trouble, strife and general mayhem. Black hair, makeup, nails, clothes (you get the picture) and even had a golden apple with "to the fairest" on it. Which noone had a clue about so everyone thought I was either Morticia Addams or a witch. Somewhat depressing really. I mena, Eris isn't exactly the most important of the Olympians. Sorry Kat but you're not. Deal with it. But she did start the whole Trojan War so you'd think a few people would have a slight clue who she was. Especially since it was me, I mean it's me. What am I going to go as to a costume party other than something from classics?
Anyway, the party was great, $20 for all you can eat/drink. Between the Chumdan crew we had Eris, a gangster, a devil, Shrek,Alex who went as a chick and a LOTR dwarf. At least I think that's what Van was. Left about 3 and Van nearly got into a fight with some drunk moron who though she was a guy. He was somewhat embarrassed when he realised she wasn't. Will put photos up when I find my cord to plug my camera into the computer to upload them. Or failing that, get them onto CD and do it that way which is probably more likely since have no clue where the cord is.
Confused one of my classes yesterday as when I was trying to explain why Sarah teacher now has black hair instead of brown and the whole party thing they heard party and thought the school was having a party for them. They were very disappointed when they realised that wasn't happening. Have spent the last 6 months hearing "teacher, long hair" from all my kids and now get to hear 'teacher, magic hair" from dying it. Joy

My deprived childhood

2005-10-28T16:10:00.000+03:00

Was informed on Wednesday night at Billboard that I have had a deprived childhood. Why did I have a deprived childhood you ask? Because I never got to carve a pumpkin for Halloween. I'm not sure which Vanessa was more horrified by, that or the fact that Halloween is close to non-existant in N.Z. Van and Linds managed to find 2 small pumpkins at the supermarket which they took to Billboard to carve on Wednesday night. Since Van spend about an hour on hers compared to Lindsays 10 minutes hers was just a wee bit better. Funny that. Have a Halloween party tomorrow night so either have to find a white dress to go as a Korean ghost (damneasy: white dress, long hair and you're set, not too hard for me although not too keen on the whole wearing a dress thing) which should scare the crap out of the Koreans or find something else but have no idea what yet so thats tomorrows mission. Joy.
Kaz, if you want help killing the dude who crashed into you, I'll be happy to help, have nothing better to do anyway.
Am now off to Billboard, later.

N.Z film festival

2005-10-23T15:07:00.000+03:00

Actually did stuff this weekend as opposed to staying home and doing pretty much nothing.
Went with Vanessa and Bong-Suk to the N.Z film festival at Gwangju Cinema (which is like an icebox, evidently they have never heard of the concept of heating) yesterday and saw Once Were Warriors, Ngati and Perfect Strangers then went to another theatre with Bong Suk and saw Merchant of Venice. Somewhat depressing to realise that I saw more movies yesterday than I have in about 6 months. Also spent 60,000 won on books since was meeting Bong Suk at Starbucks and there was a bookstore next door that had English books so 1 hr and 60,000 won later I had 6 new books. Met the Kiwi ambassador yesterday too, he showed up for the opening film Stickmen which we didn't stay for but did see the fireworks show they did.
Went hiking again today, up some mountain that I don't know the name of with Lindsey, her friend Hillary, John, Bong Suk and Wong Chei. This climb was better than the last one because a) no stupid, evil mozzies and b) found a climbing stick which made things a lot easier.
Have been to the dentist every day last week and who is starting to annoy me by trying to make me have little or no injections. This is despite me telling him I don't do and never will do pain. Bring on the needles. Don't like them but like the drill even less. Also had the joy of finding out I need a wisdom tooth out. Great, can't wait for that. Really.
Anyway, am off to read my new books. Bye

The dentist yet again

2005-10-18T16:03:00.000+03:00

Had the joy of going to the dentist yet again today. Great fun. Really. Actually today wasn't too bad because it was just getting them cleaned. Plus, the dentist gave me a discount because I'm a foreigner so definately have no problem with that.
Went to the local amusement park on Sunday. Was pretty good although the roller-coaster was crap since it lasted about 10 seconds. Got to eat candy floss which I haven't had in years.
Other than that and Pony's leaving party which was on Friday night nothing exciting has been happening and since I just got a whole bunch of Dark Hunter books from Amazon I'm going to read them.
See you later

Don't like dentists

2005-10-11T16:10:00.000+03:00

Don't like going to Korean dentists any more than NZ ones. Went for the first filling today, wasn't too bad aside form the 2 injections. I hate injections. Can only eat with 1 side of my mouth though which is a pain. Have to go back for the next one on Thursday. Joy.
Good thing today though was that I got 9 of my books from amazon so have lots of stuff to read.
Have nothing else to add so am going off to find food

2005-10-10T16:10:00.000+03:00

As with Kat there has been pretty much nothing happening in my life at the moment. Have finally found an owl in Korea! Not easy. Now have a key holder with an owl on it so now have owls from NZ, Japan, Greece, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Fiji. I think thats every place at least.
Was good child and finally went to the dentist this morning for the first time since before Japan. Have to get several fillings so am getting the worst one tomorrow so am not going to be a very happy teacher tomorrow. I HATE going to the dentist. Which is probably why I avoid going whenever possible and why I now have a Mt Olympus sized hole in 1 of my teeth. How do i know how big the hole is? Because they took x-rays and then each dentist chair has a computer which they put x-rays etc up on.
Get to go see a whole bunch of Kiwi movies in a couple of weeks because there's a big NZ film festival. Not sure what movies are on except for Once Were Warriors and Heavenly Creatures but movies are all good, especially Kiwi ones

Stupid dogs

2005-10-04T16:25:00.000+03:00

Am not impressed with 2 certain dogs at the moment. Got home from work to find that they'd somehow gotten into my nearly full sour cream and chives Pringles. Needless to say there's now nothing except a few broken little bits they couldn't reach.
Have heard that a whole bunch of native teachers in Korea are presently terrified because they came over here illegally with forged transcripts, degrees etc and now the police have found out about it and are busting everyone. Drew is currently stuck in Seoul because of this thing. Pony's going up tomorrow to try and sort it out, apparently if he gets a ticket home and pays a $500 fine they'll let him go. He was meant to go to China for a holiday and then meet his girlfriend in Ireland so not sure if that's going to happen or not. So glad I'm legal.
Nothing else exciting is happening so I'm going to take the dogs out before they go mental.

Namwon

2005-10-03T08:30:00.000+03:00

Well, actually have something to talk about in a post for once.
Had Drews leaving/Lindseys 25th on friday night at Billboard with pizza and drinks although was highgly unimpressed that Wong Cgei'd run out of coke so had to have diet instead.
Am currently staying at Vans house looking after Giz and Pol while she's in ireland. She left Friday night and had great fun trying to get the suitcase out the door since Apollo was determined that he was not getting off the suitcase. He has separation anxiety and had not been a happy dog for the 3 days before Van left when she was packing. Made it eventually though. So am currently having the joy of being squashed by 2 dogs instead of 3 cats every night. Evidently dogs have the same theory as cats in bed which is squash Sarah as much as possible.
Went to Namwon yesterday with 1 of my adult students and her family.
Some famous person was born there and some couple fell in love there too but can't remember who. Went to the very crowded park which has lots of things about these people like the house her mum was born in and the swing where they met etc. Tried on a hanbok (Korean national dress) so can now say I've worn Korean and Japanese national dresses.
Got lucky while we were there because there was a traditional wedding on so got to see that. Lots of bowing and didn't understand a word and was somewhat embarrassing when the woman with the mike pointed me out as the only foreigner so got everyone staring at me. Got that again after the ceremony when they wanted to know where I was from too. Joy. Got a photo taken with the bride and groom afterwards. Got a pen from out of it too. Apparently they wer going to give me a packet of rice cakes but some other disabled guy wanted them so they gave them to him instead.
Went over some bridge that married people are meant to cross once a year to ensure they have a good life together and fed the huge carp that live in the river.
Ate lunch at another nearby river but started to rain so had to pack up. got to the car adn found there was another wedding going on. Or rather it was the friends/family throwing the groom into the river and him taking revenge by returning the favour part of the whole thing
Have the day off since it's a long weekend so other than walking the dogs and cleaning the house have done nothing and intend to keep doing so for the rest of the day

2005-09-28T21:34:00.000+03:00

Well, just got home from Billboard and since not remotely tired decided should probably update before Kat starts complaining at me about not updating again.
So, what have I done since my last update? Pretty much nothing, had the usual lazy weekend and work is same old, same old.
Have a new favourite toy though. A program that you download from the net that lets you make puzzles out of any picture. Since most of my Greece photos aren't on my computer, have spend the last few nights downloading a few hundred photos of Greek/Roman stuff.
Other than that have done nothing exciting and since it's 3.30am I figure it's probably time to go sleep. Talk to you later.

2005-09-23T17:04:00.000+03:00

Well Kat it appears that pigs do fly and you are evidently not the goddess of prophecy.
Like Kat, I am highly disgusted that my blog has been getting spammed. By an on-line dating place no less. If I didn't marry an Olympian what on earth makes them think I'd consider marrying a stupid mortal even for a second? Goddess of wisdon here people, as in I had the wisdom not to get married amongst other things.
Am definately going to be living in Corinth next year, for a month at least while I do this TESOL course and then in theory will be living somewhere in Greece after that. have no problem whatsoever with this. Timing is brilliant since Dom and Robyn are getting married in Santorini 2 days before so mum and dad, I really think a 2 week (or longer, i wouldn't complain) holiday in Greece about that time is definately a good idea.
Hey Kaz, kat already knows all about this but we now have a Zeus, Hades, Aphrodite and Poseidon so you get your husband back again. Sorry, but if it's any consolation this Zeus is much better looking than the other one. Can anyone actually remember who that was by any chance?

Satisfied Kat?

2005-09-21T16:10:00.000+03:00

Satisfied Kat, not only have I finally updated but this one even has a title.
Reason I haven't updated is that I have had 4 days off and have spend those 4 days doing absolutely nothing, mainly because it was raining for 3 of the 4 days.
Did go and see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Saturday with Vanessa and Bong Suk. Was pretty good movie actually.
Was, suprise suprise, far too lazy to vote in the election, whenever that actually was. had forgotten about it until I was on xtra on Sunday. Haven't voted in any of the other ones so didn't want to break with tradition and vote in this one. Besides, it involved far too much effort finding out how I could vote from all the way over here.
In answer to your question Bec on why I had to have coke if Wong Chei only has beer: I don't like beer.
Anyway, now that I've updated anf got Kat off my back I'm going out to Billboard. See you all later

2005-09-15T16:10:00.000+03:00

OK, finally got around to updating (and it's depressing when Nick of all people has more updates than me)
Not a whole lot has been happening here, went out for the usual Wednesday night drinks down at Billboard last night. Not sure why we have the get together drinking nights on Wednesday since everyone has to work on Thursday but we do. Guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Since Wong Chei only has beer I had coke until about 1.30am when Balex decided that everyone should drink Lemon Shoju. Which tastes completely disgusting. Think a really sour KGB. No doubt people will be amused that I managed to cut myself drinking. We were playing Flicks when you have to try and flick the tail of a screw top lid off, if you get it off the person before you has to drink. Having long nails is brilliant for this game and I managed to get both Pony and Drew. Also managed to cut myself the first time (pretty much invisible but that's not the point and I still want sympathy) and the second time the stupid tail flew off and hit me in the face (again, no visible injury and again not the point, give me sympathy)
Am very happy at the moment because only have a 3 day week next week. The Korean Thanksgiving festival Chusok is this weekend so get Monday and Tuesday off. Only found out about getting Tuesday off today so bonus because most of the other schools are only getting Monday off. Only problem with Chusok this year is taht it's on a weekend. The festival lasts about 3 or so days but because it's on the weekend the only working day most people get off is Monday. So I will be thinking of everyone on Monday and Tuesday when i'm doing absolutely nothing and they're working or at uni. Honest.
Anyway, am going to watch CSI so will talk to people later.

Koreans are crazy

2005-09-11T14:53:00.000+03:00

They have houses right next to a huge lake and do they go swimming, boating etc? No, of course not. Well, most of them don't although a few are brave enough to try it. Of course most Koreans can't swim so that might have something to do with it.
When they go to the beach they were long sleeved tops and trousers and stare at Westerners in togs. Their theory seems to be wear the most clothes as possible and never, under any circumstances actually go near the water
Went to said lake with Pony, Lindsey, Trina, Balex, Drew, Marco and Wong Chei to go swimming today. We were the only people in the water aside from the few people who were water skiing and wakeboarding. We spent the day on the 2nd floor of a huge houseboat. There were Koreans on the 1st floor who were all wearing long sleeved shirts and trousers. This, despite the temperature being about 30 degrees. Needless to say we got stared at big time in our togs and the fact that we were swimming. There was some guy who seemed to be trying to show the Koreans on the houseboat how we were staying afloat in the lake which was about 12 feet or so deep. We was pointing at us and waving his arms in swimming/floating motions so we figured that was what he was doing at least. A few Koreans did go swimming but they stayed near the boat and wore lifejackets the whole time. We were in the water for about 1/2 hr and then spent most of the day sunbathing and playing cards.
Realized after being in the water for ages that I hadn't taken my non-waterproof watch off. Oops. Seems to be OK though and is still working so all good.
Had a few worrying minutes when we thought Wong Cjei was drowning. he can't swim so was staying in the shallow water a bit further down and me, Trina, Pony and Lindsey were on the boat sunbathing when he started to look like he was drowning so we all race down to him (getting more strange looks from the Koreans) but he was OK by the time we got there. He was always able to touch the bottom but I think he just panicked or something and freaked. The guys had decided to swim over to a beach miles away. No idea why, but obviously seemed at good idea at the time. Took them about 2 hrs or so to get there and back and they were completely dead when they did.
Spent most of the day there and got home at about 7 and have done nothing since although was amazed that Nick has finally updated his blog, not once but twice! Will wonders never cease? Yeah, Nick you're going to be hassled about this for a while.

Look Kat, this one has a title too!

2005-09-09T05:58:00.000+03:00

Satisfied Kat? I've added another post.
Evidently certain Koreans are not the sharpest little sword in the armory. Since my friend Vanessa has 2 dogs we usually take them for a walk to a nearby park at the same time every day. There's this old woman with her 2 grandkids who also shows up at the same park every day, same time as us. What's the problem you ask? Well, the kids are about 2 years old and every time they see the dogs, Apollo especially, they come racing up to them. Apollo hates people who do that and therefore he always barks at them and scares the Hades out of them so they run back to grandma screaming and she yells at Van in Korean (somewhat pointless since she can't understand most of it) They do this every damn time despite Van telling them they can't pat Apollo because he gets too hypo and despite him being on the leash. You'd think that Apollo being on the leash and Gizmo being off it might give them a clue but no, it doesn't. The stupid woman knows we come to the park the same time every day so again, you'd think she'd figure it out and come at a different time but again no.
For the record Apollo is a miniature Doberman and Giz is a Shitsu so they're not exactly huge dogs and yet most Koreans are still terrified of them. Apollo is also one of the wimpiest dogs ever.
Aside from the stupid Korean woman had the same old day, had my Hell class which as usual I could quite happily kill but unfortunately I think the director might have a problem with me killing her students... The parents might have something to say about it as well. Dammit.
Hey Kat, if you want help killing the spammers I'll help. That's what sisters are for isn't it? Besides I'm sure Hepheastus owes us a few favours and can make us up a few new weapons pretty quick. Let me know

Family is in the goodbooks

2005-09-08T17:35:00.000+03:00

Am very happy with my family at the moment and they are back in the goodbooks as I finally got an email from them, and a nice long one at that.
Am NOT happy with my kids at the moment as for the second time in a week some little brat has gone into my locked desk and taken food from it. GRRRR! Therefore, now not only my desk is going to be locked but my room as well. Kat, if I find out which little brat did it, wnna help me kill them? By the way, are you impressed? This post actually has a title

2005-09-07T17:00:00.000+03:00

No Kat, this post doesn't have a title either. Why? Because a) I'm too lazy to think of one, it's just far too much effort and b) I'm still sick
I am highly unimpressed with my family for not sending me either sympathy emails, chocolate or both. Grrr. I have had the flu for the last 4 days and have been highly amusing my kids with my pretty much dead voice. Kat can vouch for my voice since I've been talking to her on skype, of couse Kat also advised taking at least one day if not more off which I probably should've done really. Just incase any of my so-called loving family (either of the mortal or Olympian variety) cares, I am getting better. It's somewhat depressing that the person I've got the most sympathy out of is the OTMLS (aka Kat)
Aside from being sick not much else to report and since Kat is waiting to read this I'll post it so she can do that but considering she's playing games at the moment she probably won't read it for a while.

2005-09-05T16:30:00.000+03:00

Well, the Dalant Market day went pretty well although it took about 3 times as long to set up/clean up than it did to hold the stupid thing.
Arrived at work at 10am (grrr)to set up which mainly involved putting about a million balloons everywhere, both in the school and the next door karate school where we held the market. The market started at 2 with the Cinderella play in JC school and then all the kids all decided to try and get through the door to the market at the same time. Just oin case all the stuff we were selling suddenly vanished. Parents must love these market days, they get a whole heap of stuff for free.
The actual market day was only 1 1/2 hrs long so that finished at about 3.30. Then spent the next 3 hours or so cleaning up the place. Fun. really.
Spent all day yesterday dying in bed as I somehow seemed to have caught the flu so any messages/emails of sympathy would be all good.

2005-09-02T17:22:00.000+03:00

Got the joy of sewing even more more charaters on t-shirts today. Had a relatively cruisy day today as out of my 4 classes, 3 were listening tests and then interviews. Have no problem with that and the 1 class I actually taught just involved them writing for the whole lesson. Have no problem with that either. Wasn't so impressed with the fact that we had to stay until 10pm cleaning the school and moving the huge reception desk out of the way so the play kids can do their little performance tomorrow. There's a karate school on the same floor as us so we're using that for the market day tomorrow. Have a whole bunch of desks set up with a hell of a lot of little things the kids can buy with their dalants. We have bubble blowers, books, bags, candles, pencils, pens, rubbers, money tins, pencil cases... you name it, we got it.
Am also highly unimpressed with the fact that I have to be at work at 10am tomorrow. Informed them that if they expect me to be awake and working prior to lunchtime then they'd better not expect me to be cheerful or particularly awake. Mornings and me do not go together. Never have, never will.

2005-09-01T17:57:00.000+03:00

Highly unimpressd that I had to go in at 10.30 this morning to colour in even more characters and then put them onto t-shirts. Great fun. Really. Confused everyone whn I coloured the pumpkin orange. They all found this highly amusing since apparently orange is not, in fact the colour of pumpkins as we have been led to believe all these years. Considering these people also think pink and orange go together great along with bright green and blue I didn't really take a heck of a lot of notice of their opinions on the colour of pumpkins. For the record, in case you're wondering pumpkins are yellow not orange, according to the people I work with anyway.
Had the joy of walking home in the pouring rain after work, not fun, and then got home only to find that my key was refusing to open my door for some wierd reason so had to go upstairs and get the landlord to come down and use his key to open the door.

2005-08-31T17:50:00.000+03:00

Again, the joy, (or lack thereof, depending which way you look at it) of work. As we have a dalant market day on Saturday where the kids have to put on their cinderella play and the pop songs it meant that we were stuck at work until 10pm drawing, or in my case tracing because I can't draw to save my life, and then colouring in pictures of all the characters in the play. Irritating but tolerable until I was informed that there was not allowed to be any white whatsoever on the pictures. Why, I have no idea but no white seems to be the rule. Cinderella has green hair in one picture and in another is wearing a pink and orange dress. I'm not sure which is worse, but I'm leaning towards the pink and orange dress.
The market day should be amusing if nothing else. Each day the kids get dalents ($1 or $10 paper money) if they do their homework so Saturday we're having a dalant market where the kids can buy stuff for dalants. I suspect the main reson is that all us teachers are running out of dalants and rather than printing off a whole bunch more it's easier to have the dalant day and get all the dalants back again.