Concerning baby it's COLD outside!

The holidays are here! It's official folks, December 21st my foot- winter starts riiiiiiiight now. Hmm....last week. Not much happened actually which is really odd because somehow I feel frantically busy. In a good way. The weekend was another great one. At English club, I was up for a 3 minute speech so in true Becky nerd form, I totally gave an academic lecture on how the gothic functions in society and how it is recurring in the latest vampire mania in western culture. Can you tell I saw New Moon the night before? Yep. For my part, I thought it was incredibly entertaining though Kristen Stewart is still incapable of anything save biting her lip and looking constipated. After, we went to this great tiny hole in the wall dumpling shop. I've had mandu before but it has always been frozen and fried. Here, I saw the ahjimas (respectful way to say old woman) on this table in the corner with a mound of stuffing, putting it into hand rolled dough that was almost transluscent it was so thin. Then, no hot oil for these suckers- they were steamed which made them sticky and much much easier to eat with chopsticks. Yummy.

Saturday, I had a lie in, talked to some friends on skype, and then felt a tiny bit restless. So, I went to Seoul. As you do. I still love that I can do that on a whim, it reminds me how much of an adventure this can be. I hopped a bus, spent a good 45 minutes in the sadistic wind trying to find a jewelry market (Dongdaemun) but I eventually got there, got some last Christmas gifts and the makings for a fantastic new headband for moi. After, I shlepped on over to Forever 21, drawn by the internal western compulsion for shopping around Christmas. I wasn't disappointed, the walkway was glaring with lights and the inside blared with Mariah Carey. I got a dress, belt, earrings, and BOOTS (QUITE a feat I'll have you know as I am convinced I found the only normal sized pair of shoes in Asia). I got home, ordered pizza, and tucked into a Korean drama that I have recently become hopelessly addicted to. I think it aired about 5 years ago, it's name is "Coffee Prince" and it's about a girl who pretends to be a guy to get a job to support her family and how her and her boss end up falling in love with eachother. Very complicated, very melodramatic, very fabulous. It's the first one I've watched and I've got it bad- I have lost sleep in the last week due to this show.



Anyway, sunday I got myself to the gym and grocieries and watched more TV. So far, this week has been pretty standard work-wise. I have gone into Christmas craft frenzy though to decorate my kindy rooms- we've made presents complete with bows, colored Santa pictures, and made slowflakes up the wazzu. I love that I don't have to be politically correct here- we're celebrating Christmas gosh darn it because I can justify it as "cultural education." They do celebrate it here but not to the same extent. The other adorable thing about this week is that Columbia just learned "I Love You" and I've been serenaded with about five "I love you Becky Teacher!"s every morning. It's really hard to be in a bad mood after that.

Hopefully, I'm in for another great weekend coming up. We have tomorrow (thurs) off so a coworker and I are having a Christmas day with more shopping at the local department store mall which is so decked out with Yuletide Splendor that it intimidates even me. Imagine all the commonplace lights of Asia. Then imagine all the lights of Asia...around Christmas. Scary indeed, especially when considering the electricity bill.

Anyways, still merry and marvelous here in SoKo. Enjoy the holidays everyone!!

Love,

B