Concerning the count down

This week signals the final approach of mom and dad...the last 10 days...and clearly I'm not keeping track of the hours at all. Not excited in any way. Could really take the visit or leave it. Yup. So besides keeping up a pestering barrage of emails with them specifying exactly WHAT type of mac and cheese to bring and which red wedges to remember, this week was spent getting somewhat ecstatic.

Memorable moments at work...well, we had a field trip on Thursday to this playroom area in a nearby mall. The kids went absolutely mad for it, the whole thing was kid heaven. I wished to be 6 again more than once and even did kind of climb in the complex a bit, teacher be darned. Actually, it was pretty uneventful- not too much stress came out of that so good. Later that day, we all met Nakeesa which is the teacher replacing Teresa next week. She seems great, very relaxed and cheerful girl from Texas. We took her out for the obligatory sausage, fries and beer at Weisenhaus (becoming a newbie tradition) and that was that. Friday was English Club which was actually somewhat of a train wreck this week. It was my turn to preside and I stupidly chose an article about the death penalty because news was a bit scanty this week. It was way too philosophical and difficult to discuss, so to make it easier, I tried to sort of sum up what people had said after they said it to both make sure I understood and to connect it back to the questions. Apparently it came off that I was correcting everyone which left me feeling mortified, guilty, and alienated. I left early because I was just not up for social nicety after that. Saturday, I met Nakeesa again for lunch (yummy shrimp and pineapple fried rice), stationary shopping, a failed attempt at nails, and coffee. It was really nice, we talked a lot.

That night, I met my friend Kurt from English club for this international festival happening in Daejeon. It was cute, we tried some Indonesian food (chickpea curry and turmeric rice) and some fried bananas for dessert. I also got my name in traditional Korean, which is actually from the Chinese characters "beg" and "hee". They both have a looot of meanings but beg means white and hundred, among others, and hee sometimes means happiness. Random and arbitrary, yes, but I still liked finding little Asian nuances to my name. They decorated the little plaque with cherry blossoms, very pretty. Then, we got tea. Then, we listened to a band. Then, we got beer and fried chicken. It was nice just to hang out with him and have it be in no way romantic, just relaxed friends. He's a sweetheart. Today I talked to the parents, had a great go at the gym, lapped up the sunshine on my walk to the grocery store, got food, cooked, cleaned, watched TV, did some laundry, painted my toe nails...the usual Sunday assortment.

As I said before, the name of the game now is just running out the clock until mom and dad come on over. I've been going through a tiny lonely spell so they are even more welcome than they'd normally be which would still be quite the reception. Bye for now!

Becks