10 posts tagged “korea”
well, here we are again. i'm fairly certain 2 months is not the longest time i've gone without posting a blog entry, but it sure feels like it. then again, i dont suppose that much has really happened, in the grand scheme of things. my life still goes on, chill as ever. the only really big deal that's going on is me getting ready for thailand, and leaving korea, and even that just requires a bunch of sorting and packing and other planning.
the year has really gone quickly though, as all years seem to do, i've recently noticed. you go to a place and say you're going to be there for a year, and a year feels like a long time, but it goes so quickly, too fast for you to be ready to leave and to have all your photos edited - though that last bit might just because i'm a horrible procrastinator. i'm not really sure that i'm ready to leave korea, as in leave and not come back - i feel like there are still things for me to do here, and the city hasn't become so full of memories that i feel the need to run away yet. still, i'm looking forward to going home, to spending time with my family and the people who aren't quite family but may as well be. of course, going home means that i will be leaving again, which brings up other thoughts on how quickly time passes and how much of it i spend away from people i love... but i've been through those enough times in my head, and the answer is always the same.
i'm on a bit of a melodramatic streak tonight, aren't i? more later, when im not eating.
Rain, rain, go away
come again another day
I want to go out and play,
and have a yarn crawl tomorrow.
to be perfectly honest, I'm surprised that I'm not napping right now. I felt tired enough for it - today was a long day. Today was field trip day.
It almost wasn't - the idea was that if it was raining when we came to school, we would cancel the field trip to the camp and just have classes. Well, the morning was gray and hazy (and so was the afternoon...) but it didn't start until we were on our way. It drizzled on and off the whole day, and wasn't really pouring until we got back. Now it's very loud, occasionally thundering and flashing outside my window, so I have both my glass doors closed.
It's not really a camp - we went to a place called Kanghwado, an island out near Gimpo. We ended up at this place called Oktokki Space Center, and it was cute. It's a huge building with a large garden out back that had statues of dinosaurs, and inside it's an astronomy and rocketry museum. It was really interesting, and I'd like to go back there sometime. I had an idea - I'd like to do a bike trip that way. You can get there via bus, but if I was on a bus, I couldn't stop to take pictures and explore like I want to... It was beautiful, in it's own way - there were muddy tidal flats like at home, next to rice fields that extended back to the mountains that were obscured by fog, and the same skyscraper apartments that define Korea stuck in the middle. There were even the same white egrets as home, poking about in the paddies for bugs and such. Whenever I travel, I'm always struck by how different so many places are from each other, but mostly by how much the same everything is. The trees here look like the ones at home - we passed a field surrounded by a wall of trees covered with kudzu that almost made me laugh. The tide was out, as were the shallow boats.
I've been struck a lot recently with the desire to learn more Korean - to be able to communicate with the people here, moreso than the broken fragments of preschool commands, and perhaps be less alone. That's not accurate, I suppose. I tell myself that it was my choice to be alone, and it's true; but it's also true that I am in a place where it is very easy for me to be alone, where I am alone by default, and it's not a choice at all. I feel like there is a difference in nuance there, but I am not sure how to describe it.
I took pictures at the space center, and I want to edit them before I put them up - I'd like to get some of that done during my break. I think the ones that I want to edit, but don't have the skills for yet, I will put in an Endnote notebook with my thoughts for fixing them, and go back to them later.
When I came home, I finished reading a book I've been working on for a while, Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Robin gave it to me a bit ago - it's the first of Gaiman's novels that I've ever read, though I have read some of his short stories. It was wonderful and tricky and full of the kinds of allusions to other things that I love. When I first started it, I wasn't sure that I was going to like it, but I got sucked into it. I definitely need to read more of his work now. He's an author that I have always been interested in, but had only just gotten around to reading.
An amazing book is one you know that you will *have* to reread again, before you have finished it through once. This is an amazing book.
I learned some new words today, too, at the museum.
taeyang = Sun. The sun is also called hae-nim, which is interesting. I'm not sure exactly what the nuance of the first part is - I think the common word for the sun, as opposed to taeyang, the scientific word. But the -nim ending is what you use when you are referring to a person, kind of like the japanese -san. I guess it's kind of like saying "Mr. Sun" in English.
eoknyeon = light year. I learned this from reading an exhibit about how far away things were from us.
chigu = Earth.
uju = space, as in, outer space.
sajajari = Leo, the constellation, or the zodiac sign. there was an activity the kids did where they made necklaces with each of their signs, and I got one. You got a little picture with a diagram of your constellation on it, and put dots of glow-in-the-dark glue on the dots marking the stars, and then put it in a little plastic case on a string. They let us teachers do it too.
Now, to get ready for the yarn crawl tomorrow, and also do some emails and budgeting and cleaning up. Oh, and figuring out what I am giving to my swap partner. I have a list of ideas, and a $25 budget.
I would be like, really productive. I don't know that it's fair to say I'm not productive, however. I mean, sure, if you take the word at it's literal meaning, my life could be more 'productive'. But if that's the case, there are very few things I do that are productive beyond what's necessary and I think I'm fairly normal in that respect. Hobbies are probably the exception. It all depends on where you draw the line between productive and non-productive.
Today for instance - I went to work as usual. I didn't do any planning on my lunch break, though I could have had I wanted to get ahead. Instead I chilled, ate kimbap in the sunshine, and listened to my ipod while updating some stuff in my knitting notebook. I managed to do a round on my shirt before Donald came down from lunch, and then I went in and worked some more. After work I went to the store and got some odd bits- they finally have button mushrooms again. (I saw tomatoes yesterday too... yum. Love spring)
then I came home, got on Rav and read a few threads about Mohammad and the religious history of textiles, and took a nap before waking up to do some online shopping (more on that later), talk to Lloyd and Cait, and read some blogs. Now I'm munching on dinner - leftover rice and soup - and typing this post. I don't feel that today is the most exciting day I've had - nor did I even look at the interminable list of things that I have plans to do (or the things that flit across my brain that I don't write down); but I don't particularly consider it to have been a waste of a day.
I'm not sure there's anything else conclusive to say on this subject , but it occurs to me - why do I think in terms of productive/unproductive? It's not that I particularly worry about it - i generally enjoy my time no matter what I'm doing (with exceptions), but for some reason, I feel like I *should* worry about it.
So, shopping. That was fun. I started on Knitpicks.com, a knitting site I have been meaning to check out - good quality stuff for relatively cheap prices. Catch: they only ship to the US. But since I have my handy-dandy friend Lloyd to send things to, I don't have to worry about that. And then I have more of an excuse to go back to Atl when I go home. -smile- They're having a sale on sock yarn so I got some of that for the eventuality that I will start making socks. also just because sock yarn is very pretty. and versatile. did i mention it was on sale?
Then I was off to thehungersite.com to check out their yarns. They have banana fiber yarn and beautiful recycled silk yarn which I was going to get to try. But then I saw their skirts - and you know how I love skirts. Especially long swishy ones for
<--- this one I was debating getting the wine one, but I love blue, and I wear it a lot, and it matches a lot of things that I have. So blue it was.
I was so happy to see that they ship internationally. And the most awesome part - my shipping for the order was $10. to Korea. Sweetness!! Still need to go back for that yarn...
I poked around on overstock as well, and though they had some pretty stuff, nothing quite cheap enough for me. Then I remembered my friend Robin's suggestion about ebay for clothes, and off I waded into the mire. I found an awesome seller (whose site is here) that has a bunch of cute Nepali clothes. (I guess I'm on a 'support 3rd-world economy' kick tonight.) I submitted some offers on their ebay stuff and got ....
I'm bidding on another one as well, but we'll see if I win it.
then, THEN, I found this site:
Enwrapture Vintage
Now, I'm not sure I believe their claim that their reversible silk sari wrap skirts can be worn over a hundred ways, but they are pretty damn versatile. Also, drool-worthy gorgeous.
Like these:
Gizmo is staring at me from a safe distance away and alternately washing himself so as not to look at me, as I've just walloped him. He's been really weird the past few days- I think no one told him that the neutering process was supposed to calm him down. He's been running and jumping onto the balcony, and tonight he kept trying to bite me. I had my feet up on my chair and he started biting my toes, and just now he was sitting calmly in my lap and then started gnawing on my arm. Well, that's not going to fly for sure, and he knows it.
Before bed, a snippet of conversation with Lloyd from earlier.
Lloyd:It's kinda late for dinner, ain't it?
I can just imagine that song - *sings* Kiiimbap, doo be dop a do wop...
Wouldn't that be great?
Well, life has been busy. I don't feel like posting everything cause god wouldn't that take forever. But here are some highlights since last time.
This is what December 23 looked like:
Christmas Eve with Tim, Cait, me, and our Korean friend
--consisted of Tim and Jaehyun consuming lots of alcohol, and all of us enjoying food and ice cream cake.
--"We still have another bottle of chicken." Of course we do, Tim, but you obviously don't need it.
--"Here's to Mario, the mother of Jesus." Where does Princess Daisy fit in there, I wonder?
--Home-made sweet potato tempura. Spaghetti. Steak and chicken in my mini-oven. ICE CREAM CAKE!!
--Presents!
- The Hat Made of Sex: As Cait said - "It looks like someone took a Victorian couch and made a hat out of it. And that's a good thing!"
- The present we stole, I mean, found in Itaewon. Jaehyun looks a lot like this Korean celebrity. And we just happened to find a poster of the celebrity while looking for a present for him. See the resemblance?
- Tim and I also made some of our presents, and they turned out pretty cool. We're considering opening a shop on Etsy. What do you think?
Watching Torchwood has put me in a slightly existentialist mood. Being alone so much lately probably helped too, but it has occurred to me since I’ve been here that I will probably be alone quite often. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Alone is one of those strange double-edged words, like it should be in some magical runic codeword list or something, right up there with darkness and love and death. I tried defining it, to clarify the two aspects of it, but I run up against the classic Deconstructionist problem – I can’t separate them in words. The definition of one kind of ‘alone’ uses the same words as the other, if only with different emphasis.
“They keep killing Suzie” made me think – Suzie says there’s nothing but darkness after you die but that there are things out there - you aren’t alone, which is why she wanted to come back. Sometimes being alone is safe. In fact, I would say that’s the case most of the time – it’s only when you are supposed to be alone, and aren’t, that it becomes a problem.
I’m getting off the subject. Anyway, Suzie’s general conclusion to Gwen’s question, “What’s the point?” is that life itself is the point, the things you take for granted or don’t even think about. If the world after this one is only darkness, then what is the most important thing? For me, being with the people I care about has always been that thing, and even though I don’t subscribe to the view that darkness is penultimate, it still occurs to me that I should spend as much time with the people I love as possible.
Which begs the question, why am I here in Seoul, when none of the people I love are? There must be a reason (besides me being ‘daft’ as Lloyd put it). It’s amazing how distance gives you perspective. At the same time, I know that I can’t be with them all the time, even if I were to try. And I get lazy, bored, and forget about all of this. Despite Savannah being full of people I love, I’m not really happy there. I get bored doing the same thing, driving the same streets all the time. So I need this distance, as much as some part of me feels like I should be spending this time, or any time I can, with them.
But then again – if I don’t leave them sometime, that small place is all I ever know. I would never have met all of the friends I made at Emory, had the experiences I did there, or gone to Japan. It’s a tradeoff, I guess. Give up something you have for something you might get. I thought I’d made a similar bargain once upon a time, but it didn’t turn out like I thought. Does it ever?
So I get back to the question, why am I here? There’s got to be a reason somewhere. I’ll probably only see it in hindsight, but it’s a good idea to keep an eye out anyway.
Well, I think that it’s Tuesday. I’m not really sure actually, but that’s how crossing the Dateline works. Right now I’m not doing much – been on a plane for the last 14 hours or so, and now I’m chilling in Narita, munching on a Kit-Kat McFlurry, and waiting for my plane to Seoul to board. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being in Japan till I got here. Not that I missed paying 200 yen for a bottle of Coke, but I’m going to chalk some of that up to airport prices. The McDonald’s special right now is a Blueberry Oreo, but I missed the Kit-Kat. And I’ve managed to talk to pretty much anyone I have come across without making myself look an idiot, which is heartening, considering I haven’t spoken Japanese in 4 months.
The plane ride was pretty standard – an hour late getting out cause someone breached security in Detroit and then the bridge had to be manually removed from the plane, but I’m not late for my connection, which is the most important thing. Other than that, 14 hours of cramped boredom and dozing. I started Snow Crash again, and have gotten farther through it than last time. I have to say that Northwest is not as good as flying United. For one thing, the food is shitty! Oh my god the breakfast that they gave us was bad. I was in the middle of trying to sleep, too, when the flight attendant woke me up to give me the choice of eggs or fried rice. I opted for the egg, but it was gross, and according to my neighbors, so was the rice. I was kinda glad we would be at Narita soon, cause I was looking forward to getting some cha-han while I was here, but I’ve had to settle for McDonald’s, since this terminal seems to be lacking in food places.
And now they’re announcing
that my plane is being delayed due to maintenance. I’m supposed to call the people picking me up
if something happens, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that with no
working phone. Might go try to find one
of those internet hookups for 100yen, since the wireless demands a credit
card. My battery’s about to die, so I’ll
write some more later, probably tonight when I can’t sleep for jet lag.
I didn't know that Narita had an origami museum. Here are pics...
Well, here I am sitting on a train somewhere in North Carolina, I think. I’m not really sure, cause the platforms here aren’t marked clearly like they are in Japan, so I’m just guessing. Amtrak is definitely chigau from the Japanese train system, but it’s not bad. The bathrooms are pretty nice, at least; though I never used a bathroom on a Japanese train, so I can’t make a comparison.
Things have been so crazy for the last week or so, and I haven’t updated anything in a long time, and since I have and electrical outlet right here next to me (a definite point over Japanese trains) I can feel free to type away without the computer dying on me. Hey, if I’m up for it, I might even watch some Torchwood later.
Working backwards might be the easiest way to go about this. So, today I am on a train to Boston to see Nick and his family before I leave to go to Korea. I haven’t gotten my visa officially yet, but my appointment with the consulate is on Wednesday, and as soon as they give me the go-ahead, I can ask for my plane tickets to be bought.
For the last week or so, I haven’t really been doing much – mostly getting ready to go and hanging out with Lauren, Matthew, Kaylie, Jessica, Amanda and Caity. Christina came in town to be with me for a few days before I went, since she had the long weekend. I was working a temp job, but … well, I changed my mind. I’ll start at the beginning.
The craziness has been going on for a few months now, I think – it has just intensified recently, within the last month. I was in Atlanta till July 15th, then I came home and decided to work some temp while I was waiting on my Korea stuff to come through. On July 23rd, I was having lunch with my grandmother, Sharon and Am at Panera, when my car got hit in the parking lot. The Panera lady came up to us and asked if that was our car in the parking lot: “A silver Impala? I just stopped someone from leaving who hit you.” Well, I was annoyed, because my original (obviously delayed) plans had been to leave for Korea on the 25th of August – a car wreck is so not on my list of things I wanted to deal with. I went out to look at it, and the girl was still there, and there wasn’t much damage. She accepted full responsibility for it (damn straight, since I wasn’t even in the car), and her insurance promised to pay to get my car fixed. But there were issues, of course. When aren’t there?
The first thing was that she was from Arkansas. So she had some insurance I had never heard of, though it turned out to be pretty good, on my end anyway. Their closest branch was in Atlanta, so they had to send an independent adjustor out to come take pictures of my car, and then send them to the person it Atlanta. For the next three weeks, I tried to get in touch with this woman, and she never returned my calls, until Friday, August 16. She called to tell me that she had (finally) process my claim and that I would be receiving the information in the mail soon. I got an estimate and a check on Monday, and took an hour off from the job I was temping at to go out to the body shop and have them do their own estimate of the costs. As it turns out, theirs was about $300 different from the insurance figures. It was going to take 8 days to fix my car; did I have another, or had they given me a rental car, the body shop guy asked. I told him I hadn’t known to ask for a rental, and that the adjustor had just mailed me this stuff, I had never talked to her. I took my lunch break the next day to call around and try to talk to someone who could help me get a rental. I finally got in touch with my adjustor’s supervisor, told him all my grievances with his employee, and explained my dilemma. So he got me a rental and told me not to worry about the discrepancy in the estimates, and sounded a bit peeved that my adjustor had not been returning my calls. She called me later that afternoon, and I told her I no longer needed to talk to her, since I’d already spoken with her supervisor, and she ended the conversation suitably quickly.
So they gave me a Malibu, and I went to the hospital to see my grandfather. This was his 3rd week there – he’d been admitted on Aug 4th to get a triple bypass done, since his arteries were so clogged. The operation went fine, but he developed pneumonia in the hospital, and they had to go back in two more times because his coughing cracked the wires they had used to close his ribcage. Am did the surgery, and she cried – she had to pick pieces of his rib bones out of his chest cavity where they had broken. On Saturday the 23rd, after the second repair surgery, he developed problems breathing around 2 am. The hospital called us, but by the time we got there, he was already gone.
We stayed at the hospital till 4 am, then went home, joined by Sharon, Amber, Stephanie, and her mother. I’d cried hysterically in my car, but managed to not do more than tear up a bit in front of everyone else. I asked my grandmother for the blender and made a milkshake, then went to bed around 6.
For the next three days, it was crazy. The phone was always ringing, when Mamaw wasn’t calling people to tell them the news. People kept coming over, and our fridge was stuffed. My older uncle flew in from Kentucky during his calving season; my younger one and his wife helped put the funeral together, and even though Stephanie has only been part of the family for a few months, she was just as torn up as everyone else, though she channeled it by being busy. I took my mom, sister and Randy shopping for funeral clothes with the $500 worth of gift cards that had been Pops’ gift for working 50 years at the roofing plant; his anniversary was the day I graduated college.
Shopping with my mother is always interesting. My sister has fairly good taste in clothes, for the most part, but there’s nothing for it when it comes to my mother. She’s just satisfied with wearing the cheapest, frumpiest things and doesn’t understand why the rest of us think she’s crazy. She went to help Randy find a shirt and jacket, and I took Christina to the dresses. I looked for one for mom while my sister changed, finally settling on two for her to try. Of course, the final decision was going to be mine, but I thought either one might work. One was shorter dress, with cap sleeves and a leather belt around the waist. It even had pockets; I knew she would like it. The other was a calf-length, black and flowy with ¾ sleeves, but light enough that she wouldn’t roast in the sun. It was a $90 dress, but I figured it was on sale, and it would be the best.
She tried on the cheaper one first, like I knew she would, and loved it. It looked like a sack of potatoes. The darts in the hip were the wrong shape, and the little belt made it look cheap. And while pockets may be a novelty, they surely aren’t appropriate for a funeral. “This is the one,” she said. I shook my head at her, backed up by Randy and Christina. “Go try on the other,” I told her. “Just try it.” It was much better, and even though she worried about the price, I told her it was fine. Then I got myself a dress, by the same designer (but strangely, for half the price), and we went our way.
When we got home, Ken was there with Stephanie and Mamaw, and they asked how our shopping had gone. “Did you find something?” he said, pausing as he turned to leave.
“Yes, we did. I mean, they got me a dress, and I don’t really like it, but everyone else does,” my mom explained.
“Good then,” he said. “Wear that.” Everyone laughed, except my mother, who tried her best to look peeved.
The
wake was Sunday night, and the funeral on Monday. As sad as it was that Pops was gone, I still
found ways to smile. It was the closest
our family had been in a long time.
Pops’ brother, Uncle Jack, was unfriendly as always, but Matthew and
Jessica had come down for the weekend to be with me. Jessica took Monday off work to come to the
funeral, and Grandma Chris made a roast for us.
There wasn’t really much to do, except talk to people I rarely see. Stephanie likes scrapbooking, and had put
together a few boards with pictures of all of us on them. There were so many funny things I had
forgotten, and new things I learned that night.
I had been thinking to myself for a while, off and on, that there were
so many things I didn’t know about Pops, but then, I also realized that knowing
the things I did know were more important that stuff like what his middle name
was and exactly what year he was born.
There were stories, of course – everyone had them to tell. One of my favorites was from Aunt Earlene, one of Pops’ sisters-in-law. He used to live with them, for a bit after her and Uncle Jesse were married, before he met Mamaw. Pops always loved desserts, but he was very picky about his food sometimes. Am and I made jokes about that – he had wanted to go out to a steak dinner when he got out of the hospital, and we laughed, saying that the tea would be too sweet, or not sweet enough, the steak not cooked properly… something was always off. It was one of the things we loved teasing him about, but sometimes it was annoying. Before I went to Japan last year, we had been talking about going out to dinner, just the two of us. When the day finally came, it was a disaster, or just about normal. The first place we went to was full, and then we ended up at Applebee’s, not his favorite place. He didn’t want to drive further into town though, so there was no help for it. But everything was wrong, and it upset me so much I almost started crying at the table, because I had just wanted us to have a good time before I left, and he just couldn’t find anything right.
To get back to Aunt Earlene, though. One of Pops’ favorite things was banana pudding, and one night for dessert, Aunt Earlene made some other kind of pudding… I think she said it was pineapple or something. Anyway, Pops said it was too rich for him, and he didn’t want any. So Aunt Earlene put it in the fridge, and she, Uncle Jesse, and Aunt Ouida, Pops’ other sister, went out to the movies, thinking they would eat it when they got back and it was cold. So they get back from the movie, and they’re all excited – Aunt Earlene sends Ouida to get the pudding from the fridge, and she gets some bowls and spoons. But Aunt Ouida has a problem. “Earlene,” she called from the kitchen, “There’s no pudding in the fridge.”
“Well maybe I left it out on the table,” Aunt Earlene replied.
“No, not there either.” So they look everywhere for the missing pudding. I think it was Uncle Jesse who finally found the pudding bowl in the sink, filled with nothing but water. The entire thing was gone. Pops had eaten it all, despite it being ‘too rich’ for him.
There’s so many of these stories I have… I keep thinking I should write them down, so I don’t forget them, since I won’t have him to remind me anymore.
It’s 1 am now, so I think I might get something to drink and then try to sleep a bit. I’ll finish this later, ‘cause you know there’s more. I haven’t even told you about the funeral yet.
Well, I'm always wandering around the net, and reading different articles. Actually, my gmail brings me most of them, but sometimes I'll go looking. Anyway, I found these two today - one cool because I love astronomy, the other because it's from Korea... and I thought it was kinda funny.
One thing I wonder about this - they say that there are none of these first generation stars left, but that doesn't make sense to me. If we look towards the edge of the visible universe, shouldn't we be able to see them? Granted, they'd be considered dead in our space/time, but we should be able to see them if we look back far enough. And it seems awesome that stars evolve too - I wonder what the process behind that is like though. Why didn't the early stars produce heavy elements, and why are they different now?
Man wins Appeal in bizarre gasoline suicide case
You have to wonder how this happened - the other court argued that the victim (?) was obviously not intending to commit suicide since he gave his lighter and cigarettes to a friend, but then, how did he catch on fire? Was the lighter lit when it was tossed to him? Did it by chance spark or something? Other than a freak accident where the lighter lights itself in midair, I'd have to say the guy was serious, or he wouldn't have been set on fire. But they don't really explain that here.
Also, that borders on stalker-ness/harassment. That guy was seriously messed up.
Well, I haven't written anything here in quite some time... I just haven't felt like writing for some reason, but fun things have been happening.
Had that interview with ABF... that's not happening. Do you know how annoying it is to have 3 different people repeatedly tell you, "Oh you look just like you did when you were a little girl!" For a 21y/o applying for a job, to hear this from 50-something women who worked with your grandmother when you were four is a bit disconcerting. The job sounded boring, it doesn't pay as much as I thought, and to be honest, I'd probably go crazy if I had to be with them all day... so Korea it is.
I've had a bunch of interviews, and I was waiting to hear back from a really good position, but my recruiter called me with the some bad news - the school they had been talking to wasnt adhering to their contracts like they were supposed to, and she said she didn't want to send anyone else over there for the time being if that was the case. So that fell through. But I have two others that are waiting on me to give them an answer right now, and three others that I can look at if these don't work. I'm not rushing into a decision right now, though, because I found out today that my grandfather has to have a triple bypass surgery on Monday morning, and so I want to see how that turns out.
Nick comes back today!! It will be great to be able to talk to him in the same time zone again.
What else is new? Well, I started bookmooching again. A bunch of stuff I didn't really want and don't expect to read again got posted, and I got rid of a bunch of stuff, and am receiving new books in the mail daily. It's awesome - I have gotten a bunch of old Andre Norton that's out of print, the other Earthsea books... more on the way. Also, I got really geeky and decided to make some bookplates. Amanda helped me out, and we used my tarot deck and edited the images, and they came out really well. Unfortunately Vox is being silly and won't let me post the pics for some reason, but oh well. They look pretty awesome, and hopefully I will be able to make more. Although, right now, I have run out of books to put them in.
I also bought some books on half.com, with money that I got from selling some old video games Jessica had in her room. Three of them came today - a Korean phrasebook, the third in Tanith Lee's Black Unicorn series, and Francesca Lia Block's The Rose and the Beast. I love fairy tales, and Block's work is always amazing for imagery. She writes everything in this weird, magical, beautiful Los Angeles, with run-on sentences and bright words. It's exotic, and she makes even more mature/problematic situations dream-like and surreal and you want to jump into them and wish that your life was that reminiscent of a prism-casting raindrop.
My knitting is coming along. I'm almost finished with this bag - just have to finish the strap and sew everything together. I want to go back to AC Moore and get a buckle for it, and maybe pick up some of the beautiful chenille they have on sale. I taught Christina to knit some yesterday, and let her borrow my book - between finishing the bag, making her a choker, and finishing Perdido Street Station (I'm still working on it, it's still amazing, and you really should check out China Mieville's wiki page), I have plenty to do. Also, packing for Korea.
Went shopping the other day with my grandmother, and got a new suitcaase. It's blue and it has four wheels and it's so pretty!! They had an orange one that made me think of Jessica. And some awesome pink tennis shoes - I haven't worn any in a while, but these were puma, on sale, and in my size, so I grabbed them before the black lady who was looking at them as well could take them. I took Christina to get jeans the other day from Maurices, and picked up a pair of pants there, as well as few shirts, which is good. I got tanks to go with my skirt!! I bought this gorgeous skirt a while ago, with bright orange flowers, and I was having trouble since I didn't really have any shirts to match it. Not a problem anymore. I want to go back, because I saw a few shirts as I was checking out that were really nice, and if they are still on sale I might pick them up.
After that we went to the bookstore at the outlet - you know the kind, with old library books and more bibles than you would ever need, all for pretty cheap. I found some good things there - a Banana Yoshimoto book, and a book about the science behind His Dark Materials. I was a bit annoyed that they had some books there that I recently bought for 8 or so dollars, for 1 or 2, but there's not much to be done about that, I suppose. Their sci-fi section was pretty lame - 3 shelves, not stuffed full like all the others. Oh well. Can't have everything.
Well, I have to be up early tomorrow to start a temp assignment, so I'm off for now. There's not really much else to report anyway.
Well, this week has been busy, but I don't really remember what all I did.
Saturday I went to Cafe Istanbul and Urinetown with Lloyd, both of which were awesome.
Tuesday I went to the Starlight Six with the Bread crew and saw Wall-E. It was cute, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much they fucked over or completely disregarded the laws of physics. I know movies aren't real, but its disturbing to me when they treat children like idiots, or completely mislead them.
Wednesday was my last night in Atlanta, so Lloyd and I went to the Vortex. It was amazing, as usual.
Thursday I planned to leave early in the afternoon. But I locked myself out of the house while packing up my car, so I ended up having lunch at Saba and then walking over the Clairmont to get the key from Alex. I came back, and was really tired, so I decided to take a nap and leave when the traffic was less bad. I didn't get to have dinner with my mom, but I'm going to go out there sometime this week. I grabbed a bubble tea (I missed those) and some sushi on my way out of town, and popped in my new CD.
Today was pretty non-descript. Went to a meeting with a temp agency, came home and took a nap while it rained, and then went to the notary and the post office.
I've pretty much decided I'm going to Korea this year. My grandmother is the only one who thinks it's not a good idea, but I expected that much; she didn'treally want me to go to Japan either. She always tries to dissuade me from doing things by asking why I have to do them, and considering I don't really follow that sort of reasoning when I'm doing something like going on a trip, she just comes off as being annoying and unsupportive. Everyone else either thinks it's a good idea, or is resigned to it, or both.
So I have a month before I go... I have to work my ass off to make some money to visit Boston before I leave... hopefully some of these temp jobs will come through.
In book news: I picked up one of my very favorite books the other day, which I bought from amazon a bit ago. I'm so excited to finally own it. I'm very much into fairy tales, and this is an amazing book. It's a retelling of Snow White, but with a bit of pagan imagery and the Demeter/Persephone myth thrown in. It defies a single reading - it's one of those books that you find something new in every time, and become more deeply involved in. It's beautiful and dark and fantastic and at some points, mad. Tanith Lee is one of my favorite authors...
