A weekend to spend cleaning.

With the weekend upon us, I’m not looking forward to the cleaning that lies awaiting for me. As I mentioned earlier this week, the place isn’t all that bad, but the kitchen and bathroom do need a once over. The kitchen, which has fallen as part of my responsibility, will take a good afternoon to clean. The fridge is packed with a lot food, empty containers, and items that once used to be edible food and is now unidentifiable.

A clean is long overdue.

The pantry. Sigh. It’s just a mess. To be honest, it hasn’t had a good sorting out in the last year and all the items, that were once stored in an orderly fashion, are now scattered all over the place. It takes me a good 2 minutes to just find the basil, and that’s in a big container!

But alas it’s all clean. If there’s one thing Em and I are good at it’s keeping things clean (although yours truly always seems to get it messy) seeing as neither of us like dirt.

I also have a handful of university papers I need to finish before the weekend is out. That shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, but I always get distracted when marking them, so no doubt that will stretch out a little.

We also have our weekly shop, and we’ll be getting a few extra’s to make sure my parents have plenty of good food in our newly cleaned fridge.

Now, however, it’s time to go to the bank. My bank card doesn’t seem to be working any more and despite being only 18 months old, it looks like I’ve had it for a lot longer.

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One very busy July.

July 1st and let me assure you all that it’s going to be a busy, busy month for yours truly. There are two BIG events happening this month starting with my parents making another trip to Korea for a bit of R&R. As you may recall, my parents came up to Korea just before Christmas last year and stayed for about 5 days. It was great to have them up here so, a few months back, Em and I suggested that my mum come up for a ’shopping’ holiday (no, she’s not Japanese).

As it turned out, my Dad has winter vacation, so they both decided to take a couple of weeks off and head over to Korea. Having my Dad come is a bit of a bonus and seeing as he works so hard, I couldn’t think of a better person who requires a couple of weeks away from the office.

They’ll be here from next Thursday week, so Em and I have been trying to plan a few things for them to do while they’re here, although truth be told we’ve been somewhat lazy on that front. We also need to get the apartment all cleaned up, though for the most part it’s in pretty good shape. The only work that really needs to be done is getting the kitchen in order (it’s a right mess) and clean the bathroom, which we do anyway.

The couple of weekend that Mum and Dad are here we have decided to spend in Busan (3 days) and Seoul (2 days). They have been to Seoul before during their last trip, but not Busan. Hopefully the weather will hold, although seeing as the monsoons are in, I’m sure we’ll get rain at least at some point during both trips. At least it’ll keep the scorching heat away (only to be replaced by the unbearable humidity).

During the week, when I’m at work, Em will show them around when she’s not working (she’ll also be on school holiday). I’ll see what I can do about getting Mum and Dad on a few outer city tour trips to Gyeong-ju, Daejeon, and perhaps Andong.

It’ll be great to have them here and I can’t express how much Em is excited about the prospect of shopping with my mother again (hopefully Dad and I can escape to the pub for a few hours).

The second big event, and I’ve mentioned this before, is that Em and I are heading to Taiwan on the 29th, the start of our vacations. Em’s visa has just finished being processed, a long winded process full of paperwork and red tape, but she is so looking forward to seeing what the ‘other’ China has to offer. She already sees so much of Taiwan on TV in Beijing, so it’s quite a big trip for her, as it should be.

We’ll also be catching up with my old mate Jay, whom I worked with for a good 2 years in Andong. I’ve visited him twice before, so of course this makes it trip number 3 for me.

It’s always nice to go on holiday and get out of Korea (not that I have an issue with Korea, its just nice to be in another ‘different’ culture for a while).

So, as you can see, it’s going to be a very busy month for us.

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A quick weekend. Student presentations. Mexican food.

That was probably the quickest weekend yet.

On Saturday we had our presentations for the academy at EXCO, Daegu’s convention centre. John, Kris, Miranda, and I met at Dunkin Donuts prior to leaving our area. The young girl working there seemed so surprise to see 4 foreigners all dressed up on Saturday and couldn’t help herself from saying how handsome we all looked. Considering the normal attire of us foreigners, she probably had some grounds to be surprised.

We took a taxi to EXCO, which took just under 30 minutes, and got to work. We started at 3 and finished around 7. Kris, Miranda, and I went down for a quick drink between the presentations and, only after getting back, realized that we’re 15 minutes late for the next ones (we thought we’d be 15 minutes early). As soon as I walked into the room, I was handed the mic and had to introduce myself.

Not exactly the best way to turn up, but hey, these things happen.

After the presentations we (minus John) headed downtown and had a delicious Mexican dinner at the Holy Grill. We also had quite a few drinks there, after Em joined us, who was also downtown with some of her friends,  before calling it a night and heading home.

On Sunday we got up late (12:30!) and did our weekly shopping before heading home and just taking it easy for the rest of the day.

All in all, a quick weekend.

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A dreary Saturday lined up at EXCO.

I would like to say I’m happy it’s Friday as I don’t have to work tomorrow, but I’m not and I do have to work tomorrow. About 3 times a year we have presentations for the students. The students work for a month on them and, as I’ve posted about before, they present them in front of the parents at Daegu’s large convention centre, EXCO.

My part in all of this is getting up, introducing myself, and then asking each student question relating to their presentation and/or studies. In all honesty, we’re there for no other purpose than evidence that the academy indeed has real life, walking, talking, large nosed foreigners. This, I readily accept as part of my employment obligations.

It’s actually an easy day, just a tad boring, and we’re rewarded with a trip to a pork restaurant afterwards, which is great for a non-pork eating person like me and the two vegetarians also working at the academy. I will, like every other time (except once) skip it and will probably meet Em afterwards downtown, where she will be spending the day with some of her fellow teachers and students. I’m not sure if my two vegetarian friends are interested in joining us.

John, always up for free food and drink, will probably go to the restaurant.

In addition to a day asking silly questions and looking non-Korean, there is a 10 minute pep-talk after the presentations with out head boss. The very same head boss whose daughter I teach and who doesn’t seem to know enough English to say ‘Hello’ or even acknowledge my existence when I walk into the room (the boss that is, not the daughter). But that’s ok, he pays me on time which in Korea fulfills his obligation of being a ‘good’ boss.

The 10 minute pep-talk is all in Korea (a third of the teacher there from the 3 branches are non-Korean) so it’s as boring as hell. The 3 minute talk afterwards, by one of the other directors, is basically the same old spiel about how well we are doing.

It’s all very yawn-yawn. I’ll do my best to sneak away straight after my last presentation as some of the other teachers from the different branches did. Muwhahaha!

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RIP Michael Jackson.

Hole crap… Michael Jackson is dead! It’s fair to say that just about every blog out there is reporting the news that Michael Jackson (aka Wacko Jacko) has passed away from a heart attack yesterday. The BBC have it, so do CNN (which, believe it or not, has gone down due to the traffic), news.com.au, and even the Indian Times has it, although the Korean
press still have yet to release the news despite the fact that he was known here for being nothing more than a freaky white (sic) dude.

While I wouldn’t say I was a die-hard fan of Michael Jackson, I really enjoyed his work in the 80’s, such as Thriller and Bad, which both feature in my favourites on my iPod and in iTunes. His life, as strange as it was, I think was full of tragedy. Whether one wants to believe the allegations of boy molesting or not, I feel he was at time not allowed the same justices as most of us are. The bells of ‘trial by media’ often ring loud whenever Jackson’s name was brought up. I always felt sorry for the guy, but he never did much to help his cause, no doubt a tragedy because of the star he was.

A sad day. The world has certainly lost one of it’s true musicians and entertainers.

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