WHAT AM I DOING IN KOREA?!?

i don’t even know where to start.

i’m just going to forego catching up on the past few weeks.  sorry, folks.  i’ve been to seoul, drank my own weight in alcohol, eaten a lot of tasty food, walked a billion miles, lost some weight, met some people, hated my job, hated my life, missed home, missed my friends, been glad to be away from home, loved my job, loved my life, and repeated all of the above several times.

being in a foreign country is crazy.  the honeymoon is most definitely over, which is both good and bad.  the feeling of being on a vacation is gone, and life’s life.  that makes it easier to appreciate and experience certain things, but it makes it easier to get negative about things sometimes as well.  such is life!  this is all exactly what i wanted to get out of this, good and bad.  if i wanted a damn vacation, i would have gone on vacation.  i wouldn’t have packed up and stored all of my shit, stuffed as many things as i could fit into 3 suitcases, signed my soul over in a year long contract, and come over here.

so.  there’s the “catching up” portion of things.

this past weekend was fairly low key.  i stayed in on friday night.  i’ve blown through a little too much money and i was tired.  on friday, i went out to dinner with a friend.  where did we end up?  tgi fridays!  i spent over $30 – on myself – and was fine with that.  i never thought i’d spend that kind of cash at a damn tgi friday’s on one person and be okay happy with that.  i had what i think was called chili garlic shrimp pasta.  it was standard chain restaurant cream sauce with some spice, but it hit the spot.  i also had two giant drinks.  typically i stay away from drinks at places like that.  they’re always over priced and watered down.  these were about $7, huge, and full of booze.  worth the money.

then we went to dunsan, the “new downtown” area of town and drank.  and drank and drank and drank.  i got home at 6 and woke up at 11 feeling great.

today i went to work and calvin, my favorite, was super hilarious.  he’s a really smart, really bad kid.  he makes me smile.  none of the other teachers except for one like him at all, so i get dibs on his class.  he was shoving pencils up his shorts until he poked something sensitive, exclaimed “OUCH!  My pee!”, and ceased.  he also licked me, and when i threatened to punch him (teaching in korea is a little different than the u.s., though i’d never actually hit a kid), he started punching himself in the face.  oh, calvin.

that’s it for now.  i still haven’t figured out how to fix the photo issue, but i decided to stop being a brat about posting without photos.  besides, if you find me or already have me on facebook or myspace, i’ve got my exciting pictures posted there.

bed time!

and i’m trying to keep it.  i said i’d post today, and dammit, i tried.  i had lots of great stories to tell, and i even have a ton of amazing pictures.

the problem?  for those of you that use wordpress, the toolbar has a little tree icon that you click on to insert pictures.  that’s how i’ve always inserted my photos.  now, the icon is gone.  if i go to the “Add media” thing above the toolbar and load my photos that way, then the photos show up at the very top of the entry and only there.

i don’t know what to do.  i am sure as hell not writing this entry without my pictures to accompany it.

if anyone knows what’s going on or what to do, please do not hesitate to help me out.  i just spent the past 15 minutes messing with it, and i can’t figure it out.  i can’t jack with it anymore tonight, as i need to go to sleep.  it would be amazing to wake up to a comment telling me how to fix this.

consider this blog in a coma until i figure this out.

i crack myself up.

it’s just taking a much needed rest.

i’ve fallen into a routine here.  i’m still doing interesting things, having fun, and meeting people.  i just havent wanted to write about it.  i think i’m on the upswing of a small mental funk.  posting to this blog is not what i’ve been wanting to do lately.

i’ll write a big, long, overkill entry by Monday to make up for it.  i promise.

today was memorial day here in korea.  i wasted the whole day in my apartment.  i am 100% ok with that.

i had way more to drink last night than i should have.  i went to one bar, left around 1:30, and went to another bar.  it was here that i had that drink.  the one you know you shouldn’t have, the one you know you’re going to regret, but the one you order and drink anyway.

after i had that drink, i sat down and talked to some people.  then, i quietly got up, walked into the bathroom, and threw up.  i repeated that number a total of 3 times.  i drank some water, and suddenly, i felt really really good.  then i decided i needed another drink, this time a beer (you can always tell that i am drunk if i suddenly start drinking beer).  ugh.  ugh ugh ugh.

once i finished my beer, i said good bye to the people i was talking to and i walked down the stairs and out the door.  i was hit in the face with a wall of sunlight.

yes, it was dawn when i stopped drinking.

now, from here, i remember walking to a main street to get a taxi.  i got in the taxi, and as i fought off the urge to give into sleep, i was thinking about how being this drunk and climbing into a car with a strange man was, in general, not a good idea.  i decided that i still had enough coordination to brawl with him if i needed to.  i also decided that i would puke on him while fighting him.

of course, this opportunuty did not arise.  he dropped me off in front of the family mart down the street from my house, i went in and bought some pringles, and i began to talk home.  my mouth started doing the salivating-in-anticipation-of-throwing-up thing.  one of my many talents is the manner in which i can conduct myself when the need to vomit arises.  i looked around, saw some old women on their morning walks, waited for the one behind me to pass, and i ducked behind a car.  luckily, it had passed.

so i went home, video chatted with jeremy for a bit, ate my pringles, and went to sleep.  ahhhh…sleep!

so that brings us back to the beginning of this little tale.  i woke up at 2.  i felt horrible.  i don’t get hangovers often, and when i do get them it’s usually just thirst and a headache.  today’s hangover was amazing.  i was so thirsty, but the idea of drinking even water made me gag.  i was hungry, but the only foods that sounded good to me were things from home.  i was still a little drunk, my head hurt, my stomach hurt, i had indigestion, i was still wearing last night’s makeup, and my right arm was sore.  from lifting the glass to my face one too many times, i guess?

with all of that, i didn’t have a lot of motivation to leave my place.  i hung out, forced myself to drink some peach flavored water, and deluded myself into thinking i’d eventually get the motivation to go to costco so i could stock up on some things.  that got me thinking about pizza, one thing tht appealed to me in my condition that i could get here.  but the thought of the substandard gross pizza i can get in my neighborhood made me wretch.  pizza hut to the rescue!

i didn’t know where one close to me was.  i remembered seeing one the day i hopped on the random bus, whose number i had the foresight to write down.  so around 8, i was showered, dressed, and felt recovered enough to survive the motion of a bus ride.

i remembered the pizza hut being closer, but we drove and drove, stopped and went, until the residual hangover, my increasing tendency to get motion sick, and the fact that my stomach was eating itself teamed up together and made me feel like hell.  then i saw it!  pizza hut!  like a greasy, substandard little oasis in the middle of asian markets!  i got off of the bus a few blocks down, walked in, and commenced ordering my pizza.

though it was a bit confusing, these people actually understood my request for a plain cheese pizza.  i really wanted soe veggies, but i didn’t want to confuse them and end up with a korean pizza.  they gave me a 20% discount, took my debit card, and told me to wait.  the guy’s wife came out from the back, made me sit while i waited, and she complimented my watch (or maybe she said it was ugly as shit… my survival korean is growing fairly rapidly but my conversational korean does not exist).  then, the guy who took my order had his employee come out with a plastic mug full of pepsi for me while i waited.  pepsi is like, the official peace offering to foreigners in pizza places in korea, i do believe.  then i got my food, thanked them many times, hopped on the bus, and went home.

now that i’ve eaten, drank some water, smoked about half a pack of cigarettes, and laid around all day, i feel better.

rachel + korea + drinking = DANGER!  DANGER!