Another great weekend! Andy came over after the gym on Friday and we had dinner at the nice BBQ restaurant. Then on Saturday I took the subway to Anyang to meet up with Amy. We had a delicious lunch of Gorgonzola+garlic pizza, which you dip in honey. I was totally sceptical, but it was so nice! I bet it would be totally amazing if you made it in NZ using real cheese.
Speaking of NZ, I have now officially been away from home for exactly one whole year! But more on that later. So, Saturday evening Andy came over and I cooked him chicken satay, which he praised mightily (and it was pretty good). Then we went for a big walk and it was a lovely evening. On Sunday I lay in bed thinking over the last year that I've been away from home. Woah, have I done a lot! It's amazing. I certainly had a lot of fabulous things to remember :) Then Andy took me out to a nice restaurant in Dongtan for brunch, and it was delicious. It was buffet, but super good food (well, super good food for a Korean Western-style buffet). I enjoyed it a lot. Then, because I was celebrating my 1 year travel-versary, I bought the ingredients to make banana cake. I haven't baked since NZ, and haven't had banana cake either, so I thought it was a nice idea. It turned out pretty good. Andy had NEVER made a cake before and had NEVER eaten banana cake. I didn't feel he was as impressed with the whole thing as I thought he should be :D haha, so I ate his share when he wasn't looking!
And now it's Monday and Mr B has been doing all the teaching today (but for some reason told me to bring my laptop to the English room instead of just staying at my desk, but whatever). So, I got the whole new open class lesson planned and made, which is good. It took me a lot longer than I expected! But I enjoy lesson planning, so the time went really quickly. I also just finished writing the first draft of a new article/lesson plan I'm going to submit to try and get published (I STILL don't have an answer from the first one!). All I have left to do for the draft is draw up some worksheets and trial the lesson in my own class and take some photos of it (I think original materials and classroom photos will make it more likely to get published).
I've also been researching the D10 'looking for work' visa. I woke up this morning and was like "Ergh, MONDAY I HATE YOU". And then I was like "I wanna go home!", closely followed by "Nah, not really, but it'd be nice for about a minute", and theeeeen I was like "I could do that!". So, new plan is (because my current school will pay my airfair back to NZ!) - finish my job here, transfer to a D10 visa (which sounds (touch wood) like it'll be a piece of cake), take a 2 week trip back home, come back to Korea early November and get a job (and bum around have an extended holiday while I look). This plan is a win all around! I'll probably be just in time to help mum and dad move - payment for staying with them for a couple of weeks? Mum? Yeah? Nothing is for sure yet, but I've found no indication of why this plan wouldn't be totally awesome. Only thing I have yet to work out is whether I can apply for the D10 2 weeks before the end of my contract, or when my contract finishes. I've seen reports of both. This problem should be easily solved by calling immigration though. Hooray!
The only problem is that I did ALL my work today and now have nothing to do tomorrow. More research and more writing? Make a list of all the stuff I'm going eat when I go home on holiday? Make a list of all the Korean stuff I still want to do? Write a thing for the new teacher giving details about buses, how to use the washing machine, and all that stuff? Yup, that all sounds like it'll keep me busy for at least a few hours.
So, with only half an hour left to my work day (and leftover chicken satay for dinner - yum!), here's today's five things:
1) I feel so proud of myself for the past year! It hasn't been really tough, but I'm so much more confident in my ability to deal with things and wait out my own emotions. I know I can stick with a less than great situation as long as I need to, and learned that a job with no work is actually not my idea of fun. I learned that I have a huge tolerance for being alone for massive amounts of time, and that friends and love come from places you don't even look. I also learned that the Great Wall of China is the most amazing thing in the world and that everyone should experience it's awesomeness.
2) I made banana cake and it didn't suck.
3) I patted (petted?) the cute beagle on the way to work today.
4) I wrote an article about improving student responses to "How are you?". That sounds lame, but if you've asked that question to a bunch of Korean kids you'd know their answers leave a lot to be desired!
5) Exciting plans for a break from work and possible trip home!
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