Fordpride

Mom An Ode Today is your birthday Hip hip hooray! If I were there, I'd make you lemonade. You are real swell, and pretty dang cool, And when I get home, No doubt I'll serenade you. My poem skills aren't so great But July 31st is-thats the date! You are the best mom ever! I have nothing else clever. Happy birthday Mom!!! You should get yourself a new car or something. oh wait...

TWO DAYS LEFT OF TEACHING! And then! Vacation for three weeks. Bam sucka! Vacation=welcomed In related news, brother Kris just got to Korea for a nice little visit. He abandoned his job for three weeks and we plan to traverse the depths of Korea in a monumental and transformational way. At least we hope so. Or I hope so. I haven't really gotten to talk to him about it much. Jet lag=not awesome And then after those three weeks, who knows. Some things are up in the air. But blog world, I'll be sure to let you know when I know. My life=unpredictable Also, COT already started her vacation. Yesterday. COT vacation=unpredictably awesome Also, I want this Korean boy at work (not a student, fyi) to love me. Jung-min! LOVE ME! Forget your gf of three years and just love me. You won't regret it. Jung-min=making a huge mistake Also, right now I'm teaching an advanced reading class and we're plowing our way through the Roald Dahl book "George's Marvelou...

Right now I'm stuck at school until 4:30 even though I'm pretty sure I'm the only teacher currently in the school because everyone else is on vacation but for some reason its cool to lock all the foreign teachers up. Anyways, this is giving me time to do some real internet searching. I just found a gem. I'm trying to like Korean music, so I just searched top songs or something random. Anyways, this led me to a Korean singer who was/is trying to break out in the USA. Her website is awesome. This is BoA. The following can be found in her ' About Me ' section: Height: 5'4" or 160 cm Weight: 99 lbs or 45 kg Shoe size: 23.5 cm Blood Type: AB Family pet: Sarah (cat) Cellular phone melody: Kim Hyun Jung's "Nuh Jung Mal" Cellphone window message: a magician blowing fire out of his mouth, and the flames turn into a heart shape. Favorite song: "Hot In Here" by Nelly & The Neptunes Favorite movie: Men In Black 2 (Men In Black...

Saturday I went up to Seoul with some friends with the intentions of seeing that movie everyone is talking about. You know, The Sorcerer's Apprentice . I kid. We really meant to see Inception . I swear there were a couple days where every one of my friends fb status' were about this movie. We went up to Seoul to see it because we wanted to go big or go home. And see it on the IMAX. Welp, that was a good idea in theory. A bad idea in real life. Sold Out. So why wouldn't we decide to see a movie? And why not a Nic Cage movie? This is why we made the wrong decision: Oh Nic. One friend and I were laughing so much at the beginning of the movie and at the skills of Mr. Cage that another friend told us to stop it or he would move. And he was serious. Soon enough he was joining in. Everyone needs to see this movie.

(the second to last-i think-installment of 'meet the ptaek fam'. its a good one. be excited) Meet Chris : (ignore the drink...or don't) Chris is a pretty swell guy. Don't let his manly exterior scare you away from the sensitive, sweet puppy dog inside. You want to know how to cook? Ask Chris. You want to know why vegetarians are lame and why soy is actually really unhealthy? Ask Chris. Want to lose every argument with another person? Go to Chris. He's a good guy with a deceivingly big heart. Yeah, I just said it. One time in Seoul when a drunk Asian tried groping me, Chris took the challenge. And won. He's got a way with the ladies (sometimes) and brings a good party. You know Chris is serious about partying when he brings out his knee brace. Best part about Chris? He's ticklish. Worst part about Chris? Being scared to tickle him because of his giant muscles. Yup, that's our guy!

Like clockwork, the minute the big hand reaches for the 30 and the little hand 3, I hear a boisterous Korean student burst through my door and shout CINDY! COT doesn't appreciate it, but I don't really care about that. Makes my day. Every.single.time. Kim Do Hoon was never in any of my classes, but for some reason he feels compelled to visit me everyday. Best part: He only knows like 4 words in English. So everyday is the same conversation: "CINDY!" "Hi Do Hoon" "Nooo, my name is Michael Jackson" "No! My name is Michael Jackson" "No! Your name is Cindy Michael Jackson" "No! Your name is Cindy Michael Jackson!" Andddd you get the picture. But I absolutely love and adore him. Yeah, he's pretty amazing.

I feel a little weird when I get to the lunch room and find myself excited over a pot of tofu soup. Men who DON'T carry a bag/purse are now more strange to me than a man who does carry one. I get to play in mud all weekend. DREAMS COME TRUE. I am determined to win a lobster out of the crane game near my house.

Back in college, I was roommates with a very spunky girl. Some called her a little crazy, but she was super fun and we had many a good times. There was this one guy in our apartment complex who really, really liked stargazing. He had a giant telescope (hahaha-thats not what she said) and every Sunday he would set it up in the middle of the complex. He would then go around asking various girls to come 'look through his telescope'. Ok writing that out makes it seem kinda creepy. I guess it was? Anyways, when asked this question, my roommate quickly said YES and ran out to the telescope. Gonna be honest, but it was a sweet telescope. Thousands of dollars were spent on it. I think we could see Saturn. Awesome. Well, the telescope boy had a couple friends hanging out with him. They were interesting (read: weird) but my roommate was a lover of all people so she was super nice to them and talking about random things and then they decided this was enough of a relationship to ...

...and people stare at us no matter what we do! Jacob and Edward would be proud. And yes, we went to the movies like this. And yes, it was awesome.

Saturday I went to the beach. It was glorious. The sun wasn't really out, but it was shining. As made evident by a really awesome sunburn I'm currently sporting. Feels good! But let me tell our story through these pictures: Right off the bus I found some really fun Koreans. I gave them candy. We were friends. We found our spot on the beach and then I ran into the water. Its the first time I've been to an ocean/sea in a long time, and I forgot about the salt water aspect. It was icky. Oh and then there was the infamous banana boat incident. Five of us girls went on a banana boat ride. It was my first time on a banana boat, but I didn't think much of it. One of our friends told us that one of us should fall off the boat so we could stay on longer. And then I DID fall off the banana boat. Twice. Yeah, we got to stay on a lot longer. You're welcome friends. This picture is just post banana boat. I beckoned for this well-oiled piece of machinery to join us, ...

Last weekend was a good time to be Buddhist. We took the train to the very edge of Seoul (meaning fresh air and nature!) and meandered our way up to the temple we'd be staying at. This was one of those things I had on my 'to-do' list in Korea from the very beginning, but I didn't really know what to expect. After I heard we'd have a 4 am wake-up call the following morning, my enthusiasm dwindled. Still, we ventured forward. It was a small group at the temple stay-not more than 20 people- and we were the only foreigners. This was neat, but also difficult at times. There were a couple lectures that the monks gave and we were without a real translator. Meaning we we not as well-behaved as we should have been. Oops. We found our chi. We were zen. Kinda. We did make friends with a couple girls who spoke English. They fell in love with our boy Mike. And the 4 am wake up call wasn't as horrible (or maybe it was) as it sounded. We got up and almost immediat...

Imma be honest. Cindy+World Cup=indifference Of course, I love and support the home team. I always want them to do well. But other than that...meh This time around, it meant me cheering for two home teams: USA and Korea. Koreans go CRAZY for the World Cup. They love it. My students happiness levels depended on the outcome of the games. Since the games were played in the middle of the night our time, I wouldn't ever know the final scores. But then I would come to school and would find out just by looking at the poor boys faces. Genius. Welp, we decided to be a little more involved and head up to Seoul to watch one of the games with the rest of our Korean citizens. And when I say we, I really mean I didn't want to because it was at like midnight and it meant me having to stay in Seoul and blah blah but I went. And I'm glad I did (thanks kim and kate). First off, I'm glad I went because I got this sweet hat! What a good way to spend 1000 won. It also makes a handy ...

No, I'm not talking about the world cup. Although I could. And I will. In a later post. But for now, I'm talking about something a little more exciting. Something involving my dreams coming true. And a crane. Yes, you heard me right. After months of training and thousands of won spent, I finally got what I came for: A cheap-ace stuffed animal dog. I'd like to thank Matt for hanging in there with me, and pushing me forward even when I wanted to give up. He also won. His prize is a little weird alien thing. It's pretty awesome. We owned that crane game room. BOOYAH. (also, let me say Matt has perfect eyebrows. Look at them. Jealoussss) (also, pps, i found a crane game where the prizes are REAL LIVE LOBSTERS! that is next on my list)

(the fifth part in a series entitled "meet the ptaek fam") Meet John : Yes, he looks this good. All the time. What you can't see is his bottom half. He is sporting what the world knows to be jorts. (ps i just found this: Jorts.com . And if you want a definition of jorts, click here ). The bandanna only adds to his emsemble. He also has a fascinating bellybutton. But we can't talk about his striking physical features all day (well, we could, but there are other things to talk about too). We should probably talk about how John is the most dedicated to learning Korean. This could be because John is in love with Korean women, but whatever the motivation is, its working. He comes in handy. He also has the most Korean friends. Winner! John and I have a good thing going. We're just there for each other, you know? (giving me a tic-tac after an unfortunate incident eating ramen) (airplane. duh) And John can't be mentioned without the drum game. It is a speci...

Walking to school today felt like I was walking in a puddle of moisture. Icky, eh? I hear its raining right now too. Not that I've gone to check. I just saw some people mention it in their facebook statuses. Its the lazy-man weather checker. And a lot more reliable than the real weatherman. Good thing I keep an umbrella at school AND at home. SHA-BAM! Now, please let me take a moment to delve into some things in Korea that I just don't understand. #1: The unflushable TP You walk into the bathroom. Here at school, they have music playing in the background (instrumental music of Barry Manilow songs are my favorite selections). You walk into the stall and you see what you normally see in a bathroom stall: a toilet, toilet paper, and trash can. (In most public bathrooms, however, the toilet paper is not located in the stall. It is outside all the stalls near the sinks or whatnot. So you have to gauge how much TP you'll need for whatever deed you're about to do ...