How we Met

December 20, 2008

Warning: Very Long, and potentially boring and sappy

For those of you who don't know the story, here is the long story about how we met and our first date three years later:
Cody and I first met in the ninth grade when we were attending Westview High School in Portland, Oregon in 1998. We didn't really start getting to know each other until we were scheduled to take a math class together Sophomore year with Mr. Keene. We may have never acknowledged each other if it wasn't for the fact that Mr. Keene was too nice and so the class tended to take advantage of him and ignore much of the lesson. Those of us who actually cared about our grades and were trying to be polite to the teacher ended up migrating to the same area of the classroom. This included my friend Christian and Cody.

Soon, we all ended up talking and becoming friends during class. I was very quick to develop a crush on Cody, but I had a hard time asking boys out, as I was very shy, and had a tendency to just go out with whoever asked me out first. Due to me not feeling up to asking him out and him not asking me, we never got together, but we were friends.

Finally, in my senior year of high school, I finally got up the nerve to tell him I liked him. It only took me three years and a 5-hour phone conversation, but I thought that he liked me too and finally got fed up with waiting. To my surprise he said he liked me too and we scheduled a double date for December 1st with our friend Scott and his new girlfriend Lori.

I anxiously waited for the 1st to roll around, and when it did, I was ecstatic. My dad dropped me off at the movie theater, as I was meeting the other three to watch Spy Games, and then we would go back to Scott's house. We saw the movie, and then we all squeezed in to Scott's tiny 2-door Dodge Neon and drove to Scott's house to hang out. Not long after we got there, Scott and Lori disappeared, presumably to make out, and Cody and I were finally alone. We sat together and talked for a few hours and then it was time to go home. Scott dropped us off at my house and drove around the block to give Cody and I another minute alone. After saying goodnight and having our first kiss, Cody left.

Now, eight years and 5 days (or 4 days if you count USA time) we are finally engaged to be married. Who would have known that I would be getting ready to marry my crush from Math class so long ago.

Engagement

December 20, 2008

I think I had the best anniversary this year. Not because I got some cool new toy or got taken out to a fancy dinner, but because Cody proposed to me.

Our anniversary is the first of every year, and that is when we celebrate when we first started dating. We had decided to wait to celebrate our anniversary for a week because of various circumstances. We ended up staying at our friend Abby and Jason’s house with our friend Randi because the girls had had a chocolate-laded birthday party the night before, complete with the game “I never” and plenty of wine. The weather had been getting progressively bad all day and night, and when Cody and Jason came back over after playing poker with the guys, we decided it would be fun, and safer, to have a group slumber party. We woke up early, to a very pretty sunrise and about 5 inched of snow and ice everywhere. It was very pretty.

After hanging out and talking with each other for a few hours, and sending the boys on a trek to McDonalds for some sausage McMuffins, we all remember we had things to do and so we went our separate ways. Cody went his own way to finish up some errands (unbeknownst to me, trying to get the ring), and I went home to shower and start the process of beautifying myself for our anniversary dinner. After probably four hours, I start to get restless because I’m ready and I have no clue where Cody has gotten too. Of course, at this point I don’t know that he is having major ring drama, which led to money drama. I am also starting to get r hungry, as I have not eaten since McDonalds at 10 am and it is nearing 6 o’clock.

Finally, at around 7:10, I hear a key in the door and I go to help him, being antsy to go, he opens the door slightly and tells me to go sit on the couch and close my eyes because he has my present for me. I do so and I hear rustling, then he tells me to open my eyes. I do and see him kneeling before me, holding out two KTX tickets to Seoul, and he proposes. Of course, I am feeling quite a bit startled, so I look at him and say “What?” He looked me dead in the eyes, expression never changing, and repeated the question “Will you marry me?” I am still quite a bit startled and just starting to think, he’s asking me now, if feels so sudden, and yet so waited for… so I say “really?” At this point, he is starting to look a touch exasperated, but all he says is “yes, really.” I, of course, forget to say yes, and just start hugging and kissing him just like in some Hallmark movie, and then, as if on cue, he reminds me that I still have to say yes, which I promptly do.

I am allowed a long hug and kiss, and am immediately asked for permission to take a shower, because due to his long day out and ordeals, which I will learn on the KTX, he has not showered. I proceeded to call some friends, and was just about to post it on Facebook, but was promptly ordered not to, as we have family of Facebook who had not been told yet.

We took the train to Seoul that night about hour later, laden with a few snacks to tide us over. We arrived in Seoul at about 1am, and the first thing I did was grab a spicy sausage from a food vendor, because I was starving. We stayed in a nice hotel that we hadn’t stayed at before; it had a Kingsized bed and a really nice shower and huge flat screen TV. The next day we had Quiznos for lunch and we saw some of our other friends who were visiting Seoul, including Fallon and Wim. We purchased some new clothes for me, and some fabric wall scrolls for us and one as a thank-you present for Abby and Jason (because they helped Cody out a lot with the ring fiasco). After that we took the subway down to an area of Seoul that has at least two jewelry stores per block and we went ring shopping. I loved the first ring that she saw, but was convinced that we had to shop around, just in case, so it didn’t end up me just picking the first pretty one because I was excited. We went looking in three more stores (each store has at least 15 separate jeweler stands) and seeing if there was anything I liked better. Cody kept having to ask me "I know you like it, but do you like it more than the first one"? I never did, they were only cute, or fairly similar to the first one, and the first one had the advantage of being sold by an English seller. About three hours later we went back to the first seller to buy the first ring I looked saw. I got to pick my diamond, which was pretty cool because the Jeweler too out a fat book full of diamonds and stowed me a few, and allowed me to kind of carefully touch them a little bit. We went with a Korean diamond because it was a really good one. There was an American one of a slightly better cut, but it was over twice the price, so there was no way, and I was more than happy with a Korean Diamond because it is just as pretty, and now I can commemorate my time in Korea in my engagement, which is fitting since the engagement happened here! Well, we purchased the ring with the promise it would be made (yes, made, not re-sized, whoo hoo!) and shipped to Mokpo by Christmas Eve.

We ended the day by shopping a little bit longer, and then we had some fabulous Indian food (which we would NEVER be able to buy in Mokpo), some Tandori Chicken, Curries, Naan, and Mango Lassi. Finally, we made our way via subway to the train station, and just like the first time we went to Seoul, we went to Seoul Station rather than Yeong-san (arg), and had to find our way to the correct station. We decided when we got there, that we wanted to sit and sleep in semi luxury, so we decided to go for business class on the KTX, which only cost us an extra 17,000 a piece. While I wouldn’t recommend doing that for a trip in the daytime, when you are awake, but when your tall and want to sleep, it’s fabulous as there is a lot more room.

We finally made it home that night, after walking a few blocks away from the train station to catch a cab, since there was a 2-block long line of people waiting for a cab at the train station. Yes, we were technically cheating!
About a week later, and a week earlier than promised, my ring was delivered to Cody’s school all shiny and ready to wear.

We are very excited, and barring things we can’t do while we are in Korea, we have started to think of things we want for the wedding. The main thing right now is we are pretty sure we will have the colors white and crimson and Cody really wants Calla Lilies everywhere. Oh, and not a church wedding, it will probably be in a hall with an official or justice of the peace. More blogs will come (probably late like always) when more details are hashed out.

Katrina’s Birthday Party and More Snow in Mokpo

December 7, 2008

Katrina’s Birthday party was a pretty fun party for me. We had chocolate everywhere, chocolate bars, brownies, homemade chocolate candy, and even a huge pot of melted chocolate that we dipped pears and such in. It was wonderful and decadent. We also had wine flowing everywhere and the chocolate and wine both contributed to a lot of fun. We also had a really fun game of “I never” where we all learned some really interesting things about each other. The night ended when everyone decided to go downtown to Hadang and P-Club and New York Bar to drink. Abby, Randi, and I all decided not to go because the weather was getting worse and we did not want to risk the roads. Instead, we said good-bye to the girls and decided to have a group slumber party.

The other great thing about the night was the snowstorm we were having that day. It usually never snows in Mokpo, and this time it seemed to make up for it in one night. We went out and played in the snow for awhile after the party and then we talked for quite awhile, but we finally made it to bed. We woke up pretty early the next morning to a beautiful sunrise, and we were very happy to find that it had snowed about 5 inches over the evening. It was very pretty and exciting. If I only knew by a few hours later that I would be proposed to.

Thanksgiving in Mokpo 2008

November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving this year was about as awesome as we could have made it in a foreign country that does not eat most of the foods you consider Thanksgiving foods. We had to hold it a few days late though because none of our schools recognized it as a valid holiday for them. We were lucky to be able to order a decent sized turkey and get some cranberry sauce from The Underground Market, so there were two things set for us to have a relatively normal Thanksgiving. I made a fairly tasty, if kind of gross-looking apple pie (the Korean shortening and flour isn’t quite the same as at home, so it didn’t turn out right), an apple crisp, and a type of candied sweet potato. Cody made two batches of stuffing that turned out pretty well. He wanted to make corn bread stuffing, but we had to resort to baguettes because we couldn’t find corn meal anywhere in this country. We also provided a ton of wine, juice, soda, and stuff for gin and tonics. We actually finished off the whole bottle of gin, they were so good.

We invited probably about 10 other people (who we magically had just enough room for) and they each brought one of two dishes. Abby made some awesome sweet potatoes, Jenns made a fabulous pumpkin pie because his sister had just brought him a huge can of pumpkin. Randi made a sweet potato casserole, and others brought rolls, salad, corn, etc.

The turkey turned out fabulous. I altered Alton Brown’s Recipe for a turkey quite a bit, but I still cooked it the same way, and it turned out fabulous.
Everything turned out pretty awesome, and we all had a wonderful meal. Wim had to leave early because he was pretty sick, but the rest of us hung around and chatted for a long time, and the last person didn’t leave until nearly 10:30 at night. Not long after everyone finally left, Cody and I agreed not to touch the dishes until at least the next day, we put away what we could save, and I went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Maria’s Baby Shower

November 23, 2008

I attended my first baby shower today. It was pretty fun. I bought some tea for Maria’s mommy care basket that we put together, and I bought some baby toys that were not made in china per Maria and Emanuel’s wishes. It turns out that the toys were even better because they were made out of a corn material rather than plastic, so they were even safer for baby.

The party was pretty fun though. The men went playing Screen golf and hung out, as a kind of man’s baby shower. Randi made little “buns in the oven,” which were little tasty cinnamon rolls that she even wrapped up and labeled. We had many delicious foods, and even a sorbet based drink. We signed cards for Maria and we played some of the usual baby shower games with her. We tried to guess the girth of her belly, which I was way over on. It’s really hard to try and guess how big a Korean is pregnant because she was so much smaller than most of us normally. We also came up with the dumbest baby names possible and then voted. The winner was Lamby Fluff, but some of the others were pretty ridiculous, like Toxic Waste Dump, and such. A couple of the names involved Kimchi and other random things.

All in all, it was a pretty good time. It was exciting watching her open all the presents and see here reaction because Koreans don’t have baby showers. They have some sort of a celebration about 6 months after the child is born to celebrate the fact that the baby survived the hardest time. This is due to the history of high mortality rates among Korean babies.

But it was fun, and I would definitely go to one again, and in some ways it made me excited to have kids sometime in the not too distant future.

Teacher’s meeting in Gwangju

November 21, 2008

We got almost a free day off the other day in order to go to a huge teacher’s meeting in Gwangju. Everyone was required to go, so all of the schools had to allow all of us to have at least part of Friday off, but most of us got the whole day off. They split the meeting into two halves, one three-hour meeting starting at 9 am for the Elementary teachers, and one three-hour meeting starting at 1 pm for the Primary, or middle and high school teachers.

Since I am Elementary, and it takes about an hour to take the bus from Mokpo to Gwangju, Cody and I decided to head out to Gwangju the night before so that we could hang out with other people who got there early, and have a better chance at a cheap room at The Windmill Motel there. The Windmill is a really nice Love motel (and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that means, like what a cheap Motel 6 is used for, but way nicer) that all the Waygooks (Foreigners) use when they stay in Gwangju because it’s kept really clean and many of the rooms have nice showers or bathtubs, and it’s also central to where we like to shop and eat there.

When we arrived, we went and had some really good marinated pork Galbi (Galbi is either grilled or pan-fried meat, either alone or with veggies, served with rice and typically wrapped in Lettuce leaves). We then had a few drinks, but called it a night relatively early due to the meeting the next day.

The meeting itself was fairly unproductive. It gave us some ideas of games for the classroom and discipline, but otherwise it was a run of the mill meeting where they served bad coffee, green tea, and a ton of mandarin oranges.

After the meeting, the organizers gave each of us “lunch” which consisted of a heavily-frosted doughnut, and one piece of “vegetarian” pizza toast. First, what they consider as pizza in this case consists of cheese, and a ton of mayonnaise and ketchup piled on top, with a piece of ham shoved in the middle. For some reason, Koreans don’t consider ham as a meat, so they threw some in the pizza toast as sevice-eu. Korean seems to like service-eu, and usually I do too, because it means you get extras thrown into your purchase all the time, but in this case it was not wanted.

After the meeting, we spent the next two night partying with friends we hadn’t seen in awhile, going to a friend’s surprise party, and shopping. I was able to pick up some Christmas presents and have an all around great time.

Iro English Festival

November 20, 2008

So, about a week after the school festival ended, my co-teachers informed me that they were starting their planning and preparing for the school English Festival. This interested me a little bit as I saw how much effort they out into the school festival. They even asked me to put together some simple true and false questions that they could ask the kids and the kids could earn prizes. That was all they asked me to do, and my co-teachers would take care of the rest.

Well, the day of the festival pulled around, and classes were canceled for the festival. I was called down to one of three installments of it (since the auditorium is not big enough for the whole school). About 10 minutes into the 1-2nd grade presentations, Eun-su came and told me that they didn’t need me for the game questions I prepared, and I could leave, which I did, because the 1st and 2nd graders were only doing ABC and number songs.

After being at my desk for another hour or so, I was again informed, last minute that I was not needed at the 3rd and 4th grade performances. I decided not to go because I had already heard these kids sing their “Bingo” and “Mr. Sun” Songs.

Later, I wasn’t informed until last minute that the 5th and 6th graders were performing. I was rushed over, and had to sit and watch some very interesting interpretations of some American dancing and some classes attempting to sing songs like “Because of You” by Kelli Clarkson. I was forced to hide in a side room during the last two songs, and then I was whisked out as a surprise for the game. I then had to read the questions I had prepared, some which had been changed or added by my co-teachers, because they thought mine weren’t as good.

Finally the whole, annoying, let-down of a festival was over. It turned out to be a slightly offensive, thrown together, boring event, which was supposedly for me, but they didn’t care if I was there or not.

Ah well. That’s Korea for you.

First Snow In Mokpo!

November 18, 2008

We saw the first snow in Mokpo today! It was pretty cool, but it wasn’t very heavy and it really didn’t last very long, but it was still pretty. It was also a surprise since it’s so early and no one freaked out here at all, not like they would have back home.

Being filmed for TV

November 10, 2008
Yesterday Cody and I were filmed for a Korean TV show called Mat Jang. Well, first of all, Cody and I technically lost. We only officially won one challenge, and that was reciting a Korean poem correctly. We were originally supposed to memorize it, which we pretty much had down, but Abby and I convinced them that if pronunciation was the most important, then they should let us read from our notes.

Here's pretty much the breakdown:We left MBC at 7:30 ish and drove about an hour or so into the country to a small town where a famous Korean Poet lived and his house still is as a historical tour estate. It was very pretty with thatched roofs and a giant bamboo forest behind it. Here, we find out we are supposed to memorize a famous poem and recite it later. We have a teacher recite it 4x for us (at normal speed, not slow at all).

After that we has to walk to the bus terminal and find people along the way and in the terminal who weren't afraid of the weird waygooks to help us with our pronunciation. This was really hard as sometimes two people wouldn't agree on the word to use or pronunciation.

By 10:20 we hopped on a bus which took us out to a traditional Korean Tomb site where Anny and I had to sit out and watch Cody and Jason take part in the Men-only ceremony with wine and "dried" (Read: rotten/moldy) persimmons and rancid pig meat (they luckily avoided the meat). While they were doing this Abby and I practiced our parts of the poems, gaining the assistance of the Adjimas there in their traditional dresses. At this point is when we prevailed upon the director to let us read our notes, so that at least half of the poem might be said right.

After about 45 minutes of sitting there (and being asked if it was unfair that we couldn't participate and if we had any ceremonies for the dead back home), we joined the men and recited the poems. After some confused voting it was decided that Cody and I won that challenge (not that we could tell why). We then joined the men for food and soju (although the Soju wasn't really offered to Abby or I). We started to get the feeling that this show's theme was supposed to be waygook women feeling left out In Korean culture.

Post lunch we headed down to our next challenge, which was clam-digging. Let me tell you, it was the worst thing ever. First, they gave us special Adjima pants to dig in, which did not work AT ALL because they were too small for all of us except for Abby. I could barely kneel down or bend over, and when I did, the pants exposed A LOT of my back area (very lady-like I'm sure). Also, both couples were supposed to dig together, but because they didn't have big enough shoes for all of our feet, it ended up being only Abby and I digging because I had to take Jason's boots, and Cody couldn't wear them at all. Cody was filmed ranting at them for it, which I am proud of him for defending us.

Anyway, so because of wardrobe problems, it ended up being Abby and I going out into the rock and shell-thick mud to dig for clams with the Adjimas. It should have been fun, but at least for me it wasn't because I could not bend over for really any length of time because my ankles and knees protested due to the usual problems and the ankles of the too-short pants and the too-small top of the boots cutting off the circulation around my mid-calf area, plus the pants trying to show off b\my butt and threatening to tear in one place or another. They had to finally give me a blanket to wrap around myself because my pants kept trying to make me moon the camera.

Well, basically they were supposed to give us an hour to dig, but they didn't apparently. Cody said they only gave us 40 minutes or so total, and the last 15 they had Abby and I dig in this small area together. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing/looking for because my Adjimas didn't really show me and clamming here is WAY different from clamming I have dome back home. Well, Abby and I soon ditched the tools in favor of trying to scrape away all the empty shells, rocks, and mud with our hands, which worked for awhile, but I soon realized that the clam shells had sliced through the cloves I had and has sliced up my fingers, which were now bleeding and covered in mud.

Well, I worked through all my issues and I don't think I did too badly, but whether is was luck, problems, Adjimas that don't follow rules, or Abby being better than me, we publicly lost that challenge. We decided to make it a tie because non-publicly though because the Adjimas couldn't control their helping us too much. Oh well. My legs and fingers hurt really bad today because of THAT whole fiasco.

The next challenge was for the men only, which was shucking the clams. Before yesterday I would have never thought about being able to shuck a clam, but it can be done. After a short practice Cody and Jason got approximately 30 minutes to shuck as many clams as they could, and they pretty much stayed neck and neck the whole time. Jason beat Cody this time by only 4.5 grams of clam, and they were both freezing and smelling of clam by the end.

Finally, we had the cooking competition. They showed us how to make a clam-sushi type salad and a clam-pancake thing and we all took detailed notes. Again, we pretty much stayed neck and neck for the whole thing, but Cody and I did finish the sushi salad a bit quicker so we had more time to decorate our plates. We both had a harder time with the pancakes because the director said they would measure out the exact flour the chef used for the pancakes, that way we only had to worry about water amount.
Well, they did not do what they said. They gave us both way too much four, so we had to guess at how much water and figure out the batter consistency by eye. it was also hard to fry the pancakes to the right color.

Pretty much it came down to the wire on this one. There were 5 judges, one which was like the mayor of the town we were in. All the judges had two votes, but the mayor was given three. they were instructed to vote on whoever had made the best dishes. Unfortunately this made it a little
uneven because they all put in two votes, at that point we were exactly tied.

The mayor had the tie breaking vote, and of course he would be predisposed to putting all the votes on one team, so whoever he preferred would most likely get three votes instead of the possible two.

So, Abby and Jason kicked our butts for Korean television.I have to say this was a fun experience, it just at times seemed unfair and uneven because the planners of the show did not plan the show well enough at all.

I don't mind that Koreans are going to see me and say "Oh she lost" because we were able to have fun together and were often trying to help each other more than we were supposed too. In fact, they kept asking us, "why do you help each other, this is a competition."All four of us left a little frustrated, tired, and I know I was glad for it to be over and done with.

We all won something and it was something we could laugh at and be annoyed about together. I am so happy I was able to do this with Cody, Abby and Jason, and would not have traded to go against anyone else even if I had the choice. I would suggest for anyone else competing to go in with an open mind, patience, and be ready to either defend yourself or the "competition" because they really don't understand foreigners or their needs at all.

In terms of making a korean Tv show, i have learned: Try not to be too competitive, try to help make entertaining TV for them without allowing them to degrade yourself, and do not back down if you have a problem with what they are making you do or say because it goes against what you believe.

I know I whined an complained a bit in this blog, and I know it was a bit long, so I'm sorry, but I hope it entertained you or gave you a good idea of what to expect on the show.

Student car Accident

November 10th, 2008

6th graders are out of school for the week attending English town and my Co-teacher just oh-so-casually told me that one girl was banned today because she pushed another student too hard into the street, thus causing an accident where the student was injured, but not killed.

My co-teacher could not tell me how injured the student was or which teacher is teaching the kids this week, but I am curious for multiple reasons:

~What happened

~How the Student was/is

~How my 6th graders are acting

Of course leave it up to my co-teacher to tell me someone was hurt, while laughing about the situation (ugh!) without any details!

I find this really disgusting and it really upsets me when I witness the types of thing they take seriously and the types of things they don’t in this county!