Break-a Break-a Time

Yep, taking a break from cleaning the apartment (finally!) just to write you a little note. I'm a little ashamed to say that I don't remember the last time we really cleaned the apartment, not just did laundry or the dishes. Oi, have two cats creates SO MUCH HAIR. Here are some pictures that best illustrate my frustration with cat hair:

We use a tool called a "Furminator" to brush the cats---it's amazing. 

Here's a picture of our very own ball of cat hair (it's Elliot and Mewster together):

Have I mentioned that all of our food waste goes in a special bucket that really grosses me out?

When it's full, we put a special ticket on it and it goes outside to be "picked up". I've been told the food goes to a place where it's made into animal feed. Blech.

The kitties have been bathed! Or, showered, rather. Yes, our cats take showers :) Here are the boys... Mewster refused to sit still for his picture so he looks a little crazy. My sweet little Elliot looked at the camera perfectly!

Now some evidence of cleaning day. The washer appears to have leaked somewhat, but I'm going to pretend I didn't see it and just continue washing clothes. 

This is the spare/dressing room on laundry day. There's the rack where we dry our clothes, the fan we use to speed the drying process, and Marc's "closet" (mine is on the other side of the room). Also note the pile of clothes waiting their turn in the washer.

Last but not least, I've heard stories about Korean mosquitos and I think I've finally fallen victim to one. However, I'm not totally convinced that it's a mosquito bite because I have one on my shoulder also and it looks nothing like this:

It was difficult to get a decent photo, but the center is the actual bite and it's all puffy and leaky, then the darker area around that is very swollen and hard. The reddish part around THAT is slightly swollen, and the WHOLE THING itches! I've been keeping cortizone cream on it, but it doesn't seem to help much. 

Ah, and here's a cartoon I found about mosquitos... The caption is "Who has the barbeque in a Korean summer?"

*Doo do do doot do dooooo!*

Who’s awesome? Christina Marie Prados, that’s who!

I upgraded the operating system on my Mac just before I came to Korea; apparently I bought my laptop mere months before Leopard was standard on all Macs. Anywho, since then, my computer has been sloooooooooow. Like, dinosaur slow. Like, if I wanted to open a Word document, I would click on the document then listen to 2-3 songs/cook dinner/go to bathroom and MAYBE it would be open by the time I came back.

I tried everything I could think of. Unfortunately, everything I could think of I only knew how to do on a PC—defragging, disk clean-up, clearing temporary files (are they the same as cookies? Hrm.). Finally I had the bright idea to Google my issue… “leopard slow macbook”… “macbook leopard upgrade”…. “my macbook is effin’ slow! Argh!”. Okay, I finally found some forum where somebody asked like a year or two ago if anyone had issues with Leopard making their computer slow. Someone else said something about memory, RAM, and “you’re crazy if you try to run a goliath like Leopard on anything less than 1GB. 

Well, since I’m a genius and all (have I told you that my IQ is like 140? Well, it is. Be impressed.) I thought, “Hmm, I wonder how much memory I have?” Lo and behold, I only had 512MB of RAM! AH HA! I AM A GENIUS! I immediately turned to my husband and said, “Darling, I have to buy a new computer. Mine is old and slow,” to which he replied, “Uhhh… really? Maybe you should revert back to the old operating system.” The pouting commenced.

For roughly 1 minute, 37.8 seconds, I pouted. Then a light bulb hit me. “Wait! I bet I can just upgrade the RAM myself!” Again I turned to my old pal Google… “MacBook RAM upgrade.” Whaddya know, some OTHER genius made an instructional video on YouTube on how to upgrade the RAM in your MacBook. The entire video was about 7 minutes long and it seemed super-easy. I then managed to decipher what type of RAM my computer uses (DDR2 667MHz, thankyouverymuch) and also that my computer can handle up to 2GB of RAM, and I should buy 2 1MB cartridge thingies.

I found some fairly cheap RAM online that ships internationally, and I received it today. I borrowed a screwdriver from work, and now I’m at Starbucks where I successfully upgraded my RAM (thanks to the video I watched 2 weeks ago) and it only took me like 5 minutes! I opened Word and it took like 10 seconds! WHOA!

I so didn't take this picture, but I could have!

Okay, so there a few morals to this story.

1. I am a genius.
2. Macs are the greatest computers in the world.
3. I. Am. A. SUPERGENIUS.

Desert Fox = Elliot?

Marc and I ate dinner at the Holy Grill tonight--a Canadian-owned restaurant here in Daegu. They were showing "Planet Earth" on the television, the Deserts episode, and there was a bit about desert foxes. Well, holy crap Batman, we're pretty sure that Elliot was a desert fox in a past life--see the resemblance?? Just look at those ears! 

I wanted to post a short clip of the desert foxes in action just so you truly experience the similarities, but I wasn't able to find one. In any case, Marc and I feel much better knowing that Elliot is not all cat--he is definitely part desert fox (and quite possible part kangaroo). 

I *heart* Korea

You know why I *heart* Korea?

Because in the two months we've both gotten a paycheck, we've paid off 2 credit cards and the last of my car loan--about $3500 total. This may not sound like very much to some of you, but this is HUGE for us. :) Now we just have the two "big" credit cards left... but that's okay, because Dave Ramsey would be proud of our debt snowball. 

Now I have to try to sell my car... or my dad does, rather... I'm going to post it for $4000, hopefully get $3000 for it, but I'll take $2000. Anybody want a 2001 Volvo in decent condition? It's a tank! It's one of the safest cars on the road! Fo' rillz!

Okay. So. I *heart* Korea!

Feet!

I HATE my feet sometimes. I can't buy shoes in Korea because my feet are way too big--my Korean size is 270, and all the stores only go up to about a 240. Stupid size 11--WIDE!

I've been searching the Internet for a few hours now trying to find some cute flats for the summer, but either they aren't wide (which really is important because of all the walking I do) or they're $9874987.82, or I can get them in black but not brown (and really, what's the point if I can't get more than one color?), and it's just so irritating! I found a really adorable pair of shoes on amazon.com, but they don't even have them available in my size in normal colors---my choices are like pewter, yellow, and blue. I just want BLACK or BROWN. Is that so difficult? Arrrrrgh.

I tried JCPenney, but all of their wide widths are just... ugly. Because, you know, girls with big feet obviously have no sense of style and just have to settle for whatever they can get. Pssssssh. 

Kimchi or Garlic?

One of my absolute least favorite smells in Korea is the scent of most of the 65+ population--kimchi and garlic. It's so... pungent. Sometimes I think the smell is actually burning off my nose hairs. It's the worst when I'm on the subway--one morning I was surrounded by old people who just STANK (stunk?) and I definitely thought I was going to barf all over them. It's even better when the old men have been drinking and the smell of old alcohol is on them too. 

Ugh.

Another least favorite smell is the sewers. You can't smell them all the time, but when you can, you CAN. Sometimes I think everyone wears face masks here to block out the smell; maybe they actually have built-in gas masks. Here are some nice pictures of face masks in Korea: 

They are quite fashionable, some of them. Oh, notice the guy holding the "Free Hugs" sign? Yeah, students actually stand downtown with signs like that and people walk up to them and give them hugs. It's interesting. I think if people tried that in Downtown Birmingham, they'd get arrested. 

So I've been trying to find a video online of this commercial for Soju that's been playing recently--after you watch it, you'll no longer wonder why Korean women have so many body image problems.

Alright, time for me eat some blueberries and watch Lost with the husband. 

Getting Lost with Lost

Alright, I don't have the swine flu. I was really worried, because we eat so much pork here and didn't you know you can get swine flu from simply EATING pork? 

(I hope you caught my sarcasm.)

Marc's still watching Lost--he's up to season 4 now. Woohoo! We haven't been doing too much really... just working, sleeping, and eating. Just because we're in a foreign country doesn't mean we always get to be tourists (unfortunately). However, we did go to Busan last week for 3 days--it was a nice mini-vacation. It's a beach city, but the weather was rainy and windy so we didn't get any sun. It was still a nice time though. 

I'm feeling a little lazy tonight so instead of posting random pictures, I'm just going to post a link to the album online: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107761&id=20500132&l=e216011986.

Work is going alright this month; Marc is working mornings at my school because his is overstaffed and mine is understaffed. We'll see if we're both still alive by the end of the month ;) 

Oh, Star Trek! You must see it! We went on Friday and Sunday, it was great both times. We also saw Wolverine a couple of weeks ago--I liked it, but Marc wasn't as thrilled by it. Whatever.

Korea is still Korea... some of my students are irritating me already because they think they know soooo much about America because they watch American movies and/or TV programs. Actual conversation last week:

Me: Not as many Americans smoke anymore because it has become so difficult to smoke in public. Many people are trying to quit.

Student: That's not true, everyone in America smokes.

Me: Why do you think that?

Student: Because I watch TV programs and my girlfriend studied in Chicago and she said everyone there smoked cigarettes or marijuana.

Me: Okay, number one--don't believe everything you see on TV! Number two--Your girlfriend was at one university in one city. That one observation does not make it fact! Number three--I said the number has reduced, I did NOT say that very few Americans smoke.

Ugh. The conversation actually took much longer than that because it's a level 1 (out of 6) speaking class so I had to use much simpler language and really terrible grammar to get my point across. 

Ah, I have to get up for work in about 6 hours. I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

Swine Flu, Oh Noes!

I am so so so sick. I think Korea has it in for me. Or maybe it's the swine flu. In any case, whenever I think I have the energy to properly update, I will do that. Until then, pretend this is Mewster and Elliot: