Back from the dead... maybe

Sorry for ignoring you all for so long. I keep making such empty promises that I'll update, and I never follow through. I hope you can forgive me.

My last post was June 19--honestly, not much has happened. We went to Japan, we moved into a new apartment, Marc started his new editing job (it's going really well, by the way), and we hosted a housewarming party!

In other news, it's COLD! Since it's so cold, I've been taking a taxi to work rather than walk (it's about a 20 minute walk, and the taxi is only about $2).

I had the unfortunate experience of seeing a dead accident victim in the road on my way to work yesterday... police and ambulance were there, but they were making no effort to cover the body. I'd like to think it was because it had JUST happened, but that really didn't seem the case and I've heard stories of how they don't really rush to hide bodies in accidents. It looked like the guy was either walking or riding a bike and was hit while starting to cross the road. I didn't see another car either, so I think it was a hit and run. I was highly disturbed and almost immediately burst into tears, especially when my taxi driver STOPPED TO STARE at the poor guy! I yelled at him to go, and thankfully he listened.

Ah well. Sorry to be such a downer. I'll put up pics of the apartment and our Christmas tree later :)

Doctors and Beards and Other Musings

Ah, so, I got bitten by MORE mosquitos last week; 4 on one leg, 3 on the other. They got really huge and gross and bubbly and leaky so I went to the pharmacy to see if they had some magic cream for my disgusting bites--3 of them got especially bad. The pharmacist said they weren't mosquito bites and I should go to the dermatologist next door immediately. I went to "Dr. Lee's Urology and Dermatology Clinic" (a lot of the clinics have these odd combos) and was taken to the doctor immediately. He looked at my bites for about 30 seconds, and gave me a shot (I'm assuming it was a cortizone shot) and a prescription for some cream and pills (2-day supply), and told me to come back the next day. That trip cost me about $5 and I don't know what the prescriptions cost because one of the Korean teachers that I work with went with me and she took care of it (so nice, right?). 

I returned to Dr. Lee the next day (my bites were already 93847948 times better), and same drill--shot and prescription for pills (3-day supply this time), and come back Monday (this was Friday)--and this trip was about $4, and the pills were $3. Oh, and they also redressed my wounds for me, complete with painful antiseptic; the blisters had all broken and I just had exposed dermis (that's below the epidermis, right?)--I bought gauze and tape myself, but I was changing the dressings every couple of hours because they were leaking right through the bandages. I told you it was gross!

On a side note, I giggled a little when they called my name over the loudspeaker--most (if not all) Korean names are 3 syllables, but my name in Korean pronunciation is "Kuh-ree-suh-tee-nuh"--and they don't bother with the last name. It's quite amusing to me :) Sometimes when Marc and I are feeling silly we call each other our Korean names--Mah-kuh and Kuh-ree-suh-tee-nuh.

So Monday I went to Dr. Lee AGAIN and received--you guessed it--a shot and more pills! However, he said I didn't have to go back again unless I didn't get better. So now it's Friday and I'm pretty much healed except there's one that's still a little red so I'm keeping it covered because I've been wearing skirts and nobody wants to see the giant hole on my leg.

Oh, that's another thing--each of the blistered/broken skin places was about an inch in diameter. I looked like a leper (still do, kind of). 

Alright, enough about my leprosy. Big news--Marc shaved off his beard! Apparently his face was hot (like sweaty hot) or something. It's taken me a while to get used to it, but it's growing on me. He looks like he's about 18 now. With his beard, several students said he looked like Tom Cruise; now they say he looks like Tom Hanks. Someone also told him he looks more approachable. Koreans have this idea that men with beards are dirty and mean; I think it's beard envy because the majority of Korean men can't grow a full beard.

Also, for those of you who are interested, I'm still losing weight--more slowly that before, but still losing. I don't have a scale, but I can tell with how my clothes are fitting. I'm about 3 sizes smaller than in December (probably more--my clothes were pretty ill-fitting) and today I'm wearing a shirt that I haven't been able to fit into in over a year! Here are some comparison pictures...

December 18, 2008

5 Minutes Ago 

I found a great store on eBay to get clothes; their international shipping price is one of the most reasonable I've found, and it's all brand-new clothes from Macy's (I know the brands). The best part is that for $100 I basically got a brand-new wardrobe for work. Just wanted to brag a little :) 

Alright, that's all for now. I'm waiting at Starbucks for Marc to get off work so we can get some lunch. Take care!

Long Day

Ah, many apologies for being a bit slow on the updating. Truth is, there's not much to tell. However, some things are developing so there may be much news in the next month or so. 

I got my first mani/pedi in Korea today, and it was a success! I went outside of Camp Walker, which is one of the American military bases here, to a shop called Magic Nails. The owner speaks English (I'm pretty sure her husband's military) and all of the technicians speak pretty good English too. I actually thought I could be back in the USA--all of the employees are Asian, all of the customers were American (except my friend that went with me, she's from the UK). They even took US dollars, so I saw a $20 bill and almost crapped my pants (not really. But I did see the $20 bill!). 

There really isn't much else to report. I'll try to take some pictures this week and post them. 

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!