Chubby came to his senses.

For the first time my Korean experience, niceness and sensibility prevailed. The director of my school paid careful attention to details, showed some problem solving abilities, and agreed to let Toby and I have October 27th off. We fly out of Seoul's Incheon airport at 4:20 p.m. on October 24th, and arrive, funnily enough, in Calgary at the same time, the same day. Amazing really, that tricky international date line. Departure again for Seoul is 6:45 a.m. on November 1, thus giving us a full week at home to visit, shop, and marvel at the vast open spaces. Not to mention the clean air. And beer that tastes like beer... and affordable wine. I had both red and white wine on the weekend. Twas grand. It was the first time since February.

So my original idea was to have a nice quiet night at home with the fam on arrival day, then perhaps meet some friends for a drink later on. Instead, I talked to my mom about getting tickets to the only Flames game while I'm in town. Hockey is a real rarity for us here, or at least it was last winter in Gumi. We managed to catch two periods of a semi-final game in the playoffs, but that was it. Maybe this winter will be better now that we're in Seoul, with the bajillion high class hotels with western themed bars. The Canadian Chambre of Commerce must help us stay rooted somehow. Anyway, this may be the new plan of action, with the potential for going out afterwards for an hour or two still in place. We'll see how things shape up. I do miss my cat a lot.

Now to stop with the procrastination, and work on some ideas for motivating my students. I have these two middle school classes that have suddenly stopped talking. I teach conversation classes. It's a bit hard when no one wants to say anything.

Damn you, Chubby!

I should have been worried after all. The head teacher, Thomas, came to Toby and I on Thursday evening to tell us that our director decided not to grant a day off on October 27. Thomas told us the director thought we should go home for the long break at Christmas instead. Incidentally, our airline tickets expire on December 8, and the break starts on December 25. Dismayed, we (read Toby) calmly re-relayed the situation with more stress on the expiration date of our tickets, and Thomas agreed to take it to the director again. So (after going out drinking with two of our favourite Korean teachers from work when I finished crying in the bathroom) we've spent the weekend waiting and seeing, and are not exactly looking forward to going to work in 8 hours to hear what Thomas has to say.

My mom told me to be positive, so that's what I'll try to be. I checked on flights that leave October 27 after we get off work, and we can still make to Calgary for about three and a half days.... which we'll do if I can't cancel the already booked/payed for return flights. So I'll still be there in time for Yamato on the 28th, but I'll miss the only Flames home game and a weekend spent with my brother. But I'll still get to see my family and consume 2 half belly busters and a codi scramble, so it's still in the goods - just a little bit shorter.

Well, I have a reservation on a Korean air flight back to Calgary on October 24. It arrives via Vancouver at 4:20 p.m. Only three steps in the planning process remain for me.

First of all, I need to officially change my destination on my ticket from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Calgary, Alberta. This tiny detail costs a grand total of $150.00, amazing, since tickets flying to and from Newfoundland are actually the most expensive ones in and out of Korea, thus leading me to believe I actually ought to be getting a discount. But hey, that's not how the airline industry works.

Next, there is the small detail of getting Monday, October 27 off work. As I've previously mentioned, the last day of the semester is a Monday, then we get a 6 day break. Well, we're going to push our luck and see if we can bring in substitute teachers for a day to give ourselves a 10 day break instead. We got some seemingly solid advice from a fellow teacher today though, and I'm no longer too worried about the school saying no. That, and the tickets are booked.

The third thing is the necessary step of booking a return ticket to Korea. Yes, I'm coming back. I don't feel much like coming back today (Cool Runnings was on one of our many movie channels, and I basically started to cry when I saw Calgary's skyline) but if I don't then I won't be able to give the royal bank the money I owe them and they'll seize all of my assets. Snicker. Ok, well they'll seize my dad's assets. And that's just not fair. That, and I'm leaving most of my stuff here because I have so many cool gifts to bring back with me. Hanbok-a-plenty. Duffles full. Ok, so you're really just getting fans with "Be the Reds" on them.

Must add the following two to the list of the past year:

About a Boy - Nick Hornby
The Outsider - Albert Camus

Why isn't it listed on Amazon.com, by the way? Does it have a different translated name? Am I crazy, or isn't called the Outsider?

Must go deal with flight possibilities right now. Need to get back to Seoul from Calgary before 10 am on November 3. And the connecting flight through Seattle seems to have only 4 seats left on it. And the nice travel agent lady isn't in tomorrow or Wednesday, go figure. And I haven't booked my ticket for Calgary yet. And I need to find $800 somewhere. Probably from Visa.

We'll go from the most recent to as far as I can remember. Books I've read in the past 2 years:

Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
No Logo - Naomi Klein
Nickel and Dimed - On (not) getting by in America - Barbara Einreich (sp?)
The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Friendship, Loveship, Hateship, Courtship, Marriage - Alice Munroe -- this is a collection of short stories. I hate short stories. As soon as I start to warm up to a character, let them into my life, they leave me. Happens every time.
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Guliver's Travels - Jonathen Swift
The Lord of the Rings -- The Fellowship of the Rings, The Two Towers, J.R.R Tolkein - am waiting to read the third until closer to movie time....
Setting Free the Bears - John Irving
The Fourth Hand - John Iriving
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Harry Potter 1-3 - Rowling
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells -- I loved this story. It was beautiful. It makes me want to raise my children on the bayou. With crayfish. And if you didn't like the movie, well, screw you duckface.
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser -- This book makes me want to go to law school and study labour law in order to protect the rights of the disadvantaged around the world. And it got me off the ground beef.
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth -- It took me about 6 months to get through this one because it was so close to my own life at many points. It has since become my favourite book.

I know I'm missing many in here, but it was a quick list, designed to inspire mes amies to send me beaucoup des livres. I'll add those that are missing soon.

In other news, my plane ticket that I was planning to use as my Christmas return to Calgary expires on December 8 and my semester doesn't end until December 24, so it looks like I'll be returning for a brief break at the end of October. We have a mysteriously long break between semesters, luckilly, and if we can convince the school to let us miss the last day of the term we get to throw an extra three days on for a weekend. Who makes Monday the last day of a term, really? So I guess we'll have to have Halloween parties at home instead, and I'll probably spend Christmas in Thailand. Or maybe Vietnam. Anyone want to come?

Either I'm getting a cold, or the smog has finally made it into my throat for good. At least I'm having voice problems during vacation and not in the middle of the semester. Doing repetition drills with a sore throat makes me want to go back to being a medical receptionist.

Being that it's vacation time and I just got paid, I went to a movie today. It was my first successful solo movie in Korea (I tried to go a Friday night about a month ago but the theatres weren't showing any films past 9 pm for some completely incomprehensible reason) as Toby opted to sit in front of my scrabble board watching America's Next Top Model. I may have been about as productive with my time and $15 richer had I stayed home and skipped the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but when you've got a movie craving, you've got a movie craving. Interestingly, I was one of three foreigners in the theatre. In Korea, your seats in movie theatres are assigned when you buy your tickets. The other two foreigners were seated next to me. Makes me wonder if there was maybe a section for the non-squid-gobbling viewers. Sadly I can't find any pictures of the typical snack combos offered at the movie theatres here, so you'll have to take my word for the odd combination of two Cokes, a bucket of popcorn, and a microwaved package of dried squid. Makes for a rather interesting aromatic experience in the theatres.

Woo hoo! I now have a comments section! I'm very excited about it. I've been meaning to set it up since I started blogging, but you know how procrastination is...

So my weekend was relatively uneventful. I went and boozed it up a bit on Friday night at Bricx, where I met a couple from Cape Bretton who teach at another Kang's Language School in Seoul. They thought they were the only non-SDA, non-religious, non-40 year olds that were at the franchise. When we told them where we work, they asked if we were spies. It was tres funny.

In other news, I bought a scrabble game on Friday night (pre boozin), and spent most of the weekend embroiled in solo bouts of verbostruction. I went from words such as darn in game 1 while watching the Lord of the Rings, to nirvana and drivel in tonight's tense tournament with myself (I was playing with a cup-o-gin whilst waiting for Toby to finish an important phone call he was on). I'm going to be a scrabble junkie by the end of this week (it's the thanksgiving holiday in Korea, so we've got 5 days in a row off work), and I'm considering starting a match by post, as the rulebook allows. Can you imagine how long that game would take? Scrabble by post.

Made them go away. Maybe this time...

Don't like it like that. Am trying again.

Testing my new comments section. Very excited.

My stories have been posted. Well, some of them. I still have two or three to write, but I have a couple of days to get them done. Even though sports are more timely than most other things the Gauntlet publishes, I'm not really worried since it seems that Toby and I and a group from CIS were the only Canadian media interested in the Universiade games. Twas a great experience though, and I'm sure to write more about it soon.

Don't worrry. The West Wing is back. I had a moment of panic when my unpredictable Korean channels showed bad Nicolas Cage movies instead, but it was all for naught. It was back on tonight at 10:15. I am very relieved. I don't want to start reading fan sites on a daily basis, trying to visualize the episodes they describe. I don't need to start having dreams about Josh. Well, more dreams about Josh.

Enough about that though.

The real point of the blog tonight is to disclose an epiphany. I miss writing. I tried it for a little while, in what seems like another life, and I enjoyed it. I was even kind of good at it, if a little basic and unzany. And so I'm going to do it again. My experience at the Universiade has led me to want to become a better writer, practice my journalism techniques, and learn how to use the English language again. Toby has convinced me of the beauty of the blog, so I've decided to start publishing properly and more often. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do, as of yet, but it will most likely involve this blog. But hopefully it will look nicer than this blog. I really should do something about that soon.

Apparently I'm boring and maternal these days, so I really have nothing else to add. Bite me.