So yesterday was a momentous day, it marked the one year anniversary of my arrival to Korea. I had a new student yesterday and she asked me how long I had been in Korea, I usually round up, you know, to sound more impressive, but as my eyes fluttered to the calendar I realized that it was exactly one year. 일연.
"I've been here one year exactly!" I said excitedly.
"Oh.." She paused, and then said, equally enthusiastically, "congratulations!"
After work Tyler and I went to Beer O Clock to have a celebratory beer with our chicken wings, Tuesday night in chicken wing night in Sinchon, by the way. It seems fitting that we arrived during the holidays, this entire week is a time of reflection on the past, present and future. It's my first Christmas away from home, my one year anniversary of being an expat in Asia, and my second new year. I will have officially spend the entire 2010 calendar year outside of the U.S.
I had dinner with my coworker today and we were talking about life, and I said, "it doesn't feel like a year has gone by" but no sooner had the words left my mouth than I realized how silly they sounded. What's a year supposed to feel like? Regardless if I feel like three months, or ten years has gone by, it's only been 365 days.
I'm excited for the next year, life will definitely be different here. Friends are coming and going, and I still have seven more months to experience life on this cool peninsula. I'm going to work on my new year's resolutions over the next couple of days, well two days until nye... I'll probably go with the usual ones that I never stick to, like exercising more and eating better, ha, like that'll happen! Probably being conversant in Spanish? It.... could maybe happen.... we'll see. Anyhoo, I have two days to make up an unrealistic list of soon-to-be forfeited life goals.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Xmas time
Well I am now in the midst of my first holiday season away from home. I just wrapped up Christmas weekend, and this upcoming Saturday will be New Years. It's been a bitter sweet time. Tyler is leaving soon so it was nice to spend Christmas dinner with him and Matt, both of them arrived within a day of me and we trained together and lived in that repulsive love motel together for the first two weeks. We had dinner at a local Canadian restuarant with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, yummy.
We ended up staying out really late, a first for me on Christmas. I usually think of Christmas as a holiday to spend curled up in a warm room with coco and family, but this year was still fun.
I got to virtually spend the holidays with my family. I skyped with my sister in Denmark, and waved hello to my danish aunt, uncle and cousin. Then later I skyped with my mom, Peitsa, Mikko and his girlfriend in Castro Valley, California. They had finished family dinner at my step-grandmothers house and were about to travel down to Santa Cruz to see our cousins.
It's so cold in Korea that I'm going to see if I can convince my friends to stay in for New Years... ha, yeah right, I doubt they will go for that, but I'll at least try.
I also got to skype with Vicki, Chris and Jesse today. Three people from back home that I haven't spoke to in much too long. I miss everyone from home a lot, and I look forward to your visits (hintity-hint-hint).
Feliz Navidad y feliz ano neuvo!
We ended up staying out really late, a first for me on Christmas. I usually think of Christmas as a holiday to spend curled up in a warm room with coco and family, but this year was still fun.
I got to virtually spend the holidays with my family. I skyped with my sister in Denmark, and waved hello to my danish aunt, uncle and cousin. Then later I skyped with my mom, Peitsa, Mikko and his girlfriend in Castro Valley, California. They had finished family dinner at my step-grandmothers house and were about to travel down to Santa Cruz to see our cousins.
It's so cold in Korea that I'm going to see if I can convince my friends to stay in for New Years... ha, yeah right, I doubt they will go for that, but I'll at least try.
I also got to skype with Vicki, Chris and Jesse today. Three people from back home that I haven't spoke to in much too long. I miss everyone from home a lot, and I look forward to your visits (hintity-hint-hint).
Feliz Navidad y feliz ano neuvo!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Hace frio
Hello friends. I am writing this blog huddled on my floor, floor heating in Korea is awesome, and trying not to think about my freezing trek into the Arctic aka Seoul tomorrow morning. I know I always complain about the weather in my blog (a sign that I'm quickly assimilating into a boring adult) but it still blows my mind everyday. In my happy, delusional days of California glory I actually considered 5 degrees C cold. Right now, I can't wait for it to get that warm again! Do you know what -10 feels like??? It feels like little elves are shooting ice darts at your face at 70 mph. So much for trying to look presentable for work. Today I got a glimpse of myself in the elevator mirror and what I saw was a crazed banshee staring back at me through a mismatched combination of hats, scarves and jackets.
The holidays are approaching which means more people are leaving. Two of my good friends are leaving within the next three weeks. It has been a rotating door of people over here, everyone is always coming and going. But I do feel confidant that I will see the important people that I've met over here again in the future, and I do have excuses to go all over the world to visit amigos.
I finished my Discover Spanish podcasts and I've been searching around for a new one. I was bored so I googled "how long does it take to learn a language". According to VERY credible websites (shrug) it takes 720 hours to be a "functional" level. Hmmm... 720. I giddily logged in my hours and.... it came to about six and a half. I was starting to feel disheartened until I thought, oh, why don't I look up spanish words for something that I'm independently interested in? Michael Cera, travel, beer? I settled on beer and it worked. (At a bar) Quieres una botella de Hoegaarden por favor... (ten minutes later) otra cervaza por favor (ten minutes later) hmmm Quieres vodka y agua tonica.... un doble! (ten minutes later) aye, mi cabeza!! por que??
(*Side note: One of the reasons that I didn't want an ipod is because I didn't want to get obsessed/addicted to it, and that is exactly what happened. A couple days ago I misplaced my ipod, I was about 99.9% sure that it was in my house but it wasn't in any of my "obvious" places. At first I distractedly looked around for it, then the irritation grew, which quickly evolved into dread, until finally I was frantically ripping my room apart in an internal panic convincing myself that somehow someone had broken into my apartment and taken it. Of course, in typical Nadja fashion, it was balled up in my top blanket. When I shook my blankets to look for it, it was happily wedged in between and stayed hidden for about 24 painful hours)
Monday, December 6, 2010
la vida tonta.
Hola amigos. Soy Nadja. Soy de los estados unidos, en particular, California. Geeze, pretty difficult huh? While you rack your brain trying to decipher that complicated Spanish sentence I will revel in my 2010 last-minute resolution check list. 2010 New Year's Resolutions: #1. Exercise more and eat healthier (that yoyoed throughout the year, on a bit on a slow patch currently), #2. Get better at geography (this I actually accomplished! Do you know which countries border Bosnia Herzegovina and/or the capital of Vanuatu?? Cuz I do!) #3. Restart Spanish studies... well December technically IS still part of 2010 so, check!
Since I am planning on going to Spain during my Euro trip 2011, because I really loved Barcelona when I went there in 2005 and I have enough Spanish vocab floating around my head to avoid sleeping in the street, I decided to start practicing again.
I downloaded a Spanish lesson podcast called Discover Spanish ("Disco" is all that appears on the small screen, so the people looking at my podcast list think that I'm crazy about Disco). It's really cheesy, so cheesy in fact that the host calls himself Johnny Spanish. Yes. Si, es cierto. I also bought the Lonely Planet Phrase Guide for Spain, and I've been practicing my Spanglish with any friend that has a basic understanding of the language.
Learning Spanish has unexpected and embarrassing consequences.
Exhibit A: When I was in middle school I had to take Spanish at my school. Like most of my fellow classmates I didn't really learn much, just basic greetings and vocabulary that never seemed to be relevant in real life situations. Occassionally a Spanish song would play and I would recognize a couple words and feel an inflated gratification with my self assumed bilingual skills. One time when one of these Spanish songs was playing I heard the word "besame". Besar meant "to kiss" in Spanish and I admired the cute Spanish way to simply say "kiss me". I've never spoken Spanish to anyone.... so fast forward 13 years. A couple days ago I was walking down Namsan tower with a friend of mine from France (who speaks French, English and Spanish, grr Europeans making me feel lazy and unaccomplished) and I was feebly trying to speak to him in Spanish. While I was listing all the words, sayings and conversation topics I knew in my head, it occurred to me that I knew just enough Spanish to be a successful prostitute in a Spanish speaking country.
I thought this epiphany was hilarious so I starting saying different things that related to it, "hola senior. Venconmigo! Eres muy guapo. Dame el dinero." We were both chuckling when I remembered the Spanish song, so I blurted, "Besame!" My friends eyes buldged and he said, "woah.." in a surprised voice.
"What? It just means kiss me."
He started laughing, "No it it doesn't. It means something very bad." After some prodding he finally told me that it's a very vulgar way of saying "F*** me". My innocent childhood misconception came crashing down all around me. "Hee hee whoops." I said, glad that the night sky was shadowing my red blushing face. Luckily I didn't say that in Spain!
Exbihit B: I was taking the subway to my friend's birthday party the other night and I decided to bring my little Spanish book with me on the ride. It's very convenient, it's about the size of a wallet so it can fit in my pocket. Es muy conveniente! I've been working through it chapter by chapter but I decided to be spontaneous and flip to a random page. As I opened the book, the train approached the next station and I looked up to see the name of the stop. I didn't recognize the name, so I looked at the map and oriented myself before I went back to my book. The first phrase on the page that caught my eye was Touch me here -tocame aqui. I giggled sophomorically at an imaginary "that's what she said" comment and then looked to the next phrase. I think we should stop now/ Hmm... thats weird, that one sounds a little sexual too. Oh yeah! Faster! What the?-Do you have a condom? I looked at the top of the page and it said Social: Romance and yes, it was a page telling me what to say during sex! I didn't even think that a phrasebook would have something like that. But then... I look to my right and a Korean guy, maybe a little older than me, is just staring right at the page I was looking at! I quickly slapped the book closed and avoided eye contact with him for the next couple stops.
Since I am planning on going to Spain during my Euro trip 2011, because I really loved Barcelona when I went there in 2005 and I have enough Spanish vocab floating around my head to avoid sleeping in the street, I decided to start practicing again.
I downloaded a Spanish lesson podcast called Discover Spanish ("Disco" is all that appears on the small screen, so the people looking at my podcast list think that I'm crazy about Disco). It's really cheesy, so cheesy in fact that the host calls himself Johnny Spanish. Yes. Si, es cierto. I also bought the Lonely Planet Phrase Guide for Spain, and I've been practicing my Spanglish with any friend that has a basic understanding of the language.
Learning Spanish has unexpected and embarrassing consequences.
Exhibit A: When I was in middle school I had to take Spanish at my school. Like most of my fellow classmates I didn't really learn much, just basic greetings and vocabulary that never seemed to be relevant in real life situations. Occassionally a Spanish song would play and I would recognize a couple words and feel an inflated gratification with my self assumed bilingual skills. One time when one of these Spanish songs was playing I heard the word "besame". Besar meant "to kiss" in Spanish and I admired the cute Spanish way to simply say "kiss me". I've never spoken Spanish to anyone.... so fast forward 13 years. A couple days ago I was walking down Namsan tower with a friend of mine from France (who speaks French, English and Spanish, grr Europeans making me feel lazy and unaccomplished) and I was feebly trying to speak to him in Spanish. While I was listing all the words, sayings and conversation topics I knew in my head, it occurred to me that I knew just enough Spanish to be a successful prostitute in a Spanish speaking country.
I thought this epiphany was hilarious so I starting saying different things that related to it, "hola senior. Venconmigo! Eres muy guapo. Dame el dinero." We were both chuckling when I remembered the Spanish song, so I blurted, "Besame!" My friends eyes buldged and he said, "woah.." in a surprised voice.
"What? It just means kiss me."
He started laughing, "No it it doesn't. It means something very bad." After some prodding he finally told me that it's a very vulgar way of saying "F*** me". My innocent childhood misconception came crashing down all around me. "Hee hee whoops." I said, glad that the night sky was shadowing my red blushing face. Luckily I didn't say that in Spain!
Exbihit B: I was taking the subway to my friend's birthday party the other night and I decided to bring my little Spanish book with me on the ride. It's very convenient, it's about the size of a wallet so it can fit in my pocket. Es muy conveniente! I've been working through it chapter by chapter but I decided to be spontaneous and flip to a random page. As I opened the book, the train approached the next station and I looked up to see the name of the stop. I didn't recognize the name, so I looked at the map and oriented myself before I went back to my book. The first phrase on the page that caught my eye was Touch me here -tocame aqui. I giggled sophomorically at an imaginary "that's what she said" comment and then looked to the next phrase. I think we should stop now/ Hmm... thats weird, that one sounds a little sexual too. Oh yeah! Faster! What the?-Do you have a condom? I looked at the top of the page and it said Social: Romance and yes, it was a page telling me what to say during sex! I didn't even think that a phrasebook would have something like that. But then... I look to my right and a Korean guy, maybe a little older than me, is just staring right at the page I was looking at! I quickly slapped the book closed and avoided eye contact with him for the next couple stops.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Quarter century mark
Hi everyone. Today is my 25th birthday. 25 was always that scary age, the official milestone that meant "no longer a kid", I'm officially out of the young adult category 18-24 and I can't be on the Real World (cruel world!!)
I celebrated my birthday on Saturday night, it was a joint party with my friend Pym because he's leaving the country soon. He's one of my good friends here and he will be dearly missed, Tyler and I refer to him as the voice of reason. Saturday was nice because I got to see a lot of people who have been off the radar for a while. I got an ice cream cake (my favvv) and some warm winter clothes. Nice times with a nice group of people.
Tonight I'm going to go to the doggie cafe with some of my friends and spent my first night as a 25 year old playing with dogs. Sounds pretty good to me.
I have purchased my tickets to Europe and I'll be arriving in London on August 31. That'll give me three weeks in South East Asia and then hopefully another 2-3 months in Europe, just traveling around to all the countries I want to go to. Right now I know I'll be in England, Denmark, Belgium and Spain, but I'd love to go other places if it's feasible. I've been reading Eat, Pray, Love and getting excited about my round the world trip, even though it's far in the future.
I celebrated my birthday on Saturday night, it was a joint party with my friend Pym because he's leaving the country soon. He's one of my good friends here and he will be dearly missed, Tyler and I refer to him as the voice of reason. Saturday was nice because I got to see a lot of people who have been off the radar for a while. I got an ice cream cake (my favvv) and some warm winter clothes. Nice times with a nice group of people.
Tonight I'm going to go to the doggie cafe with some of my friends and spent my first night as a 25 year old playing with dogs. Sounds pretty good to me.
I have purchased my tickets to Europe and I'll be arriving in London on August 31. That'll give me three weeks in South East Asia and then hopefully another 2-3 months in Europe, just traveling around to all the countries I want to go to. Right now I know I'll be in England, Denmark, Belgium and Spain, but I'd love to go other places if it's feasible. I've been reading Eat, Pray, Love and getting excited about my round the world trip, even though it's far in the future.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Peitsa visits and Scavenger hunts
It's monday, November 8th in Korea, and I'm at work after a nice three day weekend. Peitsa came to visit last week. Our family friends, who are both professors, are taking their sabbatical in Kyoto and Peitsa went to go visit them. My mom got him a layover in Seoul for three and a half days so we got to hangout and I showed him around. I was able to get friday off from work and we climbed Ansan mountain behind Yonsei, walked around Sinchon, and then went to the local traditional village in Anguk, where we found a cafe that roasts their own coffee beans (quite rare over here). After Anguk we went to the Chungechung river and looked at the laterns set up for the lantern festival, it was a cultural day and we got a lot of exercise. It was really nice to see him too especially since I didn't think I was going to see any of my family for almost two years.
He loves spicy food so I tried to take him to all the spiciest restaurants that I've been too, but though he enjoyed the tastes, nothing was spicy for him. Has someone burned away all their tastebuds?
After Peitsa left on Saturday I went on a scavenger hunt with Julia, Pym, Tyler, Nick and Nick's friend. The scavenger hunt involved going to five different bars and doing various random stunts for points and we had a camera to document everything. One of the dares was to cheers an older Korean man outside of a convenience store (where they usually drink) and we asked if we could cheers him (innocent enough right?) and he lost it and started yelling at us. Even after we put the camera away and turned away from him he kept yelling at us to go away. Yikes. We opted to not do that one again.
The scavenger hunt was really fun and our team dressed in mismatched clothes (costumes were encouraged). At midnight we all had to meet up with the other teams at the Hongdae park. Then we went out dancing into early in the morning, all in all it was a great night.
I've been listening to Arcade Fire a lot recently, I know I'm really late on the bandwagon but they are really, really good.
He loves spicy food so I tried to take him to all the spiciest restaurants that I've been too, but though he enjoyed the tastes, nothing was spicy for him. Has someone burned away all their tastebuds?
After Peitsa left on Saturday I went on a scavenger hunt with Julia, Pym, Tyler, Nick and Nick's friend. The scavenger hunt involved going to five different bars and doing various random stunts for points and we had a camera to document everything. One of the dares was to cheers an older Korean man outside of a convenience store (where they usually drink) and we asked if we could cheers him (innocent enough right?) and he lost it and started yelling at us. Even after we put the camera away and turned away from him he kept yelling at us to go away. Yikes. We opted to not do that one again.
The scavenger hunt was really fun and our team dressed in mismatched clothes (costumes were encouraged). At midnight we all had to meet up with the other teams at the Hongdae park. Then we went out dancing into early in the morning, all in all it was a great night.
I've been listening to Arcade Fire a lot recently, I know I'm really late on the bandwagon but they are really, really good.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
I renewed my contract
Today is November 1st, my birthday month and the start of my 11th month in Seoul. About a week ago I signed a 7 month renewal contract so I'm employed through August 3, 2011. I was a little worried that they weren't going to offer me an extention so I'm very happy and relieved right now.
It's getting colder but the weather hasn't fully committed to winter cold yet, we'll have a couple days of freezing cold (by California standards) and then a couple days of sun and warmth. This past weekend was Halloween and I had a really nice time. Since Halloween fell on a Sunday I had three days worth of cosutme options and I've always been kean on making my own costume and this year was no exception.
On Thursday night I went to a Halloween party in Gangnam and it was really fun. I made a Guiness bottle costume, I worked on the label for over an hour and I was pretty proud of the result. It got a bit crushed after a night of dancing but I did get some pictures of my masterpiece beforehand!
On Friday my company encouraged the employees to dress up because in Korea people don't really celebrate Halloween. I was a soju bottle (the National drink) and it was really easy to make (green shirt + handmade soju label) much less detail than the Guiness label. My students all laughed and were really curious about the Halloween mumbo jumbo. "What do adults do on Halloween??" "Well... they dress up in costumes and drink alcohol."
Saturday I went on a solo hike up the nearest mountain Ansan, it's behind the University Yonsei which is a hop, skip and a jump away from my house. I downloaded a couple podcasts and went on a three hour hike/walk and it was really nice. The weather was perfect and the mountain wasn't very crowded, which can be a problem on the mountains here. I took a couple pictures, but my camera has the unique talent of taking ANY picturesque sight and making it look lame, so I probably wont post any of them.
Saturday night my friend Julia and I went as ninja turtles along with a Waldo, a Woody and a lumberjack. We went to Itaewon and stayed most of the night at a westerner bar called Dillingers. My favorite costume was a guy dressed as Sailor Venus from Sailor Moon. His skirt was so short and I'm chuckling right now just thinking about it.
High light of the night: Julia and I were talking to the bar tender/ DJ and he told us to come behind the bar to show us something and as soon as we walked behind it, the bar owner announced (with a microphone!) that they were having a costume contest and th ninja turtles were in it! Um... I'm not a big spot light person and we both froze for a second. There were a lot of people there! Some how Julia and I didn't run away and we actually won second place. Unfortunately Brave Heart's costume was too good. I'm glad we did it, even if we did get tricked into participating.
I hope everyone else had a good Halloween too!
It's getting colder but the weather hasn't fully committed to winter cold yet, we'll have a couple days of freezing cold (by California standards) and then a couple days of sun and warmth. This past weekend was Halloween and I had a really nice time. Since Halloween fell on a Sunday I had three days worth of cosutme options and I've always been kean on making my own costume and this year was no exception.
On Thursday night I went to a Halloween party in Gangnam and it was really fun. I made a Guiness bottle costume, I worked on the label for over an hour and I was pretty proud of the result. It got a bit crushed after a night of dancing but I did get some pictures of my masterpiece beforehand!
On Friday my company encouraged the employees to dress up because in Korea people don't really celebrate Halloween. I was a soju bottle (the National drink) and it was really easy to make (green shirt + handmade soju label) much less detail than the Guiness label. My students all laughed and were really curious about the Halloween mumbo jumbo. "What do adults do on Halloween??" "Well... they dress up in costumes and drink alcohol."
Saturday I went on a solo hike up the nearest mountain Ansan, it's behind the University Yonsei which is a hop, skip and a jump away from my house. I downloaded a couple podcasts and went on a three hour hike/walk and it was really nice. The weather was perfect and the mountain wasn't very crowded, which can be a problem on the mountains here. I took a couple pictures, but my camera has the unique talent of taking ANY picturesque sight and making it look lame, so I probably wont post any of them.
Saturday night my friend Julia and I went as ninja turtles along with a Waldo, a Woody and a lumberjack. We went to Itaewon and stayed most of the night at a westerner bar called Dillingers. My favorite costume was a guy dressed as Sailor Venus from Sailor Moon. His skirt was so short and I'm chuckling right now just thinking about it.
High light of the night: Julia and I were talking to the bar tender/ DJ and he told us to come behind the bar to show us something and as soon as we walked behind it, the bar owner announced (with a microphone!) that they were having a costume contest and th ninja turtles were in it! Um... I'm not a big spot light person and we both froze for a second. There were a lot of people there! Some how Julia and I didn't run away and we actually won second place. Unfortunately Brave Heart's costume was too good. I'm glad we did it, even if we did get tricked into participating.
I hope everyone else had a good Halloween too!
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