4 months in Seoul

Yesterday was the four month mark from the day I arrived in Seoul, it feels like I've been here forever but whenever I tell students the time frame they always exclaim, "you're so new!" April is two days away from being over and winter has still not relented. Yesterday we experienced the coldest day in April in the past 100 years, hmmm, another historic day I didn't want to partake in. I even turned my floor heating on last night, because the morning before it was too hard to get up with the combination of coldness and lack of sleep.
Today was good, I actually got up at 5:30am, not the usual snooze and hide under the covers until 6 routine. I worked out, put together a good outfit, and had some breakfast, a rarity for me. I really need to get in the habit of getting up on time because the morning goes by so smoothly when I don't feel rushed, and there is a significant drop in the "you look so tired" comments.
Yesterday I went over to my friend Sylvia's place. Her and her boyfriend have lived in Korea for the past year and they are about to move back to the States, she's also from California. They are living with a friend's parents in a really nice apartment near Seoul station. The apartment felt like a mansion, a REAL kitchen, multiple rooms and bedrooms. I forgot places like that existed! Sylvia had invited me over to take some of her clothes she was getting rid of. After living in the co-ops and having the Free Pile, my inner vulture sprang at the opportunity to get some good and complimentary stuff. Luckily Sylvia is not only my height, but also very stylish, so I got some great digs. I didn't bring enough clothes with me to Korea so it was nice to get everything.
today, after a nice morning at work I went to Costco with two of my coworkers, and needless to say, I'm not impressed with the Korean costco. Not only was it way too far (a bus transfer, aw hell no) but it was mostly comprised of junky American snacks that I never ate back home. What really turned me against the place was the beer section. Or should I call it the overpriced lager section? No ale! The European beer "section" was four different types of lagers, Becks and Stella (bleck) and guess what counts as premium beer? MGD! Yep, though the only association I can muster up is empty red cups sprawled across someone's lawn in Davis, apparently it's classy stuff over here.
But it wasn't a total bust, I did get two bottles of wine for Sylvia's going away party on Saturday. and they are California wines, so I'm excited. AutoMotor Merlot 2005 (good year?)
I'm still collecting funny comments that my students mak and one of these days I will have a post solely dedicated to it, they can be so funny and harsh. Korean's are known for calling it like it is "you look tired" "you look fat" "fat people are lazy", so the list is ever growing. The other day a student started telling me about how he hates fat people and they make him pessimistic and I had to try my hardest to hold it together. People say the most ridiculous things to me, and I have to nonchalantly check their grammar. I am really improving my poker face though!
In the videos we watch, there is this one character named Danny and he works the night shift at Kinko's and bad things tend to happen to him. I had a class with an uptight and quiet doctor the other day and we watched a video where Danny runs into an old friend who is clearly doing much better in life, after the video I asked my usual, "could you summarize the video for me please?" The doctor furrowed his brow, paused, and then said, "in that video.... danny is a ... loser!" I almost laughed out loud. But I held it in. I gotta go back to work, I'll update more later.
miss you all