Sun, sea, sand and Russian whores…

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Thursday 16th June 2005
Hello hello!
I’m about due for another big email, so here goes (cups of tea may be required!!)
Two weekends ago, we had a Monday off (public holiday) so me and five other girls headed down to Busan for a long weekend.
Busan is a very large city on the south-east coast (its the second biggest city in South Korea after Seoul – ’bout 4 million people or so).
We took the night train down on Friday, stayed in an awesome cheap love-motel on the edge of the red-light district (which is also the Russian district), and had a whole lot of fun. Continue reading →

Another rant…

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Monday 30th May 2005
Hello!
I know I only wrote an email like a week ago, but I have more stuff to say, so there!!
Firstly, I am sitting at home gloating, and I have no one to gloat to!! Having spent all of last week going mad doing exams and reports etc, and telling Cal how hard it was and how he should really REALLY start doing his, I came into work this morning and finished off my last couple of reports, handed them proudly to Jenny and then spent the whole day watching Cal panic cos his weren’t even close to finished and they’re supposed to be handed out to the students tomorrow!!! He kept complaining about how much work it was and how hard the maths is, and how he just can’t concentrate with all these other people in the staff room, and I had to bite my lip to avoid saying “I KNOW IT’S HARD, THAT’S WHY I TOLD YOU TO START IT LAST WEEK YOU STUPID BASTARD!!!” Continue reading →

Ah, the joys of summertime…

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Thursday 26th May 2005
Hello everyone,
First of all, thanks for all your lovely birthday pressies and messages – I had a lovely day, in fact we dragged my birthday out for quite a few days!!
On Saturday we celebrated in Seoul by drinking for 12 hours straight, getting very drunk, and ended up in a nightclub where there were drunken girls taking their clothes off on stage (I don’t think they realise that if they went to England they’d get paid an awful lot of money for that!)
We crawled home at 6am on Sunday, and I felt sooooo hungover all day on Sunday I could barely stand up long enough to make a cup of tea, and my hangover was so vindictive it stayed around on Monday just to make sure I was still feeling crappy!!
However, I was nicely recovered by Tuesday, so that I could be smothered in love and presents by everyone around me (naturally!) I got tons of lovely presents, and after work we all went out for a posh dinner and some karaoke. We’ve had a sudden staff turnover – two of our Korean teachers left very suddenly and we’ve got two new teachers, who are really lovely. Continue reading →

Interesting Times

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Tuesday 17th May 2005
Hey guys,
Time for another update!
The weather is really starting to get nice and warm now, and on Sunday I got sunburnt for the first time!! (yay!!)
I had a great weekend – I went to Seoul on Saturday and my friend Jim helped me to choose a good mp3 player, so I’m now fully digital and everything!! Then we went down to a much smaller city called Je-Cheon about 3 hours drive away, where Jim lives.
On Sunday morning, Jim had a flying lesson (!!) so we went over to the airfield. Jim had a couple of lessons in a cessna back in Scotland, but you need to have at least 20 hours of flying practice before you can take a written test, and it costs about a 100 quid an hour back home. However, he found these two guys who have a tiny little airstrip and wee small plane, and for 150 quid they’ll give you twenty lessons or as many more as it takes to get your licence!!
Isn’t that insane??
It’s almost tempting to do it myself – just so I can come home and be a pilot, but I’m not sure I have the stomach for it!! Continue reading →

Scandals and murders and elephants, Oh my!

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Thursday 21st April 2005
Hello everyone,
There’s been tons of scandals going on in Korea recently inolving foreign teachers.
First two canadians got into a bar fight in Seoul and went to jail, then there was a Korean documentary about foreigners working as teachers in Korea, mostly portraying us all as unprofessional and unqualified money-grubbers!!
The papers have been having a field day with it, and the government’s been having a crackdown on foreigners working here illegally – either not having a proper visa or lying about their qualifications. So, tons of hagwons are losing kids cos the parents are freaking out about the teachers, etc.
So anyway, we’re not the most popular people just now!! Continue reading →

Ramblings from the sicklet…

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Thursday 7th April 2005

Well, I’ve been a very sick little bunny I’m afraid, so have not been in the best of spirits.

I had a bit of a cold last week, but had gotten better, and then on Monday had a sore throat. I went out with the girls, cos Tuesday was a public holiday so we had the day off. It ended up being a long old night of drinking and nori-banging (thats karaoke to you), so I crashed out at Suzie and Beth’s house. On Tuesday I woke up in agony, my glands were all swollen and painful, I couldn’t swallow anything, and getting up made me feel sick and dizzy. I was seriously considering going to the hospital, but I could barely get off the couch. i spent the whole day there, and the girls very kindly pumped me full of drugs. I went home that evening and went to bed. Continue reading →

Little ball of madness

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Thursday 31st March 2005
Hello everyone,
Well, I haven’t written for a while because everything’s been going pretty well, just classes and tv and other mostly boring stuff.
I did have a really good class yesterday with my adults – we were having a discussion about what we would take to a desert island. My choices were mainly chocolate, booze, cigarettes and some friends, Annie was very determined (she spent a good hour with her dictionary before class) and decided to take fire, blankets and a book with knowledge on how to live on a desert island!! (I think she meant a survival guide, but it was very organised of her!)
Liz said she would bring a hammock, a dvd player, a chef, and a red convertible sports car if the island was big enough (she’s learning to drive at the moment). Jane was the best though – she included a bed, sofa, fridge, tv, oven (and pretty much the entire contents of her apartment!!), and then at the end she blushed and said she’d bring a young man that wasn’t her husband!! We all thought that was fantastic and couldn’t believe none of us had thought of it!!

Yes, there was booze involved…

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Tuesday 8th March 2005
Hi again,
Well, last weekend I went over to Suzie’s house for drunken makeovers! She decided we should make each other look as bad as possible, and well, I ended up looking like a man in drag!!
But never fear, my embarrassment knows no bounds, so naturally I have included photographic evidence of this bizarre event for your viewing pleasure!
Other than that, Cal has been making himself unpopular again by getting in a big fight with Jenny (it was all a big misunderstanding) but Cal got his pride dented and ended up making Jenny cry. Poor girl has only been director for two weeks and is obviously pretty insecure about her new role, so Cal’s flawless insensitivity made her all upset and worried about doing a crappy job etc. Anyway, I think it’s all just about blown over now, and I said lots of encouraging things like ‘well, he’s a man’ and ‘you’re doing a great job’ etc. Continue reading →

I found the culprit!

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Wednesday, 2 March 2005
Well, the smell in my apartment has been getting worse and worse since I last wrote, so I finally turned my flat upside down.
I cleaned under the sofa (again!), pulled everything out of my closet and cleaned in there, searched and searched, and cleaned and cleaned (those of you who know me well will know how much I hate cleaning too!). I scrubbed the toilet, plunged the drains, and all sorts of nasty things, – I even tackled the enormous mountain of washing up that I had so succesfully avoided for so long!!!

The smell that wouldn’t die…

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Wednesday 23rd February 2005
Hello again!
Well, it’s all go at school at the moment, and we had our kinder festival on Saturday (all-singing, all-dancing, with hired costumes and everything). The kids were actually really great, but the teachers drove me mad!! I offered to come in early to help, and they told me to come in at about 2.30 (the show started at 5), so I rocked up, and they were all rushing about frantically yelling and getting all stressed out. I asked if I could help with anything, but was ignored, and so I basically sat in the corner for two hours!
I tried to help anyway a couple of times, but all the writing and costumes were labelled in Korean, and no one had the time or inclination to translate anything, so I was completely useless, and, after two hours I was quite irritated that they had asked me to come in so early when they obviously had no intention of giving me anything to do. Continue reading →