Easter Hands

Yesterday I went to get my first manicure in Korea. There's a cozy little place near Ilsan Beach that I often walk by, so in I popped, excited to treat myself.

After a bit of work, discussing through an extemporaneous translator (a random guy who happened to be there), what exactly I would like done, it was decided that I would like "Care and Color" for the low, low price of 15,000 won (about $12). The lady set to work and I just relaxed and enjoyed.

I was able to chat a bit with the two ladies in there, using their broken English and my Konglish. We chatted about the standard stuff- Are you a teacher? Where are you from? Do you have a boyfriend? It was all quite normal.

After a while, I looked up at the clock and realized that I had already been there for nearly an hour and she still was nowhere close to painting my nails. She was still filing and removing cuticle. This continued on for a while and was dotted with an occassional *ouch*, because she was quite practiced with nicking actual skin, not just cuticle.

At the one and a half hour mark, she finally asks me what color I would like. I chose a modest, subtle pinkish-beige... something that wouldn't make my students exclaim," Oooooooh, teachaaaaa! Naaaaaaaails-ah!" After I chose my color, the manicurist looked at it, looked at me and stated, "Oh, no! You, cutie! Trend! Trend!" After trying to assert that the color I chose would be just fine, she reasserted her claim, "Cutie! Trend!" I conceded (because I'm horrible at saying no to people) and she proceeded to do the following:

Easter Hands.

I returned home and promptly removed the pink and yellow and proceeded to paint them clear, in the hopes of clearing away the memory from my mind, entirely. (Italics added for emphasis of the pun.)

Halfway Home

It's the last week of classes! Once Friday hits, I will officially be half way done with my teaching in Korea. That's pretty wild to think about, but during weeks like this, it's pretty nice to think about! Things have been pretty busy, and slowly getting busier.

After this week is over, I have to come to school on Monday and Tuesday next week, even though there are no classes, but because I have to teach two more Sarangbang lessons. After that, I'll have two vacation days to bum around, see the new Harry Potter movie several times, and start pulling together my to-do lists/packing lists for August. I then have to come into school for a few days to help put together the final touches on the new English room (which is looking wondeful, by the way) and then I will teach at English camp until August 8th.

After that, Andrew and I are off to Tokyo, and then right after that, I get to go home for a couple weeks! It will be quite a blitz for the next month or so, but once I'm back in Korea, I have 7 days of quarantine to rest up and get ready for teaching again.

The quarantine is all centered on the South Korean fear of Swine Flu. Any foreign teacher who is traveling outside of Korea during the summer vacation will have to undergo the quarantine. Luckily, we are being paid for that week of missed work and I'm sure not going to argue with being told to stay at home for the first week! It is interesting, though, because any Korean teachers who are traveling abroad don't have to undergo the quarantine, as far as I know. It's probably because they eat more kimchi, so they can't get sick.

This last week was the Boryeong Mud Festival. It was really fun, but unfortunately, our second day there got totally rained out. It was pouring and crazy windy so we only got to spend one day playing in the mud, sadly.

More pictures are coming, but they were taken with a waterproof disposable camera, so they may take a while in finding their way online.

And in other news, I've been reading a great book, The World Without Us. It was sent to me here in Korea by a favorite literature professor from college. It's a broad-sweeping account of what would happen to the environment were humans to disappear from the world tomorrow. How would our buildings collapse? What species would survive? Would any species from before the industrial age of humans come back? All in all, good environmental conjecture.

So, that's the deal for now. Take care.