she packs her bags for outer space and now shes waiting for the right kind of pilot to come
Mood:  hug me
thursday was the seocheon boys highschool festival. a lot of people from donggang went, and people from many other highschools were there. its too bad my korean is so limited, it would have been nice to make a few friends my own age, but just the same. it was from 6-9. rose ri me and dany went together. everyone stares at us, but only a few come up and say hi. the acts were good, many singers. seocheon boys highschool has sooooooooo many people, not to metion all the people from the girls highshcool and the animation highschool. dany left after only an hour to catch a bus, then rose left cuz she had to get up early to go to seoul today (hope everything went smoothly for the visa interview!!!!!) but me bong and ri stayed, darea and hwansung were there too. 3 people came up and asked to take a picture of me, (hell yah!!!!) alright... sure why not? . bong introduced me to one of the guitarists, he was soooooo good! not at english though, so the conversation was stressed. 3 people gave me flowers, met several new people, all in all it was a good night.

the exchange students had our last day with hwyang, it was sad. they are the better students, and the nice teachers. we still have to go to kisan one more time, one last class with the nazi fifth grade teacher. but then we are done. at hwyang they had a farewell party with food and everything. one student gave us each a little present, it was a candle! what a sweetheart! i'll attach it to my rotary blazer!

presents ahhh! i still am shopping around for x-mas presents, dunno when i'll get those in the mail, maybe i'll send it after xmas to cut down on the high prices of mailing things during the holidays. it'll be a new years present instead! or a valentines package or something. martin luther king day? we'll see. so much is suppose to happen in december, our trip to seoul, our graduation from donggang, arrangements for a highschool, xmas, ugh.

i'm gonna miss going to donggang, and also, if we are all seperated, i wont see any of the exchange students!! or not very often! i'v become so close to them all, and as for the koreans, the really sad part is i probably wont ever see them again even if i were to come back to korea! i'm being abandoned! i didn't have enough time with these people, everthings just begun! it was just starting to get interensting, now i only have one month!! how did time slip by me like this!!! where was I?! i'm getting a year book for donggang, it was to expensive, but i did it anyways, its my xmas present from mom and dad.

still no snow, not even the slighest hint of snow. some mornings i dont even have to wear my heavy jacket. the afternoons are warm, and sunny all the time. i cant say i miss maine weather, maine winters are sooo depressing!! rose says seh misses wyoming winters, but they must be different. it snows much earlier there too. here though, it doesnt snow until after xmas, always. im fine with that!

k so got to go learn korean now
lori

it's a mixed-up muddled-up shook up world except for lola...L.O.L.A. loooola!
Mood:  lazy
the social studies teacher was explaining the ranks in military, and asked us if we had family who had been in the military. a lot of my family has, and my grampa use to tell me about how he was on bomber in WWII. dany said her grampa died a long time ago, and rose's died too, but MINE DIDNT'. all those memories of my grampa were soo fresh in my mind, like he had JUST TOLD ME! i could have seen him yesterday or something. he and grammy will be right there when i get back! and mom still trying to get him is purple heart before it's too late....then it HIT ME. seriously like being punched in the gut, that he was dead, he died a few years ago. BAM! it was aweful!!!!!!! *tearrrrrrs* it was so unfunny. then today in chongju one of the taxi drivers car smelled like cigaretts and aftershave, and it reminded me of grampa. even though i dont like the smell of cigaretts now, the smell of him smelled good. ohhhh wow that was strange

i went to chongju to get my tickets switched. so heres the plan. june 2, 6:17 pm boston (carrier AA flight 1418) there wasnt any fee that i knew of, but it was really simple, i had kg call in for me, and make the reservations and then just brought my old tickets to them, and they gave me new ones. then we went shopping in chonju a little bit, and hit up the emart.

"hey! hey lady! yah! youd ropped your bra!" "what?? no it isnt mine!" haha good times shopping with dany

another dream, i was in the art classroom of donggang, and it was sooooo windy. a few days ago the wind was really bad, and that may have contributed to this dream. but anyways in the art room there was a hannaford store across the street, an the wind ripped the tall signs off and they blew away. it ws really bad. then the chairs and tables started floating, i guessed from the wind, but that seems kinda odd to assume now. anyways, i helped the other students, (who were all stuents from the us...) secure the chairs then i left, and went to mt view,which was inmy dream, a college dorm place. i found scott smith, and we went driving around, found a few other people, but they idnt stay long, then we went to a water parkplace, lots of duck, i dont understand that part, but it wasnt that great, anyways, i was with a lil kid to but they were too young to go on the really good slides, adn the park was in africa, it was theonly waterpark in africa, and i wondered how we got to africa so quickly. we left shortly after, though. and he brought me back to the art room. it was upstairs and emilio was there and jack and jimmy were but in another room, i guess. that always happens! they are there, but out of reach, idno. anyways, i wanted to go visit them, cuz how long are they staying in korea right? but i couldnt leave, and that was frustrating. and that was it,i woke up.

i got a package from home.i thought it was from max, the pics and all but it was a big box, i was like damn people got really large pictures this year. but the tag said it was mommys presents for xmas! it had some snacks too, and each thing was individually wrapped, i got 2 things from heike, surprise! I dont know if max has sent the pics yet or not, but stll waiting on those.

jieun needs teh puter, more later maybe

sheboink!
Mood:  loud
on day after school roses mom's band and some other bands did a concert in seocheon. i went, and brought julian too. i got some good pictures of roses mom on key board, that woman rocks so much! they are sooo cool! there was a highschool that played an american song but messed the words up, yet it was still amusing. an all girl band did a few songs and they were terrific, i'm so impressed! rose got up on stage during her moms last perofrmance and her and her mom danced, it was so cute! there are some pictres of that too on my album.

afterwards me julian and bong were hanging out and just talking, and bong flipped out at me because of hwo much i swear. he reminded me of a little kid, like he was about to cry or something, but he said he doesnt like cussing especially from "ladies". it made me sooo mad that julian could swear left and right, but me noooo, cuz im a "lady" what ever! so i left them and spent the rest of the evening in seocheon with seo-jong, eun-young, and hyeo-gun. none of whome mind in the least if i swear. most of my korean friends have also taken up saying "wtf".

the other day i felt sick so i fell alseep in the nurses office and had a dream that itook my trip to korea, but it turned out to be like a 3 day thing. i knew i was in korea cuz everywhere were my korean friends, but i didn't really talk to them much, and then i got back, and it was like a bus ride home i was talking to chan'tal. i said how dissapointed i was that it was such a short time, and i didn't even have a host family! then we were almost home, and when i woke up i though, but i know i had a host family! i remember them! or at least i recall something like that, and i didn't know if i was in the us, before i had taken my trip, after my trip, or if i was still on my trip. it was maybe 10 minutes of interesting confusion...

another dream...(sruprisingly i've been able to remember many many of my dreams. none make any sense, but i write them down anyways.) i was with a family, but not my family. they were sitting on a porch talking, and some guy came and made them all get into a box, and turned them into weird hosehold objects, (like a teapot) i thought that was too skethcy for me, so i left, like walked right into another dream, that i dont remember. later i came back to my first dream to see how people were doing, and i guess the teapot had tried to run away wth the spoon, and something about someone jumping over a moon, but then the teapot was running away, cuz the spoon was abusive, or something, and a voice kept saying the teapot should beware of bricks! i'm like what? then i see the teapot slip on a brick walkway, and fall!! and he broke!!! i felt so bad!! iwas going to go help him, but my host mom knocked on my door, and in my dream she was calling me to go to her, but i was like wait! i have to help the teapot! then she knocked louder, waking me out of my dream. all day i felt bad about not being able to help my fallen comrad....

no clue what any of that signafies...but it was fun.

it was a long week, and no turkey day, but fortunatly, the exchange students had a half day on the 25. We only went to the elementary school (which was bearable, the elementary 3rd grade did a play like thing and we were allowed to just sit on the heater and sleep. )afterwards the 5 of us went back to emilios house. dany called her family on skype, and that was cute! it made her soo happy! I got to talk to several important people from home, :) for like 4 hours. emilios dad bought chicken pizza and coke, so it was chicken day, instead of turkey, but chicken is sooooooo good, no compliants here! I stil have to write my monthly letter to rotary, but it will take so long, and i'm putting it off for as long as possible.

"sheboink!" - kind of like "aaaver", its used as randomly as possible. its a good time.

this weekend instead of dany coming over me and rose made plans for me to visit her house. my family was being so dumb about it!!! i wanted to scream!! it's like they are doing me a favor letting dany come over every weekend, but EVERYWEEKEND. sometimes we need a break, repitition is bad. the same thing every weekend, it gets old, and ji-eun wanted a break too. so i asked if i could go to roses instead, and mom goes "nooooo! dany promised to come over ever weekend to teach ji-eun spanish! and ji-eun needs to have spanish ever weekend!" but i dont need spanish, and if dany comes over i hve to be there too, so i have to be home every weekend, and they wanted rose to come over with her. together, rose and dany! but i wanted to go somewhere else for the weekend! it makes me irritated to think about it, but in the end me and ji-eun won, and they allowed me to go to roses after school.

roses house is such a good time! we talked yesterday for hours about everything! getting home at 1:30pm, and talking until 1:30 am, woohoo 12 hours of talking, i have never had relationship like this before! lol rose and me have waaaay too much in common, and a telepathic link :-) it is fun! and her mommy sent her cookies! sooo yummy! ohh and for x-mas (dear santa) send me rollos, m&m's, hershey's bells (or ANYTHING hershey's), cookies, reeses peanutbutter cups! ohh man american candy sounds soooo good! ohh aaaaver (drools)

"it happened without spoons but victory never tasted as succulent as raspberry pudding!" --you had to have been there, :)

well there you have it, all for now,

-lori-

kimchi day
Mood:  hungry
it's been an unexciting weekend, but it was still good, dany came over after school on saturday and stayed all weekend. we didnt go to the gymgibang like we planned, though.

on saturday we bought a ton of food before we went home, and we were laughing about how much food we always eat: dany, "wow lori we are pigs!! look at all this food!...no we are worse than pigs! maybe...bears!" me, "no not bears...more like...whales!! or i dont know, but SOMETHING! wow how can we eat so much!!!" **later that day during one of maybe 5 or 6 meals that day** dany-"awwww lori look at bean! she wants food! she's so hungry!" me" noo dany don't feed her any more we just fed her...she's a dog she's always hungry" *we both look up from our food...big big eyes...and start laughing hystarically.

on friday julian had to do is speech in korean, it only lasted like aminute, but kg spent 10 minutes afterward badgering people for questions. no one could come up with any but it was entertaining. when ever kim gabin (kim gabin=kg) teaches class she always asks dumb questions and *uh?? uh??* so after the students ask a question we go *uh? uh???* it sounds so ignorant to us, like "and if you don't study...? uh?? you might fall out of a 13 floor window...uh??? uh??" and then the science teacher always says "alasso??" which means understood?? but it's soo much, dany tallied it up one time, and in a 40 minute class he said "alasso??" 52 times!!

all the teachers have odd things that stand out about them. the home room teacher always yells but looks like he's about to crack up, laughing, and he's usually really nice, but i never know if hes about to smile or give us a lecture. the gym teacher and the art teacher are pretty normal. All of them get along with us great, except for the korean teacher. kinda creepy. and ji-eun said how he was BRAGGING about how scared he made us when he hit those kids....wtf?!?!

also on friday kg flipped out because emilio had his pant legs rolled up and she was soo upset about how hairy his legs are. most koreans don't have much body hair i guess, even guys don't have happy trails, it's weird! so she was calling emilio a monkey and was like "do not show your monkey legs!", but emilio is not easily insluted and just joked abut it like "but i thought you would like my monkey legs! they are delicious!" ga-bin told him he has to be an alien from another planet, haha well here technically he is an alien but if he's not from HER south korea, he must have originated in another planet. she is so self centered sometimes. ha.

today was kimchi day. yes korea has a whole day devoted to it. actually its different for each family. all the people in their family get together with lots and lots and lots of red peppers and cabage, and they spend the entire day making enough kimchi to last each household a year. they made a sickening amount and it smelled soo strong. fresh kimchi is good, but give it 10 minutes and it looses its appeal. my and dany didn't take part in the actual making of kimchi, because its really boring. instead we took a walk to emilio and chonghos house, in the next village over. they weren't home, and neither was E ji-eun. but fortunatly the walk wasn't an complete waste, we got much needed exercise, and a woman started talking to us as we passed, and invited us to her garden. we talked and she gave us fruit and introduced us to 2 of her relatives. i didn't understand much of what she was saying but dany seemed to catch on and made the right replys, but what i did catch was like 3 minutes later. danyhad to do all the answering for me and such. what the ?? i know dany doesnt ever study, it bores her to death, and she still is better at korean than me! i was realy proud of her but jealous too..i am the slowest at catching on to korean really! it is akward trying to speak korean...and people seem to understand when i talk in english, i just am stuck in a rut, and can't get past speaking in engish. maybe because i am the only one whose family always speaks to me in english. everyone else only knows korean.

my mom and dad say my host brother has much better english than ji-eun but i dont htink so. his understanding is better, but me and dany were here, and were trying to ask him how old he was, and easy stuff like that and he totaly ignored us. temporary deafness? we were waving our arms, hey hey over here! yah we are talking to yooouu..hello??? and we ask him really simple things but he just stares at us. oen time when dany was here was were my host dad asks "lori you talk to my son?" 'uhh i try but he doesnt talk back' "he is shy, but my son, hansome boy?" 'umm yahhh waht ever you say' and dany and i exchange looks and just laugh

emilio told me that before dany came here, her english was terrible. like bed? beeed? sleep in??? and now like oh i don't know but i think he is jealous, maybe. " i don't htink he english was so bad at first, but now she can say a lot more. myave she understood less of what i use to tell her thani though, but i dont know. now he english is much beter. "squinky?? sqwenky?? is that spanish? ohh you mean squishy!!" she still gets he and she mixedup a lot, but its normal. all the koreans do too. dany "oh i love she so much!!" ha its cute!

well it's late now, off to bed.

every new beginning comes from some other beginnigs end
Mood:  bright
ok, for my 3 loyal readers, mom rose and auntie elaine, i'll continue writing. but mostly because of roses inspirational comment, voosh? or voom? ahh yes that really pushed me to keep writing! haha

ok so really, what have i missed... um

11-11 was pepero day (>?>??I AI) because someone explained to me, the 11-11 looks like pepero sticks. of course, what better reason to celebrate, than when the date resembles a famous candy? it is only a holiday in korea, but it is a huge holiday. a lot like valentines day in the US really. me and rose took a stroll to cna the day before and were totally overwhelmed with the amount of pepero and gift baskets and oh all sorts of things.

also on pepero day donggang middleschool went on a picnic. we stopped at several different places, the names of which escape me, but the first place was a water purifier center. what a strange place to chose for a picnic... but it was at the base of a small mountain. we took the short hike, and i got a lot of pictures.unfortnatly i can't load them on my computer... but i got some from roses photo album. so go see them. at the top was a small temple like building and a stone statue of a tree with faces. we also went on a boat ride that was of no significant importance to me, then stayed a while, at the top of the mountain, freezing, where it was still a little rainy, and windy. i don't remember what the other places were but we didn't stay long at any of the other places. the bus, (the hippy bus: so hippishy colored with the red blue yellow orange so on ceiling lights and tyedye colored curtains) had a tv and for entertainment we got to watch some movies. we saw people on a strike over the nuclear weapons in gunsan. i guess people in seocheon feel there is too much tension with those weapons being so close. a lot of people have mentioned riots and fighting in seoul? i havent heard. but it doesnt affect me anyways.

the leaves are all gone, and it is getting colder and windier. ji-eun got me a big gift basket for pepero day, and besides the generous amounts of pepero, it also had these cute mittens!! much needed since the school ignores the fact that there is no heat and it is like a refridgerator inthe classroom for most of the time.

the weekend was nice and dany came over after school on saturday. my mom allowed her to stay the night which is not like her but i think she is greateful for dany teaching ji-eun spanish now that her spanish lessons with marcilla are over. we couldnt find anything to do on saturday...took a chilly walk around seochoen but couldnt find anyone. made idiots of ourselves at the sandwich shop, but i won't go there. >_< ji-eun dany and me all had a girls night, the rents were in seoul or some place like that n we had the apartment to our selves.

sunday was some sort of buddhist holiday, but my dad was vague in giving me any details. we went to my host-mom's parents farm house about 10-15 minutes drive from seochoen. after eating breakfast there we stayed until 1 and then went to gunsan for ji-euns last spanish lesson. dany was thrilled to talk with another spanish speaker and most the time me and ji-eun were totally left out of the conversation. dany and marcilla spoke spanish, then ji-eun and marcilla would talk in korean...and i'm just over there twiddling my thumbs and drooling, as i so often do ya know. :-P it was a 2 hour class. afterwards we went to a park place in the mountains next to a beautiful lake. it was cold so we stayed only a few minutes then went to this amazing coffee shop on the other side of the lake. it had such an amazing view and was a log cabin type of building, like my house! it was filled with plants and i think i want to get the seeds of some so i can bring them home for grammy. since they are indoor plants im sure i can grow them in maine to! watch me!!! ok did i mention the coffee was delicious! it wasnt the fake coffee like teh maximum stuff here. no it was sooooooooo good! i wanna go back every weekend!

after dropping dany off i barely had time to take a shower before ji-eun informed me we were going back into gunsan for some shopping with her aunt and mom. her aunt is so nice!! i've meet her a few times before, and she loves me! she has 2 kids, and they are learning english , even though they're really young. they had english names as well as korean names. the girl (who was teh cutest!) was wendy. like from peter pan? and the boy was willie, like free willie? right? how cute is that! anyways, in gunsan i got the most kick bum bunny slippers. ji-eun got some too, but they are different colors. so warm too, (as i said before, much needed in the ice block that is our classroom.)

at a trditional village near the school they are repatching a thatch roof, a rarity now adays, so we were invited to investigate such a process. it was really interesting how they do it. we had the oppertunity to do some, but i had to say no, surely if i had any part in making a roof it wouldnt last to see springtime. julian tried and so did rose. horray for the blondes!rose is a natural of course. i'm sure she will go far in the thatch roof industry. hehe.

tuesday and today i missed school with a cold that's kicking my butt, but they gave me all kinds of strange medicins and had this machine like the shock treatment at mental hospitals that was to kill the virus or what ever, but i'm feeling better, so i can't complain about their methods too much, and i'll go back to the ice lair tomorrow i guess. those wooden walls don't have much if any insulation, although what good would insulation be, with the double doors always open on either end of the hall, and the windows too. haha they are crazy

i dont think i ever mentioned tests?? everyone passed so we will all advance to highschool!! horray! i did fail the ethics test, but i doubt she will ever get around to giving me a retake, and ti doesnt matter anyways since i did alright on all my other tests. highschool here i come!! the tests were really easy, i felt dissapointed i even stayed up studying for them! during th tests there were only half days, so relaxing for me, not at all for the other students. im really greatful now that there isn't tha tsort of pressure on middle school students here about getting into highschool. but maybe in a way it is ok because the koreans in middleschool are so much more mature than middleschool students in the us, i think because of the increased amount of responsibility.

now it's late and jiuen needs teh computer.

-lori-

these lines of lightning mean we're never alone
Mood:  cool
it's saturday. horray!!! half day of school. i think that's more productful than getting the whole day off, because i get up early enough and still get to see my "friends" but classes are all easier.

dany was suppose to come over after school, but we both forgot. which was dumb cuz we had been talking about hanging out earlier. oops. jieuns spanish teacher went back to columbia so dany is going to teach us spanish instead. that's a good deal since she comes over every weekned, and doesnt have to be trapped in huzgies house, where she is bored to death.

i brought 2 scarves to korea as lil gifts for my familys or what ever, and i gave one to jieun and one to dany. i was iffy about giving dany one since after this year is over she will be back in mexico and won't really need a scarf, but she promised she'd wear it all the time, even in mexico, 'EVEN IN CANCUN' haha i can amost see that happening too.

today after school me and jieun went shopping in seocheon, and later went out to eat at the tower restuarant where the floor moves. its a nice restaurant and the waiters always try and speak english to me and bow and stuff. it was my parents anniversary, so we always go there on special occasions.




hmmmm...


i miss my family. korean families just aren't close like i was with my family. i love my korean family, but like we are friendly, not family. its lacking something, to me anyways. here i have to use the polite forms when addressing my family, and bow when they come home and stuff.

that's depressing, won't press that subject any further,

gotta get to studying... how cool am i right?

leave a comment or i'll stop writing in this. seriously.

the land of the free and the home of the brave
Mood:  blue
bush, for another 4 years. this is bad. Not that Kerry was a much better option, but he was better than bush. nader for president! too bad that will never happen.

it was so close, SO CLOSE. I stayed up until 12:30 watching the election. nothing changed so I went to bed, still not knowing. after breakfast we turned the tv on to cnn and there was gb: proudly making his speech about how humbled he was to be trusted for another 4 years. it was depressing. then outside our door was the news paper, gwb great big front cover. *stomp*


besides the election, not much exciting has been going on. next week we have finals. monday is english art and gym. tuesday is math, social studies and engineering. wednesday is korean ethnics and music. korean and english are the hardest. we have to learn 30 korean sentences for mondays english class, and memorize 4 pages worth of conversations for korean class. taht teacher is insane, honestly. everything else i'll do ok in, or at least it wont matter too much if i don't.

tuesday a dentist went to the elementary and set up to show the kids what beign a dentist is like or something. but he requested to look at the exchange students teeth, who knows why. weirdo. dany first, zzzzzzsssssssphhhhhhhhhhh....ok you're excellent. then me. zzzzzzzzzsssssssssssphhhhhh zzzzzzzzzzphhhhh ssssssssttttttttttttfffffffff. oh no, oh my....*frown* then i'm done. "whats wrong? why?" and him- you have 10 cavities, i should "cure" 4 of them right now. I totally spazzed out on him, like no you are a bad dentist, there's nothing wrong with my teeth don't ever talk to me again. i realized i sounded alot like tracy when me an her get into fights. crazy. i flipped out on the nurse who tried to tell me he knew what he was doing and i should listin to him. that got me all flustered. 10 cavities my ass. that's outrageous.

wednesday I didn't go to school. there was nothing to do, but at least I got to sleep in. then I talked to friends and family on the computer, and studied some more. that felt like the longest day ever. me and mom went jogging later, and the fresh air made me feel much better.

-lori-

let the rain fall down and wake my dreams let it wash away my sanity
Mood:  loud
IT IS FINALLY RAINING. IT HASNT RAINED HERE FOR A MONTH OR MORE. really i love the sun but the rain is so rare, i appreciate it more. ti was cool today, but not too bad. an a little windy. never seems to be windy here either

rice fieldds: after the rice is um...picked? ( they have big machines like for corn maybe that seperate the rice from the stalks and leave the stalks laying there.) then the stalks slowly...field by field.... are bundled into little squares, and eventually rolled into large hay rolls. similar to the corn fields in maine. the rice is dried on huge matts along the road, and the old women are constantly there raking them. they do teh same thing with chili peppers too. except they don't rake them. I'm sure they are thankful for the lack of wind right now.

lorenza and ji-eun the fishies died. soo sad!! as a fish, i didn't last very long. those were dany's fish. but my host mom found a place for my fishies jack and jimmy, and they have an air filter and everything, so they are ok!!! they will live!

in the us and in belgium too i gathered, everyone's set their clocks back. but here, no one has, not at my house, not in shcool. so i guess daylight savings time isnt international. korea isnt interested in preserving daylight or something. its only for those super recylce crazy countries. that messes meup and it is harder to make connections with people at home because now i'm 14 hours ahead. that's alot.

all for now

lorenza

presidential elections? I never get any of that news here, but i can only imagine....

i think its a lose lose situation either way....good luck clawing your way outta this one usa,

happy halloween!
Mood:  spacey
it's halloween in the US ut here they don't celebrate it so it was just another sunday.

this weekend felt like it took forever to get here. then finally it was saturday! we didn't have elementary school classes at all this week, which made things better.

a new spa/bath opened behind julians house the other day. he and emilio went to check it out and had a good time so that gave my mom the genius plan to take me and jieun and some friends to a spa. we went to one a little ways from seocheon but it was a lot nicer than the one next to julians house.

things were so hectic, the weekend was probably more stressful than the school week was. but i still had a great time. we were suppose to go out to eat before going to the spa, but instead we went to the noraebang for an hour. at 6:35 me dany and jieun met up with emilio julian chongho heesung hugan mijeong lee-jieun and one of jieuns friends from a different school at the spa. it was really nice, we got a change of clothes and a locker to put our things in and had free run of the place. there were 3 floors, one had the hot and cold rooms, 2nd had the sleeping room and dining room, and 3rd had the exercise room. there were some computers we could use too on the 2nd and 3rd floors. it was a relaxing place but you had to be quiet a lot and that was hard to do. Rose was going to go with us, but i think she thougth she had to bring a bathing suit and wouldnt be able to go to her house to get one and come back. but that wasn't the case, and i feel bad she missed out, she would have loved it. next time we go we'll bring her for sure.

there were 2 hot rooms and they were more like ovens, in their shape and function, that like the sauna's i've seen. one room was mildly hot, and had salt beds and stone beds for people to lay on. then the other hot room was like hell. it was hot...really. across from the really hot room was the cold room. it had pipes all along the walls that made ice and the room was really cold. so we'd go from room to room it's like getting out of a hot tub and jumping in the cold pool. yah like that. we stayed the night there but we didn't go to bed until 2 in the morning. we met a lot of nice people there, it's surprising how many teenagers go to spas here. at 4 dany woke me up, she couldnt sleep, i was like wtf....it's 4 in the morning. that was crazy. there were so many people that stayed the night too.

today we left the spa at 10. we visited gunsan when jieun had spanish and shopped there. i got a nice warm fluffy green winter jacket. we went to a very very small amusement park right outside of gunsan after shopping. they only had like 3 good rides, and some kiddy rides, but lots of other things to do. the first ride lasted forever and the guy running it apparently was saying some really nasty things about me and dany cuz we didn't understand. the second ride was better. then for 1,000 won we could fish for for these really cute fishies with a paper net. i have a black one with really big eyes and a white and gold one. i call them jack and jimmy :) dany got 2 and named them lorenza and jieun. im special (lorenza is my spanish name) we dont have any way to filter their water, and they dont seem very happy here, i dont know if they will live very long. :( the black one likes to swim upside down...i dont htink that's a good sign.

that was my weekend.

lori

oh my yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
Mood:  chillin'
yesterday i went to danys house after school and stayed the night there. i was surpresed my mom let me stay on a school night, but it's ok. we walked to dany's house, cuz we "needed the exercise," but we didnt really do any jogging. its hard to jog with backpacks on anyways. chungwan and chongsu walked us home, which was really really nice. they live between donggang and huzgies house, but walked us all the way to huzgies anyways. they dont speak any english but we taught them the te queremos ~~ te quereoms, and wtf, and *slurp* nothing dirrrrty!! we went jogging arund the village later.

korean towns and houses: there are rarely houses standing alone in korea. there are the apartments in cities that go sky high, and then outside of the cities there are "villages" with farm houses and barns. a paved road winds around all these houses, in no specific order, and the road drops off into rice fields on both sides. it's only wide enough for one car too. so if you see another vehicle on the rode you're on, one or the other of you has to reverse (whichh is really scary!) so the other can get by. the houses in the villages are pretty close together, most with high walls and some sort of garden. this is where the original korean houses are. i love the design of these buildings.

dany lives at the end of the village road. it's a long haul to the end of the road in the morning to catch the bus. and they have to do it every day! i'm glad i'm spoiled and get driven to school every day, not having to walk to a bus stop.

buses and korean driving: korean driving is insane in the first place, but it seems to be perfectly acceptable for buses to pass other cars at any time, no matter what is coming, or on a corner when they dont even know if someone is coming that way. buses drive very fast too. since they are big they pretty much own the highway. it's worst when buses and big dumptruck like trucks get into power stuggles over the road. the bus will pass a car, and see a dumptruck, so it will speed up to get around the car faster, it's like im in a game of chicken. not like being in a car is any safer. every one seems to be in such a hurry. i've almost been hit twice walking in seocheon, in cross walks!! this isnt including the time my host mom ran over my heel.

me and dany stayed up talking until 11, then when i woke up at 6:30 i saw the door, right where my door is in my host famis house and her desk, same spot my desk is, but her clock is ona different wall, so i immedietly thought, shit someone took my clock! then i remebered i was danys house, and things went back to normal.

yesterday the korean teacher (the really slow one) got upset about the condition of the nurses station cuz everyone had been in there. he was really relly pissed so she broght chungku and fransisco up infront of the class to like make examples of them. it was scary, like i was shaking i was so scared. fransisco first, he hit him, twice, right in the face really really hard. fransisco was ok, but you could tell it hurt really bad, then when he hit chunku he gave him a bloody nose. then they had to kneel donw, and chungku, just letting the blood run everywheres, cuz he couldnt move, it was so humiliating. it was like an hour long lecture on that, and i'd never seen anything like that before. teachers aren't allowed to hit kids in the us. i'm really frightened by the korean teacher now.

so that's all the news here. today is my mommy in miguk's birthday!! happy birthday!!!! i looove youuu!!!!!!!!! hope she had a good day

lori