the kim family
Mood:  happy
I"m now staying with the Kim family. i was so worried about changing families, and what if they don't like me, and everything, but now that im here im so happy! it was an akwardly silent first night, but after that its been great!

I have 3 host sisters, the youngest, ji-eun, is in 5th grade elementary school, ji-na goes to the same school as me and is my age. the oldest, ji-yoon, just graduated and is starting classes at daechon university in march. my host mom calls herself host mommy, "host mommy now work go" haha. we live on the floor above the store my dad owns. its like a suit store i think i've never been in there. he's busy a lot though.

my family all cooks for themselves, when ever they are hungry. thats a change from shinyoung aparntments where we always ordered out food or myhost mom did all the cooking. i like this arrangement just as well, except for my lack of cooking skills. we eat a lot of kimpap and dokboki. im getting more accustomed to eating spicy food! i never though i'd get use to it.

my sisters introduce me to many of their friends and i got to meet the family. my grandmother owns a lingerie shop, thats pretty cool. its in downtown nonsan, we go there a lot to visit. the cousins work there so its like a family gathering at the lingerie shop.

my sister took me to her little english school. the teacher is from canada, but is korean. he is really nice, and was so excited to meet me. i didn't stay in the class room, i hung out in the office and used the computer for an hour until class was over then me and the students went out side and played badmitten.

my oldest host sister is going to college for something piano, and she works at a piano haggwan (academy) i went with her a few days ago, but it was a lt of little kids all staring at me and i'm still not really comfortable with the animal in a zoo thing. one of the girls invited me to her house for a couple hours. her mom took us to a korean outside market that are really common. we got some lunch, and she bought some fish. the fish markets are strange. you see the fish, whole, and choose which one you want, then the butches takes it chops it up for you and sticks it in a bag. its kinda scary all the lil fish heads all around the shop, and the smell is unpleasent even with the shop outside. i had fun spending time with this family, the mom is really into sports and likes tiger woods. yep we get along great! they had the cutest puppy! a lot of people who live in apartments have dogs. we visited one of ji-euns friends yesterday and they had a lil terrier dog. i wish this family would get a dog, i miss bean!

my host mom is buddhist but my sisters are catholic. so we dont go to church every sunday. and my host mom brought me to a temple the other day. complete with the whole bowing thing. im sure if i went to the temple every day i'd be in excellent shape. its up a million stairs then when you bow you stand, kneel, touch head to mat, put hands up in ome sign, kneel, stand, then repeat 2 more times. turn right and repeat. you do this in several different buildings. and light incense and place it in an urn. there are candles you can buy at the shop below the temple and you light one for each of your family members and make a request or something. i didnt catch everything since it was all in korean. but it was certainly an experience.

i called kim gabin last night and she said we, all the exchange students are going to seoul this weekend for a rotary meeting. finally! we havent been to any yet. not with our actual rotary. i need to remember to bring our rotary stuff to trade with them.

me and the 2 oldest sisters have conversations wher we are teaching eachother english and korean. its realy helpful, and i feel like i'm learning a lot more here. we spend a lot of time together as a family, thats really nice.

me and my host sister went to daechon to see the movie shark tale or something. it was good but no one else thought it was funny cuz the parts are kind of lost when translated to korean. and you'd have to be from america to get a lot of it. we went shopping in this realy big underground mall before and jina bought me these really cute earrings. before i left for nonsan bong came over and had bought me some nice buddhist symbol (also knows as nazi signs) earrings. im sending darin the buddhist necklace so i dont go back to the us and get beat up over something really stupid. bongs friend, ojin, has a lot of friends in nonsan that go to st paul, so he called them and told them about me, they're lookin out for me. plus jina has a lot of friends that want to meet me, i should do fine!

im teaching my youngest host sister guitar, but its really difficult, with not being able to communicate with her very well, and some things need to be explained but are really complicated. i did teach her how to read tabs, that was frustrating. i dont think i'm really qualified to teach anyone guitar, since i'm still learning myself. but its said that a good way to learn is to teach. duno who said that but i think they weren't as right as everyone thought.

i only get an hour at the computer every day, computer rules i guess, and i've exceeded my hour, so i better go before someone notices.

-lori-

my last day with the chwe family and kang-a-ge! (my puppy)
Mood:  d'oh
The plan was to go to Muju this weekend, then come back on Monday before i get picked up. But me and Ji-eun decided not to go skiing, I had really uncomfortable stomach pains, not realy putting me in the mood for any skiing. Everyone else went, so it was just me and Ji-eun! woo! we had fun, and the computer in my room decided it would work,so i got to chat with my friends in usa. :) we ordered food, and it gets delivered, how great is that?? Since there was no parental figure to tell us when to go to bed, we took advantage of the situation, staying up until almost 5 in the morning. then not waking up until almost 2. Ji-eun slept in my room, sleeping in the living room when no one else was home was lonely. shes so great, i'm going to miss her tons. I got her an aol name so i can talk to her after i'm gone too.

i had a dream about grampa a few nights ago. 2 nights ago to be exact. well, in the dream he was roses host grampa. and i went to visit them, but it was him really, everything, the way he acted was him, and the gram was like my gram too. and this struck me as REALLY sad. it hadn't been a great week, and it was like ALL my emotions went into this dream. i really missed him, and was crying, and no one could understand why. i tried to explain to them the similarities, but they still seemed really confused. i had to go outside cuz i didnt want them to see me, and they had all the flowers outside like grams house too. the situation wouldn't seem really that bad, now, but the dream was sad in itself. idno i guess you'd "had to have been there right?"
but then rose called and she always makes me feel better. i told her how she was in my dream and all.

her news: her mom is coming to visit in late feb!! this is awesome! she was going to come earlier, when rose was with ri's family, but it fell through with the moving plans so sketchy. i really want to visit rose once i get back and i wanna meet her mom. i've told her soo much abut my family too, all the exchange students love my gram. they talked to her on the phone for her birthday :)

its getting late in the afternoon, well not too late, but its dark. i still wanna hit up seocheon for a calling card, and pack my bags, and clean my room. my fam will be so pleased :)

laaaater

All i can do is read a Book to stay awake And it rips my life away, but it's a great escape
Mood:  a-ok
it's soo nice to be able to sleep until noon every day!!

I think i'm gonna ask one of ji-euns english teachers if they can tech me korean. i'm just not absorbing the language like you are suppose to with spanish and french and those really easy to learn languages. right right (they arent easy) but they are a million times less difficult than korean. the alphabet, the word order, the sound of the words,don't try and tell me differently! so maybe if i had a tuitor, just to teach me some vocab and simple stuff. that would be great. i could help them with english stuff, since everyone here seems so desperate for anything english.

i'm leaving for my new host family on monday. i'm pretty excited. eveyone else has alreayd moved. Its gonna be an adventure, since no one knows anyting about my new family, its like a surprise. i know i'll do fine, and hopefuly I have nice siblings.

Rose visited before she moved, and I have been talking to her and dany on the phone a lot. Makes me really happy. Hopefully there is some way i can take a bus to visit them on occasion. i know they arent close, but its not like they are countries away!!

And when i change families rotary will finally pay us. they wouldnt until then, even though i went through december money like a wild woman, i've gone amonth with out anything..that was uncomfortable. i had to use the card a lot more than i had planned, sorry mum.

wellnow we are going to chun-ju for some english lesons, and i can sit at the book store, drinking coffee and watching t.v. that's prety nice. the people are great too.

i've been having soo many dreams, sleeping so long and all. one, shana came over, and i was at home in the us, and we hung out,then in the next dream i was writing down my dream where shana came over. that was weird. today i dreams i went to a ski lodge with auntie karen mom and some frineds. but it was terrible because there was no food,and no one was there,and we couldnt leave and i got really sick. i hope next weekend when we go tothe ski resort it isnt like that. we can't bring dany, cuz ther are 2 many people going alreayd. yah (my bro can bring 5 of his frinds, ) thats why there are too many people. hmph.. maybe they would be ok if i just visited rose or dany for that weekend. spending 2 or 3 days with my bro and 5 of his friends doesnt sound that appealing to me really.

really have to go now, or were gonna be late!

writes: R.O.P.E. "loufe" um..i think what you mean to say is "rope" "right! loufe!"
Mood:  spacey
the trip to seoul, then the last day of school, and my trip to muju ski resort.

why does it feel like so much more has happened, and i have no motivation to do anything, except sit around all day....drooling.

a few days before school ended i took all my dried flowers down and arranged them all nice with a ribbon, and such. i wanted to bring them home, cuz they were special to me. nothing wrong with that right? then the next day i come home from school, ad they arent on my desk anymore. i search everywhere. they arent in my room, or anywhere else in the house, or the trash. so i have ji-eun call the maid person, maybe she's seen them. (i swear this woman has it out for me) an hour later she comes over, with my flowers, some what disheveled looking, but seemingly alright. she startes lecturing me in korean about my unorganized room, but i ignore most of it. i'm still concentrating on my flowers. she sets them down, and theres a funny bend in them. i pick them up, and the tops just fall right off. what did you do to my flowers?!?! she had taken them, and broken them all in half. there were only 12 flower tops left, none of the ones ojin had given me or the ones chong-yeouns family had given me when i arrived. maid lady was mad about my room being messy maybe, was this like revenge or something?!?! surprisingly enough the trash in my room hadn't even been taken out, but she did feel it was critical to maintain the tidyness of my room by mangeling my innocent dried flowers. i was soooo mad!!!!!!! my host mom gave me flowers she had gotten for her birthday. my friends hadn't given those to me, and they didn't represent each special occasion my other flowers represented, but it was really nice of her just the same. me and the babysitter haven't had a good relationship since. that makes things akward, shes here almost every day.
on a much lighter note!

seoul was really fun. yes me and dany went in mini skirts and heels. yah we really aren't stupid, but since I bought the outfit i might as well wear it, and where would be more acceptable than seoul? it's really common korean fashion to wear mini skirts and heel in the middle of winter! but yah well looked really cute. it was not warm, and at the rest stop we stopped to get food at along the way, these old guys were so obviously staring at us...ahhhh *hides behind rose* First we went to the MBC building, ate a not really great food then sat in a large waiting room for like 2 hours. but we did get go eat ice cream afterwards and take some cute pictures, so no complaints here.

we got a tour of teh place, saw a famous korean comedian being interviewed, watched 2 shows being filmed, and emilio cornered a few of the stars to have them sign his mexican flag.i didnt have my camera, no memory left, but rose and dany got pics i hope i can get copies of. reallly once you see a show being filmed the whole magic of tv is gone. there was a guy who leads the audience, and he was much funnier than the actual show. he had this GREAT FAKE SMILE and over exagerated his laughter and clapping to everyone would follow, even whena lot of it wasn't realy funny. that was interesting, i hope they got a lot of pictures of him! mr yellow shirt was no wheres to be seen, kind of dissapointing, and micah is just a translater, so she wasn't there either.

Afterwards we went to building 63, which is the tallest building in Korea with only 63 floors. that doesn't seem that tall to me. we did some quick shopping on floor 1 before going to the 63 floor. it was such an amazing view. Seoul is obviously extremly polluted, being like the 4th largest city in the world, or something close to that. but it was still a great view. all the lights, and it was dusk, you could see so much of the city! all the trees with xmas lights on them! and the roads with hard core traffic jams, the red / white car lights, it was quite a site! I've never been to new york, but i''m sure its a similar scenerio. there are large pictures of the building in differnt phases of the day, and you can stand next to them to take pics. me and dany got pics of us in what looks like king-kong type poses, "yah so on top of everything" **meehrung!** antonio took us to eat at the mcdonalds in the lower part of building 63. on teh way home we drove past the popular strip where all the dramas are based. there is a wide walk way, sort of park like, and all the trees have xmas lights on them, its relaly pretty. dany has pics of me and her there, but idno when i'll see her to get those.

Thursday, i have a terrific example of the rudeness of public bus drivers. since i was so tired from seoul i woke up late, and decided to take the later bus. jieun gave me the name of the place the bus had to be headed for it to drop me off at school. but i had no idea when to go wait for it. i chose, 9:30 to leave the house. figured that should give me enough time, and it would probably come around 9:40. but the lady at the ticket window said it would come again at 10, and i had already missed it. so i started walking to julians house, maybe he was still there, or something. half way there i see a bus go by but assume it isnt mine. then i see hyogun waving like a mad man. shit, that is my bus!!!! i run after it for like a block, which is unfun, and also drew a lot of unnecessary attention. "haha hey look at that stupid red head chasing the bus....what a dork!" yah thats how i felt. :-P haha hyogun told me later he told the guy to stop the bus, but they rarely do for those unfortunate enough to not be at the bus stop when it arrives. anyways, walked to julians, he wasnt there, walked back to bus stop A, and waited untl 10:00 for another bus. tried to get on the wrong one, looked really stupid, again. a nice korean girl helped me get the right bus. but i didn't know when to push the button, so ended up having to get off at the stop, before the school, and walking a nice chilly walk to school, eventually arriving at 10:30. damn i thought i would never get there, and if it hadn't been the second to last day of school i would have said screw it, i'm going back home to sleep!

friday was officially the last day at donggang. nothing major happened, a lot of the students were sick for reasons i can't disclose, so i didn't have many good byes to say, mostly people were passed out on desks, or not in the mood to talk. at 11 we had a quick assembly, the exchang students recieved our completion cirtificates. also, ami's little sister made sketches of each of us, that were REALLY good. mine was nice, of course it didn't look ANYTHING like me, it was way to pretty to be me! everyone told me so. koreans are brutally honest in every way. but i didnt let it get to me, the sketch had been drawn for a picture that i really looked good in. i really can look good if i try, but graduation wasnt one of those days. then a few days ago jae-hyuns japanese teacher saw my picture, and in korean tells ji-eun ohh (yogi manhi do ippo) which means this is much prettier. then looks at me and in english says "oh its very nice!" i know much more korean that she knows. i just smile, and dont say anything.

the rudeness i get sometimes when i try and talk in korean is infuriating sometimes. as if im not insecure enough about talking in korean!
me-"ahnyoung!"
them-teehee! mocks my "ahnyoung!" then laughs some more.
then i fly into fiery red head mode "hey do i comment on your crappy english?? no! at least im trying!"
and them, trying to look all cute and inocent... "bula" (i dont know/understand)
me- OF COURSE YOU DONT KNOW!!!!! hmph! *storms off to go find a more worthy subject to practice my korean on*

Instead of going to cheju islands like we had planned, we went to muju ski resort. it wasnt warm, no beaches, but skiing is always a good time. a lot of famous people had been there too. didn't i feel special! the place we stayed in was small, but cozy. no beds of course, i'm totally unphased by that by now. quite the improvement. the floor was really warm cuz they heat rooms by hot pipes in the floors, making it more comfortable to sleep on the floor than on a bed. because we gt there late, we didn't go skiing. just walked around the muju town. it was really pretty at night, all the buildings with xmas lights, and the trees with xmas lights too. me and ji-eun got a room together, and host mom dad and brother had the room next door. wohoo! we stayed up really late watching tv, and at midnight they had fireworks! being new years and all! it was nice. but the actual new year by the lunar calander is tomorrow, the 9th. they celebrate that more extensivly than new years by the western calander.

all saturday we went skiing. it was coooold, and my ski suit was borrowed from my mom, and had a rip in the crotch part. well...i didnt do it, :-P but it made for some really drafty trips down the mountain. the ski boots were also borrowed from my mom, and they wer really small. but my fam coulnt understand why i didn't wanna ski for very long. they didnt realize how dangerous it can be to be skiing along, and not have ANY FEELING WHAT SO EVER in your feet. i didnt' fall at all though, this was not anything like sugarloaf, it was maybe like sugarloafs bunnyslopes. my host dad constantly practiced his english on me, (which wouldnt be so annoying if he just used normal english, and not try to impress me with all the big words he knows.) and tried to teach me how to ski. trust me bud i already know. what i wanna learn how to do is snow board. maybe next time we go though, cuz "oppa "wanted to too, and what the brother wants,he gets. that could really work out for me and jieun too, since we both wanna try.

we left sunday afternoon, and ater i got home, honesty i didnt leave the house for like 3 days. not even going outside. thats not good for you, i found when i did go outside again, it was sooooooo bright! yeooow! the sun!!!!!!! i'm dying!!! literally, i need to get out more. rose called on wednesday night, and we arranged for her to come over! she left friday, for iksan. emilios gone to somewhere south like 4 hours away and dany left today for chongju. my comrads are all gone! rose spent wednesday night, we stayed up until 3:15 talking, what a good time. ima miss that girl like mad! *tears* at noon thursday we walked to her busstop. it wasnt a teary godbye cuz i know i will see her again real soon! its not like shes dead, and from what i hear shes got a 13 floor apartmen in iksan. i'm so jealous! haha

my original family in nonsan was a doctor, but i guess the school was making them take me and they really didn't want me...ouch. thats harsh. but i got a new family, one i know even less about. just that i'll show up with all my luggage on the 16 or something, SURPRISE! i hope you like me! *sweet smile no one can resist* that waskind of upsetting news...that my former fam didnt want me. but yea-lim said they were mean, and i'm better off with out.

thursday dany came over. i'm soooo lucky i got to see her and rose before they left! wow that has made all the other totally pointless days seem ok! dany couldn't stay the night. but she came over around noon and she dragged me out of the apartment that has become my security, i'm seriously becoming a hermit i think! haha. she had to mail some letters, but needed stamps, so we went looking for people to tell us where the post office was. "excuse me, do you know where the post office is?" who knew that would be such a great pick up line. haha

dany- look at him look at him! HEY DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE POST OFFICE IS!?

we got 3 excellent directions to the bus terminal, not really what we were looking for, and 2 just to a mailbox. but anyways it really was a good conversation starter. it only took us 4 months to find one! damn.

saturday, onul toyo-il ee-eh-yo (today is saturday) am i good or waht? we went to chongju to do some shopping. jieun had an english class at a book store that sold all english books. it was al little kids books, but hd a little shelf with books that i like to read. oens that arent for kindergartners. it had some stephen king and that kind of thing. i read and watched tv while jieun had her lesson. then we went to the hair salon near by. jieun has been nagging me non stop to cut my hair again and get bangs. so i did. it is um.... like an 80' rock star hair cut. its alright, the popular style in korea, not something i would get in the us. but i will let it grow out alil bit, maybe i'll like it more. its ok....but idno. jieun also wants me to dye it black. maybe. but the red gets a lot more attention. :)

i think thas all for now. finally. i'v needed to write that down for a while. enough procrastinating.

oh my god! my skin is white!!
Mood:  party time!
On Friday my host mom taught me how to make kim bap. it's really fun and easy, so if I bring kim and some of the ingrediants home with me, I cn make it there. I got pictures of my kimbap making efforts, and they came out really good, so i'm pretty proud of myself right now!

Friday at school the technicology teacher told me he was going to Philidelphia next summer, and he wants to come visit me. Cool, that will be fun. He doesn't know much english, so I dno how he's gonna do it, but maybe he has family there.

Saturday we didn't have school because it was Christmas, and on Friday my host mom bought me a calling card, so I wanted to call my mommy on christmas eve, but the phones werent connecting, and many things but I still got to talk to her on aol. The lack of Christmas-ish things was a little downer, but that's how it is in Korea. Especially with my Buddhist family. I stayed up really late talking to friends, then on Saturday we had to leave for Busan at 8 in the morning. That didn't leave me any time to open my gifts, so I stashed them under my desk until Sunday night. the trip to Busan was really long, it's on the southern tip of korea, on the southern ocean. we stopped at a rest stop and they let me call my mom. The phone card finally worked, so I talked to her and gram, which was their xmas eve, when my family usually celebrates Grammys' birthday. Steve went to visit her, and brought her a beautiful poinsetta, that was really thoughtful of him. called Jack, but he was less than enthused to talk to me. Shouldn't have woken him up, I won't do that again.

In Busan we went to the Lotte Department store, with everything sooo over priced, and it felt like people were ALWAYS staring at us. actually, they were. the employees well flock to you and start harassing you the second you touch an item, jabbering on, asking how they can help you, proding you, trying to find the right size, finding out how you plan to pay so on. we turn a corner, and there is like 12 sets of squinty eyes all pointed in our direction. People are always always staring, and not always in kind ways. Some are like, what are you doing in MY korea...and it's a little akward sometimes.

After Lotte we went to Heundai beach. It was really pretty. Not like a big Mexican beach, and Dany and Emilio were dissapointed, but the water, even though it was night, was blue blue! and there were all the couples walking on the beach, all romantic like awwwwwwww! We couldn't stay long but we got some nice pictures, and drank coffee. It was cold and windy. KG actually seemed surprised there were not people swimming. I guess there are people here that enjoy swimming in December, like the PolarBear club or something. From there we went directly to our hotel. Hyundai, like the car, Hotel. It was sooo huge!! and nice too, deffinatly 5 stars in my book, except it didn't have beds. Ummm 5 stars, and no bed? I remember a dream I had about not so great hotel's. This one wasnt' as bad as the dreams, but I was shocked there weren't beds. The flooring is a special kind, so it's really comfortable, I didn't mind. We didn't go to bed until about 4 anyways. It was Christmas morning in the US, so I called my mom, it was 9 in the morning, and talked to her and gram.

"hallo?"
me- "Laurie??"
"yah!"
me-"hii!! this is the other lori!!"

She is liking Christmas in the US with the tree and presents and everything, I'm so glad! I got to wish Grammy a happy birthday on her actual birthday, and me and my friends all sang her happy birthday in different languages. I'm so glad I got to talk to her, I was really angry when I thought the phone card I bought wouldn't work, so I couldnt call home for the holidays.

There was a dance place at the Hotel, but not many people were there. It was alright though, except for the outrageous drink prices. we didn't stay long, and just hung out in the lobby. I called Cayla at like 2 in the morning, she appreciated the long distance call. :)

sue-"cayla get off the phone!"
cayla-"what? with lori!? who i haven't talked to in 4 months??? I don't think so!"
sue-"really? our lori?? merry christmas lori!!!"
yah feel the love :D

I called Heather but she wasn't home. I got to talk to Michele though, which was nice too! Then I called Heather last night at 11:30>>>9:30 am her time. Matt answered her phone, i'm like who is this!?! where's my Heather?! ugh, matt, jez.

We talked for like an hour, that was good on the calling card. Rose said her mom called the phone people, and asked how much it costs to call the us with out a phone card. they said 50 won a minute.....WHAT? thats like .05 a minute. so she talked for 3 hours and it cost her 7,000 won.. thats crazy. I'll ahve my host mom call, and see if we are on a similar plan. but then I would be calling all the time, and that would be bad. Maybe I won't ask. um,

On Sunday we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel. it was teh best ever!! It was jsut like a western style breakfast, or european breakfast, but anyways it wasn't Korean! we didn't eat fish and rice with chopsticks, like most mornings. it was so good! When we left we went sight seing, to another beach on the east sea of korea. We live on the west sea, went swimming there. then went to the south sea when we went to busan, now we've seen all the different oceans surrounding korea. :) And on Friday I'm going with my host family to the island cheju on the southern sea of korea. We are staying for a few day. It won't be like the Carribbean, but it will be pretty. We went to a memorial for a King. it was interesting I bet it would look a lot nicer in the Summer. there was a really small maze like stone cavern for the dragon that use to live there, some legend like that. It was too cold to stay very long.

we stopped at a Buddhist temple where they teach taekwonsung, or somthing like that. It takes so much determination and you have to be so devoted, not to mention it's like 600,000 won a month to learn, and it's pretty pointless if you don't at least go for a year. there were monk trainers all around, it was really cool. the temple is on a hill, then you can climb higher, to the statues where there are places to pray. it was really like rock climbing. I have pictures from the bottom to the top, yep and i climbed that in HEELS! it was fun, and we got some really nice pictures. the Buddha statues where nice. but my feel were killing me afterwards. at the entrance there were statues of these really strong gods, with man boobs,and they are wearing a skirt type outfit. its great, so we got pictures with us and the statues, cuz yah that's my kinda man.

We didn't get back to Seocheon until like 8. I opened my presents from the US when I got home. Beans present first. It was a lil sweater for her, and a santa clause hat. its so adorable!! me and ji-eun got lots of pictures of her. too cute! also got lots of chocolate and a "wiggles"? cute little i don't knw what. but i need to come up with a name for it! it's tooo sweet! I also got teeth whitening stuff, but its PREMIUM so it works faster. but its kind of frightening, because of all the warnings, "avoid contact with skin, may result in whitening." so thats michael jacksons secret. this morning i was all paranoid it had bleahed my hands a little,

me "my skin is white!!!!"
everyone,- noooooo really???

I talked to Nicole on Christmas eve, she said she had a dream about me coming home, thats sweet, i feel loved!

me and rose are nosing through all the tapes in the teachers room computer desk. they have ebs movies, then cds inthe top part....lets seeee
mozart,.... the great piano music...beethoven....rossine.....bach.....sir mix-a-lot...red hot chilipeppers....what? dr dre DR DRE??? woah. thats an interesting collection. donggang is more than it appears. haha

so i guess I leave on the 4th for my new family. then I will stay there for the 2 month vacation.

hope everyone had a merry christmas!!

St. John's
Mood:  not sure
Only a week left of school here at dong-gang after this friday. no school on saturday because it's Christmas! I love not having to wake up until 8 in the morning. Sometimes it still seems too early. Next year waking up at 6 is going to kill me! Which, in an odd way, reminds me about gettin my license, and how/when i'm gonna do that. I need to retake my permit test when I get back. yuck.

Kim Gabin got a phone call from my future host family this morning. I'm going to the St. Johns all girls highschool in Nunsan. Well...at least it's a big city. hm... it's the same school yea-lim is going to, but she says she feels bad for me because it's all girls, and they study really hard. I don't have to take extra classes if I don't want to. (which I don't!) It's only 40 minutes from where Dany will go, and 40 minutes from Seocheon. Not too bad, we can still hang out on the weekends. Still no word where Rose is going, but KG said we wouldn't be going to the same school. Even though it's a christian school, I was told people of all different religions go there, and I won't be subjected to Christian classes and prayers and things. IT's a big school, and there are boys highschools near by, so it's ok i guess. An all girls christian highschool. Yeah it's still sinking in. I'll have Yea-lim I'm so fortunate for that:) I'll be in 2nd grade there.

Highschools only have 3 grades, since what would be freshman year for us, is still part of their middleschools. Good to know.

I am leaving some time in early January.

For Christmas KG is bringing us to Busan, the second biggest city in Korea. chong-won park is paying for everything, but he can't go with us, so he offered up KG to go. she isn't real thrilled, i feel bad for her. I wouldn't wanna leave my family on Christmas to take a trip with the exchange students. I want to buy a calling card so I can call my Grammy on her birthday, so it's top of my to-do list, find a store that sells international calling cards.

This weekend my mom is going to teach me how to make kim-bap so I can make it in the USA. It's sooo good!! I'll bring a "korean meal"home with me in a tupperware container or something, just one, like rice, kim-bap, sangson (fish) bulgogi and KIMCHI woo!... But i wanna be able to make this more than once too. I'll probably be the only one that will eat it haha :)

pure as new york snow
Mood:  cool
it's been coooold, like it thoroughly feels like december now, phew! i was getting worried.

xmas is in 4 days......new years is in 9 or 10. i bet the house looks really peaceful now with the tree up and its lights...and grammys cards all hung up. heathers house is its usually holiday seasonal chipperness....

nothing fancy here, but my host mom did bring me out and buy me new pants for my xmas gift. ^^

her birthday is on christmas too, like grammys!!!! ironic. the fam went to seoul last weekend, and while there were there, did a lil shopping. she came home around midnight, and had to show me and dany this jacket she bought. It wasn't really pretty,infact I thought she was joking when seh first displayed it to us. Sort of resembles an abe suit...the grayish color, like if you added dark leather gloves with nails it would be complete. then she informed me, "it is mink! my husband bought itfor me for my birthday!" welll...mink, i gotta check this out. and the pricetag reads 1,680,000 won. thats um 1,680$ on a g**D***ed jacket!!!!!!!!!!! yahhhhhhh me and dany were practically pissing our pants. I honestly didn't believe people like that existed. Imean, people don't reallllly spend that much money on clothes. Especially one article fo clothing! well it's true, i'm still in shock!

only the english and korean teachers still teach class, the rest go home early and let us do our own thing. which is watch korean movies. 3 just today. it's killing me. i don't realy understand much of what they say but I can understand what happens in all of them. Theres a pattern. It'd be funny if i didn't have to watch them 3 times a day, straight. anyways, theres the dumb innocent really cute korean girl, the big brown eyes, pouty lips, straight straight hair, all the girls wanna be like here. she goes "oooooopppaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa oooppppaaaaaaaaaa!!! *slap slap slap* in the whiniest voice you can imagine. and the guy is really tall, strong, and extremely harsh and rude to everyone, espeically girls. so of course the innocent korean falls head over heels for him, despite the rudeness and cockyness, and they turn into the ideal korean couple....always fighting, never holding hands in public, or the guy will get slapped, and totally unphysical relationship. then either the guy dies, or another guy enters the picture, and the girl is too dumb to choose, so she just lets them fight over it till one dies. anyways, the ending is always tragic, and pitiful, with the girl crying and being consoled by another guy.

at one point during all these movies, the guy will fall romantically but completely accidentally on top of the girl, or vice-versa, sparking their never ending love for eachother. corney.....? ohhh yeah. sometimes it happens multiple times n one movie, or they kiss when they fall or something, drawing gasps fromthe middleschool girl audience. uhhh, one more day of this seriously and ugh..... they need to come up with different movies.

more coming home dreams, not good. don't remember any specifics.

went shopping with dany this weekend around seocheon, got some cute boots, a jean jacket, and a mini skirt. excelent time of year for a mini skirt! but its for winter, its really warm, and i jus need nylons or something, it'll work really! it's korean fashion!

dany and emilio got their new host families information today! their host borthers and sisters are so pretty!! I wanan know where i am going now!! but there was no news for me and rose. I think we are going to the same school, we might find out tomorrow i hope!! big city! big city!! big city!!! please!!! dany and emilio are going to cities, so hopefully theres still a chance for us, and not in a christian school. Emilio says they know where we are going but are holding out on telling us. duno why, but i''m so anxious to find out. things will be much more exciting when we hit highschool im sure.

if you dance like that in church jesus will kill you
Mood:  surprised
nothing new has happened. nothing of any great significance. how many weekends have passed? 2.

dany comes over every weekend and for the first weekend the camera men were back, so after we did some shopping they took us to the gymchilbang. a really really impressive sauna, its better than the one in gunsan except there arent mats to sleep on, just the hard marble floor. not that we did much sleeping anyways. but i'll get there. the camera people taped us in the sauna then having a snowball fight in the ice room, and me and dany singing karayoke. we had all the harmonies in the house singing 'im a barbie girl!' at 11 we talked to camera people into taking us to gunsan. we didnt get back until 3. "dany i'm your beeeest friend! you wanna knw why!! well i'll tell you cuz you dont remember" maybe cuz of a not so pleasent experiences with chicken. "omg does that woman have purple spots all over her or am i just seeing things??"-"no she really has purple dots all over her" anyways we didnt get to sleep until 4, and woke up at 8 to go home. (you can sleep at the gymchilbangs. )

weekend two me and dany went to the noraebang with dany and 6 of our highschool friends. later we walked around seocheon, and they paid for us to take a taxi to yealims house. really nice people. we rented movies (in english), troy and hot chick. there we watched harry potter, and harry looks JUST FREAKIN LIKE rose's boyfriend. hahah soo weird. me dany and rose stayed the night. at like 2 in the morning we went for a walk around their village, me rose and yeamin. it wasn't too cold, but then again, i had on 3 layers of pants. :) "does this make my butt look fat?" ummm yup!

sunday morning emilio called and invited me to lunch because they wre having dog and knew i wanted to try it. his host family are te nicest people. emilio got pictures of me eating dog, dunno when ill get to see those. it was really good though. i dont know why its so wrong to eat dog, we eat chicken and pig...so why not? and its not like i'd eat bean or casper, i didn't know this dog. while i ate, emilio and julian were barking at me, trying to make me feel bad. thanks for the support guys. at yealims we watched movies and we stayed sunday night there too. at 11 everyone was asleep but me and dany so we went for another late night walk. emilio had said if i stayedi should go to his house later. ye-il me and dany walked there. ye-il didnt know we were going to emilios until a lil ways there, and was like no can i got back and change its cold and its a long walk. nahhh you can handle it!! and him-no tomorrow i'll have acold! noo you wont! we stayed until 1 then walked home. sure enough, its thursday and ye-il is still sick! oh noooo! we are bad friends!!!!!!!!! we killed them!!! "no wait, only one"

i got 2 more packages from home. one with cookies and snacks for bean, and one of candy! sooo happy!!!!!!!!!they are hidden in my room, from myself, cuz i eat too much as it is. i'll never ever ever be able to get back into shape for senior year track....tear

on monday we were sooo tired, (maybe because of the lack of sleep sunday night) hmm? we styed in the nurses office all day. its an empty office with 2 bedrooms. sometimes the koreans will come in and visit us. first yeamin came in, and stayed for about 20 minutes, and just as he left, like THE SECOND HE WALKED OUT THE DOOR his twin came in. its spooky and us....wtf?! ok which one aaaaare you?? and he was saying the same things yeamin had said it was weird. me and tracy are not like that at all!!!! they're realllllly close!

almost forgot.... had another dream about cominghome. I dont' know why i'm so scared of coming home, its so far away and what do i have to worry about? but something is always nagging my subconscnience.... anyways i came back for a few days, like in my other dream, and this timei was home for prom. it was at mt view, and there were allthe people there that had already graduated like megan carmen and jeff harris. i didn't have a dress, didn't have time to buy one, so I wanted to call heather, to have to bring one from last year or something. she wasn't there. the people there were really early, and getting ready or something. but i couldnt call her, and I couldnt find anyone I knew. the people there werent paying any attention to me, and it was really flustering. always only there for a few days, at a big social gathering, can't find any of my friends....yep there is a deffinate pattern here.

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