New Year, New Post!

Well I just realized that we are about to cruise into the second week of the new year and I haven’t written anything since 2009. Sorry about that! As usual, I have very little excuse. It would be one thing if I was doing something interesting or important every day when I got home from winter camp…but the reality is that I’m sleepy and it takes all my energy just to focus on reading subtitles on Korean dramas. Sad, but true.


New Years snuck up on me this year (as every other holiday has) and I decided to go out on the town with Laura, Julia, Dana, and Ayzia. I met up with Laura in Hongdae around 6:00pm and we walked up to the club to buy tickets for the “event” we were attending (more on that soon). Then we headed down the street to a restaurant where we started on some galbi and champagne (yup, we’re that classy, haha). Julia and Dana rolled in a little later and met us at the restaurant. Now as I have NEVER been clubbing and I have NEVER been to Hongdae, I decided to just go with the flow the whole night and go wherever everyone else went. When I was told we were going to an “event” at Club Cocoon, I was down for it. Little did I know that going with the flow would be one of the best decisions I’ve made in Korea.

At Club Cocoon we attended a “Donkey Show.” Not what you’re thinking. According to Google Search results yielded after I returned home, it turns out that a Donkey Show is a “disco retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Uhhh…what that description leaves out is really the heart of the Donkey Show: scantily clad men dancing around to Korean remakes of 70s classics. It was…hilarious. (Hilarity only increased by copious amounts of soju and beer.) The four of us were the only foreigners there (a fact that was pointed out to everyone by the DJ) and there were a fair number of spectators. There were probably around 15 performers (with only 2 girls) who danced to such classic Korean remakes as “It’s Raining Men,” “I Will Survive,” and “Macho Men.” It was the absolute pinnacle of entertainment. The men had STUNNING bodies and the costumes were hilarious. Dana got pulled up on stage to dance the Abracadabra dance with two of the boys, which was priceless. I seriously cannot describe to you how much fun we had. By the time we left the 2 hour show my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling so much. I loved every second and I would have easily paid double the 40,000won that it cost. They’re performing until February 7, 2010. If you’re in Seoul, do yourself a favor and GO. Immediately.

Our favorite boys from the show.

The girls and the guy we called Fake Jeremy(me)/Hot Jeremy(Julia) all night.  Aka, the man wearing more eye liner than all of us put together.

After the show we went outside and met a bunch of the guys (including the suuuuuuper hot one with English tattoos) before meeting up with Boram (Julia’s Korean boyfriend). After a stop in the drug store for “emergency hair wax” and some sample eye shadow application, we went down to a restaurant/hof called Beerholic. Seriously. It was there that Ayzia joined us and our little six-pack became full. We punished a couple of bottles of Soju Cool (Dana being the ultimate Korean host and keeping Ayzia and I’s glasses full, full, FULL, haha) and ate a delicious green onion pancake before it was time to head out and find a place to actually ring in the new year. We tried going to one club the girls knew of, but they were asking a cover charge or something (I cannot really remember why that place was out) and we got separated into two groups. Laura and Dana went off to some dance club, while Julia, Boram, Ayzia and I went down into a Ho Bar (could not make these names up) where we (and a significant number of other foreigners) celebrated the slide into 2010 with noisemakers and cheering.

Cheers!  Hope your new year is SOju COOL! (nerd alert)

Just after the clock struck 12. (Or 10:00am EST, if you prefer)

Soon after the new year officially started, we headed out of Ho Bar and stumbled onto a giant, spontaneous Michael Jackson “Man In The Mirror” dance party on the streets of Hongdae. Literally hundreds of people (including tons of Koreans and foreigners) were dancing and singing in the middle of the street. I don’t care how you feel about Michael Jackson, this song is undeniably beautiful and meaningful. What better time than New Year’s Eve to be reminded that “if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself then make a change.” It was yet another awesome part of a wonderful evening.

Take a Look at Yourself and Make a Change. from Meaghan Shanahan on Vimeo.


After separating from the dance party, we went down to Club FF. Walking into the club I spotted a girl who looked familiar. Now she didn’t look familiar because we’d ever met in person, but rather because we had posted on some of the same forums on Facebook and I read her blog ALL THE TIME. It was Simi from Straight from the Curls! So, like a stalker, I walk over and go “Umm, ARE YOU SIMI?” and she says “MEAGHAN?!” aaaand then we spent about 5 minutes jumping up and down and hugging. It was a pretty wild moment, haha. We got our wristbands and headed into the bar where we stayed for a while and spent some time going between the levels, enjoying some drinks, listening to some music, and doing some dancing (I cringe remembering that part). During this time I was also texting back and forth with Laura and Dana trying to schedule a reunion. After some time in Club FF we went over to one of the quieter, emptier “sister clubs” called (I kid you not) Club Tool. See the sign below for its entire ridiculous name. I love Konglish.

"I have to get a picture for my blog!" 

(Simi and I)

Dude, I am a native English speaker and even I have no idea what this means.

We stayed in Club Tool for a bit (I was especially entertained by watching Ayzia rollercoaster from laying down, to dancing, to “resting her eyes,” back to dancing. It was pretty hilarious.) Then we finally got in good contact with Laura and Dana and met up at a 7-Eleven where we took an ultra classy picture (nothing says class like the drink aisle of a convenience store…). At this point, since Julia had worn heels and was (understandably) DYING, she and Boram decided to catch a cab and head home. Dana, Laura, Ayzia and I went and got amazing and cheap spicy ramen with an egg (shout out to Princess Hours) and it was pretty much the most delicious food you could ever consume while intoxicated at 3:00am. After the tastiness, we split ways and I took a taxi home with Ayzia and crashed on her extra bed from around 4:00am-11:00am. Around that time I got up and decided that there was no way I was getting in a moving vehicle of any sort so I hung out with Ayzia for a while and watched some Dr. Oz (terrible) on the Armed Forces Network until I felt a little better. I hopped on the metro around 3:00pm and got home about an hour later. Even though allllll I wanted to do was go to bed, I forced myself to stay up because I had a meeting the next morning and knew that if I took a nap I’d never sleep that night.

New Year's love.

Julia, Laura, Boram, me, Ayzia, Dana

Looking wrecked with the best ramen everrrrr.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to attend a meeting at the EduPlace headquarters about an hour south of my house (haaate when I have to transfer 3 times). EduPlace is the hagwon that runs the after school program at Sincheon, my school. I had met Dave, the guy who does the after school program once before, but I’d never met anyone else from there. They definitely have their stuff together and I am pretty pumped for my school’s winter camp. It seems well organized and I think the kids are really going to like the activities. They also obviously had a decent budget so the kids get to do cool things like building a wooden replica of a T Rex. They also gave us hoodies to wear every day. They are bright royal blue and have a powder pink heart balloon right across the chest that says “Exciting English Camp!” I laughed heartily. The not so humorous part is that it is HELLA tiny (thanks whack Korean sizing) and I feel incredibly self conscious in it. I think I’m going to have to e-mail the woman and be like “look, I can’t wear this…” We’ll see how that goes. The meeting lasted 2 hours (which I am apparently getting paid for- awesome!) and then they treated us to lunch, so I certainly cannot complain. I came home and basically vegged out the rest of the day. I also made plans to meet Dana and Julia for a 9:00am showing of Sherlock Holmes on Sunday morning, which I was pretty pumped about. I love Robert Downey, Jr. I set my alarm for 7:03am the next morning so I could leave at 7:50am (leaving time for me to stop at the ATM and get to Dana’s for the movie with plenty of time) and fell asleep.

Sunday morning I awoke with a start at…7:53am. DAMNIT. I overslept past the time when I was supposed to be actually walking onto the train. I frantically threw my hair up in bobby pins and ran out of my apartment. Then, to make matters worse, like an idiot I got off at the Seoul National University College of Education stop INSTEAD of the Seoul National University stop where I was actually supposed to be. I ended up being about 15 minutes late. (As a side story, I told Dana and Julia to go ahead into the movie and see if they could leave my ticket at the register or something. Instead, they placed my ticket under a fake wrapped gift that was under a tree and gave me directions to find it. It was like a treasure hunt. An awkward, awkward treasure hunt, haha.) The movie was decent, though nothing mind blowing.

After the movie we headed over to Mr. Pizza where we spent the next FOUR HOURS talking, taking advantage of the endless salad bar, and working our way through a Shrimp Gold Pizza. For the record, though it was tasty, it has not usurped Pizza School’s place in my heart. It was a seriously awesome afternoon just relaxing and discussing everything from life in Korea, to our plans for life after Korea, to KPop, to our travels, to random other topics. After parting I headed home and though I tried to go to bed early I ended up tossing and turning forever, setting the tone for a week of exhaustion.

Winter camp at Aju started on Monday and things have gone swimmingly. The kids are about half new and there are 78 students total split up amongst the five classes. This whole week I’ve done activities based around the If You Give A… series. My mom sent me the treasury, which includes If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, If You Give A Pig A Pancake, If You Give A Moose A Muffin, and If You Take A Mouse To School all in one book, as well a CD with songs and the books being read by famous voices. In the book there is also recipes and little activities to do with each story. She also sent the stuffed animal versions of the pig, moose and mouse, thanks to Kohl’s Cares (which, by the way, is a truly fantastic program). The kids love it. Today they were writing their own stories and some of them are SO GOOD. A personal favorite would have to be "If you give a Charlie Teacher a Bacon Cheeseburger." (Spoiler alert: He's vegetarian and asks you to remove all the meat products one by one until its just cheese and bread. Then he eats it. LOL.) Charlie was…honored(?) that one of the students chose him as their animal. Haha. I wrote and illustrated the timeless classic “If You Give A Porcupine Peppero.” Surely a tale for the ages.

This week we also got SLAMMED by the heaviest snow that Seoul has seen in 70+ years. According to the articles I read, areas in and around Seoul got nearly 10 inches, which is a LOT, especially when you have no infrastructure for dealing with snow. We got up on Monday morning to head to winter camp and it was snowing HEAVILY. Arianna and I slip-slided down to the metro which was packed with 8 million people. Then we got to make all of our transfers (complete with me falling on my ass in the Jamsil station in front of said 8 million people) and walk for 15 minutes in roughly 6 inch deep snow. It was lovely. It snowed all day and finally ended around 5:00pm.

Walking to school.

Same view, sans flash.

Playground at Aju.

The kids were pretty pumped.

Rachel (one of my students) sporting a flashy pink umbrella on the way home.

This street was actually awesome comared to the ones by my house.  It has taken them like 4 days to clear at all, and there is still basically a median of snow in the middle of the roads.

After camp got out to at 1:00pm I boarded the train for the arduous hour plus journey out to Yeongdeungpo Station (definition: the other side of the WORLD) where I was meeting Julia and Boram to see Avatar. In 3D . On the biggest movie screen in the world. Literally. I arrived about an hour early and ate lunch at Lotteria where Julia then met me. Thus beginning our total mess of an hour of trying to find Boram and being in the completely wrong movie theater/building/exit from the metro station. We ended up being 20 minutes late to the movie, and probably missing some crucial stuff. However in the scheme of things, missing 20 minutes of a more than 2.5 hour long movie isn’t so bad. And, can I just take a moment to gush about how awesome that movie was? I had wanted to see it since they talked about it on Bones so much (which makes sooooo much more sense now that I know that the guy from Bones was one of the main guys in it) and then everyone was only saying awesome stuff online. There is no doubt in my mind that, in the words of Jon Stewart, James Cameron is likely “a wizard.” I half jokingly discussed before how we’d been talking about how disappointing it was not to be closer to living like the Jetsons by 2010, but when you see Avatar you realize how much closer we are to the Jetsons now than we were when I was born. Between 1977 and 1983 the Star Wars movies were released and they were the mind blowing pinnacle of technology and special effects. Now, Star Wars could most likely be recreated by a high school student in their basement.

Avatar had a beautiful story (and an amazing score), but for me, the special effects were really second to none. I remember reading the statement someone made after seeing Avatar that said “Ok, I officially can no longer tell the difference between CGI and real life.” It’s so true! Yes, of course the Navi (blue people) are not real, nor are the animals. However the rainforest, with its stunning flora and fauna, and the landscapes could absolutely exist. No doubt. There is also no doubt that James Cameron is a true visionary. He started this project back in the early 90’s and had to “wait for the technology to catch up.” That is crazy. He has also now directed two of the world’s highest grossing movies EVER (Titanic is still #1 with a worldwide gross of nearly two BILLION dollars). How awesome.

Anyway, this week has basically been a blur of camp, the worst commutes of my LIFE (I am so not kidding…I have never, ever, seen more people packed on to a train thanks to impassable roads around the city), and the Korean drama Iris. This drama is very different, as it’s a spy action-thriller with a secondary love story. The others have all be gushy (I cannot believe that gushy is actually an accepted word in Microsoft Word, yet they still try to correct “haha” every time I write it), but this is much harder hitting and violent. Its good. It actually reminds me a lot of 24, cinematography-wise.

Next week I have another week of camp at Aju, then my winter camp at Sincheon. Then I have another week off. Jo Anna miiiiiight come that week, and I would be beyond excited if that actually comes to fruition. I’m trying (and mostly failing) not to get excited in case it doesn’t work out.

In news from the home front, my parents got a new dog. They had been discussing it and looking around on Craigslist, so I did some researching of my own and was strangely drawn to this young, male, red colored beagle. Now my mom has said on multiple occasions she doesn’t want another male dog (what with the excessive ‘marking’ they do), but something about this one made me send them his picture and info. Less than a week later, Rusty is a certified member of the Shanahan family. Interestingly enough, they were never able to access the DC area Craigslist posting where I found him. For some reason he doesn’t come up in their searches, but he did in mine, half a world away. Meant to be. He’s probably only about 2 years old and definitely a handful already (he’s only been living at our house for under 24 hours and already the stories are building up, haha). Maybe he’ll breathe a little life into Belle’s anti-social world. And he will definitely keep my dad busy.

My new little bro, Rusty.

This weekend I don’t really have any plans outside of buckling down and cleaning my apartment. Its seriously gross and embarrassing. I’ve just really let it go as I’ve been exhausted all week. I need to do about 25 loads of laundry, some dishes, and sweep the whole place down. Exciting!

I hope you’re all happy and well in the new year. I’d like to have some idea of who is reading this thing (aside from my Mom and grandparents, who I know read it because I talk to them about it frequently), so if you’re out there, drop me a line. Sometimes I put off updating because I rationalize that no one is really keeping up with it anyways. Leave me a message and give me a reason to feel guilty for not updating in a timely manner!

Christmas and Skyping and Dramas OH MY!

Ok, so I lied in my last post when I said I would post again. Oops. Be glad you’re getting a post before New Year’s, haha.

On Tuesday I went into school and they confirmed that not only did I not have to teach, but I had a half day because “they aren’t serving lunch in the cafeteria.” Um…I’ll take it. I spent the morning lounging around in the office and then So Young told me it was time for all the teachers to have a meeting and I should come down and say goodbye to the VP and Principal. So I followed her downstairs and we went over to the VP’s desk, where he proceeded to talk for about 5 minutes in Korean, gesturing at a calendar and in general making me EXTREMELY NERVOUS that he was saying something about taking my vacation days back/changing them. Thankfully, it was a simple issue of not having enough paperwork filled out (I swear to god, SMOE brings unnecessary and repetitive paperwork to alarming new heights) so I sat through the extremely fast teacher’s meeting and then talked with So Young about what exactly the Principal/VP wanted from me. Apparently they wanted a rough plan or outline of what I would be lesson planning on Monday when I was “working from home.” I explained to So Young that I’d basically just be looking at the first couple of lessons that we teach when we get back and doing lesson plans/powerpoints for those. She then told me that the VP wanted me to make “general lesson plans that could be used with any grade.” What? She basically wanted fun lessons that could be used if there was extra time or if there was a sub (aka- the 20+ lessons I already have done for Fun Based Activities at after school….). I asked if that was absolutely what I needed to do or if I could do what I had suggested and make lesson plans that I will for sure use. We went around and around for about 15 minutes in a haze of language barriers (and So Young’s English is GREAT). In the end it was decided that I would make two “real” lessons and two “any grade” lessons. So freaking random. I feel bad for So Young because I know that she didn’t sign up for this (Eun Kyung did, but she’s been out on maternity leave for over a month) and its been a ton of extra work for her. I made sure to give her an extra big thank you.

I headed out early and got home around 12:15pm, which was nice because I got to do some food/ingredient shopping before my 2:20pm doctor’s appointment. The doctor said my sinus infection is about 2/3 gone (praise the lord) and put me on another 2 weeks of antibiotics and Sudafed. I also got 3 months of Allegra, a thing of Nasonex nose spray, some and some sleep aides for the nights when I can’t breathe for a whopping $24. And of course it is all name brand (as opposed to the birth control my mom is sending me from the states that cost me almost $200 and is actually a generic of a generic). I love health care here.

Then I came home and baked and baked and baked. And watched some Law and Order: SVU. And baked. On Wednesday I slept in and did some more baking and SVU watching. It was great.

On Christmas Eve I had to actually be productive since I hadn’t yet made it to the big store down the street (which I find totally overwhelming and mentally psych myself out for it) nor had I bought my Secret Santa gift. Hey…I’m a last minute shopper! I powered up to Insadong to get the gift for Dana and a new scarf for me (I love that scarf stall so much) and then hit HomePlus to get the rest of my ingredients for the things I was bringing to the potluck. I headed home and made mashed potatoes and the sketchiest sweet potato casserole in history. Like seriously. It tasted alright, but it was a weird color and not as sweet as home because the sweet potatoes here are very, very different than those we have in the states. Oh well. It just makes me look forward to eating my Mom’s sweet potato casserole again at future holidays!

At 5:45pm I had Angie (lifesaver!) help me carry my stuff down to a taxi and headed over to pick up Erich. When I showed the taxi driver where we were going, his response was “Ohhhh….very far. Very, very far.” ONE HOUR AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES (and several frantic text messages) LATER, we arrived at Ayzia’s. The traffic was horrendous. Not only was it Christmas Eve, but it was also rush hour on a work day. Terrible. But the ride only cost us 30,000won (about $26) which was amazing. And our cabbie was so sweet that I gave him a 5,000won tip (you never tip in Korea) and he was very happy with that. We headed up to Ayzia’s roomy apartment and started the saga of getting all the food heated up for dinner. SO. MUCH. FOOD. It was amazing. We would all eat a bunch, veg out for a bit, eat some more. Play some games. Eat some more. Ugh, it was so good.

Julia is star struck by all the food.

Epic.

Chicken, pork cutlets, salad,japchae, macaroni and cheese, two kinds of mashed potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, sweet potato casserole, green beans, garlic bread, and stuffing. Followed by 5 types of cookies. And cheese and crackers. And lots of wine, soju, and makoli.

After we were done eating dinner we played some drinking games (oh Kings, the more people I meet the more random rules you have) before the food coma really set in. Then we turned on Just Friends and most people fell asleep as the movie played. Laura arrived after church around 11:30pm, so that woke us up a little before we actually went to sleep around 1:00am. Ayzia’s apartment was the perfect setting with lots of room, so I’m really really happy we had it there. My apartment would have been WAY too cramped.

Christmas morning we all got up (thanks to Dana being an impatient kid and wanting to open gifts, haha) and indulged in some cold leftovers and watched a little TV before doing Secret Santa. Everyone seemed pleased with their gifts and it was just so nice to not wake up alone on Christmas morning. Julia was my Santa and my gifts were awesome.

Our awesomely ghetto Christmas tree made of a drying rack, tinsel, and Christmas cards.

Sloth mode.  This was pre-gifts, post-pigging out on leftovers.

Erich

Ayzia

Laura

Boram (Julia's boyfriend)

Julia

Dana

My loot.  Clockwise from top left: vaguely offensive "English" socks, FT Island CD set (lead singer is Jeremy from You're Beautiful...the adorable little blondie), a green tea face mask, super cute sad panda socks.

We all got our stuff together and headed out around 1:00pm. The cab ride home took us only about 25 minutes. MAJOR difference from the night before! I came home, uploaded pictures on Facebook, used the face mask Julia gave me (hey, I’m impatient), and took a nap before meeting up with Ayzia to see “Cirque Nut” (name still makes me giggle) which was an acrobatics infused performance of the Nutcracker. Getting there was hellishly confusing and I had the times mixed up (to be fair the internet had the times mixed up) so we got there an hour early, but it was awesome. The troupe was from Belarus and it was super cool and unique. They did crazy stunts and the dancing was beautiful as well. When we came out of the theater there was a lovely layer of clean white snow on everything and it was really nice. This was the first white Christmas for a couple of South African girls I know, so that was cool.

Face mask.

A performance for MEEE? Thumbs up.

Illegal photo of cast from Cirque Nut.

Soon after I got home it was time to get online and video g-chat with my mom and grandparents. But lo and behold, their computer is jacked up and g-chatting wouldn’t work. Since they have Skype thanks to my enterprising cousin who is in college, I downloaded Skype and a few hiccups later we opened our gifts via web cam. It was really nice and I got some sweet stuff that I’ve been wanting/needing. Crocs for school! ShamWOWs! True Blood: Season 1! Etcetera. It was great to see them also. After we were done I used Skype to call a bunch of people on Christmas morning and wish them a Merry Christmas. An absurd number of voicemails later, I had only talked to Lyndsay and Jo Anna. That’s what Skype gets for making their calls unknown on caller ID, haha. I headed to bed after a great Christmas here in Korea.

Then began my descent into sloth. And how sweet it was. Saturday I watched the entire first season of True Blood again. And you know what? It was just as awesome this time around. Then came the K-Dramas. Oh and how glorious they were. Tina Hu, a girl I went to high school with, has been suggesting dramas for me to watch since she saw how much I loved Boys Before Flowers and You’re Beautiful. Laura showed me where I could watch full episodes online that weren’t all broken up like on MySoju (http://www.crunchyroll.com/, but if you’re in Korea you have to download a IP blocker so it doesn’t know you’re here…fun fact: Netflix still knows you’re not in the US and won’t let you use watch instantly….it’s sad). First I watched The First Shop of the Coffee Prince. It was AMAZING. Now I’d heard it was good from everyone, teachers, friends and students, but it was sooooo awesome. It was refreshing after the other K-Dramas, because it was significantly more risqué. There was premarital sex! There were babies conceived before marriage! There were two ostensibly naked people laying in a bed together! DRAMATIC! Hahaha. It was also touching and sweet and funny and just generally well done. I am also still surprised about the way they approach the issue of homosexuality here.  In Korea being gay is still pretty unacceptable.  Yet we have these dramas (You're Beautiful, Coffee Prince) where the lead girl is dressed as a guy and the lead male falls for her without knowing she's female.  They really battle a lot of issues because they think they're falling for another guy and they don't know how to handle it.  Easily the most touching scene of any drama I've watched was the end of Episode 10 of Coffee Prince when Han Kyul (the guy) tells Eun Chan (the girl dressed as a guy) that he doesn't care if he's "a man or an alien," he still loves him.  It was squeal worthy. I watched the entire 16 episode series in a (very long) day.

Here you have your basic story of a spoiled rich guy with parent issues is forced by his grandmother to take over a failing coffee shop.  During this time he meets, becomes friends with, and eventually falls in love with a girl who everyone thinks is a boy.  Hilarity an heartwarming ensue.  It is seriously so good.

Monday and Tuesday I watched the entire 24 episode Princess Hours/Palace series. Also really good. The main actress from Coffee Prince was the main actress in Princess Hours, so it was nice to see a familiar face, haha. I would rank Princess Hours at number 3 (after Coffee Prince and You’re Beautiful, ahead of Boys Before Flowers). One thing I really loved about Princess Hours was the costume and set design. Super beautiful. One thing I really hated about Princess Hours was the finale. What a letdown! Aigh! Another shining moment in Princess Hours was when they featured “Prince William” in an episode. I was laughing SO HARD. I could just see the planning meeting “Okay, we’re going to need a tall, goofy looking, blondish guy who can fake a British accent. I know the perfect person!” It was hilarious.

This drama takes place in a fictional 21st century where Korea still has a monarchy, an idea which I love.  Here we have a Cinderella story where a common girl marries a crown prince based on an arragement their grandfathers made.  Enter the former crown prince who was basically banished from Korea and an ex-girlfriend who just won't give up and its easy to see where the drama is rooted.

Anyway, in roughly 72 hours I watched nearly 44 hours of dramas. I lounged in bed, basically just leaving the apartment for nourishment. It snowed a fair amount the week, so I was also treated to lots of sweeping and shoveling sounds out my window. It’s like the snow waited until juuuust when I was ready to go outside to get some food before striking. When I went down to Pizza School on Sunday it was jam packed with more people than I’ve ever seen there. Moral of the story: Best week off ever.

View out my window to the right.

View out my window to the left.

Today I actually did some stuff around the house and watched a Korean movie called Seducing Mr. Perfect which was pretty adorable (and featured the ridiculously handsome Daniel Henney from X-Men Origins). I think it’s time to switch to some English language TV/movies…my eyes are tired from subtitles! Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve (unbelievable) and I think I’m (everyone brace yourselves) going out clubbing in Seoul. This will certainly be a first. But I figure that if you’re supposed to do on NYE what you want to do for the upcoming year, being surrounded by friends and trying something new (and questionably exciting) seems as good a plan as any. Aaaand I really want to complete the Korean tradition of watching the sunrise and making a wish (instead of a resolution). However my resolution happens to be not watching more than 4 episodes of a drama back to back in the new year. We’ll see if that happens, haha.

During my frequent stalking of other expats’ blogs, I found the following poem on Simi’s Straight From the Curls. It is from a Blackberry ad she found in a magazine. I agree that it is “simple yet profound.”

Don't just like.

Like is watered-down love.

Like is mediocre.

Like is the wishy-washy emotion of content.

Athletes don't do it for the like of a sport.

Artists don't suffer for like of art.

There is no I like NY t-shirt.

And Romeo didn't just like Juliet.

LOVE. Now that's powerful stuff.

Love changes things.

Upsets things.

Conquers things.

Love is at the root of everything good that has ever happened and will ever happen.

LOVE WHAT YOU DO.

And that is what I wish for you in the new year. I hope you love what you do, do what you love, and surround yourself with people and things that you love. I am overwhelmed by, and so thankful for, the sheer number of opportunities I’ve been given in my life. Take some time to take stock of all your blessings as we head into the new year.

Christmas 2009 from Meaghan Shanahan on Vimeo.

I put this little video together (shout out to Shannon on the music) showing just a few of the things and people I’ve been thankful for this Christmas season. I hope you have even more.

Love, Meaghan

Time Flies!

Ok, I realize that it has been an unreasonably long time since I've updated. I'm sorry! I have no valid excuse!


Last week was nothing exciting at school or after school. My main co-teacher, Eun Kyung/Sienna, was out the entire week (and this whole week) due to her baby issues. She can't be more than 1.5 months pregnant, so I'm hoping that this is not indicative of how the rest of her pregnancy is going to roll. From what I've heard, she and the baby are both fine. She just must have been put on bed rest or something. This wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that she is the one technically in charge of me. The strict, rule following principal and vice principal won't let So Young negotiate any of my leave or really discuss my needs/thoughts/feelings with them at all. I have to draft some document to make my leave days official for winter/February break and I can't do that until Eun Kyung comes back. And we're not really sure when that will be. It is just frustrating to have all these loose ends hanging out and not be able to do anything about them. I feel like I need some sort of...foster mom at school. Especially if the rest of her pregnancy is going to be anything like this! I guess I have to put it on my list of stuff to discuss when she comes back. Monday through Wednesday So Young was also out because her son had swine flu. My co-teachers are dropping like FLIES I tell you.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and right after my afterschool program I hopped on the train for the hour ride up to Itaewon (the foreigner district in Seoul). Sadly I forgot my camera at afterschool (where I had been taking the hilarious pictures of kids playing Pin The Beak On The Turkey and Pin The Fork On The Pilgrim that are posted below. The pictures from dinner shown below are from Dana. I had made reservations at an Austrian restaurant that we thought had a Thanksgiving buffet. Turns out it wasn't a buffet, it was a set menu, but we had plenty of food, so that was fine. Chef Meili, the restaurant, is a lovely, homey little place. We were lead up to the second floor and the four of us (Laura, Dana, and Dana's friend Christopher) were seated by the window where we ordered a bottle of wine to get the holiday started right. The food was DELICIOUS. We had beet soup, turkey, cranberry sauce, cooked veggies, stuffing (that was actually cooked in the turkey!), and mashed potatoes. And we ended with pumpkin cheesecake. The place was packed with foreigners searching for a taste of home and it was just a really nice evening. The company was good, the food tasty and the atmosphere cozy. Perfect. The chef came out and took a picture with us, and after dinner we went down to the deli where he cut up basically an entire turkey for Laura to take to her students the next day. Very nice. We also encountered a CRAZY lady who was trying to (and sadly succeeding) in engaging Dana in conversation before we pulled her away. I headed home, happy and full of Turkey.

Pretty darn close....

Seriously far away.

Again, no where close!

This is why I love Korea.  Spinning kids around with a bag on their head and playing Pin the Beak on the Turkey took up almost an entire 40 minute Fun Based Activities lesson.  Awesome.

They were surprised at how close their fork was.

The homey interior of the restaurant.  The tops of the walls were all decorated with pictures of the Austrian chef and his Korean wife.

Posing with the girls as we sipped our red wine.

Beet soup.  It was actually incredibly delicious.  And hot pink.

Thanksgiving dinner from above.

Side view! Haha.

Pumpkin cheesecake.  It wasn't pie...but it did the trick.

Once again I am caught doing the PG peace sign when I should be throwing the Asian peace sign.  Did my picture from Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong teach me NOTHING?!

Dana, Me, Christopher, Laura, and the chef.  He was adorable.  And super friendly.

Carving up that sweet bird for Laura.

On the way home we spotted this rack of cornish game hens at various levels of doneness.  Dana made sure to tag each of us as an individual bird on Facebook, haha.

On Friday I only taught one class because the kids all got their swine flu shots (apparently not soon enough because one of my classes today was cancelled because they'd been sent home due to swine flu.) Friday after school I ran over to Aju Elementary to pick up my camera which they had found on Friday morning. Thank God. I am so used to American schools...I was seriously worried I would never get it back! Friday night we were supposed to go to a free concert that was being thrown to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the first English speaking radio station in Seoul. However there were some ticket issues and I was really tired, so I ended up not going. I was sad later when I heard how cool it was, but it was probably smart that I went sloth mode.

Saturday morning I got up and did a video chat with my whole family as they celebrated Thanksgiving a day late. I was great to talk to my Mom, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, cousins, and my brother and his new girlfriend. Then what did I do? I spent all day sitting/laying in bed and watching the K-Drama "You're Beautiful." And it was GLORIOUS. Dana and Julia had told me that if I liked Boys Before Flowers (which we all know I did), I'd probably like You're Beautiful which was actually current on TV. I started watching it during the week, and I was finished the 16 episode series on Sunday night. It was sooooo good. Basically there is a girl (Go Mi Nyu) who is studying to be a nun until she's visited by an agent who says she needs to pretend to be her male twin brother (Go Mi Nam) and join a boy band in his stead for a month because he's had a plastic surgery mishap and needs to recover in the US. Um...perfect. She agrees and, of course, laughter, tears and love ensue. It was uniquely hilarious and touching, and thoroughly entertaining. I liked it even MORE than BBF. I know...stunning. The story was better, there was still lots of good music, and the eye candy was...awesome. Thanks to back up dancers there were more muscular, shirtless men in one episode of You're Beautiful than the entire series of BBF. And all three of the other boys in the band (Tae Kyung, Jeremy <3, and Shin Woo) are adorable. Especially after Tae Kyung's terrible MySpace hair is dealt with a few episodes in. I can't imagine another K-Drama living up to the level of You're Beautiful, but I have heard good things about Coffee Prince, so I'll check that out next. This one also involves cross dressing and a rich guy paying the girl-dressed-as-a-guy to pretend to be his gay lover. How could it not be entertaining? (Esp. in a country where homosexuality is still ULTRA taboo.)

You're Beautiful main cast. 

Tae Kyung (before MySpace hair make over), Go Mi Nam/Nyu, Jeremy, Shin Woo.

Adorable.  It was impossible to watch this drama and not want to put Lee Hong Ki (the guy who plays Jeremy) in your pocket forEVER.

Sunday I lounged around for a while before cleaning my apartment for a bit and heading out to meet Julia in Gangnam to see....NINJA ASSASSIN. It’s an American movie, but it stars Rain, a total LEGEND in Korean pop music. The movie was INSANELY gory (I cannot count the number of faced I saw cut in half or limbs that were chopped clean off) and therefore awesome. There were some really funny parts that Julia and I were the only ones laughing at. I can't tell if it is a cultural thing not to laugh at movies, or if the subtitles just don't do it justice. At one point a Europol agent comments that he doesn't look dangerous, "He looks, like he belongs in a boy band." I mean come on....that HAD to translate. Plus that joke was probably lost on just about ALL the American audience. Yet Julia and I were the only ones giggling. After the movie we walked around in the rain for a while in search of food before giving up and deciding to take a rain check (extra meaningful because it was actually raining).

Rain, all cut up in prep for his role in Ninja Assassin  And by cut up I mean muscled and scarred.  Obvi.

This week sailed by. Tuesday I got a killer care package from my mom.  It contained three new shirts, two new gum flavors, two boxes of macaroni and cheese (once again labeled "beads" on the cutsoms form), cough drops, books for my kids, A BOX OF THIN MINTS, and ASSORTED CANDY CORN. Seriously....she's the best mom in history.  I didn't have kids for the first two classes on Wednesday since the sixth graders were having midterms (? finals?) so that day went quickly. Wednesday night Angie and I spent an hour and a half running around to different glasses stores trying to find something we liked. Glasses here are insanely cheap (ranging from $25-50 a pair- including lenses and frames) so I want to get some fun ones. The other day on the metro I couldn't stop staring at this guy's glasses...they were black on the front and the arms were black and white checkerboard. I must make them mine. Unfortunately we didn't find any. While e were in HomePlus we decided to browse the books in the all Korean bookstore.  I picked up an English phrase book to flip through, and opened it directly to this disturbing page:

What a great chronology.  What's crazy is that there was no apparent structure to the book.  This page fell between symptoms of illnesses and asking directions.  So random.

On the way home I picked up some take-out and ended up with some pretty terrible food poisoning. I was up puking all night. It was pleasant...PSYCH. Thursday I didn't go in to school, but I was feeling well enough to go to after school. (Amazing how a much better a difference of $120 on your next paycheck can make you feel...) On the way between after school and the train station I got some laughter therapy as Sinead and I discussed English names the kids choose. There is a kid in one of our after school classes named Lion and it pisses Sinead off to no end. For the first like month she called him Leon until he was finally like "Sinead teacher, its LION. Like the animal." As she said to me "Like hell it is." She refuses to call him Lion. I told her that's how I could tell she wasn't American. I was like "Lion? Ok. Want me to call you some random noun as your name? I'm in." Silly Irish girl. You can choose whatever you want to be your name! You can even choose a string of letters that don't make a word and have that be your name. It’s the American way.

Today I came in early to set up my laptop so the kids could video chat with people in the US. My fifth graders are doing a lesson on talking to people on the phone, so I had the great idea to have them video chat with people at home. It is always great for them to hear more native speakers, so I e-mailed a bunch of people and in the end 11 agreed to participate, which was AWESOME. But then disaster struck. After more than an hour and a half, including much technical support from Carl, I was still unable to get my laptop to work on the school internet network using the LAN cord, OR to pick up any of the unsecured wireless networks in range. We ended up having to do a one-sided video chat, where the kids asked questions and I typed them for the person to answer out loud. It worked surprisingly well, except for a few small hiccups. We chatted with my Dad (who put a dummy up in front of the camera first and definitely made the kids laugh), my Mom (who showed the kids a Christmas ornament with my picture on it that I'd made when I was four), my Grandma (who was great and asked the kids questions back which kept them on their toes), my cousins Michae and Ty (who were the first black people most of my kids have ever talked to, and especially awesome because they were the closest to my kids' ages), my Uncle Todd (who dutifully held up all the various pets in their house in the background of the camera), Debbie (who answered like a true Sped teacher with short and succinct responses), Christina (who just HAPPENED to have a Snape figurine from Harry Potter within arms reach), my brother Mike and his girlfriend Loran (whose camera kept freezing as they LIED about their jobs- since when does being a forensic accountant translate to being a professional singer, Loran?!- and tried to come up with easier answers to kids' questions), and my cousin Rachel (whose camera sadly didn't work but she patiently answered questions- such as "do you like insects?"- anyway). Overall it was a wonderful experience for the kids, and (as always) I am thankful to have such a strong support system at home. We'll have to do it again sometime with a working camera so you can see/hear the kids as well.

This weekend I don't really have any plans. On evenings throughout this week I wrapped all my Christmas gifts and got them all packed and ready to send to the states. I'll probably send them out next Monday. I found out that the Daiso right by us sells tiny little fake Christmas trees for a couple bucks so I'll probably get one of those and some tiny ornaments and decorate my room.

Next week we're meeting to talk about our trip in February. Mike booked his plane tickets, but they're kind of general so we're planning out what's happening on the days we're in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. The one thing I know for certain is that we'll be going out to a Pencils of Promise school in Laos, which I am absolutely psyched for. For those of you who need a little background, Pencils of Promise is a non-profit that was started by Adam Braun, a guy I knew from SAS. Its aim is to build sustainable schools in impoverished areas that would otherwise have no access to early education. They have already completed one school in Laos, and are 75% finished with schools two and three. They require that locals provide materials, labor, and a part of the cost. Pencils of Promise donations often come from many individuals donating only a small amount of money. They help small efforts yield big results, and directly benefit hundreds of children. I talked to Adam a few days ago on Facebook and he said he's not sure where the construction on the second school will be when we are in Laos, but that if I drop him a line like 2 weeks before we go he'll set it up with one of his partners in Laos so that they'll take us out to the village and let us see the school, meet the kids, etc. I am beyond excited. This is an organization that is run by passionate, caring people who are seeing real, tangible change. My bags are going to be stuffed with supplies for us to take to the school, and I am going to talk to my co-teacher and see if we could do some sort of drive at the school to collect supplies or funds. If each student I teach brought in a single notebook or package of pencils or crayons, I would be able to take over 500 things with me. That would be awesome. Anyways, I have plenty of time to plan, but I can already tell that visiting that PoP school is going to be one of the highlights of my trip.  While reading Adam's travel journal I kept getting choked up at the kind of tangible change he's making.  What an awesome thing to be a part of!  If you're looking for an organization to give some money to, keep PoP in mind.

My favorite line: "We are part of a global generation of optimists."