Aftermath of Irene in My Neigborhood

Here in Boston, we did not get struck with the devastating rain that many parts of New York and Vermont did, but we did get tropical storm force winds which did enough damage on their own and still, now 3 days after the storm on Wednesday there are still people without power in many towns. To folks (like my boyfriend) who say, why are you so worried about a tropical storm? This is my answer. These were taken on Monday after the storm had passed and the skies were blue. Again, not nearly as serious as what's still going on in Vermont, but nothing to be taken lightly either.

All these photos were taken while just walking from my house to the trolley station.

This is my  neighbor's fence (photo above and below), and that is my father's car. Now, if that branch had just been  a few feet to the right, it would have been our cars, not the neighbor's fence under a branch.

The next photo was taken at the end of my street. That is an entire tree, and yes, it is resting on the power lines.

Here, below, you have a cracked telephone pole, this photo was taken about 100 feet down from the photo above. The house in between this pole and the tree above, as far as I know, still has power lines on the ground on their front lawn.

 

Though, most homes look like these, with moderate sized branches piled up out front for someone to take away, someday.

How did your home fare in the storm?

Snow in Boston, but not quite like what is hitting Seoul today

Here's a photo from the JoongAng Daily from Seoul today. I've already gotten messages from 3 people about how bad the snow is over there. First it was my boyfriend, who it took 5 hours to get from Yongpyong Ski Resort to Seoul this morning to get to work. Then an old co-worker informed me that she walked 30 minutes through the snow to SLP this morning to find out that classes were canceled for the day. Great communication. Then another friend IMed me from work but he had already decided he was gonna have an easy day with his kids.

Our cat, don't ask me to spell her name, because I can't. We never gave her a proper name because she adopted us, instead of the other way around.

Boston, too, has gotten it's fair share of snow, but not nearly as bad. It has been snowing more or less continuously for the past two days, but just a gentle snowfall that has only accumulated a few inches of the light stuff. Driving looked bad this morning as the plows hadn't gotten out, but by evening, it didn't look so bad out there... not that I was driving....

Me, actually shoveling...

My mom actually convinced me to get off my lazy butt and shovel with her. After we had shoveled out everything, we decided to go downtown, despite the snow. We really didn't do much, we were hoping to see the ice sculptures, but the only one we saw appears to have already been vandalized because there were ice blocks all around the base and I couldn't make out what it was supposed to be. Nothing photo worthy... Then we stopped by Macy's to check out their store and compare it to ours. If you've ever worked at a retail store (or any sort of company with many branches) it's amazing how interesting it can be to go into another branch and compare and critique their work. I used to do it all the time when I worked for Borders back in the day.

Boston Common

Quincy Market in Fanuil Hall

Then we walked down to Fanuil Hall, walked through a few stores and got dinner at The Blackstone Grill in that area. Then we headed home. Nothing exciting, but it was very pretty with all the snow. Enjoy the photos!

Apple Pie

There's not much more American than an apple pie. I've been making apple pies since I was probably 5 years old. I have my favorite recipe, which came off the back of one of those pie crust boxes, it's called perfect apple pie, and it really is the perfect recipe.

Bethy ready to peel

Beautifully cored apple

Last week my mom bought some apples which she thought were on sale (although when she checked her receipt later it turns out they really weren't) and so we had a big ol' bag of apples sitting around. Last night me and Beth were bored, so we thought we'd throw together an apple pie.

I was in charge of cutting and peeling

I bought some crust at the Fruit Center this week... it was wheat crust, which I thought would be interesting to try. Unfortunately, just like wheat bread, wheat crust tends to be less pliable than it's white counterpart and therefore no good at making a top crust on an apple pie. Lesson learned for the future.

I tried it today, though, and dispute the sad looking crust, it still tastes great, even the crust tastes ok too!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, too bad it's over..

In my family, we tend to be a little bit slow when it comes to some things. Especially Christmas. We've gone through many years where we bought a Christmas tree, never to find the time to decorate it. My mom and I are work-a-holics and we're always too tired to decorate when we get home. Even now, my "break" from work in Korea, I've been working at Macy's for the Christmas season, getting up every day at 4:30am to get to work by 6:00 am (glad that's over).


So, this year, my mom decided not to let another Christmas tree go to waste and decided to decorate it last night/today. Yes, December 29th. We'll have to give it another name, since Christmas is over. A friend suggested a "festivus tree" or a "winter tree". She also finally got the Christmas decorations up too.

Welcome home.

Update

Lots of things going on this week.

First of all, one of the volunteer Korean teachers from my Saturday Korean class is visiting Boston right now. She stayed last night at my house, but I think she changed her mind about staying with me for the rest of the time when she saw how inconvenient my house is. As I mentioned before, by American standards, it's in a very well connected area, but by Korean standards, it's not at all. Not to mention the subway station nearest to me is somewhat dangerous and I don't want her pulling out her map and looking like a tourist in a dangerous part of town. Also, not to mention she probably felt bad that I gave her my bed and slept with my mom in her bed. It sounds like she'll come back and celebrate Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve and spend the night one more time, though.

Today I finally got everything together and put the documents in the mail for my visa. Even though I sent it today, FedEx told me it won't arrive until Dec. 28th. That's 6 days from now! I guess it's because of Christmas? So I'm guessing that the earliest that I can have a visa in my hand will be Jan 11th, and that is if they bring my paperwork to immigration and are not on vacation next week....

Also, today we bought a Christmas tree. Frankly, being the bah-humbug person I am, I could care less if we get a tree, it sort of seems like a waste of a life for a tree, not to mention a waste of $30 for something that will be thrown in the wood chipper in 2 weeks. But what can you do when your mother demands she have a tree for Christmas because she doesn't know when the next time she will have one will be. I'll just try to appreciate it and not look at the wastefulness of it. It will be nice when my Korean friend comes back to my house for Christmas eve. She can see the way a house is supposed to look on Christmas (we haven't decorated much yet...).

I'll post some photos soon of my excursion into Boston to get the apostille for the criminal background check. (though, I'm not even sure if you need it nowadays, no one has said anything about it...)

Bedroom Renovations: Part 1

My mom has decided to make my room into a TV room after I leave to go back to Korea, so we're in the process of renovating. I don't really mind so much that she's "converting" my room, she's leaving the bed and is going to use it like a couch. Or maybe really a bed. All she really is going to do is put a TV on my dresser. At least my room will not be dead space anymore, since I'm home so rarely now.

So, my room hadn't been wallpapered since just before I was born. There was nothing wrong with the wallpaper, per se, but it was just looking a little bit tired... maybe we were all sick of that same flower pattern for almost 25 years. So, last week, my mom and I went down to the paint and wallpaper store and spent 1/2 an hour going through books before we settled on our wallpaper. I really wanted something purple or pink, since my room is always some shade of blue... but in the end, we stuck with the blue... nothing else seemed fitting. We weren't 100% sure of this wallpaper when we picked it out, but it was the best one we could find... that we could afford that is, so we got it.

Sizing the walls

Friday we sized the walls. That doesn't mean measure. Size is sort of like a paste that you put on the walls before you wallpaper. I'd never heard of such a thing. We probably didn't need it anyway, it's usually used for painted walls and our walls aren't painted, but we want this paper to stick!

Saturday morning, pretty early, we started to work. The first two sheets gave us a lot of trouble, but after that we started to go faster. Of course, my mom and I are the sort of people that loose focus easily, and so we really took about a 20 minute break after each sheet for the first few sheets...

By the end of the day, wallpapering all day (but not continuously) We only had half the room done. Actually less than half the room done... We thought we could get almost everything done in one day. So, today is day 2. I'll have more pictures. Maybe we can finish today, but food shopping and laundry needs to be done today (we go to a laundromat), so I'm thinking this might even go on for a third day... Lets hope we get almost everything done today...

I have a job! :-D

I have officially accepted a job at Songpa-gu SLP. I originally wanted to work for another kind of school instead of an SLP, not because I don't like SLP, but just to get a feel for different teaching techiniques. But, seeing the other crap jobs I was being offered, this seemed like the best choice, even though I'm actually taking a 100,000 won pay cut. Really, it's only 25,000 won/ week difference and it's not worth giving up a good job to stick up my nose at the pay. In this economy, I just need to be thankful I have a job at all.

This SLP is quite different from my old one. It's the only SLP (Sogang Language Program) that is actually owned by Sogang Universtiy. Thier housing options, to some, might sound miserable, but to me, it's great. They offer dormitories at Sogang Universtiy (which is very far from the school) or they give 450,000 won to find whatever housing you want.

My boyfriend found me a great place near my old home in Sindang (actually, probably not in Sindang-dong), which is two bedrooms, plus a decent looking bathroom (with some help from some shower curtains, it will be lovely, I'm planning already) and a kitchen which is separate. It's hard to tell from the photos, but my boyfriend really loved it. It's on the 3rd floor of a villa, and I hear there's even a patio/roof area. I swiped some stuff from my old apartment that I knew the new girl moving in didn't want and I'm hoping to buy some stuff like beds and wardrobes when I get there. I'm trying to plan out everything in my head, but it's hard going on some poorly taken photos and an skewed floorplan...

I have to be in Seoul before Jan. 22nd. I'm going to come as soon as I can, I just am having a hard time figureing out how long it's going to take to get my visa processed. I sent off my form for a criminal background check, but I don't know how long it takes to process. I also need to figure out a way to drive up to my old university in Vermont to get my transcripts and the copy of my diploma, and then get it all certified with the apostille at the secrertary of state in Vermont. That will be a day in itself.

Anyway, if you happen to be moving, or getting rid of things in mid/late January, please let me know. I will need:
Bed (larger than a twin)
Wardrobe or one of those light movable poles people use
Table and Chairs
Plates/Glasses etc
Desk/ desk chairs
nightstands
lamps?

Well, I'll know more of what I need when I move in. We're buying things like the fridge, gas range, vacuum and maybe some tables from the landlord so we don't need those things. Do you think you can buy a tension rod in Korea to put up a shower curtain, or do you think I need to bring that from home?? I know Korea is not big on shower curtains...

Workaholic

The face of a haggard, overworked me.

I've almost secured myself a job back in Korea.. I don't want to jinx it, like I have every other job that looked promising, so I'll let you know when the contract is signed. That would start January 25th or 26th for training. I'm ready to come back already.

Since I've been back, I have already started working at Macy's for the Christmas season. I was in San Francisco for 4 days, I came home for Thanksgiving, and I started working at Macy's on Black Friday at 5am. Now every day I go to work at 6am and work until 10am. Then I need to take the subway home, which is somewhere between an hour to two hours commute by public transportation (15 mins by car). Today it was over two hours because of a broken down train somewhere on the track... which left me sitting out in the freezing cold and wouldn't it be the day I forgot my hat and mittens (which my friends make fun of me for wearing even when it's in the 50's outside).

Then I usually get home somewhere around 12:30 or 1:00 where I have a few hours of consciousness before I fall asleep for 1-4 hours... wherein I wake up around 9 or 10pm when Korea starts to wake up. I talk to the boyfriend, check my emails incessantly, waiting for news from jobs, and talk to friends in Korea. Then go to bed between 11 and 1am. If I go out with my friends, I seem to fall asleep whenever I get in a car. I think it's starting to bother them.... maybe they think they are boring me, but I'm really just exhausted...

In my haste to get back to Korea and out of this working/transportation hell, I was looking at a winter camp from the end of December until mid January. When I told this to my mom, she looked at me and said... but... why can't you just take a vacation? I mean, she's right. If I did a winter camp I'd be taking maybe a 2 or 3 day vacation from the end of my job at Macy's, flying over to Korea and working my butt off for 3 weeks at this camp, then getting about a week to move into my new apartment before the start of my new job.

Why can't I just take a break? Most people I know have no problem bumming around the house for months at a time before they start to get depressed. But me, no. I refuse. I must constantly be working. It's good money-wise, but my body might need a rest sometimes... So... I don't expect I'll take this winter camp job... they never emailed me back anyway... and I might even go to Florida for a few days in January to visit family I've never met before, then hopefully get on a plane as soon as I can and come to Korea.

In other news, my boyfriend thinks he has found the apartment for us. It's not far from our old apartment, though considerably further from the subway. It will be nice to be back in the Sindang area... It's not a new and modern area, but I love it nonetheless. AND I'll be a 2 minute walk from the Chonggyechong :-). He'll sign the contract soon for early January, and may or may not move in before me. I hope he does, because he's commuting almost an hour to work nowadays...

Frustrations in America

You know, I have so many friends dying to come back to the States, but for me I see the states as a place of endless frustrations and expenses that I don't have to worry about while living in Seoul. I've been home only a week or so, and I'm already so frustrated with certain points of life that I can't get back to Korea soon enough.

1: Lack of health insurance. I'm sick. I don't know what's wrong, but my asthma is kicking up something terrible, I have a hacking cough, and my nose is an endless faucet. No idea what it could be but it's been going on for a week and a half. But I refuse to go to the doctor because I have no health insurance. It's not even the doctor's appointment that is so expensive, but if I need drugs or tests on top of the doctor's visit, it's going to get too expensive. Even trickier is the fact that I live in Massachusetts, the only state where it is mandatory to have health insurance. I love that idea, but I don't plan on staying that long and I don' t know if I can get health insurance for just one month. I have two choices if I want to get health insurance. I can get the cheap plans, but it will cover nothing and I might as well just pay out of pocket, or I can get the expensive ones and pay very little IF I actually need to go to the doctor. What is a person to do? I miss Korea, where the national health plan covers just about everything.

2: Transportation. Relatively, by American standards, my house is in a very good area to get public transportation. By Korean standards it is very low. Today I had to take the bus home from Macy's for the first time since I was in middle school. It took me 2 hours to get home. It took me 15 minutes to drive on the way to work. Why didn't I drive home? Well, I drive with my mom to work, since she works at Macy's too, and we start at the same time. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I finish at 10:00, where as my mom finishes at 2:30. So, I either have to wait for her at the mall for 4.5 hours, or I can take the bus home.. and get home 2 hours before she does. Some options. I had to catch the bus from the mall, to Quincy station. That only runs once an hour. Then from there I caught another bus, which also runs once an hour. And wouldn't it figure that I just missed one bus and had to sit for nearly an hour for the next one to arrive. Then that bus did a zigzag tour of Quincy and my town until finally dropping me 1 minute from my house. I think tomorrow, I'm going to ride the bus to the train, take the train to JFK/UMass, change from JFK/UMass to the Ashmont line, and take the trolley to my house that way. Yes, it may take longer.. maybe, but at least I'll be inside instead of outside in the freezing cold waiting for a bus.

3: Home. I won't go into personal details, but living at home isn't exactly a peaceful existence for me. One problem I need to get over at home is the cat. Our cat is very sweet, but I'm allergic to her. It could be the cause of one of my symptoms, though I was definitely sick in San Francisco too, so I can't blame it all on her.

Thanksgiving at home

Today was Thanksgiving. I tried to document it well, make all you folks in Korea jealous, but I didn't do a very good job. Here's what I was able to capture on film...

One of several appetizer plates. We also had my mom's famous kielbasa and some strawberry dip. In our family, the appetizers are about equally as important as the meal.... to me slightly more important actually..

Here's our table... I thought everything was out, ready to eat when I took this photo. Turns out this wasn't even half. We had my mom's famous mashed potatoes (with sour cream and cream cheese and garlic infused), sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, homemade stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce (and the fake stuff for the wimps), squash with brown sugar and maple syrup, rolls, and probably some food I'm forgetting too...

Unfortunately, I had a coughing fit at the table from this obnoxious cold (or whatever) that I have and eventually had to excuse myself from the table. I never finished my meal. Unfortunately, the downside of jetlag is a severe lack of appetite, which is normally not a problem, but is quite unfortunate on Thanksgiving. My plate is still sitting in the fridge waiting for me many hours later. Still not hungry enough to eat it...


Pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie and a pumpkin cake roll for my cousin's birthday. We just ate the cake and couldn't manage to get into the pies... that's for another day....
btw, those apple and pumpkin pies were all me...