Steph Lloyd » Life

Reminiscing

Steph — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:06:27 +0000

Four years ago today our plane touched down in South Korea. After an excruciatingly long flight, we hurried to a bus which took us a few hours south, only to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. We didn’t speak the language and we had no idea where we were. I recall Matt and I looking at each other like ‘what in the heck do we do now?’ I thought that we’d be spending the night in that parking lot. Several minutes after everyone had left, a taxi drove up to see if there were any leftovers from the bus. Thank God! We showed him the slip of paper with our new bosses number on it. He called and we were whisked away… to a love motel. Oh man, those were crazy days. Our first breakfast in Korea consisted of sugar cookies and peach water. Emmm. I’m so grateful that we took the plunge and moved to Korea for three years. It messed with me hard core. It was painful, yet so beautiful. I will always cherish Korea and what I learned there. 사랑해요!

Why do I think dirty old men are so funny?!?

Stephanie — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:48:15 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, while we were still in Korea, I walked over to the pension office to file for my refund. I took my camera with me because I knew it was a beautiful day, and since I was going by myself, I planned on taking a bunch of pictures.

My walk was lovely. It was a bright, sunny day and there weren’t too many people out and about. It was bittersweet though, because I knew we’d be leaving soon and it was quite possibly the last walk around Sanbon that I’d be making. I meandered through our neighborhood, taking it all in. I wanted to take a lot of pictures, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d stop, see something interesting, watch it and then walk on to the next thing. That morning will forever be imprinted in my memory… and thankfully I have a few shots to remind me.

I had a really funny run-in right before I went home. I was coming down some stairs when I saw three old men lounging on a bench. I could see that they were all watching me, but I didn’t think anything of it because, well, that was normal. As I got closer to them I could tell that the one wanted to talk. I’ll be honest, I would always weigh whether I wanted to talk or not based on what I thought the stress level would be during that conversation. In my experience, the kids could all understand/speak some English, young people, up to 35-ish could too. Lots of old men could speak English, but there were tons of people aged 35 and up who couldn’t. I decided to chat for several reasons. They were three old men, one obviously wanted to talk, it was too early for them to be drunk and I was going home in a week, so, seriously, when was I going to have another situation like this in the near future?

The man in the blue shirt was the talkative one. He asked me all the usual questions… Where are you from? How old are you? Where do you work? Do you like Korea? The other two grandfathers just sat there nodding and smiling. They were so cute! Then Blue Shirt asked me how old I thought the man in the middle was. Oh crap, I thought, I can never get a Koreans age right! He looked fairly young, he had no wrinkles and he seemed lively enough. 65? He shook his head. 70? Nope. 75? “He’s 87 years old,” he told me. “Do you know how he stays young?” I shook my head. “Lots of women. He likes beautiful women!” At this point I started laughing really hard. Here is this 70-something telling me that the key to his 87 year old friend’s youth is women. Nice. Haha.

Then the man proceeds to tel me the other guys age (I forgot) and all of their jobs before retirement. He imported something or another and the man in the white shirt was a doctor. My second belly laugh came when I learned that the man in the middle was a minister. Too funny! Before anyone made any kind of proposal for the old man, I told them that I had to get going but wondered if I could get a picture. Blue Shirt talked the other two into it, so I was able to get a picture of them. Aren’t they cute?!?

Rough

Steph — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 08:31:14 +0000

Last night was a rough night. I ate something that didn’t agree with me for dinner. I was up all. night. long. It was awful. There have been so many times here when I’d feel sick to my stomach, but if I could just chill and not think about it, I’d fall asleep and wake up okay. Last night I couldn’t even fall asleep. I’m still sick today. I keep praying that this’ll pass before I get on the airplane in the morning. I don’t even want to imagine how much fun a 12 hour flight would be while running to the bathroom every 30 minutes. Oh man.

We went up to the school to talk to the two new teachers who are taking over. We explained a few school related things and chatted a bit about Korea. They seem like great girls… they are going to have tons of fun!

Now we’re back home. I need to re-situate our bags and get some cleaning done but all I want to do is lay down. What to do, what to do. Matt went and got Korean food for dinner. The smell is making me nauseous. Ew. I suppose I’ll clean a bit, take a nap and then finish packing.

Wrapping Things Up

Steph — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:24:48 +0000

I had two emotions today. Only two. Hehe. Sad. Stressed. My leaving the kids was a bit anti-climactic because I’ve only been teaching these classes for a week. No one is really sad to see me go! We had little snack parties in the Meysen classes. They were so sweet. A bunch of them came up and hugged me at the end of class, a few didn’t want to let me go. It sucked that I couldn’t really explain to them, in words, how much I loved them. I’m pretty sure they knew though. Then tonight I Matt and I stopped in at taekwondo. I was planning on practicing but by the end of the day I was way too pooped. I just picked up all my stuff and stopped in to say goodbye. After a bit, Master Na brought out a cake and a bunch of snacks for the kids. They all got in a circle and then I walked around (real quick!) and shook their hands and said goodbye. It felt a little bit awkward, because I wasn’t sure that that is what I was supposed to be doing, but I think it was alright. I almost cried there, because I’m going to miss everyone there so much. I got email addresses from everyone but I have a feeling that if we can barely speak in person, keeping in contact long distance will be even harder. I’m still going to try!

Tomorrow we have to meet our boss for lunch, clean up the house, get the luggage all stuffed and zipped and hopefully relax a bit. Our boss hired a van to take us to the airport on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. He’s, along with is kids, are going to come say goodbye. My master is also coming to say goodbye. I bought him a gift, I didn’t get one for my boss. I guess I should probably go get one tomorrow so that I don’t find myself in an awkward situation. Hehe.

Sunday we’ll be embarking on our journey home. I can’t even believe we’re here, on our way home. I’m so sad!! I’m borderline depressed. I’m wondering when I’ll get happy… probably as soon as we take off. Haha!

Only 3 Days Left!!

Steph — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:54:40 +0000

I lost my phone over the weekend. I think I realized that I had lost it at some point during the day, but I pushed the feeling aside and kept going about my business. When we got home that night, I pulled everything out of my bag and couldn’t find the darn thing. I was really surprised because I’ve been known to misplace things in the house, but I’ve never really lost anything. Ever. I emailed some friends and asked them to call it and then emailed my boss and asked them to call and possibly turn it off. Koreans are pretty honest people, but I had this feeling someone would be making international calls to their cousins abroad. I called my boss from a payphone later on and she told me that a taxi driver in Seoul had the phone. He ‘delivered’ it to her brother for a fee of $30. I was so thankful that I didn’t have to buy a replacement phone the week before I left. The phone is still in Seoul, so I’ve been without my text messaging capabilities. I don’t have any friends, haha, so I text my students quite often. I’m going to miss those random, hilarious messages!

I went and talked to my taekwondo master earlier today and told him that I didn’t want to test before going home. I have so many things that I have to take care of before going home that I don’t have any time to practice. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that those other things are taking precedence, mostly because they have to do with getting money. Haha.

Tonight’s practice was less stressful since I wasn’t putting a bunch of pressure on myself to get it right. I was called out my master though, and that was a bummer. We had a sort of poomsae-off (like a dance-off, but with our forms). I’m the only non-blue belt, so they were all doing this upper level poomsae. When I got up to go against this punk, my master said to do the fourth poomsae, which isn’t hard, it’s just that I ALWAYS screw it up. It’s so annoying. So, I’m going through the first few moves and get screwed, get back on track, look at the kid, get confused again. At one point I turned to look at my master to let him know I didn’t know and he gave me this keep-going-or-i’ll-kill-you look. I started going again and then started laughing because I botched it so bad. I’m really not sure why I forgot it so completely, but I did.

After we were done, he gave the kid some comments and then turned to me and proceeded to say that I had bad manners and lectured me in Korean for a bit about… um… I’m not sure what because, hello, I DON’T SPEAK KOREAN! I walked away feeling bad that I screwed up my poomsae, but I didn’t even feel bad that he reamed me in front of the class. He’s got to do what he’s got to do and the last thing he’d want is for the kids to start laughing when they were supposed to be serious. For being the loser, I had to do 50 push-ups and 50 sit-ups. After class I said thanks and bowed. He gave me a what-in-the-world-happened look and I just shook my head, smiled and left. Uh. I hate sucking! I have one more practice before we come home. I’m so sad!

Tomorrow we’re going to lunch with our Korean co-worker and working. Friday we have to go to the bank and then dinner with some other co-workers. Saturday we are doing a final pack of our things and possibly meeting a friend for a bit. I also have a crap load of things to finish up at work, only half of them are required, the rest I’m trying to do so that the next teacher will have an easier time jumping into things.

I couldn’t fall asleep again last night until 4 a.m. I have way too much on my mind! I’m going to go read for a few minutes and then hopefully fall into a deep sleep until morning. G’night!

Wrapping up the year…

Steph — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:29:09 +0000

Everything is packed but the clothes we’ll be wearing this week and Matt’s computer. It was quite the process fitting everything into the suitcases yesterday. Craziness. Initially I was going to take an extra suitcase, but after I looked it up, I found out it’s cheaper to take an overweight back on Continental (the last airline we flew on charged the same amount for an overweight bag as they did an extra one), so I ditched that extra bag and fit everything in the biggest suitcase. Nicky came over last night and took all of our food, plants and a bunch of random stuff from the apartment. It seems so empty now! I love it!

We got our new schedules at work. My little kiddy classes were given to another teacher, so I won’t be able to spend a bunch of time with them this week. I’m so sad! I’m still going to have a big party on Friday though. I’ve gotta say, too, that the new schedule sucks. I’m glad that I didn’t stay on. Basically, more classes, less breaks, more paperwork and grading, more hours spent at work… for the same amount of pay. I was hoping for an easy last week, but it seems that it’s going to be quite the opposite. I’m a bit stressed doing it all because not only do I have all that but I have report cards for the kiddy classes and tons of grading to do (that I didn’t know I had piling up online for two months… grrrrrrr!!). But, you know what, I’m coming home in six days!!! Woooo!!!

Changes

Steph — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 13:24:26 +0000

I agreed with Matt that I should move over to using WordPress with all the other cool people out there. Today he installed it for me and I started the move over. I’m going to have to change a few things around before it’s complete, but to be honest, I can’t be bothered sitting on here for much longer. A bunch of the links aren’t working yet and some pictures are also missing. I know, I know. I’ll get to it!

Someone from school bought that monitor on Friday, which explains my lack of posting during the past few days. I’m using Matt’s Mac now but it stinks because he’s just hanging out and I want to hangout with him, not sit here working on stuff. I’ll work out all the kinks on this blog once I get back to America and get my laptop. Only two weeks to go!

My birthday is on Tuesday. I’m going to lunch with two of my co-workers, that’ll be fun! Also on the agenda for this week: do report cards for Meysen classes, schedule our treadmill and water machine to be picked up next week, finish learning my poomsae so I can test this week or next (for my red belt) and get my hair done. I was going through stuff today when I was packing and looked at my little hair salon card. On the back it said once I spent a certain amount of money, I got something for free. I called them today and found out that I have enough points to get a free color. Ah yeah! I’m going to get it cut and colored on Saturday. I’m thinking about doing something completely out of character… but I have all week to mull it over, so we’ll see!

17 days!!

Steph — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 02:19:02 +0000

We sold the monitor, this monitor!!, to a co-worker today, so tonight is the last time i’ll have a computer that is basically mine. I’ll be able to use Matt’s laptop, but I won’t be able to just sit on it for hours. What a bummer! It’s probably a good thing really, i’ll be more motivated to pack up our stuff and get ready for our trip home.

We’re Feeling Much More Comfortable Now

Steph — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:16:30 +0000

The man came and fixed the air conditioner! He knew right away that something was wrong, went and got a part and then fixed it. Thank God!

It’s Hot, It’s Red, It’s Party time!!

Steph — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:49:32 +0000

Oh man, yesterday and today have been crazy! Yesterday, around 2 p.m., our air con decided to take a dump on us. Again. It was working fine up until that point, it was actually cold in our apartment, so I turned the temp up and took it off the extra cold mode. After a little while, I noticed it was getting warm, so I put it back. Well, it just started getting hotter and hotter. It’s been in the upper 80′s and, of course, humid. I’m pretty sure there’s something about humid in Asia that makes it way worse than humid in the States. It’s almost unbearable really.

Anyway, we lost the air and our apartment quickly got hot. I knew that no one would come out to fix it, but I called my boss anyway. He told me that he’d call the service center first thing in the morning. We proceeded to strip down to our skivvies and basically became vegetables. Even though we weren’t moving, we were sweating our butts off. Fun, let me tell you. Around 10:30 Matt suggested we go down to E-Mart before it closed and buy a fan. We got dressed, ran down there and bought the cheapest one they had ($25). It helped a lot. We stuck it right on us while we slept. Matt said he slept just fine, but I didn’t, I kept waking up because I was uncomfortable. It’s weird though, because the heat doesn’t usually bother me, but I was just miserable yesterday and today.

We left the apartment early this morning so that we could go to the bank to pay bills and exchange money. I called my boss while we were waiting at the bank to ask when the servicemen would be out. He, apparently, forgot to call them and told me he’d call me back in just a minute. When he called back, he told me that they didn’t have any openings today, that they could come and look at it at 9:30 in the morning. Total bummer. I told him okay, because what else could I say?!?, and went and ate lunch.

I went to taekwondo after work and was nearly killed with the workout. It felt good but it took us about 20 minutes of chilling at the academy to cool down. We stepped outside and it was warm and muggy. I opened the door to come into our apartment and this wave of hot, wet air rushed out of the apartment. Oh yuck! I took a cold shower and have been sitting in front of the fan for about an hour. It’s hot. Really hot. I just checked the temperature on a magnet I have and it reads 85 degrees. Oh yeah, baby! Hehe.

The depressing thing is that when the guy came out to fix our air con awhile ago, he basically told us nothing was wrong with it and left. A couple days later is started working again. We’re not sure what’s wrong with it, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith that he’s going to know what’s wrong tomorrow either. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll start working in a few days. If not, we may have to go back to a love motel. Haha!

I’m really excited about something I got in the mail today. My iPod nano. Woohoo! I’m calling it my birthday present because my birthday is next Tuesday… so, why not? It’s super small and I love the shade of red. I love it. I haven’t copied my songs over yet, but I really ought to so I can listen to stuff while I’m doing paperwork tomorrow.

Also, Matt’s birthday is Friday, please send him an email at mattrlloyd at gmail dot com or leave him a comment on his blog.