Rainy Daze

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This week was very short it seemed. Monday night I went to Tonya's apartment with Andrew to watch the Superbowl. Her friend Joanna came a bit later with her sister Caroline who had just come in from the states to visit. The game was okay but nothing too special. It rained literally all week, this put a "damp"er on my plans to walk to and from school often because of my gym hiatus. I intend to join my new gym as soon as I get my hands on my new iPod (the old one is nearing the end of its life after five years of faithful service).

We got Friday off because this weekend was Sol nal (the Lunar New Year). It was pretty bad luck because it could've been three days off. The actual day fell on Sunday though so we got minimal time off...still a four day weekend though. Thursday night I played poker with Andrew and went out really late (maybe left home at about 2 am) strangely we found Jemal at Cowboy without even trying. I slept late on Friday. Later in the day I went to see a movie with one of my students, Ashley. We saw Valentine's Day. Very sappy but it was expected and I thought it was a little bit cute at some parts. I think she liked it a lot more. Afterwards we went and had some coffee. While getting coffee I bumped into Jim and Elizabeth and said we should hook up later. I ended up drinking with them and also Jocelyn in the downtown area. It was quite expensive ordering $5 beers and $8 cocktails all night but was enjoyable nonetheless.

Saturday I was super lazy all morning. I ended up playing poker with Jemal, Yogita and Andrew at Andrew's apartment and losing all my money to Yogita. She somehow has become a crack poker player overnight (or so I let her think). We went out and had some grilled meat and soju afterwards so that made up for it. There were very few GI's out on Saturday night which was kinda nice. Andrew went home after dinner but I stuck it out and met up with Sonia, Lisa and Vanessa at TLC and made it home by about 3.

Sunday I watched a couple of movies (The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus). Mr. Fox must've had a vendetta against my machine because he blue screened my computer halfway through the movie and I couldn't get it to get past the Windows loading screen for the rest of the night. I feel lost without my computer. I felt incredibly lethargic and didn't like the feeling one bit so I got up off my butt at about 10:30 pm and convinced Andrew to go on a night hike in Weolmyeung Park. The headlamp my Grandma was quite useful as we trekked up steep, root-covered hills. The view from the "summit" was really cool on the first clear night the whole week. I could see lights on all side for miles around. Even though Gunsan is considered small I still see it as a good sized city I haven't discovered all of yet. Perhaps it's because everything is so condensed. I made it down the mountain without spraining my ankle and went to bed feeling a little less lazy.

Today I woke up and got in touch with Jemal and Yogita about what it'd take to resurrect my computer. I went to Andrew's and ate some delicious breakfast burritos before they came over. We determined I needed a new stick of ram. I've already had one of the two replaced and knew this would be an easy fix. Still...Acer, you fail at putting quality ram in your machines! We drove to about five different computer shops that were all closed because of the holiday. We eventually made our way to A-Town which is the little ghetto town that caters to the military base nearby. The guy was charging $65 for a 2gb stick, that's 76,000 won! Being the former Best Buy employee I knew he was overcharging. He wasn't willing to barter so we went elsewhere. We actually ended up in Iksan (a slightly bigger city than Gunsan about 35 minutes northeast) and first had to stop at an ATM. We tried about six different ATM's including the one for our bank and realized none of them were gonna work. Who shuts down ATM's for a holiday? What about people who are travelling to see their families and need cash? Ludicrous. We scrounged together all the cash we could without using our primary bank accounts and it was enough for the stick of ram. 59,000 won...a lot better but still too pricey by US standards. We went to a restaurant called Vip's afterwords...not VIP's but Vip's, like there's some guy named Vip somewhere that owns a chain of steak restaurants. Their salad bar was absurd, it had shrimp, chicken, soup, all kinds of stuff. We ate way too much. It's a good thing good buffets aren't common here.

I'm back on my computer now and feel complete again...haha. I want to be a lot more productive this week compared to last. I can't let the weather impact my mood/motivation so much!

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