Road Blocks

Life as of late has been going well - the normal ups and downs of working life.

I attended the KIMEA Conference last week and met the orchestra teachers of other international schools in Korea. It was a great opportunity to get to know more of "my people". We selected the rep for the honor festivals coming up, had some conversations that have improved my outlook and instruction, and I got to see some friendly Luther faces again! It's pretty much a norse globe, not nation. There were so many Luther Norse at this conference - Luther on da map!

Since coming to Korea I've been going non stop. In my past life, I took a lot of me time.. a lot of lazy time. I love me some TV dramas and junk food. Since coming here, those things have been hard to get (spare time, junk food is different, I had to set up a VPN to watch Hulu and Netflix...), but on Saturday I got my me time and I got it right nice. I made some ramyeon soup for lunch, adding tiny mushrooms, bean sprouts, and egg whites. This is totally my new comfort food. So easy to make. So delicious and warm - I seriously love soup. And plus, when I add the veggies and egg whites, I feel like it's almost healthy! :) After lounging for way too long, I went for a run on the river. Got home in time to shower and head to Jen's for some home made pasta. Her pasta sauce was deeeeelish. We headed to Itaewon and found the country bar AND the canadian bar. I ran into people I knew from choir at the canadian bar, where there was a sassy sequin-clad cover band.

Sunday I went to choir - my first Messiah rehearsal! Wahoo! It was great to see choir people again, and I loved working on the melismas. mmmm I love me some melismas.

This week, I've been facing lot of road blocks (see title of blog).
In obtaining and inhaler (see previous blog post), I have learned that insurance just really isn't my jam. I think cosmically I was supposed to go through this shenanigan at the same time as the insurance/congress mess back home.
Trying to buy my tickets home for christmas - I have to bank accounts in Korea - one in USD and one in KRW. I wire USD to my home account which takes me leaving school as soon as the bell rings, playing charades with the teller, and a lot of signatures. I was all set to go to the bank today until I found out it's a national holiday. Of course it is. Ugh. So now I'll be waiting until Tuesday morning to transfer money. Uff da!
I've been in serious pursuit of pumpkin spiced ANYTHING and it just isn't happening here, at least not easily. I knew this would be challenging for me, so I brought a jar of pumpkin pie spice. I've been putting it on ice cream, trying it in my coffee (bad idea, for the record)...but I knew I needed more. I scoured the internet for a Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe that would be easy to do here. I got maple syrup from a coworker (because I just didn't have the hutspa to shell out $25 for the bottle at CostCo), steamed an acorn squash, and cooked up some pumpkin spice syrup to add to lattes. I put my syrup in a thermos, went to Dunkin Doughnuts on my way to work and asked them to make a latte in my thermos. He promptly washed out my thermos, noticing there was something in there. When he gave me my latte, I went back up to my 9th floor apartment, added syrup, and then went to work. Uff da.

There's a pep rally for volleyball today during 8th period - so no orchestra for grades 9-12 today.
Last night, Renee, Dawn and I found a delicious italian restaurant in Nowon - definitely going back again.
Excited for our department meeting this morning - we are deciding on our Christmas music!
It is an incredibly beautiful day in seoul - an actual blue sky!
Chiggity check this post if you feel as passionately about pumpkin spice as me.