It's Not My Fault!

My faithful camera of 5 years finally gave me it's very first error message--on the very first day of my Busan adventure. Luckily, I was traveling with 4 other people, all equipped with their own cameras. Unfortunately, this means that I am at their mercy for getting pictures. I have been pleading and should have the pictures, and thus a picture heavy post detailing the trip, in a few days. Hang on, they are coming! Soon you shall see me with SHARKS!

Nothing in particular

I have absolutely nothing to write about. Originally, I had planned on staying in tonight and getting well rested for Busan but I was invited to a party and I'm dying for some company that isn't a 6 year old child. I can sleep for a couple of hours on the train anyways. One of the people on the trip has an underwater camera so expect some Very cool pictures next week sometime. I'll bring my universal card reader and usb thumbnail drive so I can download them from an internet cafe right after the trip.

Despite the fact that it's still a bit chilly and not really spring like in Seoul, the flowers are blooming. Forsythia (sorry about the spelling mom), pink blossoms, white blossoms and even the grass just seems so vivid after the doldrums of winter. It's going to be about 50 all weekend in Busan, something I'm looking forward to heartily.

I'm talking about the weather. This is tragic.

In my backpack for the trip:
-Yo Mama's Dysfunctional
-Love in the Time of Cholera (abandoned around page 200 for how depressing it was but I am determined to finish it)
-Another novel, haven't decided which yet. What will most likely happen is that I will spend 20 minutes agonizing about the 3rd book tonight before giving in and packing 4 instead of 3. This is what happens when a bibliophile travels.

I'm trying to just use my backpack for the trip down so I might actually have to stick to my 3 book limit. I'm just not sure if it's possible. Should the 3rd novel be in French, English or Spanish? What sort of subject matter do I want? Should I do a favorite reread for comfort reading or something brand new? If I do a Spanish book, do I have room for a dictionary? I wish my phone had a killer Spanish/English dictionary as well as a Korean/English, come to think of it.

This is the sort of turmoil I go through for a weekend trip. Now you know why both of my suitcases were severly overweight when I moved to Korea. Not to mention the $75 box of books my parents (amazingly) shipped ot me. When I go on week long vacations it's a nightmare, trying to decide what goes and how much I will need to last me through boring bus rides and down time. In a way, college trips were easier since I just brought my research with me.

Oops, time to go proctor a test! Until Monday! Sorry for the typos, no time to reread!

Diving with SHARKS and CEBU CEBU CEBU!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it but this weekend I'm going diving with sharks at the Busan aquarium. That is very exciting, I get to go do something new with friends AND go be a tourist in a new part of Korea.

Even more exciting? I booked a flight this morning to CEBU in the Philippines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My friend, S., sent out an email saying that she wants to go to the Philippines for her birthday weekend, found cheap tickets and were we (the female friend contingent) interested in going? This is EXACTLY what I need. I have been itching, desperate to get out of Korea for a few days. Two days sunning myself on an exotic beach and eating exotic food is exactly what I want to do. I had considered going to Tokyo but the idea pales in comparison next to a weekend on the beach with my friends.

I could have gotten my eyes lasered in April but I elected to go to the Philippines instead. So shoot me. I'm practical most of the time. My eyes can wait, vacation cannot. Well, vacation Could wait, but not if I want to turn into an evil, child hating Grinch it can't.

My Birthday and Confessions

This past Saturday was my 23rd birthday American age and my 24th Korean. I haven't been home for my birthday in years, which is a startling realization. Last year I was in New Orleans doing restoration work in the 9th ward with Hillel, the year before that I was studying in Paris and the year before that it fell on a week day during the school year. I wasn't about to miss classes just so I could go home to be pampered. My parents and friends have always done their best to make me feel loved and celebrated, no matter where I am in the world but it is strange to celebrate your coming into life so far from family. It occurs to me that perhaps it is only strange for a child but for an adult it isn't so unusual. I suppose I really am growing up these days.

Or, I'd like to think that until I realize that I have pictures of myself eating a lollipop while wearing a face mask and strolling down the street. It's quite comical. Observe:

My confession: I had a friend from the States visit me on my birthday. J. from Indonesia wants to teach in Korea in the fall and wanted to give it a trial run before he decided to take the plunge. Logical thought that, personally, I just thought 'why not?' and took out some books on Korea from the library. I don't know why I didn't tell anyone from back home, though I wouldn't shut up about it to my friends in Korea. It just seemed so personal, and also jealousy inducing for the friends who would like to visit me but can't. But I couldn't really tell my birthday story without J. in it, so voila my confessin. In any case, my birthday coincided with his spring break and it was amazing to have a friend from home here. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends in Korea but I've only known them for 6 months, or less in most cases. The friends I made at boarding school are on an entirely different level--we've lived together, played, studied, and grew up together. To have someone here from that part of my life just made me giddy.

What do you readers get out of me having a visitor? I actually took my camera with me around Seoul/Anyang!! Pretty groovy, huh?

For my birthday we decided to actually find the Anyang Art Park, something I've always seen signs for but never actually sought out. I'm vaguely annoyed with myself for not finding it sooner but on the other hand I got to go on the first day of real spring weather. It felt like the entire city was out walking, biking, running, playing and just enjoying the weather. The Anyang Art Park is mainly installation art over a long stretch of river with lots of rocks to play on in the shallow river, some of which have been arranged so you can walk across the river on them instead of taking the numerous foot bridges.

And there is even another photo of me!
Basically, I spent the afternoon playing on rocks, skipping rocks on the river and enjoying myself. We also stumbled on a Buddhist temple on the way to the park. Pretty cool even though we couldn't go in (it was closed).

This last photo is actually from the entrance to the parking lot for the temple, I just thought it was interesting. I've also never seen the baby faced Buddha statues though apparently they are quite common.

More coming soon, I promise.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven

*cue that cheesy song, I'm in heaven*

Yesterday afternoon I was chatting online with a friend from around these parts when I remembered that he is a practicing vegan.
Me: Oh hey, do you know if soy ice cream is available in Korea?
My savior: Ummm, yes, in fact I do.
Me: OH MY DEAR GOD WHERE?
Him: You know Soy Delicious?
Me: ...Yes (*starts bouncing*)
Him: Well they have ice cream shops all over Korea, 15 flavors in fact.
Me: WHAT?! OMG WHERE??????????????? OMG OMG OMG.
Him: Well, there is one in Anyang...
Me: *dies*

Keep in mind that I'm chatting on the computer at work when I start smiling like a loon and bouncing in my seat.

Not only is this place in Anyang, it is only 10 minutes from my house my bus. I had 2 pints of soy ice cream last night for dinner. The upscale food market type place has one in their cafe area in the basement of Lotte, the department store. FIFTEEN FLAVORS. They don't even have that available in the U.S. Just vanilla, chocolate, some yucky almond bark thing, and mint chocolate chip (also disgusting, since I don't like mint chocolate chip. If I wanted a mint, I'd buy some gum.) I went with three other people. They laughed at my reaction to this place. I was bouncing up and down, giggling maniacally and falling over myself trying to pick out what flavors I wanted. I gave up trying to choose and got a 2 pint container filled with 1 giant scoop of mocha almond fudge, 1 giant scoop of cookies and cream and 1 giant scoop of cookie dough. Since I went first, and ordered an absolutely massive container, the woman asked me if I wanted it packed with dry ice (good for up to two hours) for the ride home. Of course not, I just wanted a spoon. Fine fine, but she assumed since I'm a tiny person with a giant container of ice cream that it was for all of us and handed me 4 spoons. Oh no, all for me! I was giggling and smiling like a mad woman. It was Fantastic. Everyone else got reasonable cones and small containers. N. didn't even finish hers but me, I finished it, in one go. It was quite impressive, if I do say so myself. It is times like those that I really do believe I have a second stomach in my thigh that gets put into use. That or when I turn 30 I'm going to gain 100 pounds. The thing is, I'm not even that obsessed with ice cream in the states but I do treat myself to tofutti here and there. It was just not having it for 6 months and knowing that the torture was going to continue on indefinitely that drove me to react with such a fiendish gluttony. Next time I shall get a more reasonable cone--and 3 more pints for my freezer.

In other news:
Work is going well but I realized that I really hate teaching 5 year old kids (who are really 4 because Koreans start counting age at 1). 6 year olds have logic, they understand cause and effect. If you do your homework, you get a sticker. If you behave and do your work, we will play a game at the end of class. 4 year olds just don't. They are more interested in sticking their finger up their nose, not writing their name or listening to a story they don't understand in English. I tried to get one kid to sit down today and got stabbed with the damned pencil. AND HE GIGGLED. Not to mention they drool and pee themselves and are just a pain. I only have them for 30 minutes a day but really, it's 30 too many. It just puts me in a bad mood.
I have a one on one at the end of the day, 3 times a week. It is the poor girl's third hour of English class and most of the time she just doesn't want to sit still and be awake and attentive any longer. I have finally discovered the key to keeping her alert and interested throughout the entire review session: candy. We finish a subject, she gets a little candy for a job well done. Longer it takes, longer she goes without candy. I reward myself too, obviously. (And what a sugar high I gave myself...). She was happy and awake to the end of the lesson and got more questions right than usual! Obviously, sugar is the answer!

This would never work in a class situation but it is fantastic for 1 on 1s.

Obviously, I'm evil.

So, last week I spent the entire week waiting to post until I stole Salsa Boy's memory card so I can steal the pics we took from the touristy spot we hit on Sunday. No such luck. So, no pictures for the moment. This past weekend I went to an amazing Buddhist art museum in Insadong that I found on a fluke. I was trying to take a friend to Insadong-gil, a fun kind of touristy street and we saw a sign for it. Why not? It sounded good. Two smallish floors and admission was only 10,000 ($7.07) for two people. Weirdly enough, it was completely empty. We were the only people in there for the entire 40 minutes we spent admiring the art. The lady who ran it gave us two free post cards at the end! The only disappointing thing was that all of the background information signs weren't translated into English, only about half of them. While they were interesting and choc full of historical/religious background they didn't really provide a stylistic commentary. And, not knowing anything about Korean Buddhist art trends, I would have really enjoyed reading about that. It was really interesting to see works, contemporaneous to the 19th century European art I studied in Paris, that were so completely different. Not just in terms of the subject matter but in terms of composition, perspective, use of color and medium. It was just a very concrete way of observing how very isolated Korea was during that time period, especially in terms of cultural exchange.

The past few nights I've played a lot of pool at Psycho. I am determined to suck a little less. Also, my ankles are really bugging me. I should really consider acupuncture, or so my Korean friends tell me. It costs about 5,000won for a session with health insurance. I'm just not so into the idea of having lots of needles stuck in me, even for pain relief. In the mean time I'm back to killing time in the evening. Reading a lot though. I still haven't finished Marquez because it got depressing and I needed a break from that 200 pages into it so I'm reading a more theoretical book on the fallacy of current urban and black culture analysis called 'Yo Mama's Dysfunctional' and it's FANTASTIC. I think the author is Robin Kelley but I don't' have it in front of me at the moment.

Time to catch up on e-mail, something else I'm woefully behind on. It's just that I normally do this during a break at work but lately I've spent about 2 hours a day doing ridiculous amounts of lesson prep (in terms of making worksheets and such) and writing evaluations. Evaluations are evil.

Dear Parent,
This is what we did this month. Your kid is great.
Love,
Alex

That is the general gist of them. You have to think of very creative ways to tell them nicely that there kid is still fabulous BUT they have a teensy problem with X and could you please help them out at home. I will update again soon! Promise.

A cure...and apologies

I have many pictures and stories to tell from this weekend but the medicine the doctor gave me makes me sleepy and all I want to do right now is curl in bed and pass out.

In short:
When I went to the doctor on Saturday for a routine prescription, I also mentioned the fact that I keep getting sick. He asked me if I had gotten sick on such and such dates. It was like going to an oracle and having them not be a crack pot! Errr. Medicines make me silly? Sillier? Apparently, the yellow dust which blows in every year, more heavily around this time, is adversely affecting my respiratory system. Read: pollution from China blowing in makes my lungs go blergh. It will only get worse as March progresses! However, there is an easy fix, wear one of those face masks every time I go outside. Also, he gave me a lovely set of antihistamines for the next 10 days to give me some relief while my body works on cleaning out the gunk and not getting any more new gunk in (thank you dorky looking face mask). Now it looks like I'm ready for surgery! Only I'm going to work on 6 year old children and their English!

...There have been an obscene number of typos in this short post. Thank you spell check. More with pictures from the weekend...probably tomorrow.

Sleep is a wonderful thing. I went to bed at 7pm last night. Though I did wake up at 9pm for a brief bathroom break and to answer my phone for half an hour. Silly phone. Tonight I shall be better: I shall go to bed at 8:30. Oh antihistamines, why do you make me SO SLEEPY??????

Sick

Okay, you asked for a rant, here is a rant.

I'm sick again. I never stopped sniffling from the last cold, I'm just sick again. I'm so glad I'm seeing the doctor on Saturday. This is NOT HUMANE. Why won't someone come up with the cure to the common cold? I had an involved fantasy on the way to work today involving alien technology and a gift to show peace. Maybe it will be my new novel. Aliens and the CURE.

Yes, it sounded as lame out loud as it did in my head. But wouldn't it be fabulous if it happened? Aliens. *fantasizes*

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is fabulous but despite the fact that the rest of the book is supposed to be hilarious, the first 40 pages made me bawl which just exacerbated my sinuses. I'm hoping it won't be so miserable tonight since it will ruin my plans for the evening if it is.

On another note: Sarah Lawrence sent out an alumni news email today.

Dear Sarah Lawrence,
Thank you for making us feel like underachievers!
Love,
Alex

I mean, it was good. Interesting to see what people are up to but I'm not going to be winning any awards for teaching 6 year old kids English. Unless they come up with an award for having the common cold more days of the year than anyone else. If so, I win. Time to relinquish the computer to people who want to be productive. And by productive, I mean read the news online.

Excuses: Pain and Stress

This week I had my camera ready with me at the rock climbing gym. I was even going to have a friend take a picture of me while climbing.

I climbed for a grand total of 15 minutes. Fifteen. one-five. I was having a kind of crappy ankle day because of the sudden storm front that moved in (at least, that's what I'm blaming) and I probably shouldn't have even tried to go climbing but I'd had a crap day at work and climbing was the lone bright spot in my day that I had to look forward to. I did a good stretch out at the beginning and chose the 40 move bouldering problem that I got down last time. I was in pain by the end of that. Not a lot of pain, but enough that I shouldn't have kept climbing. So I took off my climbing shoes and stretched out again and watched my friend J. (a Korean woman), work a problem I haven't done. Ten minutes later I tried again. Made another 5 minutes before I had to stop. Waited 15 minutes, climbed another 5. Then I finally gave in. I spent another half hour stretching and doing push ups and crunches but it was so frustrating. All I wanted to do was climb for a few hours like I used to and barring that, at least for an hour. Climbing is a great stress reliever for me and one of the only things that completely gets my mind off of frustration from the day. Oh well. I stopped at the pharmacy afterward and got some more tylenol (Dear Bottle of ibuprofen, Where are you? Love, Alex). I hate that the stupid subway station isn't handicap accessible. Stairs are evil. Obviously. Ice and tylenol helped but sheesh. It would be nice if I could actually go for a night of climbing.

The stress and frustration in my life are mainly from my job. As much as I'd love to rant about it on my blog it would be a pretty unprofessional thing to do. I haven't been writing much because of it since it's all that's on my mind.

If I can figure out the online payment, I'm going diving with sharks in Busan at the end of the month. At first, I thought this was a joke, or the name of the movie but no, apparently this is a popular thing to do at this indoor aquarium thingy. A bunch of my female friends are going to do it. The only problem is that I need to use a paypal account or a credit card to book my reservation and I pretty much don't keep any money in my American accounts. I'm going to try and figure that out tonight because obviously, I must go diving with sharks. Besides, I've been dying to get out of town and a trip down south is just the ticket. AND if I catch a bullet train, it will only take about an hour to get there. Why don't bullet trains exist in the States? Some girls don't want to go because of monetary constraints BUT it doesn't cost very much and is well within my entertainment budget for the month of March so long as I don't do anything extravagent between now and then. Budgets are fabulous things. I think diving with sharks will be my birthday present to myself since my parents are providing the gift certificate to the bookstore, the only other thing I really buy on a regular basis or want.*

*Of course I want abstract things like figuring out what I want to research in grad school, world peace, etc. It's just that books are the only things that I want that are obtainable.

Speaking of books:
I finished Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut and was utterly disappointed. It was a good book, it just wasn't brilliant like Cat's Cradle or Slaughterhouse 5. I read a few more short stories by Borges yesterday who is brilliant but fantastically difficult and challenging and not really ideal bus reading. AND *drum roll* I get to start reading Love in the Time of Cholera today! (Written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez). For those of you who don't remember I've been angling to steal Salsa Boy's copy for a good month and I finally got my hands on it! I am giddy but also a bit apprehensive. When good books have so much hype it's almost intimidating to start reading them.

Plans for the weekend:
Not much. Friday I have to have a quiet night because I have a doctor's appointment first thing Saturday morning. It will probably be spent eating my hammentashen and reading Marquez. Saturday I have the doctor, a Spanish lesson (possibly), and Psycho with N. at night. I'm looking forward to a girl's night out at the bar. My goal: write down silly lines people use to hit on me with. The most frequently used line these days seems to be: "You know who you remind me of? You look just like ____________," insert name of super hot movie star/famous person here. I might be pretty, but there is no way I look anything like these people. Last time someone tried that one I interrupted them and said:
"OH MY GOD. Yes, I do! I look exactly like this girl from New York who moved to Korea to teach English named Alex. Oh wait, that's me!"
Guy: ....Not who I was thinking of but good one.
Me: You should see my twin, Cassandra. Now she looks EXACTLY like me. What a coincidence.
Guy: *mouth drops open, slight drooling reaction* ...Twins are hot.
Me: *grins, rolls eyes* and turns around to chat with someone else.

Perhaps this is mean but really, it's too easy. If you want to start a conversation, what ever happened to, 'Hi, I'm __. Where are you from? (good line with expats). Read any good books lately?' I have yet to have someone ask me about what I've been reading, unless I'm reading a book at the moment. Why do I get to hear about weather, movies, TV, clubs and other asinine things but never those rectangular things with pages in them???

More soonish. I haven't been in a writing mood so much as a ranting mood but we'll see how the weekend goes.

Life

It has been pointed out to me that I tend to write more when I'm happy, at least in my blog. Logically, it follows that I would post less this week. I really, really detest being sick. I'm not that sick, not sick enough to keep me in bed or home from work, but just a nice low level of misery brought on by the common cold. Nothing terrible, I've mainly indulged myself by finishing 2 books (Slaughterhouse 5, I think I already talked about that) and The Confederation of Dunces and eating lots of lollipops. I think that teaching 6 year old kids has led me to be overly indulgent with my sweet tooth. Normally, I'm the epitome of self-restraint and eating in moderation but lately that's gone a bit out of the window. After being rather ill after consuming three donuts this afternoon I have decided to turn a new leaf. No more donuts! In self defense, it was completely in the name of scientific research that the donut gluttony was pursued. I wanted to see, scientifically of course, which of the chocolate varieties was truly the most chocolaty. The cacao honey dipped won. Has a really fancy name here but in the States I'm pretty sure they just call it a glazed chocolate donut. All I have to say is thank god that the subway bathrooms are pretty clean and well stocked with soap and toilet paper. Which ironically, is more than you can say for most restaurants here. I love, love love the building codes in the United States of America that require bathrooms for restaurants and soap. Soap is a GREAT requirement.

I had my first panic attack in Korea on Friday. It is such a long convoluted story but here is the short(er) version:
I had a stressful day at work and realized that because of the changed teaching schedule, not only did I not know what I was teaching for the first day, the book hadn't arrived yet and I had zero lesson plans for the new book. This, among many other things led to a wonderful knot of constant stress and anxiety in my chest. Just because it isn't my fault that I don't have the book and lesson plans doesn't mean it won't stress me out. Good lesson plans make kids love you. Boring kids makes them hate you. Well, not hate you, but certainly not enjoy their classes. Anyways, I was late leaving and realized I'd be late meeting people for dinner if I didn't grab a cab. My bilingual coworker thoughtfully offered to call a cab for me instead of trying to flag one down on the main road. When I reached my destination the meter said that I owed 6,600 won (a bit under 5 dollars). I handed the driver 7,000won and motioned to keep the change (something rare and unheard of in Korea, the land of no tips). The driver starts talking at me in rapid fire Korean. I repeat a few times in Korean that 'I'm sorry, I don't understand, I don't speak Korean.' He gestured once to the meter. I double checked, yes I had given him more than the fare required. He continued to talk at me, talking faster and more angrily. I repeated again that I didn't understand and finally, frustrated (and running even later) I got out of the cab and started walking down the street. The man got out of the cab and chased me down the road and started yelling at me. He got in my face and was yelling and yelling and of course, I didn't understand. Every time I tried to turn to walk away he would just get in my face and became increasingly menacing. Passer-byers started to stare but no one stepped in to help translate, or no one could. I started yelling back, alternating between "I DON'T UNDERSTAND. I DON'T SPEAK KOREAN" (in Korean) and "LEAVE ME ALONE" (in English). Finally, I get out my cell phone to call my coworker to see if he can translate for me and this seems to make the cab driver even angrier and more menacing and meanwhile my blessed bilingual coworker is not answering his phone. I finally shout "f*ck you" several times, give him the finger and run away. He can't leave his cab running with the keys in the ignition and leaves off though he waved his fist angrily at me. I'm not proud of how I shouted at him but I was scared, stressed and frustrated beyond belief. Luckily I was meeting my friends at one of their apartments nearby and I ran to the building and descended into hysteria that took a good 20 minutes to calm down from. I have wonderful friends who take care of me but it was absolutely awful. All of the stress from the day exploded into this event and made it impossible to digest, to shrug off and move on from. My coworker called me back about 10 minutes after the event and I managed to explain what had happened in between sobs. He called the company for me and got the scoop. Here is what happened:
When you call a cab to pick you up, instead of hailing one on the street, it costs 1,000won more. Not a big deal. I had had him call cabs for me before (when my ankle was hurt and I couldn't walk to the bus stop) but they had always just added it onto the meter. I assumed it was a rush hour surcharge or something because I usually only take cabs late at night or in bad weather but not to and from work. This cab driver hadn't added it to the meter, he was telling me verbally that I needed to give him 400 more won. My coworker had him stop by our school (he was still there working on various things) to get his side of the story and give him the 400 won. The driver ranted and raved and said he explained it to me. My coworker calmly replied, 'Okay, I see your side of the story but how did you explain it to her? You knew she didn't speak Korean.' Apparently, the driver only stared at him and then that settled it. He realized he had done nothing that I could have possibly understood. He could have written the numbers down for me or used his fingers to indicate how much more I owed and I would have paid it, annoyed, but not bothered for an explanation I wouldn't be able to understand. He could have mimed that I should call someone to translate (which most cabbies do when they don't understand the directions you give them). Nope, my driver chose to scream at me in rapid fire Korean. I might not have reacted well but he scared the crap out of me.

It was nice to go out for fried chicken and beer after that debacle, goodness knows I needed it.

Saturday I went into work for new parent orientation (in 3 hours I had to wave at two different sets of parents and say "Hi, my name is Alex. I'm from NY. I'm the yellow class teacher." It wasn't exactly taxing, even if it was annoying to work on Saturday). After that I unsuccessfully went sneaker shopping in Anyang. I'll have to go into Seoul but it's not a desperate situation so I'll wait until I need more than sneakers to make a big to do out of it. I was going to go to Psycho Saturday night but my cough had gotten worse from the congestion and sitting in a smoky bar didn't seem like the best thing to do. I changed my mind about going out about 20 times and then read until 1 in the morning. It was a lovely, if rather boring way to spend the evening.

Sunday hasn't been much more exciting though it certainly brought me lots of yummy things (aside from the awful scientific experiment). I picked up my order of hammentashen and MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. Mine were still in the oven when I arrived and fresh out of the oven cookies are AMAZING. I'm kind of annoyed with myself for ordering so many chocolate and not more apricot but that is what happens when you order cookies while pmsing. Still yummy though. I hate to admit it but the ones we get from the bakery in Brooklyn (or is it Queens?...somewhere ridiculously Jewish in NY) are even better. However, they are cookies in Korea that DON"T MAKE ME SICK. I meant to order my parve chocolate birthday cake while I was there but I realized since my birthday falls on a Saturday (and I get out of work too late on Friday to pick it up) I'd have to get it on Thursday annnnnnnnnnnd yeah. I actually just got off of the phone with my mother who reminded me that cakes freeze rather well and I should just toss it in the freezer and defrost it on Saturday. This is a definite possibility. I will send a questioning email on Monday. It is a touch depressing to have to order/buy/prep your own birthday cake but this is what happens when you have food allergies. On a more cheery note, I bought lots of books! Well, three books but it might actually last me for more than a week. I got The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, The Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and other jazz age stories by Fitzgerald. Even better is that I got them all used! I also found a couple of decent kids books used but I found that most of the books on the used shelf were too advanced for my 6 year olds. I started the Vonnegut book already but the problem is that it's a fast read and not really economical to buy a book that only takes me 3 or 4 hours to read. However, with my new donut protest it will all even out. In fact, I'm off to read some Vonnegut...

Wish me luck with the new classes. I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit (okay, a lot) nervous about the first day of a new semester. I shall endeavor to write more this week but as I am still congested and feeling rather self indulgent, I make no promises.