bluerosefairy

New Show tonight, which was, I have to say, both scary as hell and continued the trend from "Retaliation" of placeholder, breather eps after the double-whammy of "100" and "Slave of Duty".

Just a few notes:

( Spoilers are hiding from the dolls, Mommy )

And next week, we're apparently getting JJ backstory! I like JJ backstory. I'd like it even more if it wasn't just once a season, but oh well.

HOME! God, I could get all cliche-y and talk about "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" and "who says you can't go home?" but the truth is, I really, really am glad to be home. I was so happy to see my parents (who came to pick me up at the airport and my mother thought nothing of holding up an entire line of people to hug me when I got through customs). I forgot how beyond-ridiculously-comfortable my bed is (especially when one has been sleeping on mattresses that resemble plywood for a year) and seeing street signs all in English is really freaking weird. Also, no motorcycles.

So yes, it's lovely to be home. Now, to tackle unpacking.

Glorious Leader does not love Facebook, so you get all my crappy updates on here.

Currently, I am in the hostel, listening to fifteen-to-twenty drunk Aussies butcher "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for free drinks. I already got my free beer, bitches - leading a round of "Up on the Housetop" with the girl from New Zealand in the bunk next to me. The Indian guy we met does a decent "Jingle Bells", too.

Much love, guys. Home in two days.

Made it to Vietnam, guys. As soon as I'm home and have regular computer access, I'll post the pictures and the full report, but I'm here and haven't been killed by either the motorcycles or the Communists yet.

Much love for the well-wishes, too. *hugs*

Ohgod ohgod ohgod.

T minus 5 hours and counting. I have my e-ticket and my visa and my passport and my photos, but the stupid web-checkin for Vietnam Airlines is not working. I really, really want to have my boarding pass because it'd maybe stop me from panicking that I'm going to miss the flight.

And I have the bus to Incheon to catch, by myself, with three things of luggage at 3:30 am in fucking Siji, which has the Worst Taxi Drivers in the World. They are insufferable bastards who refuse to drive foreigners most of the time, and bitch at you for wanting a cab from Sinmae down to the Foreigner Ghetto, which is ONLY seven blocks. I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to walk that with Emart bags or something.

And the bus info was only in Korean, so I had to have Jenny get me departure times and prices, and I am still kind of worrying that the bus is going to go right by and not pick me up, or that I'll be on the wrong side of the street.

So yes. Mild levels of panicking going on. Leaving home was not this stressful, I swear to God. Of course, leaving home didn't involve me dealing with everything from the visas to money to packing to transportation by myself.

Much love for the virtual gifts, gang! Thanks must go to the ever-so-fabulous recrudescence, smercy, heavenly_rain, and ciudad.

I can haz a recrudescence!

I have hijacked her pajama pants and her ethernet, but I can haz. We hauled ass around Seoul - and managed to get ourselves from Seoul Station to Myeong-dong without running into a subway stop along the way. We had yummy Mexican food and margaritas at On the Border, and spent most of dinner talking CM, our crazy students, and what we missed/are looking forward to about home in the States. We headed to a club in Hongik (the same area, you'll recall, we holed up the last time we were in Seoul), and it was totally one of the best times I've had in a long time.

The first club we hit was crappy and crowded way beyond its capacity. The second one, though, was fabulous - good drinks (and this cute Aussie boy with dreads and a bunch of chains on bought me a jack and coke), good crowd, amazing bands. I have now seen Korean punk rock performed live, and the last band of the night was an American cover band. Sounded sort of like Green Day, and they covered CCR, Neil Young, the Kinks, Jimi Hendrix (oh my GOD, I have never heard a better cover of "Fire", and I have never sung along so loudly), and Black Sabbath. The crowd went nuts, and I spent a good two hours in a half-mosh pit half dance floor, booty-shaking like there was no tomorrow.

We were about to hop in a cab home (with an awesome sausage-type thing I bought from a street vendor) when the driver started to get totally skeezy and demand 30.000 won to go from Hongik to Kongkuk, in advance, with the meter starting at 3,000 instead of 2,200. We got out, walked a block, and then got a cab for 18.000, with the meter starting where it should start. Along the way, Em was so tired, while she was talking about a CM story she's thinking of, apparently, Reid is capable of "Morgasms". This does not even take into account the dramatic reading she performed of a certain kinkmeme story when we got back to her apartment.

Which is where we currently are. She is watching S1 Criminal Minds and cooing over baby!Hotch and Reid's slicked-back hair and grandpa sweaters while I am catching up on LJ and reciting macros at her. It is stupid o'clock, though, so I really should crash soonish.

TWENTY THREE DAYS OH MY GOD. I AM GOING HOME IN 23 DAYS. OH MY GOD, I HAVE PACKING AND SHIPPING-STUFF AND VACATIONING IN VIETNAM TO BE PLANNING FOR. OHGOD.

( Mad Men 313 - Shut the Door, Have a Seat )

( Doctor Who - The Waters of Mars )

Augh, with all that male douchebaggery running around, I need to go watch that clip of JJ whacking the UnSub with the shovel a few times to get my blood pressure back down.

*drags self out of the depths of the internets*

Hello, gang. Been slightly-MIA due to extreme lack of computer and various work-related stuff. Starting with the fact that absolutely no one besides my two co-teachers (Jim and Chris) and I knew I was leaving in December. I booked my post-Korea vacation last week (a week in Vietnam! I am SO PSYCHED!) and since my return flight is included in my contract, I wanted to arrange for it to be included in my last paycheck. Imagine my shock - and my director and AD's shock - when I found out that James (the hiring director, who isn't based out of Siji anymore; he's down in Bongduk at another SEI branch) never told anyone that I was only working a four-month contract.

So there was a bit of a kerfluffle, and I've been ass-deep in paperwork, writing down class procedure and contact info and move-out dates and it's kind of hitting me that oh holy god, I'm going home in less than two months. It's a bit terrifying, to be honest, because I've gotten kind of autopilot-y, working and hanging out with the KTs and Jim and Chris and PCbanging on weekends and being really lazy, and it's almost been kind of a year-long vacation. And now I have to go home, which, don't get me wrong, I'm really excited for because I miss my parents and my friends and family. But I have to get a job back home, and an apartment, and it's just going to be weird.

And yes, one of the first things I intend on doing is to eat large quantities of all the food I've been missing (chicken parm sandwiches! real pizza! Chinese food! turkey! french fries!). I'll probably gain back all the weight I've lost in a week. Oh well, totally worth it.

Also - HI to all of the new friends from various new fannish loves. I promise I'm mildly entertaining when I have actual computer access on a regular basis.

Laptop is probably busted for good. Will probably need to buy completely new computer. Anyway, in honor of yesterday's date:

Something Just Broke (from Assassins).

Ignore the assassination-related lyrics, like I do. This song reminds me so much of being 15 and piling into Erin's brother's car, because SEPTA was shut down, all major roads were closed, Broad Street was at a standstill, and we'd been sent home. Sitting in my living room with my parents, Brooke, and Erik Brown, watching the footage they wouldn't show us in school (ooh, Central caught hell for that one). Funnily enough, I remember the one-year anniversary memorial much more clearly. I can remember being in Romoff's Social Science class, and spending half the period watching the footage and the other half debating about Congress and concluding they'd be stupid to authorize the invasion of Iraq (god, talk about hindsight being 20/20).

I hate my computer. I had a huge-ass entry typed up, all laid out in a coherent manner, and then my mousepad freezes up again (that's the latest fun thing my laptop has decided to do to me) and causes my computer to reboot, and I lost the entire damn thing. Let's hope I can recreate it.

( You'll go home, I'll stay here, seasons keep on marching . . . )

So yes, doing better. Further apologies for the drive-by flailage and disappearing. Four months and counting.

Hello, gang. Been incommunicado lately due to real-life craziness that I swear, I will update you all about soon. But I need to get something off my chest.

Everyone screaming and pitching fits over the proposed national health-care system? Chill the fuck out and quit listening to Sarah Palin. The government does not want to take away your healthcare to give it to illegal immigrants, it does not want to form "death panels" to exterminate anyone, and it sure as hell doesn't want to cut Medicaid completely. It is absolutely possible for a government to create a national health care system - and not only that, it is utterly necessary.

There are a known 45.7 million Americans without health care. I'm one of them. When I come back to the U.S., I will have zero health insurance coverage. Is it possible to get individual coverage? Only if I want to take out a loan to pay for it. Fewer and fewer companies are paying for their employees health benefits because insurance rates are sky-high. If I get sick, injured, or god forbid, even just want to get fucking quality birth control without an interrogation, I will be either denied treatment or charged thousands of dollars. With a national healthcare system (called "single-payer"), options can be opened. People could choose their doctor based on other criteria than "will they accept my insurance" (because the answer is nearly always "no").

A single-payer healthcare system is a reality for many countries. It can and will work in America. This website can tell you anything you need to know.

As you were.

MOTHERFUCKING END OF TIME TRAILER

( Cut for spoiler-induced flailing )

IT CAN BE CHRISTMAS NAO PLZ?

Oh, I just adore Korean methods of communication.

Long story short, the school I teach at was scheduled to close at the end of this week (which I didn't find out until LAST week), and today I come in to find out that no, we're not closing because the director's sister-in-law has decided to try her hand running the school. So all the panic I was going through with possible plane tickets/packing for home, and then interviewing at three different schools (NONE of which I'd have to teach kindergarden at) is all useless. We're still going to be open after vacation. I still have five months of kindergarden and grade-schoolers left.

What pisses me off isn't just the horrific lack of communication, it's the complete and utter idiocy of the people I work for. They only opened the school because Ally, the wife, wanted to. Enoch, the actual director, has no experience running a school, and to be fair, he's done a decent job. But he quite clearly does not want to be in this business, and he's only continuing because he doesn't want to disappoint his wife, or Mommy and Daddy, who are paying for all this. He was a week away from closing before, and then this woman named Anne who he and Ally are friends with stepped in. She lasted a week. Now he was ready to close again and suddenly Cleo, his SIL, is going to single-handedly run the school? With just as little experience as he's got?

God, I was just about to sign a new contract with another school to teach conversation and writing to HIGH-SCHOOLERS. No more babysitting. No more whining. No more students who quite clearly do not want to be there and yet we have to bend over backward to please their parents. No more grading recordings and book reports that they half-ass ANYWAY. No more kids who can barely speak Korean, let alone English.

I'd gotten my hopes up SO much. I was excited to teach for the first time in four months. I was doing lesson plans because I wanted to. I was putting together writing projects (blogs! one-act plays! short-story collections!). And I can't use any of those ideas for my current students, because none of them are anywhere near that level and those that are are maybe one or two students out of a class of four more who can't. I have to go back to unit assessments, weekly spelling tests, and did I mention the fucking recordings? (Most. Useless. Teaching Method. EVER.)

And I'll be by myself doing it, too. Brett's got maneuvering room. He's staying in Korea longer than a year. He has a girlfriend with a school of her own. He can afford to break his contract and walk away and say "fuck this noise, I'm going to teach for someone who knows how to run a school". I can't. Everything I've got here is tied into the school I'm at, for a year. And I know I'm dwelling on the negatives, I know I'm bitching about a situation I can do nothing about, but dammit, I wish I had more of a say in what the hell was going on with my life.

Meme snagged from evilgmbethy who is awesome.

( And if someone tries to make me/I will simply run away . . . )

Yes, you're seeing correctly, that IS John Barrowman in drag.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go weep over my utter lack of femininity and bemoan the fact that his legs are a billion times better than mine will ever be.

For more information:
PICTURES:
here and here
NEW INFORMATION:
Here - near constant updates
Here - ONTD_political live post
ON TWITTER:
@StopAhmadi, @IranElection09, @persiankiwi, @NextRevolution, @Change_for_Iran


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This one was totally the "let's remind the audience that Ray's not a total wanker" one. Which I do appreciate.

( Not me, I never lost control . . . )

Went to Seoul on Tuesday. OMG LOVE. If I ever decide to come back to Korea after this year, I'm going to teach in Seoul. It's almost exactly like New York - to the point where I mastered the subway system after five minutes and some translation from Jenna.

To put it in geeky English major terms -

Daegu : Philadelphia :: Seoul : NYC.

I've got two Dreamwidth codes, which are good for a free account. If you want one, let me know.

To steal a phrase from phinnia, ate too many fannish cookies again. And this is the only thing distracting me from massive amounts of lesson plans and grading and teaching, so forgive the lengthy yammerings.

( Just remember that it's all in your head (House) )

( The future is coming on, is coming on . . . (Ashes to Ashes) )