Day 85 -- Weekend Report, Stolen iPod, Pizza From Scratch

This weekend, the host family went away to visit relatives and pick up Sae Yeob from his English prison. He took (another) TOEFL exam on Saturday and that marked the end of his month-long intensive English camp thing.

Meanwhile, back at the home base, I spent the weekend enjoying my independence. Saturday afternoon after the family left, I went to Daejeon for the afternoon. I didn't have any specific plans, I just wanted to get another taste of the Big City (sarcasm, because Daejeon isn't really a big city at all, but it's at least a gazillion times bigger than Nonsan. I ended up meeting Sarah at Homeplus, where I had lunch with her host family.

((TANGENTIAL THOUGHTS! It's interesting how different everybody's experiences are the same, yet different. I mean, Sarah and I both came into Korea with the same kind of background--large public university, wanting to come here for cultural interest, taking formal Korean classes. We both have a homestay and are first time teachers. However, she's in a big city environment with a host family that mostly uses English in the house and I have the exact antithesis of that. Our experiences have completely different pros and cons, so it'll be interesting how we look back on our homestays.))

Later Saturday night I met up with Hallie. Per usual, we went around checking out bars in Nonsan and chatting. Once we had finished a pitcher or two, we decided it was a good idea to get kimbap, mandu, nangmyeon, and booze and spend the rest of the night drinking and watching TV. So we did. We chilled in the living room of my apartment, watching weird Korean music videos with questionable content. See below.

This wasn't even the most disturbing.

Sunday morning I woke up early and frantically searched for a way to watch the Penn State vs Iowa State. Turns out I shouldn't have bothered (they blew the game) but I did get to enjoy a bagel and muffin I'd brought back from Daejeon SO WHO IS THE REAL WINNER NOW, IOWA? Me. That's who.

In other news, a student stole my iPod Touch out of the English room on Friday. I'm really bummed about this, but I only got more disappointed when I found that they'd narrowed the suspects down to the TOEFL students. Really, boys? Really? (son i am disappoint.) I really hope whoever did it just leaves it on my desk or something, so that I can conveniently find it when I come in.

Yesterday, Sae Yeob and I went to the market in search of yeast so that we could make pizza from scratch. Well, I could make it and he could eat it, of course. I was nervous--I'd never made dough from scratch even in America, so I was worried about how it would come out. Things went really well and I was pumped to have pizza that didn't have corn and mayonnaise on it (both staples on Korean pizza for some reason). Then my host mom jumped in, sprinkling Spam and raw chestnuts (?) into the sauce.

Sigh.

Also, I hurt my leg while I was running some time last week. Running was my vent for any daily frustrations that got me down, so I need to find a gym STAT before I become not-myself with these little disappointments. You know, besides staying up late on a Saturday, drinking in my living room with Hallie and watching ABSURD Korean music videos?