My plans

Everyone has been asking me what I am going to do now that I am home. My only answer- I don't know. Lame. But long term I don't know, but here are my plans for next week.

Give myself one more week of rest before applying for jobs.

While resting I will do the following:

• Dig through storage and find nice clothes to interview in.
• Start exercising again. Not my demons, but my ass.
• Plan to start a new PMDD friendly diet. Goodbye junk food. It was fun while it lasted.
• Research teaching jobs and substitution gigs.
• Look up volunteer programs for Outreach Youth and Adult Literacy.

I'm going to try to avoid social visits as much as possible this week because they are extremely exhausting. I have no idea why, but interacting with people floors me. I guess I am just out of practice. Maybe when I start exercising I will have more energy.

After that who knows.

My Lunar New Year's Resolution

Smile at everybody as much as possible, everywhere I go.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Hong Kong was great. I have never been so pleasantly surprised by a destination. We had a handful of things we wanted to do, yet coming and going from those particular events we found tons of other stuff that was awesome. One second you are walking in the middle of huge city with skyscrapers and traffic all around, then half a block away there is a huge park and everything is green and beautiful and quiet, with aviaries, and greenhouses, and ponds, and waterfalls, and lots of other fun stuff to explore. When you come out of that park and you think there will be no more parks you walk another half block along the busy street and there is another one. The harbor and the skyline, day or night, was beautiful. The people were really friendly, there was a lot, a lot of English speakers. If you got lost it was a breeze to find someone who could tell you where you needed to be. There were also a great many signs in English to all kinds of parks and piers and whatnot. All in all fabulous. If you ever get the opportunity you must go.

I have hundreds of pictures on flickr. Check them out.

And then....

It snowed in Austin. Can you believe that shit? It snowed 2 inches yesterday.

Just the sight of it pissed me off.

Now it is sunny and the high is 52.

So tired

I'm tired. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of not getting any restful sleep. I'm tired of waking up every hour. It sucks.

I just want some sleep already.

Cranky.

I'm back in Austin

I do love it so, but I wish it would cut me some slack and show me some sun.

Grubb was less than pleased when I got home. He basically ignored me for about an hour and then scratched on Kyle's front door. That's Grubb speak for, "Yeah, bitch you're home. So what. Let's get the fuck out of here." He is softening up though. He never was the most affectionate. Sluggs however is sending me over the moon with all his love and attention. I laid down on the floor to talk to MP on the Skype so I used Sluggs as a pillow. I swear I haven't been that comfortable in months. (The carpeted floor is more comfortable than a Korean bed. No lie.)

Kyle went out of town so I am house sitting/ dog watching for the next four days. It's a good thing because nobody would tolerate my horrible hours. I woke up at 4 this morning. Wait, but that isn't the worst part. The worst part is that I didn't go to bed until 2 in the morning. This was my first night of sleep after the 20 plus hour migration. So I have basically had no more than two hours of sleep at a time since Thursday. I figure I will crash soon enough. I wish I could record myself. A recent discovery has been made that when Laurens are really exhausted they talk in their sleep.

I have Hong Kong stories. I loved it. But not now. I can tell that I'm really tired because I feel like I have been on a boat, only I haven't. I can't sleep though. It sucks. It makes my brain like soup.

Off to raid Kyle's fridge!

Appreciation

Korea has made me appreciate the U.S. Here are some things I really enjoy about the U.S.

• The fresh air.
• The space, my god. Personal space sounds so good.
• The food. Mostly BBQ.
• English. I can't tell you how excited I am to understand what everyone tells me.
• Dr. Pepper. I hardly drink it when I'm in the U.S., but today I cracked one open (you can buy them at Costco) and it made me think of hot summer days and childhood trips to the lake.
• Soft comfortable beds.
• Hot summer days, cool summer nights. I hear they have them here too, only I haven't seen any.

Damn, I can't wait for spring.

Resume

I need a job soon. Really, really soon. Only two more weeks here on the other side of the world. So I have come up with a list of my strengths. Let me know if you know of any jobs that I qualify for.

• Can think up stupid shit at the drop of a hat: jokes, usually fruitless ideas, you name it.
• Bossy
• Cranky
• Can find anything you misplace. Feel free to wake me up and ask me where you put your keys, glasses, schedule, etc. Anything that I don't use or keep tabs of, I can find.
• I know the words to a lot of songs.
• High reading comprehension.
• Can make almost anyone feel uncomfortable. Unless said person is a strange man, then I usually end up saying something inappropriate, then they give me a gross turned on look and then I get uncomfortable. Who do you know that can make themselves uncomfortable? Talent. That's what I have.
• Can forget almost anything.
• Let's put cranky on here twice just so you know I wasn't kidding.
• Can get almost anywhere on time.

Ask a question, any question.

I'm pretty sure that MP doesn't believe a single word I say.

I have no idea why. But whatever I say he tells me he doesn't think so and that he needs to look it up. Then sitting in the apartment he makes a noise of astonishment and then proceeds to read exactly what I told him 10 minutes earlier like it was the first time he heard it. No matter what. You would think that I lie to him all the time. If I don't know I tell him I don't know. I say it all the time. I don't know a ton of stuff. Even if I think my sources are sketchy I say that I think such and such, but I'm not sure.

At this point I just figure he is asking questions just to say them out loud, basically talking to himself. Because, I know he doesn't want my answer. He's such a jerk.

Pictures from a night of infamy

Things I won't miss about Korea

I'm leaving Korea on the 19th. Not before we go to Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year. We leave for China on the 10th and are staying until the 16th. I don't have much more time here. It's crazy.

Think of every nazi movie you have ever seen. Now, you know when the gestapo is coming for your family? You hear sounds like that coming from the hallway about 20 times a day. The loud clack, clack, clack of boot heels on tile. I won't miss that.

I won't miss the bed. I affectionately call it the popsicle stick. It's about that wide and that soft. Or maybe a tongue depressor is more accurate.

I won't miss Koreans.

Or the cold. Won't miss that at all.

I won't miss the food.

This list might get to long. I'm going back to sleep.