Obligatory stuff

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This is my third Thanksgiving back home, after missing it for a few years. The novelty hasn't worn off yet. I love this holiday!
I don't love all the stores that have forgotten that holidays mean staying home and doing nothing with family. I also don't love seeing the people on the news with their pop up tents lined up outside Best Buy to get a cheap Nintendo, or whatever it is people want this year. I'm sad for them and more sad for all the retail employees who have to leave their holiday celebration in order to deal with people at their worst. But that's not what this update is about. I'm pretty sure I wrote about that last Thanksgiving.

Aside from my dad, most people I know under the age of 70 are on Facebook. So, I'm sure you all know at least one/several person/people who each day is/are sharing one thing they are thankful for. It's a nice idea, I guess. Though I'll never do it. I'm not a daily Facebook sharer. I'm not a weekly Facebook sharer. Maybe monthly. But I prefer to do my oversharing on here, rather than Facebook. I like sharing my genius with people who have a genuine interest in me, not just a random person I went to high school with who is scrolling down their newsfeed.

So here is what I'm thankful for. Of course there's things like family, friends, my health, not being homeless, and all that other sh*t. But do I really need to write all that out? Doesn't it go without saying?  C'mon now.
1. my cats
2. the heated seats in my car
3. the new Hunger Games Catching Fire movie, I haven't seen it, but I got a really cool nail polish color from the Catching Fire collection from Cover Girl
4. Shaun T
5. the Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks! I'm not the biggest hockey fan in the world, and my knowledge of the sport is basically puck in the net = point. But, I'll watch and cheer for any Chicago sports team, except for the White Sox. And I'm always thrilled to see one go all the way. Cubs, 2014? I think so!
6. the 2014 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs
7. March's amaaaaaaaaaazing trip to India/Thailand
8. McDonald's Holiday Pie
9. the 195 lbs of deadweight I lost in July
10. my cornbag, currently sitting on my lap
11. Dunkin Donuts coffee
12. the winter camp I did in January, for making my fall in love with Korea again
13. my giant forehead covering bangs (thanks Anya!)
14. Uniqlo's down coats, seriously life changing
15. Rumchata and butterscotch schnapps, mixed together, over ice, also life changing
16. my place of employment and their wonderful values, which gives me, as well as all my coworkers, tomorrow off
17. Lake of the Ozarks
18. the break up of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart
19. the Mexican food I'm going to eat for dinner in a few hours
20. the margarita I'm going to drink with dinner in a few hours
21. my running tights, which will hopefully keep me warm for tomorrow's Turkey Trot, with a starting temperature forecast at 20 degrees. Brr!
22. my electric toothbrush, I'm talking just left the dentist clean feeling
23. the Hallmark channel's nonstop Christmas movies from October until December
24. Japanese Baby Feet Peel
25. being smart enough to stay home on Black Friday, which as I mentioned before is now Thanksgiving afternoon
26. Joel McHale


I started this yesterday and got sidetracked. Then was in a Mexican food induced coma later on, so I never finished. Now Thanksgiving is almost over, so I'm just going to post this, unfinished, to avoid missing Thanksgiving entirely. I'm also not going to proofread it. Too tired.

Point me in the direction of the drawing board

I've been halfheartedly interviewing for teaching jobs in Seoul. As I say in every post, I love that country. I loved living there. I reminded myself of that with every resume I emailed. But I couldn't quite shake the feeling that even though I was going back there with a goal in mind (save money for grad school), I was wasting another year of my life. Not wasting. That's the wrong word. It's not wasting if I'm doing a job I mostly love in a country I love.  Frittering away? Squandering? Those are both synonyms of waste. I suck.

Getting a job in Korea is not difficult but does require a bit of perseverance. For many schools, I'm not blond enough and my eyes aren't blue enough. I'm not making that up. Koreans are obsessed with appearance, and in their minds Americans are blond with blue eyes. The school I worked at wasn't that bad, but they did turn down several applicants because they were not white. So despite the fact I have experience, a degree in education, and am a better teacher than 3/4 of the people there, for many schools, I'm not the ideal candidate. And for the record, at one point my school was choosing between two applicants. One was blond. The other was not. Naturally, they chose the blond one. She turned out to be one of the dumbest humans I've ever met. That's both mean of me to say and a fact.

(I'm not saying blonds are dumb. All I'm saying is that in that case, my school chose the less qualified applicant based on her "American" appearance, and they ended up with a teacher who had no idea what to do with a room full of kids, and said things like "Sometimes, I have to remind myself to breathe." And she wasn't saying like "Ok, calm down, just breathe." She was referring to reminding herself to inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.)

I've been sending out resumes and I've interviewed with a few schools. I interviewed with one last week, who told me they'd let me know their decision on Monday. I didn't feel overly positive about the interview, but tried to remind myself it's hard to gauge that over the phone, especially when talking with someone who is not a native English speaker. But I just got the feeling they were looking for someone blond and fresh out of college with a degree in something not related to education. I wasn't too shocked when Korea's Monday came and went, and I didn't hear anything from them. Because of my inability to leave things alone, I emailed them. Fine if they want to hire someone else, but I at least want them to be straight with me. Silence is a coward's way of delivering news, and it drives me crazy. It's depressing to me how many adults are not willing to stand behind their actions, be it professional relationships, personal, etc. You make a choice, own it, even though it sometimes leads to awkwardness. Unfortunately, when dealing with things via email, silence is easy. The school can easily ignore my email. Disrespectful? Yes. Unprofessional? Yes. Can I do anything about it? No.

So I'm supposed to interview with another school tomorrow night. Maybe I still will. I'm not sure. This school refuses to do a phone interview, and only will accept Skype interviews. God forbid I'm ugly. So to do the Skype interview I'd have to go to the library tomorrow night when it's cold and dark, and I'd also have to miss Wheel of Fortune. I just don't know if this is right for me. I question it too much. I don't think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Following the last interview, when I had a less than positive feeling about it, I told my mom that if I didn't get this job, I'd quit looking in Korea. I'd take that as a sign that it wasn't meant to be.

One reason I'm so hesitant to give up entirely on it is because while my original plans of school online while teaching there fell through, it was at least a plan. I'd be saving money. It was a means to an end. It was a break from restaurant work and subbing.  It was a chance to be around some people sort of close to my own age with shared interests. Now, it's back to square one.

I stress ate some rice krispy treats for breakfast. Bad bad bad. I really want to run, but Ginger Zee said the wind is still blowing around 25 mph, with gusts over 30. That's a little much. If I lived in town, and had some protection, it'd be better. But all the empty fields offer little in the way of blocking the wind. Looks like I've got a date with Shaun T today. That's okay. I haven't been doing Insanity like I said I would. I just like running. It's easy. It's a great way to decompress. I can get lost in my thoughts. Maybe in December, January, February, when it's too stinking cold for my delicate self, I'll start Insanity seriously again. Maybe.

No NBC, just no

I forgot to address a serious matter in my last post.

I'm talking about this.



Why? Why NBC? Why? WHYYYYYY? As if making us suffer through a decade of "Friends" wasn't bad enough? What terrible thing did we do to deserve this lump of coal?

I was always more or less indifferent to Carrie Underwood. Some of her songs were okay, but I'd never spend money on them or willingly listen to them. She wasn't my favorite. But she was by no means my least favorite. Until now.

As much as I love movie musicals, this musical is already a movie and a great one at that. LEAVE IT ALONE, NBC! Those songs are only allowed to be sang by Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, and me when I'm in my car.

I haven't looked to see who the rest of the cast is. I'm a little scared I'll see "Kevin Jonas as Rolf" or "Clay Aiken as the lovable Uncle Max"

Carrie Underwood and NBC have ruined Christmas.

The worst thing about this is that I know come December 5, I'll be parked in front of the TV with my hot chocolate and popcorn, because I can't not watch it. Impossible. But as you lay your head on the pillow that night, if you listen closely I'm sure you'll be able to hear me crying myself to sleep. 

More India

Holy cats, it's November! How did that happen?
Great art needs no season to be relevant, but do yourself a favor- don't let this month pass by without listening to this. It's another Patrice Wilson classic.

It's NOVEMBER also means that it's been 8 months since Thailand and India. 8 months and I still haven't finished writing about it on here. That bums me out, because as I've said before, Udaipur and Varanasi were my two favorite stops in India. As much as I enjoy writing longish entries about each place, including what I ate, how I felt, etc, obviously I will never finish writing about this trip if I try to do that. I accept failure. Time to water it down and get this done before my next trip...which at this point is nothing more than fantasizing, but gah, so many places I want to go.

Udaipur continued
Day 2 was beautifully sunny and uncomfortably warm. We sweated our way through the City Palace, then we took a boat ride on Lake Pichola (which was in a Huffington Post/Fodors article last week about the most beautiful lakes in the world). It was gorgeous. The boat dropped us at a hotel on one of the islands in the lake. I tried to beat the heat with some ice cream. Since Anya likes to live dangerously, she got some tea...WITH ICE IN IT. It had been weeks since I'd enjoyed a beverage with ice. It was oh so hot that day, and that ice was a mouth watering thing of beauty. But my innocence was lost in 2011. I will never escape the memory of my bout of Thai-del wave. I'd gone to bed about 10, my midsection making a few gurgling noises. I woke up about midnight with an IED in my stomach. The rest of the night was split between laying in the fetal position trying to ease the cramps, and running to the bathroom. Following my night of no sleep was a miserable 24+ hour long journey back to Seoul via the back of a pick up truck that in Thailand is called a "taxi", a 2 hour ferry ride, an 8 hour bus ride, a taxi to the airport, a 4 hour layover, a 5 hour redeye flight to Shanghai, a 7 hour layover, a 2 hour flight to Seoul, and an hour train ride back into the city, all while feeling like I was dying, and then not going to the bathroom for the next week because whatever dodgy Thai medicine the pharmacist had given me stopped me up real good. (Not) Sorry for the overshare. I am sorry for the repeat information though, as I'm sure I've written about that before. It was one of those life changing events. I learned that when Lonely Planet says avoid ice and don't brush your teeth with the tap water, they are serious. Since everything in India seems way more intense than Thailand, I had no desire to experience Thai-del wave's Indian counterpart, Delhi belly. So I skipped the ice, and if memory serves, Anya suffered no ill effects from it. That night for dinner we ate at a restaurant just up the street from our hotel. So so SO good. Indian food, sigh, yum. While we were there we met an American couple, who'd quit their jobs and were spending as much time as they could traveling around Asia and Africa, until their savings ran out. People are so cool.

Old school Indian cookware at the City Palace

A rickshaw collection at City Palace

A boat on Pichola Lake, not the one we took though. Ours had way less character than this

My thali from Lotus Cafe. Yeah, be jealous. I'd trade my first born for some of this right now. 

For our third day in Udaipur, we hired a taxi to take us to Kumbhalgarh Fort and the Jain Temple at Ranakpur. I could write multiple entries in here just about this day. It was probably one of the top 5 greatest days ever. There was absolutely stunningly beautiful scenery, delicious food at a strange roadside "buffet" restaurant, ridiculous and slightly scary roads lined with countless monkeys some of which were eating carrots, a tour of the temple courtesy of a Jain priest, or whatever a Jain man of the cloth is called, and another delicious dinner at the Lotus Cafe. 

The driver stopped in the middle of nowhere for us to take a picture. I think it was really so he could smoke a cigarette, but it was pretty. 

He also stopped in a tiny town and went to drink some chai. I kind of regret not getting out of the car at this stop, because when will I ever get the chance to poke around small town India again? But, I suppose there's not much I could have seen/done in the 10 minutes he was out of the car. 

Advice at Kumbhalgarh Fort

Kumbhalgarh Fort

There were some scary roads on the way to Ranakpur. 

Another overshare-this was not a problem for me at the time of my visit to the Jain temple. Though if it were, I probably would not have maintained the sanctity to the temple. When would I be there again? They also searched our bags at the door, to make sure we weren't bringing any leather into the temple.

the Jain temple at Ranakpur

Inside the temple

 We were headed on down the road after stopping for lunch at the aforementioned roadside restaurant, (which served food buffet style out of clay pots heated with hot coals under each one, so good!) when two young boys standing by the side of the road stopped our car. The said something to the driver, and he told us to get out of the car. I didn't understand what was happening, but I was sure it would involve me paying money to these boys. We walked a short ways, and I then understood. They were stopping people to come and see their ox powered water wheel.

They seemed pretty proud of their wheel, and there was something said about this being water for the whole village. But I remember at the time thinking "What village?" as we were once again in the middle of nowhere India. I also asked myself how much someone would pay me to take a drink of that water. I don't remember my answer, but I'm sure it included medical expenses. Before we got back into the car, the kids held out their hand. If memory serves, in addition to their "tip" we also gave them our water bottles. 

It was obvious these boys had very little, and I tried to remind myself of that. But I didn't like being given no choice in this matter. Our driver, whom we were paying, didn't ask us if we wanted to see this wheel. He told us to get out of the car. It was stuff like this that I found exhausting in India, and it happened daily. I was an ATM to them. There were restroom attendants, that I'm fairly certain were just beggars hanging out in there, demanding handouts from tourists just for using the facilities. Sigh. I'd been to other developing/high poverty level countries, but I'd never experienced anything close to this level of "you have to give me money just because" before. The only time I'd experienced anything close to this was in Morocco, when groups of kids would randomly start walking in front of us, "guiding" us through the medina, then demand money for their services.  

I was happy for the longish drive back to the city. I stared out the car window, and for the hundredth time on this trip, I pinched myself to make sure this was all real. 

My attempt to water things down failed. You can't water down India. Impossible. And because day 4 was so eventful, it gets its own entry, another time.

I need to say it again so everyone understands, I didn't dislike India at all. I feel like my blog entries about it seem kind of negative. But, I'm having a hard time putting into words what it was like. It was three weeks of complete sensory overload. The poverty was hard to see, and the nonstop begging and scamming were exhausting. But, if I ignore that, I'm leaving out a huge part of my experience there. Yet, despite that, I'd go back to India in a second if I were given the chance.