Last California Moments

Major update: We got our visas and our flight itinerary! We have a nonstop flight departing Los Angeles on May 7 and arriving in Seoul May 8. We are feeling the following emotions:

- Relief
- Excitement
- Nervousness

We're closing out a few last details before we head out but mostly, we've just been having as much fun as we can.

Korea Stuff: We've been learning hangul and can say a few phrases in Korean. We've been reading up on a few "How to survive teaching your first year" guide book type things. We've also been reviewing English grammar stuffs (as you can see by my writing style, I've never had any real grammar lessons growing up).

Fun Stuff: We explored downtown Los Angeles a bit more, Chinatown, and Venice Beach. The highlight was exploring the great architecture of downtown Los Angeles and hanging out with old college friends.


The low point was getting Ships' dad's car towed in Chinatown.


If you are in Los Angeles, wherever you park, check all the signs within at least a one block radius because if you don't, you and your wallet will have bad thoughts about Los Angeles. And really, it's a great city despite its bad reputation and horrible traffic.

Next up, as part of Ships' post birthday celebration, the family is going to The Getty. This may be the last trip we'll be taking to Los Angeles.

I'm still deciding whether or not we'll be able to visit my family in San Diego one more time but it's looking unlikely.

It's amazing how just a few days ago, I was all like "Dang Korea! Send me my visa code already!" and now there isn't enough time to spend with our loved ones. Two weeks from now, we'll be across the world and a day into the future (because of time zones). I can't wait to tell you what the future looks like from a different country.

Still waiting...

The adventure this week was the LA County Museum of Art.

And the La Brea Tar Pits.


We are still waiting to hear back from Korea about visa codes and we continue to prepare as we wait. As we do, I'm still working on my photography. I haven't been liking what I've been shooting though. I'm a pretty patient person but I'm not patient with taking a photo and I generally don't know why I'm taking a photo until after I look at the picture. These two I like but it took me a couple of attempts to get it.

This one I like because of the symmetry.


This one I like because I thought it was a little strange to have such a dramatic Rodin in sunny LA.

Lacking in Actual Adventures

We're still waiting to complete the Visa process. Korea procrastinates. The idea was to be in Korea by March. We got offered a job guaranteed for April. But we didn't hear back from our recruiters until late March (like the 31st of March) whereby they stated our job will now start in early/mid-May instead. Our next step is to just prep as much as possible (in any way you think you need to prep) and get our Visa. We are currently waiting to receive our Visa code from Korea, before we have to head to the Korean Consulate in Los Angeles to interview and then get the actual Visa on our passports. Once that happens, THEN we buy our plane ticket to Korea and then off we go.

And Korea is procrastinating. Again. We were supposed to have heard back from them on the codes by yesterday.

If they procrastinate so much and come back to let us know that we will be teaching in June or beyond, I may explode.

We've turned down three other offers. If we had accepted them, we would have been in Korea by now. But we're not. We're still waiting.

For those of you who are interested in possibly doing this someday, I would like to say this is fairly normal. Other people who have done this before may have had different experiences but based on a crap ton of forum entries I've read on various ESL sites, there is a lot of waiting. In fact, I have a friend who is currently teaching in Korea and she didn't hear about her job until about a week before she had to pack up and go.

Sigh. I hate waiting. And I hate feeling like I'm not in control of my destiny.

We've been spending our time learning hangul (Korean language), purchasing a year's worth of toiletries and food faves, loving friends and family, and finding suburban adventures to pass the time. I can't complain too much if that's what my life is like... I mean, essentially, I'm taking time to make my dreams come true. That's kind of a big deal and I can't bitch about every time there's a road bump. Though I probably will.

Our "adventure" last week was an exploration of Oxnard/Port Hueneme (Ships' old haunts). Hueneme Beach was vast, hot, uncrowded and gorgeous. We also went to the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard (which sounds epic but sadly, it is decidedly not). Just outside of the museum is this war memorial. We decided to just check it out and take a couple of shots. Ships gasps. Turns out, he recognized a name engraved on the memorial, a kid he lived next door to. Just to be sure it was the same guy, we went on line and did a bit of research. It was the same Kevin Luna he knew as a kid.


I have grown up a military brat and I was in AJROTC. I have a long history and complicated opinions about the military. This was quite shocking to Ships, I can only imagine. May PFC Luna rest in peace and may his family heal.

A small adventure in the suburbs took us to our childhood and we questioned our mortality.

Chips

To read more on Kevin Luna you can go here and here.

We are going here

This is Daegu.


This is where we will be living and teaching for a year.

In the first week of May, we will be flying to Seoul for a whirlwind week of training and then we will be set loose in Daegu, South Korea's third largest city, 80km from the seacoast in the south-eastern region of the country. It's getting exciting!

We also have been told that we will be teaching 9-11 year old students with a few jr. high and high-schoolers mixed in. This means we can spend the next month preparing specific lesson plan ideas and learning a bit more Korean and finding a few more things to do in Southern California before we hear off.

Like this.

International Pillow Fight Day.

- Ships

Second Chance San Diego

We spent a few days in San Diego with my sister's busy family which includes a hubby, twin two year old girls, a large mischievous dog, an old grumpy cat, fish, tadpoles, various plants, a large house that looks like it exploded with toys and food. I exaggerate about the explosion...just a bit.

I went on this trip to spend a bit more time with family. Because of a very complicated history, I don't get a long with a lot of family. This was my baby-step of an attempt to maintain some kind of relationship with them. And it went well. We did a lot of basic hanging out and spent some time at the Wild Animal Park. It was glorious and very tiresome. New things I experienced:

1. How to give twin two year old girls a bath and get them ready for bed.
2. How to help these girls go to the potty.
3. Have to spell certain words so as not to create twin hysteria (words like donuts and chocolate)
4. High pitched screaming directly into my ear, immediately followed by high pitched giggling into my ear.
5. Reading the girls a bed time story (I was only allowed to read one, as it was mainly mommy's job).
6. The panic and agony of losing one girl's Yummy Bunny.

This was the most Tita Time I've ever experienced. Boy howdy, those girls tired me out. The first time Ships and I got away in the car to run a quick errand, we sat in our rental car for a moment and reveled in its silence. Constant thinking on your feet, running after rowdy girls...throw into the mix a large Labrador with a licking and eating problem...chaos. And I miss it already. The girls are growing up so fast. In the past, I've been known to say that I hate children but I will be official and honest now: I truly love children. This is what my weekend was like:


Outside of family, I had a lovely brunch with a few of my closest girl friends, two of whom I have known since I was seven or eight years old. Shout out to Sonny, Quel, AM and Bermuda. It had been ages since I last saw them (Sonny, being the exception) and it always amazes me how some friendships can stay intact despite years away and immeasurable changes in life and person. We reminisced. We laughed. We ate. I love them:



Growing up, I was pretty much confined to the house because of a very strict father. I left for college and it seemed as though San Diego was some kind of lame hell full of bad memories. So far, I've had two San Diego visits where I actually enjoyed myself. I may try to visit more now.

Returning to a place of misery after years away, after you've grown or changed has been eye opening. I saw what I missed out on and what I would have continued to miss out on if I hadn't given it another shot.

Chips