Yes, I am overdue for an update. I keep waiting for something interesting to happen, but alas, my life is devoid of thrills right now. So bear with me.

My Korean language lessons are going pretty well. I don’t speak or comprehend much better than before, but I am learning to read and write Hangul (well, my written English is illegible, you should see my Hangul!). I don’t have all the vowels and consonants memorized yet, but I’m getting there. I find myself able to decipher some of the “letters” on signs and I can make the sound, but I still don’t know what the hell I’m reading. But considering it’s only week 3 of a twelve week program I guess I’m doing alright. I need to study harder.

Yesterday I had my dental appointment. I thought I was getting a cleaning. They called it “scaling” which is something different (at least for me). It felt like they took a layer of enamel off with some foul tasting compound and an industrial buffer. It was pretty close to intolerable, even with the lovely Dr. Kwon doing the mouth work. Her assistant was pretty much worthless (I think she was new or nervous or something). She squirted me with water and kept gagging me with the aspirator thing. Anyway, it was not pleasant and it cost me 80,000 WON to boot.

I had walked over from work, and it took almost an hour. Yeah, I am really getting into walking these days. Partly for my fitness, partly because I really don’t like driving here. You have got to be on your toes because the people here are all over the place. I had another close call at the dreaded intersection exiting my villa. This time the cab driver rolled down his window and cussed me out in Korean. So that was a first.

I came home and made myself a tuna sandwich on toast and fell asleep watching a Korean melodrama. I don’t understand anything they say (other than anyonghaseo and anyongheegaseo, hello/goodbye) but I really do kind of enjoy them anyway. This one last night was actually funny even without dialog. A young man is courting a sweet thing and I guess love is the same all over the world. It was two steps forward, one back but he kept on trying. In one scene he goes into a bar to drown his sorrows and hooks up with a “drinky” girl (I thought they only targeted foreigners). Anyway, he agrees to by her drink and the waitress brings over a tray with like 20 beers on it. So then they show them laughing and having a good time amongst the empty beer bottles and the girl gets up to go to the bathroom. After a few minutes, he gets up to go too. So he is standing at the urinal and glances over to the next urinal and there’s the drinky “girl” standing there taking a leak. Pretty funny and a good lesson for me, although I was not inclined to consorting with the bar girls anyway. Too expensive and Carol does not approve. The other funny scene is when he meets his girlfriends mom and dad. The father is getting smashed on soju and grilling the boy while the mother appears just mortified that he wants to date her darling daughter. So for some reason the father makes the boy empty his pockets, and in one of them he has a condom. The mother goes nuts and the father is really giving him hell and drinking more soju until he finally passes out. Hmm, maybe you had to see it….

So, if the highlight of my Friday night was a Korean TV show you get the idea of my current state of affairs. But it really is alright. After I woke up I decided to put that big Jacuzzi tub to work and it was very nice.

Today I am doing laundry and will go to the commissary to stock up on groceries. I had thought of going back to the electronics market to browse, but it has turned cold again (40’s earlier this week, 19 this morning).

You know, I feel almost guilty about having subjected y’all to a post so devoid of anything interesting. But then I feel guilty when I don’t post because if you make the effort to visit me here, I should at least have something new to read. I guess the solution is for me to get a life so I can regale you stories of adventure and peril. I will get to work on that.

As soon as I finish the laundry.