Employment!

Well I guess all it took was for me to write a depressing blog about not having a job and not using my degree. I am not gainfully employed as a Staff Accountant at a CPA firm in Durham. I started on Monday and things are going alright. I work Monday-Thursday 8:30-5 and Friday 8:30-12:30 during the non-tax season, and a bazillion hours during tax season. I am salaried though, so that's good. I'll be doing monthly accounting, quarterly tax preparation and year-end tax prep. Similar to what I've done at Dad's office, but the monthly accounting is in way more detail...general ledger work, bank reconciliations, write-ups... All stuff I haven't done in a while, but things are going pretty well. I'm the 5th person in the office. I have my own office, but I haven't really moved into it yet, I got a phone today, it got painted this week, Tuesday I'm supposed to get my furniture, not sure when the computer will be ready though.

Other than that, nothing much has been going on. I'm volunteering at the All About Beer festival in Durham tomorrow and getting my hair done in the morning. Don't know what's gonna happen on Sunday yet, but I'm sure it will be something.

So, I'm super excited I have a job...things are finally kinda starting to look up!

Rebirth

So, no longer in Korea, but thinking about starting up the blog again. Not that I ever blogged much to begin with, or that anybody reads this...

I'm currently down in North Carolina living with a friend and her aunts. I don't have a job yet, but hopefully that will change soon. I feel a little disappointed that my college degree hasn't come in nearly handy enough. I have $17,000 in loans (and probably not even half of my college career was loan-funded) and some jobs only want to pay $13.00 hourly...or less! And yes, I realize many people are surviving on minimum wage and what not, but a lot of those people didn't spend so much money trying to further their education. In summary, I'm bitter.

So I'm trying to start over, once again. Well not really start over, just do something new. After living in Korea, traveling the world, and then being back in Wausau again, I was ready for a change. Unfortunately, lately things just haven't been going my way. In the beginning of July, my dad had a stroke. I haven't really talked to anyone about it, but it was a very serious stroke. I returned home to Wausau to try and help my brother take care of the business. Dad was in the hospital for a month and is still not cleared to be back at the office. Mom is unemployed. I was fortunate to be in a position to go back and help, but some of my family still resents me for ever having left in the first place. It's hard to do things when you aren't supported by the people that mean the most to you, but I guess everyone learns how to survive somehow. After spending about 7 weeks in Wausau taking care of the business, I felt ready to return to North Carolina, and I felt that my dad was doing well enough that I could and I knew for sure that my 21 year old brother could handle things. (Yes Andy- I do realize that you can handle what's going on. I feel you shouldn't have to, but there isn't anything either of us can do about that). Unfortunately, not all of my family members agreed with me, but Mom and Dad did, so I left. It was hard and still sometimes I feel like I made the wrong choice, but I did what I did. "Forget regret or life is yours to miss" eh?

Sadly enough, that's not even all of the drama that's going on, but I'm going to leave it at that for the time being. I'm only willing to acknowledge a certain amount of emotions at a time, yet another survival mechanism.

My last day in Korea T.T

Today is my last day in Korea. I will be starting on my adventure around the world (well...not totally around but pretty close). Tomorrow myself and my travelling partner Meghan will board the boat to China from Incheon terminal. But, as today is my last day, it's going to be a busy one! If you want to stay in touch with me over my trip, e-mail me or check out my new travel blog at http://www.travelpod.com/members/elissabeth417.

Have a great day!

The Weekend!

Well, oddly enough I had a semi-eventful weekend. Too bad weekends start on Friday, 'cause I was boring on Friday. I think I just came home, watched some movies and chilled at my apartment. I'm trying to conserve money so I can spend it when I have guests next month or on my summer/fall trip home.

Saturday I woke up early-ish, did some cleaning and a load of laundry before heading off to Gangnam (the bar/restaurant/"young" district in Seoul). I got coffee at the Coffee Bean and read "The Bonesetter's Daughter" for a little while before heading to Aveda to get my hair done with the girls. Meghan, Jaclyn and I got our hair cut (don't worry, I just got my hair trimmed), Charlie got her hair treated and Ava got her hair styled. One might ask why we did all this... we had tickets to the Opera! But, more about that later.

After getting primped at Aveda we headed out to find a restaurant. We were looking for a turkish restaurant but couldn't find it, so we ended up eating at "India Gate." It was FANTASTIC!!! Jaclyn and I shared the beef set which was 2 soups, an appetizer, a salad, beef curry, beef tandoori, and naan! It was so good, but a little pricey ($26 a person), but hey, hair cuts were only $11.

After dinner we headed to The Seoul Arts Center to see "Don Giovanni" composed by Mozart. We had decided to splurge and get the mid-ranged seats ($64 as opposed to the $120 top price seats). Good thing we did, we were in the left wing on the stage floor in the 2nd and 3rd rows!!!!!! The view was fantastic and the opera was well done.

After the opera I took off pretty quickly. The last bus to Osan was at 11:40 and I got the last seat on it! The trip home normally takes about an hour and 15 minutes, but somehow on a Saturday night I managed to get home in under 45 minutes!

Sunday I was boring again and just chilled around my apartment.

Exams start this week at my school, so Friday I have no classes and some of my other classes throughout the week are going to be cancelled so the students can prepare for the exam. Upcoming this weekend is the Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul. On Friday I plan on checking out the Lantern Exhibit at a temple near Gangnam and on Saturday I will be heading into downtown Seoul to attend the Festival and maybe even stick around for the parade! I hope the weather isn't bad, we had another yellow dust storm today, but I remembered my mask, so I haven't been too affected by it.

I hope you all had a great weekend and have a good week!!^^

An Update

Well, it's been a while since I've updated my blog, so I'll try to bring everyone up to speed. Last week Monday my "roommate" moved in. She's one of my co-teachers who can't afford an apartment yet or something. The first day we had the talk about how long she could stay at my apartment (I set a limit at a month, which I thought was nice. We'll see how it all works out). She's an okay roommate, I'm not normally home when she is and she's not home when I am (well...sleeping time doesn't count). She also can't cook...which is good 'cause there's no room in the fridge for her stuff. The sucky thing is, my computer is in her bedroom so I feel weird using it. Luckily school's back in session now.

Onto the next subject: school. Last Thursday school started back up. After pretty much 9 weeks of vacation, it's a little tough getting used to. I have an entire new year of students (the new year starts in March in Korea instead of in August/September). The new students appear to love me, but we'll see. I also have 3 new co-teachers and my main co-teacher has left. My main co-teacher and I used to be very good friends and we had lunch together every day, so having her leave was hard. However, my 3 new co-teachers are great so far. They are all brand-new female English teachers who speak fantastic English and so far they have been taking good care of me (I'm pretty helpless when it comes to school things since I don't know that vocabulary in Korean). But it's still early in the semester.

Well, that's the bell, so it's time for class!

Back in the ROK

Well... yesterday morning my vacation officially ended. We flew into Incheon International Airport at 6:45am. By 10:00 I was back at my cold apartment...starting my laundry!

Starting now I will be working on posting my travel diary online. If you have questions about anything, feel free to post - I'll try and include some pictures as well. The mass of my photos (my photo webpage) probably won't be ready for a couple of weeks - I tend to take a lot of pics, but I will try and add a few pictures here and there!

Hope you are all well!

Vietnam - Day 3

Today we went to see the "The Temple of Literature" which had crazy amounts of Korean tourists. Most of the Korean tourists are in huge travel tours. It's slightly entertaining. Plus, Jaclyn, Meghan, Andy & I all like to yell at each other in Korean. One needs to be a little careful with what one says in Korean near the tourists.

I stopped in the gift shop to look for a Vietnam War book, but didn't have any luck. However, I could have bought the new Harry Potter in Vietnamese. I resisted that temptation though.

The temple was very tranquil. It had the works of Confucius, Mencius, and other Confusion disciples. It was built in 1070 to honor Confucius. In 1076 Vietnam's First University was erected near this site. There were things carved into large scrolls on turtles all in stone - I don't know the significance of this, other than that the turtle is very revered and respected in Vietnamese culture.

We had a nice talk in the coutryard with an Australian women. Apparently while in South Africa, she caught malaria. She said it wasn't fun - not that it matters, we don't have the medication for it.

At dinner I started to feel sick. Both Andy and Jaclyn had been feeling ill yesterday. Our theory is that there is something strange in the coffee. It was very VERY strong coffee - and very thick. Tomorrow I'm not drinking any - and I'm not going to let anyone else drink any either. So, I ended up chilling at the hotel while everyone went out. Oh well

Greetings from Vietnam

Well, today is Day 3 in Vietnam. I thought I'd blog and let you guys know how things have been going so far. It's been really interesting. I'm really glad that we decided to come here. Arriving in Hanoi was no problem whatsoever. What really surprised me here was the humidity (must be around 80%-- it's actually raining right now). The temperature has been moderate. I actually got cold today and had to use my spring jacket.

I have been surprised by the Vietnamese people. The travel guides I have read all stated that they would be very pushy. The only pushy people so far are the pedicab drivers, fruit women and booksellers...oh and the restaurant employees. For the most part, everyone leaves us alone.

It's still weird that US dollars can be used here. We haven't figured out the exchange rate yet, but our guess is that it's around 15,000 Vietnamese Dong to $1. But everything is sooo cheap here...breaking a $20 here is like breaking a $100 on a value meal at McDonalds. Luckily I figured this would happen so I didn't get any bills over 20s--- though the airport people tried to give me 100s!!!

Another weird thing - it is winter here. So while I walk around in a skirt and t-shirt, the Vietnamese are wearing scarves, hats, and jackets. They look at us like we are insane-but hey, I'm guessing most of them have never seen snow.

We have already seen multiple Korean restaurants and most of the TV channels in our hotel room are Korean channels. I find this both odd and entertaining at the same time. This morning we watched the Vietnamese version of The Price is Right...it was funny.

French is still commonly used here, even though French occupation ended after the First Indochinese War in 1954. Many of the signs are still in French. There are also French restaurants and "Ici on parle francais" can be seen at many stores. Luckily, I have yet to need my spoken French (which is pretty horrible, but I can still read and write fairly well).

Things I have found here that aren't readily available in Korea: Colgate toothpaste, Tide laundry detergent, Red Bull, a lot of liquors, Tang (though only orange), Clinique beauty supplies, and Juicyfruit and Doublemint gums.

The air is surprisingly clean - considering everyone rides mopes (and I mean everyone). I'm not sure of the current population, but in 2000 Vietnam had 80 million people.

Vietnamese appears to be difficult to learn how to speak. It has 6 tones, a ton of consonants & vowels & there are dipthongs (combos of 2 vowels) & triphthongs (combos of 3 vowels). Haven't learned how to say anything yet, which is sad.

The fruit is amazing. Pineapple, papaya, mango, multiple types of bananas, starfruit , and things I don't even know the name of, can be found everywhere. Carambola, durian, green dragon, jackfruit, longan, mangosteen, pomelo, rambuttan, star-apples...those are the names of the fruits I have never heard of before (taken from a Vietnamese phrase book). Oh, and a heads up...Vietnamese wine is NOT WINE!!!!

Ok, that's all I have time for right now... hope you are all well!