MUST remember not to drink two cups of coffee in the morning as get very hyper and perky which is totally not me except when it is since then later I will crash crash crash into the bottomless pit that is sleep deprivation and continual monster-featuring dreams and work stress here and work stress there here a stress there a stress everywhere a stress stress not to mention that I have hit a freaking plateau in Korean that really chaps my hide but then again what would you expect if you work and work again in English and only speak Korean for four hours a day in class?

Recently have been swinging from the tree of despair 'n sloth to the tree of bright cherry bowls and bunnies or something like that so that just feel like screaming STOP!!!! or maybe that is just right now as mind is going one zillion kilometers per hour. Today teacher said we don't have to deliver speech on Friday as we are behind on the schedule so I was all Whew 'cause my speech is wondering wandering shambles but Goldurnit! 'cause I am flurgin' stressed about this stupid ass speech that is SO not worthy of a stressout.

Funny thing today in class people thought I would be a good lawyer or doctor or language instructor. Not sure why but was pretty amused. But no one pegged me as a writer, goshdarnedit! That's what I really am, after all. I mean, more than anything else. I realized this afresh last night when I finally finished writing up my speech, as unorganized as it was, and felt like I'd done some good work. There's no other satisfaction that compares to composing and writing a creative piece (fiction or nonfiction). I've complained about doing the textbook work for the educational institution here, but I've enjoyed it so much more than any other kind of work I've done (well, except maybe working at Olssons -- getting paid to read and being around cool people was pretty sweet).

On to something else: my work these days consists of editing direct translations of manuscript summaries. Man oh man. My eyes slide right over the words, because they often make no sense, or could have one of four or five meanings. I don't know how the main English editor here has done this for 10 years; I want to hurl office supplies at people. It's so frustrating trying to guess what someone is trying to say when they aren't around and you can't read Korean well enough to ask for the original text.

Hey, you know, I was supposed to tell you about my weekend. Hm. Well, on Friday I went to Suwon on the school field trip and saw a 18th century fortress (restored). It was really fantastic, and I will have pictures up ... some day. At the fortress, which is on UNESCO's World Heritage Site list, we were able to shoot arrows for fun, and I must say, mine went fairly far for a girl. (So what if they all went into the parking lot to the right and the man yelled at me to be careful and I had to tell him yo, it's not like I'm aiming for the parking lot.)

On Friday night, I went out for Junior's 21st birthday (man, I feel old) and saw Junior's classmate Austria again, whom I'd met a couple months ago when I joined them for bowling. Austria, I decided, is one of those Korean/KA guys who is all, "Duuude, we need to drink soju, man!" and believes that there is some standard of Korean/KA behavior/etiquette that Must Not Be Broken. (Okay, so the soju quote is not a good example, but I can't think of anything else right now.) He urged me to come to a Yale Club dinner where Rick Levin was the special guest; I mean, hey, that's cool and all, but I just don't get people who are THAT gung-ho about my dear alma mater -- we just are not gonna be on the same page, man.

Fortunately, I didn't talk to Austria that much, instead talking with Junior's teacher from the language school and laughing with Alex, the other 20-year-old. He said he and his girlfriend each put in 30,000 won in Junior's birthday card (just straight out cash) and when I said, "Wow, that's nice, I usually don't spend that much on friends' gifts," he replied with a Slavic shrug, "We are Russian."

On Saturday, I did nothing much, just stayed in the house, got upset with my grandmother, etc.

On Sunday, though, I met up with six girls from school and we went to make lanterns at the Buddha's Birthday Festival. My dad, who is studying to become a dharma instructor, was volunteering with the temple sponsoring the whole thing, so he reserved spaces for us and ended up teaching us too. We had an hour and a half to make our lanterns, which turned out to be barely enough time, actually. They all looked lovely, and several people stopped us afterwards to ask where we'd gotten them, or to take pictures of us.

Later, in the evening, we hung around the parade route, hoping to join in when the foreigners section walked by, but the parade was unbelievably interminable, and we gave up after two hours. Unfortunately, in the spirit of the evening, we tried putting candles into our lanterns, and in the process burned up two of them. I myself set fire to my classmate's carefully made lantern when I tried easing the candle in, which was horrifying and hilarious at the same time. An hour and a half of work -- pouf! She had an awfully good attitude about it, though -- took a picture of the burnt-up shell to remember the moment.

The next day, Monday, I was reminded of the humor and horror at my Chinese classmate Gyongli's housewarming, where my New Zealand classmate Lewis asked slyly how the lantern-making went; Etsuko had told him about the inferno. I had brought a new lantern for Etsuko as penance for my Firestarter moment, so I wasn't as embarrassed as I could have been.

Found out, in the course of the evening, that the Irish fellow at school used to have girlfriend who once got extremely drunk, fell into the river, got fished out by the police and got thrown into the slammer, at which point, in a drunken rage, she took off her knee high boots and flung them at the police officers. Not that I'm a fan of stereotypes, but just allow me this little comment: Oh, those Irish.