Annnnnnnnnnd I'm Back

I thought it fitting that as the writer’s strike seems to be winding to a close, I finally have time to pick up my laptop again. And I better hurry before new episodes of The Office come online to distract me. I didn’t really plan to take a two-month hiatus from writing – but one thing led to another and apparently it’s February. Who knew?

The highlights:

• One of my closest friends came over for a visit over Christmas and New Years, and he was able to verify everything he had read on here. The toilet, the Texans – the whole shebang. I told you I wasn’t making this stuff up.

• 

  The new roommate

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• I got a cat. I’m not really sure exactly how this happened. It began as a random thought, and the next thing I knew I was standing in front of a relatively toothless and fingerless woman in a large market who was shoveling a kitten out of a box and dangling it in front of me. Because I was pretty sure if I didn’t pay the $15 for her she would end up as part of a soup somewhere (when I called my Korean friend to see if she knew where I could buy a cat, her initial response was, “For lunch?”), I took her home and named her Hunter. I’ve never been a cat person, but when she’s not attacking my feet or chewing on my arm, she’s a pretty cool roommate.

• I spent the entire month of January working. I’m not kidding – I was pretty much at school from 9:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night, six days a week. As Korean kids have the month off for their winter vacation from their regular school, private institutes like mine take the opportunity to offer “intensives,” because why let the kids have an actual vacation, right? That would be chaos. Even though I was basically sleep walking the entire month, the classes were actually great. I read The Little Prince with one group of kids, who surprised me daily with their insight and ability to decipher pretty intricate metaphors. I kept meaning to write everything down when I got home, but then I would just fall asleep.
  

• 

  And no one knew how to ski.
  That crazy schedule ended last week with the Chinese New Year, a holiday that my school actually observes with a long weekend. Relishing my first four days off in six weeks, I spent the weekend with a group of friends at Muju, Korea’s most popular ski resort. And by “popular,” I mean covered with skiers. And by “skiers,” I mean people who have apparently never strapped a pair of skis on, or just enjoy frequent faceplants. It was like Normandy beach out there – people collapsing the entire way down the mountain and I spent a majority of the time dodging bodies or smashing directly into Koreans who had stopped in the middle of the run to take a group picture. But I came back to school on Monday wind burned, rested and ready for my regular schedule to resume.

Alright, I think that about catches us up.

I realized earlier that I left New York exactly six months ago today. As I’ve said before, I had little to no idea what to expect when I stepped off the plane – and so far I’ve had quite the adventure. Somehow I’m sure the next six months won’t disappoint. And I promise – no more strikes.