home sweet home

so after 20 odd hours of flying, landing, getting off a plane in some random city that is not my final destination, going through customs, trying to convince the customs people that NO, the 15 odd gifts that i so foolishly wrapped and tried to take on the plane do not contain illicit drugs, porn, liquids or WMDs, getting back on yet another plane, taking gravol to knock me out, wavering in and out of consciousness amongst the sounds of screaming babies and crying toddlers, and headache, headache, headache....i am HOME. weird how i feel like i've left home at the same time. how is that possible?

anyways, the 6 hours that i've been home have so far been quite entertaining - my neice and nephews were quite willing to unwrap the WMDs - ur, i mean Winnie-the-Pooh (same-same) parcels, and that got the ball rolling for a exchanging presents blitz, which resulted in my family loving their mementos from Korea and me with some sweet new clothes from....get ready - Costco. yeah, my parents surely know where to shop for high-fashion merchandise - but really these clothes are actual kinda cool! i'll just have to avoid that "place drop" when someone compliments me - "hey, love the sweater, where'd you get it?" "oooh, in this fabulous little boutique in Canada called (with a French accent) "Cos-coo." You should go there some time. I bought this right after i went on a dog-sled through the exotic desserts of potato fields, during a crazy little maple-syrap festival they had going on. It truly was an adventure to remember."

so then I had a home-cooked meal by my mom and listen to my brother talk as if he was on drugs. or so i thought at first, seeing as he was going on and on about this documentary he saw on the internet about how 9/11 was a conspiracy because A) the twin towers were rigged with explosives that caused the collapse of the buildings, and B) all these reports have been hidden by the US government to scare the Americans into supporting the War on Terror. Now if you knew my brother, you would also assume that he was on drugs, because normally i am the conspiracy theorist in the family while everyone else quietly listens and politely attempts to change the subject to something other than politics. so this was fun for me - we watched these documentaries and swapped theories. And all of a sudden, i have a heap-loads more respect for my elder sibling. Oh, how America brings people together...

so now i'm wide awake while my family sleeps, and i'm gonna finish some marking. yes, for my school. yes, they same one that i finished working for yesterday, and who (wahoo!) paid me all my severance pay. i need to hand them in via email by Monday, as reports go out on Wednesday and i had no time to do so this past week. So why not take advantage of my delirously jet-legged frame of mind and give my kids their final comments? And if they end up sounding a little, um, odd, I mean, really, what can they do?

i loved this christmas

it all went so fast. on december 24th, 2006, 18 of us, armed with bagfulls of food, including my own homemade eggnog (a drink totally unheard of here), candy canes (again, sooooo difficult to find and thus totally appreciated), and everything needed for goodies, snacks and a full-course omelette breakfast, gifts, stockings, pillows, blankets, and games, cabbed it up to a beautiful dalmagi apartment (in the "posh" side of Busan) to have a sleepover. we laughed, we danced, we did secret santas, played dutch blitz, poker, and bible trivia (haha), built puzzles (ok they did - i have no patience for those horridly intricate things), took pictures, exchanged gifts, and played with our new toy guns and numchucks (ok that was the boys.) i was able to give my girls the photo albums that i made for them - wrapped in korean rice paper and completed with a hand-carved coaster i glued on top - and filled with memories from this year -numerous parties, nights out, norae-bongs (kareokee rooms), paintball, small group, exploring, and just hanging out and laughing and talking and playing. then we had a huge breakfast, napped, and went out for indian food (not exactly a chrismtas tradition but delicious enough for me!) the night was topped off by yet another (different) party in dalmagi. good times had by all. it was a phenomenal way to end my year here, and it made me really excited to come back again to everyone in March.
Though i AM super excited to come home!! 4 days!!

see more pics here!