The end is nigh...

My time grows short and I shall soon leave this place of wrath and tears and go to a better place. Though I'm still on the fence about whether or not Ireland is actually better than Korea... The stress of teaching children has aged me horribly and I got my first grey hairs in Korea but being free, young and virile in a foreign land definitely has its benefits! I have compiled a list of what I shall and shall not miss about this strange land.

Things I will not miss:

1. My rapscallion of a boss. (May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase him so far over the Hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can't find him with a telescope.)
2. Our recruiter who has been about as useful as a chocolate kettle when it's come to protecting our rights.
3. Young people. (Especially kindergarten students but ESPECIALLY teenagers.) A pox upon them all.
4. The elderly. Children should really teach their grandparents that it's rude to stare.
5. Being mistaken for a Russian prostitute.
6. The national obsession with appearances.
7. Having to spell words differently, some would say 'incorrectly', to appease our evil overseers who prefer American English to Hiberno English.
8. Kids who believe that Ireland is a state in America and that St. Patrick's Day is a Mexican holiday.
9. Kids who call me 'Onion' because my real name is too hard to pronounce.
10. Being constantly described as 'cute.' I'm a serious person dammit!
11. The shortage of cheese.
12. 'Misunderstandings.'

Things I will miss most heartily:

1. Indoor barbecues. How could you not love a meal that involves having a fire at the centre of your table and slabs of raw meat to throw on it?
2. The colourful Buddhist temples. The decor is so much more fabulous than our drab Catholic churches.
3. My students' hilariously bad English.
4.Playing 'teacher.'
5. Being mistaken for various different brunette celebrities.
6. My rent-free apartment.
7. Being able to get away with wearing skirts that are short enough to show off the good china.
8. Getting to travel every weekend. :)
9. Living in the future.
10. Finally being of average height in comparison to other humans!
11. Having lots of gold.
12. Ridiculous English on shop fronts. e.g.

Well this will probably be my last blog as I'll be leaving in a few weeks. The last few weekends have been filled with parties and merry making but the last few work days have been filled with stress and tears as we've battled for our money. I shall miss Korea but I shall not miss working for one of Satan's minions. Overall though this experience has been most good. :)

Happy Halloween!

I hope that everyone had suitably disturbing weekend. :)

I attended a Halloween party in a bar in Jinju in order to celebrate the hard work of all the ghosts out there that are busy haunting the f**k out of all their friends at this time of year. I met up with a group of friends beforehand to eat some pre-party chicken at a nearby restaurant. Not an easy feat when your party consists of two women dressed up as bunches of grapes and accessorised with green and purple balloons respectively, a mummy who is wrapped head to toe in a shredded white curtain, an anthropomorphic fox and a crazed Jack Nicholson. The waiter was not pleased about having to seat us… I myself wore a finely feathered silver mask that I had purchased at the mask festival a few weeks back paired up with a sequined number that I had bought at the local thrift store.  I was originally going for an Ice Queen look but I think I just ended up looking like a big gay bird…

The party itself was most good. There were sparklers to be waved, a fire show to be watched, cheesy songs to be danced to and, of course, the obligatory zombie attack to be endured. I was a tad alarmed by the penchant of Korean women for dressing up as pre-pubescent school girls or pantless geishas. However, as we learned from Mean Girls; ‘Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.’ :)