Thank the lord, February is over. Seriously most stressful time in my life. Worse than that time I decided to take Constitutional Law, Environmental Geochemistry, and Political Theory all at once and had all the finals on the same day. Why so stressful you ask? Well for starters, I had to move, twice. First because there was a mix up with my lease, it turned out it was over at the beginning of the month, not the end of the month. So I had to be moved to a tiny little temporary apartment for the month of February, then at the end I had to move into a different apartment, one that a teacher just vacated. So I never had ALL of my stuff, some of it was still in the old apartment, some in the temporary apartment. Then all my food went missing, and my kitchen stuff. The cleaning lady who cleans the apartments is a klepto, and I think she stole all my food. I got my kitchen stuff back, but I'm still missing my spaghetti strainer!

So I was stuck in this tiny apartment for a month, an Dexter was going crazy, I had no cooking utensils, and it was far away from everyone else I worked with. On top of that, I got bronchitis and a sinus infection. Technically I've had the bronchitis since New Years, but it got really bad at the beginning of the month, and I had to go to three different doctors (remember, doctoral incompetence is extremely high here). Eventually I got rid of the cold, only to get a severe sinus infection, and I couldn't breathe out of my nose for about a week and a half. I went to a very nice ENT doctor here, where he shoved a camera and suction tool up my nose, and eventually caved in and gave me antibiotics after I showed up the third time in a week.

And then there was the Annual Performance. I cannot begin to describe for you how crazy the parents of these kids are. Things literally have to be perfect for them. And from what I gathered, if a parent is unsatisfied by their singing and dancing on stage in front of hundreds of people, then they will just pull the kid out of school and send them somewhere else. So we had to spend a lot of extra time practicing, but we still had to do the same amount of work (which basically left no free time in the first place), and our direction became a total insert preferential female curse word here about the whole thing because these little 5 year old kids could not line up and say their speeches perfectly. So everyone was highly stressed out, and there was total lack of communication between the Korean staff and the foreigners and to what exactly was supposed to be done. This led to a lot of last minute changes that the kids didn't understand.

On top of that, tensions really began to rise between me and my supervisor. She is a perfectionist, which you can't really be with 5 year old kids, it just doesn't work like that. And she does not like to take any suggestions or constructive criticism, thinks she knows better than everyone else, yet has no idea what her job title entails, and makes mistakes multiple times a day which leaves me scrambling to correct them. Words were exchanged, comments made, I don't want to get into it because it just pisses me off. So I had that to top off my plate of unhappiness that month. So I was basically in a bad mood the whole time, and I could feel myself taking it out on the kids, but I just couldn't help it.

Then at the end of the term, we had to move rooms and decorate for the new term, and long story short, mine and Jeff's supervisor did not give us enough direction as to what exactly we needed in our rooms, and we had to go in to work when everyone else got to take the day off. Not happy.

But worst of all, three good friends at work all finished their contracts and left. Miguel, the gossip queen of the school is now back in Hotlanta and I will no longer be able to run to him and tell the funny things that my kids say without realizing they are so funny (like when one of my kids said to another one "do you swallow" when referring to food). Gabby left, she is doing some traveling now. She was fun to hang out with and let me crash at her place a few times when in dire need. And Megan left. My confidant, my gossip partner, my Itaewon shopper, my "yes I want to take a tax"er, my care-taker of Dexter, my supplier of left-overs, my "whose kids are the worst" debater. Very very very sad to see Megan go :(

But enough about the complaining. There were a few highlights. My kids did very well at the performance. Cute as pie ,they was. Especially my little Thomas, the one who didn't know a word of English at the beginning of December gave the best speech of them all. They got to get dressed up in really cute outfits. And a while back Megan volunteered me to perform for the teacher performance (much to my dismay) so I had to get up and play the guitar in from of everyone. I have TERRIBLE stage fright. And I was sick, so I was petrified. So either it went well, or my co-workers just felt bad for me because I sounded awful and were trying to make me feel better by saying it was good (most likely the latter).

My new apartment is nice. Dexter loves that it has two floors. The upper floor is basically just my bed and a dresser, not all the grand. And its about 4 inches shorter than I am (no idea why they would make it like that), so I have to crouch when I go up there, which makes putting my clothes on in the morning kind of awkward. The kitchen is really small, I only have two stove tops, it the washer is under the stove, so I can't cook and wash clothes at the same time. But it is a washer/dryer combo which is nice. I'm going to get a couch for the place, to make it more comfortable and enhance my ability to entertain company.

Things with Daniel and I are going really well. I made him a cute heart shaped pillow of Valentine's Day, and I got to stay with him for Lunar New Year. It's my birthday next week, and wouldn't you know it, of all the guys I could date in the world, I had to find the one that has my same birthday. Bummer. I love my birthday, and now it's not my birthday, it's our birthday. But at least now I know I can never forget his birthday!

I did some major shopping the other weekend, got some great shoes, and a new leather purse. I also got an oven from Megan, so I went to the Foreign Food Mart and got some (highly over-priced) spices to I can cook real meals. And I got to hang out with Kyla, a fellow co-worker that I really never hung out with one-on-one, and we had a lot of fun. I have become completely addicted to a store called Skin Food. It's a skin care, face care kind of store, with way more variety than American stores, and all their products are made from natural ingredients. I'm currently in love with the Peach Sake line, as well as their Grapefruit Hand Sanitizer, and Apple Vinegar Face Foam.

Ohhhh, and I am VERY excited, The Beast gets neutered this month. Hopefully that will calm his crazy ass down. I don't know what the hell is wrong with that cat, but I'm really hoping that getting his balls cut off will help with it.

We also got to celebrate Lunar New Year (which is the same as Chinese New Year) at school. All the kids wore their hanboks, which are the traditional Korean attire for special occasions. The teachers even got to wear them as well. We got to play games with the kids all day, and comment on how cute they looked. It was a grand time.

So February had its ups, but mostly downs. I'm really hoping that March turns out better.