2002-11-01 - 12:04 a.m.

I sat down and figured out what I actually earned in the past 2 months:

Sept. = 18 manwon / about U.S. $150

Oct. = 39 manwon / roughly U.S. $330

So, I'm developing an income, building a "client base." But I'm still not out of the woods. If the contract porposal flies, I'll be airlifted out of these woods so fast that the wolves outside my door will be creeping away, tails dragging.

Yesterday, I took Cho's classes while he took an exam. Also graded his grownup students' papers between and after classes. I thought sure I'd put my keyring in my pocket, going out the door of my "pad," but had to borrow Cho's. Good thing we met each other on the sidewalk between school and subway! Otherwise, I'd have been doing "field trips" with the kiddos.

When I left the key at the grocery store next door, I saw some lovely mushrooms and pickled sesame leaves, so I'm having them for lunch today, along with sea-veggie soup and fried rice.

I did a quick stop at the PC bang in Guro next to the teakkwon school, deleted a slew of spam and answered Carol-ann's letter. She's coming to Seoul next month, to get some information at the New Zealand Embassy, so I asked her to bunk at my place. I missed travelling with her on the latest visa run. She's gotten her one-year work visa, so she doesn't have to keep going out of the country every 90 days.

http://sillama1.diaryland.com/0207025_11.html is the last run that Carol-ann and I made together.

Cho called after classes to see if I'd like to go out to supper after the USO meeting, his treat. Sure! I had bulgogi stew and enjoyed talking with him and two other Coreans who came with us. Seong is older than Cho, maybe 50, and a lot more serene. We talked about Buddhism, Quakers, and the dogmatic nature of some Christian denominations. The younger fellow, a "suit man" (corporate junior executive), who's name is probably Jon, though I wouldn't swear to it, is relatively new to our group and very nervous about his English.

We decamped after an hour but I was still 10 minutes late to open up the meditation group. No one showed up, so I closed it at 9:35 and came along home. I was awfully glad I'd worn my winter coat, even though the wind went down with the sun and the temp at 10 p.m. was still 10 degrees C / 50 F. I was in bed by 11, and slept pretty well.

One thing I need to do is to keep an ear cocked and an eye out for the puffed-grains vendor. I'm getting low on cereal. Remember how the cereal boxes used to say "Shot from guns!" Well, this vendor has a portable compressor on the back of his pick-up truck, and that is the "gun." He puts the grain in a chamber and compresses the air until it gets very hot. Then, "Bang!" suddenly releases the air pressure and the grain puffs. He puffs all kinds of grain,- wheat, corn, brown rice, etc.,- and people buy big grocery bagsful for "ee chun-won" (2,000 won or U.S. $1.60) for snacks. That's my breakfast cereal!

Happy Trails and Thanks for reading.

~ Sil in Corea

previous - next

http://www.newdream.org/

Free clicks save land at http://www.therainforestsite.com

Copyright 2001,2002, et al. Sillama1 (Andrew knows my real name, and you will suffer from rectal boils if you take anything from this site.)

Fight Spam! Click Here!