Settled

I'm not sure how long it's suppose to take to settle down. I think it usually takes a month or so for a normal situation, sometimes even less depending on where you move to. But we moved to a different country with a different language and nothing in our apartment except for a comforter, couch, and a table. The first month I worked at the other church and never saw my family. The second month we finally got the bulk of the furniture we needed and I started to teach. I really started to feel connected to the church through all of the people I am teaching and the bible studies I am leading. I see a lot of people in church that I know through my classes and it makes me happy to feel connected again. I'm taking a one-on-one Korean class now so I can try to communicate a little better. It's one of my students from my conversation class. So far I can say: "What's this?, Is this a ____?, What's your name?" and the answers to these questions as well. I'm learning from the book that I'm teaching English with to my kids. She translates the English part to Korean so I have something to reference to and hopefully I can teach better, knowing the Korean and English words. Of course, since it's from a kids book, the form of the words are "impolite". So everytime I try to practice, which is usually on my students who are older than me, they correct me with some other conjugation saying that what I said is fine because I know them, but it's impolite to say the other to an older person without knowing them. I thought, "I'm pretty sure I won't be practicing my English on someone I don't know who's older than me." But I didn't say that because it's impolite. So, now we're in the third month and starting to feel a little more settled. Which I think brings on more homesickness. The food we miss a lot, but the comfort of home we're starting to miss more. I feel like we're settled here but it's uncomfortable to start to settle in a place that's not home. We moved to Tenn but we still came home to visit every now and then. Plus we had friends who speak English and we could hang out with. This little apartment is only so big, and we seem to stay here a lot. I really miss going out and doing things with other people, or just going out would be nice. My time to go out is walking to Lotte Mart or the local grocery store and taking a taxi back. Or I play basketball every Saturday night in a gym that I can see from my porch. It's nice to think of the money we save not having to go far to do anything, but we don't even travel 2 miles to go somewhere. We are going to Seoul this Thursday but it's for filming. We go there to work and then we come back. I think I just need to get my Driver's License here and start to drive again. At least I can get out of here every now and then. We are so constricted by Taxi and train, that we can't see everything we want to see. I don't know, I'm not really complaining but expression my thoughts. Only a few people read this anyways, thanks by the way. I can't wait for June, but I feel extremely guilty that Brandy and Chloe aren't going. I mean if Brandy wasn't having the baby, only one of us could go anyways because we can barely afford one ticket. But if I didn't have a wedding and Brandy wasn't having the baby, I would give my ticket to her because she's the one with a huge family who really wants to see her. I have a small family that wants to see me and a lot of friends who want to see me. That's why I feel guilty, because Brandy should be the one going back to America this time. She rarely gets out of the apartment because she takes care of it and there's no reason to get out except to get out. I walk everywhere but Brandy takes a taxi everywhere and since we're trying to save money, she doesn't use the taxi that much. I don't know, we need prayers. Pray our duplexes rent out and it all works out, pray for us and our homesickness, and pray for my travels; that everything will work out.
P.S. We're not extremely homesick, it's just that Chloe misses her grandparents, I miss food, friends, and family, and Brandy misses all of the above. But we're not crying about it or anything, Chloe might be actually, but Brandy and I are fine and we're glad we're finally settled.

Monsters vs Aliens

The Video: Chloe Models Flowers

Aliens seems to be the subject of a lot of movies recently. Why is that? What happened to something cool at the end of the movie? I'm sorry for anyone who hasn't seen the new Indiana Jones, but I thought the movie ending was awful. And then I just saw another new movie which ends with aliens, and another 2 hours of my memory wasted. I think Hollyworld would be a better place if they thought of a more creative ending than aliens. It just seems that people really want to believe in something greater and they choose aliens. Stupid, I know. I challenge directors and writers everywhere to come up with a different ending than aliens. I liked it back in the day when you knew they were aliens the whole time and people coped with it or tried to destroy it. Monsters vs Aliens was pretty good. Not as funny as I thought it would be, but good graphics and story. I say stick to good ole romance, violence, monsters, dinosaurs, and Jackie Chan. Wow, I just made the best outline for a movie ever. We all know who makes the best movies anyways, Chloe.

Cell Phones and Independence

We finally got our cell phones! Everyone knows that already but I just wanted to say that again because we're so excited about them, especially Brandy. The church wants us to see something about Korea every Thursday this month so we went to Independence Hall this past Thursday for about an hour and a half. We got a guide who speaks English, even though I didn't want one because most things are written in English and I've already been here so I wanted to be the guide for Brandy. But Evangelist Yu insisted on a guide, who happened to not know so much English and the tour was probably one of the most boring experiences that Brandy has had since we've been here. She mostly dealt with an exhausted Chloe or talked about how hungry her and Yu's wife were. I, on the other hand, was very interested in what the guide was saying even though she would ask me many times what the English word was that she wanted to say; so it was more of a joint English tour guide. We help her with English and she helps us with the history. Anyways, the museum is government sponsored so it's about $2 to go there but it's huge! There are six museums, each with their own part of history. We only had time to go to 2 museums because the ladies were hungry and the kids were tired. We then went to a restaurant that served bibimbop. The restaurants work like this: the restaurant owner finds a food they are good at, then that's all they fix. So most restaurants have a short menu because they only serve one main dish and some small side dishes that taste delicious. Although Brandy and I weren't too impressed with the bibimbop, but I think it's because we're not impressed with rice, vegetables, mushrooms, and that's it. Brandy's first taste of Korea in a Korean restaurant and it was so bland. But, we had fun with Evangelist Yu and his wife. We then ventured to E-Mart and got Brandy a table, dishes, and a lot of other things that I had to dig deep into my pocket to pay out. You should have seen how happy she was when I let her buy the dishes she wanted though(1950's yellow, green, 7 red on all of the dishes. I'll try to put pics next time). I also bought the furniture for the apartment that we needed and it should arrive today. Brandy is ecstatic about all of that arriving today. She even slept in this morning so she would have enough energy to tell the movers where everything should go and finally arrange the house the way she wants it. Of course when I get home I expect the movers didn't put it "in the right spot" and I'll have to arrange it the way she wants it this month. Next month Carol can rearrange it for March. Now all we need for this month is lamps and that should do it. We will buy more stuff next month, but for now, she's happy (Brandy that is). One interesting note before I go; Pastor Kim said it's not custom for children as young as Chloe to have their own room. He'll be really surprised when we put the baby in her own room after a few months. :-)