One year resolutions

We celebrated the first birthday of our marriage in style.  

Happy Anniversary to us! We got off work for the night of the 31st and the morning of the 1st, and we relished every nostalgic second of our time off. The arrival of our lovely wedding photo-album only days before made the nostalgia very easy to capture.

Adam surprised me with an evening dinner cruise aboard the Steamboat Natchez, an historical steamer that has live jazz bands and a buffet dinner to accompany the captain's  tales of the Mississippi over the loud speaker.

The woman on top of the boat is playing a calliope

Adam claimed he had commissioned that grafitti just for me

I had a harder time believing him when he said he also requested to the captain that we pass by the sugar factory so he could tell me I'm "sweeter than the whole factory." Just kidding, he didn't say that.

US govt saving on docking fees by parking side-by-side

Sunset on the Mississip'

Still feelin' the newlywed bliss

It was lovely. After disembarking, we snagged some beignets at Cafe du Monde before heading to our  S W A N K Y hotel, the W.

Nom nom nom

Coolest hotel ever

We went through two bottles of wine without drinking one single glass - the first one smashed to bits on the deck of the Natchez (whoops) and the second was undrinkable. bleagh. Of course, Adam and I have no need of alcohol to party, and we had a fabulous time despite the absence of fermented grapes.

The next morning we copied the Arnold newlyweds by ordering room service for the first - and probably last - time in our lives. We ate breakfast in (our hilariously huge) bed and watched TV for hours, two other things we will probably never do again for the remainder of our year in New Orleans. But hey, one-year anniversaries only come once in a lifetime! ("Just like 2-year anniversaries, 3-years, 4-years..." Adam said with an impish grin)

In closing, it was a magical night and utterly decadent morning.  Can't wait for next year!

I love you, Adam. The song "More Today then Yesterday" by Spiral Staircase definitely applies in our case.


POST. SCRIPT.

I just would like to note that ever since August 1st 2009 and it's glory, it has become clearer and clearer every day just how beautiful and precious life is. Fast forward to August 1st, 2010 --> Now that work has calmed down to the point where I actually leave the hostel every day, I've resolved to be a better communicator. With myself, with my husband and with everyone I know. And I've been doing very well so far, though today was very possibly overkill. (In the past 4 hours, I've replied to 5 emails and 10 facebook messages before screwing up my remaining energy and writing this post. )

Life is beautiful and precious and all that, but it's the relationships I cultivate and cherish that make it so. And that's my goal for this year: cultivating the relationships I have and love. I'm in a job where relationships are created and dropped in 3 days time, over and over again. Maybe some of them will stretch into something permanent and surprising, but I don't want the short-term to become my habit.

That's enough - my brain is communicated out for now. Cheers!

Would you like pretzels, cookies or peanuts?

When I visited my friend Hyo Jeong a couple weeks ago, amidst laughter and frivolous talk and serious talk, I asked her where I could purchase a cheap set of rollers for curling my hair. She just stared at me. "For YOU?" she finally asked, eyebrows high and eyes wide.

She was surprised, because the Anna she met in New Zealand 5 years ago didn't give a fig about hair rollers, and spent her $ on really cool things, like traveling and authentic Italian pizza and theatre.

And I still like all those things! (A lot.)
But... Now I also give a fig about hair rollers. Something happened to me upon arriving in Korea. I suddenly realized that it was imperatively important to me that I dress the part of Professional Teacher. And not in a "dejected-because-I-have-to-fit-the-mold-but-don't-wanna-because-I-am-a-rebel-at-heart" way, either; no, I felt eagerness and excitement over this drive to fit the working-woman mold.

Hose and high heels! Dress pants and blazers! Neat hair and dress shirts! Bring it on!
(No make-up, though - that's a personal line I only cross for special occasions.)

What? Why is this so exciting to me? Or, to most of me. Part of me feels uneasily like a traitor - Mary G, do you still love me? - and is baffled as to why I am embracing these dress code conventions so enthusiastically.

But the answer is really simple: I've never had a job that required nice clothes before (set-building, rock climbing instructor, nanny, pre-K teacher - grubbies only), so it's a novelty, a persona I've never tried on before. I think my inner actress believes that my job is just a play and Professional Teacher is my character, and just loves wearing a costume every day.
Plus, my Husband's eyes get really wide and happy when I look fabulous (which he says is always), so I'm frequently guilty of going out of my way to dress sharp for him. And now I dress nice every day.

Some days are more miss than hit, though. Like yesterday.
I got dressed, realized I only had black and white in my outfit, and threw a scarf around my neck for color. Then I looked in the mirror.

"Adam!" I wailed, panicking because we were late and I didn't have time to change clothes. "I look like a flight attendant!"

He looked at me, smiled widely, and said, "That's not a bad thing." He really is no help sometimes.

But it was a bad thing. See photo below.


How are students supposed to take me seriously when they have to fight the impulse to request beverages and peanuts whenever they're hungry/thirsty?

And how is my inner actress supposed to take this?

I have a minimal flight attendant phobia. Despite knowing and loving some beautiful and fabulous flight attendants (yes, you, Marnell and Lily), I have never had the aforementioned 2 women as my flight attendants on any flight I've ever taken. Instead, my absolute most embarrassing moment in my whole life came about because of nasty, uncaring flight attendants. And no, I'm not telling that story in this post, so if you were getting excited and hoping to hear it, "get used to disappointment." (I just posted a photo of me posing as a flight attendant, so that's quite enough embarrassment for today.) Also, you get 10 points if you're the first person to guess correctly who said the above quote.

Anyways, I'm sure my students struggled mightily against their impulses, but the day passed without a single peanut-packet-demanding incident. And I drank the tea in that mug in the picture myself.

Adam must really have liked the outfit, though, because this is what I found on the blackboard after he finished teaching English:



:)

In retrospect, I probably could have just taken off the scarf, and I would have shed the entire flight attendant persona. But instead, I wore it all day long, because I didn't want to wear only black and white, which is what I usually do.