Lousy but loved.

At this point, it's definitely official: Mrs. S has correctly labeled me as a lousy blogger. I have been about as lousy a blogger as one can be without actually having a single louse on my head. (Ew.)

This makes me feel very happy and very guilty. Kinda like how I felt after reading the melodramatic email I got from the ever-encouraging Sarah a while back :

"21 days of looking for an update on your blog.

21 days of sorrow.

21 days of pouting.

21 days of thinking of you."

HA!
She checks my blog every day!
She wants more!
She loves me!
I'm practically famous!

This is a lovely feeling for a bloggess. Even being called lousy is a semi-compliment, because it means someone is paying enough attention to your blog to notice how lousy you're being.

Hand-in-hand with this smug happiness though, is the guilt and sense of neglected responsibility. I mean, these people are counting on me - I can't just keep letting them down, day after day. I feel guilt. Remorse. Anxiety. Sadness.  Also, Sarah demands photos.

Obviously, I gotta get posting.

So! Here's what's been happening in Nawlins recently:
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No. There is too much - lemme sum up:

JULY-PRESENT = busy.



Here are some photos of the hostel:

Front door at night

The messy office

Kitchen

Outdoor patio with pool table

Bourbon House!

Our little loft

We've been super happy to have lots of friends and family come and visit us in the 3.5 months since we arrived (only 3?), but it also took us at least the first 2 months before we felt comfortable in our job. Things are running smoothly now, and a happy little rhythm has settled in, it seems.

Recently, I've been spending my time volunteering for the New Orleans Film Festival and also wracking my brain to try to imagine what surprise Adam has planned for my birthday.  He's been super tight-lipped about it, while being careful to mention it frequently and tease me to insanity over it.

Anna loves surprises. But Anna is also very very curious/nosy.  These two characteristics don't always mix well. So far, I have succeeded in resisting the temptation to hack into his gmail account and read through his messages looking for clues (I won't do it, baby, promise).

In the past, Adam has usually let more clues and hints drop than he has this time, which makes me REALLY CURIOUS. He even paid for "it" by CHECK, with our OLD bank account which we aren't currently using, so there would be no way for me to accidentally stumble across revelatory information. This is really sneaky of him, although he still had to ask me where those checks were.

A check, though? What on earth could this surprise be?
Lessons of some sort?
A (short) trip?
Scavenger hunt? - we haven't indulged in one of those in a while, but it doesn't exactly explain the check...
A pony?


I'll report back after the 25th. After which I will be 25, by the way - my "magical" BD, as my 2 red-headed cousins once explained to me.

Life is very exciting these days.

Almost as exciting as three alligators going for the same chunk of chicken.

Get dat meat!

P.s. Frankly, most of the fun of any of his surprises is the anticipation for me, so I'm already in love with my BD gift. Shoot, he could take me salsa dancing at the club down the road, and I'd have already gotten the main part of my gift. :)

The. WHOLE. Story.

Months and months ago, I promised Kristen P. B. that I would explain why Adam and I moved to Korea in February of 2010.

Now, 7 months later, I find myself making the same promise to others to explain why we LEFT South Korea.

It's a long story. Naturally. :)

WHY WE MOVED TO KOREA:

1. To save money! We decided to be very fiscally responsible newly-weds and set up a nest egg for our retirement. The goal : $20,000 to be invested and left untouched for the duration of our working lives. Two years in Korea, teaching English and living like kings, and we would have easily reached this goal. Cost of living is extremely low, and paychecks are about the same as American teachers, which makes for lots of savings.

2. To live near one of my dear friends and meet her son (my "nephew"). I was thrilled to visit her twice in our 4 months there, though this was definitely not enough for me.

3. To travel!

4. To have adventures.


WHY WE LEFT KOREA IN A BIG HURRY :

1. The couple who hired us (long story there, which I will graciously omit) quit/were fired the week before we arrived. We didn't learn of this until we arrived and found that nothing was quite as we were expecting.

2. Our visas were fraudulent. This is obviously the biggie, though there were many people in Korea who assured us that it really wasn't something to worry about, as there is not, at this point in time, sufficient legislation in place for private Korean schools to obtain English teachers legally. Apparently, the government turns a blind eye in return for the education of it's populace.  Regardless of how safe we actually were, it was terribly stressful for us throughout our stay. I mean, OUR VISAS WERE FRAUDULENT. Adam's visa was the correct type, but it specified that he was working in a city 3.5 hours away. My visa didn't even permit me to have a job! It was a "spouse" visa that allowed me to be in Korea as long as Adam was. Ooof.

3. The school was never able to pay us on time. Granted, they weren't usually more than a week late, but considering that we only had 7 students and FOUR of them were children of board members, we were pretty sure the school was struggling financially. The biggest indicator of this was that our receptionist, the only other worker at the school - after the replacement principal quit - informed us that she hadn't been paid in 4 months.

Aaand there was a lot of other messy stuff about embezzlement and blackmail - none of which had to do with us - that our school was dealing with. (Dang it, "with which our school was dealing with" just sounds ridiculous, so you Grammar Nazis will just have to bite your lips and struggle past it. I'm not changing that sentence.)

In retrospect of course, it sounds like a crazy, hilarious adventure - and it was! At the time, we were frequently stressed, exhausted and kinda lonely (together), so it was a little more difficult to appreciate the humor in the situation.

We did, however, live like total kings for the brief period we were there. We spared no expense in getting whatever we needed, liked or craved. It was un-thrifty, indulgent and possibly necessary for our sanity. :) I went to the sauna when I was cold, Adam spent hours in coffee shops writing, we got internet for our apartment even though we didn't absolutely need it, and we spent many a happy evening stuffing our faces with a comforting meal at Pizza Hut.

I think the biggest indulgence of our stay was the bed-softener pad we got for our bed. We knew at the point that we might or might not be staying in Korea after the semester ended. It cost a lot. We wouldn't be bringing it back to the States with us.         We got it anyway.

This was our bed before:

A brick.

  Or maybe this:

A big-a** rock.

Needless to say, we spent three months tossing and turning and waking up tired.

THIS was our bed AFTER the pad:

A really soft and downy chick.

The fluffiest bunny you have ever seen.

The most comfortable-looking clouds google images could provide.

It was very possibly due to the psychology of the situation, but after that, we slept like (very tired, un-colic-y) babies.

We left the sleeping pad in care of my friend, who I hope sleeps just as peacefully as we did with the Magic Sleeping Pad. Heaven knows she needs the rest more than Adam and I did, with a toddler and another little boy on the way! I kinda miss it now, though.

Anyways. I feel like I got a little side-tracked...