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Monday, April 26, 2004
oh me nerves
Oh my oh my oh my....and I'm off. In about 48 hours I will be leaving Korea for Newfoundland. Such strange feelings accompant this move. I am excited about seeing everyone, but I am also a little worried about missing jamesie b'y. We spend so much time together, and we get along so sickenly well, it will be so strange without him. I am sure many of my entries in the future will be filled with the words of longing and angst that will follow me home.
I am also a little worried about coming back here. I know my family understands, but when it comes time for me and little Avalon to leave, when she is only about 4 - 6 weeks old, what will they say? My mom and dad lived in Ontario for 8 years, and my two older sisters were born there, so I am hoping they will understand. I know Korea is not Ontario, but in this day and age, the world is so small. And my life is here. I have no idea how much longer I will be in Korea, but for now, I am happy here.
I don't know. My thoughts are jumbled. I am a little freaked about everything. Going home means I am nearing teh end of my pregnancy. Certainly tomorrow marks day one of the third trimester, and I am so nervous. Sometimes it feels like I have been pregnant for so long, and then I think I would rather stay preganant than go through labor. Oh thank heaven for drugs!!! I wanna be hopped up so high I barely know what's on the go. Bring on the drugs, I say!! Oh, but I can't wait to see her. She has become teh most important being in my life in so short a time....my oh my, how I have changed.
Posted at 04:58 pm by skank
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
The Painted Bird
I am a great fan of the written word. As a student of literature, I never cease to be amazed at the sheer magnitude of great writing there is to be discovered. In university, as a literature major, I sometimes enjoyed the task of having to read 15 or 20 books a semester. I love to read. However, if I am to be completely honest, I have been quite slack lately. I like to blame it on the fact that it is virtually impossible to get any books in english over this way. Really, I think I have gotten lazy.
I love the classics, my favourite is 17th and 18th century British poetry. I could get lost in that for ages, and have. However I have difficulty trusting an unknown author, so I have missed a great deal of masterpieces so far in my life because the author is unknown. That I hereby vow to change.
I have a unique and cherished aunt, Celine, a sister of my father, who is also a great literary fan. She knows just about everything there is to know about the stuff, in my eyes. Lately, thanks to the wonders of electronic communication, we have been conversing about books and other things. She has turned me onto a great many authors in the past (George Eliot, Kahlil Gibran, etc), and I never tire of listening to her talk about what she is reading. She recently mentioned a book to me called "The Girl With The Pearl Earring" which I am excited about reading.
Anyway, to get to my point. I have discovered a new favourite. When I was last home, I bought a bunch of books in a second hand store and brought them back with me. Mostly they were by Russian writers like Gogul and Dostoevsky, as that is my new passion. However, yesterday I found one hid away that I had not yet read. It is called "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski. I do not really know where to begin....
Posted at 02:59 pm by skank
Exile
Sometimes nothing will do it like good pure rock n roll. And really, though I could praise many bands for their contributions to the genre, who can do it like The Stones? "Exile on Main Street" has got to be one of the greatest albums I have ever heard, like "Blood On The Tracks" and "Rain Dogs." They fit every mood, and put a smile on my face.
Oh what would I do without music?
I am baking cookes today!!!! No, not in preparation for impending motherhood, no, nothing crazy like that... My students have never tasted Ginger Snaps, and well, that just ain't right. So I have been baking since 10 am, it's about 1 now, and I am finally finished. Aaahhh, some sweet.
Now for some "Sticky Fingers." Ahssa!!!
Posted at 02:57 pm by skank
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
a lil ditty
I wrote this a little while ago, and forgot about it. I get so frustrated writing songs, cos I can never get the air right. But I like it...maybe you know someone in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that, there's only one thing you can do...
Tiny Little Song for Geraldine
in a small little house in a dark little town
lived a tiny little gal named geraldine
with seven drunken sisters and a hard workin pa
she tried her best to do the best
did tiny little geraldine
but in the dark dirty corners of the empty dirty streets
with the lonely dirty men laid geraldine
and her hard woking pa and her half crazy ma
tried their best to do their best
by tiny little geraldine
all the poor lying men with their empty lying smiles
soon messed up tiny little geraldine
and they never saw the tears or the back room souveneirs
in her heart inside she tried to hide
that tiny little geraldine
now in a cold and lonely graveyard in a cold and lonely field
lies a tiny little stone for geraldine
and it has no marble angels or carved stone jesus christ
their good enough wasn't good enough
for tiny little geraldine
Posted at 09:57 pm by skank
left to spur
I wrote this a little while ago about the time i got lost downtown and ended up getting thrown out of a couple of 'hostess bars.' Not thrown out for fightin or anything, women just don't go to the hostess bars, at least not alone and dressed up like a stick of gum... that's competition. i call it "left to spur."
oh gentle jesus in the garden, how did i end up here at all? just how did i end up here? i could blame it all on the taxi driver as he was the one who dropped me off right on the step of the whore bar. it's best that i blame it on him. i blame all taxi drivers, wherever they may be, for the state of affairs i find myself in here tonight.
here. nice common little word to describe what could only be considered as highly uncommon to any of the crowd in The Cove, or in Harry's Back Room. here is a tiny alley. here is the street that leads to the fish markets and the korean ladies with gold teeth ushering you in out of the cold. here is the back road. here is the third circle.
in all fairness to the guy, at least he picked me up in the first place. he could have been a real ass and just passed me by without so much as a nod. no, he stopped and let me in. that counts for something, even now. i always hate it when they play that horrible karaoke style music though. there is always a faint hint of what may have been a melody, but the constant drum snare doesn't really sustain my party mood. and i was after drinking all that soju by myself too, what a waste of a good bottle of seventy cent liquor. damn karaoke music. but like i said, at least the guy picked me up in the first place. so many of them will just pass you by, leaving you to sweat in the heaving humidity and melting mascara. i like to think that it's just because they are on their way to a job, although i know that's not it. it's the fact that they don't want to deal with my bad attempts at speech. they aren't in the mood to deal with bad accents and poor pronunciation after working three parts of a 12 hour shift. shouldn't really say that i blame them, though i do.
but this guy picked me up. i should have sat in the back seat, and not the front. that was just crazy. no sooner had i hopped in and buckled my seatbelt, much to his surprise, when he began with the typical "russia? you russia ooman, yes?" sometimes that really bothers me, but for the most part, i kinda like it. being russian is so exotic. at least to a romantic canadian with a love for Dostoevsky. what is so exotic about being canadian? where is the passion in being canadian? everybody loves us. they all smile and say "canada berry good." yes, yes, canada berry good. if you can put up with the six month winters, the rainy summers and being taxed like you lived in the time of prince john, then yes, canada berry good indeed. but i am no lady, be it marion or magdalene, and do not want to be a glowing example of what the northern country has to offer. so sometimes i like being russian, even if it is only for the twenty minutes it takes to get downtown.
damn taxi driver and his damn karaoke. where in the hell am i to now? i'm lost, that's where i am. half cut, half mad and hungry for some new sounds to lull me out of that crazy russian lovers humming trance. if i turn right, it'll end up that i should have turned left. my impeccably horrible sense of direction does not fail to lead me astray. so should i turn left on that belief, or should i turn right as my instinct suggests? you'd think that by now, after living here for eight months, i'd know my way around this area of the city, but such is not the case. i could get lost in my own kitchen if it were any more than three square feet. absolutely no sense of direction at all. i think i'll turn right. there's gotta be a bar down that way somewhere. and maybe they'll have some english music. if not, maybe they'll have some alcohol. either one will do, although i am kind of wishing more for alcohol at this point. merely a matter of preference you understand.
so i head right, and sure enough there is the big concrete circle in the sky, the halo of downtown. it's as close to beautiful as you can get when surrounded by concrete and stares. strangely, now that i know where i am and where the beloved hole in the wall is, i am no longer quite as angry with the russian loving hummer, although he's not completely out of mind. i just decide that i can do better by thinking of that later, when the night's happenings are more a blur in a non sequential memory sequence. so for now, you damn taxi-driving dear, you are out of mind, cause here i am.
here. is a colourful street lined with neon sighs that scream out the best beer in the city. the most english stations in the country. even a bold advertisement for an english academy above the pet clothing store that declares they have "the best engrish in the vacancy." i imagine they mean vacinity, but who knows? one side of the street is completely lined with canvas covered stalls where you can buy a pair of 'adadas' socks for 50 cents a pair. the other side is lined with orange and pink doors and signs, mostly open forever, and offering any variety of services that a young canadian could imagine. a shoe repairman still sits outside the 24 hour drug store. oddly, he seems to be quite busy at this hour, although he could just be letting on, so that i don't ask him to reshoe me or something.
above the drugstore, downstairs from the bar, is a tiny church group meeting place. apparently this country has a large number of christians and they meet in such places to discuss how best to convert the heathen souls of buddhism and atheism to their way of thinking. you usually can tell who they are though, because they are real friendly to you at the crosswalks, and real persistent as you go running through traffic to lose them, once they start showing you pamphlets. they can usually follow you for quite some time, and i'm sure that diligence counts for something with that breed. just not me. not religious diligence anyway.
the bar itself is a step across oceans for many. you walk in through a door that swings in, as opposed to the customary sideways sliding doors, and are greeted by a warm wooden floor. the wood patterened cushion floor that is so popular is not nearly as deceiving as it's distributors proclaim, and seeing real wood here is a noticeable oddity. on top of the real wooden floors are real wooden tables, round ones, with cigarette holes and ashtrays that don't beep or contain small pools of spit. my own little piece of heaven in an otherwise, thankfully, godless world.
i walk up to the beautiful bartender, offer her my most sober smile, and order, in perfect korean i must say, a bottle of their finest local beer.
and so my night begins....
Posted at 09:00 pm by skank
black ain't cutesie
As I write this, I am dressed entirely in black, as I am wont to do. I have always been a fan of black clothing, and high boots. You'd figure that just because I am over 6 months pregnant, I don't have to wear flat flip flops or pink dresses, but then again, you'd be figuring outside Korea.
I can't get over the maternity clothes in this country. The funkiest thing you can buy is a hideous yellow and pink dress, shaped like a tent, with white frills hemmed along themid calf to add a feminine look. Hello...??? Honest to god, I have enough trouble trying to get past the emotional bullshit of not being able to wear black minis and belly tops, and these are my alternatives???
Seet pastel summer dresses, the stone-washed jeans with narrow ankles and the happy-colored stretchy leggings...it's like being stuck in a pinkly hued hell. Why is it that pregnant women are expected to forfeit not only their figure (which is ok, i've dealt with it it) but their style, their fashion? And from what I understand, it is not only Korea. Why must maternity clothes make us look the opposite of what we are....they make us look childlike, asexual, and frilly as oppossd to the strong, mature, sexual women we are. It seems the only place a decent maternity rig-out can be found is at a place like teh Gap, where I have never shopped, at a whopping price.
I have learned to be more resourceful. I accessorize more and show less skin. All my sexy black pants are stretchy and thus wearable. My shirts are not tents, I don't show my belly ring anymore, but I don't try to hide my burgeoning belly, it's there and I love it. A t-shirt is a great thing, as is a man's button up shirt. And finally, footwear. I refuse, absolutely refuse to wear the hideous things that are pranced about as maternity shoes. My platform boots with the 3-4 inch heels still fit me fine, and they let me maintain a sense of fashion, a sense of my own unique style.
To the Koreans who see me on the street or wherever I go, I undoubtedly seem a little odd, a little weird, a little foreign, not too mention a little taller, but then again, I am.
Posted at 02:53 pm by skank
Monday, April 05, 2004
parenthood
I love reading quotations. There must be a dozeds of them written on any notebook that I have at any given time. I don't think of them as seeing life through someone else's eyes; there are just some things that others have said much better than I ever could. I was just looking through a couple of quotes pages on the net and found these...
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs. - P. J. O'Rourke
Human beings are the only creatures on Earth that allow their children to come back home.
- Bill Cosby
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music. - William Stafford
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it. -Quentin Crisp
The first duty to children is to make them happy. If you have not made them so, you have wronged them. No other good they may get can make up for that. - Charles Buxton
The most important question in the world is "Why is the child crying?" -Alice Walker
Not hard to know what I am thinking about, is it? It strikes me as strange that someone I have not yet met can take up so much of my time and thoughts. Seems strange to write 'I' and 'mother' in the same sentence. I annoy myself sometimes with the amount of time I spend thinking about possible scenarios and what I will and won't do. I have no idea about any of it and it scares the breath out of me to think about what I am about to do, what i am doing. I have so many questions, so many dreams and so many hopes. I would have to say though that the strongest one I have is that I can be as good a parent to my daughter as my parents were to me. They are the perfect role models. I am lucky in that sense. So many people spend their lives blaming their parents for everything they do, while I mostly spend mine quietly thanking my folks for being the parents they were, and the people they are. I am truly blessed.
Posted at 11:45 pm by skank
Monday, March 29, 2004
dog anyone?
hopefully this picture will show up on your screen. i snapped it while we were in Pusan on the weekend, it just looked so korean....on further inspection i noticed that the sign above the door read "boshintang." for those of you who are not familiar with the korean menu, "boshintang" is what we lay persons like to call dog. yummee, too bad it was closed, i love the stuff. it has the textuure of lamb and a distinct, yet pleasant taste. it is excellent with raw onions....and it leaves you with a nice comforting satiated feeling. look out "windy meadows kennels," for i come bearing recipes!!!
and big sis, mind those cats, cos i have some good chinese recipes for puss ka babs as well....
good times, good times.....
Posted at 10:20 pm by skank
Thursday, March 25, 2004
sickly sweet
I love being pregnant. I guess i am one of the lucky ones in that I haven't had any experiences with morning sickness, weird cravings, or any other aches and pains that would make me crazy. The only differences in my life are good. I don't drink aty all (sometimes good, sometimes bad!) I smoke only about 2 cigs a day, down from 20 - 30, and I eat healthy foods. I am gone right cracked on rice and eat it every day, of course living in Korea has helped that. I also have developed a love for yogurt whick I hated before.
As I don't want to be a whale after pregnancy, I watch what I eat but don't stress out or diet. I love my belly!! Jamesie'by is awesome, he looks at me sometimes with this cute grin and just touches my rapidly expanding belly. All he says is "you're beautiful." I gotta say he has made the changing of my body a lot easier to handle. He is supportive and thoughtful, and I love that about him...among other things too numerous to get into now.
It'll be so rough being without him for so long. I am going back to Newfoundland to have little Avalon, and he will be staying here. My Canadian dr suggested that I travel by week 30, so that's just what I'll do. That means a rather extended seperation, but it is for Avalon's sake, so we'll deal with it. And it's not like I will be home alone. I have the best family in the world, and they will make it a lot easier for me. Andthis won't be the first seperation for myself and my man, we have done teh long distance thing before, when I was in Newfoundland and he was over here, and it went as romantic as ever. I just love his emails and phonecalls. This time will be easier I think, because I see a reason for it, and a damn good reason at at that.
I sometimes catch myself imagining what it will be like when he sees us for the first time. Another memorable airport meeting no doubt, except even more so this time.
On another note, I had teh best dream last night. I dreamed that my due date was wrong and I had Avalon now. She was so beautiful. Blond curly hair like her dad and a gummy smile like me. It was such a comforting dream, not one of those bizarre ones I hear occur in pregnancy. I guess I am lucky on that front too.
Aren't I just the most annoying pregnant lady in the world? The changes in me sometimes seem so drastic, but I couldn't be happier about it. Strange how life goes sometimes....
Posted at 06:52 pm by skank
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
snow and stuff
my li sis has sent me a shit load of pictures from the snowy events that I have missed in Newfoundland this year...i say missed as in 'was not present for', not as in 'i wish i had been present for,' cos i hate the bloody stuff. but the pictures are fantastic!
aahhh, dat's some pretty.... Posted at 08:37 pm by skank
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