Annyoung

Leaving Korea in around 12 hours from now after over nine years living here. It feels very surreal. In the last few days, I have not sat down to rest until after Grace is sleeping. There was more I wanted to do before I left, but obviously there is no time left. I even forgot to make a few phone calls to friends today to say good-bye. I was literally going non-stop. At one point, I even had to send Sejin out to the store with Grace so that I could pack a few things. Grace kept getting in my business, taking things out of boxes and suitcase, and driving me mad. As I type this, it is 9:45 pm and she is still awake, singing in her bedroom, and we have to be up at 5am. What a journey it's going to be.

I likely will not get to post here for a little while, but I will be back. I'm going to give this blog a facelift and will hopefully have some fun stories to tell as we settle into a whole new life. Wish us luck!

Breaking down

Both me and everything in my house. Last night I slept a grand total of 2 hours...from 7am-9am. I have so much on my mind that it is preventing me from sleeping. At around 6am this morning I decided that something has to give -- I cannot possibly crank out nearly 200 pages of workbook material for P publisher and a student book for D publisher, plus pack up my apartment, tend to last minute things, see friends, etc, in 20 days. Not physically possible. So I emailed D publisher and apologized and recommended a friend. I felt relieved enough to sleep for two hours. When I got up, I had received an email back saying basically 'No, you can do it! We can do it together!' It's nice that they want to work with me, but they don't seem to understand that I cannot clone myself to get to the work done. (Side note: I originally turned down this contract because I knew I would be too busy at this time, but received several emails begging me to accept. Lesson learned: obey your first instincts. I'm so easy pressured into things.)

Anyway, I got up, had a bite of pastry that husband had picked up at a local bakery and got a long dark hair in my mouth (definitely not mine or SJs...long, dark, Asian, probably female). That was nice. Opened the freezer to find that everything is thawed out -- chicken, pork, shrimp, all the soups I had separated and froze. Freezer's broken. It seems things have been breaking down all the time around here. Our lamp is making really weird noises, our oven doesn't work propery, and Grace broke her bedroom lamp/nightlight. I'm really trying hard not to buy much before we go. Freezer guy is coming tomorrow, and I really hope I don't have to pay much for 20 days more worth of usage.

So it's been a bit of a rough week as I realized I have waaaay more to do than I thought I did. I'm waiting for a reply back from D publisher since I emailed her again and explained that this project probably won't work out. Usually she is very prompt, so I bet she is discussing the matter with her boss to see about moving the deadlines.
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Just received email back as I was typing this, and I was right, she was talking with her boss, and they have agreed to delay the deadline by a month. This might be for the best, as the paycheck might be very welcome come fall.
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So that's all with me. I'm feeling stressed and sluggish from not sleeping well. I'm upset with P publisher for dragging this project out so long, but I must buckle down and finish it, hopefully within a week and a half.

Also important to me is seeing my friends before I leave Korea, which is proving more difficult than I thought. Everyone has busy schedules, most not quite as flexible as mine. I hope to see some people this week between writing.

Grace has been very happy since recovering from her illness. She was excited to go to daycare today to celebrate two of her friends' birthdays. She has been very well-behaved in general these days (in contrast to about a month ago). It seems everything comes and goes in phases with children.

Happy Canada Day!