BEANS! And other experiments.

If we can't have chopsticks, we must have two forks...






Have I put this picture up? This is a representation of my feelings...




Let's just talk about how I'm making red beans and that's the whole entire reason I'm even typing on here right now. I'm tired, but tonight after work (now Monday/Wednesday/Friday I'm the only one to get off at 8:30), I went to the grocery store (the one where I've never seen another foreigner) and bought some beans that looked good. They were like kidney beans but smaller. Red beans are generally in things like ice cream and desserts but that didn't click until I bought them and then soaked them and then smelled them and then tasted them. I am determined, however, to make them savory. If this were a cooking blog I would have taken a picture of the beans before and after, but seeing how I'm too lazy to do something like that I'll just let you imagine the red beans, boiling over there in the pot with bay leaves and olive oil and chicken stock and onions. We'll see what happens.


This tree is 9 feet tall. Maybe 10.


Did I tell you about the time I moved my bed? Well, I did that Saturday night. No. Friday. I moved it, well, I moved myself to the futon by my window. It was fantastic. There was a breeze blowing in and it was so comfortable. That was the last time I slept there though because it's just WEIRD moving a bed and I have a loft (well I'm not moving a bed just... just my sleeping territory... I feel like a ruffled zoo animal right now...) the bed is up there in the loft in a proper place overlooking the apartment and yes it IS 5 times too hard and it's like a microwave up there but... but.... I just... I can't bring myself to move up there. Last night I left the windows open until around 3 a.m. when my neighbors were screaming about something next door. Who knows what. Korea is like one big college campus, there isn't a night where you don't see drunk people leaning on each other stumbling home, car horns honking, and belligerent friends yelling at each other. The thing about it is that all these people are 30+. The reckless youth who should be exhibiting these characteristics are holed up in bedrooms somewhere playing computer games and studying.


I love these girls! I used to work with 2 of them!

Korea BEAT Greece in the world cup game on Saturday (I learned a few new cheers, thanks red tee-shirted rambunctious people with your Heineken inflatable noise-makers), and some of my students didn't see the game. STUDYING. Seriously? Saturday night!!! If you are Korean and reading this, you're shaking your head at me for my western ignorance. I know, I know, I know. Summer is always reprimanding me. "YES, but I am KOREAN. I know you think that, but this is KOREA." Korea, where we pinch our tee shirts and say we're fat, sleep 4 hours a night to study, and, at 24, still come home when our parents call us. Never a dull moment. Meagan and I went to go to the ATM Saturday before heading to Seoul- it's the bank right under my building. We went to walk in through the door but WAIT, the entire IBK bank building was GUTTED. It was perfectly fine a week ago. Yep. No ATM machines, no tellers, still shiny glass doors, but NOTHING but wires and sawdust behind them. That happened to us with Paris Baguette (our favorite bakery) a few months back. We were distraught that finally we had found a place with amazing croissants, pastries, and even chicken salad wraps, and its beautiful glass sign lay shattered on the sidewalk, reckless, heartless construction workers carrying beams in and out. WHY? We lamented. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? IT SEEMED SO SUCCESSFUL! We passed by a week later and Paris Baguette was back, with modern light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, the room twice as big, jazz music playing softly over the new purple color theme, Paris Baguette scrawled in chic silver cursive across the walls. Anyways.


Today at school was a miracle, it always is when I pray. Before crossing the street (have I told you about the new crosswalk? Now that they've decided they want to build a river where the road used to be, I have to cross six lanes of traffic and in the center, the future river site. It takes longer than it used to) I remembered to pray. And I didn't want to hit any of my students, and I didn't feel like anyone hated me, and I didn't even crave chocolate (the most tame form of drugs, it seems, for a teacher) after my first class. Theodore practiced reading. Rachel laughed. Lewis actually tried on his test.


Subway shot

Those beans are getting really loud. Are they boiling over?

Nope, not boiling over. Just sticking to the bottom of the pan. This is why Emeril tells us to simmer. Naturally my theory is that the higher the heat, the faster and more efficiently everything will cook HA. Thwarted again.

Sunday I had lunch with an old co-worker, one of the Korean counter teachers, and I found out her and another former staff member were pretty sure that one of my emotionally crazy kid's dads is in the Korean mafia. Hmm... wonder if writing this in a public place is a bad idea. Anyways, they're pretty sure of it, and it explains a lot about her craziness. Despises her parents.

This lady told me a broken version of something Plato said, and although none of us were there, I googled it, and what she said didn't actually fit, but I think I'll put her version because I like it:

"Be kind to the person standing in front of you, because they are suffering." ~not Plato, but kind of.


I will be GLAD to see more of this in two months, ahh... bittersweet...

She really encouraged me to be patient with all the people I really dislike, and told me if I lose the light inside I've lost everything. That's harsh but worth remembering.

SO, with that said... it's 2... and I should sleep, because sleep equals patience...

And they're edible!