april 1

st patties was a while ago but id thought i would share what happened here.  most kroeans dont celebrate it, but there was a huge gathering in heywa which is close to where we work.  they put together a "parade" which was basically us walking around the block. but the koreans loved it they were taking as many pictures of us as we were of them.  there was a green snake at the beginning of the parade and a few other things liek a giant guinness balloon and the "pope"  after that we gathered in the square for some free guinness - ceeps never did that one - and watched some performances by an irish band and some chinese dancers.  later that day still a bit buzzed i made my way over to olympic park to watch sarah brightman perform. it was such a good show but i was subject to many stares considering majority of the people attending that concert were korean, and i was all decked out in green, complete with green leg warmers.  i did pass by one other girl in green and we kinda did the sympathetic head nod to eachother knowing that everyone else in the venue thought we were crazy.  after the concert i went to iteawon for some more st patties day fun.  the wolfhound here felt a little like the ceeps, packed tight, full of green only instead of a band they had the rugby game on.  all in all an amazing day

the next weekend i went to my first korean baseball game. it was amazing!  first off it was free admission because  it was an exhibition game, the beers were 3 dollars for tall boys and we got front row seats.  i have no idea who was playing but it was actually a good game in my eyes. i think the feild is smaller than at home because everything seemed to happen a lot faster.  also its very entertaining to listen to the koreans screaming stuff at them that you have no idea what they are saying.  all up to your own interpretation

my korean lessons are going well. i can now read although its at a kindergarten level. it takes a long time for each character but apparently i have really good pronouncuation.  theres one vowel that i was having trouble with and through trial and error i said y'all very fast and thats right, so i stick with that.  because its my kroean friend yahoo - yes his name is yahoo like the search engine - is doing it for me we go over a korean lesson for about an hour then switch and usually have talks in english or if he has homework i help him with that.  one time i talked about twilight for an hour, he told me we are never allowed to talk about that movie again.  we also got on the topic of fan death. and it actually turned into a heated argument.  "fan death is a south korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death, by suffocation, poisoning or hypothermia of those inside.  fans manufactured and sold in korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set numbe rof minutes which users frequenty urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on" rediculus right?  well yahoo swears his friend uncle died of fan death. i told him he probablly had a heart attack or something along those lines in his sleep, a fan just happened to be in the room.  he told me they think they fan uses up all the oxygen in the room and you get poisioned.  he also said that it cools your body so much that you suffer from hypothermia. first off if you were getting that cold your body would wake up and turn off the fan. its just not possible but he will argue till the end that its true.  another fact in most dramas or scary movies in a death scene or where hostages are held there are fans present...as if they are a type of torture. i was watching this drama in a cab once and a guy had kidnapped a girl, in the room where she was there were many close ups of a fan.