Christmas and New Years

From Chris: 

Sorry for the long delay between blogs:-(  Christmas was an enjoyable time for us at English Village, but it didn't really feel like Christmas until Christmas Eve.  The school's edutainers (educators who use drama, music, etc to teach) put on a Christmas play on Christmas Eve.  They sang many traditional songs, both Christian and secular.  It was fun to hear these old favorites, especially since they were sung by fellow foreigners, not Koreans.  Koreans try to do Christmas, but even their best efforts leave something to be desired.  I figure this is just because they have not had the real experience and are trying to imitate whatever they have seen on TV or movies.  I appreciate the effort, but it's much better when done by foreigners who have experienced it all their lives. On Christmas Day, Jennifer made lasagna and we invited one of our coworkers over for dinner.  We had a good time getting to know him and having a good meal.  We also called some of our family (Sunday too) and got to talk to them.  

New Year's was not particularly eventful in any way.  

Due to the extreme cold we have been having lately, we have been running multiple heaters when we are home to try to keep warm enough. Due to having to hang our laundry in our home to dry (Korea doesn't really have clothes dryers) our home is quite moist and doesn't get too dry, which some people have issues with.  In fact, the cold outside against our windows and the humidity inside have combined to create a rather nasty condensation problem in our home. Every morning I take an old sponge and wipe the windows off, squeezing the water into a bowl and continuing wiping.  I usually fill this bowl (regular sized cereal bowl) with condensed water.  If I get to the window before the heater has been on long (not usually) then I can peel ice off the window.

My computer is still buggy, but now I think I know what the problem is.  It seems to have a poor connection inside somewhere.  When the computer is cold it will often fail to turn on or alternatively turn itself off.  This manifests itself by acting like a total power failure.  When the computer is warm, however, it works just fine.  My assumption is that the heat causes a bad connection to expand and make proper contact, thus enabling the computer to work, and that this same contact contracts when cold and fails to work.  I temporarily solved this problem by putting a heater by my computer, however, I left it there a little too long once and my CD ROM drive won't open now :-(  Oooops.  When we get our phones turned back on I am going to call the repair place (again) and get them to fix both problems.  

Phones are a challenge for us here too.  Since we are foreigners, we can only get prepaid phones, but not every place will/can sell us the minutes. We had a place we went to in Ansan, but that is too far to go to now, and we haven't found a place locally.  The nearest place we are aware of that we can go to is in Ilsan (about an hour away), but our schedule makes it difficult to get there at an appropriate time.  For some reason, Korean phone services will not charge your phone except between 10am-6pm M-F.  Not helpful for the foreigner who has to travel a long distance to get there! Hopefully we'll get them fixed soon!

We have really enjoyed having our new jobs and consider ourselves to be blessed by them.  It is the first time in a while we have been able to say we love our jobs!