hey everybody! i just wanted to let you all know that jens and i are officially in korea! gwangju, south korea to be exact. we're staying in a nice hotel for a week of training, mingling with the other teachers and field trips! it's gonna be fun! :o) but we're going to start updating our korea journal about all the details so be sure to friend/read http://rushingsabroad.livejournal.com - alright! that's all for now. hope you're all having a great week! love ya!

we've got 3 days to get all our crap together before we leave for korea on sat.!!!!

we have to get medical exams today, buy stuff (like some toilettries, electronic stuff, and gifts for our principal and co-teachers in korea), and see about 10 different people!!!

it's gonna be craaaazyyyyyy!  pretty much all my lunches and dinners are booked this week and i have to find sometime to PACK! oh... the daunting task of packing for a year....how i dread it!

we leave for the airport at about 9:30am sat. and then our flight leaves at 12:30pm. it's a direct flight from dfw to seoul which will be awesome! we arrive in seoul at about 4:50pm sunday, take a bus down to gwangju and probably get there at about 9pm - then we get to sleeeeeeep! yay!

i'm excited about our week of training and orientation - it'll be SO much better than our first time in korea! lol the first time it was like - oh hello! be at the school at 11am tomorrow, watch classes all day long and then teach by yourself the next day >:o(

but this time we'll be in an awesome hotel with all the other foreign teachers (that's us, we're the foreigners in korea remember ;o), we'll have our room paid for and all our meals paid for, we actually get TRAINED!, and then we get to go do fun stuff together like see a tea plantation and hear folk music, etc.! so it'll be really nice :o)

next monday we'll be picked up by our co-teachers and driven to mokpo where we'll live. it'll be nice to get settled into our new little piece of the world! this time we're going to bring a couple things to hang on the walls to make it more homey.

alright, well i need to go call people, take a shower and leave! talk to you all later. and yes, we'll be getting our korea journal ready for our next adventure! have a great day!

i gotta make this quick!!

Friday was my last day at work because Jens and I are going back to KOREA! Our going away party is tomorrow, we go to Houston tomorrow night so we can see jens's sister and family and to get my passport and visa, we'll return sometime next week, pack and then leave Sat.!!!

We got jobs teaching English at public schools in Mokpo! We will resume our Korea journal so everyone can keep up with our adventures! Yay!
That is all for now! Goodnight!

i wanna make this short and sweet since it's sunday morning and i still need to eat breakfast:

got a new job
8a-5p
Mon - Fri
40 hours a week
thought it would just be answering phones and filing but it actually includes ACCOUNTING! which they didn't tell me until i was HIRED! what the heck?
i also didn't know i would be answering phones, filing and doing accounting for FOUR companies (instead of just one)
yeah, i'm not loving it...but it's a job.

can't wait to get my first paycheck (april 5th!) so i can go to the scrapbook store! WOOHOO!

anyway, having this job has neccessitated that i become a morning person :::shudder::: it was hell getting through the first 4 days but the 5th was alright. now i'm even up early on the WEEKENDS! i hope i can do it all again next week.....ugh.....

here's to new jobs....yaaaaaaaay lol

so i just realized it's been almost a month since i last posted pics! so here are some more!!!

Annual Rushing Christmas Party (Writers' Ink people and Joel- you're in some of these!)

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043857&l=bc5ee&id=25306749

Christmas Eve (Joel and Katie! - you are in a couple of these):

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043859&l=c80d1&id=25306749

Christmas Day (these are all family pics):

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043863&l=11c85&id=25306749

Friends in December (my high school girlfriends and John):

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043865&l=00fe0&id=25306749

NEW YEAR'S EVE (you, yes YOU, will most likely be in these pics!)

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043866&l=99ba6&id=25306749

OK NOW COMMENT! :oD

I just read the Star-Telegram and here are a couple thoughts of mine:

What is it with Catholic priests and pedophilia!!???

I mean is there actually a connection or is it just that those are the only pedophile stories that make the news lately? I mean we never hear about the average grocery produce worker pedophile! I guess that's not as interesting though. People find it more shocking when it's a religious man...I still wonder though- is it that there are a huge number of Catholic priests who are pedophiles or is it that there's just a huge number of pedophiles? I think it might be the latter - what is up with that though? Why are there so many f-ed up men who wanna get with kids? What the hell!!???

On another note:

Fred's Texas Cafe is now SMOKELESS!!! (meaning you can't smoke there!) No, I've never been there but I was a little surprised because it has such a down-home name ya know? I always associate home cookin' with smoke...sad I know, but it's true - take Waffle House, for instance...yeck! I think it's wonderful that people are actually getting restaurants, clubs and bars to go smoke-free! Why should the non-smokers have to suffer for the smokers' horrible addiction! God, I wish smoking was illegal. I really despise it. I grew up with smokers all around me and I've finally escaped...for the most part - I don't live with smokers anymore and it's so much more pleasant! I can literally BREATHE!

To all those smokers out there who have kids or may have kids in the future: Stop smoking now! If not for yourself, for the sake of your children! If you smoke then your kid will either grow up to smoke or they'll just lose all respect for you for smoking. Not only that but you'll be miserable healthwise for your whole life! And then you may die an early death and never see your kid graduate or see your grandkids!

Is that not incentive enough to stop smoking! Smoking seems to be the biggest form of DENIAL! Stop the denial!!!

NON-SMOKERS UNITE!!! Never pick up a cigarette for any reason whatsoever!!! or you'll be addicted for the rest of your life!

Ok...I'm off my soapbox now! lol Have a wonderful smoke-free day :o)

argh! argh! argh! i STILL don't have a job and it's driving me crazy! the receptionist job said they'd call back on feb. 28th and here it is march 5th! i've also applied to 4 receptionist jobs with AISD and 3 daycare teacher positions and haven't heard anything from them.

i'm interested in working for a library or as a teacher but there aren't any positions open that i know of right now. plus, i want full time job with health insurance so it's been hard to find something.

i don't wanna just be a waitress or work in retail - i feel like at my age with my qualifications i should go into something i'm actually interested in, ya know?

it's been sooooooo hard for both jens AND i to find jobs. what we want is either not available or we're not qualified enough.

jens is applying to grad school but didn't get into creative writing at UNT (might not get into Texas state because it's even harder to get into) so he's gonna switch his apps. to english which is easier to get into but he doesn't actually want to do english. he wants to try doing it for a semester and then switch to creative writing after the profs get to know him and his writing.

but who knows if that'll even work out. if i wanna teach i'm pretty much gonna have to get certified which requires 1-2 years of training, if i wanna work at a library i'd pretty much have to go for a masters in library science! it really sucks now that almost everyone has a bachelor's degree; therefore, employers have gotten even more selective and are requiring masters degrees or insane amounts of training, experience or specific degrees, etc.

like the copy editing job that jens had in ft. worth. anyone who made As and Bs in english in HIGH SCHOOL could do that job! but no- they require specifically an english or journalism degree - so i couldn't even get the job (which i was thinking about doing because we need money and we have friends who work there)

uuuuuuugggggggggghhhhhhhhh - the crazy thing is, if jens and i wanted to work in korea we could be there by the end of the month! and that is NOT an exaggeration! when we applied the first time it literally took about 3 weeks to get our info out there, get a recruiter, have them find positions for us, interview us, and hire us. and the only reason we couldn't immediately fly there and start working was because we were getting married in a couple months.

so that's really hard to ignore! the benefits are still there- $4,000 a month, free apt., apt. bills only amounting to about $100 a month (including electricity, water, gas, phone, and internet!) extremely cheap transportation, extremely cheap, healthy food, only about $40 a month for health insurance, $5 doctor visits, $3 for each medication, exotic sites and experiences, learning another language, teaching cute kids, meeting interesting people, etc. etc. etc!!!

korea definitely offers security if you find an employer that treats you right- and there are some! we met people who had great bosses! so who knows, if things don't get better here we may give korea another try. yeah it'd be hard to leave our family and friends again and take the same risks we took before but at least this time around we'd have more info and know what to look for and how to handle the difficulties.

so that's that- wish us luck! :o)

Honey NEVER goes bad!!!!

Our honey recently crystalized and I wondered why that happened so I looked it up on the internet. Surprisingly, there are several websites and discussion forums specifically about honey! lol Turns out, all honey eventually crystalizes due to some kind of weird reaction with the pollen content but it's okay! It's totally healthy and edible so don't throw it out! If you want it clear again- just heat it up! (either in the bottle or put it in another container and heat it in the microwave). The most interesting thing I found out is that it never goes bad. They've actually found honey in ancient egyptians' tombs that's still good! Amazing! :o)

Go forth and eat honey!!!! Po:


PS- never give honey to an infant under the age of 1 year old because it can cause infant botulism!!!

guess what guys! my mom got a puppy!!! :o) a friend of hers found a dog and 3 puppies running wild in her neighborhood. apparantly they "belonged" to this guy but he didn't want to take care of them. so the lady took the mom to the humane society and gave the puppies away, one of which went to my mom! now, she's had some bad luck with dogs the past few years and had said she didn't want to get a dog (and my dad especially didn't want another dog) but if there's a dog in need my mom can't pass it up! lol

the dog history:
after my mom's last long-term dog passed away in 2004 she got a boxer over spring break but we think she must have been inbred because she was the definition of crazy. lol we couldn't control her at all. so we gave her to a friend who had a lot of land so she could run wild lol next came the beagle puppy (x-mas'04) that jens and i got for my mom because she said she missed having a dog but it turned out that she and my dad really weren't wanting to take care of a needy puppy at that time. so they gave her to someone who had another beagle. meanwhile, my mom was taking care of my brother's shih tzu  because he wasn't home very much due to his job. mom had her from early 2004 to thanksgiving 2006. she was a pretty good dog except for the fact that you couldn't just let her out the door to go outside or she'd run as fast as she could down the street! so we'd always have to put her on a leash, walk to her to the fenced-in backyard, and then hook her collar onto a line that was connected to a stake in the ground so she wouldn't dig under the fence and get out! lol this past nov. my mom gave her back to my brother because she was thinking she had developed an allergy to her hair. while jens and i were in korea, my mom took in an 11-year old yorkie named cosmo who's owner was moving to a place that didn't allow dogs (or something like that). cosmo was really lively and cute but he barked continuously, and the fact that he was moving into a new place so late in life made him pee absolutely everywhere, all the time!!! so my mom couldn't handle that and gave him away also in oct. or nov. of '06.

my parents were dog-free for about 3 months before this latest puppy came along but it seems like she's going to work out a lot better than the past dogs have. we're not sure what kind of dog she is but she has the coloring and general shape of a rottweiler. she's not really bulky but i'm not sure if that's because she's mixed with a smaller dog or if it's just because she's a puppy. my mom's friend said that the momma dog wasn't very big (and wasn't a rottweiler). she's really sweet and smart though! she's playful but not too rambunctious and she hardley ever barks (only when she's in her cage or when she sees the cat lol) i think my mom said she's only a few months old but she already goes to the door when she wants to go outside to the bathroom and she sits for a treat! looks like she has a lot of promise! i'd hate for my parents to get rid of another dog :o\ if they don't want to keep her i'd wanna take her in myself! :o) by the way, my mom named her cheyenne because she "looks painted like an indian" (native american). she's so cute though! i just love her! she came at just the right time for me lol after going to that dog park i was really wishing i had a dog to play with! ;o)

alright well that's enough about dogs for now :o) it was actually tuesday night that i got to see her for the first time because jens and i went to my parents' house to see brandi, who was visiting, and to go out to dinner for my mom's belated birthday celebration. it was fun! we ate at hibachi 97 which was yummy and then we looked around at 1/2 price books which is in the same shopping center (lincoln square). after that we came home and jens and i went out to see my grammie. it was good to see her and hang out with her for a little while. she did most of the talking ;o) i'd like to go visit her more because she talks a lot about the "old days" and it's interesting. after that jens and i went back out to my parents' house, made cookies and jens helped my mom and brandi play scrabble (meaning he gave them a lot of word ideas they didn't know). it was a good time!
_____________________
i just LOVE the weather we've been having!!!! tuesday jens and i had a pic-nic in allan saxe park and then we took a walk yesterday. so nice! :o) it's really been making me wanna go to the zoo or the botanic gardens or so some other kind of outdoor activity besides taking a walk or going to a regular park.

i wonder how long this weather will last though. it is still february! lol i can't wait til summer when hot weather will be guaranteed! i love it! i wanna so swimming. i actually just had a dream last night that i went swimming! lol
____________________
i finally tutored last night! they had canceled on me for about 2 weeks but we were actually able to meet last night and it went well. normally i'd tutor him again on friday but brandi is taking jens and i out that night so i'm gonna tutor at 1pm on sat.

i hope i find out about that receptionist position next week! and i hope the answer is yes!!!!! i need a real job asap! i'm really anxious to pay off our bills and to just be comfortable again, ya know? be able to buy groceries ourselves, go out to eat without worries, buy stuff for my new hobby (scrapbooking), etc. i'd also really love to do yoga at the arlington yoga center, which is right down the street from this job i'm wanting to get! so yeah, i hope i get it!!!

alright that's all for now! have a great sunny day!!!! :oD

i've just been thinking about certain people that have come in and out of my life. people i called "friends" at one time or another.

it's amazing how flaky people can be. one month they're laughing with you and the next they hate you for no good reason!

some part of me wants to blame myself. when people pull away you start to wonder if it's you. if you really did cause the end of the friendship. but then i come back to reality and recognize that it's just them. they're not good friends. they don't believe in communication and loyalty. they don't deserve me.

i'm honest and i don't tolerate fakeness.

here's what i like in a friend:
the strength to be honest about everything in a tactful way
loyalty
maturity
the ability to have fun, let loose and be goofy
depth
generosity
initiative
interest in more than themselves
a willingness to try new things
the desire to be a good friend and a good person overall

that's all i ask

well this past weekend was really fun!

friday night was date night. i made chicken parmasean for dinner and then jens and i went to the dallas museum of art. they have a program there called "late nights at the museum" and i think they're having one per month for several months. you can go to the website for more info. apparantly they had free wine tasting from 6-7pm but we were too late for that. the main reason we wanted to go was because they were showing a french film for free- in fact it was the first of the french film festival they were having all weekend. it was called les soeurs fachee and it was really cute :o) (had subtitles of course) after the movie we walked around the new modern art exhibit they have right now. it was interesting. jens doesn't actually like modern art at all so it was nice of him to look at it with me :o) i must say i don't like all of it either but it's intriguing to look at most of the time. it just irritates jens because he doesn't see it as "art" and i can understand that but i don't look at it as art. it's more of a statement. i feel like modern "artists" are more like philosophers creating a visual representation of their ideas. so i don't even compare them with the van goghs and monets of the past.

saturday jens, his parents and i drove down to austin to celebrate jill's 21st birthday and to see her run in a marathon! noelle, iain and rory came too and it was great to see them. we stayed in a hotel north of town and once everyone was there we had happy hour with wine, cheese and crackers. after a few hours we went out to eat at carraba's (which i had never been to) and it was gooood Po: after dinner we all headed back to the hotel and had mint chocolate cake that sue made. it was really yummy :oP

we all had to go to bed fairly early though because we had to be up early for the marathon the next day. unfortunately i hardly got any sleep at all because i felt sick all night (guess it was the food) but then jens and i got up at 7am and went down for the free breakfast at the hotel. it was really good! eggs, bacon, biscuits, gravy, oatmeal with fixins, fruit, yogurt and texas shaped waffles! noelle, iain and rory joined us and rory loved his texas waffle ;o)

after breakfast it was off to the marathon, which was downtown. i had no idea this marathon was such a big deal until we actually got there. there were thousands of people in it! jill ran 13 miles and finished in almost exactly 2 hours. go jill!!! :o) afterwards we ate lunch at la madeleine and then we said our goodbyes to noelle, iain and rory.

jill had come to austin with a friend and that friend wasn't leaving until 5pm so we got to hang out with her until then. we drove around a little and found a park. while we were walking up to the park we started to notice a lot of people with their dogs. i just thought it was a coincidence but once we actually got to the main part of the park we realized it was a dog park! i had only heard of those and had never been to one. it was so awesome!!! i loved it!!! :o) it's right by the river and it was a nice day so some of the dogs were actually going swimming! lol most of the dogs weren't on leashes but pretty much all of them stayed with their owners and were all well-behaved. the best part about it was getting to see and pet some of my favorite dogs! there were at least 3 different pugs which were really really cute! and a little french bulldog puppy that was ADORABLE! i really wanted to take him home with me :o) there were all different kinds of dogs up there though and you get to play with most of them so it's a great place to go if you're trying to figure out what kind of dog is best for you.

there were several dogs with their owners at the marathon too! i think people in austin just love dogs! we saw a guy with 2 french bulldogs (older than the one at the park but still fairly young i think) and they were so friendly and cute! and then i saw a 1 year old english bulldog! he was so cute but i discovered that i'll probably never actually get one because they are slobber factories! this one just baaaaaarely brushed up against my black coat and left this huge stream of slobber all over it! lol if i'm gonna get a bulldog it'll be a frenchie because i couldn't tell that they slobbered at all! they're also a little livlier.

as for a first dog though, i'll probably end up getting a pug because they're much much more affordable than english or french bulldogs and they're just as cute. i think they're funnier too lol

ah! i can't wait til we can get a dog!!!!!!!!!!!!! going to that park in austin made me want a dog more than ever and it also made me want to live in austin more than ever! austin is better than arlington in every way! arlington would never have an awesome dog park like that!!!! ah! i wanna move down there right now!

after the dog park we went to sandy's and got frozen custard. it was yummy :o) then, we dropped jill off and headed back to arlington. for dinner, jens and i just made quesadillas and watched torchwood (it's a spin off of dr. who and we really like it!). afterwards, i read some more of au bonheur des dames in french. it's coming along slowly but surely. i like reading in french now much more than i did in school because i don't have a deadline!

an that's it for my weekend! i'm sure i'll put more pics up on facebook soon so check em out! luv ya! goodbye!

i've just been finding all kinds of interesting stuff on the internet lately!

i wish i could go to this!

www.austinparks.org/yoga.html

(those who live in or near austin should definitely look at this link!)

Alright, I'll just make this quick :o)

yesterday jens and i got up, made our favorite pancakes with stewed apples and ate them while we watched the last episode of veronica mars!

then i shaved his head, we took showers, ate lunch and then headed to fort worth!

first stop- the fort worth modern art museum!!!! :o) we hadn't been there in a long time so it was great to go there again! :oD and i appreciated the fact that jens hates modern art yet he still took me there! thanks babe!

after that we searched for the maharaja restaurant for an hour and finally found it after calling jens's dad and the restaurant twice lol it's indian food and it was really good Po: mmmmmmmm while we were there we exchanged homemade cards and gifts! i got jens one bar of chocolate from whole foods that included a love poem on the inside of the wrapper and a "homemade coupon" for one visit to half price books and the purchase of one or two items therein ;o) jens gave me exactly what i wanted- lots of chocolate from whole foods! he got 4 bars of the endangered species brand (the proceeds go to endangered species and on the inside of the wrapper of each bar it gives you info about a different endan. species.) he knows i love dark chocolate so he got me one that had 75% pure cocoa with cocoa nibs, one that was plain with 72% pure cocoa, another that was dark chocolate with raspberries, and another that was dark chocolate with almonds and cranberries Po: YUM!

after dinner we went to la madeleine in arlington to read and hang out. we got a strawberry tart and coffee and i also had some of my cocoa nibs chocolate bar!

it was a great night! thanks for a wonderful valentines jens! love you!

ever heard of realsimple?

it's a magazine and a website. both are great but i really love the website because it has so much info.

GO NOW TO: www.realsimple.com :o)

i think i'm gonna go to bed any minute now...i'm starting to feel woosy lol

ok so as you know from my last post, i can't sleep tonight.

well i've been up so long now that i've gotten hungry again. i was hoping it would subside because i really didnt want to go downstairs to get a snack. the reason being is our bedroom door is extreeeeemely sqeaky and anytime i open it after jens has gone to sleep he shoots straight up in bed in a flurry of confusion, slurring things like, "whatwhohmhmmamamhuhi..i..what...mhmhmhaamumam...noo..mmaahhmmhaahhh".

so i prefer not to disturb him lol

thing is i've gotten so hungry it's uncomfortable so i just now decided to sneak downstairs and here's my mildly amusing story that resulted:

i snuck over to the door, being careful not to make the floor squeak (it does that in certain places). once i was there i very slowly opened the door so that it was kind of a dull grrrrrgrrrrrrr (instead of the usual- sqeeeeeeweeeesqeeeeeeee!!!!!!) but even this grrrr was loud enough that i thought it'd wake jens...but it didn't. so i slipped through the small opening i had created and while looking into the room at jens (to make sure he wasn't waking up) i felt for the light switch in the hall. i like to have the light on when i'm going down the stairs so i don't trip...and i have an old fear of the dark lol now i had gotten pretty good and deciphering which switch was for the overhead bedroom light and which one was for the hall light but i guess since i wasn't looking at the switch i got confused! i ended up turning on the super-bright light in the bedroom!!! i thought, omg! jens is gonna wake up for sure! but he didn't!

so i just turned on the correct light, went downstairs, got a snack and came back up the stairs. now i guess my brain was still turned around about which switch was which because when i got to the top of the stairs and i reached to turn the hall light off, i turned on the freaking bedroom light AGAIN!! i was thinking, goddammit! what the hell? BUT, surprisingly, jens did not wake up!

i turned off the correct light, (actually both lights) and came in the bedroom. in all the aggravation i forgot to close the door slowly and there went the SQQQEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

but, yet again, jens did NOT wake up! what a shocker let me tell you lol thank goodness!

now i am safely at the computer with my snack and i shall survive another night! lol

i'll be sure to keep you informed of any other interesting goings-on if any happen before i get to sleep ;o) goodnight for now!

i absolutely cannot sleep and it's 1am! argh! please remind me never to drink coffee at night!

look at my new journal layout!!! :oD

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

with love <3

www.invisiblechildren.com

Go to:
Movie
Trailers and Media

This is a movie and also a movement.

here is the next installment of facebook pictures!

Rory's birthday and other Rory pics:

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043850&l=f0ac7&id=25306749

Thanksgiving weekend:

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043852&l=b125b&id=25306749

December festivities:

http://uta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043855&l=5b93b&id=25306749

Alright! that's all for now! Enjoy!

ps- I have a job interview tomorrow! Wish me luck! :o)

hey! for those of you who knew jens and i might be getting a housesitting job in arizona i just wanted to let you know that we didn't get it.

but it's for the best because this couple was extremely wishywashy. they never called when they said they would, they took 2 weeks to actually get around to interviewing us, they could never tell us exactly what the job entailed, how many hours it was per week or even what it paid! on top of that they went from saying they wanted a couple to saying they wanted a single person.

so i'm glad we didn't get it and that we can move forward on opportunities here :o)

anyway! has anyone been able to go to the picture links i put in my last entry?