Day 392: Gravitation

Hooray for Fridays! No longer is it that the weeks fly by nearly effortlessly with Friday upon your heels before you know it. This week crawled on by. It felt like ten working days instead of five. The new school year and The Parrots: Season 2 really is taking a beating on me these days! I'm so tired!!

Friday Night TV Night was much appreciated, and Michael came out to watch it with us. As soon as 10pm rolled around though we took off and fled for south of the river - to Bucheon. Yes, Bucheon, the neighbouring suburb to where I used to live back in my hell hole hagwan days. Ailish has moved into a new apartment (she's no longer living in Shihung) and was having a housewarming party tonight. Michael and I had a helluva time trying to find the place (foreigners only know how to give directions for transit-oriented journeys, not automobile-based ones!) but eventually did find it.

It turned out to be a pretty cool party actually. Not all that big or crazy, but I got to chat with some cool people and have some interesting conversations. The Canadians always seem to flock to each other it seems. Most English Teachers in Korea are Canadian, but at a party of mixed nationalities, the Canucks always seem to naturally gravitate towards each other to trade stories of small hometown boredom, escapes and escapades in university, and the million and one reasons why they fled their beloved country to come and teach here. Everybody's got a story, but it does all seem relatively familiar after a while. "I wanted to pay off my ginormous student loans." "I was bored and wanted to do something different with my life." "I couldn't find a job in my field." "I wanted to travel and see more of the world." "I love kimchi so much I just *had* to go and live in the kimchi heartland of the world." Hmmm....better scratch off that last one! ;-)

Michael and I stayed for a couple of hours and then went back to his place to sleep. House parties aren't all that common here in Korea (most people's apartments are just too small) and I was glad to go to one tonight. Good times!