Capricorn's Corner: June 19, 2005

These are my family members: Branka studying in her room.

Maestro Marko and his guitar

The barbecue man, Goran, and his favourite beer, Moosehead.

Nela at the breakfast table.

Waging a war with grade grabbers

I just posted my students' grades last night and this morning I find the first complaint in my mailbox. This intermediate level student is "socked" by her C+ grade and she writes: "I am socked. What is go on? I demand to know about that !!!!!!" This in spite of having 75% on her 1st assignment (10% of her final grade) and all of 29% on her written exam (20%). Thanks to my sister-in-law all the grades are calculated via MS Excel, checked and re-checked. I believe I am in for a lot of fun with a lot of enquiries. I composed an email auto response, but I can only write 10 lines. I have to apply the bell curve and students know that they compete against one another. I hate this aspect of my job! Enough to give you a lasting headache.

On a lighter note: last night my niece and nephew entertained me till wee hours telling me jokes that they heard on the Comedy Channel. Highlights: if an Icelander 'does it' with a Cuban their babies will be called little 'icecubes'; if a French person 'does it' with a 'Greek' they will get little - can you guess?- Freeks.
Before the jokes, my niece played the piano for me. She's improved so much. She can really play nicely. She played 'the color of the wind' from Pocahontas and I sang. Marko then played the guitar, a piece he had played in a competition about two weeks ago and won the second prize. My big little giant, this "kid." I am worried about him in the plane. He'll be so cramped.

My sister-in-law buys a big cake with layers of fresh cream and fruit almost every day. We enjoyi it with coffee or chilled white wine on the balcony - and we're all getting fatter by the minute. As god is my witness, I wlll go for a walk NOW! Later today Marko (my nephew) and I are going to a bookstore to find something good to read over the summer. The bookstore is located within a huge shopping center complete with 20 unit AMC movie theater. There are so many movies to see.
It's so good to be here! The day again is gorgeous and sunny.

Youngmunsan through Clare's eyes. A beautiful little creek with numerous pools and mossy rocks.

Ladies who hiked on Youngmunsan (The dragon's gate mountain).

Too sexy for the rock.

Clare called this photo of me: Senorita. Yes, indeed!

The iron woman and her watermelon. Pay attention to the bulging biceps!

In Canada, finally!

Wow! I woke up this morning to be amazed by the breezy clear sunny fresh day, my first day in oronto. I enjoyed two cups of good cofffe while working on my emails and blog.
It feels so good to be here. Last night my brother and my sister in law met me at the airport. We drove to their apartment in Scarborough along a smooth highway, enjoying the view of the sky coloured wondefully by the setting sun. The beauty of big Canadian sky! The magnitude of it!
Everything around me so clean, so fresh, so unclattered...
A great dinner of barbecued pork chops, fresh salad, a Croatian potato pie (my childhood favourite: rendacha), a cold Corona with a slice of lime, red Spanish wine, cheesecake... how great. Even greater sitting on a breezy balcony and chatting with two of my favourite people in the whole wide world. Kids come and go, talk a bit, disappear, come back, disappear. They are so tall, both of them. Marko is 6"4', Branka more than 6" and they are only 14 and 13 respecitvely. Incredible.

Everyone was out: Branka at school, Goran and Nela at work. Marko, whose school is over, was here with me. I helped him create his own blog. He wrote two nice entries, one about how happy he is that his favourite aunt (I) is back, and another one how happy he is to soon go to Croatia (where he can watch pirated movies and eat Croatian pizza "that is 100 times better than Canadian"). I am hoping for the great summer with them. They are so smart, grown up but still very affectionate.

My flight was very adventeruous, many mishaps along the way. I'll just list them:
-waking up 1,5 hour later then planned; rushing to the airport in a taxi that cost me an arm and a leg and a big argument with the taxi driver
-having to go to the immigration to have my visa stamped; last year they failed to do so and I haven't noticed; waited at the immigration for a long time witnessing rude banana-devouring and instant coffee sipping 'officers'
-having to check my luggage again in Chicago and almost missing my flight
-learning the hard way never to travel via the u.s.a again nor never to use the AA (American airlines) ever again; the rudest, most arrogant cabin crew you can imagine; also, (and feel free to sew me for being politically incorrect here) they can learn a thing or two about neat appearance. I don't want my food to be served by women whose big hair is spilling all over their big bosoms, falls over their big bottoms and perhaps ends in my food tray, too. Flying the AA feels like being in a country rock bar where you can find lots of single moms with teased hair on a desperate search for a second or possibly third husband. I know it's been tough for them after 9/11, but hey it's been tough for Thai air after the tsunami, too. I can't imagine their cabin crew being rude and scary. The aa cabin crew should go and take a refresh course in the basics of their jobs. They are truly awful!
Now, I'll probably go shopping with niece and nephew and let them rob me of a handful of dollars.
Wow, the air is so fresh, even in the midst of Toronto.

Farewell to kimchi

2:12 a.m., early Tuesday morning (or, always more logical, at least to me - very late on Monday). An hour ago I said good-bye to Clare and Tracey who walked here with me after a nice dinner at Maemil Soojebi Chib (The house of buckwheat 'pasta') to pick up Leni's box from my balcony (long story, boring, too, not worth explaining).
I feel quite tired but I can't sleep. If I said that I was excited, that wouldn't be the right word. Exhausted and kind of numb would be a better description. The last couple of weeks were really hectic and exhausting, not leaving any time to think about my big upcoming trip.

I thought I'd be able to finish all of my work before I leave, but unfortunately, I'll have to finish the tedious job of grade calculations on the plane or during my first couple of days in Toronto. I have until Friday midnight to finish all and post the grades on the Hansung web site.

Last night I had a big night with Clare, Andrea and Debbie. Clare, Andrea and I met for dinner at Our Place, that now has a biggish patio on the 8th floor. The food was really good. Clare's chicken in champagne cream sauce looked lovely on the plate, resembling a starfish that's half hidden under a pile of white pebbles (rice); Andrea had chicken stroganoff, quite nice,t oo; I found my dish the best - chicken in Chinese chili sauce - really, reallly yummy. Lots of roasted vegetables and sliced chicken breast in the nicest chili sauce anyone could wish for. Of course, we emptied 3 bottles of chardonnay and and topped our dinner with a dessert that was 4 slices of different cakes (the best were chocolate mousse cake and regular heavy cheesecake).
After Our Place we moved to Geckos Garden and after they chased out we ended up at my house for one final goodbye -and one last bottle of Australian shiraz. We were so silly, taking silly photos and sending them to Jiwon. Apparently, we weren't all that silent (surprise!): Derek asked me this morning what was I doing all night, moving furniture, or what...

I set my alarm to wake me up at 10:00 a.m. but I couldn't quite get up at that time. A bit later, forced myself out of bed and have coffee to avoid the caffeine deficiency induced headache. After coffee, unlike all other normal people, instead of getting up, I went back to bed.

When I finally got up, I went shopping for gifts, and later packing. Around 8:00 pm met Clare and Tracey. We had a nice walk to the buckwheat restaurant and a nice simple meal,followed by walking to my house.

I promised to myself that when I come back I must stop this gluttony! It's been really crazy, enjoyable and wonderful, but still crazy. No wonder, my weight loss has been stopped dead in the tracks...

Bluw skies of Canada and blue skies, blue seas of Croatia, here I come for a serious detox program.
Asta la vista patria kimchae. The pics below show the 4 of us last night: Clare, Debbie, Andrea and me.

Pucker up, pretties!

Girls just want to have fun...

Wine, whiskey and watermelon

The hike on Saturday, June 19th was my 'farewell' hike - I'll be absent for more than two months. We went to Youngmunsan (The dragon's gate mountain) that claims a beautiful temple and the oldest tree in Asia - an ancient, prehistoric- looking ginko tree. I learned that ginko tree has male and female specimens. The ones bearing fruit are, of course, female.
The day was awfully muggy and hot. When we got to the mountain after 1:00 pm we were in a somewhat foul mood because our moronic driver couldn't find the temple. We couldn't hike on the mountain originally planned because it was closed due to a forest fire.
We didn't hike for a long time (thank god). This mountain is very beautiful but very steep at moments.
The most memorable aspect of this hike was Chris carrying a 10 kg watermelon and a bottle of wine up the mountain. He dropped them into the creek to chill while we hiked.
Clare had a bottle of whisky (to commemorate her grandmother's passing away on her 'grandmother's' mountain.
So, thaks to C&C we all enj0yed whiskey, wine and watermelon.

Admiring the artist at work. The expression on our faces reminds of faces that surronded baby Jesus in the manger, except the object of our admiration is a digital camera photograph.