I Said I'm Sick!

Still sick. And I have to tell you, it doesn't happen too often that Dawn and I get the same bug from one another. We have been sick at the same time before (in fact I think this time last year if I recall correctly) but it is very rarely the same bug. How do I know it is the same bug? Because it followed the exact same path of destruction through our respective bodies. Dawn felt sick on Thursday, and by Friday night she was feverish and just feeling crappy. I started this path on Monday, and by Tuesday I was so sick that if I had a job, I'd call in sick. And it started for Dawn with just a headache and runny nose, and turned into a real headcold after that, with sinus pain and a hacking, from-the-depths-of-the-ends-of-the-bottom-of-your-lungs cough, which continues until you can somehow eject from yourself the evil-demon phlegm that inhabits your chest. And I have gotten to the apex of this "flu". I think. I don't want to stay up anymore. I've been trying to spend time with Dawn because she feels crappy and we see less and less of each other lately, but now I just want to go to bed the minute she gets home and has supper. Abby and Jason want us to come over tomorrow night: I don't know if I'll make it that far. And on Sunday we have a date with the Rebke Wedding party via webcam, and after that Jordan will be over to continue our sickness-riddled recording venture. We've missed at least 3 sessions due to illness, two last week. Swiss time is running out...

I also found out this week that John Mayer will be touring Canada starting in April. And he's gonna be in Edmonton. And I will not be there. That sucks. So I emailed him and told him to get his butt over to Seoul. I also should've told him to update his stupid blog...

's been almost a month...

"Oh but I'm on tour..." yeah whatever...

Sick

Dawn has been sick since Thursday, and I now am in the midst of the same sickness. Woe is us...

Of Sore Teeth and Street Hockey

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

I hate this day, but that's another story. I would like to tell you about playing street hockey in Mokpo. This is not an easy task. A long time ago Neal, Kevin and I (the Alberta boys) bought hockey sticks in Seoul. These are not new sticks, they are good old, made-in-Canada, Bauer, wooden sticks. How do I know they are old? My stick has a signature curve from Adam Graves. At the time we bought them, we didn't have any ideas of where to play or what we would do with just the three of us. Good thing there are so many Canadians in Mokpo. Neal went to Canada last month and came back with goalie pads and a goalie stick. And Rich has volunteered to have things shot at him. And we found a place that's flat enough and wide enough for a small game of hockey. And we found a net. And the Koreans broke it. And we fixed it, but it's not very good. And we use it anyway. Now we are going to try to build a new net, but for the time being we will have to make do with what we have.

On Monday I broke a tooth. I noticed that one of my molars had a crack in it, and when I tried to figure out how bad it was, I ended up breaking a piece of my tooth right off. So I've decided that I need to drink more milk here. Probably not enough calcium in my diet. Anyway, it didn't hurt at all, which was kind of nice. Dawn has a student who's father is a dentist, and it turns out his office is pretty near our place, so I went on down for a look. Turns out a lot of that tooth was decayed, so he took out lots of it and filled it back up. When all was said and done, it cost 50 bucks and took about an hour. I started to regain feeling about 2 hours later, and by the time I went to bed I was in a considerable amount of pain. Thankfully, it went away by the middle of the night and I woke up pain-free. Unfortunately it still hurts quite a bit when I bite. So I think if it still hurts tomorrow I will go back. The dentist said if there is spontaneous pain or hypersensitivity to hot or cold, I should go back for a root canal. Yee-haw! I'm hoping this pain goes away.

I also got some recording done with Jordan on Sunday, but his electric guitar has developed a terminal buzz, and has to be replaced. So that puts a bit of a kink in our plans. However, he has resolved to get a new one post-haste, so we should be back on track soon.

Anyway, enjoy your manufactured holiday!

Missed Something...

I realized today that I missed a piece of last week when I last posted! Whoopsie!! Friday was picture day for Dawn's kindergarten class. There are only 5 of them this time, as opposed to 8 last time, so things were a little quicker. The kids all got to dress up in the cap and gown to have a solo picture taken, and then after that was done the all got to have a picture in the "fancy clothes" that were on hand. It was just a big game of dress up, with pictures being taken. Then they had to have a picture with the teachers (Dawn, Deborah and, for some reason, me). And they did one of just Dawn and I, which is cool. Dawn and I were marvelling at the guy editing pictures while we were standing around. He was so fast at it! It took him about a minute and a half to do anything from turning the head of the person so that it was straight (!) to "liquifying" the eyes and using the clone stamp tool to clear skin! Pretty impressive.

But the fun was yet to come. We walked back to the van to go home, and just as we got there and were loading all the kids in, a guy came running after us with a video camera! Turns out he was getting people to do an interview about Mokpo for the government website. So of course he askedus to comment. Dawn and I stood in front of the van, and he taped us telling people about how Yudalsan is really pretty in the spring, and I recommended Mokpo to foreigners coming to Korea because it's small enough to be nice, but big enough to be convenient. I think that should be their slogan! So hopefully we make it on the website. I'll be sure to blog that if I ever see it.

Today I went to Gwangju to record some more guitars at Jordan's. His schedule allows him about 6 hours in the middle of the day, so we decided to take advantage. Unfortunately for me, it was pouring rain when I left. So I arrived at his place at about 1pm, wet from the waist down, and sweating like mad cause it was way too warm to be lugging around a guitar and backpack. We quickly realized, however, that I had forgotten some important pieces of gear (like a cable, and a way to hear ourselves play) so we went searching. We did find what we needed, but we also found that the guy who was supposed to be fixing Jordan's guitar (the buzz that wouldn't go away) apparently knows nothing about guitars. Nice to know. So they want Jordan to trade his guitar for another, since they don't know how to fix it. So we spent some time trying to figure something out with them. In the end, Jordan ended up taking the guitar home, and he'll decide whether he can get someone else to fix it, or if he'll have to trade it for one that works. We did get some work done eventually, though. We got the acoustic guitar tracks for Hope and Ocean Eyes. So I will get the bass done this weekend for both of those and hopefully others. And I'll be back in Gwangju on Sunday to play at Dong Myoung Church and record some more guitars. Things are busy!

Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day everybody! I think the reason that there is no Groundhog Day in Korea is because there really isn't much of a winter. It gets a little cold, but it's only tough because they don't really have walls here. We finally got snow this week. Not much, and it's already mostly gone, but for a day or two, winter was here. It was below zero, and there was snow. Oh well. On to spring!

We've had an eventful week so far. Last weekend we had Jason and Abby over for perogies and cards. Seems like an unlikely combo, I know, but it worked out really well. We made lots of food and played canasta afterwards. Dawn and I still have some perogies, though the ones we froze kinda stuck together, so we have a massive ball of perogie. Still tastes good though. On Sunday we had McDonald's breakfast. Let me emphasize the breakfast part. Why is this significant? Because McDonald's has never had breakfast before. They used to open at 11. So that was something extraordinary for us. That day we also hung out (get it?!) with Jason and Abby on Mount Yudal, and took lots of interesting photos. They will (eventually) be put up on our photo album page. When I get to it.

Then the week started. On Monday there were a few birthdays at Good News Hagwon, so the teachers all went out for food. We ate Kalbi (pork ribs barbecued) which was really good. After the meal, we went bowling! This was a bit of a surprise, mostly because of some miscommunication. You see, Dawn had invited Grace and Daniel, the other English teachers at her school (both Korean) over for supper on the Tuesday night. Daniel had asked if Dawn liked bowling, and Grace had been talking about having supper the following night, and had said that they would go bowling. So when we pulled up in front of the bowling alley, Dawn and I were a little confused. But bowling went really well, though Dawn thinks she needs to bowl more, so she doesn't make a fool of herself next time. I don't think she did that badly though.

So Tuesday we had Daniel and Grace over for supper. We made pasta and tomato sauce with cheese baked on top, a green salad and garlic toast. They both seemed to enjoy the meal, as did our unexpected guest. Daniel brought a young man with him, one of his students from sunday school. Come to think of it, we never did get a name out of him. It was nice, though, to have someone for all of us to focus on, rather than awkward silence. See, despite the fact that they are English teachers, they don't converse all that well in our language. And then all of a sudden there were two of them: a friend showed up! The good news is that they got bored and washed dishes. Eventually, the night ended and we enjoyed a nice little evening!

Today Jordan came over and we recorded the guitars for one song out of the six we have planned. In other words we might have a six song demo in a couple of years. So far things are going well, despite technical difficulties, like a buzz that wouldn't go away!!! Plus the computer was acting up. Plus we had to move in our new bed. Grace called and informed me that a new bed would be showing up soon. So we let in a couple Korean men from the hagwon and we proceeded to remove the windows from the bedroom, drag our new bed through the window, then drop our old bed through the window and put the new bed together. All in a day's work.