Keira Brigit Pauline

Yesterday I moved to Guri-si. I like it. My new apartment has a few rooms in it. It's a basement apartment. I haven't lived in one of those before. I went there before noon. I then went shopping at an outdoor market that wasn't far away. I got some rice, side dishes of pepper leaves and perilla leaves. I also got some kimchi. What can I say, I am Korean! I also got some containers to put things in. I bought some black rice and some other type of grain that was tiny and black because it looked good. The apartment has a brand-new rice cooker. I had some heavy bags to carry back home. I spent some time straightening out the place and then I had to go to Kangnam for my now former roommate's birthday party dinner. I realised that I didn't have a present for her. I had just finished crocheting a hat. I started on it during campmeeting two weekends ago. I decided I should give it to her. I put it in a black plastic bag and left. I arrived ten minutes late, but she w...

I have now been here for six months. My plane left Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Connecticut on Dec. 26 and then I took another one out of New York City. I then landed in Incheon, South Korea on Dec 27 Korean time. Wow. It has been some six months. I was very glad to rekindle friendships that I left behind here and to meet up with some acquaintances again. I was glad to return to my old haunts. I admit that I am glad to be back in Korea. I am very happy to be here. Korea has found a special place in my heart and it will always be there. I feel that I could stay here indefinately. I am not sure when I'll move on. I'll just see where I feel God is leading me. The sad part is that I haven't liked my job. I don't want to work with young children again. I don't dislike kids, but I don't feel that I am good with them. I have been emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained over this job. I am very thankful that I have found another job that lo...

Envy is like two dogs chasing the other dog's tail. They just keep going in a circle. A person wants what someone else has, and that someone else will want what the person has. It continues in a cycle.

Michael Jackson was a legend. It wasn't just his music, it was his quirks as well. I do feel bad for him because he didn't have much of a childhood and he wasn't ever able to have a normal life. He created a sort of pretend-world for himself. His "Neverland" ranch was the epitome of that. It's Peter Pan Syndrome at its best. I have wondered if the child abuse scandals were true or not. Maybe the families just wanted money. I do feel bad for his family and the fact that his children have no father now.

This Statue of Liberty replica is at the English Village in Yangpyeon.

I left you in the morning, And in the morning glow, You walked a way beside me To make me sad to go. Do you know me in the gloaming, Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming? Are you dumb because you know me not, Or dumb because you know? All for me And not a question For the faded flowers gay That could take me from beside you For the ages of a day? They are yours, and be the measure Of their worth for you to treasure, The measure of the little while That I've been long away. by Robert Frost Friendship is something that grows over time. Like how a rose unfolds, it grows bigger and more beautiful. We can't deeply love someone as a friend that we don't know well. It is spending time with someone, getting to know them well, and learning how to love them that makes someone so dear. The goodbyes are harder when we become so fond of someone, yet as it's written in Shakespeare's "Hamlet": "'Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...

Today I went to the nearby river and sat on a rock next to the water. I watched some minnows swimming, a large tadpole leaping around, and the wind in the grass across the water. Then I noticed four black butterflies flying just over the water. They flitted around and chased each other. When a few of them flew closer to me, I noticed they were actually a deep blue colour. A dragonfly that was black with a blue head and a blue band on its tail landed near me. I tried to get it on my finger but it flew away. I saw some white butterflies everywhere. When I was walking home a large black and white butterfly flew near me. It was a type of swallowtail and it had some brownish spots on the bottom of its wings. I followed it for a while along the pathway. It soon flew away. I love watching nature.

Nightwish's rendition of "Phantom of the Opera" is beautiful! This version is live in Vienna with Sarah Brightman and Chris Thompson. I like the organist sitting at the pipe organ with his long cape. The cathedral is magnificent. The movie version is great. The 2000s version has such beautiful music. The sensuality of this scene gives the phantom a "je ne sais quoi". There is also a 1927 silent film of it that is also worth watching. The original score is with it and it's beautiful.

I want to play piano again. I remember going to my first lesson when I was 8 years old. I wore a red dress to my first piano lesson. It was bright red and had embroidered flowers on the hem. I did good for a young child. I went through book after book of music. Then I just quit when I was 11. Playing piano just wasn't "cool". My family also finally got cable television as well for the first time in many years. We just couldn't afford it for a long time. I also started seeing another teacher because my school had a man coming there to teach us piano. The change wasn't a good thing, it wasn't what I was used to. If something isn't broken it shouldn't be fixed. I have been wanting to play piano here in Korea, yet I don't want to spend the money on a keyboard. I am hoping that I can use the piano in the chapel at the school I will be teaching at. I just need to learn the bass clef again and practice a lot. Of course, it's finding the ti...

Today I bought a 16GB flash drive at the I-Park Mall in Yongsan, Seoul. It is very tiny and it has a checkered pattern on it. I chose those colours instead of either pink or silver with white because it looks like a chessboard. I can use it as a cellphone accessory. I had never seen anything like it before. I had never seen such fashionable flash drives. There were others that had rhinestones that made a flower-shape on them. They are like jewellery or keychains. They have no caps, they just get inserted into the computer as they are. That's good, no cap to fall off. I remember getting a 1GB flash drive a few years ago. I thought I had the greatest gadget on earth. It was my first flash drive. My co-workers didn't have that much memory on theirs. Now 1GB is laughable, most people have at least 4GB on theirs. It's not expensive either to get those. The price I paid for my 1GB was so much more than what it would be worth now. The price was about 40,000 won and to...

This is a film that I want to see. I love Audrey Tautou. She was great in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amelie", which made her rise to international acclaim as an actress. I am excited that there is a movie about Coco Chanel. She was a woman of style and her creations defined style for the early part of the twentieth century, and left a lasting impression on fashion ever since. There were other designers of the day that also evolved fashion, but Chanel is one that stands out on her own. Her sleek dresses were standards for "flappers" of the 1920s and dresses never went back to the voluptous skirts of the 19th century. Chanel's perfumes are still sold today, the most popular being Chanel No. 5 and Coco Chanel. Coco Chanel's career debuted in the 1910s. The time period from just before and just after World War I was a very interesting period for art and style. Poetry, art, literature, fashion, and music were changing rapidly. Futurism, cubism, fauvism, an...

At the beginning of July I will be starting a new job at Sahmyook High School in Guri City. I will be closer to Seoul and the subway system. I am glad of that since it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to get to the subway by bus. There I will be ten minutes away from the subway. I am excited to start something new. I am sure I will like this a lot better than the hagwon. I will be living by myself. I am not having problems with my current roommate, but living alone will be nice. I am going to finally get into a dojang. I was wanting to do it soon after I arrived in Korea, but I had some bad health. The dojangs near where I am are mostly for children anyways. I have lots of students coming to class in doboks so I do think about martial arts a lot. The job requires either 4 or 5 classes a day, which isn't bad. I do have to prepare a lot of stuff, and I want to start that right away. Lately I have been VERY stressed out and so I do want to make time to do something fun soon. I ...

I have heard that certain scents can help us remember certain places well. Just a whiff of a certain scent can take us back many years and to far away places. A smell can be ingrained in our memories for many years and resurface itself with other memories. I recently found some tea in the kitchenette that's near the staffroom in my school. The previous teachers taught at the school for four years and left many things behind. They had left behind a lot of rooibos (red bush) tea. The other foreign teacher and I used it up. It is good tea from South Africa. I then searched the cabinets for more teas and found some "schizandrae fructus tea". I decided to try it. The scent of the tea was a sort of cozy scent, and the taste was something that was relaxing. It made me think of a yarn shop that I used to frequent when I was in my old town in the USA. I remember the smell of the place, that was of wools and dyes of various kinds. The place also smelled of books and teas...

Last night my mother called me and told me about the puppy. Sam is a red-haired poodle that my family got about 8 weeks before I went back to Korea. It's a tiny little pet. I remember it making a pile of things on the parlour floor. It dragged shoes, toys, even dirty laundry that my mother had separated on the floor. Sam liked collecting things. My aunt had a stroke nearly two years ago. She has made a recovery, but it wasn't easy. The puppy liked her the best. Sam was often sitting on her or following her around. Last night I got a phone call from my mother. She said that she brought Sam to the vet's to have a few baby teeth pulled and get neutered. The vet put Sam out under anasthesia and unfortunately his heart stopped. The vet revived him and put him on a ventilator. My mother said she wanted me to pray for little Sam. I was crying because I felt bad. I also felt bad for my aunt because I know that dog was her therapy. My aunt was a reason why I stayed at ...