A Reply from Fred Phelps

A man thought that God is mean.
The reply:
Psalm 11:5, Deuteronomy 25:16, 1 Samuel 2:25,Romans 9:11-13, Job 16:9-14, Job 23:13-17, Psalm 90:7-12...these are just a few! I hope you have not been going to the building you call a church for many years. God is righteous! He is not like us. And for the unbelievers here Psalm 14:1. I pray that some here God will grant fear of him, that is the beginning of wisdom!

Mindy

These are photos of Mindy after I brought her home from the vet in Korea. She ended up having neurological problems and was paralyzed. They were saying it may be Feline Infectious Peritonitus (FIP) which is caused by the Corona virus.  They said she may  have been born with it.  She started the bad neurological problems on Nov. 13.  She is still living and doing better. I brought her home to the USA with me on Dec. 7 and she now walks around and drinks on her own and eats a little. I do still give her some canned food by spoon.  I have been giving her L-lysine tablets and that has been helping her.
I won't be doing animal rescue again for a while. I have been tired of the diseases and heartbreak it has caused me.  I also have enough animals to take care of right now.  I do hope Mindy keeps improving.  The vets all say that FIP is incurable, but none have been able to make a sound diagnosis of Mindy.

I Miss Korea

I do miss Korea. I do miss many people there and many places there.   I have been wishing I was there now to do some things with the friends I left behind.
What I don't miss is teaching.  Teaching is what most of us foreigners do there, unless we are in military. I would gladly do something there that doesn't involve teaching a class. 
Teaching is something I don't like doing.  I have wondered if I learned better skills with it, that maybe I would like it better.  Yet after doing it for so long things haven't changed.  The problem is that since I have spent so much time since graduating from college in Asia, I have gotten accustomed to life there. I haven't readjusted to American life well at all. 
Frankly, I don't really want to get used to the USA again. I don't want to live here, unless I can live in one of the bigger metropolitan areas like New York City or Boston.  If I lived in those places I could get used to walking around a lot and using public transit, taking in the diversity and many cultural venues.
Yet, living in Asia is being in a place where I will never fit in completely.  I may make friends with fellow foreigners, but they come and go.  I have wondered how those Westerners who marry Asians and settle there with families think of Asia after many years living there. I am sure they still love it a lot, yet they still have never fit in the culture totally.  It's impossible.  All non-Asians are "big-nosed foreigners".  Asians of other backgrounds are also set apart.  Japanese and Chinese folks don't always do well in Korea.
I still do miss Korea.  I miss the many kimbap shops, the cafes I hung out in, the parks.  I miss the flower festivals and the museums of Seoul.  I miss going around on solo adventures with a backpack and camera to feed my wanderlust.

My Alma Mater Will Cease to Exist

I found out last week that my alma mater, Atlantic Union College will lose its accreditation at the end of summer 2011.  It has been in existence since the 1880s, but it has been having financial problems for over a decade now. 
The problems with AUC have been very controversial.  Many students were defaulting on their loans when I was there from 2001-2003.   There was at least $7 million in debts for the school.  The reasons that students were allowed to default is something that's hard to speak out about.  Clearly some favoritism existed.  The president at the time was accused of firing competent staff members and replacing them with cronies that were less qualified.  Such mis-management was enough to bring the school into ruin.  Even though he left just before I graduated in 2003, the damage has proven irreversible.
It has been voted that Washington Adventist University in Maryland will take AUC as a satellite campus.  It is good that WAU now has university status (it only gained it within the last few years) and now the campus in Massachusetts can have more classes.  In recent years many departments have shut down due to lack of funds.  I do hope things work out, I wouldn't want such a historic and beautiful campus to not be used as a school anymore.
This all being said, I do think it's time for me to get another degree.

Mokpo

I didn't get the job in Mokpo.  The director of the language school decided he didn't need a new teacher after all.  That is fine though. I can still get another job somewhere else. I do hope that I do get another job soon.
Last week I talked to a school where a friend of mine works, and there are no openings there either. 
I do feel disappointed.  Mokpo is a city on the ocean, and I love the ocean.  I also feel that a change from Seoul would do me good if I'm to return to Korea, because Seoul's air is very dirty.
A friend of mine is working at a school in California, which is a lifestyle center and a training school.  She likes working there. I met her in Korea when we both taught English for the same chain of language schools.

31st birthday

Yesterday I turned thirty-one years old.
I spent a lot of the morning trying to fix the internet connection on the house computer.  It didn't work. I was frustrated.
I went outside to take the dogs for a walk and I was pleased to see some daffodil bulbs coming out of the ground.  The winter was extremely harsh and the snow was very high.  My area had many roof collapses and driving was difficult due to the high snow banks on every corner. 
I did want to go to a certain Mexican restaurant, but the restaurant has temporarily closed because of problems with its roof.  My family decided to go to another Mexican restaurant in town, but the restaurant was closed because it was Monday.  We decided to go to a pizza parlor instead.  The pizza was very good, I shared a vegetable pizza with my mother. My sister and aunt both had salads and pasta.
At home I had chocolate and harlequin ice cream with a cake.  The cake was nice, double-layer with real frosting and green/white jimmies on the side.  There was green lettering on the top, saying "HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE".  Since my b-day is very close to St. Patrick's Day, I have had many green birthday cakes.  That's fine because I like green.
I don't really "feel" 31.  Well, maybe because so many other people my age already have children, homes, careers, and I have spent a good part of my adulthood living in Korea and have remained single.  It's OK, not all those people with all those things are happy.