February Update

News!
This might be a bit long (feel free to just look at the pictures and ignore the words).
It has been a busy time since I came home to Vancouver in December. I started school(s) in January and I am taking a full course load, some at Capilano College in North Van and also at UBC. I'm getting ready for teacher education (fingers crossed) and this week I finished my application to UBC for September. Thanks to Ben, my good buddy at Kids Club, and Jacqui, Camille's mom, for being my references!
I've been too busy for the dreaded returnee blues thus far, and I hope to avoid them forever
. . . with busy-ness!
That's not to say that I don't miss my life in Korea (sigh). I think I just got busy on my life here right away.
I have been fiendishly studying (school is way more work than I remember), I get to visit lots with my family, my mom, dad and my Grandmère, and my aunties who come by the house, and my friends (even better when they can help me with my studying yay Camille and Elizabeth for helping me with math!). I'm eating a sandwich every day for lunch (cannot be emphasized enough), I can listen to country music radio in the morning, everything is green, big treeeeeeees abound and there are big old mountains in the sky when I look out the kitchen windows. I can phone my best friends all the time! Except those who are a day away (boo). But eventually they will all be closer (right guys?).

Once a week I volunteer at a kindergarten class which is tonnes of fun and how I remember what all this school will ultimately be for. I learn a lot from the teacher, and I get to read with the kids and practice writing - two of my favourite things!
I am also doing some English tutoring for Korean kids through my former student Eugene (now living in Port Moody BC with his family) and his mom, which nets me some money, some Korean practice and weekly kimchee rations. Last time I went out I came home with a huge bag of meat (thoroughly enjoyed by my family), how's that for side benefits eh! I love Korean families.

Hopefully this weekend (maybe Sunday night?) I will go to a hockey game (Vancouver Giants, our WHL team and 2007 Memorial Cup champs woo woo!) with my brother Carson and his two significant others and drink beer and cheer and jeer! I love hockey! I missed hockey. Oh hockey. And yay Carson and his two lovelies, of course too.

Tonight (after I finish writing my historical geography essay outline ugh, I am trying to figure out how to use the new Word) I am going to hang out with my old friends Seabass (not the oldest one, I've only known him since he was borned 6 years ago) and his mom Hailey, and hopefully Malkie (then it will be a proper Rachie Hailey Jamie Malkie Reunion, which we haven't had yet) at Jamie and Raph's place in the West End and we are going to do whatever mom tells us. I'm sure it will involve drinking wine and dancing to the eighties for the grown-ups. Jamie and Malkie and Hailey are my old friends, it is so wonderful to be able to go hang out with them, it is like none of us has ever been gone. I haven't met Jamie's husband Raph yet (or their pet rabbit) so I am looking forward to the grown-up aspect of meeting the spouse, and their baby.

This is a pic of Seabass and I a few weeks ago (err, in December). I don't have many new pictures and I've worn that sweater every day since then, pretty much, so you have a visual for 2008.
I am still living out of my pack, having not unpacked anything from my storage unit (ugh, I shudder to think what my whole life looks like in a box, double ugh), and that's okay so far because mostly I go to school (but I've started brushing my hair and checking the mirror once in a while, thanks for the advice Malka), then come home and watch the news and eat dinner with my Grandmère! and/or Mom and Dad! Yay!