Yay!

I am very happy to say that I am leaving. I have found a job in Korea that starts in early January. I don't know exactly when I will leave, but it will be soon. I will be living in a city not far from Seoul. The school is pre-school, kindergarten and early elementary. It is a school, not a language academy like the last place I worked. This means that I will be teaching curriculum, not conversational English. It will be quite a change from the last school I was at. I'm very excited about it. I am also very excited that I will get to finally be in the same country as Samuel. It has been a very long time since I last saw him. I kind of feel like I am moving half way around the planet to go on a blind date. But not a blind date. Hmmm. Anyway, I'm leaving. It's a good thing.

Seriously people?

I noticed something recently. It seems that I am quite frequently stuck behind a stupid driver. You know the kind that takes the ramp to get on to the freeway but doesn't bother accelerating to get up to the speed of the other cars on the freeway, or the kind that slows down on the highway before they move over into the turning lane when the turning lane is more that sufficient space to slow down, or the kind that goes ten under the speed limit until you get into city limits and then they go ten above. Why am I so lucky so often? Today I almost got sideswiped by a stupid woman who changed three lanes at once without bothering to look, and then she looked insulted when I honked at her. I was behind a van today getting off of the freeway. Instead of merging into traffic like a normal person, he stopped. Yep. Really. Does anyone other than me actually know how to drive? Some days I really doubt it.

CBC thought-train of the week

Okay, I listen to a lot of CBC podcasts, but I like them, and then I don't have to listen to my own thoughts as I clean toilets and mop floors. Much of the time the podcasts direct my thoughts toward certain things. Sometimes I tell you about my thoughts, sometimes I keep them to myself. I will share this one.

DNTO this week was about repetition. One woman talked about a book she read over, and over, and over again, and why she liked to read that book. I have a book that I have read many, many times; The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. I don't even know how many times I have read this book, but I am on my third copy. This is one of the few books I brought with me when I went to Korea, and I think I read it three or four times in the time I was there. I think I like this book so much because I identified with Valancy. There was the Valancy that everyone knew, and there was the Valancy that she knew was there, but was too afraid to let out. One day she decided to stop hiding the real Valancy, and she started to say the things she always thought, and she did what she wanted to do no matter what her family thought. She started living life instead of watching it. She had fun. And she found her blue castle, the place where she knew she belonged, the thing she had been looking for her whole life but couldn't find. She was finally happy. I love this book. The thing is though, I haven't read it in quite a while. Almost two years in fact. I don't think I need to. I found my blue castle. I'm not there right now, I left it, but I know it's there and I will find it again. My blue castle is waiting for me.

Changing

I was listening to a DNTO podcast recently. As if often the case, it got me thinking. This probably isn't the goal of DNTO, it is a comedic program after all, but it got me thinking anyway. The question they asked that episode was whether it is posible for people to change. My initial response was, of course it's possible for people to change, look at me. Most of you would say that I am definately different now than I was before I went to Korea. I would have said that too. But I'm not so sure now. I certainly behave differently than I did before. There are things I do now that I never would have done before. But am I really that different? I think the core of who I am has not changed at all. I think this person that I am now has always been there, waiting inside, for me to let her out. I just didn't know how to let her out. Now that I have let her out, I am so much happier than I was before. Robin now is the true me. I never really was the real Robin before, and I wasn't very happy. I don't think it is possible to be happy while not being true to who you are. I think I was just pretending to be happy before. Certainly, there were happy moments, but I don't think I was truly happy. Sometimes I feel the old Robin coming back to the forefront, and I don't like that. It scares me because I know what being old Robin was like, and I didn't like that at all. New Robin is so much better. But are old Robin and new Robin really different or does old Robin hold new Robin prisoner until she can escape? I know old Robin isn't completely winning because I wrote this. Old Robin never would have let other people into her thoughts.

I will stop refering to myself in third person now. I know it's been a long time since my last post, and then I have to go and post something overly serious like this. I will be more trivial and funny next time. Unless, of course, I listen to DNTO again. Those CBC programs are deep sometimes.

Did I miss something?

Okay, I thought the whole point of having a convertible was to look cool. You know, driving around in your way cool sports car with the top down. Showing that you have enough money to have an extra car that you can only drive for about two months of the year. Chick magnets. I think I missed something, or that guy totally did. The other day I saw a convertible and I was confused. It was a Smart Car convertible. Okay, it is absolutely imposible to look cool while driving a Smart Car. It just is. There is no way. Making it a convertible does not change that fact. You still look dumb. Only now maybe more so than you would have if you had stuck to the original. It's like pimping out the mini-van. Doesn't help at all. Makes you look pathetic. I don't think this convertible could in any way be called a chick magnet. Unless it gets the girls to go "awww, it's so cute. Like a little baby car." Size matters guys. It really does.

Boys are gross

The other day I forgot to take my Ipod with me when I went to clean. I always bring my Ipod with me. That way I don't have to think for myself. This time I had to do my own thinking. As I was cleaning, I was thinking about cleaning. More specifically, I was thinking about cleaning bathrooms. I have cleaned many bathrooms, and I have reached this conclusion: boys are gross. I don't mind cleaning bathrooms, but I am continually grossed out by what I see when I go into the men's bathroom. Mostly because of urinals. Apparently aiming is difficult. I constantly find puddles on the floor. One time I found a puddle on the top of the urinal. That takes some talent I must say. I always have to wash the walls around the urinals. Standing up to pee is messy work. Why do boys brag about it? I often find gum in the urinals. Surprise! Gum doesn't flush, if they had even bothered to try to flush. You know what else doesn't flush? Paper towel. Neither do pennies. They do cause the urinal to overflow though. Boys don't seem to flush urinals very often. Urinals drain anyway, why flush? Sometimes they don't flush the toilets. Boys pee standing up, so you know what's in the toilet. It often seems that they don't flush because they thought they had something to be proud of and wanted to show it off. It's like the redneck joke, you know you're a redneck when you leave the bathroom and say "ya'll better come see this before I flush it." I didn't want to see it.
The women's bathroom is not all roses either. There is always paper towel on the floor, and soap on the counter and hair in the sink. Occasionally I have to pick up a tampon wrapper from off the floor. Sometimes even pee on the seat. But never pee on the walls or puddles on the floor. Girls pee sitting down. Not bragging; fact.

Bunny in the park

I really didn't intend to write another fashion blog this soon. I really didn't, but the event of the Canada Day celebration in the park left me with no choice. I had to write another fashion blog. What's a girl to do when she sees something that atrocious? Well, write about it obviously.

I was not aware that Canada Day was an occasion for costumes. Not costumes like wearing Canada t-shirts or hats with a flag cape. That doesn't count; that's just being patriotic at an appropriate time. No, I mean costumes with ears. Let me set the scene: we're standing in line waiting to get caramel apples and cotton candy. What's a day in the park without sugar? The line was at a stand still, so I did what I always do when I am in a crowd of people; I looked for things about other people to criticize. I realize that it's small and petty of me, but there are so many people that need to be criticized and I am willing to do it. Anyway, there I was looking around, not seeing much to mock, but then it appeared. Well, she appeared. In a costume. I'll start at the top. The very top. With the bunny ears. Yes, she was wearing bunny ears. Pink ones. I'm really not sure how bunny ears go with celebrating the day our country became a country, but she saw the connection. The bunny ears were not the end of the costume, no there was more. Unfortunately, not a lot more. The rest of the costume consisted of a skimpy pink tank top and very short shorts. Very, very short. I think she must have altered them herself. You don't normally see shorts that short. Yes people, there was cheek. Quite a lot. Definately not in a good way. She was going for the whole Playboy bunny look and failed. She most definately did not have the figure to attempt the Playboy bunny look. Most of us don't, and I'm not faulting her for that, but most of us know better than to try to work the bunny look with figures that would be more suited for the, um, well, a larger, rounder animal look. I really didn't need to see that much of her, but it did give me something to write about, and for that, girl with the rabbit ears, I thank you.