Goodbye 2010

Things I have done this year:

1. Started a blog.
2. Won two awards at the South African Blog awards.
3. Listened to a man's story of how he survived the Tsunami whilst in vacation on Sri Lanka.
4. Had another wonderful year of teaching in Korea.
5. Bought a fancy SLR camera :)
6. Ran a 21km road race with my mom.
7. Had one of my secrets posted on PostSecret.
8. Turned 25.
9. Designed wedding invitations, save the dates, and guestbooks.
10. Did two photo shoots
11. Flew home to surprise my brother for his 21st Birthday
12. Walked around the Parthenon whilst on vacation to Greece.
13. Spent the day shopping in Turkey
14. Accidentally dyed my hair yellow.
15. Watched my country host the most beautiful soccer world cup
16. Had my blog featured in The Witness newspaper and Cosmopolitan Magazine
17. Built my own design portfolio website.
18. Spent way too much money on shopping... oh well...
19. Cooked carrots successfully for a thanksgiving dinner. (well done me!!)
20. Saw a cheetah, a lion, elephants, rhino's and giraffes in a South African game reserve.
21. Got stalked by a creepy korean man, who believed he was my grandfather and tried to set me up with his nephew.
22. Got kicked out a bar. (long story)
23. Booked and paid for tickets to the Philippines :)
24. and launched my rap-star debut...

What have you done this year?

It's about time...

Yes, remember this?

Don't worry. I haven't forgotten. 

I have merely been in vocal training...

until my singing coach shattered from me pitch-matching to his frequency.

I present you with... My finest work:

(and my sincerest apologies)

The Lovely Lyrics:

At first I was afraid,

I was petrified,

Kept thinking my blog could never win

against ELLE Design

And then the people voted

and now my blog is King,

so I must put on my winning shades

Compose a song 

and sing.....

So I suck at singing

and with that being sad,

I even changed my nose-ring

tryin' to boost my street-cred.

The awards were awesome

and I had a great time

At the One and Only,

Man! that place is divine.

It was organised,

professional

and things ran on time,

We had snacks and Mojitos

and WAY too much wine.

In fact I'm really quite glad 

I didn't fall down the stairs

and that I left before Nash

and his g-string affairs...

So, I came from South Korea,

was a HECTIC long ride

and (thumbs) to Marky Mark - 

who came from the PharSide.

Mum-z was the MC - 

made us laugh the whole night,

so I just wanna thank him,

now my abs are freaking tight.

2 Oceans sent a rep - 

and DAMN! she was hot,

brother fancied his chances...

but EiSH! 

I think not.

Cape Town Girl 

looked super-glam,

then they pulled a blank card,

... I think it was a scam.

Helen Zille came down

and she gave a great speech

about facebook and blogging

and the things that she tweets.

As I'm walking to the stage

mom hisses "DON'T do the peace sign!"

then I pulled it TWICE-

.... I'm from Asia, 

It's fine.

Best blog overall went to WatKykJy

... I don't have a rhyme for this

"ek praat nie die taal"

Thanks to the sponsors 

for giving us free stuff

esp to Havana Club Rum,

cause I woke up pretty rough.

A big thanks to YOU

if you voted for my blog,

It means a lot to me

and my non-existant dog.

This is my song to say

THANK - YOU!

for supporting and 

for voting and for

digging what i do.

* the end *

Give Thanks...

The English Village where I work was open over Christmas, which unfortunately meant that our department had to work. The very kind Edutainers (read: educator + entertainer)* baked us some delicious Christmas cookies. Our department made them a card to say Thank you:

And to wish them a very Merry Christmas!

*If you are wondering what an Edutainer does - they perform awesome ESL musicals and game-shows for the kids that come here for the day. It's a full process from writing their own scripts, music and choreography to directing and acting. I helped with some set design a while ago for their show Imagine That.

Their department and our department work together so that during the entire Day Experience kids can visit different classes/workshops/game-shows and musicals and learn about the same theme and have vocabulary that overlaps. The current theme is Health and Happiness. 

Here is an extract from their Winter Show - Camp Health :

Lucky girl

what a lucky Christmas girl was i!! thank you to my lovely friends!

a Christmas Story

Since most of us here had to work over Christmas we decided it would be best for us to try and go out for a Christmas Eve Dinner in Ilsan about 20 minutes away and relieve the stress of trying to cook up a feast after work. (this idea works particularly for che well since the only dish she is actually able to make mildy edible are marshmallow carrots.)

So off we rode to Ilsan...

In Ilsan we followed the Bright Lights to Western Dome to try and find a place to eat. We wandered around in the freezing cold at which point Sarah noted that it had become like a real Christmas story:

so sadly we had to split our merry troupe and take the special room at Asia Asia. And so we enjoyed our very traditional Christmas Eve meal of Indian Curry and Nan.

There was a delicious special Christmas set-menu and clearly i thought i was Mary and ate enough for two.

After dinner I introduced the gang to a little Christmas tradition that we have in my family. We call it the "R50-mall- dash"

STEP 1: Put all your names into a hat.

STEP 2: Secretly draw a name from the hat.

STEP 3: You have 20 minutes and only R50 (about $7 or $8) to buy a gift for the person whose name you have drawn. 

STEP 4: Meet at a coffee shop/restaurant/chosen location before the time is up to exchange your secret gifts.

*(Side note: if you want to give yourself more time, then you can extend it to an hour and if you really want to get technical, you can disqualify anyone who does not make it back in time or who spends over the allotted amount...haha)

Everyone got really excited about "R50-mall-dash" that they wanted to try it... So we set a 10 000 won limit and drew names... and then the mad panic begins as you try and decide what to buy and where to get it within 20 minutes and with a strict budget:

in fact, you end up running after people in a mad delirium:

it's really a lot of fun :) try it out next time...

Any Christmas traditions to share?

Christmas Glow

On Christmas night we snuggled up and tried to get warm in The Little Theatre with Christmas movies, cheese, mulled wine, strawberries and chocolate fondue. (i totally take credit for the strawberries and chocolate fondue idea.) but the fondue set totally belongs to Kristi.

Merry Merry

I hope everyone had a very festive and beautiful Christmas! Will post more pics and cartoon soon, but for now- here is just a sneak peak of my SoKo Christmas :)








Yes, that's Justin and I dressed as Santa to give out presents to Korean kids. I am a foreigner. and a female. And Santa. And there are two of us. It's very confusing.


Merry merry!!

How to be nice.

If you live in a foreign country and you have to work on Christmas day and you are surrounded by people who are away from home over this festive-family time, and maybe will get homesick about that - you should probably do something nice for them. Here is how:

Step one: buy small gifts for your co-workers.

Step two: Write out gift tags for your co-workers by hand on fancy gift tags.

(i used these gift tags - i designed and printed them myself. cause i'm fancy. you don't have to be fancy. you can use whatever you want...)

Next, you will need some pretty doilies, brown bags, twine or string, scissors and a hole punch.

you will also need a stash of chocolates and candy to add as fillers into the brown bags.

guess how many of these ended up in my mouth...

Step three: Put your gift inside your brown bag.

Step Four: Fold brown bag. So easy, even your dog can do it.

 

Step Five: Fold your doily in half and cut it. Don't let your dog do this part.

Step Six: Glue your doily onto your brown bag. (actually, you don't even need to cut the doily in half. you can just fold it over the top. I just ended up with 22 brown bags to fill and only 19 doilies. {how did that happen?})

Step Seven: Tape the doily down on the top of the bag. you can use any tape- washi tape is the best, but you can use masking tape or coloured tape. I used tape that actually looks like medical bandages. Punch a hole into your bag and thread your gift tag through with the string.

Handy tip: If you have a lot to make, I suggest cutting all the strips of tape and doilies and string before hand to make the production line smoother...

(Also - if you have male and female co-workers. start with the boys. they are less likely to notice/care and by the time you get onto making the girls' gift bags, you will have perfected it down to a fine art. Plus, you will be nervous in the beginning of not having enough chocolate for everyone and therefore be more stingy - leaving a heap of chocolates left at the end - which can be poured bountifully into the girls' gift bags.)

now, that's nice.