Things have been kinda crappy here for the last week or so.  Without going into detail, I’ll just say that I hate working for Koreans and that the exchange rate is at the bottom of the garbage bin right now.  In two months, my salary has dropped by more than 1/3rd.  It’s rather depressing.

At least I will be back stateside soon.  Exactly when is still under negotiation, but it looks like I will be headed back to the states either January 24th or 31st, and then will be heading back on February 28th.  I’m hoping I can convince my school to let me go on the 24th, but I’m not holding my breath.  But, even if I return stateside on the 31st, I still have essentially a full month back at home in DC before I have to return to Korea to go back to teaching for 3 more months.  It’s less time than my Korean co-workers get, but more than I will get in the US unless I can actually make a living freelancing, so I suppose I can’t really complain too much.

I’m looking forward to being back in the states.  I have two kickass reenactments to attend in February, both of which are hosted by groups I am a member of (being the host is always great), and I will get to see some of my friends, and my family is going to come visit Marc and I in DC, and, of course, I will be staying with Marc for the duration of my vacation, which will be nice.  I miss him quite dearly, and I know for a fact that the sentiment is mutual, and it’s good that I have such a relatively long vacation.  By the time I see him, it will have been 6 months since I last saw him, and even with the strongest of relationships, that is a very long period to be apart.  I miss my Frenchman.  After I finish teaching here in May, we might spend some time in France, before he starts work.  We can visit his sister and I can work on my French, and we can just in general use that as decompression time; me from Korea, him from grad school.  I think it would be good for both of us.  Plus, after having lived for a year here in Korea where bread is pretty non-existent and cheese is unheard-of, I think my body would appreciate some good French food.