Nochmal in Wien

The past couple of months have been insanely hectic. In April I found a second job in Seoul to fill the afternoons left open by my horrible split shift schedule at the English institute. I worked at an educational information and informatization research institute as a proofreader/editor in the public relations department. Don't ask me what informatization is; I already looked it up in the dictionary and it doesn't exist. After working there for 2 months, I get the vague notion it's related to the mating habits of honey bees. Though most of my days were spent trying out a myriad of ways to prop my head up on my fists so as to be able to sleep while appearing to gaze at my computer screen, occasionally they actually had documents for me to proofread, slogans to invent, or documents that had already been translated from Korean to English to translate into Spanish. By the time said documents had made it through two or more translations, I have my doubts as to whether the Spanish gobbledegook I contributed approximated in any way the originals. Luckily none of the people in my office spoke Spanish so they'll never know how little Spanish knowledge I have related to the mating habits of honey bees. The best part of my job there was teaching English conversation to my colleagues and bosses a couple of times a week. Like my classes at the language institute, most of the time was spent laughing.

Meanwhile, life at Job #1 went on as usual: first class at 7 am, last class ending at 9 pm. My body got so accustomed to the early start that most mornings I was actually beating my 5:30 alarm clock. I'd teach til around 1, then run to Job #2, then at 6:30 pm run back to Job #1 for my night classes there. Needless to say, the jam-packed schedule took a toll on my body. I've been sick for the past 2 months with various infections, some of which took 2 rounds of antibiotics to overcome. I had a sinus infection, a bacterial stomach infection, and I'm still fighting off tonsilitis.

Besides a variety of illnesses, I also acquired a brand spankin' new boyfriend in Seoul. His name is Stefan, an Austrian lad with a sharp wit, great legs and an incredible sense of adventure. Though my contract at the language institute was set to end in September, with little encouragement from Stefan and lots from a schedule and boss sent from hell, I terminated it early in favor of coming to Vienna with Stefan. So at the end of June we took off to Austria for a 2-month vacation before heading off to China in September for Stefan's work. We're spending our days sightseeing, shopping, catching up with his family and friends, and just goofing off in general. It's fabulous! After 10 months in the concrete jungle of Seoul, I feel like I'm in heaven, being around so many trees and plants and beautiful buildings.

At the end of this month, we'll take a weeklong trip to Greece, to take a break from all this hard relaxing in Vienna. In August I'll try to enroll in a German class, so that I can learn some real German to supplement the Viennese dialect (which is useless outside of Vienna) that Stefan and his friends are teaching me. And this weekend we're going to a concert that I've always dreamed of: the Beastie Boys. September through December we'll be in Jinan, China, and for Christmas I'll be home to visit with lots of cheap Chinese souvenirs for all. After that, who knows?