Rainy days have begun, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I find the sound of the rain relaxing. Plus, not wanting to go out in the rain puts me in the mood for crafting and art projects. So today, I made myself some tea, turned on some rainy-day music and broke out my watercolors.
Since it was a rainy-day, I chose a sunny subject to paint.

 So here it is with the first layer of paint. I always start at the top, and of course, with the lightest colors first.

 The reason I always start at the top is so I don't drag sleeve in the paint. If I painted the bottom first, I would get paint on my hand and sleeve reaching over it to paint the top. The problem is that while I am waiting for the first layer of paint at the top to dry, I always put a layer on at the bottom, completely ruining my good sleeve-protecting intentions.

 Here's the beginnings of the clouds, and yes, I did get grey paint from the bottom on my sleeve as I reached up to paint those clouds.

 More layers on the bottom. Had to cover up the sleeve-smudges.

 Beginnings of the foothills and more clouds.

 First bits of shading on Mount Baker.

 Smoothed out the shading and began the treeline.

 Finished treeline, more layers on the bottom.

 Adding the little plants sticking up above in front of the mist.

Finished!

Even when I'm happy with how they turn out, they never compare to the original!
Ooh, also, there's some new items in my etsy shop this week, including some Doctor who, Firefly, and LOST. You should visit my shop and check them out: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Westwoods

So I found and started a temporary job. It involves me waking up at 5:30 am. I've been incredibly lazy since returning home from South Korea, and haven't been consistently waking up before 9, so two early mornings in a row is feeling pretty tough. I'm awfully spoiled, aren't I?
I've also recently gotten myself fingerprinted, and I've been sending out various requests for recommendations from my professors, which is almost as frustrating a task as writing cover letters, but at least I know who to address them to. Meanwhile, I neglected my etsy shop for the first week or so of October, but I've finally posted some more new things. You can check them out at www.etsy.com/shop/westwoods

Thoughts from the job searching front

Did I mention that I hate writing cover letters? I'm not very good about telling strangers how very awesome I am. Also the fact that you can't (well shouldn't) just send out the same one to every company is annoying. And then there's the whole who-do-you-address-it-to thing. Most of the time it seems like all the hard work you put into making the letter sound more personalized is ruined by the fact that you have to address it to "Human resources at_____" or the "hiring manager at ______" or whatever. Totally spoils the effect I'm going for. Sample lessons? Short stories? 50k word novels? Bring 'em on, but cover letters make me want to hide under my bed.

Attempting to revive my neglected blog for... the however many-th time

It has been a while. Things got busy and exciting in Korea, and in all the busy-ness and excitement my poor blog fell by the wayside. But now I am not busy, and life now is not incredibly exciting (I do my best to make it so though!) so I don't even have those lame excuses to not update my blog.
I've stated to look forward to the beginning of NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org), and in preparation (What! I'm actually preparing?! I guess so!) I've been reading "No Plot, No Problem" by Chris Baty. Perhaps his words of wisdom will help me cruise to the 50k finish line a little easier than last year, when I didn't much cruise as crawl. Ah, well. Baty suggests that would-be-novelists hold off on novel-planning until one week before the novel-start-date, and I'm trying to abide by that rule, which is actually very, VERY difficult. I do scrawl down occasional ideas, but they are very disjointed and don't even belong to all the same novel, so I don't think it counts.
Along with immensely difficult task of NOT working on novel-planning, I am stocking the shelves (and by shelves I mean the tiny tupperware container) of my etsy shop. This can be fun because my most popular penny charms are those with Doctor Who quotes, which means I can watch episodes of Doctor Who in the name of furthering my etsy shop sales, which sounds positive, since my etsy shop is currently my only source of income (although I expect that will change in the next week or so).
Here are two of my newest listings, plus a sneak peak at a LOST charm I made using a Korean 100 won coin, which I will be listing in my shop within the next few days. You can check out my shop www.etsy.com/shop/westwoods

Anyway, September has been a month of Penny Charms galore so far, and looks to continue that way, provided that JoAnn's or Michael's sees fit to stock the all-too-necessary dimensional mod-podge.

Google is making things difficult for me again... Oh well. After being miserably sick for a couple of days and then completely swamped with homework for a couple more, I finally stepped outside the dorms again and have started to participate in life again. Unfortuately it's midterms week here, and while Emily and I have no tests, everyone else DOES. This is not so much fun as you might think, I don't really enjoy being un-busy when all of my friends are busy. Ideally, I should have done a bunch of homework and lesson planning ahead of time, but that didn't happen. Oh, well... (maybe tomorrow, right?) Today I went to Cheongju with Emily and Michael and Zane, exchange students who have already finished their midterms. I'm pretty sure the best part of the trip was visiting the row of pet stores and looking at all the PUPPIES. I really miss Pippin now. We also ate some pretty great food and had some real coffee (not the instant stuff, that is not coffee!).

On Wedensday we had a lovely day at the beach in Dae Chon, despite the somewhat cold weather. One thing I'll say against the NW, our beaches sure aren't very pretty. It was nice to see a beach pretty sand, and not the dark grey stuff we have at Birch Bay. We went wading in the cold cold water, collected starfish and shells, and played soccer and dodgeball in the sand. After we were throroughly worn out, tired and hungry, we headed to a little restaurant and ate some of the best seafood I've had in a long while. Mmmm clams, oyesters and mussels! Yesterday evening we had an Easter party for the exchange students and their roommates, and we enjoyed some Western-ish food. Mideum and I left the party a little early so that we could go to chapel. Some of the songs wer familiar, so I was able to sing, although it is odd to be singing in English when everyone around me is singing in Korean.
Today has been quiet, I took a walk to the soccer fields, skyped with my family and did some homework and lesson planning. Unfortunately, as the day has progressed I have felt worse and worse. Being sick is unpleasant, being sick in a foreign country when you have lots of homework is miserable! I'm going to try to finish up a few assignments and then go to bed early early and get as much sleep as possible!

I've been neglecting my blog. I've been so busy! I spent the weekend in Seoul with Emily and her roommate Elizabeth at Elizabeth's family's place. We went shopping on Friday and then spent all day Saturday eating and eating and eating. Elizabeth's family showed us how to make kimchi and Korean pancakes, and is was all really delicious. Sunday morning we arrived back in Jochiwon and I walked into the dorm, dropped off my backpack and then turned around and headed to church Mideum. Everyone was given boiled aggs after the service, but there was not a big easter celebration like there is in the States. After church we all went bowling. I did not bowl so well, but my aim has always been a little questionable when it comes to throwing heavy objects! Anyway, it was good to spend some time getting to know my Korean church family.
After bowling we had dinner together and then some very tasty ice cream. Today was a little crazy, as I had to teach my class at 8am. Last night was full of last minute planning and then this morning I had to get up early early. I was so nervous! But everything seemed to go ok. My class subject is American holidays, so today I taught about Easter and we had an Easter egg hunt.
After class I tried to catch up on my Korean language homework and then had a delightful lunch with Emily and her friend Kevin. In the afternoon, we had Korean language class, and then went to home plus where I finally broke down and bought an umbrella and also stocked up on the sorts of food that are hard to find around here like cheese. Then it was back home to do laundry and grade papers.
Wednesday is a holiday here, so hopefully I will get to do something else fun and exciting soon!

Yesterday afternoon I went to downtown Jochiwon with some friends and had real coffee (most of what's on campus is instant). After dinner, Emily and I went a festival on campus put on by the humanities department. It was loud, exciting, and lots of fun. I posted a couple pictres on facebook, but they are blurry because it was dark. It was also really COLD! I was so glad to have my wam down coat (thanks mom!) and also my Sounders scarf. The music at the festival was lots of fun.

Yesterday I had a tasty lunch in the Isaac cafe and then went to downtown Jochiwon with a couple of Korean students, Seulki and Dongyeup. They convinced me to eat a silk worm, which was actually not too bad. Then we went to Baskin Robins and had way too much ice cream. Breakfast this morning was a intresting... The Western option was cereal, salad and what looked like onion rings but turned out to have a mild fishy taste. I'm starting to like salad for breakfast because I know I will probably not eat much of the vegetables they serve for dinner- usually kimchi. I think today I will study Korean and start planning my first couple lessons.

I met with my mentor teacher today, and will meet with him again on Monday when the other student from WWU arrives. I spent some time in the English cafe in the international building, had a cup of coffee and chatted with some Koreans and other foreigners. I'm getting used to people staring at me. I spent some quiet time in my room this afternoon painting, and then headed down for dinner around 6. I ran into the other foreigners in the cafeteria, they were looking somewhat askance at the food. I didn't get a good look at it, but it was aparently a very strong smelling fish-something. We decided not to eat there. We went to a nearby buffet and bought some food, which was pretty tasty- rice and pork and kimchi and some other things that we weren't certain of. I did try the kimchi. I think it will be some time before I get used to eating that! People don't seem to drink water with their meals here, there is always water by the exit, so they eat and then have a glass of water before they leave. I still getting used to this and have a hard time eating lots of sticky rice with no water. I enjoyed cinnamon tea with my meal tonight, but it was very sweet and stong, so it was not some thing you drink a lot of. I'm getting a little better at doing things on my own now. My roommates have to go to their usual classes, they can't spend all their time with me!

I worked up the courage to go eat breakfast in the cafeteria all by myself this morning. I was toal that although there is only Korean food served for dinner, we have a choice for breakfast: Korean or Western style. The Western style breakfast was like a mix between breakfast and lunch. There were scrambled eggs with carrots, and I think maybe green onion and some other vegetables that I couldn't identify, and then there was salad and some kind of soup. There was also a wonderful kind of bread, which was the best part of the meal in my opinion. It was like a roll with cheese, and I think some kind of fruit baked inside. I'm now back in my room preparing a long list of questions to ask my mentor teacher, with whom I am meeting at 2. I will probably stop at the English cafe in the international bldg. on the way there and have some coffee and toast for lunch.

Google why?

For some reason, Google assumed that since I have moved to Korea, I must want all of my google pages to be in Korean. I don't speak Korean. It took me half an hour to figure out how to change it back to English. Once that was done I tried to open my blog and it was also changed to Korean. Since they are both on my google account I really don't understand why I had to go through that whole process again. On the bright side, I think I recognize the word "English" in hangul now. It's been a very quiet day, which has mostly been nice, but also makes it harder to stay awake and cope with the jet lag. I had a tour of parts of the campus, but I think I will need a couple more tours, as I still can't remember where anything is. Hopefully when I when I get the courage to go places on my own I won't get lost. In the meantime I spend a lot of time with my wonderful roommates, Mideum and Hyejung.