Happy Thanksgiving all!
This weekend was the Cheorwon Thanksgiving extravaganza. Thanks to much more experience and resourceful expats than me, several of us stayed in an apartment and ate a real Thanksgiving meal, including Turkey, stuffing, gravy and pumpkin pie.
After the meal, we chatted over mulled wine and more pie.
This morning was a massive cleaning effort, which I and the other Cheorwon-ites escaped a bit early since we have so far to travel.
I got home fairly early this afternoon, and immediately took a nap. Then I struggled with my Korean thermostat, because my floor has barely been getting warm when I turn it on lately, and the water for my shower has been a bit chilly too. After much button pushing, I managed to turn the hot water temperature up and get my apartment warm for once. The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking dinner, washing dishes and doing laundry.
No offense to the company I celebrated Thanksgiving with, but observing the holiday without my family made me feel pretty homesick. I have a feeling this might be a tough week for me as far as that goes. My school is trying to figure out what to do with me during winter vacation. Normally, teachers are given just two weeks off; the rest of the time, we are teaching "English Camp" or working on lesson plans and paperwork (aka "deskwarming"). Basically, even if there's no school, you still have to  be at work for 8 hours except when you're taking your two weeks of paid vacation. However, my school is going to remodel the building during break, which means no English Camp and possibly no desk to warm. So they are trying to figure out if they can give me the remainder of Winter break off unpaid, which would be fine by me, but it's very complicated as to whether my contract allows for that. Confusing. I haven't made any decisions about break yet, expect that if I have the entire month off, and permission to live the country for that amount of time, I will most likely come home.