and on the seventh day, the Hominid rested

True to my word, I had a nice, lazy Sunday of little more than laundry and napping and more napping. I did only one adventurous thing: for the first time ever, I tried ordering out in Korean, and it worked. I'm not sure why I've never ordered out before; the procedure here is exactly the same as it is in the US, and with better customer service on the phone to boot.

One thing I don't miss about the local Domino's Pizza near my old apartment in Alexandria, Virginia is the customer service epitomized in the following conversation (edited for length and altered due to fuzzy memory, but true in spirit):

Teen: Welcome to Domino's. Would you like to try one of our specials?

Me: No, thanks.

Teen: OK. May I take your order?

Me: Yeah, I'd like a medium thin-crust pepperoni pizza, a six-pack of Pepsi, and some bread sticks.

Teen: Dude. You're hungry.

It's true that I can slaughter an entire medium pizza and bread sticks with little trouble, but I can't polish off an entire six-pack of soda. I've tried. My kidneys end up aching from all the poisons I've pumped into my system. Painful kidneys notwithstanding, my point is that customer service in Korea is rarely this cheeky.

It was a gorgeous day today, and I thought about heading over to the World Trade Center and hitting an elevator to the top (if that's allowed; I've never gone). Then I decided I'd just be lazy, catch up on sleep, and nosh some 'zza. It wasn't too bad, but the cheese was too mild and there were too many goddamn onions.

I have a strange relationship with onions. I have no trouble eating them in Korean food, but I can't stand them in Western food. Chunks of onion in spaghetti, or ringlets of onion in pizza and hamburgers-- these bother the hell out of me. The same onions in a jjigae, however, don't affect me at all. Maybe this is because the jjigae-making process cooks all the flavor out of them. I don't know. Does anyone have any kids with similar hangups?

[NB: One notable exception is onions in salsa. I don't mind those at all. Same for minced onions piled onto caviar. No problem there, either. Strange.]

It's 10PM and I need to get to sleep. I have to wake up at 5AM for the next three months to make my 6:30AM classes. It looks like I'll be losing all the students I've met over this past week, but on the bright side, I'll be meeting some new folks. It ought to be fun. I've heard that morning shifts at EC are fairly laid-back, but the evening half of the split shift is the ass-kicker. Good. I'll want to be tired when I get home around 10:45; that way I'll get around six decent hours of sleep before starting all over the next day.

There's a seo-yae (calligraphy) school right down the street from where I live. I'm wondering whether I should sign up once I have some cash. There's also a ton of gyms around here, many of them right next to each other. Since my late mornings and early afternoons will be free for the next couple months, I should probably take advantage of this. It'll also mean a huge reduction in blogging, but what the hey. I've been wanting to pursue calligraphy more seriously since I started practicing it, and if I'm going to bag the likes of a Miss SNU, with her lovely buttes and mesas, a healthier lifestyle couldn't hurt, right?

I'm hoping that the move to my "permanent" residence happens sooner rather than later. I'm also thinking I might have to rent out a goshi-tel (a tiny study room-cum-bedroom for students needing a quiet place to study for exams and sleep) to use as a glorified closet for my extra shit, such as the huge, bulky computer boxes that serve no function whenever I set up my computer. I wouldn't store anything truly valuable in the goshi-tel; just boxes, for the most part, and maybe some clothes I never wear. Does Korea have anything similar to public storage?

'Night, folks.

_