Christmas in Jeju?/Vietnam. Again.

So, our dear Willie has sent me a message that's made me realize that (hello) the holidays and, more importantly, vacation time are just around the corner. These things always sneak up on me. I get too dug in at work and work is all I can see -- I forget that any vacation time is ever, ever coming again.

W's headed to Jeju-do for Christmas and New Year's and I'd love to join him, honestly. I haven't been yet, and maybe it's just all the harking the locals do about Jeju-do being Korea's Hawaii, but I have images in my head of some kind of year-round tropical paradise where it's always 85 degrees and sunny. Obviously that's not the factual state of things, but this recent cold snap has partially frozen my brain and it's all I can think about.

So I went ahead and pestered Coteacher about what our school's schedule will be, exactly, in the coming few months. The trouble is, I only get one day off for Christmas (Christmas), and then I have to be back at work on Monday. Then, Tuesday is apparently an overnight teachers' trip, which, if not attended, may mean three days in the freezing ass school by myself. Then one more day off for New Year's and that's it. Which means if I do go to Jeju-do, I only have a three day weekend to do it. And I'd probably have to travel ON Christmas day. Fantastic.

I'm not looking forward to Christmas, though. Not that I ever really am. The only good thing about it Stateside was that I got to make the trek from NYC to Texas to visit my family. Now, I don't even get that. I realize that I live in a different country now -- one I'm lucky even acknowledges Christmas at all. But it is hard to adjust to it just being a one-off, one day minor celebration, instead of the really crucial family holiday that it is back home. As I've tried to explain to many a Korean, not being with your family on Christmas is basically considered the saddest, most pathetic thing that could happen to a person back home.

Anyway. I need to learn how to fucking make up my mind about these things. My actual vacation will have to happen sometime after the first of January and before the eighth of February. And I really, honest to God, hope to make it to Vietnam (and possibly also Cambodia) this time. That's in two months. TWO MONTHS. Earth to Liz. Get your shit together.

When I first set out to move to the ROK, I had visions of skipping off to globetrot every chance I got -- that was one of the major advantages of the decision: 1. being in a completely different part of the world, where I would be close to many places I wanted to visit and 2. finally having enough money to make that possible. But. Then I arrived. And I got far more sucked into my job and my life here than I ever really intended to. So now vacation rolls around and I'm like a 45 year old who just wants to lounge around my apartment in my pajamas, catch up on a few classic novels, see movies in the middle of a weekday and sleep past 8 in the morning.

One thing I know by now, however, is that when I do stay in the ROK during a vacation, I eventually start to go stir-crazy and cause a lot more trouble for myself than is necessary. I'm trying my damndest to stay on the straight-and-narrow these days, and away from that kind of meaningless nonsense. So I guess I should be off to Kyobo this weekend to pick up a guidebook on Southeast Asia. Nonsense doesn't count if happens in another country, right?

Oh. I've got a lot of work to do. It's just too damned cold. For tonight, anyway, after a ridiculously ill-made decision to have company over until past midnight last night, despite being exhausted to begin with, I think I'll just crank up the ondol, lay a mat over the warm spot and watch a stupid teen movie from the mid-90s that I've seen probably close to a hundred times. I'm also going to try to figure out how to prepare some preposterous instant meal purchased from the local GS25 for dinner.

I am an adult. A woman -- not a bachelor. Some of this shit has got to stop.