Picture Update

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Kathleen

I finally just made all our photos public on Picasa. You can check out my new hair style, our wedding bands, and other various pictures we’ve taken lately (and of course in the past).

Picasa link: https://picasaweb.google.com/107013171023557325359

I should also rub it in Shadi’s face that I am already one post ahead of him! Yay!

P.S. You’ll notice we’re already wearing our new rings. I told Shadi I wanted to wait for the rings until our anniversary, but Shadi promptly told me it was “lame” and he didn’t want to wait for his new ring. C’est la vie!

Categories: South Korea, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Kathleen

It’s official; we are leaving Korea for real real! The past two days I’ve been consumed with finding the best flights and prices for our summer vacation. We’ll slowly be moving our way across the globe, but we’ll end up in America somewhere…

So we will be leaving Korea on August 20th and arriving in Lebanon the same morning. I am so excited to see Shadi’s grandmother again, and to finally meet the rest of his family! I’m so excited to see where Shadi’s family comes from (and really, my family), and to see the rich history and culture that Lebanon has to offer. I already have a pretty good idea of what I want to see in Lebanon, but my main goal is to relax and learn as many recipes as I possibly can. When Shadi’s grandma was in America back in 2006, she made the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted. There is always something special about grandma cooking (and grandma’s in general), and I just can’t wait!!

After spending a week in Lebanon, we’re off to meet my mom, step-dad, and sister in Ireland for a week. We don’t have a lot of the details worked out yet, but we do know that we’re going to have an awesome time. After Ireland we’re spending a few days in London. I went to England back in 2002 to visit my friend who was living there, but I didn’t get to see half the things I wanted to see, so I’m really excited to explore the city with Shadi. We’re packing a lot of things in the few days that we’ll be there for, but I don’t want to miss anything this time around.

Once we finish with Europe, we’re heading off to New York. I’ve never been to NY and I have to say I’m quite excited to go and relax for a while and still get to see an amazing city at the same time. Shadi’s aunt and uncle live in NY and I’m excited to see them and their city. We are hoping that Shadi’s sister will be able to come and visit with us as well, but maybe we’ll have to make a separate trip down to Virginia to see her. Who knows, perhaps we’ll make a special trip to Washington D.C.. I’ve never been there and it would be most exciting.

So, as the title suggests, we’ll be taking many planes, traveling in some trains, and using just a few automobiles. I am so excited to slowly make our way back to America, and get to have such a long vacation along the way. By the time we leave Korea, it’ll be exactly one year since our last vacation to Southeast Asia. I’m excited to see new cities, countries, and relax with family on this vacation.

Other than planning our summer vacation, I’ve been very, very busy. May 13th was the teachers day celebration in our town. All the teachers got together and played volleyball (as is tradition), and my school won again! Three years in a row! WOOHOO! After our victory, some of the teachers and I headed off to the East Sea (aka the Sea of Japan) for some relaxation and crab. It was quite delicious and I had a great time. The weekend after that I had my last doctors appointment for my LASIK surgery. My doctor cleared me and said that I had “graduated”. Everything is perfect with my eyes, and they will get less dry over time. Shadi was also able to schedule his surgery at the same time, and he’s looking to get his surgery June 10th.

Last weekend we had English camp at my school. My co-teacher wanted to have one day of camp to get it over with quickly so she hired Shadi and the other middle school teacher in town. It was really easy and a lot of fun for the students. We had only 4 classes and we finished early, but the main thing was that the students had a great time speaking English. I suppose it was a great thing for them to get comfortable with speaking English to other foreigners. They are mostly too shy to speak to anyone but me, but I’m always encouraging them to talk to the other foreigners when they seem them around town.

After the camp I quickly left for Seoul and met with my friend Renai at a hair salon. My co-teacher helped me make an appointment a week before hand, but it didn’t help me at all when I actually arrived there and was trying to tell the receptionist my name for my appointment. She looked at me and said, “Magic straight perm?” I almost died of laughter. Anyway, I have a new summer hair style and it’s a HUGE hit with my students. I’ll try to get a good picture of it soon, but I make no promises. :) After getting my hair cut, Renai and I went grocery shopping and bought some food for dinner. We then went to her jeweler in Seoul and I bought Shadi and I matching wedding bands. Shadi has needed a new wedding band for some time (he has lost so much weight that his ring slips off at any given moment) and I had been wanting to get just a regular band for a while. I love my ring, but I feel it’s much too flashy for me and I’m in constant fear of damaging it. The rings are finished, but I’m going to wait to open them until it’s our anniversary on the 28th. Can you believe we’ve been married for 3 years already? It’s gone by so quickly!

We went back to Renai and Erin’s new apartment after ring shopping and made dinner. Then Renai and I went out to get some delicious ice cream (hey! No judging! We have no good ice cream in our small town and I rarely eat it). We stayed up kinda late chatting, but it was so much fun. On Sunday Renai made me a delicious smoothie with pineapples and spinach. Sounds kinds gross right? But it’s sooooo delicious! After that we did a little shopping for new hair accessories at this adorable shop, and then we ate some awesome Indian food near their apartment. After that we met up with our friends Tracy and Stella at Seoul forest and had a nice little picnic. We did some more shopping (we all bought nail polish! I’m sporting some awesome green toenails), had some dinner, and got home around 9:30PM on Sunday.

This week has been dragging like crazy, but tomorrow is Friday, and I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing 3 days weekend. Monday is a holiday in Korea, but Shadi has English camp on Saturday. It’ll give me time to prepare another box to ship home, and relax a bit. I also need to call my family since it’s been a while since we talked. I was shocked to realize that Tuesday is the 1 year anniversary of the death of my grandfather. It still can’t believe that he is gone, and I miss him every day.

Anyway, it’s about 10PM right now and I still have to wash my face and brush my teeth before I crawl into bed. I swear if the cranes are making a bunch of stupid noise at 5AM tomorrow morning, I’m going to be eating some nice crane for dinner tomorrow. Seriously…that is probably the worst part of summer. The cranes start as early as 4AM and sound like a freaking cuckoo cuckoo clock going off every 5 seconds. >_<

Love,

Kathleen

Categories: South Korea | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

A Dream Deterred

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Shadi

Michael Lewis’ The Big Short is a fascinating look at what happens when you chase the “American Dream.”  It also informed my understanding of the economic crisis in ways that other books couldn’t. Essentially, here’s how it went down.

Average home prices rose faster than average annual wages. This meant that there were many Americans who either couldn’t afford a mortgage or had no business asking for one in the first place. Mortgage companies rose up to fill the needs of these people by creating sub-prime (as in, unfavorable) mortgages with adjustable rates.

These adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) had sweet interest rates for about two years. Afterward, their interest rates rose to the point where the homeowner would be unable to make payments on his home. These ARMs were packaged up by large Wall Street firms like Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns  and sold as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). For decades, CDOs were pretty sweet because housing prices were soaring, allowing people with tough mortgages to refinance their homes.

However, there was a growing group of investors who knew the whole thing was going to burst, so they bet against the market using credit default swaps (CDSs). That is to say, these few stood to get very rich if – and when – the market collapsed. Needless to say, the market did collapse, and these smart investors did get very rich. America borrowed billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street firms (not a single cent of taxpayer money was used, contrary to popular belief) and the entire housing market collapsed.

The whole debacle stands as a parable to the dangers of chasing the “American Dream.” It would be next to impossible to pin the blame on one particular party. I could vilify greedy Wall Street fat cats. I could question the intelligence of the type of person who would put ink to paper on a mortgage with an adjustable rate (did they really think the interest rate would shift in their favor?).  I could demonize Washington for allowing our debt to grow to catastrophic levels (but the US government has no interest in ever paying back our national debt, so that’s neither here nor there).

Really, though, the main thing I took from reading The Big Short is that the “American Dream” as we know it is little more than a ploy to feed the machine of consumerism. No American needs to drive around in a Humvee. The average family four could get by quite easily without a two-story house.  But we had it too good for too long, and look where that got us.

As Kathleen and I move toward the next phase of our life together, we have to toss out the conventional wisdom. A house is no longer an investment (don’t expect the value of your home to ever return to where it was at the height of the bubble – that ship has sailed). A house is just a place to live. So, we have to look at what we need, not what we want. We have to save money, not spend it on frivolous things like a big TV.

I could get more philosophical, but I want to keep this about Team ShadKat and not turn it into Shadi’s Book Review Corner. Basically, if you want to get a better idea of what caused the economic crisis, read The Big Short.

Categories: Economy | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

New and Improved!

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Kathleen

Hi everyone! Let me first welcome you back to the new and improved adventuresofshadkat.com! I’m so sad that we lost all the blog entries from our entire run here in Korea, but I’m happy that I’ve finally got Shadi interested in the blog again! I’ve been wanting to add a picture and change the layout for a while, but didn’t have the motivation because it was just “my” blog and not “our” blog. Now it feels new and pretty and fresh, so Shadi is feeling more optimistic about blogging. :)

Things are progressing quickly here. Time is flying by! I think the last time I had posted was back in January and a lot has happened since then. My dad came to Korea for a week back in February and we had a fantastic time! It was exactly what I needed to help us through our last six months in Korea. I had so much fun spending time with him, showing him around, and getting to experience things we hadn’t seen ourselves. I had been so homesick for ages, but I felt so recharged after his visit.

Just after my father left, I got LASIK. It was a bit pricey, but so so so worth it! Shadi was the one who was initially going to get the surgery, but because of some complications (one eye is weaker than the other and his eyes are so deep-set), I decided I wanted to get it done. It was fantastic and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I have another follow-up appointment this Saturday, and hopefully then Shadi can get an answer about when we can schedule his surgery. He needs it badly, and even though I love him in his glasses (he looks so distinguished!), he’s super sexy without them.

Our new school year started March 1st and a lot has changed at our schools. I am now teaching 25 classes, plus 4 hours of yoga classes after school each week. Our contracts have us teaching up to 22 hours per week and anything over that is overtime pay. I also got three new co-teachers, a new vice-principal, and about 7 other new teachers. The atmosphere at my school is completely different than it has been for the past two and a half years. I had it so easy, only teaching 12 hours per week, but this new schedule has proven to be one of the best things to happen for me. It’s making our last six months fly by so quickly! I honestly can’t believe that it’s already the middle of May! It almost feels like we don’t have enough time to get everything in order.

Shadi, on the other hand, has done a 180 at his school as well. He went from teaching about 25 hours a week down to nine classes a week. He’s slowly going crazy and I think the time is really dragging for him. It’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good that he has so much time to apply for jobs and work on his volunteer work, but bad that he’s pretty much wasting his time at school.

Speaking about jobs, Shadi has applied for about 60 positions since January. Most of them have been government positions, but a few have been teaching jobs. Our plan right now is to come home after traveling for a few weeks, find some temp work to hold us over, and then start looking for public jobs. If after six months we still haven’t found anything, we’ll look into getting a good TESL certificate and try to get a better job overseas. Korea pays very well, but like Shadi said, after so many years, there is a glass ceiling. There is no way to go any higher here. We really hope it doesn’t come to having to move again, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

So, now we are just concentrating on making the final preparations for our summer vacation and wrapping up our time here in Korea. Right now our vacation is looking like Lebanon, Ireland, England, New York, and maybe Virginia. A very busy vacation, but we really need it! This August will be one year exactly since our Southeast Asia trip and I’ve been so anxious to travel! We really have the travel bug. :)

So, for now, please enjoy what we are doing with the new blog. If you have any suggestions, comments, or complaints please feel free to let us know! Over the next few months, hopefully we’ll be able to share with you what our new projects are, and you can follow us on our next chapter of ShadKat…no matter where life takes us!

Categories: South Korea | 3 Comments

We’re Back!

Posted on May 14, 2011 by admin

Hey, it’s Shadi here. You may have noticed that the blog disappeared for about a week. Kathleen and I have switched our web hosting from DreamHost to Lithium.  We didn’t have any issues with DreamHost except for the price, which was about $120/year. That’s not a bad price for someone who runs a popular site that gets a lot of traffic, but this blog is mainly for family. It was pointless to throw away that much money on a service we weren’t making full use of. So, we switched to Lithium, which offers less bandwidth and storage space but is only $10/year.

You probably also noticed the posts from the old blog are gone. This is because I didn’t know how to copy the database over from the other website. It’s unfortunate, but all of the pictures we posted were taken with a crappy camera, anyway. Now that Kathleen has a DSLR, we can pepper our posts on here with really nice photos – until we run out of storage space (DSLR files are huge).

In other news, I kind of miss blogging. I haven’t really written anything on here, and I think that’s one of the reasons why Kathleen was so reluctant to post more than once every three months. We have a lot of big changes happening with Team Shadkat – mainly the fact that we’re leaving South Korea in three months – so we’ll have a lot more to blog about soon. I think it was fun, initially to write about our adventures here, but after two years things just felt stale. Don’t get me wrong. I love living here, but I don’t think it could ever be a permanent home. One can only stomach so much white rice before he or she pines for the sweet release of death. Can you tell that I miss In N Out Burger?

One of my goals with the new incarnation of this blog is to post more than Kathleen. I’m already one post ahead of her, so that’s pretty neat. I’ll create user names here in a bit so that our families can tell who’s writing what. That’s about it for now. Don’t get the wrong idea if our entries start to get cynical. I’m only teaching nine regular classes this semester, so I feel as if my time is being wasted. Yes, it’s easy to save money here – and the cost of living is cheap – but there’s no upward mobility in ESL education. You eventually hit a glass ceiling and either have to get a Master’s in Applied Linguistics, open your own language school, or get a teaching certificate, which enables you to break into the international school circuit.

To be quite honest, I don’t think either of us really wants to be a career teacher. I initially loathed the idea of a boring office job when I graduated from college. Now, the idea of working in a cubicle seems so much better. I still wouldn’t mind landing a gig with the Department of State, but the application process was pretty brutal. At least the written test was easier than I thought.

That’s all for now. I’ll have Kathleen throw something up here when she gets home. She went on an overnight trip to Yeongdeok with her school. Kathleen’s father, Mike, will remember it as the place that’s famous for delicious crab. It will interesting to get her take on overnight teacher trips because the only thing I remember about mine is the amount of alcohol we consumed. As Kathleen doesn’t drink, I doubt she had much fun.

Categories: South Korea | Tags: , , | 2 Comments