The penpal dinner and getting back to 'normal'

Today, Sunday, flew by. I didn't do any work Friday or Saturday, and here I sit Sunday night with so much left to do. I started my Sunday early with great hopes. I puttered around doing this and that as I woke up. I decided to watch some TV while I had breakfast and found myself watching a series of TV segments I would have never glanced at if I were in the states. I caught the end of an episode of Sex and the City and then wished another one would come on. I then moved to MTV and watched about 2 minutes of a Justin Beiber video. I kept telling myself I was wasting my time but it took me a while to actually change the channel. The last segment in my stellar lineup of morning TV was Yo Gabba Gabba. I was so memorized by the dancing characters. Their message was so good, "I tried it and I liked it." At least that portion of my TV time was a good lesson to hold on too.

After TV time I made some progress in organizing my bag and creating a to-do list. Then I started on the list and reviewed about 8 of the 30 student papers I promised I would review before tomorrow morning.

Next came church. Although Mass is usually short and held in the middle school I was gone for about an 1.5 hours. It was pouring and my neighbor was nice enough to give me a ride. It was still raining when Mass ended and she had to do some things in her classroom so I waited. I could have made it home, but I would have been soaking wet and wouldn't have saved more than a few minutes of time.

Lunch followed Mass. I had left over green chicken curry and a tossed salad while listening to the rain fall. It was only after lunch that I seriously got to work. I worked for the next several hours and managed to cross two things off of my list of five.

Dinner this evening was the much anticipated PenPal bulgogi dinner. Most of the new folk, their families, the administrators, and all the old folk that had acted as our pen pals for the last several months met, loaded into the buses and drove to the restaurant (~40 minutes away.) We were treated to a lovely dinner at a very nice restaurant. We started with an individual plate of appetizers (tossed salad, a yogurt and fruit salad, and some sort of vegetable soup), then the bulgogi (finely cut meat grilled on your table in a broth and with onions), all the normal sides (kimchi, pickled radish, cashews in something, and a shrimp soup), then we had bibi....? (a bowl with rice, meat, vegetables, mushrooms, and more), ending with cookies and tea. After dinner we were bussed back (~20 minutes this time) and I was in my house by 8:45pm.

Then I began prepping for Monday. I started by making my lunch. I grilled some chicken on my Foreman and built the best salad I could create with what i had. I am so excited at the thought that I will have my "normal" lunch tomorrow for the first time this school year. This salad lacks some of the fancy things I added in Baltimore (tortilla strips, strawberries, asparagus) but it has the basics (pine nuts, feta, grilled lemon pepper chicken, onion, carrots, cucumbers, pepper, and romaine). To give myself a little treat I cut up some almonds and threw in some dried blueberries. I am hoping this will start me back to the good-ish eating habits I had developed before my move(s).

Now that it is 10pm I think I will pack up my things and start early tomorrow. I am looking forward to my Skype date with the family in the morning. I am going to have breakfast with my family, although I will be the only one eating.