The Moon is Full

If ever there's been a theme to this blog it has been time. I'm way too time focused. Especially lately. I think of everything in number terms.

I've been in Korea for four and a half months, one and a half boxes of laundry detergent, not even one (crazy, I know) bottle of dish soap, about ten boxes of cereal, two bottles of hair mousse, two bottles of Nyqul, one and a half tubes of Crest toothpaste, thousands of won, mountains of rice and kimchi... okay, that's enough.

I notice the moon here too, which I never do at home. About two weeks into my stay here we were sitting around a plastic table at the imart. It was tall Barbara's last Thursday and we were saying goodbye. The sky was clear for a rare moment in the July humidity and the moon was full. Since then I've seen a full moon two or three more times, including now. I don't know anything about cycles of the moon but I notice its fullness and am reminded of the passing time.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday...

I emailed two past professors to ask them to write reference letters for me. Asking is getting easier the more I do it but it still makes me uncomfortable. I asked my stats professor who taught me twice and knows me quite well. Last year he told me that since I was struggling with the material of the class I might want to rethink my demography plan. But it was a PhD level course... He replied this morning and said he could honestly write a strong letter. I also asked a professor who I TA'd for and had a class with. He agreed to write the letter as long as I provided him with a bunch of supporting documents like transcripts, biographical sketch, etc. etc. He said "I know a number of people who find demography interesting" or something that sounds kind of questionable. He's into qualitative sociology.

That's one thing out of the way.

Negotiating through the different school websites is proving to be a frustrating and interesting comparative activity. Some make it near impossible to locate the online application form and others make you feel as though it's not even worth applying because everyone who applies are much MUCH smarter than you. U of T's department of sociology states in bold that consistent A grades are preferred but excellent grades alone do not guarantee admission. So, what, you have to have all A's in addition to glowing referals and flawless writing samples? I'm screwed. I thought I'd get away with not having to provide writing samples but alas it looks like I was mistaken. Maybe I could submit my blog entry about being naked in the sauna? What do you think?

Okay, enough about this. You're here for Korea talk, right? Well, my apartment is dry and my mouth is parched. My children seem to be improving and we made some pretty damn fantastic puppets that would be difficult to rival. It's amazing what you can do with a sock. My puppet's name is Kimchi, for lack of anything more creative, but the kids laughed. Then again they laugh at the Korean word for fart. Pangoo, in case you were wondering. Titter titter.