Coffee on Monday

Julie bought me this pen on Valentine's Day b/c I was so excited to be reunited with what I called my wedding giraffe: I had this exact same trinket as a keychain for years in Chicago after getting it from Anju's wedding pinata (I didn't trample that many children for it, I swear). It adequately describes my mood lately. This weekend was packed. I got my boots and shopped like a maniac with Chunhwa, who is brillz - I have totally found my shopping buddy here. She found me some gorgeous pieces after we tried on nearly everything in sight. I found out that I am not capable of spending any less than 5-6 hours with people at a time. It's very trying on my homework schedule, but I can't get it down any shorter than that. Yesterday I had tea and dinner with Ben, who found a gorgeous restaurant - all this beautiful woodwork and trees indoors. And the Cabernet Sauvignon was perfect.

I've gotten through over 3/4ths of my spinning and unwinding, but the remainder is problematic for boring technical reasons. In the meantime, my social calendar has kept me from my homework, which is to weave several more rounds on my piece here. I'm also still behind (as I have been for months) on language study. My tutor has a student and thought we would be able to help each other out, so today I met Michael, who is working on this amazing project in London. Instant love! He is a huge dreamer, a gyopo from Germany, unabashed in his passion and love of Korean culture, who is going to be a total mover and shaker. Bright energy, positive, hopeful, smart, hardworking, and well-connected. I haven't gotten enough sleep lately so I took coffee with him after lunch, while he showed me his plans and I explained the papermaking process to him. It would be great to figure out a way to be part of the festival, but I think that just helping each other out with info, contacts, and brainstorming will be fabulous.

I'm still feeling incredibly grateful for my job this year. And wishing I could clone myself to get all of the work done.