One More Week...

until:

• summer camp finishes. It's been a really good camp. Sometimes the pace is so fast I feel like there isn't even time to breathe in class. This summer has been one notch slower (at a ten, instead of the usual eleven). I've had a great bunch of students, a fair number of whom are going back to the US or international school, so I won't be teaching them in the fall.


• my sister goes home. I've had so much fun getting to know her. She was in elementary school when I moved to Korea, so we've never spent much time together. I'm going to miss her when she's gone. Maybe she'll come back next year... (she's writing progress reports at the moment, which may put her off the idea).


• my vacation. Yes, I get paid more than I would teaching in Louisiana, but I get two measly weeks off per year, not consecutive or at times of my choosing. I'm not taking a trip, but I may go to a hotel for a night or two to "get away".
  
• my last dental visit!!! I saved the best for last. I went yesterday and got my last old filling removed and had another small cavity filled (this week's gift). I'm pretty sure I've paid for everything now. The grand total: a hair over 2,000,000 won (in the neighborhood of $2200-2300). For that I got six crowns (two porcelain caps, the rest big gold fillings-- not the kind that go over the sides of the tooth), all (and there were many) old fillings replaced (so the gold will no longer be making the silver jealous), a small filling, more cleaning than one person should ever need, and the gum line raised over one tooth. Not quite the bargain of the $30 root canal I had the last time I went to the dentist (1998, ahem), but I'll gratefully take it.

Well, that's enough rambling. Without further ado, here are some random photos (photographic rambling, in other words).

This is the side door at a big Buddhist temple we went to yesterday. The small yellow sign says, "Don't pray here." You know, in case you thought the boxes of snack food were a new style of Buddha.

This was at both main doors to the temple. I thought they were supposed to be humble...

This is a swatch of the Eternity yarn from MCY. It is way more beautiful than their photo, which makes me think I should have ordered more at the time, because reorders will probably look different. It's a bit brighter than in the photo, with shades of blue that range from green-y teal to slightly violet periwinkle. I'm going to knit a scarf and will hopefully have enough. This swatch is using 3.5mm needles, so that should give me a little extra knit fabric.

This is Flag Man. He was spotted across the street from the US Embassy here in Seoul. His bag says, "I love the flag." It was the weekend before Korean Independence Day, so that may have had something to do with it. I hope.

These are Mama's socks. I finished them Monday or Tuesday, but didn't have my camera or forgot to take a pic when Anne was over here. They really aren't uneven, my sister has a different shoe size than Mama. As you can see, they are cousins, not twins, but I hope that will be seen as rustic or quaint, which Mama generally likes. The sock on the left has way more gray in it. The skeins are three-play with each ply being variegated different colors, but somehow several areas in that skein were gray on all three plies for surprisingly long (a centimeter or more in sock length each).