Happy Halloween... or not

So, my culture sickness has vastly improved since the last time we talked. I just feel a lot better, which I think is largely due to my parents' support. Moving on, yesterday was a really amazing day. One of my coworkers took me on an errand with her, and we ended up going to the Youth Film location (this is not the correct name, but you might find it if you look hard enough under this name). It is a government run program, and it has amazing technology, the kind of things needed to make quality projects and broadcasts. It was really wonderful and inspiring to get to see a place that is so conductive to children and teens exploring their creativity. Basically, I salivated at the idea of all those young minds filling with new ideas.
I also somehow found myself being roped into working today, which was a Saturday. I was up early, arriving at 9am before the grate had even been lifted from in front of my building. I went to a coffee shop and tried to order something without milk, so I attempted to utilize my context clues. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and "coffeebean coffee" turned out to be 2/3 foamy cream, 1/3 sugar, and just enough coffee thrown in to make the whole thing smell vaguely sweaty and taste bitter enough to make your nose hairs stand at attention. (This was not as strange as the Rich Chocolate Tea Latte I had on Friday, but it did taste worse. Also, let it be known that I really do not like black coffee with any kind of cream or milk in it. If there is milk involved, there had better be chocolate in it as well, thank you very much.) Sewing club this morning was actually pretty interesting. The kids are making their dolls now, so that they can move on to learning how to make clothes. My coworker speaks almost no English (The one in charge, anyway.), which made for some interesting times as she told me what to do. I spent around ten minutes looking for a white board I thought she had asked me to find, only to realize that she wanted me to bring down two huge bags of stuffing that were situated right in front of the white board. (Now that I think about it, that was actually pretty funny-- are you laughing?) I got to help the two girls who are the most comfortable speaking English, since they are from Australia and Connecticut, and they seemed pretty relieved that they did not have to ask all of their questions in Korean. It also helped that they were completely adorable 11 year olds. (I was most certainly not that cute at their age.) I ended up teaching them how to tie off stitches the way my grandmother taught me, doubling back and looping under the stitch twice, meaning that they were the only two in the club this morning who did not have to ask for help tying off. (I was and am pretty proud of that.)
My transportation card is still being ornery, and people do not really stop to try to help me most of the time because they assume that I do not know how to reload my card, but that is definitely not the case.) ALSO, I GOT PAAAAAIIIIIIDDDDDD!!!!!!! I might be just a little bit excited about that.
I am currently living on the wild side, eating all the filled Belgium chocolate pumpkins my parents sent me in my care package. My host family will head off to my host brother's soccer tournament tomorrow morning in the wee hours (7am). I cannot go because I had work, and so I read my host mother's mind before she could advise me to "take a rest". I said it so that she could agree with me, instead of having her worry that I have not been sleeping enough so she can stop me from Monday's English class yet again.
Love and Happy Halloween (even though this website is on your time, so it never quite matches up with the time I am actually writing things),
Elena