This is the New Year

“Another year you made a promise, another chance to turn it all around. And do not save this for tomorrow, embrace the past and you can live for now, and I will give the world to you”

Hey y’all! For those that are following my weekly updates, I am sorry that this one was delayed by a day. Like I have said previously, I typically type my blogs on Monday nights and post them on Tuesday mornings (Korean time that is). This past Monday night I was exhausted and went to bed super early. It didn’t hit me until Tuesday morning when I woke up that I had not written my blog post, and I didn’t have enough time before I had to leave to write it.

Last week did not start out so great. I had an interview last Tuesday for a volunteer position at the USO on base. For those that know me, you know that I have a very type a personality. My parents also taught me growing up to always be early, not even on time, because being on time equals being late. So I gave myself thirty minutes to get to my interview when I knew it would only take 10 minutes for me to get to the USO center from my apartment. I go downstairs to leave, and my car would not turn on. I do want to mention that the temperature dropped 20 degrees that day from the previous day which made the high 18 degrees. The car Buddy and I have is a diesel. The battery did not want to work and the car did not want to turn on no matter how much I pleaded with it. Finally after fifteen minutes of trying, I knew I had to give up trying and go upstairs to email the lady. I cried. The fact that this lady’s first impression of me was that I was unreliable tore me apart. I then spent all afternoon texting my father about the car and taking videos for him to see if he could help me out, which he did. I have not had problems since last Tuesday.

Tuesday was also New Year’s Eve. I had planned on making dinner for us, but after my morning, I was not in the mood. There was a diner on base that Buddy and I had been wanting to try, and they were open, so we decided to go ahead and try it out. Yes, instead of going out and celebrating the wild way, we went and ate breakfast food. We did have a champagne toast with one of our neighbors/coworkers of Buddy’s though. He invited us over to have a glass of his favorite champagne before we left for dinner. So we toasted to new friendships and the new year. Breakfast for dinner was phenomenal though. It was at The Original Pancake House which was started in Portland, Oregon. I had the chicken and waffles while Buddy ordered ham and eggs. I definitely had the better meal of the two, Buddy still dreams of the amazing chicken strips I had. After we finished eating there, we came back home and ended staying up until midnight watching movies. At midnight, we made sure to message our family and friends back home that it was finally 2020 even though they still had 15 hours of 2019.

On New Year’s Day, we woke up to snow!!! This is about the third snowfall we have had, but just like the last two, it didn’t stay long. About two hours later and it had all melted away. Since Buddy was off that day, I made us some breakfast. Buddy’s friend (he who shall not be named unless you read it in last week’s blog) came over that afternoon and we ended up playing a game of Scrabble while watching the Mandalorian. I also made us some hot chocolate (or hot choccy for the fans of baby yoda). Scrabble didn’t last long as we all played short words and played on one side of the board which highly limited us later in the game. After three episodes of the Mandalorian, we decided to put the game up and go our separate ways. Until dinner though, because I made chicken and steak fajitas which we went next door to eat with him and watch The Irishman on netflix. Now, I knew how long the movie was (3 hours and 30 minutes), the boys did not. So as soon as I was finished eating, I left and came back to our apartment. Buddy came in an hour later and said he was only coming over to get popcorn because they just realized they had only watched the first half of the movie. I was ready for bed by the time he came back over!

On Thursday, I went back for my interview, and this time I left 2 hours before I needed to just to make sure the car started. It did and I made it was so much time to spare. I had a great little interview! Good news, I started the very next day! I worked in the business center on Friday, where the past two days I have worked in the lounge center which is down the hallway from the business center. The business center has about 30 computers which the soldiers are allowed to use and print from, and we can make copies for them and scan documents. In the lounge, there are free snacks, drinks, and coffee that we keep filled that the soldiers get for free, as well as several tvs to watch sports or play video games. On Friday, I also got to participate in Operation Birthday Cake which allows for soldiers who are here single or unaccompanied to be surprised with a birthday cake from their family and/or friends back in the states. Even though I have only volunteered for three days so far, I am loving it. I love getting to interact with the soldiers and their families, plus I have met great new people who are also volunteers.

On Sunday, I took Buddy to Daiso (the store I talked about a few weeks ago that is 3story and like a $5 Below). We ended up getting a ton of items there to send back to our families. When we were done shopping, we came back to the Ville to eat a late lunch/early dinner. There’s a brand new BBQ place that we’ve been seeing, so we decided to try it out. Coming from Memphis, I am highly picky about my BBQ. So I played it safe and ordered a fried chicken sandwich while Buddy ordered the beef rib. I WAS WRONG. Buddy’s beef rib was so amazing and my sandwich was so not amazing. The atmosphere was so fun and open, we are definitely going back again, maybe even this week for date night!

Before we left for our outtings, I had also watched the Tennessee Titans beat and take out the New England Patriots. Thanks to facetiming my mom and the ESPN app (only though that only gives me the play by plays), I was able to watch! My mom and I were so excited!!! That was a huge win! I’ve already told Buddy that we’ll be eating lunch at Texas Roadhouse next Sunday so we can watch the Titans play against the Ravens for their Saturday night game.

This week has started off pretty well, as like I said, I’ve already done two more days of volunteering. Since I’m only volunteering in the mornings, my plan is to go every day if I can. It gets me out of the apartment and doing something meaningful with my time. I have also heard good news about a job I applied for the first week I got here to Korea. I went ahead though and applied for another job this week that I felt would be better geared towards what I have gone to school for, so fingers crossed!

I hope to have next week’s blog posted on time, and I can’t wait to see what happens between now and then to be able to write about!