I'm wired again

It sounds so weird, but I was without internet for about 4 days.

Yes. No internet. In South Korea. Holy crappola! Arrest that man -- he has no internet in the most wired country in the world!

But now I'm back with my new (non-free) internet connection, which gives me speeds of about 20 MB per second for about $17 per month. Well, technically it's $30 but they have a weird rebate system over here. Instead of rebating money, they give you money when you sign a contract with them. Once you factor that in and subtract that from the actual monthly fee, it's closer to $17 per month. Bless you, South Korea!

I also got a wifi router so that I can finally use my iPod Touch at home again, and also for use when/if someone (like family members) visit. That way, they won't have to share my computer to get online and have to dig through all my crap just to launch Firefox. But the damned wifi router's instructions and setup program are in Korean. Like, 99% is in Korean, except for random abbreviations like "ADSL" and stuff. So I'd like to password-protect my wifi but can't figure it out because, well, I don't understand Korean besides basic place names and "hello" and "thank you."

In a weird twist, my old internet connection got cut on the same night that I finally got a phone number. It was like sacrificing one form of communication for another. The best thing about South Korean cellphone service compared to Canadian service is that incoming calls are free. That suits me perfectly, because I tend to have a lot more incoming calls that outgoing calls. The only bad part is that my cellphone gets really hot when I use it for more than 15 minutes. Hopefully I won't have a big burn on my face after talking for a long time.

When the new internet was installed, the installation guy had to come into the apartment and poke his head out the window to check for something. I never had reason to do so, so I had no idea what it looked like outside. So after he went back to his truck to get something, I did the same thing... and apparently the network wire that connects into my apartment through a drilled hole near the windowsill leads directly to a power line. I was like, "Holy shit." I mean, it's not unusual to see a huge mess/tangle of wires above the side streets of Seoul, but now I realize that a huge fraction of those lines leads directly into apartments through windows and stuff. This city would be so screwed if it was in an earthquake zone, because the wires would come tumbling down together and the whole city would be electrocuted. Man.

Work is going a lot smoother now... I'm starting to figure out what works and what doesn't, and the students are getting more accustomed to me. At first they were a bit terrified. They still are terrified but at least they feel more comfortable with me now. There's a funny story with that, involving street food and the students, which I'll post later this week.

Oh, and I've fallen in love with Ellie Nash again. More on that later.