Monday, January 18, 2010

Showkim B&B

Grad school life has started up again, as is evident from the renewed sparsification of blog entries. Resisting my desire to write witty and meaningful blog entries (and thereby postponing this blog until spring break), I'll just jump in and share some pictures. Above was a visit from John, Matt, and Andrew that was filled with frisbee volleyball, delicious Joo-cooked dips, and discussional preparations for Andrew's upcoming entrance into married life.

Halfway through that visit, Joo and I picked up her mom and sister at the airport. Soon afterwards, we met my parents in Columbus for some Americanized Asian food which descended deliciously into authentically Asian esophagi.

Joo was excited to share some of her newfound talents from the past year with her mom and sister. These included cooking, decorating and some pretzelesque yoga.


I taught them a few things as well, including the method of tensing every muscle in your body and then releasing them all simultaneously. As a side note, there was no mess to clean up on the floor after this picture.




One highlight of their stay, aside from spending time together in 50% comprehensive discussions, was a surprise fondue meal that they prepared me for when I arrived home from school one day. The unexpected stringiness of the cheese was an added bonus as it allowed for hours of playtime. On a side note, notice that the less I am able to verbally communicate, the more I tend to non-verbally communicate (a trait I think I inherited from my father as is evidenced in one of the above pictures).

Dropping Joo's mom off at the airport, her sister accompanied us up to Elyria, near Cleveland, where we spent the weekend with Joo's best friend Shiwan who happened to be in the area.

Joo, filled with energy from the flood of Korean contacts, challenged me to a sumo match to which I lovingly obliged.

Although the scenery was a bit drab, the two sisters and I have enjoyed our times of getting out to exercise.

Jusu is now joining Joo on the road towards American citizenship (via her new husband in LA) and so we spent some time trying to introduce her to various aspects of the culture. Pizza was of course the first step.
As our home rages with social activities this quarter, more of which will ensue as we pick up Jusu's husband at the airport this next weekend, and with Kiwi and Gyu who will be joining us for three months, I am just thankful that my courseload is much less stressful this quarter. I have just as much work- a neverending stream in fact- but I feel a deep sense of meaning in each class and a strong trust/respect for each of my teachers (a quality I found out was rather important in grad school).