June 9, 2003

• Hi all

  
  

  Thanks for your words of encouragement concerning the maybe-maybe-not fire situation. I was certainly quite stressed out there for a while. Uncertainty is not the nicest state of being...

  
  

  Ok. So the deal is that there was a fire in my family's house. There were fire trucks and police cars and men with axes... Most importantly, nobody was hurt. The fire obliterated my brother's room, and there's smoke damage throughout the house. They're estimating 4 to 6 weeks or more before they can move back in. The front of the house has to be torn out, along with some inside walls and a lot of the ceilings. All the carpet has to go, everything has to be painted. All in all, a big pain in the arse, but since there's insurance, it's manageable. Most of our belongings survived, since the water damage was fairly minimal because the fire didn't spread far (my brother shut his door).

  
  

  So. Knowing what's going on, and being in some sort of contact with them has allowed my stress level to drop back to something resembling normal (which isn't always that low, but anyhow...). My family is safe, my wife's and my belongings (in storage in the basement) are safe, and the money is there to rebuild. So. It could have been much much worse.

  
  

  On the Korean front, I now teach a couple of morning classes a week at an elementary school 20 minutes' drive away. I was not consulted beforehand, I got two days notice, and I have no curriculum. Thus too is causing me some degree of stress. But oh well. Such is life. We also knuckled down and told my boss that Crista and I will be returning to Canada when my contract ends in October. They were rather disappointed, but it went alright. We're giving serious thought to coming back to Korea once Crista finishes her degree (the reason we're going back).

  
  

  Also of potential interest is our acquisition of a scanner. It's on loan from a friend. This means that new pictures are soon going to be available. I've scanned about 30 so far, with perhaps 150 to go... But the time is near. Perhaps in a couple of weeks. Hard to say. I'd prefer to put them up in a lump rather than a few at a time. But I'll post here first when they're up and going.

  
  

  Anyhow, it's time for me to let you get back to your lives. Thanks for dropping by. I'll try to post a little more regularly. It's hard to believe just how fast time has been flying by lately...

  
  

  Take care
  -Justin-

  • 9:13 am
  • 15 Comments