Bits and Bobs

I've been working very long hours lately, generally getting home around 3:00 in the morning. This means that I've been heavily abusing caffeine (Red Bull, thank you for FINALLY coming to Korea!) and sleeping lightly. I'm a little high from fatigue, which is not the fun kind of high. It's sort of like a weird, sluggish dream state.

Two more weeks and then this movie should (crossing my fingers) be over. Two more weekends of non-stop work, a few more meetings with the director, eleven or twelve more sleepless nights, and then I can pass out and sleep for 15 hours! Can't. Wait.

Random photos from my phones:

Beef sashimi (육사시미), which is literally sliced raw beef. Those little dishes off to the upper left side? Delicious, delicious dipping sauce that was a little spicy and quite garlicky. Yum. (Sorry, I didn't take any other pictures from this dinner, which was last night. Everything else was standard Korean beef grilling, nothing out of the ordinary.)

It's autumn, y'all. I took this photo in my building this morning, waiting for the elevator. That little hill is Jeongbal Mountain (정발산), which is what the subway station next to my place is called. The surrounding neighborhood is all called Jeongbalsan. I need to try to escape during some daylight hours to go up the mountain and snap some pictures before the leaves all fall off the trees ... hoping that winter doesn't come in the next two weeks.

Another photo from this morning, as I was waiting for the elevator. I absolutely love that shade of red that some trees transition to. It's so beautiful, and a color that I never saw on trees while I was growing up. Remember what this little garden looked like in the summer? It was nice and lush and green then, but I love the yellows and reds in this autumn photo.

Snapped on the way back to the office from lunch today. Those plastic chairs are common in front of almost all convenience stores in Korea. Generally, older men sit in them, reading newspapers during the day and drinking at night. I find it hilarious that these three chairs are grouped around this tree- what were they doing, communing with nature while smoking their cigarettes?

The trees have already started shedding their fall foliage, which makes me sad. I want autumn to last longer!

Geeky side note- the first and last photos were taken with my Samsung Galaxy SII. The middle two photos were taken with my iPhone 4. I have to say, the iPhone has a much better camera. Nothing really wrong with the Galaxy's camera, of course, I just think the iPhone's produces nicer photos. I've heard that the iPhone 4S's camera is even better ... but I'm not getting a new phone anytime soon. I'm already on my third (!) Galaxy S2, I don't need to blow all my money on getting new phones all the time. Sigh.

There is some drama (oh, drama, I have not missed you) at work, because politics are always present in any workplace, but coupled with Korean passive-aggressiveness, the politics are staggering. I've been quite blunt about it, and using my Americanness as an excuse to be aggressive and circumvent or just plain crush the drama that comes along and tries to bite me. No, thanks.

Still no change on my employment status. No idea where I will be working next month. Tick, tick, tick, tick...