Rice Cooker Fail

Right now, I'm baking bread.

Yes, I realize it's 10:00 PM, and I have other things that are more important to do. But this is pretty dang important. See, today I bought wheat flour and brown rice. I was super excited because that meant I had food (rice) in my room for tomorrow morning ... say ... breakfast. Or lunch. Whatever.

Well, I got back to my room at like, 7 PM and was pretty hungry since I hadn't eaten since noon. So I decided to cook some rice for dinner. I have a rice cooker. This is NOT rocket science. It's measuring rice and water and hitting the switch. When the light turns green, the rice is ready to eat. NOT HARD.

Evidently, it is beyond my abilities to use a RICE COOKER to make rice. I failed. Miserably. So, I am now baking bread out of necessity because if I don't, I will not have food tomorrow (with the exception of whatever they're serving in the cafeteria ... which ... is sometimes hit or miss).

How I failed with a rice cooker, I'll never know.

___

Anyways. I also might have messed up my bread since you're supposed to mix all-purpose flour with wheat flour, and I didn't really have enough all-purpose flour so I tweaked the recipe and improvised a little ... but it's easier to eat messed-up bread than it is to eat messed-up rice. Trust me on that one. This isn't the first time I've failed at making rice (nor will it be the last, probably).

___

And yes, I've been ignoring this blog - although I'm getting pretty good at my once-a-week updates. (but I HAVE been doing that "31 days of pictures" garbage on my *new* CyWorld [which 지선언니 made for me]).

So what did I do last week? Well, as always, there was church on Sunday. I love church. I love that church. Specifically, I love the people at that church. I know I've said it before, and I'll probably say it many, many, MANY more times, but I'm so blessed by the people I've met there. I'm so very, very lucky. And I know sometimes I may be viewed as the odd-ball ... since, you know, I'm Catholic (with a big "C") and some people really don't seem to understand that ... but we have thus far managed to overcome our differences, haha.

Monday was Matt Loutz's last FULL day in Korea ... for this time around ... since I didn't have to work, he and I met up at 서울대 (Seoul National University) and walked around ... a lot ... since the campus is pretty HUGE. We went to the museum there - not the art museum, but the regular one, and practice reading in Korean. We also got to talk a lot, which was nice since it's been FOREVER. PS, I've since decided that I want to go there to study a little ... maybe some graduate school ... maybe just to study something random. I don't know. But I'll keep you posted on that.

At some point in the past week (the days all kind of got jumbled in my head), I went to the National Museum of Korea (국립중앙박물관) to explore. First of all, that museum is HUGE. I'm not joking. I was there for over two hours, and I only made a small dent ... as in I only made it through half of one floor (intensively) while merely glancing at everything else. It's got an AMAZING set of collections. Oh, and it's free. That's right - free. If you want to see the special exhibitions, well, you have to pay ... but if you just want to go peruse the permanent galleries (which is what I did), it's totally free. They even offer free tours in English (and other languages), but I chose to rent a headset for like, a dollar. Less than a dollar. uh-MAY-zing. And I will be returning SOON to finish perusing everything.

Yesterday (Saturday), Chang-gi and Nick and I met up in Seoul, which was cool because it's been a while since the three of us have been TOGETHER. Come to think of it, I guess that was the first time since we were all at the Saint. Wow. That's pretty crazy. Oh, and I just realized that it's been almost three years since I graduated university ... which seems like a long time ago (or NOT). But, that reminiscing is for another day (and another post).

I didn't stay long at church today - I peaced out right after the sermon so I could catch that bus from Suwon Bus Terminal to Gimpo at 5PM. The general gist of the message today was on dating/courtship. It was sorta interesting, and I got a good look into the mindset of ... Korean Christians in regards to dating? Or, at least, into my pastor's thoughts? We'll see. Again, that's for another day and another post.

___

Mainly I just wanted to tell you how much I FAIL with a rice cooker. Oh, and that Winter English camp starts tomorrow and I'm all sorts of not prepared - I haven't taught anything since maybe the first week of December ... that was a long time ago ... I feel WAY off my game. Luckily tomorrow is just introductions (lesson plans be damned).

I'll let you know how it goes ...

___

Oh, and today (and yesterday, for that matter) was WAAAY too cold.