Lagging

I’ve been back in the US a little more than a week. Honestly, I’m not feeling any reverse culture shock at all. What I have been feeling, however, is jetlag. I think I’m mostly over it at this point, although obviously not completely as I woke up before 9am today without an alarm. Trust me, that only ever happens when I’m jetlagged. While it’s not as bad as jetlag from Korea to the US, it’s still rough. It took several days before I could make it through the day without passing out mid-afternoon or waking up around 3:30am. Unfortunately, I’ve a lot that I need to be doing, which makes the fact that my brain has been so time-scrambled for the past week or so kind of a pain.

For those of you interested in my Kyrgyzstan adventures, I have indeed been posting them over on my Kyrgyzstan blog, so go check it out!

My post-Kyrgyzstan adventures haven’t been quite as interesting. I’ve written a syllabus and put together a course calendar for the undergrad course I’ll be teaching starting in a little more than a week. I’ve also started putting together the course website. Yawn. I also have to take several hours of boring online modules, as well as a full day of face-to-face training to “qualify” me to be a TA. Like I’d never taught before or something. Hah. I also have a very part time job (happens only a few days a year, but hey it pays well) which will be taking up pretty much all of next week… meaning I need to get my course stuff and online modules and whatever taken care of before Monday rolls around. In other words, this weekend is going to be pretty much the opposite of exciting.

I drove up to Georgia on Sunday and came back yesterday. Mom and I then drove back down to Florida – albeit to a different part of the state than where I live – in order to help her boyfriend, F, move his sailboat from his dock in Steinhatchee to his new house in Dekle Beach. I’d like to say that we were successful, but alas, the boat never left the dock. We essentially did a lot of driving, a lot of sweating, and accomplished a whole lotta nothing. But hey, the scenery was great. We also celebrated my mom’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! Back in Georgia, I helped my mom with the mowing (and the towing of the mower from one property to the next), which also involved a lot of sweating. The southeastern US will do that to you this time of year.

Mom and F and the sailboat...
Mom on the boat. Her hand is bleeding, having been thwacked by the centerboard crank.
And this would be the reason we didn't move the boat - we needed to motor it down to the ramp, but alas...
But hey, the view was nice.
F's new house
The view from F's new house
We went for a walk in the marshy area along Yates Creek
Happy Birthday!
Back in GA, Honey and Merlin anxiously await dinner.

Of course, by the time I made it back to Orlando on Thursday and was still sweating, I realized that I needed to have my AC looked at. I’d gotten a new compressor (up in GA) back in April, so there was no reason for me to be sweating in the car. Well, either the guy who installed the compressor forgot to add freon, or the system has a leak. I guess I’ll find out which if my car either remains cool or goes back to being a sweatbox.

In addition to the kinda pricey freon + oil change, I gave in and went to LensCrafters to get an eye exam and some new glasses. I don’t even want to think about the amount of money I had to shell out. And I won’t even get my glasses til next week, as they have to special order my lenses (as I bloody well can’t see) – although at least I made it through one more checkup without needing bifocals. Hah. The doctor said I’ll probably need to get them the next time I get a prescription. Since I’m going from having four pairs of glasses (black, brown, pink, and green) plus prescription sunglasses to just having one pair plus sunglasses, I went with tortoiseshell lenses as those are both black and brown. They’re super cute, but I don’t get to post pictures until next week or whenever they arrive.

So yeah. This post has been disjointed and probably not the  most interesting. Go visit my Kyrgyzstan blog – it’s far more coherent and definitely far more interesting.

pre-Halloween trip to GA

I have really got to stop telling myself that I will be able to go home for a few days AND do schoolwork, because it really never works out that way.

I left Orlando on Thursday afternoon and drove to Georgia. A friend of mine was taking her kids and a couple of others to the local Halloween party downtown, and invited me to come along. I dressed as a crewmember from the Battlestar Galactica. I would have loved to have gone as Starbuck, but being neither blonde nor anywhere near as badass, I just went as a random BSG crewmember. No one knew who I was supposed to be. I didn’t expect any little kids to know, but several adults in my age bracket asked me what I was supposed to be. Most hadn’t even heard of BSG. One didn’t realize there was a ‘new’ series, saying, “Wow, that’s going back a few decades.”

Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck

Me as Starbuck or random BSG crewmember

Me, C, and a gaggle of children

That night I discovered that water was no longer flowing into my toilet. No, the knob in the bathroom that you can use to shut the water to the toilet had not been shut off. Nonetheless, no water was making its way into the tank. No idea why. Water everywhere else in the house is working just fine. I figured I’d just fill my tank up from a bucket each time I needed to flush and worry about this later. Like maybe Christmas break.

On Friday, mom went down to Florida, leaving me in charge of all the animals. I spent a lot of time out at the land, cleaning the trailer and playing with the kitties.

Bagira
Buddy (who is very much NOT anyone's buddy)
Donnie's tail has grown even more absurd.
George
Clean Spartan!

With kitties going in and out all the time, it never stays clean, though.

When I wasn’t out at the land, I was at mom’s house, taking care of the animals there. Which mainly meant ‘playing with animals.’

Marlee, Netta, and Blondie

Blondie and Netta

Some jackass spray-painted black all over mom’s Obama-Biden signs. There is definitely a racial element to politics in this town. My mom’s neighborhood is predominantly white, and there are Romney-Ryan signs all over the place. I drove through a couple prominently black neighborhoods, and only saw Obama-Biden signs. Mom’s is the only sign up here that I’ve seen that doesn’t fit that pattern… and take a look at the results:

I meant to spend Saturday night doing homework, but I confess that I spent it curled up in bed with Charlie, Mochi, and a good book.

Saturday wasn’t particularly eventful, and I was able to finish grading an assignment for four sections of a class (over 100 students), but I didn’t get any of *my* schoolwork done. I did, however, get a picture of my mom with her new car.

I’m back in Orlando now… time for a nap, and then some major schoolwork time.

Mostly a good day. Not all, but mostly.

Today was mostly a good day. If I hadn't realized at about 9pm that I'd neglected to check the mail, I'd have gone to bed feeling content, instead pacing around my house ranting crankily.

I had a really nice lunch with T, a friend of mine from undergrad (who already has his PhD and is teaching - albeit in a different department from mine at the university I'll be attending as of Monday). I hadn't actually spoken to him (other than facebook) since graduation in 2001 (god, we're old), so it was really nice to catch up.

Now, do you recall my obsession with the Daewoo Matiz / Chevy Spark? Well, it is finally going on sale here in the US and I so very much want one. I'm a tad hindered by the fact that my income is teeny-tiny, so I shan't be buying one any time soon. That being said... the Chevy dealer down the road from my house is having a drawing to give away a free, lime green Chevy Spark. I totally went down to the dealer after lunch this afternoon and registered. The free car is probably an automatic, but if I were to get a free car, I wouldn't quibble. Here's hoping I win!

And here's hoping all that tacky shite comes off the poor thing.
After registering to win the car, I drove over to Winter Park to check out the Lacomka Bakery and Deli - a Russian deli, grocery, and restaurant. I was specifically on a quest for chechil (чечил), but unfortunately they don't carry it :( They did, however, have suluguni (сулугуни), a delicious Georgian cheese, so I came away happy, even if they didn't have what I wanted. I'll need to go in sometime when I haven't just eaten lunch to check out their restaurant.
Now... remember back in June when Mama Cat thought Mochi was attacking her, and accidentally sliced open my face as a result, requiring me to get four stitches? Just four. Only four. Yeah. Well in July I got a bill for $650. I thought $160/stitch was a tad steep, but my mom paid the bill for me... Then tonight I went out to check the mail and discovered a bill for $1177!! You know, in addition to the previous $650. We're now up to $450/stitch which is completely ridiculous. Not to mention something I can't exactly afford to pay. Despite my part time jobs, that amounts to a good tenth of my annual salary. What the hell?

Damn, Friday the 13th, you don't disappoint.

Today sure has been a Friday the 13th.

Velvet went to the vet to get spayed today. This meant that she got to spend last night in my house, being kept away from food and water. Given that I have four other hungry and thirsty critters in my house right now, I didn’t want to put up all the food and water in the house; instead I put Velvet in her crate. And she cried ALL NIGHT. I had her at the vet bright and early, and went home and passed out.

Two hours later, I was awakened from blissful sleep (buried under a pile of canines and Charlie) by my mother calling in a fury: her truck wasn’t working.

Now let’s back up a little bit. Remember last Saturday, when my mom bought herself a pickup? Well, we’d gone to a couple of dealers looking for a used Ford Ranger 4 cylinder with a manual transmission. The used car section of the local Toyota dealer had a white Ford Ranger with a manual transmission. We took it for a test drive, and liked it. Mom asked the salesman if it was a 4 cylinder or a V6, because she was looking for a 4 cylinder. He said he didn’t know, but would check. He went out and popped the hood, and came back with the answer that it was a 4 cylinder. We asked for the CarFax. He printed it out, but we got distracted chatting with him and forgot to look at it.

Mom bought the truck. She paid with a check.

It seemed to be a good purchase, although my mom kept having a hard time shifting into third. I remember when I first switched from my 1979 Volvo to my 2003 Toyota Echo, I had a hard time getting it to go into third, simply because it was slightly different from what I used to – I figured mom was having the same problem. As she has a six month warranty, Mom stopped by the dealer yesterday complain that the transmission was sticking – and to pick up the CarFax. She was told that nothing was wrong with the transmission because, “Nothing can go wrong with a manual transmission.” They didn’t even look at it. (As someone who had her manual transmission go out on her in the middle of an intersection once – granted this was the ’79 Volvo and it was 19 years old at the time – I can tell you that things most definitely DO go wrong with manual transmissions on occasion. What bullshit.) Then mom got home and took a look at the CarFax… which said that her truck was a V6. We looked under the hood – yep, six spark plugs = V6. She had specifically wanted a 4 cylinder because she wasn’t going to be hauling anything and she wanted the better gas mileage from the smaller engine.

So mom called the dealer. When she told the salesman the truck was a V6, first he insisted that oh no, it was *definitely* a 4 cylinder; he had looked and there were only four spark plugs. Eventually he decided that OK, maybe it was a V6 – but my mom really needed the V6 anyway for all the hauling she was going to be doing. Yeah. He tried to give her a V6 sales pitch. Of course my mom was upset, because while we *might* have bought the truck anyway had we known it was a V6, we would have also gone to Jacksonville to look at some other options first. She argued with the sales guy, and he spoke with his manager… the best they could promise her was that if in the next few weeks they found a comparable-value 4 cylinder, they would trade her. Hah. We figured we were stuck with it. Still, we liked it, except for the sticky transmission and the gas mileage of the V6.

Last night, while doing her electronic banking, mom noticed that the dealer hadn’t cashed her check. We joked about stopping the check.

And then this morning as my mom was driving, she went to downshift and found that it would not go into ANY gear. (Newsflash: this is what happens when a manual transmission goes bad.) She was only a couple blocks from her mechanic, so he came and looked at it; his judgment was that the transmission was shot, and that she’d have to get it re-built. Mom called the dealer, and they sent a wrecker to pick her and the truck up.

The wrecker was driven by one of mom’s former students. She convinced him to swing by the bank first, so she could stop payment on the check. Hah!

Once arriving at the dealer, mom discovered that the salesman was now saying that he had NEVER told her that it was a 4 cylinder… but, ooops… the sales paperwork had the truck written up as a 4 cylinder, not as a V6. The dealer was FURIOUS that mom had stopped payment on the check, and told her that it was illegal for her to do that, and that they could have her arrested, but that “out of the goodness of their heart” they wouldn’t call the cops. Dude, seriously?

Anyway, mom got them to agree to refund her $400 for her van (which has apparently already been sent to the crusher) plus the $35 for stopping payment on the check. Not sure how she managed this, as I wasn’t there. (They were worried that the title change might have already gone through, and that they’d be hella out of luck if we got the title in the mail and didn’t want to give it back, so this might be why they became cooperative.) Of course, we don’t yet *have* this money yet, so god knows if we’ll get it. Allegedly they were supposed to call us if they got it fixed and we wanted to re-purchase it. They insisted that surely it was something minor like the clutch (mom’s mechanic says the clutch is fine) or “just a lock on the transmission that needs to be removed” (can we say ‘bullshit’??) – but not surprisingly, they never called.

THEN… mom’s car (her 1997 Ford Escort) wouldn’t start. It had sat un-driven over the past week since the arrival of the truck, so we thought perhaps it had a dead battery. Until we were unable to jump it from my car. Mom called her mechanic again, and he came over to take a look. The starter was dead. As in the starter that he replaced last month. Yeah. So he’s going to take the starter back to the auto-parts store and get it swapped for a new one. He says he’ll be able to get a free new starter, but mom will still have to pay him for labor to install it. Joy.

We picked Velvet up at the vet and took her to my house, and then sat through a torrential downpour. Our next destination was the land, but I was NOT driving my car through the water obstacle (er, “road”) after all the rain. We parked and walked out there, wading down the road on foot. While out there, we discovered that Honey (my horse) has developed some major swelling in the lymph node area under her jaw, so we’re going to have to get the vet out there to look at her. (It doesn’t seem to be bothering her, but it can’t be good for her, either.) Then when we walked back out, Mama Cat followed us the half mile back to the car, including picking her way through the woods alongside the water obstacle. So there we were at the car with a cat that needed to be half a mile on the other side of the water. As our options were leaving Mama there, driving my Toyota Echo through the flood waters, or taking Mama home, Mama Cat is now part of the animal madhouse at my house. Yeah.

I feel ya, Charlie.

We’ll be going to Jacksonville tomorrow to check out a 2008 Ford Ranger. Wish us luck!

My continuing obsession with the Matiz

The Chevy Spark - formerly the Daewoo Matiz - will finally go on sale in the US in Fall 2012. I've been in love with the cute little car since I first spotted it on the Korean streets back in 2004. Now, I know that it's got a weak little engine, and I've never driven one, so for all I know I might actually hate it. Still, I really have wanted a green Matiz for years.

Me, with a Daewoo Matiz in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, 2008

Me again, this past August... Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. May have been a few sheets to the wind at this point. Apparently, so was my photographer, B, as I don't even have to blur my face in this photo; he did it for me.

My friend G in Daegu, South Korea drove a Matiz for several years... yet somehow the only photo I have of it is this blurry one, with her husband doing god-knows-what to it. Spring 2007.
In 2010, the all new Matiz went on sale in South Korea. It was still called the Daewoo Matiz, complete with Daewoo logo and 'Matiz' emblazoned on the back (despite the fact that Daewoo technically no longer existed, having been purchased by GM). These pictures were taken during my very first sighting of the all new Matiz, down in Daegu, July 2010:

Note the Daewoo symbol on the front grill.

At the beginning of 2011, the Chevy Spark appeared in South Korea. By which I mean that all new Matizes carried the Chevy bowtie and had a new name.

Yes, they come in colors other than green.

I read (and I can't for the life of me remember/find where) that the decision to go ahead and start marketing all former Daewoo cars under the Chevy moniker here in Korea was to make them more appealing. Daewoo was a Korean company. GM/Chevrolet (as surely you're aware) is an American company. The Korean lineup of Daewoo/Chevy models are still manufactured here in Korea (although elsewhere as well); you'd think that maintaining a Korean name would be a useful marketing tool... but according to the article I read (why didn't I bookmark it??), marketing cheap, domestically produced cars under the Chevy brand enables people to purchase 'foreign' cars - and the cachet that goes along with having an expensive import - without having to pay expensive import duties. Apparently this also enables dealers to charge more. Yeah.
Anyhow, the all new Matiz/Spark has been launched in various markets around Asia and Europe, but it has not yet gone on sale in the US... but it's coming. The 2013 Chevrolet Spark (identical in appearance to Korea's 2010 Matiz, but apparently with some added safety features required by the US) will go on sale in the US in fall 2012. Not sure what the MSRP will be, although it's supposed to be cheaper than the Chevy Aveo, which starts at $14k.

Taken yesterday, here in Seoul.
And in case you've been thinking that the Matiz/Spark looks familiar, you may have noticed it in Transformers 2 and 3:

I would like to own a Matiz... but I'm not sure it will happen. For one thing, if all goes as planned, I'll be entering grad school in Fall 2012 - not exactly the time to be shelling out for a new car, even if it's the cheapest Chevy has to offer. Besides, I already have a car, and despite its age, it runs great. My car (back in the US) is a 2003 Toyota Echo:

Taken in December 2008, several months before it ran afoul of a Ford Explorer and developed an unsightly dent in its driver's side door and front corner panel. Sigh. My fault.
Back when I bought the Echo, I was 100% set on getting a Honda Civic. Then I test drove one. I'm pretty convinced that there was something wrong with the specific car that I test drove, although the salesman tried to tell me that they were all like that, I just wasn't used to it. Hah. I left the Honda dealer and went straight to Toyota, and I fell in love with the way the Echo drove. Sure, it's got a weak little engine, but it was fun to drive. I've never driven a Matiz; I might have the same experience that I had with the Civic. Meanwhile, the Echo is still going strong, and it hasn't had a single problem. I wouldn't even be considering getting a new car if it weren't for the fact that it is currently my mother's primary vehicle. (Her other vehicles, a 1984 Chevy van and a 1997 Ford Escort wagon, definitely show their age, and are not exactly reliable.) I'd stick with Toyota, but... Toyota no longer makes the Echo; it's been replaced by the Yaris, similar in design to the Spark, but lacking in visual ooomph in my opinion. And it's certainly lacking in terms of color choices.