Argh! Korea pisses me off sometimes. After my class with Mr. Min this morning, I came to my desk in Plant 1. My computer was askew and the network cord was disconnected. I don't know whether someone disconnected it for a good reason (and frankly I don't care). But would it have killed them to reconnect it and turn my computer back around? Sometimes I wonder if the people in this office have any sense of respect at all.

It might not seem like a big deal, but it's a reflection of an event that happened a couple weeks ago. I returned from my classes at P4 to my desk in the Purchasing department to find my computer mouse missing! No note, nothing (the people in this department know English well enough to leave a note). I was really ticked off. I mean there are spare mouses everywhere, but they chose to take the one from the foreigner's computer? After walking off to cool my head I came back and asked Violet, one of the nice women in the office, if she knew where my mouse was? She obviously didn't take it, and was surprised that it would go missing (me too!). She gave me a spare one she had in her drawer (whoever took mine obviously didn't feel like asking for a spare one). Later on Andy, the nice guy who sits to my right, said "your mouse lended to soemone." No, no, in order for lending to happen, I would have had to be there. The next morning I arrived at my desk to discover that whoever borrowed my mouse had attempted to "return" it. My mouse was sitting next to my keyboard. The broken-off end of the plug of Violet's mouse was still in my computer. Someone tried to take her mouse out of my computer, and it broke off in the process. They then, apparently, decided to give up. Once again - of course - no note, nothing. So I fished the end plug out of my computer and plugged my old mouse back in. Now Violet has a broken mouse and I don't know who the hell took mine. I can't believe someone could possible have such disrespect for a colleague to take my things, break them, and not tell me. That was one of the first days I really didn't feel like I liked Korea.

The week before that I arrived at my desk to discover my chair missing. Andy told me my chair was in the meeting room. Ok, understandably, if they had a meeting after I left work, it's no big deal to borrow my chair (heaven forbid they return it!). My chair, however, is nowhere near the meeting room. Why they would choose to drag my big old chair across the office I don't know - probably because they didn't feel like returning it. None of these things are a bid deal, and they wouldn't upset me at home, but when you're working in a foreign country, it's little things that can make the difference between feeling excited about your adventure and feeling crappy. Oh well, I'll cheer myself up I'm sure. At least no one came to my Purchasing class today - some time to chill.