Thursday, February 11, 2010

Pipes Bursting, Valentine's Day Prep and other Minor Disasters

Sometimes I wonder if anyone is reading this, but it's fun to write so I keep updating. ^_^

This week has been nothing short of disastrous. It seems that one thing after another keeps happening. And on top of that, I'm completely stressed out from the script and work. Bleh. I feel like I've morphed into super bitch this week, and it's not fun.

At work... I can tell that the stress is getting to me. There is one certain reporter that keeps rubbing me the wrong way and I get testier and testier. Said reporter is possibly the worst writer and English speaker (probably because this reporter is the only one who isn't somewhat kyopo or who's parents live abroad). Whatever it is, the person is not that good. At first, when I would completely re-write or change entire chunks of this reporter's articles based on the sole fact that they didn't make sense, were riddled with grammar, spelling and vocabulary mistakes, the reporter seemed grateful. I'm not sure how sincere, but everytime the reporter looked over my corrections, they would come back over and thank me. (I thought it was kind of weird... and annoying.)

Anyway... so lately, said reporter keeps coming up and questioning me after I make corrections. And of course... I'm right. Not only am I a native English and former English instructor... I have a degree in journalism and four years of reporting and writing experience... which this reporter either ignores or doesn't know about. Or this reporter questions a mistake that they made that is nearly impossible for others to notice (such as writing 'daring' instead of 'darling'... that's not my fault). It's driving me crazy. The reporter SUCKS compared to the other reporters who are younger, but are stronger writers in English. Oi... the reporter is starting to get an attitude with me and I just want to throw a punch... bleh...

So, that's one annoyance... another is Issie-related. I had to switch her cat food this time because the grocery store by our house quit carrying her kitten food. And well, it's not settling well with her little tummy so she's had diarrea all week... all over the house. So now my house smells like cat poo. Ugh.

And the icing on the cake... at midnight last night... my hot water pipe busted.

Yesterday afternoon when I got home, I noticed the heater blinking. I remembered there was something that we were suppose to do that involved draining the water heater. I tried, but I think I drained the wrong bit. So, there was no heat until my roommate came home and drained the right part and the heat started working again.

Anyway, so she turned on the shower and waited for it to heat up, but it wasn't. She turned off the shower and we heard water spraying from somewhere, went into the laundry room and discovered water spraying from the pipe. And first it wasn't much, but when we touched the pipe... water came flooding out. We shut the hot water off and took a closer look. The pipe was corroded and had separated from the cross pipe. But, it was midnight and there was nothing we could do until morning because it obviously needed to be welded or something. Duct tape wouldn't solve this problem. At least not permanently. It even looked as though someone had taped around it before.

We sent a text message to my landlady and decided to wait until morning. My roommate decided an apartment with no heat or hot water for the night and possibly most of the next day was too much for her, so she bailed around 12:30 to head to her friend's house, leaving me to deal with the pipe and my landlady by myself... knowing full well that I can't speak Korean and I needed her as a translator.

So, here I sit, waiting for the pipe guy to fix the pipe. My landlady's husband has been here three times already since I got up at noon and it's now 1:30pm. He never says anything, just walks in, looks at the pipe, plays with Issie and leaves. Both of the guys just looked at the pipe and I think the work guy is getting all the equipement he needs to fix it.

Ugh, I'm just glad that I didn't have any plans today other than writing and cleaning the house. Because now I'm stuck here waiting on my stupid pipe to get fixed... bleh... Though, I was going to go to the bank...