Movin' on up?

So there we were, stuck in our tiny apartment for who knows how long...

Then my amazing friend/coworker stepped in. She decided the new teacher at school must be a foreigner, and that new teacher MUST take over our apartment, so we could get a better one. And that new teacher was arriving by July 11. FINALLY!! We had a date. We had a deadline. We had a light at the end of this dank-ass tunnel.

We started apartment hunting again.

We are well-versed in Korean real estate now.

We knew what we wanted. Two bedrooms. A decent living area. NOT a basement apartment. And not above a noraebang (boozy karaoke room bar) or an all-day shouty vegetable market. Oh, and within our school's budget, of course.

We searched. We had near hits. One apartment was huge, but it was in a terrible area. One apartment was amazing and clean and beautiful, and another couple signed a lease on it LITERALLY 4 minutes before we showed up. It was a very roller-coastery time.

Our director spent another evening taking us to apartments. We saw 3 (again). We found the one (again). We wanted it (again). It wanted us. It was June 25th. No reason not to jump on it, since the new teacher would be here in a couple of weeks.

Our director said not now.

Our director said she had to be sure the new teacher was actually coming before she would let us move. The new teacher already had a ticket and a visa. Our director wanted to wait. Our director crushed us. Again (squared).

My good friend here and JD both pushed me to push back. It was hard. I'm not a push-back kid. I'm a doormat who presents a convincing illusion of... of something less doormat-y. But this was too far. This was another thoughtless way of wreaking havoc on my family and our chances of feeling settled and comfortable in a foreign country. So I told her it was not ok. And that I would have to find another job if she couldn't make this right. And that my family could not stay on this roller coaster any longer.

She signed the lease that day.

We moved in the second weekend of July. We had so many incredible people show up to help us. We had 500 square feet to spread ourselves out. It felt like a mansion. Murphy spent half of the first week just running back and forth through it, loving that she could actually do that. It was perfect.

500 square feet of start-over-again.