A schedule has arrived. I now find myself knowing which classes will leave me cringing at the end and which will buoy my spirits. I look forward to Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays with the crew and save my Korean language classes for lessons on Wednesday. I know that on Monday I'll get to spend time with my host brother and that every night at 11:30 (if I don't pass out) my host sister will check in to say good night when she gets home from school.
I have only three more solid weeks of new lessons to plan before break. I have Thanksgiving and a six day vacation between me and Christmas. I have two more weekends in Seoul and a school festival to look forward to.
I have all my tickets to the US, India, Bali and hotel rooms booked and paid for.
This last weekend I went to a wodnerful jazz club in Seoul called Once in a Blue Moon. The next day I ate in a restaurant that was almost exactly the kind of quaint place (with delicious food) that I would have frequented in Ithaca. I forgot how good its possible to feel when you're not fighitng against something all the time.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Dongshin Festival
Last week was the Dongshin festival at the local university. It was the closest thing to a college experience I've gotten since I left school, and that's including the two months spent living at Jungwon University. All of the students congregate on a giant field outdoors. There was a large stage set up, complete with enormous speakers and lighting, at the front of the field. All around the perimeter are tents hosted by each of the college's different majors, some of the two lines thick.
Each tent was selling makgeoli, beer, and some were even spinning homemade cotton candy. There was jewerly for sale and one of the majors, which we're assuming was Music, had a full on dance party happening. We (the Naju crew- Linda) spent most of our time in the Physical Education tent. It was one of my favorite nights in Naju so far. I think all of us really needed the chance just to relax and forget that we were supposed to be cultural ambassadors and semi-adults.
Instead we jumped up and down and giggled like teenagers when Beast, an all guy K-pop group whose members went to Dongshin University, took the stage. We oohed and ahhed at the fireworks display come 4 months after our own missed Fourth of July, and made hurried trips to the bathroom, whooping as we ran through the cold.
All in All, victorious night.
Each tent was selling makgeoli, beer, and some were even spinning homemade cotton candy. There was jewerly for sale and one of the majors, which we're assuming was Music, had a full on dance party happening. We (the Naju crew- Linda) spent most of our time in the Physical Education tent. It was one of my favorite nights in Naju so far. I think all of us really needed the chance just to relax and forget that we were supposed to be cultural ambassadors and semi-adults.
Instead we jumped up and down and giggled like teenagers when Beast, an all guy K-pop group whose members went to Dongshin University, took the stage. We oohed and ahhed at the fireworks display come 4 months after our own missed Fourth of July, and made hurried trips to the bathroom, whooping as we ran through the cold.
All in All, victorious night.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Calm After the Storm?
So things were not great for a while. Meaning I woke up basically to the litany of F*** F*** F*** and sang the chorus all day until drifting off into the expletive lullaby at night.
However, in the last couple days things have started taking a turn for the better. I've accepted the 15 hour online English teacher class. I've wrapped my head around the 30 lesson plans for my Winter Break Class (less now because a friend has offered to teach 2 days--> I LOVE him) and I now have HEAT in my bedroom and no longer have to sleep in two sweaters, a hat, and watch my breath float in train sized clouds away from my mouth.
Walking away from my school yesterday, at a beautiful 3:30pm (much different than 5pm), I was able to appreciate the literal ducks lined up in a row on the bank of the sludgy river by my school. I could laugh at the little boys riding their bicycles, each one totally decked out in catalogue worthy outfits (leather jackets included), and calling out Korean taunts at the slow one in the back of the line. I now can successfully navigate out tiny Naju shinae (downtown) and was able to yell at the taxi driver enough that he drove me to my house through the directions I knew (it only took a ten minute wrong turn).
Maybe things are on an upswing? It's less than two months until I go home. I'm looking forward to it so much. Less than two months until I can sit in a warmth bath and bath in the english language and eat a tuna melt in Blairstown's own scrappy little diner. I think I can manage the 7 weeks (30 lessons) until then.
Tonight I have the Dongshin Festival to look forward to. Imagine a bunch of tailgating Korean adolescents with tents according to their college major, selling makgeoli (rice liquor) and beer. Beast, a famous Korean singer, is performing tonight and I'm planning on living up Thirsty Thursday with the Naju Crew before going back to my heated room and getting ready for another day by indulging in my stash of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
However, in the last couple days things have started taking a turn for the better. I've accepted the 15 hour online English teacher class. I've wrapped my head around the 30 lesson plans for my Winter Break Class (less now because a friend has offered to teach 2 days--> I LOVE him) and I now have HEAT in my bedroom and no longer have to sleep in two sweaters, a hat, and watch my breath float in train sized clouds away from my mouth.
Walking away from my school yesterday, at a beautiful 3:30pm (much different than 5pm), I was able to appreciate the literal ducks lined up in a row on the bank of the sludgy river by my school. I could laugh at the little boys riding their bicycles, each one totally decked out in catalogue worthy outfits (leather jackets included), and calling out Korean taunts at the slow one in the back of the line. I now can successfully navigate out tiny Naju shinae (downtown) and was able to yell at the taxi driver enough that he drove me to my house through the directions I knew (it only took a ten minute wrong turn).
Maybe things are on an upswing? It's less than two months until I go home. I'm looking forward to it so much. Less than two months until I can sit in a warmth bath and bath in the english language and eat a tuna melt in Blairstown's own scrappy little diner. I think I can manage the 7 weeks (30 lessons) until then.
Tonight I have the Dongshin Festival to look forward to. Imagine a bunch of tailgating Korean adolescents with tents according to their college major, selling makgeoli (rice liquor) and beer. Beast, a famous Korean singer, is performing tonight and I'm planning on living up Thirsty Thursday with the Naju Crew before going back to my heated room and getting ready for another day by indulging in my stash of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Monday, October 18, 2010
OH Yeah, I'm in Korea
I've recently been traveling all over Korea. Thank god for midterm exams and school camping trips. However, much to my surprise, this trip has not been simply the carthartic break I was expecting.
After my classes on Monday, I hopped a bus to Busan, which quickly became one of my favorite Korean cities. The second biggest city in South Korea, Busan is located on the east coast towards the southern part of the country. I was hailed to Busan by the week long film festival. For a week, the biggest movie theaters in the city dedicate themselves to the showing of Korean and foreign films. The tickets can be purchased either in advance (over the internet or phone I believe)) or the day of the movies in person. Each ticket is an unbeatable five dollars. Five bucks buys you an assigned seat in some of the most moving and momentous movies of this year and the past. On Tuesday, I had one of my most wonderful days since arriving in Korea. Clint and I woke up early to purchase tickets. We had breakfast in a local coffee shop with two other friends and then promptly headed out to the beach, where I collected seashells while walking in water whose temperature rivaled that of Jersey waves in the height of summer. After the beach, Clint went back to the motel (haeinsa style--> sleeping on mats on the floor) to shower and I went off to buy new jeans. **fun fact- korean stores will hem your jeans for you in about thirty minutes right there in the store for free or for the nominal price of less than 2$.
We spent the rest of the day watching foreign films: Red Eagle: Thai Action film (we saw the main actor outside of the theater after the movie.
Rondo: German film set during the Holucaust about the relationship between a boy and his grandfather and the idea of the dead being restored to you and the idea of faith
State of Violence: South African film set in Johannesburg about the idea of revenge.
Finished up the night in the same coffee shop we started it in.
Wednesday found me in Jeonju. Had a picnic in the lotus garden with Yoon-Chan. **Fun Fact two: music comes out of unseen speakers and the fountains put on a show in time to the music.
Thursday I was back in Naju for a bit due to a lost cell phone.
Friday back to Kwangju where we went to a Jazz club that night.
Saturday--> off to Jeju, one of the most beautiful islands off the coast of South Korea. Stayed with my friend Shreya and her lovely host family and visited a beach and some beautiful waterfalls.
The traveling was amazing, but this was also some of my first time to come up for air since this whole Korea adventure started. I had more instances of forgetting I was actually in Korea than I could count during the last week...and I'm sad to say that the experience was a little relieving. Sometimes I was sad to come back to reality. It's strange this sense of limbo I feel here. I behave in ways I wouldn't in the states because I feel no allegiance to my life here or to the culture (weighed down by seven bags, standing by the gargage can, systematically squeezing ketchup into my mouth from the package while popping fries one by one). Even the way I dress and put myself together reflects my nonchalance within the Korean culture. I know it's only for a year, I've decided not to hold myself accountable by Korean standards (almost in defiance of the wide-held perception that my countenance marks me as Korean and therefore I should conform) and thus I stand apart, secure within a bubble of my own self-assured Americaness.
I've spent such a long time simply trying to get through that I haven't had much time for reflection or to take stock of where I've actually gotten in these last three months. Although there are certainly things I'm proud of; learning a modicrum of Korean language, the ability to scream a taxi into submission and make it to my host family's front door, being a part of a Glee club with students from the local University, there's still so much I have yet to do.
I sent in the first probing emails in the search for my family today. Sometimes, its easy to forget that that's the real reason why I'm here in the first place. However, with every big purchase I justify (sheets because after all I am LIVING here for a year), it becomes harder to ignore the fact that no matter how displaced I feel, this is both my life and my reality for the next 9 months. I think I need to start living it.
After my classes on Monday, I hopped a bus to Busan, which quickly became one of my favorite Korean cities. The second biggest city in South Korea, Busan is located on the east coast towards the southern part of the country. I was hailed to Busan by the week long film festival. For a week, the biggest movie theaters in the city dedicate themselves to the showing of Korean and foreign films. The tickets can be purchased either in advance (over the internet or phone I believe)) or the day of the movies in person. Each ticket is an unbeatable five dollars. Five bucks buys you an assigned seat in some of the most moving and momentous movies of this year and the past. On Tuesday, I had one of my most wonderful days since arriving in Korea. Clint and I woke up early to purchase tickets. We had breakfast in a local coffee shop with two other friends and then promptly headed out to the beach, where I collected seashells while walking in water whose temperature rivaled that of Jersey waves in the height of summer. After the beach, Clint went back to the motel (haeinsa style--> sleeping on mats on the floor) to shower and I went off to buy new jeans. **fun fact- korean stores will hem your jeans for you in about thirty minutes right there in the store for free or for the nominal price of less than 2$.
We spent the rest of the day watching foreign films: Red Eagle: Thai Action film (we saw the main actor outside of the theater after the movie.
Rondo: German film set during the Holucaust about the relationship between a boy and his grandfather and the idea of the dead being restored to you and the idea of faith
State of Violence: South African film set in Johannesburg about the idea of revenge.
Finished up the night in the same coffee shop we started it in.
Wednesday found me in Jeonju. Had a picnic in the lotus garden with Yoon-Chan. **Fun Fact two: music comes out of unseen speakers and the fountains put on a show in time to the music.
Thursday I was back in Naju for a bit due to a lost cell phone.
Friday back to Kwangju where we went to a Jazz club that night.
Saturday--> off to Jeju, one of the most beautiful islands off the coast of South Korea. Stayed with my friend Shreya and her lovely host family and visited a beach and some beautiful waterfalls.
The traveling was amazing, but this was also some of my first time to come up for air since this whole Korea adventure started. I had more instances of forgetting I was actually in Korea than I could count during the last week...and I'm sad to say that the experience was a little relieving. Sometimes I was sad to come back to reality. It's strange this sense of limbo I feel here. I behave in ways I wouldn't in the states because I feel no allegiance to my life here or to the culture (weighed down by seven bags, standing by the gargage can, systematically squeezing ketchup into my mouth from the package while popping fries one by one). Even the way I dress and put myself together reflects my nonchalance within the Korean culture. I know it's only for a year, I've decided not to hold myself accountable by Korean standards (almost in defiance of the wide-held perception that my countenance marks me as Korean and therefore I should conform) and thus I stand apart, secure within a bubble of my own self-assured Americaness.
I've spent such a long time simply trying to get through that I haven't had much time for reflection or to take stock of where I've actually gotten in these last three months. Although there are certainly things I'm proud of; learning a modicrum of Korean language, the ability to scream a taxi into submission and make it to my host family's front door, being a part of a Glee club with students from the local University, there's still so much I have yet to do.
I sent in the first probing emails in the search for my family today. Sometimes, its easy to forget that that's the real reason why I'm here in the first place. However, with every big purchase I justify (sheets because after all I am LIVING here for a year), it becomes harder to ignore the fact that no matter how displaced I feel, this is both my life and my reality for the next 9 months. I think I need to start living it.
Monday, September 27, 2010
This Morning there was a Slug in the Tub
It finally smells like Fall here. It's continuously windbreaker weather (although it warms up in the afternoon) and my mind is full of images of hayrides and pumpkin carving and gourds and apple cider and jumping in giant piles of crunchy leaves. I think I would give my ride arm to cook smores by a giant bonfire and then walk around for days after in a sweat shirt smelling of campout's.
It's going on the third consecutive week that our house has been without warm water. Love me some military freezing cold showers in the morning. This morning I made friends with a slug in our bathtub. Sweet. Also, the internet is out at home...which helps with my writing since I don't have the options of immersing myself in trashy TV shows.
There's finally beginning to be a schedule to my weeks.
Wake up: 6am.
School: 7:30-5.
After school on Tuesday: Glee Club
Wednesday: Korean Classes
Thursday: Thirsty (Getting Crunk with the Naju Crew)
Friday: Usually busting out of Naju.
This weekend we discovered a new part of Kwangju while riding the 160 bus straight from our houses. We can arrive at the huge Lotte department store (second floor has a guy that speaks great English at the top of the elevator) and then walk five minutes to the HUGE downtown shopping area complete with Coldstone, Pizza Hut, Outback Steak House, and coffee shops galore (although a couple were definitely fronts for prostitution rings.)
It's nice to know civilization is only a 30 minute hop and fifty minute bus ride away ;)
And I got newsheets that don't have unidentified stains on them...slowly the nest building continues.
It's going on the third consecutive week that our house has been without warm water. Love me some military freezing cold showers in the morning. This morning I made friends with a slug in our bathtub. Sweet. Also, the internet is out at home...which helps with my writing since I don't have the options of immersing myself in trashy TV shows.
There's finally beginning to be a schedule to my weeks.
Wake up: 6am.
School: 7:30-5.
After school on Tuesday: Glee Club
Wednesday: Korean Classes
Thursday: Thirsty (Getting Crunk with the Naju Crew)
Friday: Usually busting out of Naju.
This weekend we discovered a new part of Kwangju while riding the 160 bus straight from our houses. We can arrive at the huge Lotte department store (second floor has a guy that speaks great English at the top of the elevator) and then walk five minutes to the HUGE downtown shopping area complete with Coldstone, Pizza Hut, Outback Steak House, and coffee shops galore (although a couple were definitely fronts for prostitution rings.)
It's nice to know civilization is only a 30 minute hop and fifty minute bus ride away ;)
And I got newsheets that don't have unidentified stains on them...slowly the nest building continues.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Just Around the River Bend
It's been almost three months since I first came to Korea...and there's 9 more to go.
It's strange to think how fast time has gone, is going right now, and yet when I look ahead to another 7 months minimum of doing what I'm doing...sometimes it does look a little bleak.
I continue to truly enjoy teaching; however, at times I wonder how effective I am as an English teacher. I know a lot of our role is to merely be an English cheerleader; you can only lead a student so far in a direction they don't want to go. Part of getting through the day sometimes is learning not to care so obscenely much about what happens inside the classroom, but at times the apathy itself makes me sad. Also it's hard hard HARD HARD HARD not to compare sometimes. There was so much I wanted for this year that the circumstances of my school make it difficult to make happen.
My host family is still incredible. They are kind and caring and truly go out of their way for me. Sometimes I wish we had more opportunities to bond through activities; my mom is often busy with church, housework, or teaching, my sister is always in school, and my brother cannot be peeled away from the computer screen (my hands have developed temporary carpal tunnel from two player games). I worry that there's a glass ceiling on how deeply our relationships can truly develop with both the language and cultural barrier in place. Maybe only time will tell?
Socially, the people in my life are a saving grace. They help me stay sane and keep me tethered to a world in which I can still see myself as culturally, socially, adept and independent. It's an identity that after being relegated to practically infant status (not understanding speech or being able to communicate), being unable to do things for yourself, etc etc that it can be easy to feel slipping.
I have an eight day break coming from the 12-20 due to school exams and a school camping trip. I'm not sure what I have planned yet...but I'm thinking maybe it should be really drastic? Shaving my head or journeying to Japan for a week or another tattoo or backpacking around Korea...something to shake off the doldrums.
Along those lines, I've begun to plan for my winter break: beginning December 23 and lasting until March 1st. Within that time, I'm fitting in a two week trip to the US, a week in Bali and India each, and maybe a three week language class in Seoul.
Maybe I'll spend my time living for tomorrow...but I can't help wishing I cared a little more about today.
It's strange to think how fast time has gone, is going right now, and yet when I look ahead to another 7 months minimum of doing what I'm doing...sometimes it does look a little bleak.
I continue to truly enjoy teaching; however, at times I wonder how effective I am as an English teacher. I know a lot of our role is to merely be an English cheerleader; you can only lead a student so far in a direction they don't want to go. Part of getting through the day sometimes is learning not to care so obscenely much about what happens inside the classroom, but at times the apathy itself makes me sad. Also it's hard hard HARD HARD HARD not to compare sometimes. There was so much I wanted for this year that the circumstances of my school make it difficult to make happen.
My host family is still incredible. They are kind and caring and truly go out of their way for me. Sometimes I wish we had more opportunities to bond through activities; my mom is often busy with church, housework, or teaching, my sister is always in school, and my brother cannot be peeled away from the computer screen (my hands have developed temporary carpal tunnel from two player games). I worry that there's a glass ceiling on how deeply our relationships can truly develop with both the language and cultural barrier in place. Maybe only time will tell?
Socially, the people in my life are a saving grace. They help me stay sane and keep me tethered to a world in which I can still see myself as culturally, socially, adept and independent. It's an identity that after being relegated to practically infant status (not understanding speech or being able to communicate), being unable to do things for yourself, etc etc that it can be easy to feel slipping.
I have an eight day break coming from the 12-20 due to school exams and a school camping trip. I'm not sure what I have planned yet...but I'm thinking maybe it should be really drastic? Shaving my head or journeying to Japan for a week or another tattoo or backpacking around Korea...something to shake off the doldrums.
Along those lines, I've begun to plan for my winter break: beginning December 23 and lasting until March 1st. Within that time, I'm fitting in a two week trip to the US, a week in Bali and India each, and maybe a three week language class in Seoul.
Maybe I'll spend my time living for tomorrow...but I can't help wishing I cared a little more about today.
Monday, September 13, 2010
I like Jane Austen and Red Wine
Today I started piecing together the room that will be my home for the next eleven months. On my daily trip to Dunkin Donuts (I'm so close to the free drink I can almost taste it) I purchased a holographic wolf poster from a vendor on the sidewalk for the American equivalent of $1.50. After taping it to the wall, I realized that this room suddenly doesn't feel foreign anymore; the 16 hour plane ride, not so apparent.
As I said while talking to a friend tonight, it's through the small idionsyncracies of a place, a person, an environment that one is eventually able to take ownership of and internalize. Along those lines, I'm slowly building up my sense of home at my homestay. It's contained in the smell of dwenchanchegae as I walk to my house, the 5 am wake up call from our dog, the way we have hundreds of crates of pears in our garage (straight from the pear farm my family owns).
Home is wrapped up in the obscenely loud rainbow colored clock hanging on my speckled bedroom wall and the large oriental cabinet behind my bed, where I occasionally hang my bathing suits (that's right kids, offending ancestors and traditional sentiment everywhere.)
At school, I've yet to find my perfect stride. Some days I stumble a bit, and yet it feels good to walk into the classroom, when I know my toughest challenges to date have been outside of it's walls.
Really, the thing I feel most blessed about has been the people in my life, either those whose words and advice and general conversation have followed me here through emails and texts and packages, or the new family I've begun to create within the Fulbright network. I've come a long way from fearing that there was no one I would truly connect with within our 73 person group.
What I'm looking forward to in the future:
-getting paid for the first time on Friday
-Chusuk: Korean Thanksgiving next week with the homestay family
-Oct. 1-4 First ETA Conference in Gyeongju
-Beginning a Glee (English) club at our local university in Naju
-Winter Break perhaps in India and Bali
...but mostly that free coolatta.
As I said while talking to a friend tonight, it's through the small idionsyncracies of a place, a person, an environment that one is eventually able to take ownership of and internalize. Along those lines, I'm slowly building up my sense of home at my homestay. It's contained in the smell of dwenchanchegae as I walk to my house, the 5 am wake up call from our dog, the way we have hundreds of crates of pears in our garage (straight from the pear farm my family owns).
Home is wrapped up in the obscenely loud rainbow colored clock hanging on my speckled bedroom wall and the large oriental cabinet behind my bed, where I occasionally hang my bathing suits (that's right kids, offending ancestors and traditional sentiment everywhere.)
At school, I've yet to find my perfect stride. Some days I stumble a bit, and yet it feels good to walk into the classroom, when I know my toughest challenges to date have been outside of it's walls.
Really, the thing I feel most blessed about has been the people in my life, either those whose words and advice and general conversation have followed me here through emails and texts and packages, or the new family I've begun to create within the Fulbright network. I've come a long way from fearing that there was no one I would truly connect with within our 73 person group.
What I'm looking forward to in the future:
-getting paid for the first time on Friday
-Chusuk: Korean Thanksgiving next week with the homestay family
-Oct. 1-4 First ETA Conference in Gyeongju
-Beginning a Glee (English) club at our local university in Naju
-Winter Break perhaps in India and Bali
...but mostly that free coolatta.
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