Venture to Korea with Amanda & Abi

To all our friends, families, and vistors - thank you for visiting. We will be updating this blog as our adventure develops.

5 weeks

Hey y'all. It's been far too long. Apologies for the lack of writing. It's easy to get lost in Korea land it seems. I wonder if anyone even reads this anymore?? Yes, five weeks of teaching left for both of us, and then it will all be over. We are going to go to Thailand for a while after the contract ends. Amanda will be back before me, I'm going to spend a third week in Thailand. One of my friends is teaching there and has a pretty good setup and they're looking for other teachers. Don't get alarmed, just going to check it out.

As our time here comes to an end, it is of course bittersweet. My friends are killing me with the "come back" begging and the "we are your family too" defense when I mention the fact that my whole life is in America. They are sweeter than sugar but it's like a knife to the heart at times. My kids are equally sweet although they seem to be excited to have a new foreigner and seem to understand that I need to go home. It's nice that my brother is getting married because they understand that concept and support me being present for that.

Cute kid story....my first class is a nightmare and a half. Somehow all of the bad boys ended up in one class. 13 boys, one girl, and a whole lot of adolescent energy. I've offered my coworkers to pay them double to switch classes with me but no one is interested. My bosses solution to the problem was to give me a mini baseball bat to smack their hands with when they're bad. I gave it a shot, it is Korean culture, but I can't bring myself to hit them hard enough. They think it's funny and will do things purposely so I'll hit them. It's a bit of a joke. Anyway, this class loves to swear, I don't know how they learned it all but these kids have some bad words in their arsenal. Last week one of them learned "god damn" so I had to hear that every day for a week or two but they've since forgotten about it. Anyway, one student in particular gives me a run for my money every day. Calls me stupid, ugly, fat, boring, anything you can think of. I pretty much assumed the kid hated me, and I'll admit he wasn't my favorite either but I try not to show it. They have to make sentences with their daily vocabulary words and this week one of the words was "miss". He waved me over to his desk, leaned in and said "when Abi teacher go america, I will miss her." He didn't want anyone else to hear him of course and I was stunned! The look on my face must have shown my surprise because he immediately added a disclaimer "a little". It was priceless. Oh kids.

Last night I had dinner with one of my City Hall students, his wife, and daughter. It took a while for her to warm up to me but I was feeding her watermelon shortly after I got there. She was adorable. It was the first Korean home I've seen and they're really nice. It's an apartment, of course, but they own it so I guess it's more like a condo. It really reminds me of how set we Americans are on having our space. Even if there's lots of extra useless space. My last apartment was the same size as theirs and they have three people living there...I had only little old me. Perspective perspective.

I have no life plan but have become extremely comfortable with the idea that I'll be able to do anything I want when I get back and I can just follow my gut and find something that makes me happy. Exciting.

I won't miss the weird factor in Korea. Literally, something weird happens EVERY DAY! Most of the time it's Korean people, but it's often foreigners too. There's always a surprise around every corner. Today I was walking on the beach and there was a dachsund, tied up to some sort of harness which pulled a little wheelie cart with a teddy bear on it. He was just trotting around with a teddy bear in a cart behind him. Why? It's just that my capacity for understanding human behavior has stretched further than I ever would have imagined. I can hardly comprehend the things that happen here. Moreover, because I don't understand that much Korean, I never really get to know why they're doing the things they do. It's entertaining to say the least.

Miss you all and want to make sure everyone knows about Amanda's party at her parents place in West Bend. August 18th, lots of fun Korean stuff and of course we'll be there too. Family friendly and plenty of room to pitch a tent and spend the night. Amanda's dad sometimes has surprising things to add to fire that make for quite a good show! Looking forward to seeing you all and wishing you the best!!!

~abi

posted by: 2SKLadies at 10:29 | link | comments (4) |

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