Hongdae Birthday

Well its official. I'm finished applying for law schools. (except for a few odds and ends I have to tie up. Law schools seem to be pretty anal.)

I have applied to:

Univ. Michigan

Univ. of Florida

Univ. of TN

Univ. of Iowa

Univ. of California at Berkeley

Vanderbilt

Lewis and Clark

I did the whole damn laborious thing while sitting at my computer after classes at school. Its kind of interesting to think that if I get into law school or graduate school, I will have begun the whole process while sitting at an elementary school in Korea.

Anyway, my birthday came and gone and I must say it was wonderful. We began our celebration at a bar downtown called J's Story. After an embarassing incident in which I spilled a plate full of chicken onto the floor, we settled in and had a great time with our giant party of fifteen or so. Surprisingly, the westerners left kind of early (with only me, lisbeth, andrew, duncan and amy to represent). Daeun brought many new Korean friends (and some old ones I had met on a previous trip to K0rea). They closed down the house with us that night. WE ate tons of food and drank lots of beer, courtesy of Korean Drinking games such as Baskin Robin's 31, Stupid Game, Image Game, and Sense game. We left J's Story to dance a bit further down the block at "Jane's Groove" which was amazing. It was like the Korean sister of Sassy Anne's. We jammed to MIA and other familiar tunes as well as some K pop and a random 90s hit here and there. (think jock jams)

We closed out the night with a noreibang session at "luxury" noreibang. This is a karaoke house that is designed like a luxury hotel, so you check in and have someone lead you up to your room where you're served drinks and whatever else you need on cushy couches or cute kitsch rooms.

Note: Forgive me if my writing seems a bit airy, I've been reading "confessions of a shopaholic" and it seems to be rubbing off on me.

Description of Korean drinking games:

Baskin Robbins 31: Each person in the group can count in intervals of 1,2,or 3. The person who lands on 31 has to drink. This game is fun if you have a large group of people that is hard to coordinate or if you're really drunk because its an easy game. The fun lies in screwing over the person who lands on 31 (because you might let them off easy by just saying "28, 29" and letting them say "30" to screw over the next person with "31."

Sense Game: This is a game in which the total number of people in the group must count one number to add up to the total number. FOr example, if you have six people playing, each person must count a nunber until it adds up to six. The catch is, you can't be the LAST person (in this instance, the person to count six) and you cant say a number at the same time that someone else does, or you have to drink.

Stupid Game: Drinkers sit in a circle. One person turns to the next person and says a number that is different from the number of fingers they are holding up. The next person in line has to turn to the person beside them and say the number that was previously designated by the number of fingers held up by the original person, but also hold up a different number of fingers. This continues until someone messes up. for example, if lisbeth turns to me and says "three" but holds up two fingers, I have to turn to Andrew on my other side and say "Two" but hold up, say, five fingers, or some other number.

Image Game: THis is the "you can only play this in a place like Korea" game. Players hold a chopstick up in the air and point it to the person they think most fits a certain image. For example, one person will say "The person who is most likely to get plastic surgery" and all players have to point to the person they think, based purely on image, will get plastic surgery. The koreans love it even if the americans are slightly uncomfortable. They hardly ever get offended and lots of peple drink. We don't think twice about playing now.

Adapting and Changing

Well its been a month since I arrived here and I am just beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin...or should I say, my new high healed shoes and baggy clothes.

I suppose I haven't really adapted that much, I'm sitting in my teacher planning listening to John Prine and Iris DeMent on Youtube...but I've come pretty far. I like being in my little room, i've decorated it nice and colorful, all reds, yellows and pinks, just like i always do.

(My desk. Notice the bottle of Jack on the top back corner. a bottle of Jack in Korea costs about the same as it does in Tennessee. Jack Daniels, why dont you cut your native people a break?)

(My kitchen is tiny. My bathroom is my worst-bathroom-nightmare with the shower over on the lft hand side. actually, the water running in the picture is part of my shower. I turn a nob on the sink and it goes to a showerhead over the sink that just shoots down righ tin the middle of my bathroom. arghghghgh, whatever. I've gotten used to it now.)

My weekends have been very eventful. I've grown close to my cousin, Da-eun, and she takes andrew, lisbeth and I all over. We went to a small village south east of seoul in Wonju province. There was a traditional festival going on when we got there. We danced to drums (which sounded a bit like a baby smashing pots and pans together), we drank homemade markloli (kind of like nigori--the unfiltered white sake), we watched a korean play about a traditional korean village, andrew was made to go up on the stage and bang a drum (stiffly of course...we had an all around rowdy good time. Being outside the city was like jumping in a cold mountain stream on a hot day: a shock at first, but you settle right in after a while.

The first weekend in October is called Chuseok in Korea. It's Korea's major holiday, but its kind of lame if you ask me for being THE holiday. The celebrating goes a bit like our Thanksgiving. We got five days off in a row (counting the weekend) to eat all the Korean food we could handle, and realx in Gangwha-do (Kangwha island). Gangwha is wehre my family is from, after they fled from North korea. My uncle's art studio is there, and two of my aunts and one uncle lives there. During Chuseok, you go to your ancestors' graves and show respect. We went to church the morning of Chuseok, then went to the graveyard. I bowed all the way down to the ground twice and half bowed once to my great grandmother and great grandfather. My great great grandmother was also there, they spread her ashes around my great grandmother's grave.

For CHuseok, Andrew Lisbeth and I took a bus one hour north of Seoul to Kangwha where Daeun and her family met us. We went to a Buddhist temple on the island, drank tea, went to the market, bought beer and snacks, and stayed up all ngith playing scrabble, jenga and drinking. It was amazing. Right before bed we sat on the roof and looked at the stars that are impossible to see in Seoul.

This weekend we are celebrating mine and Lisbeth's birthdays in HOngdae. Hongdae is the area around Hongik university where everybody goes out to party on the weekends. Hopefully it will be fun, but not as fun as it would be if i were home. I miss my friends so much. YOu guys make me feel so special and complete. I can't wait to see you again in a year and I invite as many of you to come visit as possible.

Note: During the writing of this entry, I had to sit through a "civil defense drill" in which a siren went off for like five minutes and some official sounding announcements were made in Korean. My co-teacher just told me that in case something bad happened with North Korea the South Koreans had a drill to practice evacuation of schools and other places. Also, she said that traffic stops on the road for ten minutes. I think that's insane because traffic in Seoul is ridiculous and everyone is in a hurry. I can't even imagine what it was like on the roads outside.

(My view from my window on the tenth story. If you look toward the bottom right, you can see the garden on the roof.)

Some funny things:

1. The only male teacher in the subject room isn't actually a teacher, he's just a retired guy who stays on at the school. Every so often, his cell phone will ring really loud, blasting this random girls' pop song in which the words are in english....so far all i've been able to make out is "that's the way the story goes..." hahahah

2. The other day I was walking to my bus stop only to find that there was a giant hole where the stop should be. Random construction I guess. So waiting around the hole were these two businessmen dressed in suits who were at least over fifty. As I approached, I realized they were yelling at each other. IN like no time they started throwing punches and grappling at each other. The construction workers around the site tried to intervene in the fight, temporarily separating them. However, as soon as their back was turned, the old men threw each other into the hole and wrestled and punched each other. It was really weird. They got their suits all dirty and the construction men were struggling to pull them out of htis dirt hole in the middle of the sidewalk. The whole time my kids were walking by saying hello, having to strain a little bit to talk over the two old men shouting. ahh well, TIK (That stands for This is Korea. Its our new saying)

Good things that have happened to me:"

1. Andrew and I have gotten much closer. We don't fight very much. its nice.

2. I submitted 5 law school applications. I feel like a super woman.

3. I decided that I might want to do something else besides law school. This may seem lik a negative, but I suppose its a positive if I realized it before I dropped thousands of dollars on something I wouldn't want to do.

4. I met a gay guy from south africa that lives on my floor who wants to be friends like from sex and the city. Excited!

Homesick

LJ throwback!

Music: Folk Alley from http://www.shoutcast.com/radio/Folk

Mood: Tenatively Happy


I am listening to folk music, and I am happy. I miss banjos. I miss trees. I miss you friends.

The weird thing about Korea is that culture is judgmental. Everyone is looking at you and judging you because you're a representative of them (you know, collectivist society and all that stuff). For example, most everyone is conscious of how they dress. There are no pajama pants and oily hair in Seoul. Even the casual styles are carefully calculated, with pair of pink high top shoes say, or a ponytail with just the right amount of fly away hair and hoop earrings. There is no true rolled-out-of-bed look.

As true blue foreigners, people like Andrew and my neighbor Amy get a Get Out of Jail Free Card. If Amy wears a tank top and accidentally bares a shoulder or two, the Koreans forgive her lewdness because her nordic ancestors blessed her with blonde hair and pale skin. If Andrew decides to grab my butt in public, the koreans forgive him because he's a horny westerner.

If I'm lucky, they will lump me in with him and forgive us both. More often than not, I have to endure dirty looks and slack stares from Koreans on the subway. If Andrew grabs my butt, They look at me as if I am the ultimate Korean slut. If I'm alone, I can forget any sort of forgiveness. I commit social faux pas multiple times a day. Let's see if I can make a list...

1. inappropriate clothing
2. inappropriate level of voice (too loud)
3. not following subway etiquette. This includes but is not limited to
-being aware of the invisible lines between your seat and the next, and NOT crossing over whatsoever (unless youre a korean and happen to fall asleep. Then you are allowed to slump over on the person next to you until your face rests lightly on their shoulder)
-Yielding AT ALL TIMES to the ajummas (which are older korean ladies who seem to have collectively rebelled against their former subservient status and are currently living their lives out as surly, callous, self-serving crotchety old ladies who cut in front of you at the subway station, have special seats reserved on the subway, dont speak the polite form of korean to anybody, and wear huge visors and sunglasses that practically eliminate their last visible traces of humanity)
-Understanding that lines do not exist in Korea, and to attempt to form one is a ridiculous expectation that can not possibly be followed by people in a hurry--and everyone is in a hurry. If you wait in line for all the stalls in the subway bathroom, you will never get one, because other koreans just entering will take the first stall that comes available as soon as possible. Likewise, waiting in line to get off the subway will simply get you shoved to the back of the 'herd' that forms. The proper way to exit a subway train is for everybody to crowd as quickly as possible to the opening, not waiting for anybody to get in front of you, and creating a situation in which everone is stuck, shoulder to shoulder, until someone forces one person free by pushing them from behind. In which case, a mad rush for the elevator occurs and the process starts over. This rule is important. Waiting in line in Seoul for anything will only result in making you last to do or get whatever it is you want.

4. Not being able to speak the language. Because i look Korean, and I am half Korean, my lack of Korean language skills basically makes me a paraiah to my people.



okay okay, i exagerate...slightly. But it feels like this a lot. Navigating Seoul can sometimes be extremely exhausting, especially if I dont have my guard up. The judgments are crazy! and they're everywhere! people don't hesitate to give you a stare down if they;re mad at you--but they won't confront you directly, that would be impolite. I was talking to one of my other friends in the building, Viviane, and she told me that one of her Korean friends who studied in America told her she missed America because she could walk out on the street there without being Judged. this is from a native korean--proof that I am not just going crazy with culture shock.


i miss you, my friends, so much right now. I wish I could teleport back for a hot second and throw back some hurricane katrina shots. Nobody here knows who I am except Andrew and Lisbeth. Nobody here loves me the way you guys do. Its weird. Being in Knoxville, I felt safe and protected, because I knew if we were out somewhere, and something bad happened, whoever I was with would be there, would try to help. But here, with these people I just met, around koreans who can't understand me, I feel vulnerable.

Anyway, next post Im going to update on stuff I have been DOING. I promise it hasn't all been sad things. Its just what I write about because writing helps me deal with sad things. I have pictures too!

(Preview for next post: Lisbeth, Andrew, mycousin and I went to a small Korean village. Pictures will accompany!)

Love you!

Food Coma

And so it begins.

I have just gotten through with lunch. The menu:
Chicken (ommm)
Cucumber Kimchee (my favorite!)
Regular Kimchee
Rice
Seaweed Soup

This constitutes a wonderful meal. Sometimes they have unsavory items such as dried and shriveled anchovies laid abed this crunchy stuff or some such. There are many SMOE-ers who end up only eating the rice and kimchee everyday. (Not liking Kimchee in Korea is like not liking peanut butter in the U.S. or not liking that paste stuff from Australia. what is it? V-Verm-???)

And now, my wonderful friends who I would give all the cucumber kimchee in the world for, I must tell you that for three and a half to four hours everyday i have to fight a devastating food coma. Right this moment, as we metaphorically speak, I am fightin the urge to lay my head down on the desk and snooze. The fake wood looks almost spongy and my eyes could use just the tiniest close. I don't know what it is. The food portions aren't even that big--in fact, they're tiny. I starve until lunch and then I starve approximately two hours after lunch, continuing until dinner. You'd think this new hunger would stave off the food-coma, but it only transforms the feeling from a pleasant urge to cat nap to a weakening ache behind my cheekbones.

So I make myself lists of things to get accomplished. Lately it has pertained mainly to lesson plans and Law school application stuff. But who wants to think about that when dreaming would be so much better? Or, even better, an obliterating nothingness from which one emerges refreshed!

Oh to feel refreshed. I barely get that on the weekends and hardly ever during the week. I have to catch it in snatches. Lately I have taken to forcing myself to work out once I get home. Just a little run on the treadmills in the downstairs rec room of my apartments at O.S. Vill. I feel a hundred thousand times better after I do this. But it doesn't always happen.

On the weekends I feel as if I must make the most of every free second I have. This is not to say that I don't have time to myself during the week, because I certainly do (I get off of work at five and have my whole evenings free). But there are not many people around to hang out with. lisbeth is over an hour away by subway, so seeing her during the week is almost always out of the question. Andrew has a night class from 7 to 9. If I went to see him or he me, we wouldn't see each other till late, and then have to go to school in themorning. Hopefully, after andrew's night class is over, we will get to see more of each other. This weekend, we celebrated our second anniversary. I made him Kimbap (a korean dish which is kind of like cooked sushi) and noodles. I bought a low sitting table and covered it with a scarf. we sat on the sleeping pads i bought for guests. I also had candles and music. It was cute-mom called it a 'poor kids in the city' anniversary. I think he really liked it. Afterward, we went out in a district around Hongik university called Hongdae. This is where all the young people and foreigners go to get their party on. We went with my cousins dani and nica (Daeun and Yeaeun). Of course we had a wonderful time, but I was exhausted on sunday from being out and drinking soju. I went to the movies with Lisbeth and Dani and watched that weird/dark/kids movie "9". I really liked it, even if it did make my heart crawl.

But thats what I mean by being tired. I was tired Sunday and Sunday night i couldn't fal asleep since I'd been up late on the weekends.

Amy, a girl from Michigan who lives next door to me, has been my primary comrade. We go to dinner every evening, we work out together, and we generally complain about SMOE and the oddities of our Korean teachers. Its nice having her there. We explore our little section of Seoul together, looking at the odd Seoul fashions, trying new food, and flirting with a cute Korean guy who sells gelato.

(Note about fashion: Andrew thinks the seoul fashions are ugly. They have to cover your shoulders, but can be as short as you want it to be. Everytime I tried to find a suitable Seoul 'going out' dress, he told me i looked like a bag. I think its more conservative bohemian and I sorta like it. Except some garments can be really ugly in their attempts to be tastefully conservative...weird huh?)


I've killed forty minutes. I've still got three hours and twenty minutes to go.

I love and miss you all. I'll post pictures later I promise.

Teacher Planning Period

I am sitting in my mandatory teacher-planning period. We are in the 'special subject teacher room.' From what I can tell, teachers are watching videos, shopping online and, in my case, blogging.

I just finished my first day of teaching. Victorious! The classes went well, the students were very interested, and I didn't do anything offensive or unforgivable. It was, in fact, very gratifying to see the students singing my "can-do kids" song. My biggest concern is the amount of energy I gave them. They seemed to suck it right out of me like a sponge and spill it all over the halls and cafeteria. I'm not sure if I can sustain this everyday for a week.

I'm banking on the fact that third graders aren't going to take as much energy. They are rumored to be much calmer, more cooperative and lower maintenence even though they are younger. Plus, they're cute as hell. I'm going to take a picture of all the little asian kids so you guys can see how much cuter this race is when they're small. (Just kidding...I'm allowed to say this kind of thing because I'm two races)

My immune system is currently completely overwhelmed. I've developd a stye in my eye, a ridiculous sore throat and today I've been fatigued. I may be getting the swine flu (in which case I would be relieved of my teaching duties for a few blissful days). But, more likely, my immune system is just bruised by less-than-stringent health codes for street food, my general lack of grace (running into things), and Soju.

Cultural oddity #1:
Yesterday, I presented a powerpoint for my first lesson to introduce myself. The picture on the first slide was something I thought was a nice, neutral picture of me. I had my hair up in a bun and was wearing a black tanktop. Mi-Jung called me over to her desk and said, "I'm going to be frank. You are showing too much of your body in this picture." I felt like she was calling me a red-light district whore. I was embarassed, but I wasn't sure why. On my way home, I paid close attention to the women walking around Seoul. None of them had on spaghetti straps and I counted only two who had 'sleeveless' shirts on. When I got back to my apartment, I sorted through my wardrobe and discovered that half of my clothes consisted of some degree of sleeveless shirt, dress or sweater. I have nothing to wear in Seoul.

Other facts of relevence:

The picture of my dad at the beach without a shirt on was allowed to stay in the power point, although I changed it of my own accord later just to be fair.

Korean women often wear high high heels just to leave the house, and very short skirts.

Palm up or down?

Sign at my subway Station (Hoegi station) in east Dongdaemun, Seoul

I've been at my school now for a few days and it has been a much easier adjustment than I expected. All of the things I feared--unaccepting teachers, overwhelming workload, miscommunication--has not only been avoided, but seems to have been addressed and tackled by my co-teacher, Mi Jung, before I even got there. I heard horror stories about native speaking teachers being thrown into a teaching environment without any explanation of schedule, expectations or even a syllabus. 

Mi-jung was having none of that. She had a whole schedule made out for me. She explained that it was subject to change because she was trying to talk the principal into letting me teach third graders instead of sixth because the sixth graders were so rude. And was that what I wanted? She told me she was very sorry about the changes in plan at the last minute. (I wish I could present Mi-Jung to SMOE as a role model) I only had ot ask her about my settlement allowance once and she had the school accountant depositing it into my bank account this week. She gave me a specific time to plan out our lessons together. She reserved a classroom so we could have our own space to talk amongst ourselves. I love Mi Jung. 

I love her because she is all the things that I was afraid she wouldn't be. Don't get me wrong, she doesnt take me out to dinner like some of the other co-teachers. and she didn't buy a thing for my apartment. But she means well, and she's good in all the ways that really count. Jeeze, all my emotions are so raw I'm sounding corny.

Funny Story:

I sat down with my principal on the first day I came to school. It was very formal. We all had to wait to sit until he sat. A short, bobbing girl came in to serve us tea. No one said thank you. He spoke to Mi-jung in Korean and she interpreted for me. I kept my answers short. My tea was amazing, but I only sipped it twice because for some reason I thought that would be more polite. He dismissed us at the end with a nod of his head. We waited until he rose out of his chair before Mi-jung, the two vice principals Kim and I got up. 

But before that, he asked me, through Mi Jung, if I stuck my hand out the window palm up or palm down to see if it was raining. You see, I am only half Korean, and he wanted to see which half was dominant. This would be an indicator of how well I could adapt to the working culture at Myeon Mok Elementary School. I had no idea which answer was right. I answered truthfully, thinking that my truer half was American. "Palm up," I said, indicating with my hand what I meant. The Kims went "oohhhh" and the principal nodded. Mi Jung said, "That's what he thinks the Koreans do" with just the tiniest hint of exasperation. I'm more Korean than I thought.

In other news, I ran into a metal sign today. I was hiking back to my apartment because I had missed my bus stop by two. (It had to do with some confusion over what the 'stop' button meant and thinking, stupidly, that the bus doors would open to let people off at every stop). I was making the best of it, listening to my best cheerful music (Paul Simon) and taking in as much of Seoul as possible. I was absorbed in a type of miniature slum in which the houses, sitting far below street level next to the train tracks, were smushed closely together with trash and broken things on the rooftops. The day before I had passed the slum and witnessed a family perched in the narrow alleyway between two houses. They were all clean, and eating neatly with chopsticks from food spread out on a bright yellow blanket. My mind could not comprehend why the scene struck me as so interesting, so unusual. I was trying to figure it out when I slammed temple first into a metal sign. The sound was so loud, a young Korean male with headphones a few feet in front of me turned around to see what all the metal ringing was about. As I staggered backward I watched him turn back around so as not to witness my embarrassment. At first I was grateful, but as I walked I wondered if he would have helped me if I had fallen from the blow. 

Anyway, the blow did it. It cracked the careful wall I had built to hold in all my overwhelmedness. All my inflexible Americanness. Not since the first day when I saw how my bathroom resembled a prison and I would have to sit bare-assed on the sink to wash my hair had I cried. And only then a very little bit.

I guess I have more american in me than my principal thought. 

My address is: (1004) 319-12 Wooyong O.S. Vill 

    Hwi Kyung Dong, Dongdaemun0gu

    Seoul, Korea 130-876

Orientation Summation

Quarantined until further notice. 

Yep, that's what we were. Confined to lecture halls in the chemistry building, a dirt soccer field and three meals a day in the cafeteria. 

  

It was not unheard of to stand outside the dorms, 

(a gathering place between the boys' side and the girls' side)

slouching down with our purses and sandals. Not dressed up too much. Gathering up the nerve to walk outside into the city to quickly buy Soju at the market, scurrying it away in our bags to drink in our dorm room like the college freshmen we all were over four years ago. 

Apparently, foreigners, the other white meat, are notorious carriers of the swine flu.

Meanwhile, our SMOE guardians lorded over us in green basketball jerseys that sported fake American names like Claudia or Chuck, keeping information locked up in the COORDINATOR'S OFFICE at the end of the hall in the boys' dorm. 

(Funny story. Claudia, the notoriously uppity and self-righteous SMOE coordinator, told Adam Kostecki that his last name sounded like sonofabitch in Korean.)

We ate our Kimchee, but it was all we could do no to stab each other with chopsticks as we grew gaunt from lack of information and last minute changes of plan. On the morning of our departure, there was a list posted of last minute changes in teacher placements. One girl cried. It was a mess.

We did manage a good drunk though. 

 

Lisbeth and andrew and I played cards with Adam (the sonofabitch), Richard (from Richmond), and Philip (Who looks like the Canadian version of Chris King). They drank a liter and a half of Hite and I tried to drink some kind of sweet Soju that tasted like cough syrup. 

And here I am now in Dongdaemun at the Hoegi subway station. An hour and a half away from Lisbeth in Gangseo, forty five minutes away from Andrew in the south, and an hour away from my family in Mok Dong.

I guess I better get to learning how to navigate the subway.

Nerves

The longer I am kooked up at this university in Suwon the more anticipatory and anxious I get. There are several reasons SMOE gives us for our imprisonment. THey include:

1. quarantine for Swine Flu

2. To make sure nothing happens to us until our health insurance kicks in

3. because we are getting paid and we have to do what they say

Swine Flu here inspires near manic-like fear in the masses. We have to take our temperature twice a day. Our trip into Seoul to observe classes in action got canceled because of the Swine Flu (Because we might have it? Because the schools are closed?) Word on the street is that some of our schools haven't opened back up for the school year because of Swine Flu. 

But its not like people are dying. Or even getting sick. But there sure are plenty of people wearing masks.

But we are busting out tonight! We have company and we might break the rules. :-) More on nervousness later...

JETLAGGED

I have arrived in Seoul somewhat triumphantly.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 ready to start the day. (I also woke up at three thirty and five thirty, feeling as if I should have been awake long ago, although I only went to bed at ten).

Early this morning I was glowing: taking a walk around campus, meeting new people, eating breakfast, playing soccer on a dreadful dirt field, showering, TLC with Andrew etc. I started to wane around lunchtime and flagged considerably during the three hours that our whole crew sat through lectures on KOrean history, English teaching in Seoul, and Living in Seoul. By the time they dismissed us for dinner (with an alotment of about 20 minutes to eat) I was ready to pass out. I felt headachy, bodyachy and soul-tired.

LIsbeth and I took a much-needed two hour nap. When that alarm went off, I had to claw my way to the surface of consciousness and shuck the covers with tons of regret. We're hitting up the dominoes across from the cafeteria.

(Side Note: After failing to find the button to allow us entry through a sliding glass door into the dominoes restaurant, we had an interesting conversation with the dominoes guy who told us they didn't have the 'original pepperoni' but that they still had pepperoni. Needless to say, we got cheese)

Now we're waiting for pizza, and I'm thinking about going to find Andrew Dillon who is most likely asleep in his room.

I have been assigned as an Elementary School teacher which is great. I wanted little kids whose respect I didn't have to go through the trouble of earning. After today we will be divided according to our classroom levels to attend lectures. Lisbeth is Middle School. Andrew is highschool. Oh well, at least we'll be forced to make new friends.

Already I've made friends with canadians, a giant south african man and some Tories.

More on the information they gave us during lectures to come. I"ll post some pictures too at some point, as soon as I get this ethernet cable back.

Oh yeah and one more thing. SMOE would never fly in the states. It is one of the most disorganized and communication challenged organizations I have ever encountered. Different students have different information at different times. (Today, Jon Pak, program director, told a group of us to follow him outside and then left us to stand there wondering what to do next until we gradually dispersed.)

The frustrating part is, they had all the information originally and hardly gave the students any. We are still being withheld from information. For example, Jon Pak won't let us have a Q&A session until Friday. LIsbeth and I have deduced that this is so we foreigners can't make demands (such as changing schools/location/etc.) until it is too late.

I hope Lisbeth and Andrew and I get the same district.

I'm going to wander down to dominoes to see if my 'original cheese' pizza is ready yet.

Too excited to sleep straight

Tomorrow I'm leaving!

And I have mixed up feelings. 

I'm half teeth-falling-out anticipation, worried that I have packed too many bags to be reasonable, but left my socks behind lying peacefully in a plastic cubby in my closet.

I'm half wild anticipation, stuffing my soccer cleats in my 70lb. bag in case there's a pick-up soccer game at orientation. (Soccer with some hot Aussies?)

So I'm torn. what else is new?

Pre-plane jitters

I leave for Korea in four days. 

And I have that sort of nervous feeling I imagine a dog has when he's found the perfect spot to go to the bathroom, but realizes other dogs are in the vicinity and he is, therefore, far too vulnerable to allow himself to let go, to release that which he was just moments before preparing to expel. 

It's a light feeling in my gut that leaves me not-so-securely rooted to the ground-floating. I don't know if that's because my body is helping me out, un-attaching itself from the sticky Tennessee clay, or if its the universe or God telling me that I'm making a huge mistake. 

Malia, Go back for the following reasons:

your Grandma is from Cocke co.

you went to college forty-five minutes down the road

you drink the same whiskey every football game

you sing Dolly Parton at Karaoke Night

Those pictures of Jesus in Renaissance paintings have him soft-featured, mouse-haired, and palepalepale. He'd wouldn't mind if I failed to hop on my plane at McGhee Tyson, failed to bounce through Hotlanta and out the other side to bow down to SMOE affiliates with an Anyonghaseo! But my Grandparents at Korean Church worship that white God. He beat out Buddha in Korea after America beat out China---at least partly. So it would appear that God/universe might care about my Korean soul search. 

God and the Universe aside, the bottom line is: when people meet me for the first time they ask, "Where are you from?"

And I say, "Here"

But that's not entirely true, is it? 

I know where I'm from. I know where my home is, I'm just not clear on how to live in it. No wait, I'm clear on how to live in it, (and I do, happily) but I'm not sure that it can't be better living. 

I better finish packing.