Changes + decisions = stress

Here's some exciting things that happened/are happening this week --

• On Friday, I found out I've been saying a bad word with some regularity and in front of various people including but not limited to: my boss, my students, and other teachers. Apparently, it's not bad enough that anybody thought to correct me, but it's kinda like saying "eff" instead of the actual f-word; you might not be saying it, but people know what you mean. Oops. 

• The co-worker I'm closest with is leaving on Friday :( She will still be in Seoul, but school won't be the same without her. I'm pretty bummed about it. Which also leads to...

• The new teacher is coming Monday! He's a Korean who was raised in New Zealand, so he's our bilingual teacher. He will be my partner for the five-year-olds, which I'm nervous about because they're babies, and are used to female teachers. He doesn't have any teaching experience, but knowing Korean is a bit of an advantage. Fingers crossed! No matter how good he is though, next week will be very stressful for myself and the classes we share. We're preparing as much as we can, but I think it's just going to come down to lots of caffeine and patience.

• I went to a restaurant with my friend where they served our bulgogi (meat) on a shovel! Afterwards, we went to a self bar where you grab bottles of beer from standing coolers, then turn in your empties and pay when you're finished. Then, we went to a place called "clubby bar," which was more like a club with a bar hidden in the back. It was lots of fun and really crazy! After that (changing place is the Korean way!), we went to noraebong (a karaoke room) until the buses started running again. It was a great time and we made a lot of new friends. Oh, I also tried chicken neck stew this weekend! It was delicious! Did I ever tell you guys I tried jellyfish? That was good, too! Moving on...

• I have agreed to help a few friends improve their English with a weekly study group they organized. Each week, they'll send me a paper on a topic of my choice, I'll edit it, and we'll discuss any revisions on Sundays. I'm looking forward to this because I get to pick the topics -- so I'll definitely be learning a lot about Korea -- and because, uh, money!

• The time is quickly approaching when I'll have to make a decision about next year. My choices are: stay in Korea for 6 months or more at my current position, stay in Korea for another year at a different school, au pair in Italy for a year, or decide to return home and start looking for jobs right now. There are some weighty pros and cons to each option. One I think needs some explaining...

I never thought I'd be considering turning down a job as an au pair in Italy. This is why I am doing just that: I have grown to love teaching over these past few years and although I would be "tutoring" the girls in English, it would not be anything like teaching; I would be living with FOUR other people, one of whom speaks English; I would be sharing a room with a five-year-old; the job is in Naples, which is a notoriously dirty, dangerous place that is not foreigner-friendly; due to the above reasons, it would be nearly impossible to make friends; the money is not good (can't forget those student loans!); and I don't like pasta (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA just kidding, that's actually the first "pro!").

Considering all those things, I don't think this is the right opportunity for me to explore Italy and/or Europe. I'm not writing it off yet, though. I'll keep you guys updated.

Anyway, those are a few things happening in my life right now. If you hadn't noticed, I've switched my posting schedule to once a week, usually on Sundays. Hopefully that's enough to satisfy your curiosity for now, but I'll be sure to post more often when it gets warmer and I can have some more exciting excursions! 

Have a good week!

Parents' visit, as experienced by my mom

Yay! My mom wrote about my parents' visit from her perspective! Thanks Mom! Here's what she came up with. Note: If I add anything, I'll bold it. I swear I didn't add all those nice things about how great I am... Again, thanks for taking the time to write this, Mom! 

We never thought when purchasing our passports back in 2010 that we’d be using them to visit South Korea, (or that one of our three children would be living and teaching there)!  But we did and Laura does!

We embarked on our 14-hour plane ride with something you wouldn't call enthusiasm, but much to our surprise, it turned out to be not so bad.  We watched several movies (we each had our own screen) and had our first taste of Korean beer (Hite) and Korean food (bibimbap)!  (We enjoyed both.)

Ah, the joys of bibimbap. Here's a photo of bibimbap we ate later in the trip. In Korean, "bap" means rice, and "bibim" means mixed. So this is, literally, mixed rice; but there's so much stuff for mixing, you can't even see the rice at the bottom!

Clockwise from the top: bean sprouts, dotorimuk (jelly made from acorn), lettuce, carrots, some white vegetable that I don't recognize, some green vegetable that I don't recognize, beef, and radish kimchi. The egg yolk in the middle cooks as you mix it with the hot rice (and the bowl is hot). Also, the hot pepper paste in the middle is no joke. But I digress...

Our whole flight was in sunlight with the change in the time zones.

Note: I won’t bore you with our day-to-day itinerary, but will try to summarize our trip in a few paragraphs.  (If you’re disappointed, please e-mail me and I will send you a copy of our journal!!! ha ha)

Our arrival was by far the best---we couldn’t wait to see Laura!!!  And I just love this picture:

Yay me!

To sum up South Korea, I would have to say:  SO MANY PEOPLE!!!  But they (South Koreans) handle it well.  Their transit system, i.e., busses, subways, cabs, trains all seem to run on an organized schedule and we utilized ALL of them!  We were so proud of Laura talking in Korean with the cab drivers explaining where we would like to go. We thought we would be able to hand them a business card or an address and that would be it (little did we know!!!).  Laura just took over like she’s lived there for years…

This was walking back from the War Memorial of Korea and below is a picture of the bullet train we took to see some of the countryside---I heard it was beautiful (nap time for mom)!

For those of you who do not know Laura well, she is a planner to say the least!  She had so much packed into our 12-day visit, yet we still had some down time to relax.  She is the perfect daughter, hostess and travel coordinator! I'm going to start a tour business now: 10-day tours of Korea for the low price of raising a child (plus tuition)!

We toured the War Memorial of Korea, the Seoul Tower (well, Laura and Dad went up in the tower, as I do not like heights and the bus ride up was an experience in itself), a Korean folk village, a zoo, a Palace, a temple (with an unexpected personal guide), The National Folk Museum of Korea, a stage production called, “Nanta,” and a Korean grocery store, “Lotte Mart” that is like our Costco on steroids---so many free samples!

Here's some links if you are interested: War Memorial/Museum, Seoul Tower, folk village,  Gyeongbokgung Palace, Bongeunsa Temple, and Nanta.

Lotte Mart!

Some of the sites that deserve their own “spotlight” are:

The DMZ---this was not a fun place to be or think about but definitely wanted to visit.  I (mom) could not wait to get back to the bus!  We did get to step foot over into North Korea and see the guards on both sides---just an eerie feeling being there.  Hearing about the infamous axe murder, the bridge of no return and how they have pulled people through the door from South Korea into North Korea just gave me the goosebumps! 

Noraebong (Korean karaoke rooms) was sooo exciting!  We met some of Laura’s friends, Ethan, Minho, Quinlin (from Missouri) with her co-workers’ Kelli and Randy (from Toronto) and Laura’s Korean friend, Lucy (who brought me Korean tea and soap!).  We had our first taste of Soju (Korean alcohol made from rice)….and was introduced to a drink called Somack!  Mixing Soju and beer “mackju”= Somack!  I have never sung so well!!! We went to a Karaoke club where each group gets their own room with two microphones…Dancing Queen, Super Trouper, Korean songs, Some Nights, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Johnny Cash, Eminem…can tell the guys had a lot of input into what songs were chosen…ha!  We definitely made some memories that night….I think.  (Erica I will let you hear the video snippets someday!)

Laura’s school was by far the best part of the trip---the children are too cute! Welp. So much for all that planning... We were greeted and treated like royalty---the Director of the school (who could not speak English) guided us to her office (after we removed our shoes) and had tea brought in for us.  Then we toured the school and got to meet some of the students (as it was their last week of the school year most had already left.)  We also met the other English teachers, who had been there for a few years if I remember correctly---a great group of teachers!!!

They each helped make the “Welcome” sign behind us and Daisy, who is standing to the right of me, made me some stationery as a gift.  We could tell just from a few of the students that Laura had an interesting/exciting school year with this class!!! Ha ha See: the two boys in front of my dad.

It was very heartwarming to see how the teachers/principal respect and admire Laura; and the students just adore her.  We couldn’t be more proud.

We went to the show the night before we were going home and saw Les Miserables—a play that I had always heard about but had never seen—but not the best movie to see the day before leaving your daughter in a volatile state.  The tears began…

Monday came too fast and as we got into our cab and said our tearful good-byes…halfway down the street Mike realized he forgot his camera bag so we went back (u-turn right then and there) and was hoping to see Laura one more time, but she had already left for the subway back to her home…and the tears continued…

What a memorable experience we had…and looking forward to our next adventure---Italy? Australia? Greece?  Can’t wait to see where we (I mean she) get to go next!!! 

We will never forget the time we had in South Korea with you and your friends!  Thank you so much! (Gamsahabnida!)