"I like to be in America"

I am home - I have actually been home since last Monday. It is so wonderful I would rather like to stay here forever. It has been surprisingly easy to transition back to American life although I still feel more at home when I see Asian people. Last weekend Laura and I visited Jen in Williamsburg. We wandered around the historic district, watched Juno, went kayaking, and did lots of cooking. Well, everyone else did lots of cooking - I mostly set the table :) It was a splendid trip. Now, I am home doing family things like celebrating birthdays! I am so, so happy to be back.

Becoming Korean

So I think that I've been in Korea way too long. To whit, while I was running earlier this week, I saw an African-American woman walking three dogs, and, well, I sort of stared at her. Now I am not racist in any way, shape, or form, nor have I lived in an ethnic bubble (My family has lived in DC for the past 8 years) but it is very unusual to see that particular skin tone in any Asian country. Actually, I stare at all Westerners. Covertly mind you, not like the little kids who stop, open-mouthed and point at me like I'm some freak of nature. Nevertheless, I do stare. Going back to the states will be a bit of an adjustment. Today, I went into Seoul and two different Koreans started to ask me information about the bus and the subway. And another man in a department store said he thought I was Korean. I'm kind of ready to be an American again :)

An Expression of Love

Tomorrow is Teacher's Day in Korea and I believe that it was the inspiration for the note I received from a student today. I have transcribed it in all its glory.
It was addressed To: Flora  From: Tiffany

Hello Tiffany
I'm Flora. Now adays very hot. So a cold heed and
I study instruct thank you very much
My you teache 'min' say very sorry!
I'm English study is fun. Teacher I love

I love how she declares who she is at the beginning and feels the need to make casual conversation about the weather. (By 'min' she means "mean."My students like to tell me this, in Korean of course, whenever I tell them no.) I'm not exactly sure how a "cold heed" will help me survive the sweltering heat, but, hey, its the thought that counts. I guess could wear some kind of iced hat or regularly take dips in the city fountains. Yet another adorable but slightly garbled letter from a student! One of my favorite parts of being a teacher.

An Update!!!

I just discovered that one of my students is about thirty pages ahead in her spelling book because her mother has decided that I am not moving through the material quickly enough. My student also told me that if she does not progress, at a speed her mother deems appropriate, she will quit. From I can tell progress means finishing the book (Korean parents are obsessed with external accomplishments) It was rather an unpleasant revelation to receive in the middle of class. I kind of wanted to cry. I want so much for my student's to actually absorb the material, not just complete the books. It felt like a slap in the face.

On a much happier note, Spring has arrived in Korea and it is beautiful. The city I live in is new and a beneficiary of city planning so there are flowers everywhere. Beautiful, luminous flowers - pink, purple, tropical orange, and white. Huge, thick patches on the side of the road and in parks. 

         I absolutely love the white flowers :)

                                         So many colors!

Before now I was not terribly impressed with the Korean landscape, but Spring has improved my opinion. Also, because of field trips and school exams I have had four classes instead of five this week. And next Tuesday is Children's Day- so it will be another light week!

Lazy and Unapologetic

I have been remiss in my posting. For some reason I've felt overwhelmed by the thought of writing. Its so much work and I tend to agonize over word choice, order, sentence structure, etc. This tends to be beneficial for essay writing but not for blogging. I am still feeling lazy so this will be a bullet points post highlighting exciting events from the past few weeks.

1. I had two more seizures three weeks ago. I was admitted to the hospital for the day and released in the evening. Last week I met with the doctor and he said that they don't really know what caused the seizures as all my tests have been normal. He prescribed medicine that I would have to take for at least three years. I have not decided what to do about that.

2. Aaron and I visited Hwaseong Fortress - a defensive wall built in the 1700's. It was actually much more interesting then it sounds. It was mostly a very big stone wall, but there were also many traditional Korean structures throughout the fortress. I love the beautiful curves of Eastern Architecture.

3. I bonded with two of my students while listening to the Beatles on Youtube a few weeks ago. Although we are separated by language and culture, we found common ground through the immortal music of the Beatles. It was pretty sweet.

4. On the flip side, two students accused me of cheating. In their opinion, I helped the opposing team with unfair hints. Basically, the students were supposed to spell a word and I simply defined that word for them. Boy, was the other team mad. That was pretty much high treason in their eyes. There is enough personal drama involved in teaching kids to inspire a hit soap opera or show on the CW. (That distinction was probably redundant :) )

More Birthday wishes

From Max:

Thank you always. 

And I want happy you.

My presant eat when you are tired. 

From Sarah:

Happy Birthday Tifny.

Tiffny you're happy? I am

happy one more time Happy birthday

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words - Plautus

Last weekend was my birthday and I enjoyed the benefits of being a teacher - cute and quirky presents from the students. Shawn gave me a notebook and two red pencils for correcting homework. I am always losing my pencils so it was really a thoughtful gift. This was his note:

happy birthday!!

your good teacher!

very thang you teacher!

(This was typed so he replaced the "g" with a "k" and wrote "sorry!" below. It was adorable. I love the excessive use of exclamations.)Ariel brought me a chocolate-strawberry cake which I shared with the rest of the class. That class also planned a surprise for me with a little help from a co-worker. Half-way through class all the students left their chairs and told me to stay in the room. For the past twenty minutes they had been acting suspiciously and chattering about me in Korean so I had figured things out by then. After a few minutes I was told to come out. I found my students standing in a line holding fake roses and a basket with chocolates and a teddy bear. It was adorable. They all filed past and handed me the presents. 

Several of the students apologized profusely and promised to bring me presents on Monday. To my surprise they actually did. Sarah gave me tights with polka dots and Max presented me with a box of Vitamin C. Perhaps he feared I would develop scurvy :) 

The next day Aaron took me out to a rotating restaurant on the top of mountain. Actually, the restaurant is in a tower that resembles the Space Needle and the tower is on the mountain. Just to clarify. Our table faced the window, giving us a beautiful view of the mountain and the city. The meal was seven courses and included champagne, oysters, risotto, lemon sorbet, lobsters, and creme brulee; there were four different forks and three knives on the table. I failed to use one of the knives at the proper time, but it was nevertheless removed by the waitress. I felt like an aristocrat and a country bumpkin at the same time :)

I also received a box of delicious homemade cookies as a parting gift. All in all it was a lovely birthday :)

Mexico- The coolest place to be

With the economy crumbling faster than a sandcastle in the Bahamas, I started to rethink my future plans. It seems wise to put off graduate school for the time since their scholarship funds are drying up. But where to go? Should I stay here longer? Get a job in the States? Can I even find a good job there? I had been feeling really glum about all these questions until last night when I talked to Jessi and Heather on Skype and they suggested I apply to the school in Mexico where they are going to teach. It sounds like so much fun! I would love to be with them for a year and the subject matter would probably be more intellectually challenging than ESL (seeing as how I mastered the whole verb / noun distinction many years ago, although I did introduce analogies yesterday which was pretty exciting.) Mexico is much, much closer to America than Korea and Spanish is a lot more familiar than Korean. I am filling out my application now, so we will see what happens. I would appreciate prayer!

The Korean Nutcracker

This weekend I went to The Nutcracker Ballet- at least thats what I planned to see. Someone left fliers at school advertising the performance and offering a discount. The flier featured pictures of graceful ballerinas twirling about in pink. Well, I love Tchaikovsky and dancing and what is more cultured than seeing a ballet on the weekend? Maybe an opera.

Full of anticipation, Aaron and I arrived at the Osan Cultural Center 40 minutes before the performance began. As soon as we arrived I started to have misgivings. There were lots of kids-too many kids for a ballet. When the doors opened our ears were assaulted by kid's songs. These were ill omens indeed. And then the performance began. It was dreadful. It was not a ballet; it was a musical, in Korean with minimal dancing. They occasionally used the original music ... with a techno twist. And they were lip-singing. The actress who played Clara's mother looked miserable; she had a "I am young, beautiful, and spent years taking acting lessons to perform in this horrible production to an audience of twenty children under 10?" look. I felt sorry for her. You know its bad when the performers are unhappy to be there. Clara looked like she was 30 and had weak ankles or something. She kept falling pathetically to the ground.

They took some poetic license with the narrative. For example, the evil mouse king wore a red, glittery wig and instead of dying in the beginning pursued Clara and the Nutcracker Prince throughout the fairy land. At the Prince forgave the mouse king and everyone celebrated their new found happiness. During the scene changes, Drosselmeyer, Clara's godfather, appeared at the front of the stage and cackled maliciously like the worst villains in superhero movies who want to control the world. He was talking in Korean so I have no idea what he was saying. But it was bizarre. He is supposed to be mysterious not a psychotic villain who delights in universal chaos and seeks world domination. *Shudder*

It was a scaring experience.

Kimchi!

Koreans say "kimchi" instead of cheese when they take pictures. I think its really cute. What they say, not the kimchi. I'm not a huge fan of kimchi itself. The whole fermented cabbage thing doesn't really do it for me. Although its not so bad grilled.

Ring King

Koreans call the Lord of the Rings, The Ring King. Except they say it in Korean of course. I thought it was sort of funny.

Girls vs. Boys

Korean English academies are very fluid things. Children come and go much like the tide, albeit without the regularity. This leads to dramatic changes in class dynamics and in my designations of favorites. I just realized that my favorite class is comprised of two boys and four girls. It is the only class in which the girls outnumber the boys. Coincidence? I don't think so.

"The moving Moon went up the sky"

Last weekend was the Solar New Year - one of the most important holidays for Koreans. Seoul becomes a ghost town as people travel to their ancestral homes in the country. Most of my students bowed down to their grandparents and received money in return. Since my grandparents are far away and would probably accuse me of idolatry if I dropped to my knees in their presence, I spent my long weekend somewhat differently. On Sunday Aaron and I were invited to join a small group from our church for lunch. We had a noodle dish from North Korea and the most amazing mandoo. Mandoo is a kind of pastry stuffed with different ingredients-mostly beef or kimchi. After lunch the small group leader and his wife invited us to their house. I played Wii for the first time in my entire life; it was some ridiculous game involving insane rabbits. Loved it! They ordered pizza and we watched Wall-E while we ate. It was so wonderful to be around fellow English speakers and understand and make the same cultural references. I have forgotten how much fun laughing in large groups can be.
The next day we went to Lotte World which is the Korean version of DisneyWorld. There is an indoor portion with rides catering to children, an ice-skating rink, stores, a swimming pool, and restaurants, and an out door area with bigger rides and its own castle. In the early afternoon the place was practically deserted and line were almost non-existent. It was so much fun-we rode on water rides, rocking ships, and upside down loops. My favorite ride was Atlantis, the only really biggish roller coaster in the park. We were even treated to a cultural parade featuring scantily clad female dancers representing various countries. Except Korea that is. Their dancers were fully covered. Perhaps it was a subtle critique of our hyper-sexualized world. Or something.
I spent Tuesday with a Korean friend and her husband. We went to a huge department store in Suwon, browsed for awhile, had smoothies (I am addicted to Korean smoothies) and saw Valkerie. I don't really like Tom Cruise and the story telling was confusing but there some emotionally powerful moments. And afterwards we went to that authentic Korean restaurant-Outback. Koreans love, love Outback. They are everywhere in Seoul.
It was a splendid weekend and I was immensly grateful for the short week that followed. So were the kids. I think we all needed a break from each other :)

Declaration of Divinity

Best quote of the day
"Tiffany, I am the god of hangman. I am the god of all games." This came from one of my best students who in all honesty is very good at most games.

Compliments from today:

"You are strong"

"You are heavy"

Such darling children :)

Compliments and Criticisms

I have decided to compile a short list of the comments that my kids make to me. In my first grade classes yesterday I had the kids make sentences with adjectives; this inspired a number of the comments below.

"You are handsome"

"Thank you. You are a handsome guy" Paul likes to tell me this every time I chide him for talking in class. He believes that such words of flattery will save him from punishment. Sometimes they certainly make me smile.

"Tiffany is pretty"

"Tiffany is thin"

"You are smart" I spotted this little boy trying to surreptitiously pull something out of his pocket.

One little girl told her mom that I had big eyes like a princess.

"Bad Tiffany"

"You are dirty!"

"You smell"

Its good to know that my kids are progressing so well in their English :)

A New Appreciation

Last Sunday I went to an English speaking church in Seoul at the recommendation of a Korean friend. It was simply amazing. It was also really embarrassing because as soon as I walked into the service I started crying. For the past four months I have been attending a Korean church and listening to a translated and often garbled version of the sermon. The people are very kind but it was hard to find spiritual nourishment. I had not realized how isolating it was until I was able to sing in English, listen to the announcements, and talk to people after the service. I was so overwhelmed that I just kind of broke down.
I loved attending the Latin Mass in Oxford and have always thought having the whole service in Latin would be beautiful but I can now appreciate the importance of experiencing church in one's own language. I have never wanted to keep myself in an isolated American bubble but I definitely will go back to that church.