"Big Bird" Stadium. I've been to two soccer games to watch the Suwon team (about 30 minutes from me) at this stadium. The team is the Blue Wings so the stadium is called the Big Bird, and you can see the shape of the outer structure is like wings. It's a really pretty, colorful stadium. The team is no good though. I cheered for Pohang, the opposing team, last time I went though because I went there on vacation this summer and had fun. Pohang won, too!

The real show at these games is the crowd. On one side of the stadium, the crowd goes completely blue and they never stop chanting. They have two huge flags with Che Guevara on them. I can't figure out why, but it's entertaining to think about.

Cambridge Class

I realize I'm becoming a mother who wants to show off her children to people who couldn't possibly care as much as I do, so I'll keep this brief. I took all of these the first week I met these kids. This is Cambridge class.

Nicholas again, at his finest. These kids go to the 'nurse teacher' for hangnails, invisible scratches, and mosquito bites. It's out of control. However, a kid in a different class did go to the doctor during school this week because he took an actual bite of his pencil because he was hungry.

Alice. She reminds me too much of every annoying know-it-all but overly sensitive quality I had as a seven year old.

Arthur, smartest kid I teach, at times.

He graced us with this gem. The other kids just wrote their new problem as "My pencil broke. I got a new one."

Josh Na.

Joshua, future K-pop star.

Elbin.

Solbie.

Victoria.

Emily.

to the farm

First field trip with Jukjeon.

Meet Nicholas, cool as a cucumber, ready for the farm.

Making ice cream.

Flattering, I know.

may: art and lanterns

I decided to look through the pictures I've taken over the last few months and post some of what I've done, seen, and taught for some of you who I unfortunately don't get to talk to regularly.

One of my last posts was about my changing school and being full of uncertainty about the idea, but it's been the best decision I've made here. I love my new kids infinitely more (but it's going to be so much harder to leave them!) and feel like I'm actually responsible for them and need to care for them in every way. The working environment is also much more comfortable and positive. My coworkers, especially the Korean co-teachers I share classes with are wonderful and are actually my friends now instead of just people I check in with to make sure I'm giving the right test every now and then.

This is my last day of class in Sunae at my first school. The two girls closest to me were my favorites. Let's focus on the one in the purple dress, Julia. She's the coolest little girl I've ever met. That always-in-the-front-row kind who is normally annoying, but I was lucky enough to see her through the four months that were her transition from kindergarten to elementary and teach her in both age groups. The kids can come to ECC for kindergarten from age 5-7 (4-6 Western age), for three years, if they start early enough. When they turn eight, they go to elementary school but most kids come back in the afternoons for classes at ECC. During this transition, they actually start looking different - most of them have gotten cell phones for graduation presents, some have finally gone to the eye doctor and gotten cooler glasses, new haircuts and clothes, and a whole new attitude. For some, that was a bad thing, but Julia only got better. I used to have to call students in the evening for five minutes so their parents could hear them speaking English, and one time I called Julia, asked what she was doing and she said, "Listening to instrumental music." She introduced me to the kayakum, which I guess is what you'd imagine Asia to sound like...(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WLQEBnaoIk&feature=related)

Anyway, this picture below is the present she gave me when I left. I'd like you to form your opinion of what it is before you go on.

I quite possibly will be on my own on this one, but when I looked at this and she said, "I made it for you." I immediately thought cookie with chocolate chips and candy on top! Wrong. It was clay. Which I didn't find out until part of it was in my mouth. Yes. That happened. Luckily it was soft and better able than Humpty Dumpty (yes, I sing this in my sleep) to be put back together again.

I took this the first week of May, walking to my new school in Jukjeon. Buddha's birthday is at the end of May - we got the day off of school actually - and there were lanterns all over the country to celebrate the whole month.

The next four pictures were from the last weekend of May, when I had that day off. I thought it would be festive to go to a temple. And so I did. This is my favorite temple, Wawoojeongsa. I came here in 2008 and this was my first visit back to it.

This is the view from my favorite spot to sit and read, write, think or have a picnic with a friend. It's the most peaceful place I've ever been, if there aren't kids running around knocking the rock stacks down at that moment!

More than Adrien Brody

I love live entertainment. Shows on the side of the road with open guitar cases, kids having a break dancing contest, teenagers singing Christmas songs in a subway station, or an actual concert by a world-famous pianist. All of these I have stumbled onto since I've been in Korea. I don't know if it's just finally being in a city, or it's Korea specific, but I love it either way.

On Christmas Day, I went to AK Plaza - a huge shopping center surrounding one of the most popular subway stations in Bundang with a big open plaza in the middle that's always decorated for the season or showcasing something. I met some friends for dinner and then called it an early one since it was Sunday night. As I walked through the plaza to get to the bus, I saw a small crowd formed around a bench so I stopped to look. It was a girl and some of her friends singing Christmas songs, and Maroon 5 staples, of course. It was one of the best moments I had had in Korea so far. (Honestly, I don't even remember if I'd already blogged about it, but I'm going for a theme here...). I stood there and listened for probably 30 minutes and then they just started singing the same songs over and over. It was wonderful.

Other times when I'm out with people in Seoul at night, I see street entertainment and always wish I wasn't headed somewhere to meet people so I could stay and watch. One time, a lot of teenagers in matching clothes were having what seemed to be a break dancing competition, and one little guy danced to Beyonce and it seemed like he was doing the actual dance she does. The guys were talking to the crowd inviting everyone to dance lessons, I think.. or maybe to watch them perform again the next night. He was a little flustered when he tried to speak English to us, so I'm not entirely sure what we were invited to. Nevertheless, it was a good show.

And for grand finale of shows so far... Today, I was out shopping by myself in AK Plaza, and I went through the plaza to get to the other side when I heard loud orchestra music and piano and saw a huge crowd all filming and taking pictures of whatever was going on in the center, but I couldn't see it at all. AK is an atrium so I went up to the second floor, where it was always really crowded but I thought I'd have a better chance, and after looking for 5 minutes to find a space where I could stand and see what was going on, it's this tattooed non-Korean guy playing a grand piano so vigorously. It was amazing. I stood for a while in awe of how good he was, just taking in how lucky I'd been to stumble onto this concert, before I looked around to see a sign of who he was, which was written in Korean, but I googled what I thought it said and found him.

Croatian pianist Maksim Mrvica. Look him up.

The picture's not that great, but you can see the crowd. After the show, he stood up, bowed, and walked off into one of the stores followed by the security guards, who always stand outside of these stores anyway. So I went out to look for an American Apparel that doesn't exist, and when I came back, he was in the middle again signing autographs. I looked for how to get in line, but as you can see in the picture, the stage was a circle, so I couldn't find where a line started. He went back inside before I would have made it to him anyway. Still an extremely cool experience.

I don't like titles

Unexpected things are happening. I mean, I didn't go into this year knowing what to expect or having any sort of plan. But Korea teaches you to forego all expectations because it's going to try its best to defy everything you know and understand.

I'm four and a half months into teaching at YBM's Nam-Bundang campus and I got asked this week to transfer schools. Luckily, to our sister school whose foreign teachers I'm already friends with. One of their workers, also a friend of mine, got a university job and is leaving soon and they need someone urgently who's already in YBM. Still, this was a surprise and will be a big change. I'm moving to a new apartment (to continue my life's trend of never living in the same place a whole year), working in a new school with different teachers that I've only known socially, and trading all my annoying and adorable children in for a new mystery batch. Feels like I just dumped all my Scrabble letters.

I realized tonight, in constantly thinking through every detail of this change, that most of what I'm actually trying to figure out is how to make myself come out ahead of everyone else. How can I get the best living arrangement? How can I have the easiest schedule? How can I make the most money?

So I decided tonight to stop. I came to Korea to have an adventure, and this wasn't part of the plan, but I want to embrace it, good or bad, as part of what I signed up for and be happy about it. Some parts of it are going to be awkward, uncomfortable, strange, confusing, and/or annoying to be sure. And so I've been trying to work out every kink in my mind before any of it actually happens - until one friend simply told me tonight, "Life's awkward sometimes."
So true. I don't have to try to circumvent it. So I'm embracing it all as part of the adventure that is Korea.

Por el contrario

I'm going to steal Leigh's cool/not cool list idea... but switch them around:


Not cool:

- having the flu
- being anxious about anything, ever
- hot weather
- having to make grown up decisions
- those hours of the day when everyone in the States is asleep and I can't talk to my best friends


Cool:

- speaking Spanish in Korea
- new spring dresses
- successfully speaking Korean
- Pawpaw mailing me ranch dressing
- snail mail in general
- staying close to best friends thousands of miles away

Notes

Good films:

A Separation of Nader from Simin
The Queen
A Special Relationship

Good books:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Song of the Lark


Commentary to follow when time allows.

Touché, little man

This winter hasn't been as cold as I'd been prepared for and this week has been unexpectedly warm, which has been nice. Until last night. Wind. Just wind. Brrrr. I feel like that could have been a nice haiku if a shiver could stretch to five syllables.

My kids are graduating next week. I'm not ready for this. I've only had them for three months and already I'm attached. My main class, Duke, is graduating and they will be going to elementary school and most of the will be coming back to ECC in the afternoon. I'll probably spend my Saturday putting together presents for each of them.

I have somewhat of a tradition in my youngest, most well-behaved class of asking the kids what animal they are that day. Tony, the most precious six-year-old in the world, started this by asking me if I was a crab after I pinched him to be quiet one morning. Today, Tony decided he was a shark, Philip was a dragon, and Olivia, taking an unexpected turn for the dangerous, decided she would be a cheetah instead of the usual hamster or puppy. Then they lined up and washed their hands for lunch. Tony came back to the line first, hands dripping and cold, the grabbed my hands and used me as a napkin. "Why didn't you dry your hands after you washed them, Tony?" "Because sharks live in the water."

Hello January

WORKSHOP

When I was applying for jobs in Korea, I decided I wouldn't take a position far from Seoul because I wanted to be part of the Seoul Writers' Workshop, a group that meets once a month or more to critique writing and is a community that encourages written and spoken word. I need that, so I came here.

Yesterday afternoon was the first meeting at Cafe Ohana in Itaewon, a huge foreigner area of Seoul that I believe has the biggest military base in Korea. I was nervous to go because I didn't get to print and make comments for everyone and just felt unprepared. Also my poetry seemed to be heavier than the others' so I wasn't sure how it would be received. But luckily, I was only about 4 minutes late and it worked out well that I didn't bring papers because my laptop came in handy a few times.

Cafe Ohana had pretty good coffee, a long table that we could all sit at together, and the best tiramisu I've ever had, and the barista gave it to us as service because she said we looked like we needed some sugar!

The workshop itself is a little different from what I'm used to. I got shushed a few times, actually, because their process is that the reader reads and is then silent until everyone has given their opinion and take on the poem. That makes sense. It's just not what I'm used to so it took a while to figure out how to be quiet.

I got some really good feedback though from people of all different backgrounds and styles. It was great to read so many different kinds of works too and have a chance to possible help in their improvement. I'm also excited about the new community I'm making. I got to talk with a girl from South Africa (Durban and Capetown, woot woot!) for a while and she's going to start telling me when there are music or art shows around Seoul. I miss that. It's been hard to find things like that so far because I don't seem to know the right people for it. But I'm pretty sure this group will be the right people.

The people who came were really interesting. One man is a Korean poet who has two books published, and this was his first attempt at writing directly in English. Another man - my favorite writer - has had some things published too, I'm pretty sure, and showed us some poems he's been working on for five to ten years, which is so cool to me considering I'm a relatively new writer.


LUNAR NEW YEAR

Five friends and I headed out long before daylight last Saturday morning for Pyeongchang, which you may recognize as the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics. It was Lunar New Year and we a five-day vacation. We were to go skiing, ice fishing with poles, whole-body-in-the-subzero-water bare-hands fishing, hiking to an ice sculpture area, bonfiring, BBQing, and warm waterparking. And we did all of these things except for jumping into the ice water to try and catch some fish like cavemen.

Here are Daniel and me preparing to look amazing on our skis (notice I'm still holding mine).


I was doing pretty well and had made a new friend named Scott on the slopes. It was both of our first day skiing so we stuck together and were improving pretty well. We went for lunch and a mid-day Cass and decided to head back to the slopes for one or two finals runs before we had to go back to the hotel. On the way to the beginning slope we'd been rocking all morning, one of his friend intercepted us, I was immediately introduced to him as the boss, and he convinced us in a frenzy to join him on a different, MUCH higher slope, that he assured us was perfectly beginner. That proved false for me. I fell every fifty feet and tried to follow Caleb's advice of slicing my skis to the side when I want to turn (something he'd seen skiers do, only ever having snowboarded.)


And the following morning:

Ski pole to the face. You're welcome. After this happened, I didn't even bother getting up until the guys all came around to see if I was OK and I just lay there so someone came up on a snowmobile and brought me back down.

This was taken by Nicola in a tent restaurant on the second day of the trip. When I walked in, a man noticed my eye, ran to me with a cold egg, pushed it onto my face, rolled it around roughly and indicated that I should continue to do the same. Not speaking much Korean and him not speaking English, I did what he said because he just kept yelling at me if I didn't. The pleasure I got from this was watching him yell at Daniel when I pointed to him when I assume he asked me what happened. Then he actually apologized when I charaded to him that it was a skiing accident.

This ice tunnel was at the ice festival, where the fishing took place. We also tubed down a hill repeatedly for one of the most fun activities of the trip.

The neighborhood

My apartment is the one with the overhang, just after the pastel monstrosity on the left.

Behind my apartment.

At the end of the sidewalk is my favorite coffee shop, just a few minutes from my apartment. Quite a nice walk.

Year of the dragon

Yesterday I was thinking about how life will be different when I go back home. Here are some of my thoughts: (the lines of dots are the only way it would let me space. I'm trying to figure it out for next time). ............................................................................................................. 1. I will be thrilled to be able to buy cheap and wonderful coffee. Here the average price for a coffee is 3,000 won, or about 3 dollars and until this week, I hadn't found a coffee shop I could call my own. However, Monday, I went to a place I had heard about called It Coffee, which doesn't sound very promising, but after I sat down, I literally sat in wonder with my mouth open taking it all in. It was perfect. Light jazz Christmas music was playing, the smell of espresso hung in the air, the baristas were actually drinking their own coffee monitoring the place to see if anyone needed a refill. I've been several times since. The baristas speak English and also now know me and automatically put milk and sugar in my coffee. Something I found unusual is that if you get your drink to go, it's about a dollar cheaper. That seems backwards to me. But I'll take it. I'm so happy to have found somewhere I can go when I have breaks from class and to write on off days. ............................................................................................................. 2. I will miss public transportation. I haven't missed driving yet and I'm getting pretty good at understanding the bus system. Gone are the days when I get on a bus in the wrong direction and end up in another state, an hour late for my language exchange, with no cash for a taxi, only 1,000 won left on my transit card, and precious few cell phone minutes. Yesterday, I ran down the sidewalk to catch the bus I needed to make it to the pub quiz night by running down the sidewalk and climbing the steps slowly so my friend/new coworker who hurt his leg and has a splint on it could make it too. That was exciting. ............................................................................................................. 3. Eating out is going to seem like a huge hassle and very expensive. Here, I eat for an average of less than I tip at home. And servers are always walking around just looking over the place, so if you need something, you just have to say "Here" in Korean and they come and give you what you need. It's quite efficient. ............................................................................................................. All of my classes are named for prominent universities: Duke, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, Seoul, Premier (In Bangladesh... I didn't know that), and others. The photo here is my Cornell class. I only teach them about five times a week but they are super amazing and also, obviously, super cute. They are my favorite by far because they have only gotten better every time I have taught them. Tony, the boy below, completely has my heart. A few weeks ago, he was talking to I walked up and pinched his arm and he smiled up at me and said, "Teacher, are you crab?" and I said yes and asked him if he was too and he said, "No, I'm person!" but every time he saw me that day, he pinched me and just giggled and giggled. Now, every day he decides he's a different animal for that day, including a fire-breathing dragon. .............................................................................................................

............................................................................................................. Here's another, if you didn't already have enough of him :)

............................................................................................................. I got a call from a girl I trained with, Samantha, a few days before New Year's asking if I wanted to go into Seoul with her and find a Dr. Fish. At that point, I had no idea what Dr. Fish was, but I said sure! Then I found out that it's the picture below and I had already committed. Most people know I'm a ticklish person. And if you didn't, well there you go. Samantha and I finally found the place and it was a pretty cool setup. It was called Namu (tree) Books and Coffee. It basically was a coffee shop but when you order the barista asks if you want to "add the fish" for 2,000 won. Then you sit, have some toast and jam, relax, and when you're ready/have worked up the nerve, you go up on a small platform by the window and have your feet rinsed and you can choose between pools of small fish (2-3 inches) and the big fish (5-6 inches) to sit at. The man didn't speak much English but when he pointed to the pool of big fish, he said "Strong," so we opted for the small. Anyway, it took me about 7 minutes just to finally put one heel in and it was so hard not to immediately jerk my foot out. But it was an experience and now I can post this lovely photo of tiny fish munching on the dead skin of my heels so you can all share in it with me.

............................................................................................................. I'll leave you with this image and hopefully post more soon. Goodnight.