as I was walking through a life one morning

Don't Trust That Map

2012-01-15T21:55:00.000Z

Last week, my English classes made community maps. Community mapping is a Peace Corp community assessment tool where different groups (in this case, boys and girls) draw their community and label the places where they go regularly, occasionally and other important locations. The idea is to get an idea of how people see their community. The girls drew a highly abstract representation of Kalaa, while the boys got in a heated argument about the exact layout of the roads in Kalaa and then begged to be allowed to use the computer so they could look up a map of the town. One of the girls, Ibtissam, who would have been happier in the boys’ group, was frustrated by how imprecise the other girls were being.

IBTISSAM: Teacher, this is a bad map.
ME: It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
IBTISSAM: No, it is a lie.
ME: There’s no right way to draw a map. I just want to know how you see Kalaa.
IBTISSAM: Don’t follow this map. You’ll get lost. Where do you want to go?
ME: No, no, I’m not trying to get a map of the town for myself. I’m not trying to find anything.
IBTISSAM: This map isn’t true. I will take you where you want to go.
ME: No really, I’m good.
IBTISSAM: Are you busy this weekend.
ME: No?
IBTISSAM: Good. I will show you Kalaa. I will show you everything. Ignore this map.

So, this weekend, Ibtissam and I explored Kalaa. First, she took me to her house for harira and to introduce me to her family. I met her sisters (one of whom I know from a different English class, but had no idea was related to Ibtissam) and made awkward conversation with her father (who I could mostly understand) and her grandmother (who I couldn’t – Darija without teeth sounds way different from Darija with teeth). Then Ibtissam and I headed out. We walked through the medina and stopped by the culture center where the PJD was having a celebration of their recent victories in November’s elections. Then Ibtissam took me through a back alley into a part of town I’d never seen before. There were a herd of goats and sheep munching on trash by a mosque, and Ibtissam laughed at how delighted I was.

“My grandfather has goats and sheep and chickens on his farm,” she told me.

“Mine… does not,” I responded while making clucking noises at the lambs to get its attention.

She pointed out a bunch of buildings I didn’t know Kalaa had and showed me where other buildings were. I now know where the hospital is, not that I’m sure I could find my way back, and the Moroccan equivalent of the DMV. I now know that we have an art exhibit across the street from the old medina and that there are dormitories for kids from the countryside who attend middle and high school in Kalaa.

Ibtissam was right – it was a lot more useful than the community maps my students drew.

Top: Fruit sellers at a small souq (market) in the medina; Middle: Continuing with my theme of Doors in Morocco, the back door to a mosque in the medina (left), Party sign of the PJD. A lot of walls in Morocco have a designated area for political messages and graffiti (right); Bottom: A real life Twitter conversation about lambs in my site. @til_midnight: Walked past lambs frolicking in a field on my way home. Frolicking. Lambs. @bethyafarrell: did you remind them of their future 3id kbir fate?! @til_midnight: It's good to know people will be able to eat sheep face for many l3ids to come.

Your Father's Wife

2012-01-12T20:19:00.002Z

Today's English lesson was about families, which went pretty well. I showed the class pictures of my family, including my sister who was wearing an immodestly short skirt (I could see her KNEES, the horrors, the vapors), but I still introduced her as my sister and not that harlot from next door who likes to photobomb family portraits.

Oh, and then there was this conversation, which it completely legit and only edited to translate it into English:

KADIJA: How do I say my father's wife.
ME: Your mother.
KADIJA: No. My father's wife.
ME: ... Your aunt?
KADIJA: No. *says a word in Darija I don't know*
A DIFFERENT STUDENT: Not her mother, her father's other wife.
ME: Her father's other wife...? Oooh, right, the whole polygamy thing. How many wives does your father have?
KADIJA: Two.
ME: Well, I can honestly say this is a linguistic situation I've never encountered before.

I went with stepmother, although that implies divorce, not polygamy. What is the correct term for your father's polygamist second wife?

Teatime

2012-01-11T20:07:00.001Z

I was kidnapped for tea (and by tea, I mean an afternoon tea, not just the drink) on my way home today. As I was walking up the stairs to my apartment, my downstairs neighbor rushed out of her apartment, grabbed my hand and pulled me into her apartment. “Come in! You’re welcome in my house! Come and sit. Drink some tea!” she told me as she drug me into the salon, barely giving me enough time to toe my shoes off. Moroccans are incredible hospitable and they love to eat, so the only surprise was that it took my neighbors a week to catch me.

They had just had tea and there were already two types of bread, a plate of cookies and a plate of msemen on the table, but the mother and eldest daughter immediately went about brewing a fresh pot of tea and bringing out a plate of cake wedges, something that tasted like friend wontons, cheese and oil for the bread. Then we sat in the salon and watched TV while I had tea. The wife watched me like a hawk and every time I stopped eating, whether it was because I was drinking the tea or because I WAS CHEWING THE FOOD ALREADY IN MY MOUTH, she would urge me to eat more. “Kuli, kuli!,” she demanded. Eat, eat! When I left, she told me that whenever I was hungry, just come downstairs and she would feed me.

It was incredible kind, and I always appreciate a free meal, especially since my kitchen it still distinctly non-functional (tomorrow, I will buy a frying pan!), and there are certainly greater trails in life than being fed hot fry bread with cheese (seriously, msemen is so. good), but captive hospitality (to steal a phrase from a fellow PCV) can be exhausting. It’s not that I don’t want to get to know my downstairs neighbors who, except for their occasional habit of deadbolting me out of the building in the evenings, have been good neighbors, but between my downstairs neighbors and my host family, who lives next door, I’m almost guaranteed an invitation to socialize every time I leave my house, and unlike in the US, there’s no real way to get out of it. I was lucky today was a holiday (Happy Moroccan Independence Day!) and I didn’t have work, although, come to think about it, in Morocco, “I was invited to tea at the neighbors” might be a legitimate excuse for being an hour late to work.

2011 Year End Meme

2012-01-06T08:04:00.000Z

2011 - the year I failed at being punctual!

2011 | 2012

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Joined the Peace Corps! Visited Africa! Lived with a host family.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My 2011 goals were 1) lose weight/be healthier, 2) Travel more, 3) Be more fiscally responsible and 4) Blog/write more. 1) A resounding yes. 2) Also a resounding yes. I was basically a professional nomad this year. 3) Not so much. I wouldn’t say I spent that irresponsible, but there was a lot of travel and Peace Corps related purchases, and I was either unemployed or working a minimum wage job for most of the year. 4) Haaaaaaa, that would be a no.

My goals for 2012 are 1) continue to lose weight/be healthier, 2) Travel, especially around Morocco, 3) Become fluent in Darija and 4) Take photos, blog, write, be more active in documenting my life, 5) Keep my apartment clean and organized the majority of the time.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My friend Blair had an adorable little girl. She’s the first of my college friends to start procreating, which means I might be approaching becoming an adult.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, lHamdullah!

5. What countries did you visit?
Bzeef! I lived on three continents this year (Asia, North America and Africa) and travelled a ton. I started the year living in Korea, and spent a week playing tourist in Seoul with Pru in January. In March I moved back to the US and went to Chapel Hill to see two friends from high school get married. In April, I went to Costa Rica to see Sarah and some monkeys and then to Mexico to work in an orphanage with my parent’s church’s mission trip. In May, I went to Washington DC for a week to see Riah before she left for Tanzania. In July, I went to Mexico for a long weekend. In August, I visited Blacksburg, VA to see Amber before I left for Morocco. In September, I went back to Chapel Hill to see friends and then to Charleston for Labor Day with my family. Then I moved to Morocco and have visited Fes and Marrakech (in addition to the two towns where I’ve lived).

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
I spent a lot of 2010 waiting. Waiting for any news from the Peace Corps, and then waiting to leave. I was unemployed for a few months and then picked up minimum wage job working at a summer camp while I waited, which isn’t exactly what I thought I would be doing when I was 26. I feel like most of 2010 was spent in transition: I quit my job in February, didn’t swear in as a PCV until November and after February 28th, didn't live alone for the entire year. In 2011, I want to be doing things, not waiting for them to start.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
June 15th: the day I got my Peace Corps invitation
September 14th: the day I arrived in Morocco
November 17th: the day I was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Either getting into the Peace Corps or not going crazy while waiting to get into the Peace Corps.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Hmm, not sure. Maybe learning Darija. I’m actually doing pretty well, considering that 4 months ago I knew nothing and can now carry on conversations, but I also could have studied more, both at home and now that I’m in Kalaa, and I wasn’t satisfied with my LPI score.

Also, I didn’t always handle stress as well as I could, and ended up saying things I regretted later.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes. I’ve been suffering from an unknown wasting illness (probably a parasite) for the past three months. I’m on meds now, so hopefully I’ll start feeling better soon.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My lovely DSLR camera!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The New York State Legislature for legalizing same-sex marriage. I'm pretty proud of everyone in my staj.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I was certainly frustrated by people in Peace Corp's bureaucracy, but I don't know if I would say they made me appalled and depressed. Well, maybe depressed. I avoided paying attention to the Republican primary for a reason.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Travel (see question #5) and buying things (including pretty much an entirely new wardrobe) for the Peace Corps.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Joining the Peace Corps! Guys, I have wanted this for so long, and for a while this year, I really didn’t think it was going to happen, so that fact that I’m writing this in Morocco, and that this is real and actually happening fills me with so much joy and excitement.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Right Now – Psy, Furr - Blitzen Trapper, Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise - The Avett Brothers, Schizophrenia – Jukebox the Ghost

The theme song to Secret Garden will always remind me of my last few months in Korea. And also the lolz.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing – much of this year went undocumented and I regret that. Studying – I have an entire new language to learn

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worrying over things out of my control and wasting time, like always.

20. How will you be spending Christmas/New Year's Eve?
Christmas was spent in Marrakech with Lucia, Mike, Sarah, Bryant, Kim, Sairah and Shannon. We stayed in a beautiful riad in the medina, went to a French Catholic mass (I didn’t understand anything, and when we tried to sneak out early, we got stuck line for a communion station, whoops), and went back to our hotel and sat on the roof and ate cheese and smoked hookah and drank and talked. I called home on Christmas Day and watched my siblings open presents via Skype, then went wandering through the medina with friends and bought scarves.

New Year’s was low key, since I was pretty sick and asleep by midnight. One of these years, I’m actually going to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

21. What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2011?
No idea, although that has more to do with me having low standards than me not doing embarrassing things.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Nope

23. How many one-night stands?
Nada

24. What were your favorite TV programs?
2011 – the year I got hooked on Kdramas

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Hate is a strong word, but I definitely dislike a bunch of new people.

26. What was the best book you read?
I read 65 books this year, completing my Goodreads 2011 Reading Challenge at the last possible moment, since book number 65 was finished the morning of the 31st.

My five star (non-reread) books are: 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, The Hunger Games (and sequels), The Queen's Thief series, The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time and Gaudy Night.

I also read and really loved: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Snuff, The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery, The Wordy Shipmates and The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie.

You can see the complete list (and I’ve written reviews for about half of them) here.

Like always, my list is heavy on non-fiction (mostly history and science) and YA fantasy. Next year, I want to branch out and read more adult fiction and literary fiction.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Jukebox the Ghost and The Avett Brothers

28. What did you want and get?
I wanted to join the Peace Corps! I also wanted a nicer camera.

29. What did you want and not get?
As much as I love Morocco and now think things worked out for the best, I spent a lot of this year wishing I had made my original Peace Corps nomination in June and didn’t spend most of the year waiting to leave.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Lord, what movies did I watch this year? Probably Deathly Hollows: Part II, although I enjoyed X-Men: First Class a lot and though Bad Teacher was hilarious.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 26. I celebrated my birthday with friends the weekend before. Riah and I went to the Seoul Museum of History to look at the dioramas and then went on an epic glasses spending spree in the underground market at Myeongdong. Then I headed south of the river have dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant in Seoul with Siobhain, Caroline and Audrey.

On my actual birthday, Pru was visiting from London. We went to Gyeongbokgung, tromped around Insadong and had tea at a tiny little teahouse in a back alley that was filled with more plants than I thought could survive a Korean winter. Then we went back to my house, ate mac & cheese and candy, finished off a bottle of vodka and watched Secret Garden.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Does anything else think that a lot of these questions repeat themselves? I spent most of this year waiting for something to happen, which was stressful and depressing (and expensive). However, I’m happy with the way things turned out, so I wouldn’t change anything.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Can I answer no to a non-yes-or-no question? No actually, I have an answer. Head scarves. While I don’t technically have to cover my head in Kalaa, most women do and I do feel a bit more comfortable when my hair is covered. Plus, let’s be honest, right now, I’m washing my hair about once a week, so it’s usually a grease slick and a brightly covered scarf is much nicer to look at.

34. What kept you sane?
My iPod, as always. Sarah and Riah did a lot to help keep my crazy under control while I was waiting to hear from the Peace Corps. Sam made work bearable this summer. My mother listened to my crazy ramblings and fears and doubts and I will always be grateful. I dealt with the stress of moving to Kalaa by listening to all the old episodes of Pop Culture Happy Hour in about two weeks.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Andrew Garfield, Nathan Fillion

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The death of Kim Jong-il. The Arab Spring, although not until I was invited to Morocco. The Republican primary is the issue that I tried the most to avoid paying attention to.

37. Who did you miss?
My friends from Korea (Riah, Siobhain, Marie, Audrey, Caroline), friends from home (Blair, Amber, Erin, Sarah) and my family. The downside to being this nomadic is that I leave a lot of people behind.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
The people in my staj, especially my CBT sitemates and my current sitemates!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Ugg, probably something about patience and good things coming to those who wait and don’t have hysterical crying fits from stress for a solid month, but I’m not sure I actually learned that last part.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Decide what to be and go be it - Head Full Of Doubt, Road Full Of Promise, The Avett Brothers

f l-mgrib: Month Three

2012-01-05T11:00:00.002Z

wllf means to adjust, become accustomed to or get used to, and it’s been the watchword of month three. All month long, my host family, my mudir, the mothers of the children at my Dar Šabab, the women at the hamam – everyone - would ask me, “Weš wllfti?” Have you adjusted yet?

“Lla mazel,” I tell them. “Šwiya b šwiya, kan-wllf.” Not yet. Little by little, I’m adjusting.

We were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers on November 17th in Rabat, the capital of Morocco. That morning, we visited the Peace Corps offices (which are in a beautiful converted French style villa surrounded by a huge garden) and met the entire staff before being walked to to the Ministry of Youth and Sports (the government agency YD volunteers work with) to be sworn in. The Peace Corps Country Director, Minister of Youth and Sports and the American ambassador to Morocco all spoke, and Sairah, the best Darija speaker in our staj, gave a speech in Arabic. And then we were volunteers and after two months of being coddled by Peace Corps staff, we were on our own.

September 2011 YD Staj, just before swearing in
It was up to us to figure out how to get to our sites. I was lucky; I have sitemates, so I was wasn’t alone, and we could take a direct train from Rabat to Ben Guerir, home of my fellow PCVs Kelly and Bryant and only a 35 minute taxi ride away from Kalaa. We were accompanied to Ben Guerir by Bryant’s host brother, who helped us catch the train, walked us to the taxi stand and even negotiated the price of our tickets, but things were a bit more difficult once we arrived in Kalaa. I called my new host sister, Olayya, when we arrived, but the conversation mostly consisted of me saying, “Audi, audi. Smhi li mafhmš.” Repeat that, repeat that. I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Turns out, speaking Arabic on the phone is much more difficult than in person. I eventually understood that Olayya wanted me to take a taxi to one of the local high schools and call her once I got there, but when I was dropped off at the front gates, my phone was out of credit. I was alone on a small, mostly deserted back road at dusk, weighed down with luggage, with no way of reaching the only person who knew where I was.

I considered sitting down on the curb and crying, but that would have gotten my pants all muddy, so my luggage and I walked until I found a hanut that sold recharge credit for my phone. And okay, so the haunt wasn’t far, and thanks to the Peace Corps phone plan that allows me to call staff and other volunteers for free, I wasn’t actually cut off from help, but at the time, the situation was horribly overwhelming.

The first few days at site were similarly difficult and overwhelming, much more so than I thought they would be. My host family, while wonderfully kind people, were little help with the innumerable official things I needed to do to establish myself in Kalaa, and I spent the morning of my first full day in Kalaa wandering around by myself in a futile attempt to find the correct police station to present my residence papers, trying desperately to blink back tears because, dammit, I was not going to be the foreign girl crying on the side of the road. My mudir proved similarly unhelpful and didn’t even show up at the Dar Šabab my first day Kalaa. The accent and some of the vernacular in Kalaa is different from the Fes area, and when I first arrived, I couldn’t understand anything. I spent a lot of my first week in Kalaa on the phone with friends in other sites and going to bed ridiculously early.

And then, slowly, I started to wllf.

I went to the Dar Šabab every night to meet the youth and learn the schedule. I sat in on the music club and the scout meetings and tried to talk to the kids who showed up for clubs or to use the soccer field behind the building. My fourth or fifth day at the Dar Šabab, I was sitting in the auditorium with the music club and one of the members jerked his head in my direction and asked, “Who is she?”

The girls I was sitting next to said, “She’s an American who lives in Kalaa.”

“Does she speak French,” he asked.

“No,” the boys I had been talking to before class told him. “She speaks English and is learning Arabic.”

I coughed to hide my grin. At least the youth at the Dar Šabab are starting to learn who I am.

I’m slowly getting to know people in my community. My first night at the Dar Šabab, Naoel and Hayat, two girls I met at the Dar Šabab (and I use girl lightly, since they’re my age) invited me to their grandmother’s house for dinner, and I spent the evening being force fed dates and harira by a woman who instructed me to call her my black Moroccan grandmother. Hayat and Naoel both speak decent English, their uncle speaks fluent Spanish (and while my Spanish is pretty jacked up, especially after a few months in Morocco, my Spanish comprehension is still pretty high), and for the first time since I arrived in site, I was able to actually have a real conversation and understand people without difficulty.

I’ve started teaching at my Dar Šabab, which is a government run youth center. The government maintains the building and pays for one staff member, but volunteers run most of the programs. Peace Corps warned us that most volunteers don’t have much activity during the first few months in site. In fact, we are encouraged to not commit to too much, because we need time to intergrade with our community and settle down. My mudir, however, had other plans, and as soon as I (finally) met him, he wanted to know how often I could teach.

“Well,” I said, "I suppose to work five days a week, but right now I'm actually pretty busy so maybe in a few weeks...."

“Good, you can teach five classes a week,” he said, and before I knew it, I was teaching pretty much every moment the Dar Šabab was open. Well, I thought to myself, there probably won’t be that many students. Everyone says this is a bad time of year to start an activity. My Dar Šabab, however, is right next to a high school, and thanks to advertising at the high schools, my classes are popular. A little too popular, and I wish I'd had more time to think through what I want my schedule to be, but I’ll have time to rearrange things in the new year, and I’m glad I have enough work and students to keep me busy.

My first Friday in Kalaa, November 25th, was Election Day. On February 20th, as part of the Arab Spring, there were (mostly peaceful) mass demonstrations in Morocco calling for government reform, democratic change and Berber rights. On March 9th, King Mohammed announced “comprehensive constitutional reform” and then on July 1st, a series of constitutional reforms that limited the power of the monarchy were announced. Parliamentary elections were set for November 25th, and for the first time, the King would be forced to choose a Prime Minister from the winning party. (I am obviously simplifying things greatly.)

On Election Day, my host mother and sister invited me to come along when they went to vote. Even though the high school behind their house was a polling place, and several of my host siblings and my host father were assigned to vote there, my host mother and Olayya were assigned to vote at a different school that was much farther away. The polling booth was disorganized; there were six rooms dedicated to voting and each room had a list of residents who were suppose to vote there, but there were no signs to help people figure out which room was the correct room for them to vote in. My host mother and Olayya had to wait in line in each room so they could ask the voting officials if this was the correct room. My host mother found the correct room fairly quickly and voted. She showed her ID, was given a paper ballot, which she took to a table that was hidden by a curtain, made her vote and then dropped the ballot into a locked glass box sitting on the table with the voting officials. Olayya, however, wasn’t able to find the correct room. She talked to the officials in each room – twice – but there no one had a record of her and eventually she gave up and we left without her getting to vote. However, despite the occasional screw-ups, the election was widely considered to be a success and it’s heartening to see at least one Arab country making change without widespread violence or destabilization.

My new host family is big, which is good because I like families. This is Zainab, my almost two year old host niece who is over at our house almost every day. She is a adorable, and was a great ice breaker when I first arrived, because you don't need a common language to play with a toddler.

My neighbors were married a few weeks ago, and while I slept through the actual wedding, I went to the moving-in ceremony the next day. While the wedding guests and neighbors helped the new couple move the cartloads of presents into their new house, a band played music and other guests danced outside of the building. The nafir player especially was a character.

f l-mgrib: Month Two

2011-12-03T14:42:00.009Z

(A very belated month two wrap up. In my defense, I was pretty busy at the month mark, what with swearing-in and moving to a new city ALL BY MYSELF, but it doesn’t bode well for this month wrap-up idea if I’m already making excuses this early into the project.)

During my first month in Morocco, everything was new. New country, new friends, new language, new family – everything was new and different, and it wasn’t until my second month that I started to find my footing and feel at home in Morocco. Part of it was just exposure to the culture and after two months here, I had learned my way around Sefrou, my CBT town, and knew my host family’s routines.

Part of it was my increasing language skills. As the month and my Darija ability progressed, I started going beyond basic fact-based statements (today, we ate tagine for lunch) into a little more depth (today, we ate French fries for lunch, but I ate my French fries with a fork, because I don’t like to eat French fries with bread like Moroccans). During my last week in Sefrou, my host-sisters and I had a conversation about why Americans are fat and Moroccans aren’t, even though Moroccans eat way more bread than Americans do. Being able to actually commutate, no matter how grammatically incorrect that communication might be, has done a lot to make me feel more comfortable.

My host family was wonderful, and put up with a lot of terrible Darija in an attempt to make me feel at home. Simo, my host brother, and I had a running joke where he told people he was from America. It started when Simo was playing a driving and shooting computer game and one of the levels was set in America. I told Simo he was violated American traffic laws. He told me he wasn’t. I reminded him that I was, in fact, from America and was quite familiar with American traffic laws, especially the ones involving not running a red light to ram a cop car, and Simo informed Soukayna and I that he was actually from America.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Which state are you from?”

“I’m from Florida!” he told me.

“Which city are you from?” Soukayna asked.

Simo, not knowing any cities in Florida, leaned over and whispered to me, “What’s a city in Florida?”

“Miami,” I whispered back.

“I’m from Miami, Florida,” Simo informed us, and that night at dinner he told the rest of the family that he was now from Miami, Florida, and continued to remind us for the next few weeks. A week or so later, my host mother made me a separate pot of tea with dinner because she knew I like my tea without sugar. Simo poured himself a cup from my teapot, took a sip expecting the saccharine mint tea Moroccans usually drink and immediately started gagging.

“What’s the problem?” I asked. “You’re from America. This is American tea.”

“You are from America, right?” his sisters chimed in.

“Yes, I’m from America. I can drink American tea,” Simo reassured us, bug-eyed, then took a tiny sip of my tea and a giant spoonful of jam to prove it. His sisters stole the jam and demanded that he keep drinking. Poor kid. No one deserves to suddenly get an extra older sister.

Simo, tiny Moroccan thug, and my sitemate Jenn. Just before this picture was taken, Simo was disco dancing. Americans disco dance, right?
l-عid l-kbir, biggest holiday in the Islamic calendar, was in early November and I celebrated with my host family. I thought the most important holiday was Ramadan, or would at least involve the Prophet, but l-عid celebrates Ibrahim’s (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. At the last minute, Allah replaced Ishmael with a sheep, saving his life. Now, on the tenth day of the last month in the Islamic calendar (du l-Hijja), Muslims have a sacrificial feast to commemorate the occasion.

My family slaughtered a sheep. The sheep spent the night in the front hallway (which is in between the bathroom and the rest of the house, which made for an unexpectedly exciting late night trip to the bathroom), and on the morning of l-عid, my host father and sister killed it, skinned it and gutted it in front of the house. I stood on the front step and watched. The entire sheep is eaten during the holiday, and until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know it was possible to eat a sheep’s face. I had already told my host family that I was vegetarian (they tried to convince me that lung and heart don’t count as meat) so I mostly ate bread that week, but my sitemate Kim ate an eye and was tricked into eating sheep testicles. Her host mother offered her some meat that looked like fat, and Kim asked what part of the sheep it was from. Her host mother patted her stomach, but once Kim had eaten it, she leaned over and swung her hands back and forth like a pendulum to explain that actually, it came from a little bit further south.

During l-عid, it's traditional to decorate your hands and feet with henna to ward off evil spirits. The day before l-عid, Naعima came over and drew henna on my hands. It's drawn free-hand with a syringe, which makes the results even more impressive.

The final product of the henna with a glass of mint tea. It's my iconic Moroccan photo.

My family's sheep hanging from a tree over the irrigation ditch in front of our house after it had been skinned and gutted.

After it was decapitated, the sheep's head was taken to a fire pit where a couple of guys cut off the horns and roasted it. You know, for the eating.
During month two, we started doing technical training at the Dar Šabab, which also helped make me feel at home in Morocco. We started the month by doing PACA activities with the kids. (PACA, Participatory Approach for Community Action, is the Peace Corps guide to community analysis. It’s about as interesting as it sounds.) Then we spent a week teaching English at the Dar Šabab, and we ended the month by holding a “camp” for the youth. I’m not sure how much help the activities were in terms of actual technical training — two 40 minute classes does not a teacher make, and the camp was held right after l-عid and was sparsely attended — but it was a great chance to meet and interact with the youth of our town.

The camp was supposed to be the big, final project in CBT, but it fell flat. Not only did we not have nearly enough time to plan for it and only a few interested youth, our original idea for the camp, a talent show/art exhibition, didn’t go over well, so we mostly just hung out at the Dar Šabab and talked with the kids. One of the boys taught me know to write my name in Arabic, Mariam helped me review my numbers and, pressured to sing, I sang Amazing Grace, because it turns out the only songs I know well enough to sing a-capella are either religious or patriotic. On the last day, the youth performed a variety show (like a talent show, but without the practice) with song, dance, poetry and skits. They were a great group of kids, and I hope they get a permanent volunteer soon.

Girls (and Kelly) at the Dar Šabab after making a community map, one of the PACA activities.
I went to a bunch of parties during month two. There was a birthday party for Fatima (my LCF), a Moroccan dance party at Hub, and a going away party my last night in Sefrou. Turns out, Moroccans like to dance a lot. At the two parties in Sefrou, we danced to music videos (both of traditional Moroccan music and more western music, including something that sounded almost like Gangsta's Paradise). Men weren’t invited to either party, so the women were free to shed some of their layers, take off their headscarves and have fun. The day after Fatima’s birthday party, we were discussing it in class, and learned that in Darija, there are two words for to dance: shth which means to dance and rdih which means to crazy dance.

For the dance party at Hub, Peace Corps hired a traditional Moroccan band (like the ones that play at weddings). The band consisted of drums and horns, and the songs were long - up to twenty minutes long. After each piece, the performers had to rest and catch their breath before starting to play again. Everyone joined hands in a circle around the band and danced around in a circle.

Everybody, shthu!
Despite all the fun I had and progress I made during my second month here, most of the month was overshadowed by an abrupt change in LCFs. Due to a dispute with Peace Corps, Fatima had to resign with three weeks left in training. Her departure was sudden and perhaps not handled as well as it could have been by everyone involved, and the experience left me with the impression that the well-being of my training was very much secondary to Peace Corps. While another LCF was eventually brought in, I know that my training, especially my language training, suffered a result. It was an unsettling introduction to how Peace Corps bureaucracy works, but it’s behind me now and I hope the rest of my service is smoother.

Thankful

2011-11-25T11:42:00.002Z

Two years ago, I started poking around (again) on the Peace Corps website over the Thanksgiving holidays. I started my application sometime that week. I spent last Thanksgiving at the dentist, having cavities filled as part of the medical exam for my Peace Corps application. I didn't even eat dinner that night because my mouth was too numb from the Novocaine to manage something as complicated as chewing. This Thanksgiving, I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer, and it's easy to be thankful.

I'm thankful that the long, frustrating application is over and that it I'm finally a PCV. I'm thankful that I'm in Morocco, with all its crazy charm. I'm thankful that I spent my Thanksgiving evening at my Dar Shabab, making awkward conversation in broken Darija with my mudir and then watching a Moroccan scout meeting, which involved a lot more singing than I imagine goes on at American scout meetings. I'm thankful that I ate chickpeas seasoned with salt and cumin that I bought from a roadside stall as part of my Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm thankful that I have Internet so I could Skype home after dinner and talk with my parents. I'm thankful for everyone I've met in Morocco: my government-appointed family, my two host families and all of the wonderful Moroccans who have gone out of their way to welcome me to their country.

I'm thankful I am getting to embark on this crazy, two year Moroccan adventure, and while things are still a bit lonely and difficult right now, I'm thankful for the opportunity to get to stick around and make this home.

Mutatwi3in

2011-11-17T21:04:00.003Z

Lyum, hna mutatwi3in m3a Hay'at Ssalam.
Today, we are Peace Corp Volunteers.

Site Annoucements

2011-11-09T13:01:00.002Z

Site announcements were last Wednesday! Most of PST is spent at our CBT sites, but every few weeks, the entire staj comes back to Fes for a few days of group sessions, and this trip Peace Corps announced the permanent sites we’ll spend the next two years living in, i.e. the one thing I’ve been dying to know since I first got my invitation.

On Wednesday, the day of the announcements, Peace Corps drug the process out, and we spent all morning in sessions that no one paid any attention to because we all just wanted to know where our sites were. After lunch (which was half an hour late *insert face clawing*) we had yet another session with Abdelghani, the Youth Development program manager, introducing the regional managers, their duties and the regional system (a new introduction to Peace Corps Morocco) and other probably important things that I didn’t really pay attention to because I just wanted to know where I was going to be living. *insert more face clawing*

After the session, we were divided into our regional groups, which was a cruel tease because know we knew the general area we would be living in and who our neighbors would be, but still didn’t know our site, our home for the next two years, and we still had to sit through another ten minutes of talking. After region announcements, the groups met separately and our regional manager gave everyone a folder with the name of our site, a form about our new host family and a couple of pages of information about our the town. (People who are replacing or joining a current volunteer got a site journal written by the PCV, but since I’m the first volunteer in my site in a while, I got a generic form filled out by Peace Corps staff.)

My immediate thoughts were along the lines of OMG, I’m so excited, I can’t wait to see it, I love this place and am invested in its well-being ALREADY, must Google immediately, followed by Wait, Sra-what? I don’t even know how to say that! and Hmm, so I wonder where this is? It was a surreal moment.

My home for the next two years is Kelaat Sraghna (I can still only somewhat say that), a city about an hour and a half north of Marrakesh. Kelaat, or Qlaat or El Kalaa des Sraghna (there seems to be some confusion about the proper name and spelling) is big, about 65,000 people, and the economy mainly revolves around olive agriculture. There’s a high school, two Dar Šabab (youth centers where YD volunteers work), a sports center and a Marjan (think Wal-Mart, only nice and with an entire aisle devoted to cheese). I have a sitemate, Lucia, from my staj who I like a lot and think will be great to work with, there’s a Environment volunteer named Lena who lives 40 minutes away and Kelly, my current CBT sitemate and Peace Corps twin, is only an hour away. Kelaat is at the base of the High Atlas Mountains, just a couple of hours from the beach and close enough to Marrakesh’s transportation options that I’ll be able to travel easily. It sounds like an amazing town and I can’t wait to get there!

Amazing Moments in Stupidity

2011-10-31T21:16:00.001Z

Part of being a foreigner somewhere is putting up with unwanted attention because you’re different. People stare, children shout things as you walk by in what they think is your native language (in Morocco, they all shout in French) and sometimes, you don’t get the same treatment that a native would receive because you’re different. It can also work the other way, and expats get away with all sorts of cultural faux pas because they’re foreign and people assume they don’t know any better. Either way, it can feel like people only react to the fact that you’re different and not to you as an individual, and it can be difficult to remind myself that sometimes it’s my actions that are causing the commotion, not my nationality, ethnicity or inability to speak the language.

Case in point: Last night, one of the innumerable cousins (I assume, I never did get a straight answer to who this guy was) came over. He spent the evening on the computer, which is in the living room and has a direct line of sight to my bedroom, where I was sitting on my bed, trying (unsuccessfully) to memorize adjectives. Every time I looked up, the cousin was staring at me, and after a bit, I started to get hostile. Why’s he looking at me? I fumed mentally. Hasn’t he seen a foreigner before?! I’m dressed appropriately, I’m minding my own business and I’m in the safety of my home. I’m not Moroccan, woop-di-freaking-do. I have to put up with enough attention all day. I shouldn’t have to deal with this at home too! What a creep! I spent the better part of the evening annoyed at the guy and sending him a covert stink-eye whenever I caught his glance.

And then, hours later when I got up for dinner, I realized that hanging right above me head, in plain view to the entire house, were a row of underwear that had still been damp when I took them off the line this afternoon.

Dude wasn’t looking at me. He was trying to figure out why I was displaying my undergarments so wantonly, especially when there was a male guest present. This had nothing to do with me being foreign and everything to do with me being kinda dumb. If I hadn’t immediately jumped to the conclusion that his attention was because I’m American and not because of something I had done, I would have looked around and noticed my laundry and could have saved myself some embarrassment when I had to sit down, red-faced, next to him for dinner.

Fkkr

2011-10-23T11:16:00.003Z

(Sorry Mom, there's a bunch of swearing in this entry. In my defense, it's most as a pronunciation guide.)

Darija can be an incredible dirty sounding language to an English speaking. I know there are examples in every language of perfectly innocent words being dirty or offensive in another (my college Latin professor loved to remind us that we can’t decline sex in Latin), but in all the languages I’ve studied, Darija is the worst (or best).

“I ate” is klit. “Please” is afak, which sounds a lot like “oh fuck” and promptly became a swear word around Hub. (I left my notebook in my 5th floor room, afak!) We’ve started threatening to cut a bnt (girl) instead of bitch and last week, I asked Jenn the name of her hooha (brother). (That one was mistake. Hooha means "her brother" and I should have asked about the name of her non-dirty sounding hook (your brother).) If you woke up this morning, you fqt (which sounds very similar to fucked), but my favorite work is “to think,” which is fkkr, pronounced exactly like you think it is. (There are actually two works for “to think, dnn and fkkr, which has lead to us saying dnn-fkkr a lot.) We’re not exactly mature about it, and poor Fatima spends a lot of time rolling her eyes as we titter over things like Kat-fkkr (you think). The best moment came when Kelly, frustrated over forgetting a word, tapped her head and said, “Fkkr, fkkr, fkkr,” in a horribly obscene reference to Winne the Poo.

I really love my CBT group sometimes.

f l-mgrib: Month One

2011-10-16T17:00:00.011Z

Friday was my one-month anniversary in Morocco. My staj arrived in Morocco early on the morning of September 14th, after an overnight flight from JFK. We were met right off the plane by Peace Corps staff, whisked through the diplomatic line at immigration and loaded onto a bus for the four hour bus ride to Fes by 8:00. The first day was long, busy and exhausting, especially since I didn’t sleep on the plane or the bus. We met Peace Corps training staff, had the first of many immunizations and dealt with reams of paperwork that goes along with entering government service. Siad, the assistant training director, took a picture of each of us that afternoon, then printed them out and gave them to us as a memento shortly before we left for CBT. In my photo, I’m tired, unwashed and giving the camera a bitch face, but things have only gone uphill from there.

It’s been a busy month, and one unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The first week was spent in Fes, which only barely felt like living in Morocco. I was surrounded by Americans, the Moroccan staff all spoke excellent English and I rarely left the training center for more than a quick run to a hanut, the small convenience stores that abound on every street corner.

Then, after week, we moved to our CBT sites, which was a jarringly different experience and I was suddenly living by myself with a Moroccan family who spoke little English (at a time when my Darija was pretty much limited to telling people my name, where I was from and my marital status). My stomach was in knots all morning the day we left for CBT, and I had to make a fist to keep my hands from shaking as I entered my home for the next two months. That evening, I was sitting alone on the couch of my new home, nervous, clueless about how to start a conversation and dreading the long evening in front of me. Then Soukayna, my 17-year-old host sister, drug me over to the family computer so she could show me her Facebook page and took me outside, where I met the neighbors and we sat on the steps and listened to Barbie Girl on Soukayna’s phone. During dinner, Simo, my 11-year-old brother, made sure to find an American movie (Twister) subtitled in Arabic to watch, so that I would be included. All evening, my host family went out of their way to made sure I felt included and welcomed. I had anticipated a long and lonely evening, but instead went to bed feeling hopeful and optimistic about the next two months.

For the most part, living with a host family has been a positive experience. As my Darija abilities have developed, I’ve been able to start to actually talk with them, and one of my favorite times of the day is sitting around the dinner at table and trying to chat with my host mom and sisters. My host sisters and I have jokes, and my host brother and I play computer games and soccer together. They always introduce me as their sister, and last night, I told Simo I had three brothers. One was 23, one was 20 and one was 11.

“I’m 11!” he told me.

“I know,” I told him. “You’re my 11 year old brother.”

They’ve also been helpful when I’m studying. Ranya, my 13-year-old host sister, sits with me in the afternoon and helps me review my vocab flashcards and corrects my pronunciation. My host mom in particular is good at correcting me when I talk when her, but not correcting me beyond what I’m suppose to know. We learned present tense last week, and as soon as I started using it in conversation, she started correcting my mistakes, but last week when all I knew was the past tense and would attach deba (now) to any statement I wanted to be in present tense, she let it slide.

Not that living with a host family is always perfect. I miss the privacy and autonomy I had when I was living at home. My host mother decides everything, from when we eat dinner (answer: always later than I want, the latest has been 11:30) to when I can take a shower. While in theory I have my own room (a Peace Corp requirement), my host siblings are constantly in and out, the door I make sure to shut when I leave is always open when I return and after the first week, I realized that when people visit the house, my host mother immediately takes then to see my room.

I spend most of my day at school. I leave the house at 8:00 in the morning, and if I’m lucky, I’m home by 6:00. We study language all morning, and it’s amazing how fast I’m progressing. A month ago, I didn’t know a word of Moroccan, and now I have conversations. I’m comfortable, if not always adept, talking to shopkeepers and the neighbors, and yesterday I had my first program at the local dar chebab entirely in Darija, and it didn’t end in tears or fire or confusion. (Granted, I did write out the directions ahead of time and read from my notebook, but I also answered questions and talked with the kids and understood at least a large percentage of what was said, so I call it a success.) We’ve learned the entire Arabic alphabet, and I can slowly sound out street signs and write out simple notes.

I’m busier than I’ve ever been. In addition to being at school for ten hours a day, I have homework, grammar to study and vocabulary to learn, and when I’m not studying, I’m spending time with my host family, which is it’s own form of studying. There’s a stack of Peace Corp books on procedure and methods that I’m suppose to read before I swear in sitting on my desk, and every few weeks, I have reports on my progress to turn in. I live in a constant state of being behind on blogging and uploading photos and all my grand ideas of visiting other CBT sites during my one day off a week have gone out the window. I’m starting to feel a little frayed around the edges, but everyone I’ve talked to says that the pace slows down once you get to your site, and I can last another month.

Last Monday was National Woman’s Day, and the Peace Corps provided us with You Can Dream: Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do, a documentary about female leadership in Morocco, and one of the women featured lives in my town. Ten years ago, a Peace Corps volunteer had the idea of turning l3qad, the buttons from jellabas, a traditional Moroccan dress, into beads and using them to make jewelry. They applied for a loan and started a local artisans co-op for hand-made crafts. A decade later, the l3qad buttons and the co-op are still around. My host mother runs a shop at the co-op and sells jellabasand other traditional outfits. l3qad jewelry are now sold around Morocco and the women in my neighborhood sit on the front stoop and make beads while they gossip and watch their children play. I’m inherently skeptical of how much of a lasting impact I can make in only two years, but this co-op and the industry has made a real impact in the lives of the women here. Watching the video made me think that I have a chance of also making a real impact on my community, and reminded me of why I applied to the Peace Corps in the first place.

(Top Left: Entrance to a mosque near the Medina Fes-el-Bali (Old Medina); Top Right: Beautiful saqiya, public water fountain, in the Fes medina. Saqiya are all over the medina, and are still in use; Bottom: (from l to r) Fatima(my teacher) and Soukayna (my oldest host-sister)

Moroccan Hamam

2011-10-05T22:10:00.001Z

I went to the hamam, a public steam bath, for the first time yesterday, and it was wonderful. (Okay, so I almost passed out, but that was due to user error, and I fully expect my next trip to be fine. Turns out, exhaustion and health related dehydration [remember that gastrointestinal distress I mentioned before] plus extreme temperatures isn’t the best combination, though honestly, I could have passed out and it would still have worth it to be this clean.)

Hamams are common in Morocco and all across North Africa. Almost all Moroccan towns have at least one small hamam, and going to the hamam is common. Most Moroccan homes don’t have showers (or even hot water), so lots of Moroccans make due with bucket baths during the week, and go to the hamam once a week for a good scrub. It’s about more than just bathing though. Going to the hamam is a social event, and friends will go and spend a few hours at the baths the way American teenagers might go to the mall or a café to hang out. (Only, you know, everyone is naked. And people think Muslim cultures are repressed.)

I went to the hamam with Kim (a fellow PCT), Soukayna (my host sister) and Fatima (my Arabic teacher*). When we got the hamam, we paid our fee and Kim and I bought ssabun lbldi (special soap made from olive resin) and l-kiis (the abrasive washcloth used for exfoliating), then went to the changing room, where we stripped down to our underwear (and just underwear, not underwear and bra). Right, the whole naked thing. You’re naked at the hamam. Naked around other ladies (hamams are segregated by gender) and the people you came with. You will see other women naked and other people – total strangers and people from the neighborhood – will see you naked. Some women even go sans-underwear. Nudity is such a non-issue at the hamam, and once I was in the steam room, I almost immediately felt comfortable, but I still had to steal myself (gird my loins, if you will) before taking off my bra in the middle of a crowded changing room, and I spent the past two years going to the Korean public baths, which are also sans-clothes and privacy.

So, once we were properly naked (and possible hiding behind our stools, like Kim), we entered the steam rooms. There were three rooms, ranging from super hot and humid to regular type hot and humid, but all of them were hot enough for my hair to immediately go POOF. We went to the hottest room to fill up our buckets (decent sized buckets, probably as tall as my knee) with water, and then retreated to the medium heat room to claim a corner and wash. First, using small cups, we wet ourselves and rubbed the sabun lbldi, which looks like a thick, black goo, all over our bodies. We let it sit for a few minutes, rinsed it off and then, using the kiis, began exfoliating. I like to think I keep myself fairly clean, but I’ve never done a full body exfoliation before and I was amazed by how much dead skin came off. It reminded me of those deep cleaning pore strips every girl used on their noses in middle school: you’re horrified by how dirty you were, but every pore strip filled with gunk (or in this case, l-kiss covered in a white film of dead skin) makes you feel virtuous and proud, because at least you’re no longer that dirty. Scrubbing took a long time, probably close to an hour, which I didn’t think was possible when Fatima told us about the hamam in class. I just kept scrubbing, and the kiss kept coming back with dead skin on it. Turns out, my armpits were full of dead skin. (Sorry, that’s probably TMI.)

After about an hour at the hamam, I started getting dizzy. I’m sick, sleeping poorly, not eating much and thanks to last weeks bout of gastrointestinal distress, I’m just a little dehydrated, none of which is good when combined with long periods in a hot steam room. I stumbled out of the baths and spent twenty or so minutes sitting on a bench in the changing area until the world stopped spinning around me, and then took the rest of my bath in cold water in an attempt to keep my body temperature down. It felt like such waste, since I’ve missed hot water so much, and when I finally had an unlimited supply of it, I couldn’t use it. Next time I go to the hamam, I’ll make sure to drink plenty of water during the day and eat lunch, and I’m sure I’ll be fine. And there will definitely be a next time. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so clean, and it was the first time I’ve felt completely clean since arriving in Morocco. Plus, my skin was noticeable softer today, even my elbows, which are normally dry and rough. I want to make going to the hamam a regular part my life here.

Tips:

I’m glad I went with Moroccans, because I would have been a bit lost by myself, and the hamam might be the one place where I don’t feel comfortable looking around to see what other people are doing.

Soukayna and Fatima brought stools and a plastic mat so they wouldn’t have to sit on the ground, which was nice.

Bring a spare pair of underwear. Most people bring an entire change of clothes (my host mom was horrified that I came home from the hamam in the same clothes I wore there), but the underwear is the essential part, since the underwear you wear to the hamam will be soaked.

You can pay more to have an employee scrub you. I opted to scrub myself the first time, but at some point I’d like to experience a true hamam experience.

There’s usually a separate area for shaving. Look around and see what other people are doing before you whip out the razor.

I’m serious about the water. I bought a liter and a half bottle of water on the way home, killed it in an hour, and still slept through the night without having to wake up and pee. I was pretty seriously dehydrated.

*An aside about Fatima. She’s 25, making her the youngest person in our language group. She’s feisty and independent and confident and ambitious and everything America’s perception of women in Islamic country isn’t. She can speak six languages, has absolutely beautiful English that is being corrupted by our horrible American slang (we taught her the proper way usage of duh and the word doohickey today) and just got accepted into a graduate program in Fes. She can wear a pair of purple and green paisley parachute pants and make it work. Yesterday Jenn commented on how cute Fatima was and I agreed, saying that Fatima could hold a baby panda and still not be any cuter, that she has reached maximum cuteness. I’m really glad she’s my teacher.

s-salamu 3alaykum mn l-mgrib

2011-09-28T18:03:00.002Z

s-salamu 3alaykum mn l-mgrib. I’m learning how to write Arabic script as well, but I only know 7 letters so far, which limits my written vocabulary to delicious turkey, grow, girl, door and room, so a proper greeting written in Arabic will have to wait. swiya b swiya.

I’ve been in Morocco for two weeks as of today, but it feels like I’ve been here forever. We spent the first eight days at Hub (a government owned youth center, like the dar chabab will I’ll eventually work) in Fes, where we got to know our staj (the staging group of 40 I came with) and learned some very simple Darija and basic life skills, such as how to poop on a Turkish toilet. (For some reason, the Turkish toilet session was on day three instead of the VERY SECOND WE ARRIVED IN COUNTRY, which lead to some foul smelling bathrooms while we tried to figure out how the hell to flush the things.) (I took photos of the Turkish toilet lesson.) (Of course I did.)

Then, seven days ago, our staj was broken into small CBT groups (I’m in a group of four) and we moved to small villages and towns around Fes, where we live with host families and study Darija, Arabic script and Moroccan culture. I really like my CBT group (three other girls and Dave, the imaginary guy we invented to we could practice the masculine pronouns and conjugation) and I adore Fatima, our teacher. My family has been great about letting me practice my pidgin Darija on them, although I end up getting laughed at a lot. Yesterday night, my host mama was trying to tell me something about eggs (l-bid), but I heard room (l-bit) and couldn’t understand her. Finally, she flapped her arms like a bird, squawked a few times and pretended to lay an egg so I would understand. Everyone, including me, got a good laugh out of that and my host siblings kept imitating her all evening.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well language training has been going. While real world application can be a bit shaky, two weeks ago all I knew was half of hello and now I can say whole paragraphs, especially if the listener is willing to be generous with my pronunciation. There aren’t nearly enough vowels in Arabic for my English conditioned throat and that 3 in s-salamu 3alaykum at the beginning of the post is actually a letter. (It’s properly written like a swoopy backwards three, although I’m told it looks different in script. I refer to it as a backwards 3 and it sounds something akin to an /a/.) Inshaallah, my pronunciation will improve, because half the time when I say something in Darija, I’m met with blank stares.

Two weeks into my service, I already have a reduced standard of hygiene. My family doesn’t bath with American regularity, probably because they perform ablutions before prayer, and I feel like a bother asking them to move everything they store in the shower area every night, so I’ve started washing my hair every few days instead of daily. I’ve also mastered the Turkish toilet, even with a bout of mild gastrointestinal distress, so I’m feeling pretty good. (Feeling good about my Turkish toilet skills, not in general, due to the aforementioned gastrointestinal distress.) (Also gone, any compunction I previous felt about talking about bodily functions. Poop was pretty much the main topic of conversation at Hub.)

I’m super busy with lessons and studying and getting to know my family, but I’m happy. The application was such an arduous process, and when things get uncomfortable or hard or I simply miss home, I remind myself how hard I worked to get here and that things only get better from here.

I am so lucky I'm getting to do this.

Casablanca or Bust

2011-09-13T21:28:00.002Z

I leave for Morocco in an hour. Literally an hour - I'm sitting at the gate at JFK, waiting for my flight to leave. This time tomorrow, I'll be in Fes.

I'm really calm about all this. I expected that at the last hour, I would be awash with nerves and second guessing myself, but all I really feel is excited. I was worried before I left for staging, the one day long orientation in Philadelphia where we turned in our paperwork and got our government employee passports. For the past two weeks, I've had this free-floating anxiety that latched onto to really random things that didn't matter (including how I should have studied more for my planetary geology class 4+ years ago which, while true, is also irrelevant at this point). I wasn't worried about anything specific. I've done the expat thing and I'm pretty confident that I can handle whatever Morocco throws at me, however naive that is, but I was still worried and nervous and anxious.

And then I got to the airport at Asheville and said my goodbyes (which were awful and heartbreaking and I'm choking up thinking about it) and walked through security and poof, all the butterflies beating in my stomach disappeared. The die was cast, I'm was on my way, and while I'm still apprehensive about things* I'm not nervous anymore. Now I'm just excited. It's time to do this thing.

* We had a whole session about our worries at staging. Camel spiders and sexual harassment were chief amongst our concerns.

Peace Corps Chronicles, Part ! - The Application

2011-08-15T17:03:00.000Z

I first applied to the Peace Corps during college. I finished most of the application and one of the essays before freaking out and pretending the application never existed. Joining the Peace Corps was a big step; frightening and unknown. I was worried about not speaking the language, living without the amenities I was use to, meeting people and making friends in a place so different from home, and I chicken out and never finished applying.

Two years later, I ended up moving to South Korea, so I guess the jokes on me. The key was, I think, not having time to think about what I was doing. I needed a job, Korea was offering one and from the first interview to boarding the plane only took a few months. By the time I grasped the implications of what I had done, I was on a bus from the airport to my new home, pinching myself to stay awake so I wouldn't fall asleep, miss my stop and spend my first night stranded in a bus lot.

Of course, I absolutely loved Korea. I loved the country, I loved Seoul, I loved teaching and I loved the adventure of living abroad. I was already thinking about a second year by the end of my first month. As much as I loved living in Korea thought, I didn't like how isolated expats were from the country we were living in. I didn't like how contemptuous so many expats were about Korea, how they seemed to hate where they were and the "my way is the only right way" attitude so many foreigners had. I hated how I wasn't expected or even encouraged to learn anything about Korea. My best friend had joined the Peace Corp shortly after I left for Korea and the more I listened to her stories, the more I felt like it would be a good fit for me.

I started the application again while I was home in between year. (In December 2009, which yes, is over a year and a half ago.) It took me about a month to finish the (very long) application, stress out about the essays and wrangle my recommendations (turns out Christmas is not the best time to ask people to fill out crazy long and complex recommendation forms), but I finished by mid-January and, as luck would have it, the Peace Corps regional recruiter for my area was speaking at few schools in WNC the next week and I was able to schedule an in-person interview.

A screen shot from one of my recommendation letters (sent to me after the fact). They, alas, changed the bit about the Cretans before sending it in.
The meeting went well. I woke up that morning crazy sick, but managed to get through the interview before I lost my voice for a few days. My recruiter seemed impressed with motivation and my experience. Everything was going great until she asked when I wanted to leave.

"Oh, next April or May," I told her. I had already accepted a contract in Korea, had boxes and boxes of things stored in a friend's parents' garage and I had done enough research to know that waiting for medical and legal clearance takes a long time (the average Peace Corps application takes about a year) and I wasn't established in the US in a way that would make that sort of a wait feasible. In Korea, I could live on my own, have a job (a real job, not a minimum wage job flipping burgers or making coffee), and be doing something I wanted to do with my life while I waited. Going back to Korea was an easy decision.

"You mean in a few months?" my recruiter asked.

"No, in a year and a few months. You see, I'm moving to Korea for a year next month."

She was stunned; normally people want to leave as soon as possible. "I'm not sure I can actually nominate you for a program that far in advance," she admitted. She thought the Peace Corps would be a great fit, but they weren't equipped to deal with applications with that long of a waiting period. She put my application on hold and told me to get back in touch with her a year before I wanted to leave.

While it wasn't the news I wanted to hear, it also wasn't a rejection, so I headed back to Korea and in May I emailed my recruiter, asking if she could nominate me for a program now. It took about a month, but on June 2nd, I was nominated for a Community Service program in Central/South Asia, leaving in June 2011. Nominations are for a geographic region, not a specific country, but it's usually possible to figure out what country the nomination is for based on what countries in that geographic region with that program leave during the specified month. Obsessive internet research of community service programs leaving in June revealed that I was probably nominated for Mongolia.

A nomination is a recommendation, not a guarantee. It's dependent on getting medical and legal clearance, timing, availability of the program once you have clearance and great deal of luck. After you receive your clearance, your eligible for an invitation to serve. An invitation is more of a guarantee, and is for a specific country with a specific departure date. A nomination is great, but it means there's still a long, uncertain wait ahead of you. None of the Peace Corps Volunteers I know were invited to serve in the country they were nomination for, and since it's August and I'm not in Mongolia, neither was I.

That was all in the future though, and right then, I was so very very excited.

Packing, Part I

2011-08-05T17:12:00.001Z

I had my first Peace Corps related packing nightmare this morning. I never used to have any packing related anxiety (and I still don't once I actually start packing), but before I left Korea, I kept dreaming that I got home and realized that I had forgotten to pack half my apartment. I would wake up in the middle of frantically trying to reach Siobhain and asking her to save my yarn/books/clothes/super awesome SNSD coffee mug before my replacement threw them out, see the familiar walls of my apartment and think Oh thank God, I still have time to pack everything. (Incidentally, the dreams stopped the moment I started actually packing.)

Today, I dreamt that I arrived in Morocco without any shoes or my Arabic workbook/flashcards/notebook, saw the familiar walls of my room and thought Oh, thank God. I still have six more week to deal with that.

I think this is a sign that I should at least start reading packing lists.

No Longer Friday Five

2011-07-09T19:08:00.005+01:00

Remember when I use to post here regularly? Yeah, me neither. Friday round up, posted on Saturday because I got tired and went to bed.

My grandmother turned 84 in June and to celebrate we hiked up to Big Rock in Dupont State Forest for a picnic dinner and views of the full moon. I made a spring quinoa salad and a broccoli pesto with orzo, Mom made sauteed leeks with goat cheese, Leah made chocolate chip cookies and we hiked up just before sunset. It rained briefly and part of the meal was eaten huddled under a tarp, but then the clouds cleared after a short shower. We found out after we arrived that the moon wouldn't rise until close to midnight, but there was a lovely sunset, and we played cards by the light of the many headlamps I still have floating around in my purse and no one tripped on the hike back to the car in the pitch dark.

We also celebrated the 4th of July with my grandmother. I had my traditional Independence Day meal (Indian food and non-American beer), we played more cards and then watched the fireworks from her backyard.

I've started going to trivia night at a local bar with my brother and some friends. We do okay (one win, a couple of second places and we would have won last night if I could have remembered that the '92 summer Olympic games were in Barcelona), but mostly I just enjoy the chance fix my hair, wear something besides yoga pants and a t-shirt, have a drink and made sarcastic comments about Chuck Norris with friends. (So far, there have been two Korea related questions [which city was chosen to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and who is the Secretary General of the UN] and both times, I insisted on writing the answer in Korean [평창 and 반기문] because (a) I'm TOTALLY that person and (b) I spent a whole two hours teaching myself Hangul by reading subway signs and, so help me God, I will use those skills whenever possible.) (Trivia caller: Man, someone is a dork. Me: YES, WHAT'S YOUR POINT?!) (I bet you thought I would stop writing in Hangul know that I'm no longer in Korea. THINK AGAIN!)

Speaking of Korea, people following me on Twitter or Google+ (or, you know, real life) know that I can't freaking shut up about how much I want some kimchi jjigae, because (a) kimchi jjigae is really 맛있어요 (which, even after five months back in the US, is still my default way of saying delicious) and (b) I really miss Korea, guys. It snuck up on me; at first I was busy enjoying being back in the US and seeing my family and friends, and then weeks turned into months and I realized how much I miss it. I miss laughing with Audrey about the name of the stations on the Bundang line and I miss the 4th grade cleaning crew who kept giving me Korean homework. I miss Seoul and SnB and seeing the cherry blossoms with Siobhain. I miss my apartment and my neighborhood and, God help me, I was looking through photos from Pru's visit in January and I got nostalgic because omg, that was my Paris Baguette, the one where 친의 convinced me to buy her a kimchi pastry in exchange for a terrible ugly pillow she had made in home ec which I will cherish forever. I miss Nicole teasing me about my terrible Korean while I refrained from mocking her ridiculous ridiculous shoes. I miss having co-workers I didn't actively want to stab in the eyeballs.

Moving to Korea was one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself.

And hey, look, I'm on Google+. I'm unclear how well I'll use it, since I routinely forget I have a Facebook, but I am a big fan of all things Google, so there's hope.

Questions I have so far been asked about Morocco and the Peace Corps:

2011-06-21T03:05:00.002+01:00

Morocco? Where's that?

Morocco is in North Africa. It's south across the Straits of Gibraltar from Spain, west of Algeria and north of Western Sahara/Mauritania (Western Sahara is a non-self-governing territory that is under control of Morocco, so while the southern border is technically Western Sahara, the de facto border is with Mauritania). Morocco has an Atlantic and Mediterranean coast. The capital is Rabat and major cities you might have heard of include Fes and Casablanca.

So, not Monaco?

No, not Monaco. It is a monarchy, though.

Oh really? Tell me more.

Morocco is a constitutional monarchy. The current king is Mohammed VI.

Um, Mohammed? Does that mean...

Yes, Morocco is an Islamic country. Culturally it's more Middle Eastern than it is African. It is, however, more tolerant than many Islamic countries. No one wears burkas and I'll even be able to wear pants. I'm actually really excited about moving to a Muslim country. Part of the reason I'm joining the Peace Corps is to experience a new culture and while I know very little about Islam, I'm looking forwards to learning about it.

What language will you speak?

The official languages are Standard Arabic and Tamazight (a Berber language), but Darija (Moroccan Arabic) is the most common native language. I'll be learning Darija. As a result of French colonization, French is widely used, especially amongst the upper class.

Can you speak any of those languages?

Nope, not yet, but I'm excited about learning. I've ordered a book of Moroccan Arabic, so hopefully I won't be completely lost when I get there.

When are you leaving?

I leave on September 12th. Eighty-four days to go!

How long will you be gone?

Peace Corps service is twenty seven months: three months of training and two years of service.

Where will you be living?

Um, in Morocco. I won't find out where my site is until the end of training.

Tell us more about this training?

First, there is a day or two of training in the US (called staging) where I'll fill out paperwork, meeting my group, get any vaccinations I need and officially be sworn in as a Peace Corps trainee. Then I'll fly to Morocco and have three months of training in language, culture and my assignment. During the time I'll be living with a host family.

Tell me more about this assignment. What will you be doing during your two years in Morocco?

I'm a Youth Development volunteer, which means I'll primarily be working at a youth center (Dar Chabab) teaching English, which I'll use as a springboard to organize activities and clubs outside of the classroom. There's also an emphasis on girls' education and empowerment. I think this is going to be an awesome assignment for me, based on my prior experience and interests.

Won't you tell us more about the application process?

Ahahaha, I'm working on it. (Okay, no one has actually asked me that. I'm just going to tell anyways. I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS!)

Isn't Morocco super nice? Won't you basically be living on a resort?

No, not so much. Like most developing nations, Morocco has a vastly uneven distribution of wealth, so while there is luxury and money in Morocco, especially along the coasts, most of the country lives a far more impoverished lifestyles. However, since Youth Development volunteers are posted in urban areas, I will mostly likely have electricity and running water at least part of the time.

The Next Step

2011-06-15T22:07:00.005+01:00

So, this happened:

Testy

2011-06-03T11:32:00.001+01:00

So, there's this cardinal that lives at my parent's house. This is not a bird over endowed with brains, and he is convinced that his reflection in the windows of the house is a rival bird. Whenever he sees himself in the window, the bird (nicknamed Testy, short for Testosterone) repeatedly flings himself into the offending reflection in a testosterone fueled attempt to become the alpha cardinal in the area. From sunrise to sunset, the house echos with the thoinks! of the cardinal ricocheting off the house and the swears of my dad threatening to go outside and backhand the thing with a tennis racquet. It's particularly bad in the kitchen and my parents bedroom (both are surrounded by trees and shrubs for him to perch on while contemplating an attack), and my parents have had to drape the windows of their bedroom with sheets and towels in an attempt to hid the reflections, lest Testy wake them up at sunrise by headbutting the house. It looks like someone ineffectually tried to mummify the house.

This has been going on for a month and Dad has cracked. He came into the living room today with a gun in one hand and murder in his eyes. I'm praying for poor aim, but I think Testy's days might be numbered.

April is for Avocados

2011-05-04T04:51:00.000+01:00

April was a pretty awesome month. It started with white-water rafting and jungle hiking in northern Costa Rica, plus some really awesome news that made me jump up and down on the side of a Costa Rican highway. (Hopefully May will be the month that I feel certain enough about the news to talk about it.) I spent the next thirteen days bouncing around Costa Rica: Sarapiquí, Sarah's village, San Jose (twice) and Manuel Antonio National Park to see some monkeys.

After Costa Rica, I spent a week at home and my oldest youngest brother came home. He been building a log cabin in the woods of Arkansas since January, so this was the first time I had seen him since February of last year. Then, the next day, my other brother came home for Easter break and for the first time since Christmas 2009, the whole family was together under the same roof. It was... loud and my little sister, who was briefly an only child for the first time in February, informed us that she liked the idea of having siblings more than the reality.

The next day, my parents, sister and I set off for Mexico. For years, my parents' church has supported two orphanage (one in Colima and one outside of Puebla), but this was the first time I wasn't working or in school during the annual mission trip. This year we went to the orphanage outside of Puebla (about three hours southeast of Mexico City) and it was so lovely. I can't say I was thrilled with traveling in a group, but the orphanage was amazing and the kids were precious and hilarious and endlessly forgiving about my butchering of their language. Also, the food was amazing. (I ate everything put in front of me, including every bit of sketchy chili-doused roadside fruit and had no problems. Almost everyone else in the group, the people who avoided anything that could have possible come in contact with the water and totally missed out that time we went to a market in Acatzingo and I tried to eat everything in sight, was ill at least once, which just goes to show that chili powder and lime cures everything.)

While April is now over and I'm probably going to stop getting fresh avocados every time I turn around, my travels aren't quite done yet. I'm heading to Washington DC on Thursday to spend a week with Riah, one of my closest friends from Korea. I've only been gone from Korea for two months and I've already lost touch with so many people, and I'm really glad Riah and I have managed to keep in touch.

Friday Five, or March in Review

2011-04-08T08:13:00.000+01:00

1) I left Korea on February 28th and the culture shock of returning to the US was both easier and harder than last time (i.e. the time I ended up with my hands over my ears in line for security at San Fransisco because I'd lost the ability to tune out other people's conversations and was going into sensory overload). It was easier because I knew what to expect and harder because Korean habits had had two full years to form. It took me a few weeks to stop bowing at people and I'm still muttering in Korean. The one thing that I didn't have trouble adjusting to was having a car again. I still make sure to hand cashiers my money with both hands and slip my shoes off before entering a house, but I'm loving being able to drive again.

2) No sooner had I made it home than I left again. I got home Monday night and left Wednesday morning for Chapel Hill to go to a wedding and see friends from college. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of my university friends, but the wedding was lovely and I got to meet my senior year roommate's new baby. I also bought a new computer. (In my first 48 hours in the country, I went to the bakery, the library and the Apple store. I have my priorities in order.) My old computer had been slowly dying for the past eight months and I'm loving having a computer with a working mouse again.

3) Being home has been really nice. I've spent a lot of time with my family, specially my little sister, who is now 16, holy crap, when did that happen? I've also been cooking a lot, taking advantage of my mom's kitchen, which has all sorts of fancy utensils I didn't have access to in Korea, like a blender, measuring spoons and an oven.

4) I've also been to the library at least a dozen times. I have a Kindle, which was easily the best purchase of 2010 and is great if you live in a country where English isn't spoken, but not so good if you want to build a fort out of books. I also have a new library card for the first time since high school. I've never been good at returning library books on time and by senior year, my fine had reached an amount so large that I stopped using my card and started using my mom's instead. For years, I've been convinced that the fine was eighty or a hundred dollars, but when I finally checked, it turned out I only owned twenty four dollars, which might have seemed huge to me ten years ago, but is easily payable now.

5) Being home has been nice, but also a tad boring, since I don't know anyone in Brevard anymore, so at the end of March, I left for two weeks of vacation in Costa Rica. I spent the first week with a friend who lives here, and now I'm on my own, trying to remember to speak Spanish instead of Korean.

The Trip Home

2011-03-08T16:54:00.002Z

Musings on my trip home, AKA, no I wouldn't like to talk about it, but I'd sure as hell like to yell about it.

Dear people who asked me how my trip was,
Think of Monday. Think how fun Monday usually is. Now imagine a Monday that lasts for THIRTY FOUR HOURS. THAT was how my trip was.
Love,
Cait

Things started so well. I allotted myself so much time to get from my apartment to the airport bus stop that I was actually able to catch an earlier bus than planned. I was at the airport three hours before my flight, check it only took fifteen minutes, neither of my bags were overweight AND since my school didn't force me to overstay my visa this year, I didn't end up in a small room filling out reams of paperwork while being yelled at by immigration officers. I was sitting at my gate two hours before my flight.

Incheon has free wireless for the entire airport! This is the last time on this trip I can say that, and one of the reasons why I love love love Incheon, my all time favorite airport. I sent my mom an email saying, "Already at the gate, two hours in advance. Totally going to make my flight!"

On the flight to Narita, I discovered that the downside to having a Kindle is that your book is an electronic device that must be turned off during take-off. I read a lot of SkyMall and was cranky. Next flight, I'll make sure I bring a paper book too.

Also speaking of books, I bought The Hunger Games for the flight and it was omg, so awesome. I was told that it would be hard to put down, that I would end up finishing it at 4:00 in the morning, tired and exhausted, but too caught up in the story to stop, so I bought the book to read on my 24 hour trip from Korea to the US and ended up being the furiously cranky girl in line at customs because she had to stop reading briefly. My full review at Goodreads is here.

My flight to Narita was uneventful. I didn't have yen, didn't want to deal my card being flagged if I used it in Japan and also, my carry-on bags were really heavy, so I didn't buy lunch during my layover. My flight out of Narita was delayed an hour, but I got a seat at the gate, so all was well. Man, this trip is going well.

We board the airplane, buckle ourselves in and sit. And then sit some more. Finally, the pilot announced that we were waiting for a delayed flight from Taipei with several passengers who were making a connection to our flight. The Taipei flight was suppose to arrive "soon" and folks, we're just going to wait a short bit for them to arrive, but we'll be gettin' on our way real soon. You could tell it was an Atlanta based flight crew. We finally left an hour and a half later, bringing our total delay to two and a half hours which, consequentially, was about how long my layover in Atlanta was.

The flight, omg, the flight. The flight from Narita to Atlanta was terrible. There were turbulence THE ENTIRE WAY. ALL TWELVE HOURS OF IT. Some were mild, some were more serious, but the fasten seat belt sign was never taken off. I don't mind turbulence, they're like a mild roller coaster which is welcome entertainment on a long flight, but eventually you need to use the restroom and stretch your legs. Luckily, the flight crew was understanding of people ignoring the fasten seat belt sign and the pilot warned for mild turbulence vs. severe turbulence.

Somewhere over Colorado, the pilot came over the intercom and asked that anyone on the plane with medical experience please go to the back of the plane, there was a passenger of need of aid. I'm a little disappointed he didn't ask if there was a doctor on the plane (Hollywood, you lied to me), but relieved to see several people responded and even more relieved that the passenger wasn't ill enough to necessitate an emergency landing.

We finally reached Atlanta, several hours late, and were put in an holding pattern. Luckily we only circled Atlanta for thirty or forty minutes, but the weather was terrible and the landing was even worse. I've flown on a lot of planes in a lot of different weather and I have virtually no fear of flying, but this landing was rough enough that my stomach turned over and clutched my armrest a little tighter.

I reached Atlanta, cleared customs and immigration (filling out my customs form was a delight after having lived in Korea for two years; I have acquired a lot of stuff) without problem and rushed off to the gate for my connection to Asheville, only to get bowled over my exhaustion (I didn't sleep at all on the flight to Atlanta), hunger (turbulence interfered with food service on the flight from Narita and plus, it was airplane food) and the weight of my carry-ons (I was worried my checked bags would be overweight, so I crammed as much as I possible could into the bags on my back). I staggered up to the nearest eatery (a Burger King), was stunned by the idea of ordering food in English, took two tries to find the correct currency to pay with, carefully handed my money over with both hands and then bowed to the cashier. Culture shock, I has it.

I arrive at my gate, ten minutes before my plane was suppose to depart. Lucky for me, the flight was delayed an hour and I didn't have to go running to the gate, shouting and waving my arms, to catch my plane. (You laugh, but it's happened to me before.) I borrowed a cell phone to let my parents know I was delayed and they told me the delay was because of the torrential rains and a tornado watch in Asheville. I looked at a weather map and the forecast of the weather front in Asheville making its way south to Atlanta and swore. A lot. And not under my breath (I'm still adjusting to the idea that people around me can understand me). All in all, I was only stuck in Atlanta for four and a half hours, which could have been so much worse, but I had been away from home for a year and traveling for over twenty four hours and I just wanted to get home, hug my mom and go to bed.

I made it home! Eventually. It took 30 hours from leaving my apartment in Korea to pulling up at my parents house in America, but I made it and I'm home.

Korean Officetel

2011-02-27T13:06:00.001Z

Tonight is my last night in Korea. I finished packing Friday night and spent the weekend searching for the corner of my apartment I surely forgot to pack, because there was no possible way I was finished packing two days in advance. I've been having nightmares of weeks where get back to America and realize that I had completely forgotten to pack up my apartment, but I think I'm finally done.

I spent the week before last last week cleaning my apartment, partly because trying to pack a messy apartment means you end up packing the mess and partly because when I was cleaning, I didn't have to be packing. I ran out of things to clean on Saturday, but I took some photos of my apartment before I started to tear it apart and stick it in boxes.

So, my apartment. I live in an officetel. Officetels, which comes from office + hotel, are usually one room studio apartments. The first four floors of my building are commercial (a pharmacy, a half dozen clinics, a billiards hall, a couple of restaurants and a butcher shop), and the top five floors are apartments. Some people complain about noise or smells from the businesses below, but other than getting the side-eye from clinic patients in hospital gowns hooked up to IVs taking a smoking break by the back stairs when I take my trash out at night, I've never had any problems.

This is the main room of the apartment, looking from the door. The bathroom and kitchen are to the left and right. On on the left side of the room is the table, couch and bed. On the right side is the closet type thing, the dresser and my desk. The far wall of the apartment is all windows, which was nice during the summer and really cold during the winter.

Standing next to the bed, looking back at the door. The recessed area by the door is the only part of the apartment you're suppose to wear shoes in. The light over the shoe area is motion sensor, but it's erratic and I sometimes trigger it when I walk into the bathroom or the kitchen.

A closer look at the closet thing. It was put up by the previous teacher, and while I'm grateful for somewhere to hang my clothes (the dresser isn't very big), it did severely limit how I could move furniture around. Underneath the clothes are my crafting stash bags, luggage and spare bedding.

A closer look at the desk, which is the only part of the apartment I really decorated. The red box is full of stationary products which, yes, I know, I have a problem. Stationary is ugly and overpriced in the US, so it's a get-it-while-you-can situation. The painting was done by my little sister. The trashcan has pandas in airplanes quoting R. Kelly lyrics. Also, my light-up devil horns from the World Cup.

This kitchen isn't technically a separate room, but it's tucked away in a corner and if I pull out the counter space from under the stove, it almost has four walls. I have a hot plate, a rice cooker, a electric kettle, toaster, microwave and, after I absorbed Margaret's spices while she was in America this winter, a spice rack with four different containers of curry powder. The contraption above my sink is the sterilizer, so I can UV my dishes after I wash them.

The bathroom was my least favorite part of the apartment. The sink-shower meant that the bathroom was *always* wet. I can't keep anything in the bathroom since it would get soaked daily, the floor stays wet for hours after a shower (or a load of laundry, since my washing machine drains onto the bathroom floor) and standing water on the counters means I risk electrocuting myself every time I blow my hair dry. Also, the hot water heater only runs at night, so once the hot water is used up, that's it for the day. It's more than enough for a shower but, let me tell you, washing the dishes with ice cold water during the winter was LOADS OF FUN.

So, that's my apartment. I actually really like it. It's small, but how much space does one person actually need. It's in a good area - buses to my school stop in front of the building, a subway station is three minutes away and a much larger bus stop is only a ten minute walk away. There's a Daiso next door, a market two buildings down and in that three minute walk to the subway, I pass six coffee shops and a ho-tteok stand. In good traffic, I can be in Seoul in half an hour. It's smaller than my last apartment, but the bed's a double, the ondol worked all winter and I don't have to stick the AC hose in a trashcan to keep from flooding the apartment, so I count it a win.

It was a good home.

Misconceptions

2011-02-26T15:44:00.002Z

Yesterday was my last day at school. I spent the morning cleaning off my computer, and then left around 11:00 to finish packing. A group of my former 6-1 boys were playing soccer in front of the school when I walked out and they shouted hello.

"Teacher," they told me, "we going to middle school now."

"I know," I said.

"Where are you going, Teacher?"

"I'm going to America," I told them.

"Why?

"Well, I'm from America. My family is in America."

They huddled together for a quick consultation and finally the most advanced boy asked, "So, Teacher not Canada person?"

Turns out, my ENTIRE school thought I was Canadian all year.

Goodbye, Part 1

2011-02-18T04:26:00.000Z

One of the hardest parts about teaching in Korea is how transient the expat community is. Contracts are only for a year and once their year is up, a lot of teachers go home. I was lucky my first year and none of my close friends left, but this year Omega left in May, Tony and Christine left in November and Riah left a few weeks ago.

On what was suppose to be Riah's last evening in Korea, we (Audrey, Caroline, Riah, Siobhain and I - the ladies I spent Christmas with) were sitting in Cold Stone in Gangnam, feeling morose, when Caroline suggested we make a scrapbook as a going away present. She had a Polaroid camera. I had many different colors of pens. We had a notebook and stickers. And scissors. And tape. Look, I'm friends with a very crafty group of people, okay!

I love that I'm friends with a group of people who, when someone suggests making an impromptu goodbye scrapbook, ACTUALLY have all the necessary supplies on hand.

Caroline and Siobhain examining a Polaroid.
And so we made a scrapbook. It was a rush job; Cold Stone kicked us out at 11:00, the Coffee Bean we relocated to kicked us out half an hour later and Audrey and I needed to catch the last train home at midnight. The first half of the scrapbook was detailed (or at least had interesting asides) and had introductions and dinosaurs and fun lessons learned in Korea (even in Korea, don't assume people don't understand English is an important one) while the second half consisted of unannotated Polaroid pictures hastily taped onto blank pages while the Coffee Bean employees gave us the side eye for still being in their shop ten minutes after closing.

Riah's introduction page. When pronounced with a Korean accent, Riah sounds an awful lot like the word liar, so Riah specified that her pants were not on fire. And, underneath No Pants On Fire, I added 불 바지 없어요, which says, in what I'm sure is truly atrocious Korean, No Fire Pants. It was hilarious at the time.
We adjourned to the street outside to say our final goodbyes, which were awful. Saying goodbye is never fun, but it's especially hard in such a ephemeral community because Korea, our common ground, isn't a permanent location for any of us. My group of friends from university still meets up in Chapel Hill periodically, but the odds of seeing this group of girls again in the US are slim. Also, for me, saying goodbye to Riah was the first on a long list of goodbyes I have to say this month.

Riah gave us matching bracelets from Cambodia as a going away present.
So, we were standing on the street of Gangnam crying and promising to write and it's awful and cold and then Audrey and I realized that if we want to get home, we have to leave RIGHT NOW, only we didn't realize the time quite soon enough and just missed our last transfer. I've just barely caught a lot of last trains home, but in two years of living here, this was the first time I actually missed it.

Luckily, we were both able to find taxis willing to drive out to where we live with minimal fuss.

I woke up the next day, Wednesday morning, to an email from Riah. The snowstorm that ate Chicago (are we calling this one Snowpocalypse?) meant that O'Hare was closed and Riah was stuck in Korea until Friday night. Suck it, Chicago. On Thursday, Riah, Audrey and I went to COEX, and during our shopping breaks, we finished the scrapbook. We captioned the photos and wrote lists based on our experience here: crazy English names Korean children give themselves, Things We <3 About Korea, Places we <3 in Korea, How to Anger a Korean, Important Konglish Words, Important Korean Words.

Our list of Important Korean Words is possible the most worthless list of Korean ever and contains such gems as kimchi dumplings, old woman, fleece lined pants and fish (the animal, not the kind you eat). Others - Samsung, Hyundai, soju (Korean rice liquour, like drinking rocket fuel) and bulgogi (Korean barbecued beef) - don't even have an English translation. We had more, actually useful, words, but it turns out we don't know how to spell the Korean we use the most. We spent five minutes trying to figure out how to write thank you, a word I say ALL THE TIME.

After several failed attempts, I said, "You know, we are surrounded by people who know how to write 감사합니다."

We looked around at the cafe, full of Koreans. "Yeah," Riah and Audrey said.

"We could, you know, ask any one of them."

"Yeah," they said again. We stayed seated and left thank you off our list.

Audrey and I said goodbye to Riah again Friday afternoon, after spending the morning at the jimjabang. It still sucked, and I still cried, but it was easier the second time. It was easier when we weren't rushed. It was also easier because, during her extra days, Riah and I made plans to take a road trip once we're both back in the States. Wisconsin and North Carolina aren't that far apart.

Me and Riah

죽을래, Blog?

2011-02-09T00:23:00.007Z

Long time, no blog. Since I last wrote I have:

Turned 26, which was anticlimactic since I had already turned 27 Korean age a few weeks before.*

Pru came for a week and we went to many palaces and markets and ate lots of food. Some of it was in a tent and some of it was deep fried and on a stick.

Pru also got me started on K-dramas. We mainlined Secret Garden in four days and now I'm watching a bunch of K-dramas, three of which are about cross dressers (I swear that was an accident) and something called Joseon X-files (oh yeah, aliens in 16th century Korea). *faceplam*

Said good-bye to Riah, who left for the US. On Tuesday, we made an impromptu scrapbook in Cold Stone and cried on the streets of Gangnam and Audrey and I missed our train home. On Wednesday, I woke up to an email from Riah telling me that the snowstorm that ate America meant that O'Hare was closed until Friday and I got two and a half more days with Riah! Suck it, Midwest! [More here]

Celebrated 설날 (Seolnal, lunar New Year) by making a spectacle of myself with Riah and Audrey at the aquarium, one of the few places that was open. Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit!

Adhearing to the rule that you should be as clean as possible before getting on a trans-Pacific flight, the morning before Riah's flight, Audrey, Riah and I went to the bathhouse for a few hours. It was my first time at Dragon Hill Spa, which I liked, especially the outdoor tubs, but my favorite is still the green tea themed spa I went to in Boseong.

Break is over and students are back for eight whole days before the end of the school year. Yesterday, the 3-1 boys filed in a few minutes ahead of the girls. "Where are the girls?" I asked.

I was solemnly told, "In Seolnal, they is DIE!"

죽을래, which means do you want to die?, is a common expression in Korea and I've heard countless variations of it in English in the past two years, but it still kills** me every time.

All of these bullet points deserve their own entry, but it's unlike I will actually get around to them.

* Sokay, in Korea ages are counted differently than in the West. You're one when you're born (none of this X month business for the first year) AND you age on New Years instead of your actual birthday, which means your Korean age can be up to two years older than your Western age. On December 31st, I was 25 US age, 26 Korean age. The next day was New Years, which meant I turned 27 Korean age while I was still 25 US age. Since my birthday is in January, my Korean age is normally only one year ahead of my western age, but my little sister, who just turned sixteen in December is already eighteen in Korea. Somewhere my mother just blanched at the thought.
**Zing!

The reoccurring theme here is "cold"

2011-01-17T03:48:00.002Z

Why are my Five Things Friday posts never on Friday?

Last weekend, I went to COEX for a haircut and dinner with Audrey and Caroline. There was a thirty minute wait for dinner, so we settled down to knit in a coffee shop until our buzzer rang. I shrugged off my coat, a novel experience during a Korean winter,* and in the rush to gather our bags and get to the restaurant when the buzzer went off, I left my coat (which, incidentally, had my T-money card and iPod in the pocket) at our table. I didn't realize my mistake until an hour later, when I was sitting in the salon after dinner, waiting for my appointment to start. I rushed back to the coffee shop in a panic, only to find my coat still hanging off the back of my chair where I left it, everything still in the pocket. Some days, I really love Korea.

Speaking of the new hair cut, I like it. It's short, although not as short as the last time I cut it (and man, the stinkeye I got from the stylist when I admitted that I had last had a haircut in July), but short enough that styling it mostly becomes an attempt to corral the curls. It does mean I need to blowdry it in the morning, which is usually not a problem, but I've spent the last week deskwarming and decided I couldn't be bothered to wake up in time to fix my hair when all I'm going to do is sit alone in my office, which has led to some epically bad hair days.

Actually, I haven't been bothered to wake up in time to do anything, not even get to school on time. I keep leaving my apartment after I'm already suppose to be at school. I would feel guilty, except a) deskwarming is stupid and b) on Friday I ran into one of the second grade teachers who was also walking to school half an hour late.

"I'm late," she told me as she ran past.

"Me too!" I said.

"But my students are waiting for me," she explained.

Lady, you win at being late. At least I was on time when I had kids.

So, deskwarming. People who have to do it hate it and people who don't have to do it tell us to stop whining. And I guess it's better than having to actually work, but it's punitive and a waste of time. I'm not suppose to be doing anything while I'm here, but I have to be here for eight hours (well, more like seven) a day. I know all jobs have their annoyances, but in this case, I'm the only teacher who has to deskwarm. The Korean teachers only have to come to school during the breaks when they're teaching. I don't complain when I have to come in and sit during exams or other days when I don't teach because the Korean teachers also have to come it. It's only during the school breaks that it feels like a punishment. Also, my office is really really cold. At least at home I have some control over the temperature or, in worse case scenarios, blankets.

Tomorrow is my last day of deskwarming! One more day and then I have nineteen days of vacation. I thought of fleeing somewhere warm over my break, but I've (probably) opted to stay in Korea and save money (fiscal responsibility for the win). Pru is coming to visit (two days until she arrives!) for a week and I'm going to spend the rest of my break savoring my remaining 42 days in Korea.

*The public schools aren't well heated. On the good days, my classroom/office are tolerable so long as I'm wearing a heavy coat and leggings under my pants and boots and maybe a hat. On the bad days, well, I have a reoccurring problem of liquids freezing in my office. Suffice to say, I've not taken my coat off much for the past few months.

2010 Year End Meme

2011-01-02T12:48:00.004Z

That end of the year meme that's been going around, although you'll notice I waited until 2010 was good and over to finish it.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Applied to the Peace Corps! Took an overnight train across China.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My 2010 goals were 1) lose weight (nope) 2) travel more (yep) 3) save money (not as much as I would have liked, but yep) and 4) organize my computer (that would be a no). Next year I want to 1) lose weight/be healthier 2) Travel more 3) Be more fiscally responsible and 4) Blog/write more.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My co-teacher Yeong Eun had a little boy.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What countries did you visit?
China (for a second time), Korea (not sure if it counts as visiting since I'm living here)

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
More definite plans for the future.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Eh, none? It wasn't really a momentous year. A good year, but not momentous.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I applied to the Peace Corps. I became a better teacher.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't get my Peace Corp medical paperwork finished.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Thankfully no, although I do now have an extensive amount of paperwork documenting exactly how healthy I am.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Kindle and plane tickets to China

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Congress for repealing DADT. My broadcasting club kids worked really hard and I'm super proud of them.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Look, I pretty studiously didn't pay attention to the US elections for a reason. That much rage isn't healthy.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Travel, books, Indian food, 문구점....

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Traveling. The Peace Corp. Life in general.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
OK Go - Here It Goes Again; My Chemical Romance - Na Na Na; Lady GaGa - Alejandro; The Sounds - 4 Songs & A Fight; 이효리 - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier
ii. thinner or fatter? same same
iii. richer or poorer? richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Cleaning my apartment, exercising, studying Korean, keeping in touch with people

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasting time (especially my afternoons at work), following celebrity gossip.

20. How will you be spending Christmas/New Year's Eve?
I spent Christmas with friends (lots of friends) and I spent New Years at home. I think I technically rang in the new year by reading about the Black Plague. I never want to do anything on New Years and I always feel slightly guilty about it.

21. What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2010?
My sister got locked in my bathroom which was more embarrassing for her, but I was a bit red faced when I had to beg the adjoshi to break down my bathroom door so she could get out.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Nope

23. How many one-night stands?
Nada

24. What were your favorite TV programs?
Doctor Who, White Collar, Leverage, Castle

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No. I don't really hate anyone. Sustaining the anger to hate someone is too much energy.

26. What was the best book you read?
I read 60 books this year: 12 re-reads, 11 non-fiction, 18 Agatha Christie. My favorites were:

Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Oh hell, probably my continuing love affair with K-pop. Basically, my year sounded a lot like this and it was ~awesome!

28. What did you want and get?
To come back to Korea for a second year, see the Terracotta Soldiers, my family to visit me in Korea

29. What did you want and not get?
I really wanted to be finished with the Peace Corps medical testing by the end of 2010.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Inception or Deathly Hallows

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 25. On my actually birthday Sarah and I went shopping and out to dinner, and then that weekend a bunch of friends from college came to Brevard and we spend the weekend having Wii tournaments and touring the yarn shops of the greater Asheville area.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
To have finished my Peace Corps medical paperwork.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Most days I made it out of the house looking vaguely presentable? I sometimes matched my glasses to my knee socks? Actually, socks in general. I own so many cheep Korean socks now. Knee socks, plush socks, ridiculous ankle socks. If they're sold from the back of a truck on the side of the road in Korea, I probably own them.

34. What kept you sane?
iPod and Kindle

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Kim Yuna, Johnny Weir, Alex O'Loughlin, Simon Baker

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Relations between North and South Korea, the DADT repeal

37. Who did you miss?
Family and friends back home.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Audrey, Caroline and Riah

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
If you want something and work hard enough, you can get it.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
There are jobs and chores and questions
And plates I need to twirl,
But tonight I'll take my chances,
On the far side of the world.

-- Far Side of the World, Jimmy Buffett

Christmas in the Land of the Morning Calm

2010-12-30T06:39:00.001Z

Merry Christmas! Christmas can be hard when you spend it away from family and all the traditions that make holidays special. All last week, students and teachers asked me if I was going home for Christmas and when I told them no (even if I could afford a flight to the US right now, there is literally not enough time in a weekend to fly to the US and back, and I had class on Friday and Monday), they asked if I was sad about spending the holidays alone, which, way to bring up that thing I was really pointedly not thinking about guys. I kept busy though, and had a good holiday.

My celebrations started last Saturday when SnB held a curry party & yarn/book white elephant gift exchange. Riah and Caroline made curry, Audrey made cookies, Siobhain made naan using a wine bottle for a rolling pin, and Jen and Robin helped to empty said wine bottle. I wrapped presents since we wanted dinner to be edible. Everyone brought nice things for the swap, so it wasn't very white elephant-esque, but we had fun and I have a quite a few new books to add to the pile of books I need to read before I go home.

Top: Siobhain making naan with a wine bottle; Left: Caroline showing us her new apron and festive Christmas nose; Right: Riah sampling the curry.
Then, on Christmas Eve Eve, I went to Ansan after work for pho, spring rolls and Vietnamese coffee with Marie and Greg. Traffic was horrible, but I made friends with the six year old sitting next to me. I was the first foreigner he had ever seen, and at first he just stared, but he grew more confident as the bus pulled away from the station and he started making faces at me. I started copying his faces, which he thought was hi-larious. After a few minutes of crossing his eyes and rapidly shifting his jaw around, he decided to stick his finger up his nose, watching me with bright eyes to see what I would do. I briefly though about copying him (standards, what are those?), but we were being watched by the ajeosshis sitting across from us and I was going straight to dinner, so I settled with sticking my finger beside my nose, which luckily was sufficiently funny enough for my friend.

Friday was Christmas Eve and I wished my 6th grade classes a Merry Christmas, but I was corrected. "No, Teacher. Merry Christmas Eve." After school, I went to a candlelight service at the Seoul International Baptist Church near Itaewon. It's next to the base and a lot of parishioners were soldiers and their families. Most of the foreigners I see are teachers in their twenties or thirties, and this was the first time I had seen a non-Korean family in almost a year. American children are giant compared to my wee, slight students. After the service, we took a cab to Itaewon, hung out in What The Book until they closed, then went to the Thai restaurant upstairs. Mmmm, Christmas curry. I've never been a fan of traditional Christmas food and I was thrilled for the excuse to spend my holiday eating SE Asian food instead.

Then on Christmas Day, Caroline, Siobhain, Audrey, Riah and I went for Indian and Doctor Fish in Gangnam. We bought ourselves a Christmas ice cream cake, sang Christmas carols (different ones, at the same time), and then used our cake to reenact the current political situation of the Korean peninsula. The cake was divided into five sections. Riah was South Korea, Audrey was North Korea, Caroline was China, Siobhain was the US and I was somehow Sino-American relations, which meant that I spent a lot of time supplying North Korea with rice and cow (decorative cranberries) which North Korea turned into bombs to throw at South Korea. The chocolate decorations served as the DMZ. Tunnels were dug beneath it. I started making "Phew Phew" noises to simulate bombs, which is when the Koreans sitting next to us started taking our picture. My parents called me while I was waiting for the bus home and I pulled a Waegukin Smash to talk to them while they opened presents.

Failboats in public. From (left → right) Siobhain, me, Audrey, Caroline and Riah

Mid-conflict on a delicious peninsula
Merry Christmas, one and all.

de Bello Gallico

2010-12-24T16:21:00.001Z

The best thing about owning a Kindle is that when I get my annual hankering (brought on by listening to the reading of the Gospel) to read about Caesar's conquest of Gaul at 12:30 on Christmas morning, I can buy de Bello Gallico immediately and start reading before the realization that this is probably the geekiest thing I've ever done stops me.

Even better is getting home at 12:30 on Christmas morning after Thai food with friends to find a Amazon gift card from said friend with which to buy de Bello Gallico.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Hope it's a good one.

Five Things

2010-12-23T06:38:00.002Z

[+] Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Christmas isn't really an important secular holiday here. It's a red day, meaning I would have the day off it wasn't already on a Saturday. Christian Koreans treat it as a purely religious holiday and everyone treats it as a couple's holiday, almost akin to Valentine's Day. A few of the bigger department stores lights up and there is a massive coca-Cola sponsored Christmas display along the streets of Gangnam, but there are no Christmas decorations in my neighborhood, I'm still teaching class (winter break don't start until next Tuesday) and I've almost forgotten it's almost Christmas. However, I was linked to a cover of the Little Drummer Boy yesterday and I've been listening to it non-stop. It's really excellent and a nice bit of Christmas cheer.

[+] Well, when I say I'm "teaching classes," I mean I finished the textbook last week, so this week I'm showing Up dubbed in Korean with English subtitles. My co-teacher and I take turns sitting in the back of the classroom and occasionally saying, "Quiet" while the other stays in the office and works. Of course, this means I've watched the first twenty minutes of Up twenty times now and if anyone needs me, I'll be weeping in a corner because all happiness will grow old and die or get crotchety and deaf and we all end up alone and sad and *sob*. (Class is only forty minutes long, so I only see the depressing beginning, not the uplifting and happy ending. The students don't seem nearly as affected as I am.)

[+] I've finished my lesson plans for English camp. Well, I've mostly finished them. The last day is a movie day and I really should come up with actual content to teach, but I don't want to. I still need to finish prepping for camp, but this is by far the most prepared I've ever been. I'm sure this will blow up in my face somehow.

[+] I bought my ticket home yesterday. I leave Korea on February 28th, just over two months from now. I was adding money to my T-money card (subway/bus pass) yesterday night and I had to pause and think if would actually use $50 on transportation in the next two months. I got a bit teary about how I was leeeeeeeeeaving, although it might have been because I'm going to have to start buying gas again and there's no way $50 worth of gas could ever possible last two months.

[+] I had a completely gratifying moment on the subway home yesterday when someone asked me what I was reading and I was able to answer with "a survey of political and social forces during the late Roman Empire." I mean, I was reading about the political and social forces that lead to the fall of the Roman Empire (Justinian's Flea, good if a bit pedantic), and I'm not actually ashamed of anything I read (okay, maybe that needle-point based mystery), but it's nice to asked that question when I'm actually reading something impressive.

It never rains, but it pours

2010-12-15T23:15:00.006Z

I'm busy, which is unusual. I work forty hours a week, but only fourteen of those hours are actually spent teaching, and class prep, grading, extra classes and miscellaneous child wrangling are not enough to fill the other twenty six hours. I normally have an hour or two of free time in the afternoons, which is why going from having nothing to do to more than I can possible do practically overnight has left me reeling.

The semester ends on December 27th and two weeks of English camp starts the next day, which means I have six days finishing planning and preparing 28 hour-and-a-half long lessons from scratch. I probably should have started planning before last week, but I had a training conference the week before last and I wanted to wait until afterward to start planning. I don't have a text book for English camp, so I've chosen stories to base the lessons on. The 3rd and 4th graders are reading Eric Carle books. The 5th and 6th graders are reading fairy tales, which I'm going to write myself because I can't find decent easy reader versions using the vocabulary I want to target.

This is my forth time teaching English camp and each time, I oscillate from being unprepared to being too prepared. My first English camp was a disaster of epic proportion, mostly because my co-teacher and I didn't plan at all (and then my co-teacher just stopped showing up, leaving me to deal with the mess), so when it came time to prepare for the second English camp, I spent a month freaking out and working late and creating hours of extra material. It worked - the camps were a success - but I barely escaped with my sanity intact. This summer I had only planned the first week of the camp, which blew up in my face when the it turned out that, due to a schedule mix-up, what I thought was the first week was, in fact, not the first week, and I spent the next two weeks frantically playing catch up. I'm hoping that by my fourth try I will have found a happy medium.

To further busy things, the broadcasting club has started practicing again last week after a month and a half hiatus. I love those kids to death and I'm so proud of the work they're doing. This time, we're making them write their own articles about their week at Seongnam English Town, and only Ji-won and Ji-yeon turned in articles written entirely in English. The other girls' articles were a mix of Korean and English. One went 한국말, 한국말, 한국말, extreme weather systems, 한국말, 한국말, puppetry 한국말, 한국말, water festival, leaving me very curious about what she was talking about. Last week, each student came by during their lunch for one-on-one help editing their essays. I helped Ji-won and Ji-yeon fix the mistakes in their essays and my co-teacher Nicole helped Hye-ryeong and Han-som translate their articles. Then, on Friday, Jeong-yun (whose article was only 60% in Korean) and her friend Ye-sol (who isn't even in the Broadcasting Club, but is super smart) showed up before Nicole finished lunch and the three of us, with minimal assistance from Jeong-yun's cell phone dictionary, wrote an entire page . I'm ridiculously proud of how well she did and how she kept trying at something she thought was impossible. So yes, I love the Broadcasting Club and I'm glad they have one more report this year, but it does take up a lot of time.

This Winter Is Going to Suck

2010-12-10T06:13:00.001Z

It snowed Wednesday night and when I woke up Thursday morning, the sidewalk in front of my apartment was covered in ice, as was the crosswalk by my bus stop, the hill my school is on and the entire school grounds. Basically, my entire route to school was one icy slick. I know Korea is allergic to snow days, but if ever there was a time to close school, it would be when the hill the school is on is so icy that it's physically impossible to reach by car and students can't get between the buildings without falling on the ice. The weather was a bit better today and parts of the Ice Hill o' Doom had been cleared, but it turns out the plus to it being too icy for vehicles is that I didn't have to watch a car try to gun it up and hill and fish-tail on a patch of ice a mere foot from a pack of oblivious students on their way to school. I spent the entire walk to school pulling children away from oncoming traffic.

This winter is going to suck.

The Amazing Race: Seoul

2010-12-07T10:06:00.001Z

So, yesterday morning Amber IM'd me to tell me that the latest episode of The Amazing Race was set in Seoul and they went rafting in the DMZ. My response can best be summed up as "..." since I'm pretty sure I would remember an American reality TV show causing an international incident by crossing into the DMZ, an area that is best known for the fact that people CAN'T go there. Even though I don't watch the Amazing Race, I figured this episode would be worth watching.

The teams arrived in Korea and it was raining, which, of course it was raining. The rainy season was abnormally long this year, and by abnormally long, I mean it rained for five straight months. We went weeks without seeing the sun. I thought my shoes would never dry. That weather was what I saw practically ever day from June to October.

On the drive to Seung-il Bridge, Nat or Kat complained that "most of the signs are completely devoid of any sort of English characters." An interesting observation since, in fact, ALL OF THE SIGNS are in English and Korean.

So, I understand why Amber told me the teams were rafting in the DMZ. The teams constantly referenced the DMZ and claimed to be in the DMZ or the DMZ area. I wonder how much of that was added for rating due to the recent tensions because, really, no. They weren't at the DMZ. They were rafting at a popular tourist destination. If the teams were in the DMZ, then so is Seoul. So am I.

Can we talk for a moment about how RIDICULOUS the third challenge (getting from Camp Casey to the World Cup Stadium) was. Like, seriously, they took the subway. The subway where every station is labeled in English. There was ONE transfer. The name of the station they were going to was WORLD CUP STADIUM STATION. How is that a challenge? If I only have to transfer once, I count it a win. Also, Jill and Thomas (the couple) kept sitting the seats reserved for the elderly or the handicapped. Seats that are clearly labeled as such in English and with pictures. I kept cringing because way to Waegukin Smash and give the rest of us a bad name, guys.

The Mokdong Ice Rink (home to the fourth challenge) is one of the two evacuation spots for Americans in Seoul should the Norks invade. The more you know....

I'm sad none of the groups opted for the Namdaemun challenge because Namdaemun is pretty awesome. It's also a lot more authentically Korean than an ice rink. Plus, I've had the ginseng tonic (the nurse at my school gives it to me whenever I'm sick) and it's not half bad.

I LOVED the shots of the teams trying to hail a taxi and failing. It's next to impossible to hail a taxi on the side of the road in Seoul You have to go to a taxi stop and wait in line.

The Pit Stop - the Temple of Heaven - is a super obscure location. I had never heard of it and according to Google, in 1968 the Westin Hotel was built on the site and the temple is now part of the hotel complex. It's essentially a knock-off of a Chinese temple build by the dying throes of Imperial Korea. There are so many better places that could have been chosen.

I enjoyed this episode, but I don't think I could watch the show on a regular basis. Too many of the contestants act like arrogant, entitled assholes and embodied every negative sterotype people have about Americans. When they were searching for the statue of the airplane at Hangang Park, Thomas gripped, "How does nobody know what an airplane is?" and I had to pause the show so I could shout, "I don't know, maybe because airplane is ENGLISH and you're in KOREA, jackass. Try asking for the 비행기, but wait, you don't speak in Korean. You just expect everyone to speak English." I might be overly sensative because I do live in Korea and know enough about the culture to notice when the contestants are overtly rude, but it was still a constant sorce of annoyance for the entire episode.

Colorful Daegu, Day 2

2010-12-02T09:38:00.001Z

Daegu, Day 2 (which is technically day three, since we left on Friday and this is about Sunday, but a vacation doesn't start until you arrive). I woke up on Sunday as sore as a creaky old man, although I did figure out how to work all the extra gadgets in the shower, which was something. We checked out of the motel, bought our bus tickets back to Seoul, stored our luggage at the station and headed off to a different bus station to catch a bus to Haeinsa.

Haeinsa is the main temple of the Jogye Order, the primary order of Korean Buddhism, and home to the Tripitaka Koreana, the oldest complete version of the Buddhist canon. We had about four hours before we needed to be back in Daegu to catch our bus home, and we thought the bus to Haeinsa took an hour, giving us two hours at the temple. Turns out, the bus to Haeinsa took an hour and a half, a fact we learned only after we had been on the bus for an hour and still weren't there. We ended up having about 40 minutes to see the temple, and after the hike to Gatbawi, Margaret and I decided we weren't up for another forced march. Instead, we went and climbed on the rocks in the river.

I was disappointed - I have wanted to see Haeinsa since I got to Korea - but that's life and I wanted to not miss my bus back to Seoul more. We ended up making it back to the bus station with only a minutes to spare (literally; Korean buses leave on. time.), and that was with us begging our taxi drive to go 빨리빨리 (fast). That was the last bit of 빨리빨리 for the trip. We ran into a traffic jam full of leafers returning to Seoul and it was unfortunately close to midnight when we finally made it home.

I always forget how much I enjoy getting out of Seoul I always mean to travel more on the weekends, but usually, by the time the weekend rolls around and I'm weighing the relative merits of a trip versus sleeping in, I'm exhausted and cranky (the many flaws of my Friday classes, let me tell you about them), and sleeping tends to win out. It was a fun weekend and I'm glad I went.

Rest of the photos are here.

Asa!

2010-12-01T05:18:00.000Z

Asa! I win at NaBloPoMo! 30 days, 30 posts, 11,827 words. I wrote one travelogue, started a second one and exhausted an entire month's supply of cute student stories (that's a lie, I have more). And then there's this bit of chat transcript from last week, which is probably the wrong reaction to a state of national emergency:

me: I am so ready for NaBlo to be over
Amber: orly?
me: I'm just getting tired of constantly having to think of something to write about. thank goodness NKorea attacked. That's going to be good for at least two entires
Amber: lol

I never got around to half the entries I was planning on writing, but for the most part I think managed to make somewhat substantive posts. That vast majority of this month's posts were written at school, which is why the weekend's posts were so phoned in. It also meant that I spent less of my free time in the afternoon bored. Reading over this month's posts, it feels like I spent the entire time giving tests, so I checked my scheduler and realized that's because I did spent the entire month giving tests. My students still think x is a legitimate letter.

I would say something about how I'm going to take a break from posting, but I have an honest-to-God list of posts I need to make in my scheduler, so I guess you're stuck with me and my thoughts and ~feelings.

Colorful Daegu, Day 1

2010-11-30T07:05:00.003Z

A few weeks ago, I went to Daegu for the weekend with some friends. Daegu is the fourth largest city in Korea and the only major city in Korea I had yet to visit. It's only 130 miles away from Seongnam (on the map, I live at the blue check while Daegu is the orange check), which is just a few hours by bus. One of the best things about travel in Korea is a) this country is small, about the size of Kentucky and b) almost everywhere has an express bus linking it to Seoul in just a few hours.

The plan was for Margaret, Veronica and I to meet at the bus terminal in Seongnam after school on Friday and buy our tickets, but when we arrived at 6:15, we discovered that Daegu was popular destination that weekend and consequently, the next several buses were sold out. The first bus could tickets for didn't leave until 8:10, meaning we wouldn't arrive in Daegu until close to midnight. Since we were free spirited ladies and wandering around the Daegu bus terminal at midnight trying to find a hotel didn't much sound like fun, we decided to pick a new destination for the weekend. We wrote down the name of all the cities with an express bus leaving from the bus terminal (including Daegu, because an hour and a half wasn't that long to wait) on pieces of paper. There were four cities with buses still leaving and three of us, so we each picked a slip of paper and decided to go to wherever the last piece of paper told us to go. The last bit of paper was Busan, the southernmost city on the peninsula. The next bus left at 8:00, just ten minutes before the bus to Daegu, but it would take us an extra two hours to get there.

We ended up going to Daegu. Fate, I can take a hint.

We pulled up in Daegu around 11:30 and set out in search of a love motel, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like but, despite the seedy connotations, they are, hands down, the best deal when traveling. Love motels are everywhere - literally on every corner around bus and train stations - and while rooms can be rented in two hour blocks, they're also available for the night. Love motels are cheaper than hotels and even a basic love motel offers better accommodations than similarly priced hotel. Plus, you're almost guaranteed a fun and exciting light scheme. However, multiple beds are obviously not common and we had to visit four different motels before we found one with 방 하나, 침대 두개 (one room, two beds).

Missing from this picture are giant bathroom, creative lighting scheme and the tiny disco strobe lights. We looked at a few rooms that included a sauna, but went with the cheaper, sauna-less room.
Saturday morning we woke up, hit up a convenience store for breakfast and went to the Daegu Herbal Medicine Market. Before we reached the market, we stumbled upon Rice Cake Street. Seoul has these areas with a high concentration of shops all specializing in the same thing. There's no warming: one moment it's a perfectly normal street full of regular shops and then suddenly every shop in sight is selling shoe laces or socks or prosthetic limbs. Daegu is no different, it appears, and Rice Cake street, which dates back to the Korean War, has 37 different shops selling every possible variety of rice cakes. Rice cakes (떡, tteok) are "cakes" made from steamed glutinous rice flour. Because when I think of the word glutinous, I think delicious. There are tons of different types of rice cakes and they are part of many traditional Korean meals. Tteok has no actual relation to real cake, but I've been given many rice cakes in my time here because hey, it has cake in the name and foreigners like cake, right? I'm not a big fan, but it was neat to see the elaborate tteok creations the shops made.

Tteok
The Daegu Herbal Medicine Market, founded in 1658, is the oldest market in Korea. It's suppose to be one of the largest markets in Korea, but it was almost abandoned on Saturady morning. We only saw a couple of other people shopping and lots of the stores were closed. We did, however, see lots of ginseng and reindeer horns (good for stamina, heh heh heh) and bins full of what appeared to be bark (no doubt good for well-being, but please don't ask me how). We also stumbled upon the wholesale market, which was filled with sacks brimming with spices and herbs and bark and what I swear to God was twigs. Korea, I don't *understand* your mania about well-being. There were samgyetang (i.e. the soup with an entire damn chicken in the bowl) restaurants nestled between shops with antlers hanging in the windows. Veronica and I decided that breakfast samgyetang at 11:00 was an appropriate life choice, and while Margaret went to pick up her boyfriend Nick, we had an early lunch of chicken soup. 맛이 있어요!

Left: Jars of ginseng at Yangnyeongsi Herbal Medicine Market; Right: Bowl of samgyetang. Yes, that's a whole chicken in a bowl of soup for one person.
After lunch, we headed off to Palgongsan Provincial Park to hike to Gatbawi, a stone Buddha built in 638 AD. We were under the impression that it would be an easy hike. In Deagu, we were told it was an hour hike. Half an hour up and half and hour down, simple. When we got to Palgongsan, we were told it was an hour each way, not an hour total, but two hours is still a pretty basic hike. Over an hour later, when we finally reached Gwanamsa, a temple on the mountain, we were told that Gatbawi was at least another hour hiking up stone steps. All in all, it took us three hours to reach the summit and because the hill was so steep and steps were so uneven, it took us almost two hours to get to the base of the mountain. It was a pretty beautiful hike, though.

Top: Temple bell at Gwanamsa; Left: Main building at Gwanamsa; Right: Gatbawi. Gatbawi means Stone Hat Buddha because the 15cm thick flat stone atop the Buddha's head resembled a gat (갓), a traditional Korean hat.
When we finally made it back to Daegu, we were starving. The others wanted steak. I, while not begrudging their desire for steak, did not want steak. We all felt that, eh, you know, not sitting on the floor and eating with chopsticks might be groovy, and in downtown Daegu, the first combination of the three was an Outback Steakhouse. Again, 맛이 있어요 if, you know, a bit shameful.

The cheese fries are delicious, the onion rings are not and we were all a bit loopy by that point.
More photos are here.

A Korean Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T07:12:00.000Z

My first Thanksgiving away from home, I spent the day blinking back tears and taught my classes through a tight throat before treking into Seoul for a turkey dinner with friends. This year, I figured the holiday would be easier if I just ignored it, and so I went to the dentist. I did call home the next morning (Korea is 14 hours ahead of the East Coast, so 8:00 my Friday morning was 6:00 Thursday evening back home), but I didn't even get dinner on Thanksgiving since my mouth was too numb from the dentist to chew.

I did, however, celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with my Stitch n' Bitch group. We ordered a traditional dinner from Dragon Hill Lodge on the base and people brought additional dishes. We had turkey and potatoes and green bean casserole and walnut pie, which isn't quite pecan pie, but was closer that I expecting to get here. We opted not to go around in a circle and list what we were thankful for, but I am thankful. I'm thankful to have a job I enjoy. I'm thankful that I get to live in another country and I'm thankful that that country is Korea. I'm thankful I have friends to spend Thanksgiving with. I'm thankful that I'm here and healthy and happy.

Our hostess Caroline carving her first turkey. She did an excellent job.

Our Thanksgiving feast.

Weekend Round-Up

2010-11-28T13:00:00.001Z

So, glancing over this month's blog posts, it pretty quickly becomes apparent that I'm phoning it in on the weekends. Either the entries are just straight up written during the week, they're super short or consist mostly of pictures of the hilarious things one can buy here. And guess what? This weekend is no different!

I spent Saturday hanging out with Riah in Itaewon, the foreigner district. There are really only two things worth doing in Itaewon: eat foreign food and go to the English language bookstore, and we did both with great abandon. Lunch was Bulgarian food, followed by two hours perusing What the Book with our Kindles out, checking first to see if we could buy the books as e-books, followed by ice cream at Cold Stone. Mmmm, foreign things are delicious.

Today was Sunday, which means Stitch n' Bitch. We normally meet at cafes around the city, but today Caroline hosted a belated Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment, which was full of turkey and green bean casserole and walnut pie, which isn't quite pecan pie, but it's as close as we're going to get here.

All in all, a good weekend.

방구 금지

2010-11-27T12:38:00.004Z

Today, Riah gave me what is possible the greatest thing I have ever and will ever have owned.

These are socks.

That's a dude farting.

A dude farting in the middle of a prohibition sign.

방구 금지 = fart ban

In case you find this relevant to your interest, that would be pronounced banggu geumji.

Both my brothers are getting a copy of this picture for Christmas. A framed copy. As for me, I might never take them off.

Open Wide

2010-11-26T11:00:00.000Z

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I spent mine at the dentist's office because I FORGOT this Thursday was Thanksgiving when I made my appointment. *facepalm* I went to the dentist for the first time last Thursday for a cleaning/check-up/X-rays/other things I can't afford in the US and while I was there, she found two cavities. My follow-up appointment to have them filled was made for this Thursday and, several days later, when I realized that meant it was on Thanksgiving, I decided I didn't actually care and didn't reschedule the appointment.

Going to the dentist was something I put off my first year here because of language barrier and the added difficulty of doing things in another country and well, I'll be home in six months, might as well wait and do it then. Turns out, that was poor reasoning since not only is going to the dentist just as easy here, it's SO MUCH CHEAPER. (One of these days I'm going to make a post about my giant love for the Korean national health care system and how, seriously America, you NEED TO GET ON THAT.)

The first appointment, the check-up, was almost identical to the check ups I've had in the US, except that there was Kpop, not country, on the radio and during the cleaning, the hygienist draped a cloth over my face so I couldn't see anything. There was a hole in the cloth for my mouth and nose, but my eyes and the rest of my face were covered.

The second appointment was also similar to the US, in as much as I can remember the one time I had a cavity filled back home. It might have actually been better, since this time, the dentist didn't try to discuss Carolina basketball with me while there was a drill in my mouth. I mean, yes, I'm also hopeful for another title, but could you spend more time concentrating on the drill IN MY MOUTH and less time waxing about Hansbrough's average number of assists per game.

I showed up for my appointment after work and as I sat down in the chair, the dentist asked me what I thought about pain.

"Well," I told her, "I'm not a big fan of it."

"Okay," she responded, and whipped out a syringe bigger THAN MY FACE and stuck it in my mouth.

I might have groaned a little when she picked up a second syringe for the other side of my mouth. "It's just a little cavity," she told me. "Are you sure you want this?"

Which, lady, when it comes to choosing between giant needles in my mouth or a drill in my unnumbed mouth, I will go with the giant needles any day of the week.

The real fun came after the appointment. I took the subway home and stopped at the convenient store across the street from my apartment with my mouth still completely numb. When I attempted to thank the owner, my kamsamnida (thank you) came out some unintelligible mumble. The owner looked at me askance, and I attempted the smile (also difficult with a numbed mouth) reassuringly before hurrying home where I didn't have to inflect my terrible terrible Korean on anyone. Turns out, I really can't speak Korean when my mouth is numb from the dentist.

Korean dentists: I went to Tuft's Dental Clinic in Gangnam. I highly recommend her. She's trained at Tufts University in Boston, is licensed in three US states and she (and her staff) speaks excellent English.

Yeonpyeong-do, Spelling Tests & Training

2010-11-25T07:08:00.001Z

[+] For anyone interested in a more in depth discussion of the Yeonpyeong-do shelling than "boom boom two people is die," the always excellent Ask a Korean has a thorough write-up of what happened and why it matters. I particularly agree with this bit:

South Koreans' apathy for North Korean provocations have become quite famous around the world, because it is so difficult to imagine what it is like to constantly live in a state where nuclear annihilation is a real possibility. But once you live in South Korea, there is not much you can do other than ignore the danger.

[+] I spent the afternoon grading the 4th graders test. The verdict: they did well well on the listening section almost across the board and wow, they can't spell for shit, and not even in an amusing way. Some of the lowlights: make: miwl; bank: orlk; school: sacdl; right: ridos. So yeah, that's something to work on.

[+] GEPIK teachers are suppose to go to a two day, overnight training session at the start of their contract, with additional one-day training sessions throughout the year. I went last year, so I wasn't invited to this year's training session when I started my new contract. There's a separate training session for teachers who renew their contracts, but because I switched to a new school within GEPIK instead of renewing at my old school, I'm not technically considered a returning teacher. I slipped through the training cracks and I was fine with that, thank you very much, and very pointedly didn't bring it to anyone's attention and skated by for nine months, but I've been found out now I get to spend December 7th and 8th at the Future Leadership Center in Yongin, South Korea being educated on how to do the job I've been doing for the last two years.

I actually wouldn't have minded going to the GEPIK training back in March. They all sound the same (yay, teaching in Korea! yay, bomb game! both sentiments I agree with, but I really only need to told once, and actually, since I'm in agreement, I don't need to be told at all), but it's part of the job and I get that. However, this particular session is at the beginning of December. The fall semester is over three weeks later, but thanks to the early exam date, the last three weeks of the semester are going to be a bit of a wash. Then it's two weeks of winter camp, which are completely different from the national curriculum covered in the training, three weeks of vacation, one final week of school (which will be a complete wash since, at that point, grades were completed two month before), two weeks of desk warming during what is called spring break, although February and spring are not same same Korea, and then I fly back to America, ostensible forever. This is a case of too little too late, and I do resent having my time wasted.

boom boom two people is die

2010-11-24T06:21:00.002Z

Further update on the unfolding geo-political situation in the Korean peninsula:

Marie: "teacher, bukhan yesterday boom boom two people is die. very poor"
me: eleoquent
Marie: I thought so.
me: "teacher, kim jong il is bad man. very mean."
Marie: lol Clearly we need to post these eloquent explanations of yesterday's events.
me: I think so
Marie: Dear friends and family, in case you're wondering exactly what went on yesterday please read the following summary.
me: kids explaining complex political situations say the darndest things

Speaking of things kids say, here are the Konglish highlights from the test the 6th graders took today. The question was What do you want to do?. The answer was obviously I want to play the violin, but one girl mixed up her verbs and wrote I want to be a violin. The last question on the test was a picture of the lad on the right. The question was I'm sick. I _______________. The answer was (I) have a stomachache, but the kids struggled with it. A bunch of students answered I have a stomach which, while technically correct, isn't the answer I was looking for. Many of the kids who did answer stomachache misspelled it. Many of the students just didn't answer the question and a few went completely off the reservation for their answers. I have flowers and I high many homework, sorry were both answers.

And then that happened...

2010-11-23T10:08:00.002Z

I went to school this morning, taught the 3rd graders, spent the afternoon editing photos in my office, stopped at Pizza School on my way home (too lazy to cook dinner: check) and came home to discover that while I was editing power lines out of the background of picture of a temple in Daegu, North Korea was firing a barrage of artillery shells at one of the inhabited South Korean islands off the west coast, only 80 miles from where I live. I might have bemoaned my dull afternoon, but it beats being evacuated due to attacking North Koreans.

My first thought was, "Well, that happened. Several thoughts later, the closest I've gotten to concern was contemplating the reaction if this had happened during the G20. (South Korea: North Korea, stop it! You're embarrassing me in front of the international community!) This is only meriting a blog post because it's NaBloPoMo and I'm desperate for topics.

When North Korea launched a missile into the Pacific last April, the first overt military action from North Korea since I had arrived on the peninsula, I spent the afternoon glued to the TV, obsessively refreshing new sites and generally freaking out over impending death and destruction by North Koreans. However, by the time all the drama happened late that May, I had adopted a more Korean attitude towards the Norks and spent a lot of time rolling my eyes over the frantic emails I got from friends back home asking if I was okay and when I was evacuating. Today, classes continued without interruption and there were no announcements or sirens. The TV in the pizza place was tuned to a rerun of Kdrama, not the news. If I hadn't checked the news when I got home, I would have no idea something had happened. And that's life, or at least that's life here.

This is the second North Korean military attack this YEAR that has resulted in the loss of lives, the military is on the highest peacetime alert, this country is technically under attack right now, but outside of Yeonpueong, life is going on as normal in the Land of the Morning Calm.

SOSing

2010-11-22T06:52:00.001Z

Monday's Frustrations:
The 5th graders started Lesson 14: Is Peter There? this week. It's all about phone numbers and phone conversations so, of course, I played "867-5309/Jenny" and told the kids to listen for the phone number and write it down. While the students enjoyed the song, the activity was a complete failure. I showed a live performance of the song from YouTube, and the sound quality was less than steller. Even I was having trouble making out the lyrics, and I already knew what they were. After the first two classes, I scrapped the idea and spent the last five minutes of class reviewing Step & Jump.

Monday's Konglish:
Cheating (or as it's called in Konglish, cunning) is rampant in Korean classrooms, far more than I remember from when I was in school, and it's not uncommon to see half the class blatantly cheating during textbook activities. During the "Let's Write" textbook activity today, I saw a boy leaning over for a look at his friend's textbook.

"No cunning," I told them.

"'Teacher," the first boy protested. "I'm no cunning. I'm ... SOSing."

It's a touch depressing that he couldn't think of help, which is basic vocabulary, but I am amused that he substitued it for the Morse code signal for help.

Life in Korea, a study in 7 words

2010-11-21T12:43:00.001Z

My goal for NaBlo was to avoid posting for the sake of posting. I wanted to make each post substantive, or at least amusing, and I think I've done a pretty good job, but some days I get home for SnB at 9:00 and just want to curl up in bed with a book and preserve the last lingering moments of my weekend before going to bed, so I leave you with my deep, philosophical ramblings about life in Korea.

Things are cheaper, and have more pandas.

Freshly Cooked Salad

2010-11-20T11:09:00.001Z

So, Margaret came over last night for a Firefly marathon and "health drink" drinking game. (One of the little known side effects of prolonged exposure to Korea is that you start saying things like "It's good for your well-being" or "increases stamina" and then you talk about the state of your condition. Our "health drinks" were actually pomegranate juice mixed with Cherry Coke and raspberry vodka, but the label of the pomegranate juice said it contained powerful antioxidants, so we're pretty sure it's good for our well-being.)

Our rules were:

Take a sip every time Wash flips the three switches on the console.
Take a sip every time Zoe calls Mal Sir or Captain.
Take a sip every time Book hits at his shady past.
Take a sip every time Inara is called by something other than her name.
Take a sip every time River knows something or does something she should know or be able to do.
Take a sip every time Jayne overtly caresses a weapon.
Take a sip every time Mal says something self depreciating.
Take a sip every time anyone says shiny, gorram or rutting.
Make a toast for especially awesome lines not otherwise covered.
Finish your drink when Serenity lights up like a firefly or someone mentions the compression coil.

In the first fifteen minutes of the pilot, Wash flipped the switches, there were various Sirs and Shinys and Gorrams, we had to toast for the "too pretty to die" line AND Wash playing with his dinosaurs and we finished our drink twice. It all went downhill from there, and by the time the second episode started, I was not longer coordinated enough to properly make finger hearts at the screen.

We made a Caesar salad for dinner, but since my kitchen has limited counter space and I don't own a salad bowl, I had to make the salad in my biggest pot, sitting on the stove. Margaret and I made cracks about cooking salad for the rest of the evening.

Nothing like a freshly cooking salad to whet the appetite.

I Have a Raining Nose

2010-11-19T08:48:00.004Z

This week appears to be dedicated to talking about school, and who am I to buck the trend on Friday?

I finished giving the 6th graders their speaking test today. (I have two sixth grade classes on Wednesday and the other four on Friday.) The first class did brilliantly. Out of the super specific grading system (Δ = bad, O = OK, OO = great), only two students got Δs and half of them got OOs. During the class change, I commented to Michelle that the test seemed too easy. Then 6-4 (these guys) showed up and did terribly. Half the kids got Δs and only six students got OOs. Serves me right for being optimistic.

The best 6-4 student was a boy who happened to have a cold. He came into the back room, sat down next to me and sighed, "Teacher, I have a bad cold."

"That's too bad," I told him.

"Yes, Teacher. I have a sore throat and runny nose and cough."

"Oh no! You can go back to your desk and take a rest."

"But Teacher," he protested, "test."

Kid, that was the test.

The best Konglish moment came from a 6-1 girl who couldn't remember how to say runny nose and told me I have a raining nose. In Korean, runny nose is 콧물 (ko mul), which literally translates to nose water, so raining nose was both phonetically similar and made some logical sense.

I'll end with the conversation I had with the 4th graders who clean my classroom during lunch:

Me: Guys, smile for the camera.
Boys: *Asian pose*
Girl: Teacher, why picture?
Me: Because you are ADORABLE.

Step & Jump

2010-11-18T06:39:00.002Z

I spent all day review Step & Jump with the 4th graders. Step & Jump is supplemental material for the national curriculum and provides an extra example of the key expressions from each chapter. The students are suppose to memorize all the dialogs and they're tested on the material twice a year. The fall semester Step & Jump test is next week, so I spent all morning reading the Step & Jump material out loud and having the students repeat after me.

A: May I read your book?
B: Sure, here you are.

A: Let's play soccer.
B: OK.
C: Sorry, I can't. I'm tired.
A: That's too bad.

A: What do you want?
B: That yellow bag, please. How much is it?
A: It's 500 won.

A: Julie, clean your room.
B: Yes, Mom. Zeeto, help me zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Sorry, I just feel asleep typing that. I kept drifting off in class too. The emphasis on repetition and route memorization is my least favorite part of teaching in Korea and I try and avoid it as much as possible, but sometimes I have to bow to the prevailing system and be an English teaching robot.

Teacher Has 신종인 플루

2010-11-17T07:25:00.002Z

Wednesdays are my easy days. I only have two classes - 3rd and 4th period - so I'm not rushed in the morning AND I'm done by lunch. Today, the 6th graders had a speaking test, which is always a mixed bag. Speaking tests are the only one-on-one interaction I have with a lot of my students, and I never know what to expect. Sometimes kids who barely speak in class surprise me by being super competent. Sometimes it turns out the kids who barely speak in class are silent because they can't string a sentence together. Sometimes the kids who act out and make me want to throttle them instead of explaining for the tenth time that 두통 means headache IT'S NOT THAT HARD, SERIOUSLY show improvement, which is super gratifying. And then there are the silent kids.

The silent ones are depressing. There are a few in every class and they just. won't. talk. They spent the entire test looking at their feet and won't say a word (in English or Korean), no matter how much I cajole and prompt and finally just give them the answer in a desperate attempt to make them to say something FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JINHO, JUST TALK. The thing is, I've worked really hard at being someone who is approachable because I KNOW English is difficult to learn and I KNOW it's hard to summon up the courage to speak in another language when you know you're going to make mistakes, even though that's the only way to learn, and I want to be a safe person for the kids to try and talk to. For the most part, I think I've succeeded, and I certainly have plenty of students who love showing me pictures on their cell phones or pages from whatever cartoon they're reading and won't stop talking long enough for me to start class, but I also have the silent kids and I don't know how to motivate them.

The test itself was pretty simple. We just finished Lesson 13: That's Too Bad, which is all about illnesses and using them as an excuse to get out of doing things. I took the students into the back room, showed them a few pictures of people suffering various ailments and had them describe the pictures. He's sick, he has a cold. She's hurt, she had a bloody nose. I was sick over the weekend and I still have a deep hacking cough, so when the more confident students came for their test, I turned my head, coughed into my hand and asked, "What's wrong with Teacher?" It confused a few of the kids, but most of them thought it was funny and the answers ranged from Teacher has a cough to Teacher has a bad cold to Teacher has swine flu.

Can You Find Santa?

2010-11-16T07:15:00.003Z

The 3rd graders started Lesson 13: Merry Christmas today. For Christ's sake, it's only mid-November! Granted, I'm a bit ahead of schedule since, for some reason, my school has scheduled final exams on December 8th, even though winter break doesn't begin until December 31st, and I'm trying to cover as much of the textbook as I can before the exam. Don't ask me why exams are so early OR what I'm going to be doing the few weeks of the semester. However, while we are ahead, we're ahead by like, a week, so in no way is it seasonally appropriate for Santa to appear on screen, granting Christmas wishes. It could be worse, though. The 4th graders studied their Christmas themed chapter (Chapter 11: How Much Is It?) at the beginning of October.

The lesson's key expressions are Can you find ______? and Yes, I can/No I can't find ______, but the kids were having trouble pronouncing the word find. Can you fly Santa? Can you like Santa? My favorite was Yes, I can fight Santa. Three classes in, I finally realized the problem was I have a cold and my nose is so stuffy, I wasn't pronouncing find clearly, so the kids were just substituting any word they already knew that sounded close in place of find.

I am made of win this week.

바보, Cait

2010-11-15T07:11:00.002Z

Michelle and I gave the 5th graders a test today, mostly as punishment for making me want to defenestrate them last week. There were several sections, including three sentences written in Korean for the students to translated into English. I was looking over the test while the kids worked and Michelle asked if I could translate the Korean sentences. I started sounding out the words* and translating under my breath.

그녀는 무엇을 하고 있니? Well, it's a question, 무엇을 means what, 그녀는 means she and 있니 means is, which give me What is she something. The title of Chapter 11 (one of the chapters being tested) is What Is She Doing? and anyways, I'm pretty sure 하고 means do, so 그녀는 무엇을 하고 있니? must mean What is she doing?

그는 노래하고 있어. 그는 and 있어 are he and is and 노래 is the first part of the Korean word for karaoke room and hey, I think 노래하고 would literally translate to do song, which means singing. 그는 노래하고 있어 means He is singing.

나는 달리고 있어. Well, as per the last two sentences, 있어 still means is and 나는 means I. I am something. 달리고, where do I know that from? Oh right, that's what my co-teachers are always telling the students when them come tearing into the classroom at top speed. 나는 달리고 있어 means I am running.

I looked up from the paper, pleased with awesome Korean skillz, only to find the fifth graders in the front row hanging onto my every word and frantically scribbling down the answers I had just inadvertently given them.

One of the boys gave me a thumbs up and said, "Thanks, Teacher."

Michelle looked at me and said, "You can't say the sentences out loud."

"I didn't think I'd be able to translate them," I wailed softly.

바보, Cait.**

*While I've been able to read Korean for almost two years now, I still don't recognize many words that aren't place names, so I have to sound things out when I read and sometimes, they turn out to be words I know.

**바보 - dumb, stupid, foolish

G20 Seoul Summit 2010

2010-11-14T06:13:00.002Z

The G20 summit was held in Seoul on Thursday and Friday. It was impossible to miss; people were already talking about the G20 summit when I moved here TWO years ago. This was the first G20 summit held in an Asian country, and Koreans were proud to be the hosting country. The past few weeks have practically been an onslaught of information about the G20. Every bus had an advertisement about the summit, every time I turned on the TV (which, admittedly wasn't often) the news was running a feature about the G20 and major Western news publications were talking about Korea, a rarity. My students were even interested, and amidst Thursday's chatter about Pepero, I heard more than one mention of Obama and the G20.

Despite large-scale protests before the summit and the US State Department issuing a traveling warning for Seoul, the G20 Seoul Summit was relatively peaceful. On Thursday night, I went to Iteawon, the major foreign district in Seoul, and while there were special G20 police in the subways and troops of police wearing riot armor patrolling the streets and guarding the subway exits, I had no problems and didn't see any protesters. I'm glad the G20 summit is over, that it went off smoothly and that Korea got some positive attention from the rest of the world.

3rd Graders, Part 37405

2010-11-13T10:14:00.001Z

In what is probably the most adorable abduction ever, I was kidnapped by 3rd graders yesterday. Due to complicated and boring reasons, there was a scheduling mishap and two classes (3-3 and 6-4) were both scheduled to being in the English Zone during 5th period AND they both had to come early, when the 4th graders were cleaning, meaning everyone converged on my classroom at once. The 4th graders were frustrated, the 6th graders were confused and the 3rd graders were crazy, as they are usually are. I tried to herd the 3rd graders to the other English classroom, but it was also being cleaned by 4th graders, leaving me stuck in the hallway, the center of a wriggling pile of 3rd graders, like some an adorable Asian rat king. The kids, probably sensing weakness, begin to drag me down the hall, I think to their classroom where presumable I would have been kept as a human jungle gym, but I'm not really sure since my queries of "어디 가요?" only resulted in shocked gasps and shouts of, "Teacher, Korean speaking very good!" I like to think I could have broken away since my 3rd graders are mostly pint sized, but there was a dozen of them and only one of me, so I'm not sure.

I really love my 3rd graders.

Introducing 태세종

2010-11-12T06:49:00.002Z

A few weeks ago, Yeong Eun, the former 6th grade co-teacher, had her baby, a little boy named Sejong, and on Wednesday, the 3rd grade teachers, Nicole and I went to visit her. (The different special area teachers are grouped with different grades for administrative purposes, so the English teachers are all considered 3rd grade teachers, even though only two of us actually teach 3rd grade.) We used our cultural activity day* to leave school early, and before going to Yeong Eun's house, we first had to stop by the Seongnam Art Center and take a group photo to document our "cultural activity."

Yeong Eun is observing samchilil (삼칠일), literally 21 Days, the traditional Korean postpartum rituals. Samchilil requires that mother and child stay warm and cloistered in the house for the first twenty-one days, and that the mother primarily eat seaweed soup (미역국) and avoid anything cold, spicy or hard. They also aren't allowed to bath for the three weeks following birth. All this is to ease the child's transition from the womb to real life, but apparently doesn't preclude visitors. Sejong (who was named after the most famous of the Korean monarchs) is an adorable baby. He slept most of the visit, but he was constantly making faces and rolling his eyes, which was hilarious. I got to hold him for a long while, which reduced to me cooing puddle of baby talk, which only my co-teachers noticed, since none of the third grade teachers could understand me to begin with.

*One day each semester, a grade's teachers can leave early for some sort of cultural activity. Last year, I went to the National Museum of Contemporary Art.

Welcome to the world, baby boy.

Pepero Day!

2010-11-11T06:19:00.002Z

Today is both the start of the G20 Summit and Pepero Day. I'll admit, I'm enjoying the irony of Seoul hosting a conference for twenty of the world's largest economies during one of the most crassly commercial holiday I've ever heard of. Pepero Day was dreamt up less than twenty years ago by Lotte, the manufacturers of Pepero, as a way to boost sales. The date was chosen because, held side-by-side, four sticks of Pepero look like 11/11. And it works; over half of Pepero sales in Korea are during November. Every convenience store I've been in for the past week has had a huge Pepero display next to the register and my students spend today running around the school, handing out Pepero, demanding Pepero from their friends and in general Pepero Pepero 빼빼로!

Korean Census

2010-11-10T09:06:00.000Z

Korea is taking its census this year and for the past few weeks, census worker have been going door to door in my neighborhood, canvassing the residents. They've visited me three times, but the first two times it was late, after 10:00, and I was already in pajamas and reading in bed, and didn't want to bother getting up and answering the door. Last night, they came at a more reasonable hour while I was cleaning the kitchen and looking for a diversion. The census collector was an adjumma who spoke little English. After spending a few minutes explaining the census to me in Korean and me explaining that while I understood what she wanted, but I didn't have the Korean vocabulary to fill out a form, she told me to wait ten minutes and went in search of an English census form for me to fill out.

The first part was pretty basic. How many people lived at my residence? My nationality and education and how long I had lived in Korea? The second part, questions about my apartment, was more difficult. How many bedrooms/living rooms/kitchens does the apartment have? Technically one of each, but that feels disingenuous since my apartment only has one room. I don't know the details about rent, since my school provides my housing, and I don't even know how big a pyeong (Korean unit of measurement) is, much less how many pyeongs my apartment is. I left a few of those questions blank.

I have now been duly counted as part of the Korean population. I left for Korea before the US held its census, and therefore wasn't counted. If I can't be considered a part of my country's population, at least I'm counted as part of the world's population.

Ulleungdo, Mysterious Island: Day 3

2010-11-09T14:35:00.002Z

(Arrr, this was suppose to be Tuesday's post. I wrote most of it at school and was going to add the final bits once I got home, only I went home to a broken internet. I shook my fist menacingly and turned the modem on and off many times, but it remained broken and this is being backdated from school Wednesday morning. When it became apparent that the internet wasn't coming back before went to bed, I briefly considered running to the nearest PC bang to post it, but that would require putting on pants and braving the cold. I'm sure you understand.)

Haengnam Shore Walkway as seen from the Dokdo Observatory
Ulleungdo, day 3. Tuesday morning, our last day on the island, dawned bright and clear and there was much grumbling that we had to evacuate now that the weather had finally cleared up. We took advantage of the good weather and rode the cable car to the Dokdo Observatory. On clear days, the island of Dokdo, 54 miles away, is faintly visible from the observatory, but most days it's too hazy to see. There were, however, some spectacular views of the coastline. On the way back to town, Caroline and I stopped to explore Haedosa (Haedo Temple), a Buddhist temple in Dodong. It was tiny, just a few buildings, but it was new and all the paint was bright and fresh.

It was warm and sunny, with clear blue skies for the first time in WEEKS, and it was hard to believe that a storm was suppose to hit that afternoon, but half way through the three hour ferry ride back to the mainland, the sky turned gray, the sea turned choppy and by the time the boat reached Donghae Harbor, we had to duck our heads to the rain as we ran to the bus. By the time we reached the first rest stop, the rain was coming down in sheets. We were maybe an hour into the trip when I felt the bus start to hydroplane and then shake as we slid off the road and onto the shoulder. Everyone was sitting up, trying to figure out what had just happened, when the second bus hit the back corner, raining broken glass down on the passengers, and scrapped its way down the length of the bus until it too rocked to a stop. In the middle of the craziness and confusion and demands for explanations and bemoaning how late this was going to make us getting back to Seoul, someone looked out the window and realized there was a body lying on the pavement and I stopped worrying about anything as trivial as when I was getting home that evening.

As near as anyone can tell, there was a two-car wreck and the passengers were thrown out of their vehicles. Our bus swerved to avoid the wreck, hydroplaned off the road and was hit by the other bus. We spent an hour and half on the road side, waiting for the emergency services and tow trucks to show. A few members of the group had first aid and CPR training and were able to help, and the two men were taken to the hospital in critical but stable condition. One member of our group was also taken to the hospital with a concussion.

I got a call from a friend just after the accident happened, before we knew that the two men were still alive, asking something about a SnB lunch meet up and the rain and the subways not working? I had other things on my mind. Then later, once we were safely, albeit a bit jumpy every time the bus driver hit the breaks, back on the road to Seoul, Marie called me to ask if I knew anything about the flooding in Seoul. Both of us were out of town, but she was watching the news and apparently Seoul was underwater and the subways were closed due to standing water on the tracks. I groaned because, Lord, I just wanted to get home, but miraculously, when we pulled up to Seoul Express Bus Terminal, the worst of the flooding has subsided, most of the water had been pumped out of the subway and by some miracle, I was able to catch the last train home. Say what you like about the Korean work ethic, but it gets things done. Imagine the reaction if a major American city's public transit was shut down by flash flooding on the equivalent of Christmas Eve (assuming that Christmas Eve was also a national holiday) and workers were called in to get the subways running.

Top: Looking east towards Dokdo from the Dokdo Observatory; Middle: Buddha statue at Haedosa (left), Things Wot You Find On Ulleungdo: squid, dolphins, sea turtles, and a octopus that will cook itself into a delicious ojing-eo bulgogi (right); Bottom: Drying squid
More photos are here.

Song Meme: S

2010-11-08T11:40:00.004Z

The song meme that's going around. I was given the letter S.

Rules:

Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
List (and upload) 5 songs you love that begin with that letter.
Post them to your journal with these instructions.

- Shake the Sheets - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists (from Shake the Sheets) - I strongly associate this album with the six months I lived in Rocky Mount. I had a forty minute commute to work and I could listen to the whole album on the drive. I especially like the references to I-95, the interstate I used to get to work.

- Shine - Carbon Leaf (from Echo Echo) - Carbon Leaf is a Virginia based rock band with Celtic and Bluegrass influences and I love the way they blend the different sounds together. I love the range of instruments they use in their music and I love the lead singer Barry Privett's voice.

- Sing Me Spanish Techno - The New Pornographers (from Twin Cinema) - I love almost everything The New Pornographers have made and I can't help but notice that a song that contains the lyrics "listening too long to one song" is one of my most listened to songs.

- Squalor Victoria - The National (from The Boxer) - The drums in the intro to this song are mesmerizing. This is another song I associate with a long commute, and drumming along on my steering wheel and hoping that I don't accidentally hit the horn.

- 쏘리 쏘리 (Sorry, Sorry) - Super Junior (슈주) (from Sorry, Sorry) - This is the song that made me go from "lol, Kpop is hilarious" to "I can't stop listening to this song IT'S SO ADDICTIVE!" SuJu, you are the reason I am a Kpop fan! *shakes fist* SuJu, you are also the reason I can not convince my students that 'sorry' doesn't begin with an 'sh' sound. However, you are also the reason why, whenever reprimanded, my students rub their hands together in supplication, à la the music video, and say, "Teacher, shorry, shorry," and that's funny enough that I forgive you for everything. (SuJu, I love you, never stop making manufactured pop music!)

Daegu Weekend Round-Up

2010-11-07T14:23:00.002Z

Mountains hiked: only one, but it was really big
Food eaten: so much food, ~so much
Korean porn channels on the love motel TV: only two
Number of Buddha statues seen: 4
Number of powdered reindeer horn signs seen: more than I can count
Minutes to spare catching the bus back to Seoul: 2
Hours late our bus was getting back to Seoul: almost 2, damn leafers
Amount of fun had: quite a lot
Chance that I'm going to finish the Ulleungdo travelogue tonight: same as a snowball's chance in hell

Ulleungdo, Mysterious Island: Day 2

2010-11-06T07:02:00.004Z

Ulleungdo, day 2. On Monday morning, the group went on a bus ride around Ulleungdo. Ulleungdo is small, but there isn't a road the circumnavigates that island, so we drove most of the way around the island, and then turned around and drove back the same way. There are a number of rock formations that supposedly look like animals just off the coast and the bus driver took care to point out every single one in great detail. That rock is a turtle, diving in the ocean, with a baby turtle on its back and that right there is the baby turtle's man penis. This is the elephant rock and the small rock behind it? Yeah, that's the elephant's dung. Near the end of the tour, we drove through a natural stone bridge that is suppose to look like a vagina. Male drivers like to drive part way through, back up and drive through again. They also like to say, "I'm coming," as they drive through and sometimes hit the windshield wiper spray as he drove through. Stay classy, adjoshi.

After the bus ride and lunch, a smaller group took the ferry to Dokdo. Dokdo is... it's complicated. Dokdo is comprised of two main islets and 35 smaller rocks in the middle of of a watery nowhere that is right smack dab in between Korea and Japan. Both countries claim sovereignty over the rocks, and while Dokdo is situated over rich fishing grounds and a possible natural gas reservoir, the controversy has less to do with economics and more to do with the 400-year-long feud between Korea and Japan and Korea's lingering resentment over Japanese invasions. This is Japan vs. Korea, round three thousand, and it has become a matter of intense nationalistic importance in Korea. While Dokdo is disputed territory, it is administered by South Korea and the only residents are Korean. There is a daily ferry between Ulleungdo and Dokdo for tourists, and after a year and a half of seeing adds about Dokdo, hearing songs about Dokdo, seeing kindergarteners dressed like the Korean flag dance about Dokdo and having tiny 4th graders beseechingly tell me, "Teacher, Dokdo is Korea," I wasn't going to pass up the chance to see the island for myself.

I've now been to Dokdo and, well, they're rocks. Rocks in the middle of nowhere, but if I have to choose a side, I'm on Team Korea. Visitors were restricted to the wharf, but Caroline and I clambered up the rocky sides of the island, and if we can't say we've stood on Dokdo, we can at least claim to have perched precariously on Dokdo. We played rock-paper-scissors since it was the most Korean thing we could think of besides kimchi, and neither of us had any kimchi handy.

It rained pretty much the entire first two days. From the sporadic rain Sunday morning (a rude awakening to my beach nap, let me tell you) to the pouring rain Sunday night which canceled the cable car trip to the light mist that obscured views during the bus ride, it was a wet trip, and while on Dokdo, I overheard some of the staff talking about a big storm that might shut down the ferries and leave us stranded on the island. Monday night, the Adventure Korea staff told us that due to an approaching storm, the ferries back to the mainland would be closed on Wednesday, Thursday and possible Friday and, faced with the options of either being stranded on Ulleungdo, five to a hotel room, during heavy rains or leaving a day and a half early, they had decided to cut the trip short. An extra ferry would be running the next day at noon to take people back to the mainland, and we had less than twenty four hours left on Ulleungdo.

One of the bridges along the Haengnam Shore Walkway crossed over a cove wide enough and deep enough to jump into. On Sunday's hike, part of the group had jumped off the bridge and gone swimming, but I hadn't wanted to finish the hike in a wet bathing suit, so I stayed on dry land and planned to come back later in the trip. Thanks to the change in departure, my only chance was to go that night, so after dinner, Caroline and I donned bathing suits and walked back to the trail to go swimming. At first we weren't going to jump on the bridge; it was five or six hours later than when people had original jumped, we weren't sure how the tide might have affected the water depth and the lights on that section of the walkway were out, so we would be jumping blind. We climbed down the side of the coast next to the bridge to check the water, and while it seemed deep enough, we discovered that the railing along the walkway was mildly electrified. We couldn't feel it when we were dry, but once we were wet, it stung like a bitch every time we touched the metal railing. Instead of electrocuting ourselves, we decided to just go swimming in the East Sea and, come time to get out, scare the bejesus out the Koreans dinning on the nearby dimly-lit beach by rising out of the waters like some 외국인 Monsters From the Black Lagoon. While we were swimming, a Korean family hiking along the pathway above noticed us and shouted out a greeting.

"Hi," the little girl shouted to us.

"Hi," Caroline and I shouted back, and immediately she launched into a torrent of broken English. Who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing? Do you like kimchi? I love Korea! At one point I asked her how old she was and her father, who was standing next to her, shouted back, "I am 41 years old."

We swam until we started to get cold, and then walked back to our clothes at the bridge. While we were drying off, the Adventure Korea staff showed up, a bit drunk, to go bridge jumping. Caroline and I warned them about the electrified fence, but since they were dry and couldn't feel it, they didn't believe us until after they had jumped into the ocean and were electrified trying to slither under the fence back onto the walkway. There was lots of shouting and swearing and laughing (from Caroline and me). After a few jumps, the staff convinced Caroline and I to join in, and I ended up jumping off the bridge once. It wasn't that high of a jump, or at least that's what I thought until I had climbed over the railing on the bridge and was looking into the dark ocean below and realized that, oh crap, I was going to have to let go of my death grip on the rail. It was a lot of fun, though, and worth that brief moment of panic.

Top: Elephant Rock with elephant poop; Middle: Samseonam Rocks representing "the three fairies who were stuck on views here changed to those three rocks," according to the guide I picked up at the minbak (left), Seodo (western islet) of Dokdo (right); Bottom: 가위바위보! Dokdo is Korea!
More photos are here.

Ulleungdo, Mysterious Island: Day 1

2010-11-05T05:07:00.005Z

Dodong Harbor, Ulleungdo
Over Chuseok break (yes, that was over a month ago) I went to Ulleungdo with Adventure Korea. I tried really hard to book this trip to Ulleungdo by myself, but Ulleungdo is a remote island and Chuseok is the most traveled holiday in Korea. I spent a long week in early September frantically trying to juggle bus, train and ferry schedules, but I gave up right around the time I realized that the only ferry from Ulleungdo reached the mainland a mere thirty minutes after the last train back to Seoul departed. Caroline emailed me that afternoon asking if I wanted to go on the Adventure Korea trip to Ulleungdo with her, and I said sign me up.

We left Seoul just after midnight on Sunday morning, September 19th, bound for Donghae City and Chuam Beach. The idea was to sleep on the bus, although I'm not sure how, since a) we were on a bus (other people seemed to have less trouble with this than me) and b) we stopped at a rest spot every hour, effectively waking most people up. We reached Chuam Beach at 4:30 in the morning.

"Good morning," our guide chirped over the loudspeaker, waking us up again. "We're at the beach, but sunrise isn't for another few hours, so you can keep napping.

The engined turned off, the AC stopped and the bus started to get stuffy. A few rows ahead of me, a man started to snore. Caroline looked over at me and asked, "Sleep on the beach?"

"Oh yeah!" I said. We walked down to the beach and I dozed off to the sound of the surf crashing against the beach and the knowledge that when I woke up, my bra would somehow have sand in it. Sunrise at Chuam Beach is suppose to be spectacular; it's even shown on the morning news while the national anthem plays, but thanks to clouds and early morning drizzle, there wasn't a sunrise. It just got progressively lighter and lighter until it was morning. Shortly after sunrise, a patrol of soldiers marched down the beach.

"Why are there soldiers?" asked Cameron, a fellow teacher who had just arrived in Korea two weeks earlier. "This is a beach!"

"North Korea," I told him. Donghae is only eighty miles from the DMZ, and many of the beaches in the area are lined with barbed wire and closed to the public. It's easy to forget since South Korea is so nonchalant about it, but the Korean peninsula is technically still at war.

Our ferry to Ulleungdo departed from Donghae at 10:00, and after sunrise, we left the beach and went into town for breakfast. It was before 8:00 on a Sunday morning, the weekend before a holiday, and not much was opened, but we eventually found a Dunkin' Donuts willing to open early for a chance to make money off a group of 90 foreigners desperate to not eat kimchi for breakfast. We drank our coffee, ate our donuts and were stared at by the poor cashier who really hadn't though her morning would be that busy, much less involve that much English. The ferry ride was uneventful; other people complained of a rough ride, but I slept the whole way. We reached Dodong Harbor on Ulleungdo by 1:00 and walked to our minbak, a Korean style bed and breakfast with a mat on the floor in place of a bed, for lunch.

After lunch, we hiked along the Haengnam Shore Walkway. It was a nice hike, meandering along the coast. Ulleungdo is a volcanic island and in many places, there were steep drops from the edge of the island to the ocean. The path clung to the side of the coast, starting near the water and then climbing high above the shore before dropping back down to the ocean, with bridges spanning small coves of startling clear blue water. The hike was suppose to lead to the Dodong Lighthouse, but when Caroline and I reached the end of the coastal walkway, the trail turned inland with no sight of a lighthouse, just a pier stretching out into the ocean. Turns out the lighthouse was another forty minute hike inland, but we amused ourselves by wandered down to the pier and climbed on the A-jacks forming the breakwater.

The group was suppose to take a cable car to the Dokdo Observatory before dinner, but by the time we made it back to the minbak, it had started to rain heavily. The Dokdo Observatory was postponed until another, hopefully clear, day and one of the staffers looked at the group assembled on the front steps of the hostel and said, "Well, I guess it's time to start drinking." Caroline trekked through the rain to the FamilyMart for soju and orange juice and we ended up in a group playing cards on the front porch until dinner.

Top: Soldiers on Chuam Beach; Middle: Waves crashing against the breakwater on the Haengnam Shore Walkway (left), Stone cairn along the Haengnam Shore Walkway (right); Bottom: Haengnam Shore Walkway
More photos are here.

The Mundane Side of NaBloPoMo

2010-11-04T10:00:00.002Z

Four days into NaBloPoMo, and I still haven't talked about anything that has happened in November, which I feel isn't being true to the spirit of the month. The problem is, I haven't *done* anything so far this month. I wake up (usually a few minutes past the okay-you-have-to-get-out-of-bed-NOW point; I've been really tired this week), taught class (or not, since the 6th grades are on a week long retreat and I don't have class on Wednesday or Friday) and then gone home. No plans after work and my students have declined to say anything cute that could be turned into blog fodder. THANKS A LOT, KIDS.

The most exciting part of today was playing hangman with the 4th graders who clean my classroom during lunch. They love hangman, but they're terrible at it. They have no concept of what letter are popular or what letter combination don't exist in English or that x is a fake letter and will never ever be used in a word, no seriously kids, for the love of God, stop always guessing x, it will never be x. We played a few rounds using the vocabulary from class today, and then they took over using the words printed around the classroom. Cute? Yes. Exciting? Not so much.

The dark, mundane side of NaBloPoMo.

GEPIK Training: Korean Culture Tour

2010-11-03T10:08:00.005Z

I had GEPIK training last Wednesday. GEPIK is the program in charge of native English teachers in the Gyeonggi public schools. Periodically they hold training sessions and I make faces and complain because I'm a bitter cynic, but last week's training was a Korean Culture Tour, so I was marginally interested. It was suppose to be for new GEPIK teachers - most of the other teachers had only been in Korea for a month or two, and one girl had only been here for five days - and I'm not quite sure why I was included, since I'm new to neither Korea nor GEPIK. There had been a cold snap the day before and I got to play the part of grizzled veteran as the newer teachers asked about the weather. No, your school isn't going to start heating the hallways, and yes, the windows will stay open all winter. Just wait until January when you have students wearing six layers asking you to open the window because they're so hot. On the plus side, it only took me a year to start eating kimchi and K-pop is actually quite catchy. WELCOME TO KOREA!

We went to Gyeongbokgung, the Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven, the largest and most important of the Five Grand Palaces of Seoul. I visited last year, but I hadn't been back since the restorations of the main gate were completed and I had wanted to visit at least one of the palaces this fall when the leaves were changing, just to take pictures. We arrived just as the changing of the guard ceremony started and once we started the tour, we immediately ran into a royal procession near Gyeonghoeru Pavilion. The royal procession included Korean and English narration and my favorite part of the day was the poor man, dressed in the traditional jeonbok, draped with speakers for the guide's PA system. I laughed and laughed, although I waited until after I look the photo to do it because, dude, embarrassing historical costumes and the long suffering faces of those wearing them, I know thee well.

We were taken on a guided tour of the palace, which was actually pretty great because it meant I could ask question - my geekiness, let me show it to you - and I finally, after two years here, learned the named of the traditional eaves painting that I've seen at every temple, palace and gate I've visited in this country. (Dancheong (단청), by the way, and since I didn't write it down, I still had to spend a solid half hour Googling to find it again once I was home.) The last stop was the National Folk Museum of Korea, which we didn't actually visit. Instead we huddled by a group of twelve statues, each one representing one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. It also listed the dates of each animal, which is how I learned that the placemats at every Chinese buffet I've ever been to were LYING TO ME and thanks to discrepancies between the solar and lunar new years, I was actually born in the year of the rat, not the year of the ox. Quite a blow for a girl to find out she's forthright, tenacious and intense instead of dependable, ambitious, calm as this point in her life.

Dancheong painting on the upturned eaves of the Gyotaejeon.

Bridge to Hyangwonjeong Pavilion
The rest of the photos are here.

Buying Glasses in Korea

2010-11-02T10:17:00.003Z

So, I bought new glasses this weekend. Actually, I bought two new pair of glasses, bringing the total number of glasses I've bought in Korea to SIX!

I started wearing glasses junior year of high school (fall 2001) and prior to arriving in Korea in the fall of 2008, I had only owned two pairs of glasses because well, glasses are bloody expensive in the States. My eyesight isn't particularly bad and I never bought designer frames, but I'm still looking at upwards of $250 for a pair of glasses and a new pair seemed like a waste of money since I had a perfectly good pair of glasses, even if I had been wearing them for five years.

Then I moved to Korea and one night after dinner, Tina and I wandered into one of the several optical stores in our neighborhood and inquired as to how much a new pair of glasses would cost. We were told to pick a set of frames and, on a whim, I grabbed a pair of purple frames with kelly green ear pieces. The store clerk examined my preexisting glasses briefly and told me the total cost for frames and lenses would be ₩20,000 or, at the current exchange rate, about $18. Also, it will only take twenty minutes and we'd love to ply you with juice or ice cream while you wait. My eyes got very wide and well, it's a miracle that I ONLY bought three pairs of glasses that night. (To be fair, I had happened upon the sale rack and have yet to find classes quite *that* cheap again, but I've also yet to pay more than $40 for a pair. Also, I did buy the green and purple glasses. They're now referred to as the toilet glasses, after Sarah flipped them off the bathroom counter and into the toilet when she was visiting last summer. Luckily I have zero standards and am bothered none at all at the thought of wearing toilet glasses.)

Guys, I think I might have a problem. I JUST bought two new pairs of glasses and before I had even left the store, I was telling Audrey how I was planning on buying at least another three pairs of glasses before I leave Korea. And then today, I realized I could match my new glasses with my knee socks. So I did.

To buy glasses: walk any any optical store (they're on every corner, I can see three from my apartment), pick out the frames you want and give them to the attendant. If you're happy with the prescriptions in your existing glasses, also give those to the attendant. They'll take your existing prescription from your current glasses and duplicate it for your new lenses. The whole process shouldn't take more than half an hour, and I've done the entire exchange in my terrible Korean. If you don't have glasses, you can get a free eye exam. It only takes five or ten minutes and there are numbers on the eye charts, so no Hangul knowledge is required. A caveat: I buy cheep frames and have relatively good eyes. If you buy designer frames or have bad eyesight, glasses will be more expensive, although not nearly as expensive as in America.

Useful words:
안경 (an-gyeong) = glasses
색안경 (saek an-gyeong) = sun glasses

[everybody scream // it's almost Halloween // do the trick-or-treat]

2010-11-01T11:06:00.003Z

Halloween isn't a Korean holiday. (October 31st is, however, Ace Day, a day dedicated to eating, giving and generally spending money on Ace brand crackers, a Ritz knock-off.) A bunch of hogwons had Halloween parties on Friday and some public schools had Halloween celebrations during English class, but the thought of buying enough candy, even the cheap stuff, for all 650 of my student was daunting and I'm not organized or creative enough to come up with an actual costume to wear to school, so Friday was classes as normal.

Most of the Halloween celebrations were on Saturday, but I went out to an expat bar in Bundang showing Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday night. It was my first time watching Rocky Horror, and I spent the evening with a lipstick V on my forehead and was drug up on stage to learn the Time Warp. Lots of people were dressed up, including two drag queens and while I didn't dress up per se, I did don red and black stripped knee socks and my red Chucks with the skull shoe laces in honor of the occasion. It was fun, although I couldn't actually hear any of the movie over the shouting and I kept having to ask what was going on. I eventually gave up; no one watches Rocky Horror for the plot.

I spent Halloween Day itself in Hongdae. Seoul SnB has recently found a new cafe that sells yarn and has cats and boys in leather jackets working a knitting machine and bark tea, so obviously it's a great place to meet. It's also conveniently located just down the street from the Habanero taco truck, which has some of the best Mexican food I've had in Korea and also, the chef finishes off the burritos with a blow torch. He also filmed our ringing endorsement of his tacos with his iPhone and put it on Twitter. After knitting, a group of us went for kimchi jjigae, which is delicious, and then Caroline, Audrey and I went for a desert party involving chocolate cake and a detour through an optometry store for an improntu glasses purchase.

즐거운 할로윈!

Pictures from Halloween:

♪It's just a jump to the left / And then a step to the right / Put your hands on your hips / You bring your knees in tight / But it's the pelvic thrust / That really drives you insane. / Let's do the time warp again.♪

Habanero Taco Truck

kimchi jjim: a delicious stew of kimchi, tofu and pork.

Say Kimchi!: Caroline and Audrey taking a picture of themselves with Audrey's phone during our desert party. They've gone native.

NaNoBloMo 2010

2010-10-30T13:00:00.000Z

It's almost November, which means it's NaBloPoMo time! I tried NaNoWriMo twice in college, but November is a rough month for a student and both times I fell hopelessly behind by the end of the first week. I've had more luck with NaBloPoMo; I participated in 2006-2008 and finishing twice. I barely blogged last November, but I've been planning for NaBloPoMo 2010 for the past month. My personal goal is for each entry to be at least 250 words and to finish my China travelogue and write about my trip to Ulleungdo over Chuseok. I'm also planning on having a week of posts about aspects of Korean culture (for a given definition of "culture" and an idea shamelessly lifted from Matt's Samoa Blog's Cultural Exploration posts), mostly to give myself a break and because I've been looking for an excuse to post pictures of Konglish signs and talk about rock-paper-scissors.

Co-Teacher #10

2010-10-25T10:17:00.001Z

The fall semester started on August 26th, exactly two months ago, and this is the list of the 5th grade co-teachers* I've taught with so far:

손알찬 (Son Al Chan) - the substitute teacher from first semester who was only here for the first week of the second semester before Suk Jeong decided she was coming back

Homeroom teachers - taught one week when it turned out that, whoops, Suk Jeong wasn't quite ready to come back

석정 (Suk Jeong) - the original 5th grade co-teacher who left due to pregnancy complications in May - taught one week before leaving again due to more pregnancy complications

Homeroom teachers - taught one week while a Suk Jeong decided whether she would return or not

영은 (Yeong Eun) - the 6th grade co-teacher who stepped in and taught the 5th graders for a week before going on maternity leave

Sue - substitute who only taught one week before quitting due to shingles

Homeroom teachers - taught for two weeks while yet another replacement teacher was found

Un-named wimp teacher - quit after two hours, so she barely counts, but she held up the process of finding a sub for several days

Michelle - the latest in a long line of 5th grade co-teachers

People, this is crazypants. It's super stressful for me and counter-productive for the students. The homeroom teachers are annoyed about losing their free period and also, every time the homeroom teachers served as the co-teacher, the student only have English once a week instead of twice a week, and the 5th graders are now weeks behind. However, I do have a new co-teacher. Michelle has some of the best English I've heard in Korea and, more importantly, has made it almost an entire week, knock on wood, oh dear God!

*What is a co-teacher, you ask? Co-teachers are the Korean English teachers. Their exact roll varies by school and individual teacher, but primarily they are in charge of classroom discipline and assisting with the class (usually by providing translations when needed). They are also in charge of the paperwork (including all the paperwork a foreign teacher generates), assessments and exams. At my school, the co-teachers also teaches each grade solo once a week.

Hi Cake Teacher!

2010-10-23T13:21:00.002Z

I was sitting on the subway this morning, nose in a book as per usual, when all of a sudden I heard a voice say, "HI CAKE TEACHER!" I looked up and standing in front of me was one of my third grade girls, sporting a huge grin. Lurking behind her were three of my 5th grade boys, her brother and two of his friends. Guys, I was north of the river, nearly an hour away from home and on neither of the two subway lines that serve my town. The Seoul National Capital Area has 25 million people, and I run into four of my students on a sparely populated subway car. What are the odds?

I waved to the boys and shook hands with the girl, only she doesn't quite grasp the concept of shaking hands, so we repeatedly laced our fingers together and then rapidly let go, a bit like quickly holding hands ten times in a row. We chatted for a bit - they were on their way to Seoul for the day, something in Korean I didn't catch, lots of fun, Teacher, on Monday class, game? Then they returned to their seats and I returned to my book, but every time I looked up for the rest of the ride, at least one of my students would have an eye on me.

Broadcasting Club

2010-10-21T09:05:00.001Z

My school has an English broadcasting club. The Seongnam ABN channel, which seems to be a mix of PBS and public access, has a program where elementary school children get the chance to serve as the reporters on an English news show, although news is a bit of a misnomer - there's nothing ground breaking or even recent about the topics. The topics are usually related to school or English education and the students have a month to memorize their reports.

My school's club has five reporters: four girls and one boy, all 6th graders. My co-teacher Nicole is in charge of the broadcasting club, but I write the articles and run the practices. My students have given two reports so far: one in June and one last week. We started practicing for the latest report at the beginning of the semester in September. I wrote the five part article, my co-teacher helped the students translate it and the students came to my classroom during lunch to practice all month to worked on pronunciation and inflection, two things that are next to impossible to teach in a class of 30+ students. I have noticed, however, that I'm so used to Korean accented English that I don't always notice pronunciation mistakes, especially pronouncing the final 's' in plurals and possessives, something my students really struggle with.

Setting up the video camera during practice. From l → r: 임기연, 정정윤, co-teacher Nicole, 조혜령
The most recent report was about the summer English camp. The first section was an interview of the English teacher, me. 한솜, one of the girls, asked me my opinion on Korean food and Korean students. We recorded the interview and showed the tape at the beginning of the ABN broadcast. The other students explained how the camp was run and talked about my family's visit and the particularly interesting activities the different camps did. Of course, only one of the reports actually attended English camp. :) After practice, 기원, the lone boy in the broadcasting club who spends practice with the faintly disguised look of misery of a preteen boy stuck in a room with a gaggle of girls, would bolt, but the girls would stay and talk and talk and talk. I miss seeing them every day, now that this report is over, although I am enjoying having a lunch break again.

박한솜, my interviewer, while we waited for the camera to be set up.
The first week of November, the 6th graders will spend a week at the Seongnam English Village and the last report, which will be given on December 30th, will be about that experience. So far, I've written all the reports, but the students will be responsible for writing their own articles about the English Village. This will be the biggest writing assignment any of the kids have every undertaken, and I foresee a November full of hand holding and editing.

Girls goofing off during practice.

[less than forget // but more than begun // these adventures in solitude never done]

2010-10-18T10:52:00.001Z

Guys, last week was not a good week. I was sick all week. Just a cold, but the sort of sick where I had to pause in the middle of longer sentences because talking hurt too much to finish, and even though I was so tired my eyeballs hurt, I couldn't sleep. Two of the 4th graders who clean my classroom during lunch, including one of the most annoying kids I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with, were terrible all week and by Friday, they were outright disrespectful. One of the first grade teachers decided that since I'm not a "real" teacher, I clearly have nothing better to do in the afternoons than serve as her personal English tutor/editor. I begrudgingly agreed to edit her application for an English academy and she came back the next day to argue about my corrections. Which, woman, in the epic battle of native speaker vs. beginning learner, my English grammar will always trump your English grammar.

The co-teacher drama, which started the week with a bang, also ground on. On Monday, Sue caught the shingles and quit. By Thursday, my school had found a replacement 5th and 6th teacher, who promptly quit two hours into her first day. I never even met her; I teach 4th grade on Thursdays and she was gone long before lunch. I never did get a good explanation for why she quit. Something about the school wanting her to do things besides teach class, like writing student assessments, making tests, dealing with the endless paperwork that fuels the bureaucracy that is a Korean school and just generally being a productive member of the faculty. Which... yes? I'm just the assistant foreign English teacher and even I'm responsible for things beyond my regular classes. It's probably for the best, since she sounds like she would have been a horrible co-teacher, but it did waste three days that could have spent looking for a teacher who isn't either afraid of work or 5th graders.

All in all, by the time I drug myself home Friday afternoon, I was ready to curl up under my blankets and not come out until Monday. Instead, I woke up on Saturday and took a bus to Siheung to help Marie make wedding invitation. I hung out with awesome people all day and was fed excellent Indian food and shameful cocktails and then crashed on Marie and Greg's floor. Marie made me pancakes Sunday morning and Stitch n' Bitch wandered Hongdae in search of a new meeting place. We found an adorable little knitting café with excellent lighting, knitting boys in leather jackets and a conveniently located taco stand down the street. Continuing the theme of excellent food, we ate dinner at Jenny's Cafe and had some of the best western food I've had in Korea. On the walk back to the subway, I looked at Riah and said, "I needed this weekend so, so much." And Lord, I did need this weekend.

I have always been an introvert, but one of the things living in Korea has taught me is that I'm not nearly as introverted as I thought I was. I didn't have any friends when I lived in Rocky Mount. I had friends in Chapel Hill, an hour and a half to the west, and Greenville, an hour to the south, and I visited them often, but I didn't know anyone in Rocky Mount and I was okay with that. I talked to my co-workers and people at the gym and the library. I was working as a tour guide and half my job was talking to people. I was just fine with only being social a couple of weekends a month, so the almost crippling loneliness of my first few weeks in Korea surprised me. I had never realized how much I relied on casual conversations and phone calls to fulfill my need for human interaction, and by the end of my first month in Korea, I was ready to fall upon the first friendly face I saw and beg them to please talk to me, just for a minute. (And that's how I met Tony, who was suck on a bus and couldn't get away from me. Hi Tony!) I'm the only foreigner at my school and I don't know many people in Seongnam and it's still so easy, two years later, to go a week or two without sitting down and having a real conversation with someone. I'm still an introvert, but I need to occasionally seek out weekends where I surround myself with people and revel in their company.

I feel so much better today. My voice was still failing by the end of the day and I still don't have a co-teacher for 5th and 6th grade, but the 5th grade classes went fine today and my school has found yet another substitute co-teacher, although I firmly expect her to catch consumption or find out she's a leper before the end of the week.

Things will going to work out. They're gonna be great.

Damn Shingles

2010-10-12T11:07:00.001Z

Remember last week, when I was all hurrah, new co-teacher, my problems are solved! Yesterday, Sue found out she has shingles and quit, which means I don't have a co-teacher. Again. Guys, I almost started crying in my office when I found out. I know a lot of this hysterical despair is because I'm also sick and had taught 5th grade all day and wanted nothing more in the world than to go home, crawl into bed and sleep until morning, but for the first time in a year and a half, I really considered quitting. Saying, "That's it, I can't handle this anymore," getting on a plane and going home so my mom could feed me soup. Instead I went home, made myself soup, went to sleep and woke up feeling marginally better, even if I still don't have a voice and can only stand for fifteen minutes at a time.

The school has started yet another search for an English teacher, but the very earliest the position will be filled is next week. Sue was my Monday, Wednesday, Friday co-teacher, and as far as this week goes, Monday is over, Wednesday is an easy day with only two classes and Friday classes are canceled due to midterm. At least I have more than ten minutes notice this time and can plan my lessons accordingly. Hopefully another replacement will be found by Monday, when the 5th graders are suppose to start a grammar heavy unit. I recognize my own limitations well enough to know that I'm not capable of teaching a class of 35 mostly low level preteens a new grammar topic without a mutual language, at least not without a lot of swearing.

I can't win for trying here.

Five Things Making Me Happy

2010-10-08T05:43:00.004Z

It's been a crappy week. Not enough sleep, misbehaving students (a third grader called my co-teacher a bitch today), canceled plans, computer troubles at school, computer troubles at home and just general melancholy. In an attempt to cheep up, five things that made me happy this week:

My 5th graders are doing really well! On Monday we studied countable nouns vs. uncountable nouns in the guise of Do you want some ________? versus Do you want a ________? and they did *so* well. By the end of class, I had a decent number of students who could not only chose the correct modifier, but also explain to me IN ENGLISH why it was the correct choice. One pizza - singular object - Do you want a pizza?; slice of pizza - part of a whole - Do you want some pizza?; two pizzas - plural - Do you want some pizzas? Hey Teacher, I'm hungry. Give me some pizza! I'm so proud of them!

The third graders are studying Lesson 11 - It's Cold. They're learning about the weather (It's snowing, It's cold, It's raining, etc.) and weather appropriate clothes (Put on your coat, put on your gloves, put on your sweater, etc.). I was reviewing clothing with 3-2 class and showed them a picture of a pair of blue jeans.

"It's cold," I prompted. "Put..."

One boy, completely innocently, blurted out, "Put on your panties!"

My goofball 3rd & 4th graders. Both grades played a game called Pass the Ball this week. The students passed a plush ball and dice around the classroom while a song played. When the song stopped, I showed the class a picture and they the students holding the ball and the dice had to answer a question. The 4th graders are studying a unit about shopping and I showed them a picture of an object and a price. The student holding the dice said I want a ________. and the student holding the ball said It's ________ won. I think I had as much fun watching the game as the students had playing it. I especially liked when a group of students would get so flustered trying to get rid of the ball or dice that they would created a möbius loop and the dice would become stuck circulate the same three or four students while the rest of the class howled with laughter.

The girls in the broadcasting club have been coming by my classroom to practice during lunch and after school and after practice, they like stay and talk with me. In my six month round-up I lamented the lack of students comfortable enough with English to go beyond the set phrases they learn in class and actually try to communicate. At the beginning of the month, the girls would barely speak English beyond their reports and now they won't stop talking. They'll talk about anything, from their favorite TV dramas to the 6th grade gossip to their thoughts on private academies (fuck hogwons!) (I was torn between chastising them for swearing in English and complimenting their excellent pronunciation of the 'f'). Yesterday, we talked about North Korea. (Kim Jong Il is bad man and North Korea people are very hungry. South Korea give North Korea people rice and cows, but not now. North Korea people are sad. And poor.) On Wednesday, there's no class after lunch and the girls stayed for an hour after practice. When I pointed out they could, you know, go home any time now, they said they wanted to stay and talk. And then they demanded to see pictures of my family.

I was mobbed by 3-3 class on my way to lunch today. It's hard to feel sad when you have five tiny girls clinging to you demanding hugs.

Tales of 5th Grade Drama

2010-10-04T12:38:00.001Z

Two of my co-teachers left last week. Yong Eun, the 6th grade co-teacher who is approximately a million months pregnant, left for her scheduled maternity leave, and Suk Jeong, the 5th grade co-teacher, announced that due to her pregnancy, she wouldn't be able to finish the school year. She's been in and out of school she started having complications following a car wreck in May. She would start having problems and be put on temporary bed rest, the school would scramble to find a replacement* and fail, the 5th graders would miss class and fall behind, a substitute would finally be found and classes resumed their normal schedule, Suk Jeong would come back to school for a couple of weeks and then start having complications again, and the whole repeat. I get that Suk Jeong is in a difficult position and obviously I want what's best for her and her baby, but it wasn't fair to the school or the students.

Both Yong Eun and Suk Jeong will be out for the rest of the school year, so the newest substitute, Sue, will be my co-teacher for the rest of the year. I've only taught with her for two days, but so far I really like her. She's a bit stricter on the students that I would be (fairly minor infractions result in the offending students spending half of class on their knees with their hands in the air in the back of the classroom), but I would much rather have a co-teacher who comes down like the Hammer of Thor on the students than one who can't control them. (I think she's simple establishing some ground rules and will probably lighten up after a few weeks, since she seems pretty relaxed about student behavior in between classes.) Her English is good and she doesn't feel the need to translate everything I say, but she's also not afraid to step up and explain things in Korean when the students are struggling. I think she's going to be a good co-teacher, and I'm relieved to finally have a 5th grade co-teacher who will reliable come to school for the rest of the year.

*Since Korea doesn't do sicks days (no seriously, if you're not in the hospital, you go to school/work sick) there isn't a network of substitute teachers for the a school to call upon. If a homeroom teacher is out sick, one of the special activity teachers (music, English, etc.) cancel their classes and cover cover for the sick teacher. If one of the special activity teachers is out,** their classes are just canceled and the homeroom teachers cover that period. If the teacher is going to be out for a while, the school has to find an out-of-work teacher to replace her, which takes a while.

**Since I'm not a licensed Korean teacher, I'm not suppose to teach classes by myself. When Suk Jeong is absent, the homeroom teachers are suppose to accompany their students to English class and act as the co-teacher, but they're busy and also, don't all speak English, so they usually disappear after a few minutes to go to their office to work. Also, the 5th graders are suppose to have English twice a week, but I only teach them once a week, so they're still missing a class per week.

China, Day 3 & 4: The Summer Palace

2010-09-26T09:37:00.000Z

The Tower of Buddhist Incense, Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake
I went to the Summer Palace twice. The first time, I went with Sarah on Wednesday, the day we got back from Xi'an. It was cloudy and overcast all morning, started to drizzle on the ride and then began to pour as our taxi arrived at the gates to the Summer Palace. We bought tickets anyways, hoping the storm would blow over, but were forced to abandon that idea once it started lightening. Sarah and I tried to wait out the worst of the storm under a covered walkway, but after half an hour, we decided to just go get lunch.

The first taxi we saw was black, not the normal color for a Beijing taxi, but the driver assured us he had a meter, the puddle we were standing in was lapping at our ankles and there were no other taxis in sight. It wasn't the time to be picky. We got in, made sure our drive flipped on the meter and then, maybe ten minutes into the drive, I noticed that the meter was already at 100¥, more than double what the much longer taxi ride from our hostel had cost. We demanded the driver pull over. He refused and said this was the normal price. We pointed out that we had taken a taxi TO the Summer Palace, so we knew how much it actually cost and also, PULL OVER. He ended up turning off the meter and driving us to the nearest subway stop, which was decent of him, considering it was still pouring rain.

We ate lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant and ordered an obscene amount of food, including four different dishes of hummus. Mmm, hummus. Then I bought Korean World Cup stickers at an Art Box. In China.

I drug Mom and Leah back to the Summer Palace the next afternoon, once Sarah had left for the airport. Our first stop, after we walked past some halls of various beatitudes, was a name calligraphy booth. Artists would write western names using different Asian-esque pictures to represent each letter. (There's a video [not mine] of the Summer Palace calligraphy here.) Leah had her name written and I lamented that none of the letters in my name are depicted with a dragon.

Our next stop was Kunming Lake. Kunming Lake covers two thirds of the park and is surrounded by bridges, pagodas, pavilions, temples and gardens. It's absolutely gorgeous. When I was at the lake the day before, I could barely see through the rain, but on Thursday the storm had temporarily driven away the smog and haze, and there were brilliant blue skies. We rented a paddle boat and went out on the lake. Mom, who had a broken foot, sat in the front of the boat while Leah and I did the heavy lifting in the back. The lake was full of boats and the paddle boats don't exactly have a sophisticated steering systems, so we kept running into other boats. Luckily, paddle boats also don't go very fast and most of the collisions were avoided by Mom leaning forwards and pushing the other boats away.

The Tower of Buddhist Incense, perched on Longevity Hill overlooking Kunming Lake, is the highest point in the Summer Palace. We climbed to the top of the tower to get a view of the lake and the park. The Summer Palace is big enough that by the lake, the trees and hills hide the sprawl of Beijing surrounding the park, but from the top of the tower we could see the city spread out in front of us. It was definitely worth going back a second time.

Lotus blossoms at Kunming Lake

The Tower of Buddhist Incense

Decorated eaves on the Tower of Buddhist Incense
The rest of the pictures are here.

Sports Day

2010-09-22T12:01:00.001Z

Last Thursday was Sports Day, that magical day when I neither have to teach nor sit bored in my office. Preparations for Sports Day began at the beginning of the month. Every morning before first period, the students gathered in front of the school to practice the Korean National Athletic Exercises and the past few weeks have been rife with student coming to class sweaty and late, or not at all. Last Tuesday, the entire morning was devoted to a Sports Day dress rehearsal.

For Sports Day, the school was spit into two teams - white and blue - and the two teams competed for the Sports Day trophy. Last Monday, I was talking with the girls in the broadcasting club after practice and I asked what team they were on. Three girls were on the white team and one girl was on the blue team.

"Is your team going to win Sports Day?" I asked the white team girls.

"No!" they answered. "Our team is very bad at running. We will lose."

Then I asked them if they were excited about Sports Day and I also received a negative.

"No!" 한솜 told me. "I hate Sports Day!"

"Well," I asked, "do you like class?"

"Nooooooooooo!" she told me emphatically.

"What do you like more - Sports Day or class?"

"Sports Day. Okay, I like Sports Day a little."

On Wednesday, I quarried my regular 6th grade classes about Sports Day. "What day is it tomorrow?" I asked at the beginning of class.

"It's Thursday."

"Yes," I sighed. "Tomorrow is a special day. What is it?

"It's 운동회날!"

"In English," my constant refrain in class.

They thought it over and finally decided upon PE Day. "Teacher, tomorrow is PE Day."

Thursday morning dawned bright and clear, and as I walked to school, I passed a vendor selling cotton candy and balloons setting up his cart right outside the school gates. The festivities began with long speeches by the principal, vice principal, head teacher and several people I had never seen before. The students were already lined up in the sun and kept fidgeting as the speeches droned on. Finally the speakers finished and Sports Day could begin in earnest. The first activity was 국민체조 (Korean National Athletic Exercises), which I privately refer to as interpretive dance calisthenics (videos here and here).

Interpretive dance calisthenics or Tai Chi to music
Next came the races. There are about 900 students at my school and all of them participated in at least one race, so while other groups played games or gave performances in the center of the playground, at least one grade was holding races around the parameter. It made the day feel like a three ring circus, never sure what event I should be watching. The food vendors and families milling about didn't hurt the comparison either. The students races in groups of five or six, one kid from each class. The younger kids just ran around the playground, but the 5th and 6th graders ran an obstacle course. They had to jump through a hula hoop, crawl under a volleyball net boot camp style and jump over a hurdle. There's a dwarf student in the 5th grade, and when he reached the hurdles, two sixth grade boys ran onto the track and lifted him over the hurdle so he could continue the race.

3rd grade boys racing

6th grade boy jumping hurdles
All the grades also had jump rope activities. Grades jump roped in unison, jump roped divide by gender, criss-cross jump roped, jump roped use one rope and two people, swung the ropes about like lassos to music, all hilariously unsynchronized. There were also games for each grade. The 3rd graders piled four to a hula-hoop and ran around traffic cones, the 2nd graders tried to break apart two buckets taped together using bean bags (think piñata, only more Korean and no candy inside), and the 5th graders had to keep a giant ball aloft while passing it from student to student. There was also a 사물놀이 (samul nori, type of traditional Korean music) performance by a group of 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders.

Dwarf 3rd grader (sister to the 5th grader) jump roping.

2nd grade piñata game
The final event was a relay race for the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders to determine the winner of Sports Day and my 6th graders prediction came true: the blue team won by ten points. The team leader accepted the trophy, the students performed the national exercises one more time, the cotton candy and ice cream vendors packed up and Sports Day was over.

아이구!

2010-09-17T09:18:00.001Z

Here, have a picture of my 6-1 class boys playing baseball using a fuzzy plus dice for a ball and their shoes for a bat.

It beats me actually writing about my day, which was... long. My co-teacher was sick and and left me to teach class alone while she went to the nurse's office (which, seriously, I don't mind, disease happens and it's not like she didn't cover for me plenty when I was sick this spring, plus, she's like a hundred months pregnant, if the lady needs to take a nap, let her take a damn nap), and while my first class went fine, my second class, 6-4, was awful, the sort of awful where I couldn't even start class. A group of students ganged up on one boy and hid his pencil case, and while I was trying to deal with the ensuing meltdown, a different group of boys decided that NOPE, they didn't want to go to class today, sat down in the hall and refused to go to class. My steely-eyed bitch face scared most of then back into class, but one boy pulled the I-don't-understand-you card, even when I told him told him to get into class in Korean and, of course, while I dealt with the delinquents, the well-behaved students were out of their desks and talking and SERIOUSLY kids, now is not the time to try my patience. Ten minutes into the period without starting class, I admitted defeat, interrupted my other co-teacher's class and begged for help. Co-teachers were found, yelling in Korean commenced, students were cowed into submission and barely made a peep for the rest of the class, and yet, hours later, I still feel like I have knots in my shoulders and frustration simmering just under my skin.

아이구!

The good news, however, is that next week is Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving/Harvest Festival/major holiday) and starting tomorrow, I have nine glorious days off. Hopefully I'll be a bit less frustrated by the time I go back to school.

China, Day 4: The Mao-soleum

2010-09-13T12:20:00.005Z

(Subject line courtesy of Sarah and The Rough Guide to China)

When I was in high school, I saw Discovery Channel special about mummies. It mostly overlooked Egyptian mummies and focused on European bog bodies and the Chinchorro mummies of Peru, but there was also a section on the mummification of modern politburos such as Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and Mao. Lenin is so well preserved that even eighty years after his death, his body is still squishy! (I am many things, but squeamish isn't one of them.) Look, mummies are just generally awesome, but I'm especially fascinated by the modern ones.

Mao's mummy is laid to rest in Beijing, and there was no way I was visiting China without paying my respect to the Chairman. Sarah and I went on Thursday morning before she left for the airport. The mausoleum is large building in the middle of the of Tiananmen Square, a mere ten minute taxi ride from our hostel. We stored our bags at the luggage check and joined the line to enter the mausoleum. Even though we were at Tiananmen Square by 9:00 in the morning, there was already a long line snaking around the mausoleum. We waited for at least an hour, but the line was constantly moving and before long we were past the metal detectors (our second metal detectors, since we had to go through a metal detector just to get into Tiananmen Square) and the florist booth selling flowers in memory to the Great Leader.

Mao is housed in a crystal coffin. His mummy is a rather distinctive orange hue and he clashes with the red Chinese flag covering him. We can't even be sure we saw the real Mao; there is a wax model of the body which is sometimes displayed in place of the real chairman. We shuffled past in less than a minute and emerged into the bright sunlight of Tiananmen Square.

The Mao-soleum

Chungju Lake, Gosu Cave & Dodamsanbong

2010-09-13T10:20:00.002Z

Last Sunday, just a few days after I posted about how I was disappointed that I hadn't traveled more within Korea, I went on a trip! (I also had dinner with a fellow teacher in Seongnam last week, so clearly the way to fix personal shortcomings is to whinge about them on the internet. Please take note, other personal faults include impulse buying and biting my fingernails.) The trip was arranged by Adventure Korea, a tour group catering to expat teachers, and while I'm normally not a fan of tours (ugg, being told where to go and what to do, and also other people), this was less of a tour and more letting someone else arrange transportation and tickets. No colored flags or matching T-shirts to designate our group, just a private bus and two guys pointing us in the right direction. Hopefully all Adventure Korea's tours will be the same way, since I'm going on another one next week.

We went to the Danyang region in Chungcheongbuk-do, the only landlocked province in Korea, a few hours from Seoul. Our first stop was an hour and a half "pleasure ferry" on Lake Chungju, a man-made lake created by damming the Namhangang River. Siobhain and I made lots of comments about how we were "sailing on a boat and we're going fast" and how we were "gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow," especially once we discovered there was a karaoke room on the first floor of the ferry. Then "My Heart Will Go On" started playing over the loudspeakers and every single girl in her twenties made a crack how "I'm flying, Jack!" James Cameron, you have indoctrinated us well. There wasn't a lot to do on the boat except look at the scenery, but that was enough. The lake is beautiful, with lots of trees, hills and craggy rock formations, and very few signs of modern civilization, a rarity in Korea. It's good to be reminded that not all of the country is a concrete jungle.

The second stop was Gosu Cave. It's one of the better known caves in Korea and has some very impressive rock formations. Also impressive were the women in fancy dresses and high heels making their way through the cave. Only in Korea. It was 15° cooler inside the cave than it was outside, which felt wonderful. I got sunburned on the ferry (the breeze made it feel deceptively cool and I was a nice rosy red afterwards) and the cooler temperature felt nice.

The last stop was Dodamsanbong Peak, which reminded me why I don't like traveling on tours. It's three rocks in a river. They look like an 'S' from above, be we were viewing them from ground level. There's a pavilion on one of the rocks. It's nice enough looking. It would be a lot more scenic if there wasn't a high-rise apartment complex and a highway under construction in the background. I was ready to leave after five minutes: we stayed for an hour. A few people went hiking along the river, but most of the group ended up eating cheap ice cream in the parking lot. There was terrible traffic and typhoon related rain on the long bus ride back to Seoul, and it's a week later and I'm still a bit pink, but I'm really glad I got out of Seoul for the day and had a chance to see a little bit more of Korea.

As per usual, the rest of the photos are on Flickr.

China, Day 2: Xi'an and the Terracotta Army

2010-09-10T05:02:00.003Z

The travelogue continues! The trip to Xi'an is one of the more crazypants things I've ever decided to do. When Mom and I booked our tickets to China, we planned to spend five days in Beijing and five days in Shanghai. I asked Leah what she most wanted to see in China and she immediately said the Terracotta Army. I have also wanted to see the Terracotta Army for approximately forever, but it's 750 miles from Beijing. Not exactly a day trip. Or is it?

Enter Sarah. Sarah decides she is going to China and we have the following conversation in a ten minute break between classes:

11:34 AM
Sarah: how close are the terra cotta soldiers?
me: um, fairly far away
unfortunately

11:56 AM
Sarah: um
so I totally want to see the terra Cotta army
apparently it's only and overnight train ride away
I'm totally up for that

And like that, I decided that maybe going to see the Terracotta Army was something I should seriously consider. Clearly, I'm easily suggestible if I already want to do something. (I was already planning to go back to China over Chuseok just to see the Terracotta Army, but I would rather go with someone. China can be intimidating by yourself and if I go by myself, I have no one to make excited seal noises to.) I shot off a quick email to my mom, letting her know I was going to Xi'an for a day (on a family vacation, no less) and inviting her and Leah to come along. They thought it would be fun. And like that, we were going to Xi'an.

The plan was to take an overnight train to Xi'an, spend the day at Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (home to the Terracotta Army) and then take an overnight train back to Beijing that night, essentially treating this like a 1,500 miles (2414 km) daytrip. (It also meant two and half days without showers, and China is hot in August.) Ca-ray-zee.

Guys, it was so, so worth it.

We left Beijing on Monday evening from the Beijing West Railway Station, the largest train station in the world. Sleeper trains to Xi'an were four berths to a compartment. We booked our tickets through our hostel, and the travel agent was only able to buy top bunks, meaning we were separated into two compartments. Luckily, there was an Austrian group in the same situation, and we were able to switch berths and end up in one compartment. The sleeping cars were nice, if small. Bedding was provided and there were two bathrooms (which quickly ran out of toilet paper) at the end of the car. I was lulled to sleep by the rocking of the train in the suburbs of Beijing and woke up to sunrise in Shaanxi province.

The Terracotta Army was amazing! The army was built from 246 BC to 210 BC by Qin Shi Huang, who unified warring city-states in the Yellow River basin and became the first Emperor of China, to help him rule another empire in the afterlife. It was buried when he died in 210 BC and rediscovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well during a drought. The sheer scale of the necropolis is staggering. There are an estimated 8,000 soldiers guarding the tomb, and in addition to the soldiers, there are horses, water birds, musicians and acrobats awaiting the Emperor in the afterlife. Only three pits of soldiers open to the public, but dozens of other pits have been excavated and there's a really excellent museum full of the finds. There's no AC in Pit 1, which is really just a glorified air craft hanger, and it was sweltering hot, but we still spent hours walking around the army until our clothes were plastered to our bodies. Well, Sarah and I did. Mom and Leah abandoned us to play cards in a gift shop.

We stayed at the Mausoleum until closing time, then caught a bus back to Xi'an. We made the mistake of getting on a local mini-bus instead of the tourist bus that goes directly to the train station. They cost the same, but the mini-bus has a much longer route and there was a tense twenty or so minutes as we stared out the window and tried to figure out why we kept seeing fields and not a train station. We just barely made it back to Xi'an in time to catch our train back to Beijing.

The trip to Beijing wasn't quite as pleasant as the trip to Xi'an. We weren't able to switch bunks for the ride back, so we were in different compartments. Also, Mom and Leah found out the hard way that you *must* show your train ticket before exiting the arrivals terminal in Beijing. Sarah and I had our tickets, but Mom and Leah left theirs on the train. Mom blustered her way past the guard, but Leah, who was prone to getting stuck places on this trip, lacked Mom's gall and was detained, so Mom went back to wait with her. Sarah and I tried to pass Mom and Leah our tickets, but we were caught and the guard started ripping everyone's tickets so they could only be used once. Someone eventually gave Leah an extra ticket and she made it out, but Mom was still stuck. Eventually a guard took Mom back to the train to search for her ticket, but due to the language barrier (we spoke no Chinese, they spoke no English), all I knew was that Mom had been taken away after pissing off the guards in the Chinese train station. I spent the thirty minutes Mom was gone freaking out about how we hadn't even be in China for 48 hours and ALREADY someone had managed to get arrested or detained or whatever, what am I going to DO and, oh God, Mom has Leah's passport, I can't even take her back to Korea with me. Luckily Mom reappeared waving her ticket before I started contemplating calling the Embassy.

We escaped the the train station, caught a taxi to our hostel, and I took the best shower of my life. It was an awesome trip!

There are many, many more photos and more information that you could possible want about the Terracotta Army at my Flickr page.

Typhoon Kompasu

2010-09-02T13:03:00.001Z

I woke up to the sound of the wind screaming past my window. I rolled over to check the clock - 6:00 - burrowed my head under my pillow to drown out the wind and rain and tried, unsuccessfully, to go back to sleep.

I checked my email before work and saw a message from the US Embassy with a warning about Typhoon Kompasu, the worst typhoon to hit Seoul in fifteen years. That explains the wind, I thought.

The street outside my apartment was covered in white. At first I thought it might be flowers - in the spring, the cheery blossoms cover the ground like snow - but when I looked closer I realized that it was Styrofoam that had been picked up from a store display and destroyed by the wind. As I walked to school, I noticed the none of the stores were open and the ground was covered in downed branches and leaves. The ginkgo trees by my school had dropped their fruit, which split on the sidewalk. There were also no children. There are always students around the school, even in the summer when there's no class, but today the streets were empty and my school was silent.

I called my co-teacher from my office, hoping that a Category 1 typhoon would be enough to force Korea to close schools. I was forgetting the motto of the Korean educational system: children are never allowed to not be in school. Teachers had normal hours and students had a two hour delay. Class would start at eleven.

I hung up the phone, walked into my classroom and saw a shattered window. Luckily the window shade had kept the worst of the rain out, but there was shattered glass all over the floor and a jagged tear running the length of the now ruined shade. I cleaned up the glass and laughed at the teachers who were trapped on the roof of the other school building by a jammed door. The copy room attendant bored up the window and I taught my classes like normal.

I was lucky. Above-ground subways aren't working and there are massive power outages. The front windshield of my co-teacher's car is smashed and she saw a church with its steeple knocked off on the way to school. A bit of missed sleep and a smashed window isn't too bad for my first typhoon.

ROK On

2010-09-01T13:27:00.004Z

Sunset at the Pagoda Garden the National Museum of Korea
I've been in Korea for six months today! (Well, a year and six months. Six months this time around.)

I live in Seongnam, one of the northern most southern suburbs, this year. I'm much closer to Seoul this year (twenty minutes vs. an hour) which is nice, but the proximity to Seoul means I haven't really developed a social life in the area where I live in. The handful of foreign teachers living in my building introduced themselves when I first arrived, and they're nice and we chat in the elevator or the bus stop, but I already had a social network set up and I quickly fell back into my old routines. I rarely want to socialize after work, but I miss the spontaneity of getting dinner with friends after work without first having to spend forty minutes on the subway.

Marie and me at a clam bake in Kongdae.
I've been back to Ansan (the city I use to live in) a few times to see friends. Nostalgia is a funny thing. I'm glad I don't live in Ansan anymore, but that didn't stop me from getting emotional over old sights. That was my bus stop, the kimbap shop I went to that once, the store where I bought my chopsticks and extension cord, and I go all ♫ memory // all alone in the moonlight // I can smile at the old days // I was beautiful then ♫ The quickest way from Seongnam to Ansan is by bus, and the route happens to pass directly by my old school. I usually spend the trip with my nose in a book, but the first time I happened to look out the window at a stoplight and spotted a teenage boy that looked suspiciously like one of my 6th graders last year. Huh, I thought, he looks just like Jinho. And then the light turned green and the bus drove past my old school, and I realized the kid probably *was* Jinho.

Your average Saturday afternoon: riding your motorcyle to the park to practice traditional Korean dance with your friends. AS YOU DO.
School life is different this year. A new national curriculum was introduced this year and the 3rd and 4th graders now have English twice a week instead of once a week. This means there are 42 English classes taught at my school each week, more than I can personally teach. Instead, my co-teacher and I teach each grade together once a week and the co-teacher teaches each grade solo once a week. It works okay, but it means that I'm never the primary teacher and I'm always playing by someone else's rules and cues. There's also a lot less communication between me and my co-teachers. Last year, my co-teacher and I would plan lessons together and then prepare our respective parts. This year, I plan my lessons alone, without discussing the lessons plans with my co-teachers, and half the time I feel like we're teaching two different lessons that just happen to share a vocabulary set or grammatical concept. There's no cohesion between my lesson and my co-teacher's lesson.

4-4 Class playing a board game in English class.
I think my current students are lagging behind my last school. Both of my schools have been in poor areas, but I think this area is more impoverished. A significant number of my students are on welfare and we did so poorly on the national tests in July that the principal has decided that all the homeroom teachers have to teach three extra classes a week and extra teachers have been hired to offer remedial classes for struggling students. Right around the six month mark last year, I saw an explosion of English from my students. Almost over night, they went from only using sentence fragments to full fledged sentences arguing the merits of different Kpop bands. Teacher, I don't like Top. He is ugly and has big face. I LOVE G-Dragon! HEARTBREAKER! I just can't see a similar widespread surge of English use among my current students. It's not all bleak - a group of 6th grade girls and I recently got into a discussion about our favorite member of 소녀시대 and a 5th grader brought me his essay on the wonderful cockroach to edit - but for every bright student, there are another dozen who, when asked what their name is, can only answer, "Teacher, WUT?!"

WUT?
I really wanted to make the effort to travel around Korea more this year, but I haven't done a very good job of it. In April Siobhain, Caroline and I went to the Nonsan Strawberry Festival in Chungcheongnam-do. It was your typical country fruit festival, full of giant strawberry balloons suspended over the fair ground and strawberry infused foods, many of which were not improved by tasting like strawberry. (Strawberry flavored hot pepper paste is not delicious. Nor is strawberry flavored seaweed.) There were also copious amounts of fried food and I finally tried a french-fries-covered-corn-dog-onna-stick, which was exactly as delicious as it sounds. I'm just a little ashamed that Korea beat the South to inventing it. The weekend was lots of fun and navigating Korea outside of Seoul was too difficult and and I remember thinking on the train back to Seoul that I need to take more weekend trips. That was five months ago and I haven't left the Seoul area since. Hopefully I manage to see a bit more of the country before my contract is up.

(l → r) Siobhain, Caroline, Strawberry Chick who grabbed my ass, me
It's been a good six months, and I'm glad I came back for a second year.

Ajumma Hair

2010-08-30T13:38:00.004Z

An ajumma (아줌마) is a Korean woman of a certain age. Your stereotypical ajumma is a ~feisty~ older woman with aggressively permed hair, purple pants and other questionable sartorial choices, a giant sun visor and a willingness to elbow you in the sternum to get in front of you in line. I read an awesome (and sadly no longer online) article awhile back about an ajumma living in Chicago. Her dry-cleaners was robbed and the old woman chased the robber down, caught him and held him until the police arrived. This didn't surprise me at all since, true story, I was once choked by an ajumma on the subway. I know better than to mess with an ajumma.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I got my hair cut and my hair went from being wavy to genuinely curly. This was right after summer break started, so this week was the first time most of my students have seen me since I got my hair cut. You can imagine how thrilled I was when my first class of 5th graders walked into the classroom today and one boy shouted, "Hey Teacher! You ajumma perm!"

"No!" I told him. "It's not a perm. I have curly hair. Natural."

"Right," the kid, who has no concept of non-permed curly hair, said. "You perm, very good."

This scene was repeated in every single 5th grade class. *facepalm*

Speaking of my 5th graders, one of my 5-2 boys has started addressing me as you girl. As in "Hey you girl, come here." I let it slide the first time, but the second time I corrected him.

"Who am I?" I asked. "Not girl."

"Right Teacher," he said. "Sorry. Hey you woman, come here."

... I cannot fault that logic.

China, Day 1: The Olympic Park

2010-08-28T08:00:00.001Z

We left Seoul and flew into Beijing on August 2nd. We were meeting up with my friend Sarah and leaving Beijing that night, so the first few hours in China were a bit crazy. We needed to go the train station to store our luggage, we needed to have our tickets to store our luggage, we needed to find Sarah who had our tickets, we were at the wrong train station, etc. etc. Around and around we went, and it was 2:00 by the time our luggage was safely stowed and we made it to the restaurant for lunch. In addition to Sarah, two other friends from high school were also visiting Beijing at the same time (it's a small world after all), and we all met for lunch at a pizza place near Wendy and John's hotel. It was great to see them again, and so strange that we should all happen to be in Beijing of all places.

After lunch, Wendy and John left to see the Temple of Heaven and Mom, Leah, Sarah and I went to the Olympic Stadium. My brother is a huge fan of the Olympics, and Mom wanted to visit so she could tell him about it. Leah and I wanted to visit because we knew it would kill him just a little to know that we had been and he hadn't. (We're sisters, not saints.) Sarah came, I think, because the Water Cube has air conditioning.

I moved in the middle of the 2008 Olympics and missed pretty much the whole thing, but even I know what the Bird's Nest looks like. It was cool to see in person, all post-modern and grandiose. We spend twenty or so minutes walking around the stadium, dodging groups of Chinese tourists. I was surprised that almost two years to the day of the Opening Ceremonies, there were still hundred of tourists at the Bird's Nest. Of course, I would quickly learn that this is China and there would be hundred, if not thousands, of Chinese people milling about everywhere I went. Wikipedia tells that the Chinese government plans to turn the Bird's Nest into a shopping mall and hotel, but for now it's just a tourist destination.

Next to the Bird's Nest is the Water Cube. Part of the complex has been turned into a water park (which officially opened a few days after we visited) and much of the upper levels has been devoted to gift shops selling official Water Cube merchandise, but we eventually found the pool where Michael Phelps won all the gold medals ever. The pool was delightfully air conditioned, there was a video showing the highlights of the 2008 Olympics and we had an hour to kill before we left for the train station, so we camped out by the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Not a bad start to the trip!

Back To School

2010-08-26T12:01:00.001Z

Today was the first day of the fall semester. Technically the students came back yesterday, but it was a half day and mostly consisted of the kids cleaning the school. Today was my first day of class - the first regular class in almost two months and the first class period in a month. As boring as desk warming was, there was still a part of me that went noooooooooo as my first class filed in. September is going to be a crazy busy month; after school classes start next week and the English broadcasting club has a presentation on September 16th that I found out about today.

It was good to see my kids again though, and they're still super cute. I overheard a boy in 4-2 bragging to his friends about how he met Teacher's Mother and Teacher's Sister at English camp. Apparently, they are tall which, I can't fault the kid's observational skill. I come from tall people. Also, I found out I'll get a full week off for Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) at the end of September so, you know, I'll live.

The DMZ

2010-08-24T06:01:00.003Z

When I mentioned to people back home that I now live in Korea, the most common response is something along the lines of "OMG, North Korea!!!!1" This is because North Korea is the only thing most Americans know about the Korean Peninsula. (In fact, many Americans seem a bit unsure as to how many Koreas there are. Here's a hint. There are two of them.) I live less than 50 miles from the most heavily militarized border in the world, but the truth is that the possible threat of Communist invasion isn't something I spend time worrying about. There are the occasional air raid sirens, soldiers on the subway and the annual war games, and every so often North Korea threatens to end 1953 ceasefire (technically North and South Korea are still at war) or sinks a South Korean Pohang-class corvette killing 46 seamen and I get a flurry of emails asking me when I'm coming home, but if you're going to live in South Korea, you learn to adopt a blasé attitude towards North Korea or you'll go insane.

Guards in the Mac Conference Room at the JSA
The point of all this is that I do live very close to the border, and while Mom and Leah were here, we took a trip north to the DMZ. (I had been to the DMZ once before when Sarah visited last summer, but we happened to visit the same Bill Clinton went to North Korea to free the two captured journalists, and halfway through the tour, we were packed into a bus and evacuated due to security concerns.) Our tour started at Camp Bonifas, the United Nations Command military post located a couple hundred meters south of the DMZ. We signed disclaimers telling us that the visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and the possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action, boarded a bus, drove past the most dangerous hole in golf and entered the DMZ. Most people assume that the DMZ is completely isolated, which isn't actually true. The Joint Security Area (JSA) lies within the DMZ, as well as the South Korean town of Daeseong-dong and the North Korean town of Kijong-dong.

Looking across Conference Row towards North Korea
The first part of the tour visited the JSA. The JSA, with its iconic blue buildings and soldiers staring each other down with clenched fists, is the only official crossing point along the DMZ and the only part of the Korean Peninsula where representatives from the two Koreas meet. We were allowed into the MAC Conference Building, used for talks between North Korea, South Korea and the United Nations Command. The Military Demarcation Line (MDL) runs through the center of the conference building. We were allowed to walk freely through the conference building, meaning I crossed the border into North Korea, if only on a technicality. (The MDL is the actual border between North and South Korea; the DMZ is the 2 km buffer on either side of the MDL.) The next stop was Observation Post #5 for a view of Kijong-dong, the North Korean town located within the DMZ. Kijong-dong is a Potemkin village; it was built by the North Korean in the 1950s for propaganda purposes and the site was never occupied. It is, however, home to the largest flagpole in the world. In the 1970s, the South Korean village of Daeseong-dong, also located within the DMZ, built a new 100m flagpole that was taller than the flagpole in Kijong-dong. The North Koreans responded by erecting a 160 m tall flagpole flying a 600 lb flag at Kijong-dong. The Cold War: two countries getting into a pissing contest over the size of their giant phallic objects.

Flagpole at Kijong-dong. Also seen, pollution!
We continued on to the site of the Axe Murder Incident and the Bridge of No Return. On August 18, 1976, North Korean troops attacked a United Nations Command security team guarding a tree trimming detail and axed two American soldiers to death. The UN Command responded with Operation Paul Bunyan, the most expensive tree trimming operation in military history. Arriving in a convoy of twenty three vehicles guarded by two 30-man security platoons from the Joint Security Force and a 64-man ROK special forces company and supported by Cobra attack helicopters, B-52 bombers, F-4 fighters jets, F-5 fighter jets, F-111 fighter jets and the US aircraft carrier Midway, sixteen military engineers chopped the offending poplar tree down with EXTREME PREJUDICE. They trimmed the hell out of that tree. Nearby is the ominous sounding Bridge of No Return, built in 1953 to exchange prisoners at the end of the Korean War.

The Cold War blessed the world with both nuclear proliferation and some very dramatic names. Here's the Bridge of No Return.
From there we left the JSA (with a brief stop at the Camp Bonifas gift shop; this might be one of the last outposts of the Cold War, but it's still Korea and I'm just surprised there's not a theme park nearby) and drove to the Third Tunnel of Aggression. The Third Tunnel is the third of four tunnels under the DMZ discovered by South Korea since 1974. The North Koreans have treated the DMZ a little like the obstacles in the children's book We're Going On a Bear Hunt. Uh-uh! A demilitarized zone! A heavily fortified demilitarized zone. We can't go through it. We can't go over it. Oh no! We've got to go under it! Discovered in 1978, the Third Tunnel runs from North Korea into South Korea, is only twenty-seven miles from Seoul and can accommodate 30,000 men per hour along with light weaponry. Now it is a tourist attraction and visitors can don hard hats, descend into the tunnel and walk the two km from the edge of the DMZ to the MDL. The tunnel is low and small and I pity the soldier who has to carry his gear on his back through that tunnel.

The last two stops were the Dora Observatory where, on a clear day (what, we sometimes have clear days in Korea) you can see the North Korean city of Kaesong, and Dorasan Station, the northernmost station on the South Korean side of the Gyeongui Line. One of the oldest railway lines in Korea, the Gyeongui Line originally ran the length of the Korean Peninsula, but has been closed since 1945. It opened briefly from 2007-2008, with freight trains carrying materials to the Kaesong Industrial Region, but closed again after only a year of operation. Dorasan Station, whose motto is "Not the last station from the south, but the first station towards the North," isn't currently serving any trains, but there are signs listing both Seoul and Pyeongyang as destinations.

The trip to the DMZ is a stark reminder of the tension between North and South Korea. The road north from Seoul is lined with barbed wire, guard posts and trenches and during the tour, we were told about the long lists of incidents along the DMZ. Over 500 South Koreans and 50 American soldiers have been killed in skirmishes along the border since the armistice was signed in 1953. It was also a stark reminder of things I don't like to think about. The Seoul area, with a population of twenty-five million people, is just a stone's throw from the North Korean border. Kim Jong-il doesn't need the long-range missiles his country is developing to attack Seoul: short-range missiles from along the DMZ could easily hit the capital, and the sinking of the Cheonan is a clear sign that the dangers aren't all in the past. Something has to give on this peninsula. It's not something I worry about, or even really think about, but every time I hear the air raid sirens or get an email from home, asking what is happening with North Korea, I'm reminded, just for a second, that I live in a country with an emergency evacuation plan.

Just remember: the Norks are always watching.

A Door Story or, Let's Start This Trip Out Right

2010-08-19T12:11:00.001Z

Alright, finally, travelogue time! Mom and Leah arrived on Thursday afternoon. Since my apartment is tiny and Mom's best friend from when we lived in Dallas happens to live in the same suburb of Seoul as me (small world, right?), while we were in Korea, Mom stayed with Shaunna and Leah stayed with me. The first night, we ate dinner in Shaunna's neighborhood, then Leah and I headed back to my apartment for the night. I let her have the first shower, because I'm a gracious host like that, and also I had a suitcase of goodies to paw through.

Now, because of the sink-shower contraption, my bathroom door repeatedly gets wet and over time has warped so it no longer fits properly in the door frame. You can mostly shut the door, but it doesn't latch. I normally just leave the door cracked and don't worry about it, but Leah pulled it all the way shut, and then, after her shower, couldn't get the door open. We yanked and shoved and attempted to remove the door hinges to no avail. After a good fifteen minutes of trying, we figured out the problem was that the deadlatch (the medal rod that actually keeps the door shut) had separated from rest of the doorknob. Shoving and pushing wasn't going to work; short of dismantling the doorknob, Leah wasn't getting out of my bathroom.

Leah: Moooooooooommy!
Cait: I've had you in my care for an hour and already I've gotten you locked in a bathroom. HOW IS THIS MY LIFE?! I AM NOT ACTUALLY A TERRIBLE BIG SISTER, I SWEAR!

I ran downstairs to get the security guard/adjoshi-who-is-always-hanging-out-with-the-building-manager-and-does-maintenance. While my Korean has improved a lot in the past months, at no point in my studies have I learned the phrase "Help, my younger sister is trapped naked in my bathroom. Can you get her out?" (An additional complication of the sink-shower is that you can't bring clothes or a towel into the bathroom with you lest they get soaked.) I did, however, manage to say "Help me, sister in bathroom door no" and beckoned for the guard to follow me upstairs. He fiddled around unsuccessfully with the doorknob for a bit while I hovered behind him, poised to throw Leah a towel should he manage to open the door. After ten or so minutes, he left in search of someone with a bigger toolbox, telling me he would be back shortly.

While we waited, I sat outside the bathroom, chatting with Leah (who was punch-drunk with adrenaline and exhaustion) and worrying about how many old Korean dudes were going to see my underage sister naked, when I noticed the slit at the bottom of the door. Mayhaps, I though, it would be big enough to slip a towel through, or at least some underwear. Turns out, it WAS big enough and by the time the second maintenance man was fetched, Leah was fully dressed and had even fixed her hair. Aided by several large and impressive looking tools, the maintenance guys were able to rip apart my door knob and after nearly an hour of her being stuck in the bathroom, I got my sister back. THANK GOD!

An annotated after shot of my bathroom door.