Korea is endlessly fascinating. It truly has a gift for leaving me in bewilderment, perplexity, or absolute awe everyday. The country of baffling and arbitrary happenings:
When you order food and they deliver it to your residence, they bring it in real dishes and come back later that night or the next day to pick them up. If you buy a cellphone, they give you free toothpaste; batteries might come with toilet paper while a pair of shoes might be accompanied by oranges................. There's a store in my subway station called Delicious Sweaters. I spotted a T-shirt that read "I Love Hunk". There's a Puma store next to my school that sells nothing but Reebok. An old woman straight up smacked me on the subway the other day as I was apparently in her way.
While these little party poppers make for delightful discoveries and stories, it is not always welcomed. This knack for unexplainable decisions, unfortunately, carries over into the work place as well. My school has decided to "revamp" the schedule. They've done this here and there over my 5 month stint, but this is without question the most drastic. I now teach from 9:30 to 6:00, almost straight through, minus a lunch break. The kicker is the fact that they thought it would be fun to simply begin switching teachers with classes. Okay, except I am walking into class on Monday with absolutely no idea what I am doing. I have new kids, new books, new rooms and no one has bothered to tell me the details. This makes an exhausting schedule, as if it wasn't tiring before, but it really screws with my routine. I have realized, more than ever before, how much I rely on a routine, of some kind. Now just when I am comfortable, exhaustingly comfortable, with things, it takes a 360 degree turn. I will spending the next week, perhaps 4 or 5 weeks, attempting to adjust all over again it seems. Then (I am admittedly being pessimistic here) they will probably change things again. Just when I think I have things figured out.........
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Alright, Okay, Uh-huh, Amen
It's cold again. And it snowed, again. For a small window of time, I was able to venture out of my apartment without a hat, scarf and gloves. Now my cheeks are back to sporting a rosy red and my breath coming out in little white puffs. I am eagerly anticipating the spring, but I know, as with all things, I will wish for coat weather as soon as the other extreme of steamy humidity hits. My weeks are passing quickly, yet my days seem endlessly long. The time I have to myself is quite little, yet it really is time all to myself. I've settled into a rather nice routine; in some ways rather similar to the one I had at home, and drastically different at the same time.I am learning to invest myself in things more than I have in the past - reading, writing, praying, drawing - and I am learning to sometimes just be.
I am also I'm learning some painful and invaluable lessons, about leaving the coffee pot on all day, about correcting kids publicly and privately, that no matter how much rice you eat you'll never be full, and that just because it looks like a brownie doesn't mean it is..............
The past month has been nothing short of astounding: I've observed exotic underwater species at the aquarium; I've hiked another mountain; I've roamed aimlessly between art galleries and coffee shops; I've taken part in an embarrassing singing and dancing session; and I've met some of the most fascinating people.
My kindergarten students have taken to calling me Nora Mori SonSaeNim, which means "yellow haired teacher." Its precious to me that they consider my seemingly brown hair as yellow, or that they remind me daily that I have blue eyes, or that they take time to simply rub the hair on my arms. They love for me to teach them new songs to sing, and we are now the back-to-back reigning champions of the Speech Contest, thanks to a heartfelt rendition of Y-M-C-A. Somehow, in the midst of loneliness, frustration, and confusion, I am finding gold.
I am also I'm learning some painful and invaluable lessons, about leaving the coffee pot on all day, about correcting kids publicly and privately, that no matter how much rice you eat you'll never be full, and that just because it looks like a brownie doesn't mean it is..............
The past month has been nothing short of astounding: I've observed exotic underwater species at the aquarium; I've hiked another mountain; I've roamed aimlessly between art galleries and coffee shops; I've taken part in an embarrassing singing and dancing session; and I've met some of the most fascinating people.
My kindergarten students have taken to calling me Nora Mori SonSaeNim, which means "yellow haired teacher." Its precious to me that they consider my seemingly brown hair as yellow, or that they remind me daily that I have blue eyes, or that they take time to simply rub the hair on my arms. They love for me to teach them new songs to sing, and we are now the back-to-back reigning champions of the Speech Contest, thanks to a heartfelt rendition of Y-M-C-A. Somehow, in the midst of loneliness, frustration, and confusion, I am finding gold.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Good Infection
"Do not think that God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of the greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines upon it."
"God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome."
"Very often what God helps us towards is not the virtue itself, but just the act of always trying again.....it is wonderful what you can do when you have to."
"A thing will not really live unless it first dies.......Let the thrill go - let it die away- go on through the period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you try to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will get weaker and weaker, fewer and fewer, and you will bored and disillusioned."
"The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or you see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether."
"The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ."
"Only one who tries to resist temptation knows how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to talk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later."
"If you are right with Him, you will inevitably be right with all your fellow creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another."
"Make know mistake, God says, if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. If you do not push me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest.........this I can do and will do."
"Lose your life, and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."
"Christ says, 'Give me all. I don't want so much of your time or so much of your money or so much of your work; I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desire you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours'."
----- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
"God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome."
"Very often what God helps us towards is not the virtue itself, but just the act of always trying again.....it is wonderful what you can do when you have to."
"A thing will not really live unless it first dies.......Let the thrill go - let it die away- go on through the period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you try to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will get weaker and weaker, fewer and fewer, and you will bored and disillusioned."
"The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or you see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether."
"The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self - all your wishes and precautions - to Christ."
"Only one who tries to resist temptation knows how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to talk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later."
"If you are right with Him, you will inevitably be right with all your fellow creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another."
"Make know mistake, God says, if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. If you do not push me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest.........this I can do and will do."
"Lose your life, and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."
"Christ says, 'Give me all. I don't want so much of your time or so much of your money or so much of your work; I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desire you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours'."
----- Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
Saturday, February 7, 2009
When Life Gives You Lemons....... Make Orange Juice
To say that my apartment is small wouldn't really give you an idea to the dimensions. Without the bathroom and the entry hallway, its not much bigger than the bedroom I had in my parents' house; its not any bigger than one of the bedrooms my brothers had in my parents' house. My kitchen, my laundry room, and all storage space is comprised into one wall on the left - of the entry hallway. Such limited space and such long days have tended to lend little inspiration for really expanding my culinary palate. Then I met Jill Santopietro(youtube her). In her 11 by 11 foot kitchen in her New York City apartment, she has been able to produce tangerine sherbet, Roquefort salad, and Eggs in Purgatory, just to name a few. Granted, that's still more space than I have, and she is the owner of an oven while I am not, but I'm realizing that my tiny space is mine. I can experiment, and make a mess, and ruin food, and not do the dishes until the next day because there is no one to tell me otherwise.
I have no pictures to prove my success, but my banana pancakes were delicious. I concocted a huge pot of Minestrone soup, as well as chicken noodle. Some great salads. Then there has been my Korean dish - dokboki. Whoever thought that huge chunks of dough and onions covered with hot pepper sauce would be tasty? It is. My favorite and easiest - Mandu. Dumplings stuffed with everything from octopus and shrimp, to beef and peppers, to honey and seseme. Some of the best Korean dishes (galbi, shabu shabu, bimbibop) I am a bit trepidicious about attempting, especially without guidance. The plan is to get a cookbook, so I can practice these dishes before bringing them back to the U.S. Monday, February 2, 2009
Encore
I have been introduced to one of the most certifiable means of stupidity and hilarity imaginable, and one that Koreans take great pride in: the Noraebang. Norae means "singing" while bang means "room". When you gather together a half dozen twenty-something girls who spend most of their time either with a classroom of elementary kids or by themselves in a shoebox apartment, and provide them with microphones, tamborines, and background music, it needs to be documented. In honor of Hilary's last week in Korea (after an impressive 18 months), we rented our own room for two hours, and made fools of ourselves. Well, I mostly watched them, and had some of my hardest laughs in Korea to date. Apparently, Africa by Toto and Don't Stop Believing by Journey are the usual kick-offers. And less then 10 minutes into it they need to create their own dance floor. I'm pretty sure Jess and Jen have bruises down the side of their legs from those tamborines, and they all had a difficult time teaching today after blowing out their voices. A number of performances were rather impressive, but I think the winner was a toss up between Bohemian Rhapsody and Like a Prayer. Hard one to call, but I feel more welcomed than usual to be a nerd............as Jen says, "What happens in the Noraebang, stays in the Noraebang."
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