life in the land of morning calm

goodbyes

2008-08-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

So now I’m back in the United States. I’ve been here for over two weeks and soon I’m heading back to work in Seoul for another year.

Overall, it’s great to be home. It’s so easy: I speak the language and I understand the culture! I’ve cut down on the number of hours I sleep simply because I’m not as tired as I was in Korea; my brain felt constantly at work over there, but here, it takes a lot more to exhaust me. And seeing people and eating the food here has been as and often even better than I expected. Also, I’m happy to report that after a year, I can still speak in complex sentences, something I did at times wonder about.

I landed in LA and had a four-hour layover before flying into PDX and meeting my family. There are two things that struck me as I walked around the LAX terminal:

1. Our population has a lot of variety. Compared to Korea, one of the most homogenous nations in the world, America really is a rainbow. The airport had fat old white guys, tall young girls in head scarves, a flamboyantly dressed bald, tan, fit Latino talking to a skinny black woman with a corkscrew afro. Different languages, interracial couples, kids of all different skin shades running around—I know the LAX airport is a more diverse population than in many parts of the US, but even in my small 12,000 people hometown in Oregon I see significantly more variety than I did during my time in Korea .

2. We have small heads. I know this sounds odd, but bear with me—when I first got to Korea, I heard a lot of people tell me and the other non or part-Asians in the program in rather reverent voices that we had small faces. I initially felt confused and a little self-conscious, until I was told that this is a huge compliment in Korea. Everyone wants to have smaller heads, apparently, as it looks cute. I have many pictures of my students using their hands to cover parts of their face in an attempt to make them look smaller when photographed. I didn’t actually think, though, that most westerners have small heads, until I landed in LAX and most of the people around me seemed to have disproportionately small faces.

______________________

There's a lot I didn't write around the time I was leaving, but here's one story from my final night with my school:

After my last day of teaching, I went with the school staff and faculty to dinner at a popular pork restaurant. We sat on the floor at long, rectangular tables, grilled marinated meat and garlic, wrapped bits of it in lettuce and bamboo leaves, and washed it all down with beer and soju, Korea’s hard alcohol of choice. There were lots of speeches, I mangled a few sentences to my table companions in Korean, and when my principal visited my table I found a glass and, as is polite, poured him a shot of soju. Already red-faced, he leaned in and slurred something to me. One of my co-teachers translated: “you are born, and then you die.” After a few more lines of translated depressing philosophy to which I did not know how to respond, he returned to his own table and finished his dinner.

After a round of cold noodles to finish off the meal, we all stood up, stretched our legs, and went out to the parking lot. I was preparing to be taken home and work more on packing.

Suddenly the home economics teacher was in front of me.

“You will go?” she said to me and my coteacher in Korean.

I heard my coteacher explain that she would leave and take me back to my apartment.

The home economics teacher began speaking more loudly and quickly and gesturing a lot. After a few minutes and a lot of nodding, my coteacher turned to me, her face sympathetic but firm.

“I’m sorry. You cannot go home yet. Now, our school will go to noraebang."

A lump forms in my throat. Noraebang is Korean karaoke. It is a very popular pastime, and most Koreans get very excited when it’s mentioned. For me, however, hearing the word makes my heart plummet. The way others feel anxious and scared and heart race-y about planes or public speaking or spiders, I feel about having to sing in public. It’s not that I just don’t enjoy it; I fear it. With the assistance of alcohol in the company of very close friends here, I can occasionally do noraebang in Korea. But the idea of singing, on my own, sober, in front of 30 teachers, most of whom are 40 or older and with whom I only see at our bi-weekly staff meetings and occasionally talk about me in front of me in Korean I don’t understand is not how I want to spend one of my last nights in Korea.

“I think…maybe I should not go. Actually I must pack many things and…” I start.

“But this noraebang is for you because you will leave. I think you must go and sing a song. Then it is okay to leave and pack.”

And so ten minutes later I am sitting on a velvet chair, heart pounding, slowly flipping through a sticky black binder of karaoke selections. In front of me is beer, soju, and now whiskey, along with the traditional Korean bar fare of candied peanuts and dried squid. My stomach is churning too much to touch any of it. In front of me, they have already started. The social studies teacher has rolled up his pants into his socks and is doing a jig while the gym and health teachers are belting out Korean oldies while the computer teachers slams a tambourine on her knee. The social studies teacher jigs over to me, smelling of grilled meat and alcohol, and leans over the binder. “Pop song! Pop song!” he encourages me.

I nervously smile and look up again and see that my principal, now maroon-faced, is about to sing. He chooses a rambling traditional ballad. And then he starts. And there is no way around it—he is tone-deaf. He is off-key, loud and the teachers struggle to find the beat to clap along.
Then things start to click in my brain. I consider that my principal is a very bad singer—potentially on par with me. And I consider that to the teachers here, noraebang is a very kind goodbye present to give me as in Korea everyone loves karaoke. And I consider that my arguments about really, truly fearing karaoke will not hold a lot of weight here, in a country of collectivist thinking. I also consider that a number of the teachers are drunk and will not remember this, and that the rest I probably won’t ever see again as in 72 hours I will be on a plane.

And so I stand up after the principal finishes, and a microphone is pushed into my hand, and someone pulls out my camera, and soon I’m on the karaoke stage, listening to the opening chords of “Let it Be.” The words come on the screen and I am singing. Truthfully, I can hear myself, and, as I suspected, I am also off-key. But I am singing. And then the gym teacher starts hitting the tambourine, the math and ethics teacher are suddenly flanking me and swaying and singing what they can of the English with their arms around my shoulders, and the principal comes up and holds my hand and joins in the sway session. And while this is something I did not expect, something that I’m clearly not good at, it is, once I’m doing it, sort of fun.

_____________

I don't think I’m going to keep this blog next year in Seoul, so this will probably be my last post. I really want to thank you, though, for keeping up with me, reading, and commenting and putting up with my pretty inconsistent posting. I feel really lucky to have had the last year and to have people to share it with. And if you ever have the chance at a karaoke bar, please sing a song for me.

three reasons i had a job

2008-07-11T03:55:00.001-07:00

next year

2008-07-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

I'm coming back to Oregon July 20th. I'll be in the United States for about a month. Around August 24th I'm headed back to South Korea.

I'll be working in Seoul for the International Debate Education Association (IDEA), a non-profit that sponsors debate-related activities around the world. I'll be organizing programs for IDEA in Asia and other parts of the world. Come late August, you can find what I'm doing here. The position is for one year.

This is a definite change from my initial plan of going straight to law school this fall, but it's a change I'm really excited about.

Please let me know when you're in the northwest this summer-- especially if you want to eat hamburgers, big salads, normal pizza, Oregon strawberries or Mexican food. If you want to eat rice or pickled vegetables, you're out of luck.

excited's mean is too small

2008-07-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

Yunju's next letter, after my brother came to visit (a future post!) :

Dear Elizabeth,

Hello! teacher. Oh! I was so excited to get your letter! excited's mean is too small..Umm..I feel unbelievable! It's the first time get Letter from English teacher! Wow! I din't think get a handwritten letter! I practice cursive many time. (Do you understand my cursive?).

Oh! I have good news! Out family decided not move to Jeju City. Not soon! My mother said, "We don't move to Jeju City in summer vacation. But Sometime we will go to Jeju City." I'm so happy. Because I miss my friends. If I move to Jeju City. But still I'm sad think about your leaving.

Wow! Your brother! I saw him today!! Um...I don't know. When I met your brother, I was little shy. I don't know why. He was very tall!! He's taller than me. not little! I'm excited when I meet tall person. (But...Umm..Elizabeth..My brother's taller than your brother! haha. I proud of my brother's tall. I'm sorry :)).

I'm impressed, too, that you like Bible! I read little. Maybe...Genesis? Ha! ha!

Bibles have many Version. So I recommend version called "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures!" Versions are not same. They are different. Do you believe a bible? Many people think Bible is legend or false. But I think bible is so real. Even bible have scientific. I think that's the true.

Um...Teacher. What mean stationary? I don't understand. I found the meaning (meaning is "not moving"). But I didn't understand. You said ("the stationary you used is so pretty").

Coldplay. I more like "Jonas Brothers" but when I feel blue or rain, I like it very much. I searched for "Amsterdam" on the internet. But, nothing. Would you please send email (mp3 file, my computer don't speak)? If you are busy, don't send.

I searched "Coldplay," I read this: Punk Rock. "Coldplay" what kind of music? Please tell me about Rock...

Well, I will miss you very very much!! too...You are my favorite teacher. Thank you for read this long letter. I am happy we are friends, too...I was so impressed for you letter! I don't forget the letter.

Have a good weekend, teacher!

-Noh Yunju

ps-- Your good words made me happy. So I want my letter, too. Good morning teacher~

say hello to your eyes

2008-06-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

Today I got a letter from one of my very favorite students. This girl is great-- she doesn't hold back at all. Last week I gave her some chamomile tea I had from America, and she declared, laughing, that it looked and smelled like pee. But then she drank it and told me it was delicious. We talk a lot about books and Korean and American singers and I think she wants to be a writer. I told her I wanted to be a lawyer and she was very impressed.

It's difficult to get a real sense of it typed, as half of the fun of this letter was the special faces and drawings she sprinkled throughout it. But I still think it's worth sharing. I will miss my students more than anything else in Korea.

To. Ms. Elizabeth
Hello? I’m Yunju. Teacher I’m so sad. I have two reason.

Reason 1 (Beat Please—like dugududgoodoo)
You will go to the America soon. You are so good teacher. You listen our voice and give new lesson. I was really happy when we talked each other. Because I like English. I like new. I like America. And I like you. So I REALLY sad.

Reason 2 (Beat again)
I will go to the Jeju City (House-moving. I will move to Jeju City maybe (70%?). I was so disappointed. Maybe summer vacation. I think. AAA (Anyway And After All—it’s the first) we’re parted. What should I do? I’m not want to house-moving. I lie in Seogwipo during 6 years (Wow! Very long time).

By the way. Oh! I heard news! Will your brother come to Korea? Wow I really want to see your brother. He is a writer, isn’t he? I feel dizzy. I have an amnesia maybe. Haha.

Writing books is brilliant and wonderful. These days I’m reading a Bible (“Bible is a international best-seller”) Bible said, “A word spoken the right time for it” in book part is really helpful other people. So I think writer is brilliant. And I believe you must the THE LAWYER.

Do you know why I write letters? (not email). I like letters. Writing Letters with hand and pencil is so classical and interesting (specially English Letter) to me. I’m like this letter paper.

I think COLDPLAY is so good. “The Scientist” more listen. I like this song. So, introduce song about Coldplay please.

Um…Thank you read this letter. I plan write more letters to you. I am looking forward to reading from you. But not Answer I’m ok. I understand. Just say just Email Just short letters. I’m okay, really. Please, I don’t want to you have loads.
With love,

Yunju Noh

ps: Say hello to your eyes.

much better than may day

2008-06-06T04:23:00.000-07:00

May was chock-full of holidays, both national days and special days for my school. Some of my favorites:

Sports Day (school-specific)

Classes are canceled and students spend the day competing in sports. I probably would have dreaded this day when I was in middle school, but as a teacher it was awesome. I watched my students do relay races, play soccer, limbo, and compete in a number of “sports” I had never seen—including one where two people stand in the middle of tires tied to the opposite ends of a rope and try to pop a balloon with a rubber hammer, and another that involved mass amounts of girls sticking their heads under each other’s legs. Students were really surprised that we don't have this day in America-- it's an annual event for each elementary, middle, and high school in Korea and is used by other groups as well. I've been to "Sports Day" for my host family's church and another one for my host mom's high school reunion.

English Festival (school-specific)

Students perform English skits and pop songs for their peers. Most of the skits were shortened versions of fairy tales or Disney classics, but one of the more ambitious groups did one involving Korean Power Rangers, and another did a modern Korean twist on Romeo and Juliet where the couple meet in a PC Bang and die after bowing many times in a Buddhist temple. The older students at my school performed choreographed dances in matching variations on the school uniform while singing English pop songs. At the end, they announced prizes for the best skits and songs, which resulted in a lot of tears from really excited and really disappointed students.

Teacher’s Day (national)

Students (or, more generally, the Parent-Teacher Association) give small presents to teachers. At my school this meant we each got a corsage, a small yellow melon, two hallabongs (a citrus fruit native to Jeju), designer socks, and a piece of cake in a fancy Peter Rabbit-decorated box. And half of the day off! America need to adopt this holiday. Here are some of my favorite girls. The two in the middle delivered cake and flowers:

Buddha’s Birthday (national)

A day of no school and free lunch at Buddhist temples. I went to Jeju’s most famous temple with my host parents, an experience that did not resemble my prior very quiet, centered-feeling visits to other temples in the least. Here, Buddha’s birthday was definitely a holiday. Street vendors sold double-fried corndogs, cotton candy, dried cuttlefish, and red-bean filled pastries; peppy Buddhist rock music played over loudspeakers; in the main hall of the temple uncomfortable looking children performed a sort of pageant for a talkative audience of proud parents and video camera-toting monks. In the basement of the temple, a long line stretched out the door for people waiting for the free lunch of rice mixed with vegetables and red pepper paste.

and now they're letting them

2008-06-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

Fulbright is reinstating the grants to Palestinians in Gaza! Click here.

this program only works if you let people leave

2008-05-31T22:03:00.000-07:00

In a move that I would say is antithetical to the goals behind the organization, Fulbright is withdrawing their grants to Palestinians in Gaza. Click here.

i'm trying; please stop staring

2008-05-23T05:40:00.000-07:00

I’m reading in a coffee shop next to two high school boys. The taller one leans over and says in English, “Can my friend take a picture with you?” “Um, sure,” I say, and his friend, giggling, scoots over while his friend uses his cell phone to snap a picture.

A few minutes later I’m outside waiting for the bus. An old woman, perched with knees splayed on the bench, turns and stares at me. A middle-aged woman walks by, sees me, and pauses. She starts walking again, but then abruptly switches directions. She does this again and I realize she is pacing in front of me and staring. I look up from my book and half-smile, hoping she will see I notice and leave. Instead, she leans in close to me.”DO YOU SPEAK KOREAN?” she says loudly in Korean. “Um, no, not really,” I say in Korean. A string of fast and loud Korean of which I understand about three words follows.

Later, I step onto the bus. “Jungang Rotary?” I ask the driver, hoping he’ll take me to the stop closest to my apartment. He nods and I open my wallet for the fare. I look up and three old woman sitting near the front stare blankly at me. They have gone silent. I feel their eyes on me and sit down quickly on the closest seat, near the front. They start talking again. “Jungang Rotary? She’s going to Jungang Rotary?” I hear them in Korean repeating what and how I said it. I put my wallet in my bag and when I look up I see the old woman in the seat in front of me has poked her permed head around the seat barrier and is three inches from me, gawking. She turns back around when I look up and I stare out the window.

Suddenly I feel a sharp slap on my forearm. I jump and there is the permed head again, speaking loudly in Korean. “DO YOU SPEAK KOREAN?” I shake my head and rub the arm she just hit. “YOU DON’T KNOW KOREAN? KOREAN, YOU DON’T KNOW IT?” “No, I don’t speak Korean,” I say in Korean. “YOU DON’T SPEAK KOREAN?” “No, but I wish I did so I could tell you to turn around,” I say quietly in my head. “She’s from America. She doesn’t speak Korean.” The woman has finally turned around and is now discussing me at a lower but still audible volume with her friends.

A few hours later I walk into the Center for Adult Education, where I have been taking a Korean class. In the foyer there is a group of five women. They get quieter and their heads turn, following my movement, as I walk towards the water fountain. I take a paper cup and one woman says "pretty" to me, first in English and then in Korean. “Oh, thanks” I say in Korean and accidentally overfill my paper cup, splashing water on my jeans and the floor. “Oh, you speak Korean!” she says in Korean. “No, I...I don’t speak Korean” I say in Korean, wiping my hands on my jeans and head into class.

scenes from biking

2008-05-05T03:00:00.000-07:00

Some friends and I biked around Jeju Island a few weekends ago.

things i miss and things i will miss

2008-05-04T04:29:00.000-07:00

western life:

Cereal with lowfat milk, the newspaper spread out on the kitchen table, quilts, the piano in our basement, my brothers and parents, pasta with cream sauce. The water pressure from the shower. Large bath towels. Toilets that flush paper. Pedestrians having the right-of-way. Jeans that fit my American-sized butt. Blending in. Concerts.

Dryers. Television, independent movies, popcorn, crisp apples with peels, banana bread, broccoli with lemon and butter and salt, newsmagazines, bookstores, personal space, warm lemon bars, picking raspberries, our front porch, wearing flip flops. College friends. Not having my weight/hair/skirt color/skin condition discussed in front of me.

Books. Photo albums. Sheet music and pianos. Big couches in coffee shops. Pine trees and wide green fields and the gray pretty cold of the Oregon coast. My super-big extended family. Too-big hooded sweatshirts. Microwaves. Ovens that work. Cookies with vanilla and oatmeal and generous quantities of chocolate chips. Neighbors I know. Cold corona with lime. Lawns. French fries.

eastern life:

Kimchi jiiggae, Korean bathhouses, funny English signs, the “Hi Liiiiz” my host-sisters say each morning, seeing the ocean outside the car window when we’re driving through town, the spring canola and cherry blossoms. Getting free things for looking foreign. Cheap batting cages. The English teachers at my school.

Juicy and plentiful Korean tangerines and oranges and hallabong, my host dad’s laugh, the little boy in my apartment building who gives me hugs, the super peppy “Hello! Hello Teacher!” from my students. Melon-flavored ice cream bars, pomegranate-flavored candy, mangosteen-flavored gum. Fancy cellphones. Cheap taxis.

Full-fat yogurt, the staff at my gym, free samples at bakeries, Korean fried chicken and beer, seeing my Korean slowly, slowly occasionally improve. Cheap hotels with heated floors, taking windy 5.16 bus to Jeju City, rice with vegetables and oysters and thin crisp bits of seaweed, handmade noodles with crab and shrimp and shellfish, crunchy squid as a snack. Good friends from my program to vent to/ share lesson plans with/ proofread applications/ help translate/ travel and bike and share the year with.

LAAAYMOAN

2008-04-10T03:15:00.000-07:00

My office is on the second floor of our school, nestled between two first-grade classrooms and a full floor above the teacher's lounge and principals office. This means that generally students are the only visitors, giggly high voices and black bobs and hair bows who flip through magazines and ask me for candy.

In my second week of teaching, though, my work was interrupted by the sound of a flung-open door hitting the wall and the appearance of a stocky, tan, wrinkly-faced man in a worn polo shirt and black gold jacket in the doorway. I actually jumped, surprised to see anyone other than my students, and then corrected myself and managed a mangled hello and head-bob bow from my chair. He took little notice of me and stormed over to the sink at the back of my office. He looked down at the tea and powered drink packets sitting on the table, took one packet, and looked my way.

"LAAAYMOAN" he declared loudly.

And then he was gone, taking big steps and slamming the door behind him.

I sat there for a moment and replayed what had just happened. What had he said? Laaaymoan. Laaaymoan. It didn't sound Korean and he said it really loudly like I should understand it. It must be......English! Laaaymon. Leeeemon. Lemon. Lemon, as in Lemonade. As in, the Crystal Light To-Go Pink Lemonade packets the former teacher left next to the sink.

I soon learned that the wrinkly man was actually our school's janitor and copy-machine operator. Language barriers mean that I know little about him, other than that at one school dinner I was at he drank a lot of soju and started doing pull-ups on the rafters of the rather nice chicken restaurant, and that he really loves Crystal Light Pink Lemonade, which you cannot buy in Korea.

He came in several times after that, until one day he held up an empty cardboard box and I was forced to admit that yes, "laaaymoan oppseyo." He looked distressed and then smiled with an idea. "OHMA OHMA" he said loudly, pretending that his hand was a phone and leaning towards me for emphasis. "LAAAAYMOAN CHUSEYO."

I nodded and told him I understood, that I would call my mother in America and ask her to bring more Crystal Light Pink Lemonade packets. To remind me, every time I need to make copies or I ran into him in the hall, he said "LAAAYMOAN," sometimes several times in a row and never quietly. This lasted for six months, until my mom visited last week and gave me the packets I had asked her to bring. In one of my proudest moments, I entered the copy room last week, presented him with the box, and stated two full sentences in Korean:

"OHMA CHONGWHA HASSOYO. SEOGWIPO AY WASSOYO." ("I telephoned my American mother. She came to Seogwipo")

delegates from the u.s.

2008-04-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

My mom and aunt visited Jeju last week for 5 days. In addition to lugging two containers of Cheetos, a board game, trashy magazines, and baked goods to bring to me, they also deserve kudos for being so open while in Korea. They forgave me for my poor navigation skills and let me feed them everything from duck to blood sausage to eel to Korea's favorite dessert-- ice flakes, ice cream, fruit, syrup, and generous quantities of red beans. They visited my school, drank tea with my principal, managed to swallow my school's spicy soup and make their way through its fried fish with metal chopsticks. They watched me teach a lesson on greetings and put up with my sometimes too energetic students students running up to them and declaring, "Who are you?" "AHH SMALL FACE" (a big compliment in Korea) and "Why your little brother no here?" They were up for a trip to Korea's bare-all bathhouses and later a special dinner with my principal, vice-principal, my school's administrative staff, the English teachers, and my host mom, which was mainly in Korean and in classic fashion involved a lot of kneeling on the floor, being told to eat a lot, and trying to politely turn down too much alcohol.

It was nice to have a little empathy for the things that are hard for me here-- kneeling for long meals, getting cash in a country whose highest denomination is about $10, pedestrians never having the right-of-way, the lack of street maps, and the general struggles that come with never entirely being sure what people are saying. And it was great to show off what I love about living where I do-- my 630 students in matching uniforms and bolo ties, my friends in Seogwipo, the best favorite bakery and coffee shop and kalbi restaurant, the nearby waterfalls, the variety and affordability of citrus fruits, the heaps of amazing and different food, and the warmth and generosity of the people here.

we make it work

2008-03-23T02:18:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I made cookies in my apartment. This was a little difficult as Korea isn’t big on baking. I did find mini chocolate chips in the grocery store, but I didn’t locate vanilla extract or oatmeal. Instead of egg beaters, I mixed the batter with a whisk and a rice paddle. I was the first person to use the oven in our apartment, ever. It is a gas oven and has three black, completely unmarked knobs on the left-hand side. I turned on the gas and through process of elimination (one turned on a light, one made a clicking noise—maybe a timer?) figured out which one was the temperature. I turned the dial half-way, crossed my fingers it was indeed a temperature dial, and on baking sheets built for a small convention oven I scooped out the dough and baked four cookies at a time. I cooled them on a rack we usually use for barbecuing prawns and squid.

In the same “make-do” manner, we held an Easter party at a church last weekend. No white eggs in Korea? No dye? No problem—markers on brown eggs make kids just as happy.

On St. Patrick's Day, I asked my host sister Kumju if she knew that today was a holiday. "Yes!" she said excitedly. "Today Jesus died on the cross."

At least she got the month right.

one hour in a korean shopping mall

2008-03-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

stories from the jungle, part three

2008-03-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

A florescent light flickers on. I climb off of the top bunk and slip on thick socks and black-turned-brown shoes, stick contacts into eyes and walk downstairs for coffee, fried noodles, and head lamp adjustments. It’s 2 AM and we’re about to start the last part of Mt Kinabalu.

Outside of our lodge it is pitch-black and, for the first time since I’ve been in Malaysia, neither muggy nor warm. I have two pairs of pants and a too-big pair of gloves on, but it’s still cold. I’m ready to get moving and soon we are, in a single-file line up wooden steps and then on a nicely-cut trail that alternates between packed dirt and tree roots and solid rock. About an hour in the path changes to rock exclusively. Here, thick white rope marks the best places to walk and gives us something to hang on in the sections where the incline is steep.

It’s just rock now, no trees or brush. Further in front of me, outside of the three or so yards my headlamp lights up, stretches an ink-dark canvass splattered with yellow lights. Some of the bright spots are stars, others are the headlamps and flashlights of more ambitious hikers closer to the top. It’s impossible to tell the difference between the lights and the stars when it’s this dark and we’re this high. Sleep-deprived, sweating, and with no idea where the mountain ends and the sky begins, I feel a little like I’m walking through space, or at least in a poorly-lit dream.

Later the solid sheet of rock we’d been walking on changes to big boulders. Carefully-placed steps and jumps across and up the rocks, and finally my headlamp just shows the sky. We’ve reached the peak, a small space, soon crowded with our tired and heavy-breathing group and other groups close by. There are fifteen minutes before the sun is expected to rise

I can’t see much as it’s still dark, but I know we’re high—the battered sign close by says 4,095 meters, I hear. This will likely be the most impressive sunrise I’ll ever see. It will definitely be the only one I plan on waking up this early for. I pull out my camera and wait.

Fifteen minutes of not moving, though, and I’m nodding off. I know this will be on the coolest things, ever, but my body is giving out on me. I turn to my more awake brother.

“Aaron, can you wake me up when the sun comes?” I slouch down on a rock with my head between my legs and close my eyes.

Soon it’s coming up, though, and I lift my head.

In the beginning it’s slow and tentative, first the dark changing to periwinkle blue and then real light, far away, white-peach colored lines poking gradually up between dark soft-edged clouds. As the white gets higher, the color turns electric, bright blood orange, and spreads across the sky. We’re high enough that full-formed clouds are below us, a thick and round and billowing bottom frame to the now quickly-changing picture.

ps-- my brother is a real writer! For more on Borneo and our trip, check out his stories.

stories from the jungle, part two

2008-03-02T00:45:00.000-08:00

Over the course of our trip we spend about three days sleeping in the jungle and five days hiking in the middle of it. This is the exact amount of time for me to decide that it is a great place to experience but not to live in. It is extreme and loud and mysterious and all-together out of a dream. Giant ferns, massive leaves, big twisting roots, vines shooting up and around tree trunks, winding streams of reddish-brown water. Loud and mixed noises—hisses and croaks and ca-ca-cas and the sucking-squishing of rubber shoes in too many inches of mud. Wet heat and steam and a smell which in intensity and odor matches, in my opinion, a poorly-cared for pit toilet. Shiny and bright bugs, geckos, tiny twisted snakes on leaves.

And things that look like slugs that suck your blood.

I find my first, firmly planted on my collarbone, our first night in the jungle. I go to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear and my hand brushes against something raised and wet. The rational part of me—the part that was listening when I was told that they are normal, harmless, and don’t cause any pain—quickly dissolves. There is a leech on my neck. A large one, actually, getting larger off of my blood.

“Aaron.” I find my brother quickly. “Aaron, get this off of me. It needs to come off now. ”

Ever a good brother, Aaron does not ask why I don’t pull it off myself. He just remarks at its size and does his best to detach it. Its grip is strong, though, and it’s not coming off.

Our guide is close by. My voice is clipped and strained. “Ihavealeechcouldyoupleasegetitoffme.”

He pulls out a pocketknife and some salve, and soon the leech is gone.

It leaves a small red bite. It bleeds a little, swells, and over the course of a week fades to a tiny pale pinprick. You can’t see it. It doesn't hurt. It didn't pass on a disease. Getting one leech, though, has made me paranoid that there are others. Suddenly I’m convinced they are on my neck, climbing up my legs, in the toe of my boots, under my shirt. They are there when I sleep. They are there when I’m talking with other people on our tour and they are there when I am watching monkeys and macaus. Throughout our trip I’m constantly smearing on mosquito repellant, which supposedly deters leeches as well, and manically running my hands over my skin. I did not realize I could be this vigilant.

stories from the jungle, part one

2008-02-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

It’s the morning of our third day and last day at the longhouse, and I’m packing my backpack to leave when Richard, our British tour guide, comes up to me.

“Liz, do you have a second? We need to cleanse Chris.”

Chris is member of our tour group, an outspoken electrician from Australia. I woke up a few hours ago to hear him recounting a strange dream he had during the night—he swears he saw spirits at the longhouse, three women, reaching for him. The first response from most of us is, “what’s the name of your malaria drug?” as one of the side affects of the different kinds of pills we’ve been told to take while in Borneo is trippy dreams; I had a very profound one of my own about an egg yolk and an ocean a few nights ago. But Chris is one of the few who is not on any malaria medication, and he is a little shaken.

So at 8:15 in the morning I pad barefoot over to the circle our group and several Iban villagers from the longhouse have formed on the rickety wooden floor. I sit down and listen as Unsa, the longhouse headman, asks Chris about the details of his dream. Unsa, perched on his haunches and dressed in red sport shorts and a clean but well-worn t-shirt, then pours some rice wine from an old Tsingtao bottle into a plastic blue cup, quietly murmurs in Iban, and slowly pours the contents of the plastic blue cup down on the floorboards of the longhouse. He repeats this, another longhouse man says something else in Iban, and then the cup is filled to half-full and handed to Chris. Unsa gestures to Chris that he should drink and he does. The spirits have had their drink; now it is our turn. More rice wine is poured and the same cup is now offered to me.

I have had a lot of, is this really my life? moments and this is certainly one of them, but I don't have much time for self-reflection. I take the cup and drink. More is poured for the person next to me. At first I think this is ceremonial—we will all have one drink—but once the rice wine has made its way around the circle another bottle is brought out and another cup is pushed into my hands. I drink, but look to Richard for some guidance.

“They just want to make sure the spirits know they’re welcome and feel comfortable here,” he says.

“So it’s sort of like…an after-party?” I ask.

Unsa hears me, and nods and laughs a little.

Another cup is handed to me, and I take my third—and thankfully final—drink of the morning.

And that completes my first early morning séance and after-party in a Malaysian longhouse.

winter vacation whoo!

2008-02-07T00:30:00.000-08:00

Writing from the town of Miri, the state or Sarawak, the island of Borneo, in the country of Malaysia. Tracing my path the past 12 days would make for a messy map; Jeju to Seoul to Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu and other places in Borneo I can't remember.

I have really limited internet access here, but for a brief update check out my brother's blog. We're hanging out in Borneo until February 17th. I start teaching normal classes in the beginning of March and I promise I'll write more from my own perspective about the jungle, beaches, fried noodles, leaches, longhouses and treating sunburns before then.

way-guk imnida

2008-01-23T20:40:00.000-08:00

I have been in Korea for a little over 6 months now. I have finally figured out the bus schedule. I can mangle basic conversations with taxi drivers. I have developed a taste for kimchi, and yesterday I actually finished all of my rice at dinner. I have also figured out how very deeply not-Korean I really am.

In some ways, I would really like to blend in. People really stare here. I cannot go anywhere without kids pointing and saying “Mom, a foreigner! Mom, looooook!” or middle-school boys going “Hello! Hello! I love you!” or and this gets sort of annoying when you just want to buy a toothbrush or mail a postcard or be invisible. And sometimes I don’t like that what I do is a reflection on the country I am from, especially when I am having a bad day.

But in some ways, it’s awesome. I stopped by a bakery on the way home from the gym last week. I had just showered, my hair was wet, I had no makeup, and my clothes didn’t match. But I walk in, and a woman buying bread turns to me and solemnly says, “You. Verrrrrrrry beautiful,” and I am thinking, of any time that I might look okay, it is definitely not now. But thank you. It’s nice to be called pretty.

And living in a town where there aren’t a lot of foreigners means that I get to introduce a lot of stuff for the first time. On the last day of English Camp, 20 teenagers made Kraft macaroni and cheese for the first time. I taught my host sister how to play “Heart and Soul” on the piano and she loved it. Teaching about Halloween was some of the most fun I’ve had, and telling a group of girl in my office that you don’t put deodorant on your face, as they had thought when I first showed it to them, but rather under your arms was sort of priceless.

ps-- IDEA employee and former Willamette debater/English teacher in Korea, Alex, held a debate workshop at my school last weekend. Read about it here.

there was also a yeti story

2008-01-16T02:44:00.000-08:00

I am currently teaching a two-week long English camp for advanced first-graders (seventh-graders in America). I really like it; all of the girls want to be there, they understand what I’m saying, and when I showed Gilmore Girls today, everyone liked the character of Jess more than Dean without me throwing my opinion in. They’re also super creative. Earlier this week we did a project where I gave each girl two pictures and told them to write the beginning of a story incorporating both pictures. Then they passed it to a friend, who wrote the middle, and to another friend, who wrote the end.

My very favorite story is the product of a picture of smiling teenagers in a canoe and a picture of some kids lying on a gym floor after doing yoga. Here is it, verbatim:

Living Corpse’s Day

Jane’s classmates are go on a picnic with a canoe.

Oh, today is June 6^th, 2006.

Devil’s number 666!!

So, zombies are revive and start moving.

Zombies and canoe is very close. So people pull an oar faster.

Oh, my god! They meet a big waterfall.

They diving in the water.

They get out of water.

Oh! My god!! It’s zombie’s house!

Zombies and Jane is close.

And?

It not zombies!

They listen explane story.

Zombies are people. They need a diet. So they don’t eat food.

So they are very hungry.

So go to the river for drink water.

The end.

japan in a nutshell

2008-01-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

I met up with Shannon at the airport in Tokyo. We took a bus to our hotel, which was actually part of a large complex that contained a bowling alley, aquarium, roller coaster, and at least 20 restaurants in addition to several towers of hotel rooms. If you don’t believe me: http://www.princehotelsjapan.com/shinagawaprincehotel/

We exchanged country presents—funny English notebooks and tea from Korea; Kraft Mac n Cheese, tampons, Pop Tarts, English books, Christmas cookies, and CDs from America (thank you, Shannon and American family!). I excitedly opened Christmas cookies and we began catching up.

Over the next several days, with the help of two old TIUA friends, we went to a number of temples, shopping districts, and restaurants. We then headed off on the expensive but fun bullet train for a few days in Kyoto, then back for New Year’s Eve and a few more days with our friends in Tokyo.

I am not good at going chronologically, but here are some of my favorite things from our trip: cold and colorful orange and turquoise temples, sticker picture booths, fresh tempura, Lonely Planet’s Gion Night Walking Tour in Gion, Milky candy, an easy and understandable subway system, the abundance of free tissue packs with advertisements, really helpful people, the variety of vending machines, tea, yukata-style robes in our hotel, rice crackers, streets with clearly labeled names (Korea, are you listening???), the absence of trash, enormous buildings, tiny cars, and the hospitality of our TIUA hosts.

The less-awesome parts were internet that is five times more expensive than Korea, a lot of sites were closed for New Year’s, and there were a lot of pretty clothes I couldn’t afford. But it was still a good trip, and New Year’s Eve itself was colorful and definitely international. We visited a shrine a few hours before midnight and then entered a crowded and loud English pub in downtown Tokyo. Wresting— a Zulu man representing Brazil versus a Japanese man half his size—was playing on the overhead TVs, and we met people from Morocco, India, the U.K., Poland and Iceland in the pub as the evening wore on. On the way back to the subway, we got free boxes of Pocky and a lot of well-wishes for the new year.

Now I’m back in Korea, teaching a winter English camp for advanced 7^th graders and spending a lot of time in our apartment. I leave for Borneo at the end of the month and am very excited to see another great person in another new country.

december 2000awesome

2008-01-05T04:27:00.000-08:00

I spent Dec. 31, 2006 with friends and my older brother in Salem, Oregon.

We joked at some point that evening that the new year should be called “2000awesome” rather than 2007. As the night wore on, though, I think most of us had forgotten the nickname. The next morning, my friend and I mumbled good morning and stumbled red-eyed down the stairs to find something for breakfast. We ran into my brother at the bottom of the stairs. Hair disheveled and wrapped in a blanket after falling asleep on the couch, he did not look much better than us. He did have more energy, though, and a better memory. “HAPPY 2000AWESOME!!” he exclaimed, waving his hands. We immediately laughed and greeted him in turn.

This year I had another wonderful, though very different, new year’s which I promise I’ll write about soon. In the meantime, though, here are some holiday pictures from 2000awesome. It really did live up to its name.

The color pink is in. Glypie, Dana and I with kids from a Christmas party we helped with at a childcare center.

Hillary at our winter trip to Jeju Island's Teddy Bear Museum. This museum is incredible; it includes the world's most expensive teddy bear (dressed in Louis Vuitton and about $200,000), teddy bears made from snack wrappers, and teddy bear dioramas of major historical events. This is the invasion of Normandy.

The post-it board in my office for girls to write messages on.

Holiday dinner and gift exchange with the other English teachers on Jeju Island.

Christmas with the host family. We went to a fancy buffet dinner at a hotel. No one served me rice or kimchi and there was a cheese plate. I was very very happy.

wednesday afternoon

2007-12-22T23:03:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the back of my Korean host family's car, a big white monster with a mess of school books, some coats and wool blankets, and a bag of kalbi wrapped in tin foil. We have just come from lunch and now we are going...somewhere. I am used to, though still frustrated by the fact that language and culture and family pattens I haven't picked up on combine to make me generally clueless as to when or what we're going when I get in the car with my host family. All I know is that we just finished lunch, but that we are not headed back in the direction of our apartment. The Korean is too fast for me to pick up on many words. I catch "cha" but this could mean car, tea, cold, or carry depending on the context. I sit in the back of the car and mull over the possibilities, until my host sisters unknowingly answers my question.

"We will clean the car!" she proclaims excitedly in English.

Clean the car? Really? I ask Kumju, and she nods with enthusiasm that is exclusive to 11 year-olds going to a car wash. "It is so fun!" she says.

I am taken back to a year ago, before I had a this grant, and what I thought I might be doing here-- planning lessons on diversity to an excited group of students, learning to make yet another fabulous Koren meal, practicing calligraphy. I had many visions, but none of them involved washing a car. Then again, I live in Korea now, and my dreams are necessarily tempered. I have classes of 38 students, some of whom are as excited about English as in my fantasies, and some of whom cannot spell their names and have no desire to. I live in an apartment in a city. My bedroom window does look on a mountain, but most of it is obscured by the chain convenience store "Family Mart." And the busy schedule of my host family means that we eat a lot of take-out and restaurant meals. I am not taking calligraphy classes, though I do sometimes go to yoga and take a language class. My Korean is still bad.

But as we pull into the gas station and fill up (in litres), and then around to the entrance to the car wash, Kumju's enthusiasm is catching. "It is like, maybe we think the car will be broken!" she says, and checks the windows on her side to make sure they are rolled up. And I check mine. My host dad shifts into neutral and the the wheels click into the treads of the car wash as we roll in. The whirring starts and loud sprays of water come shooting on the windows. Kumju leans forward excitedly. A big sponge rolling brush starts on the top of the car. And I have to admit it is kind of fun; the car is surrounded and water is shooting at it and my host sisters looks more amused then I've seen her in a long time. Now the car has rolled in completely and there are brown twirling brushes on all sides. We are in the car wash's belly. I take Kumju's hand. "Duck!" I command as the car approaches some kind of drier that's heavy and lower than the car-- it looks as though we might hit it. Kumju giggles and together we duck.

And it hits me that my visions of Korea were pretty and unique and clean and grand-- but its these moments, in a car wash, clutching the sticky hand of my host sisters, that I am bound to remember later on. And there is a lot I don't understand about Korea, and sometimes that not knowing freaks me out. And I really should study Korean more, be a better Cultural Ambassador and not talk about how I miss cheese and smoke-free buildings and not slapstick television so much. But dwelling on these things, on my lack of control and my own imperfections, means that I don't have time to appreciate these moments. Sometimes joy and goodness sneak up in unexpected forms and I want to be ready to identify them.

while wearing a heavy coat, scarf, and gloves

2007-12-13T18:57:00.000-08:00

My school has seperate summer and winter uniforms, embossed nametags for the students, a new computer lab and a substantial faculty dining budget. It does not, though, have what my American mind has trained me to believe is more important: heating.

I can't really complain as my friends are going through the same thing. It's standard to not heat schools in Korea, so we play, "how many layers are you wearing?" when we see each other here. And we all know we're lucky to be on Jeju Island, which is warmer than the mainland. It still strikes me as strange, though, that I can have as many post-its as I want and eat paid-for meals with the other teachers, but that I cannot be warm even if I put on stretch pants under my dress jeans or wear gloves when I'm typing in my office.

Still, winter isn't all bad. It means that break and friends from home and warm, warm Malaysia are all a little closer. It also means that leaves are changing, tangerines are still in abundance, and I can shop for winter clothes, which actually fit here. Plus, there's a funny-looking Christmas tree in the middle of town they just strung lights on. The town center holiday display is complete with some white wire lit-up reindeer that are too small and really reminiscent of the awkward Christmas light set-up they do every year in front of the Dallas, Oregon courthouse. It always makes me smile; I guess small-town holiday display budgets are universally small.

winter, in four parts

2007-12-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

Part One: Tangerines

The weather during Korean winters is dreary, but the trees here make up for it. Leaves are changing to bright primary colors—not unlike they do in the U.S.— but the best and most vivid colors come from the tangerine trees. Jeju Island is famous for tangerines and December is their peak month. There isn’t a very big rural/urban divide where I live; tangerine farms are sprinkled in with houses and small businesses throughout town. Bright orange polka dots are part of the winter scene here.

I spent a few hours last weekend picking tangerines with my friend Alec and his host family on their farm. It was not difficult; you wear gloves (less than a pack of gum at the convenience store, oddly) and use special scissors to clip them off the tree. Everyone on the island either owns a small tangerine farm or knows someone who does; I’ve talked to few people here who haven’t picked tangerines at some point. Not only does everyone pick, but the town itself is overflowing with free tangerines. There are usually leftovers after the tangerines are neatly packaged and sent to the mainland, but this year the teachers at my school tell me there was an extra-large crop and there are even more extras. It shows—I have been given free tangerines at a clothing shop, when paying my cell phone bill, and at a Japanese restaurant yesterday with my family.

Part Two: Holidays

Thanksgiving is one of the few uniquely American holidays, and I wanted to explain it beyond “we eat a lot of food and watch TV” (which I think is an apt description for most days in America) for my first graders (equivalent of 7^th grade in America). I sat down and tried to make a powerpoint, but struggled to explain the history in a way that made sense for ESL students, was sort of interesting, and would not shame Native Americans or the Willamette history department. I don’t know if I succeeded in meeting any of the goals, but by the time my fifth class rolled around, I had my dialogue down: “I am from Europe! This is my first winter in America. I cannot find food. I am hungry and cold.” “I am Squanto. I am an Indian. I have lived here a long time. Most Indians don’t speak English, but I do. I am special. I have an idea to help you. You should plant corn.” “Oh, thank you. Good idea. Now I am not hungry. I am happy because you helped me. So, please come to my house for dinner.” I think the students were the most impressed by the pictures of Thanksgiving food, though. Pictures of a big turkey, pumpkin pie, and, interestingly, baby carrots were huge hits.

As for my own Thanksgiving, I went with most people from my program the weekend before to the Ambassador’s house in Seoul for a big dinner that I will never ever forget. There were at least 20 different things I had not had since I left America and they were all beyond terrific.

Part Three: PopTart Days

Home: I miss it more than normal. This is evidenced by two consecutive PopTart Days last week. PopTart Days are the days when I miss the U.S. enough to toast one of the carefully rationed PopTarts from the box my mom sent (thanks, mom).

Part Four: Winter Break Plans

I still need one more plane ticket, but for the most part it's booked-- one week in Japan with my college friend, two weeks teaching special English classes here in Seogwipo, 20 days in Borneo, Malaysia with my older brother... and a little over two months' worth of paychecks going to pay for it. Minus the money, though, I am pumped.

Happy winter, all!

about logan

2007-11-21T04:44:00.000-08:00

There were many things I liked and respected about Logan, but my favorite was his ability to use his intelligence without flaunting it. I remember sitting next to him on the plane on our way back from a debate tournament last fall. I had a Newsweek with a double-page map of the U.S. highlighting the midterm races in various states. I asked Logan about one campaign in particular as I was reading. He knew a surprising amount about it, so I picked a race with two candidates I had never heard of and mentioned it. He knew about that one as well. I started picking states at random, and for each one he was able to list the candidates, highlights about the races, and, more often than not, their current polling numbers off the top of his head from multiple sources. The thing about Logan, though, is that he never would tell you this information unless it was needed to make an argument for a debate round or if you blatantly asked him, as I was doing with my Newsweek. He didn’t store the information for bragging purposes. It was there because he was genuinely interested.

On the same flight, I finally admitted to Logan that though I had, yes, signed up for intramural flag football at Willamette and had had a few games, I still had no clue what the rules were. As in, I still wasn’t sure how points were scored or where I was supposed to go when the whistle blew. This would have been a good time for him to say, “Then why did you sign up?” or poke a lot of fun at me or mention that maybe I shouldn’t have left that football game we went to together our freshman year at halftime because I was bored. Instead, he just pulled down his tray table. Still in his shirt and tie, he used our makeshift field to explain, without sounding condescending in the least, the most basic rules to football.

It's a little over a year since Logan and I started dating again and soon it will be about a year since he passed. November is fuller of memories than most months-- some of which are great and some of which are harder. I wish I were better at writing; my head is busy with thoughts but I can’t spit out the right words. This Thanksgiving, though, I am (trying to) count family, my friends, and the good memories of a particularly close friend among my blessings.

puh-rank-un-stine-uh

2007-11-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

Last week I did a lesson on Halloween. Korea does not celebrate Halloween, but a lot of younger Koreans have some knowledge of the holiday from the media or English class. Most don’t know a lot, though—so when I pantomimed how to make a jack-o-lantern they paid rapt attention. When I showed a picture of a pumpkin patch in my powerpoint, they collectively gasped. Sometimes I feel so fortunate to have this job. I got to teach the words “zombies” and “werewolves” to my students. Other highlights from the week:

-Telling my students, “Just like we say that cats say ‘meow’ and dogs say ‘bow wow,’ in English, we say that ghosts say ‘boo!’”—and hearing a tiny chorus of voices behind me go “Boo! Boo! Boo!” as they tried out the word for themselves.

-Wearing a witch hat and having several students tell me sincerely that I looked pretty with it on (Korean fashion???).

-Watching girls fight over the Halloween stickers my mom sent from the dollar store. I let each girl choose a sticker, but at the end of every class I was swarmed by girls who wanted to exchange their sticker for a different design after seeing their friends.’

-Having some confused students say trick or treat and then give me candy when I saw them in the hall.

-Watching the stickers reappear this week on cell phones, pencil cases, girls' faces, and in the center of their uniforms' tie.

Halloween REPRESENT!

ps-- check out out the school's fall uniform!

temples and guns

2007-10-24T02:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I was in Gyeongju on the mainland for my program’s fall conference. We spent the first few days in a hotel, eating a lot of imported American food and sitting through workshops on teaching, cultural adjustment, and some new English technology program we’re supposed to tell our schools to buy (I’m not planning on it). The last day, though, was reserved for sightseeing. We left the hotel, crammed on two buses, and took in seven or so different tourist sights over the course of five hours. A bad memory and a jam-packed day means that I can’t honestly recall the names of most of the places we went.

One place that stands out, though, is Bulguksa— a famous Buddhist temple whose large compound is a mixture of stone pagodas, brightly colored wooden halls, and traditional gardens. We had an hour to explore. Towards the back of the compound I found a long building whose sign read “The Hall of No Words.” Despite however long one might study, the sign informed me, no one will ever be able to describe the true majesty or wisdom of Buddha’s teachings with words. I found myself nodding while I read the sign—having spent three months surrounded by people whose language I understand about 5% of, I was all for a Wordless Hall. I slipped off my shoes and stepped in.

Inside was bright, chilly and quiet. Save for the staff member at the door, the Wordless Hall was empty. Two open doorways facing the sun ensured that the room was well-lit, but the wooden floor itself was almost icy. I padded around in my socks, taking in the bright turquoise and red designs on the rafters, the gold statues of Buddha and friends sitting serenely with eyes closed, the narrow white and gold candles lit in their honor, the neat stack of square silk pillows to kneel on, the scent—a mix of cedar, incense, and October coldness. I have no inklings towards Buddhism. In that moment of happened-upon solitude, though, in a place of such age and beauty, I considered that life as a monk (well, a nun for me) wouldn’t be too bad.

Later that evening, in sharp contrast to my temple moment, I shot a gun. It was not something I planned on doing in Korea or really anywhere, but I ran into a program friend that evening in the hotel lobby. “What are you up to tonight Liz?” he asked. I admitted that I wasn’t sure. “We’re going to shoot glocks if you want to come,” he said. In the moment I couldn’t think of a real reason not to; I have done so many random things for the first time in Korea that I figured I might as well add “shoot a glock” (also, I thought, learn what “glock” actually means) to the list. 15 minutes later I was at the front desk of a shooting range with five guys from my language class at orientation negotiating bullet prices in a bad mix of Korean and English with the man at the counter. 25 minutes later I was in a small room listening to a man explaining to me in very fast Korean where to put my feet and how to tilt the gun when shooting. 30 minutes later all of the reasons to not shoot a glock that I couldn’t come up with in the hotel lobby came flooding: I am in Korea and though I don’t imagine it’s complicated, I cannot understand the safety instructions. I was baptized in a Mennonite church. I am a staunch advocate of gun control. I don’t even like violent video games. Things that kill people should not be used recreationally. Guns, in general, are bad and I am a hypocrite if I shoot one.

Somehow, though, my curiosity edged out over my ideals. 35 minutes later I put on the headphones, the man adjusted my legs, and I fired. I shot a hole through the very corner of the paper in front of me, quite far from the target. The bullet shell clanked to the floor. I shot three more times. The last shot I aimed properly through the viewfinder and hit the target, miraculously, in the center. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I made the owner high-five me.

In the gun range lobby, the man took me and herded me (it’s common in general here for people to just move you around when they want you to go somewhere) to the corner and started taking things off the wall. “You! Cowboy!” he exclaimed, as he pulled off a cowboy hat off the wall and stuffed it on my head. He draped a cartridge belt over my shoulders and stuffed two plastic guns in my hands in what I now understood to be the picture corner. My language class friends joined me and the elderly lady I think was the range bookkeeper was coaxed into the group as well. “One, two, three!” we counted in Korean and the gun range owner snapped a bazaar picture on a very bazaar day.

ps-- shout-out to Paul, Amber, and my mom for sending mail!

recents things that made me laugh

2007-10-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

1. Conversation with my host sister and host father last evening in the elevator up to our apartment:

Me: Tonight I made salsa with my friends. Do you know "salsa?"
HS: Oh, salsa sauce! I know it. I made it in academy.
Me: Yes, we used tomatoes, onion, and lime. I like salsa.
HD: (thinking) Sooooooolsa....soooooolsa. Ah! Basuh balluh!
Me: Um, baseball?!
HD: Yes! Saaaaamy Soooooolsa. Ah, I like too. So good.

2. The following link (thanks, Hillary!): http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/27StuartZehner.html

3. The underwear stores I pass on the way to yoga. There are three on one block that all display matching men and women's underwear sets in the window. They are called "couples' underwear," as you buy a set with/for your significant other.

This week one of the sets was out of sparkly gold snakeskin material. It is never a dull walk home.

giving thanks

2007-10-12T02:48:00.000-07:00

This is a late post.

Four weeks ago I celebrated Chuseok, a major Korean holiday that centers around celebration of fall harvest and worship of one's ancestors. My host family left for the mainland to visit family, but I was adopted by one of the teachers at my school and spent the day at her house.

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by the generosity and friendliness of the people here. This teacher is a great example. Ms. Kim teaches home economics and doesn't speak English, but since I came here she has gone out of her way to try to talk to me at school. With the language limitations on both sides, our conversations have always been really short. When she found out third-hand that I might not have plans for Chuseok, though, she had her daughter Soo Young, who speaks English really well, call me and ask me over. She picked me up at my apartment and we drove a good 30 minutes to her house out in the country.

Chuseok had been described to me as the Korean Thanksgiving. It had apparently been described to Ms. Kim this way as well, because she kept calling it Thanksgiving, not Chuseok, when she was talking to me. In some ways the holidays were similar: it is in the fall and around the time of harvest. We ate a lot of food and watched TV afterwards. There were some endearing family moments and some awkward ones (when one group of relatives came, they didn't come inside for 15 minutes. 11 year-old Soo Young explained quite plainly, "we don't like them"). In some ways they are very different: whole salted fish and lots of kimchi instead of turkey, spots for the table on the floor instead of chairs, and....food served to the dead as well as the living. Before we ate, the men bowed multiple times to a beautiful display of food and incense set out to honor their ancestors. Here, Ms. Kim's husband adds the finishing touches:

Other highlights included Soo Young and I bowing to the ancestors while 15 men in suits looked on and Ms. Kim took my picture, Soo Young and I bonding over the Disney Channel and social networking sites (Cyworld= Korea's Facebook, fyi), Ms. Kim walking around her garden pointing and say "typoon!!" emphatically to indicate where typhoon Nari had hurt her plants and teaching me to say "butterfly" in Korean, and being gently corrected for mixing up the word for "smart" (dokdok hada) with the word for "fat" (dungdung hada).

I left with a paper bag full of leftovers, a strong resolve to practice Korean more often, a sense of gratitude towards the Kims, and a note to self to wear a slightly longer sweater next time I'm bowing in front of a large group of people.

No, I didn't flash anyone; I just came close. :)

ode to korean supermarkets

2007-10-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

I go shopping with my host mom every week or so, but the phenomenon that is Korean supermarkets still hasn’t worn off on me. I love them. Some highlights from a recent trip to Lotte Mart:

-Seafood. I’m pretty sure the seafood section where I live has more kinds of sea life than the average aquarium. Giant eels, swordfish, mussels bigger than my hand, shellfish I have never seen. The assortment is wide, impressive, and still shocks me a little. Want a whole octopus? No problem! Twenty whole fish strung on a rope? Sure! How about some cut-up fish with their heads together?

-Prepared food. If shopping is making you hungry, park your cart for a second, stroll up to the ready-to-eat food section, and slurp down a bowl of noodles at the counter. During this trip my host mom and I split a skewer of fish cake in broth and a bowl of cold noodles, similar to Japaneseudon. I think I scored major points with my host mom when I told her that I liked these noodles better than udon because they tasted more like kimchi.

-Fruit. Jeju Island is known for tangerines, and there is inevitably a large tangerine section in the supermarkets here. If you’re lucky (as we were), the sample man might slip you a whole tangerine or two as you go by.

-Staple food. In

America

, I bought the small bags of rice, usually on a lower shelf, underneath the sugar in the baking supplies section. In

Korea

, rice comes in 20 kg bags in its own--large--section right before checkout.

long and overdue

2007-09-24T02:25:00.000-07:00

Which is correct? In the past week, I have:

a. Survived a typhoon
b. Received a wrapped present of cooking oil and tuna
c. Folded and colored 15 paper "cootie catchers"

Answer: all of the above.

Explanation for a. (typhoon):
Typhoon Nari hit Korea last Sunday. I was in Jeju City, a town an hour north of Seogwipo visiting friends for the weekend. We had a great, relaxing Saturday together: a movie, a visit to the English-language bookstore, Indian food, and an evening trip to a jjinlilbang (bathhouse). It rained some, but not enough to warrant any changes to our plans. I spent the night with my friends Glypie and Hillary at Hillary's host family's apartment. We woke up the next morning to heavy rain. As short bouts of rain are routine here, we took no mind and set out to walk to a grocery store two blocks away. Hillary had promised her host brother she would make pudding for his birthday, and we needed supplies. Within ten seconds of being outside, however, we were drenched. Completely soaked. Sheets of rain and powerful swirls of wind made it hard to see. Out umbrellas flipped inside and out. The top of mine broke off in the parking lot of the apartment. We stumbled in, dripping, to the grocery store and bought pudding stuff and another umbrella. The new umbrella broke fifteen seconds after stepping outside. Our plan to walk to a further store for dry clothes was quickly aborted when we realized that not only was it difficult to walk in a straight line, it was difficult to see across the street.

We showed up at Hillary's apartment with pudding supplies, food for breakfast, and four broken umbrellas between the three of us. We changed into dry clothes, trashed the umbrellas, and started on the pudding. The rain pummeled the sides of the apartment; in the kitchen, rain sneaked steadily under the windowsill into a bucket below. The power went out. We lit candles. Over the next six hours, we finished the pudding, took a nap to the sounds of heavy rain, played cards, and regularly had Hillary's host sister call the bus station for us to see if the buses were running to Seogwipo or Glypie's town, Hallim. By 8 PM, we still had no power and still no answer at the bus station. As a last resort, Hillary's host dad drove us to the bus station to double-check. The station was flooded and lit by candles. It had lost power and phone service, but the buses were indeed still running. I got on the next one to Seogwipo. Though the rain had eased up, power was still out throughout the majority of the city. With no street lights or traffic lights, the ride home was dark. I did manage to see some the typhoon's damage, though-- fallen trees, broken windows, papers suctioned to fences. When I made it home, Kumju informed me they had moved my bed from its spot next to the window when rain started coming into my room-- a pretty impressive feat as I live on the sixth story of one of the nicest and newest apartments in the city. Typhoons are common on Jeju Island, but apparently this was the worst in 80 years.

Explanation for b. (gifts):
Gifts are a funny thing in Korea. While in America our thought is usually, "what can I buy them that they wouldn't buy for themselves?", in Korea this is a ridiculous notion. Practical/survival-necessary gifts-- socks, food, soap, underwear, and shampoo are the norm, even for people you don't know well at all. This weekend is a holiday for Koreans, and in honor of it my principal had identical gift bags for all of the teachers. I picked up mine on the way our of school. "Do you like fish? How do Americans eat tuna?" my coteacher asked me on the way home. Thinking she was making conversation, I answered without much consideration. Later, I opened my bag. Inside was a pretty cardboard box that contained a nicely packed gift set of...six cans of tuna and two big plastic bottles of cooking oil. Harry and David look quite frivolous by Korean standards.

Explanation for c. (cootie catchers):
This week, along with many of my friends, I taught a lesson on the future tense and fortunes. We folded paper to make handheld fortune tellers, or "cootie catchers." If you think you don't know what I'm talking about, you do-- think back to your own middle school and I guarantee you've seen one. As I teach every student in my school, this meant that I demonstrated how to hold paper into cookie catchers 10 separate times for my first and second-graders (equivalent of 7th and 8th grade in the U.S.). I also listened to the same pop song for my third grade class 18 times on Thursday and Friday. Korea is great for building patience.

The cootie catchers were pretty fun, though. Most of the girls wrote things like, "you will travel to Seoul" and "you will marry ____ (Korean pop star X)" in theirs, but I also got the following:

"You will become Nate's (my little brother) girlfriend."
"You will watch your boyfriend propose to another girl."
"You will be ugly for all time."
"You will die in 10 seconds."

And the one that made me laugh the hardest:

"You will get constipation."

I guess poop jokes are universal.

PS-- public shout-out to awesome people at home or abroad (Maryann)! I got some mail this week and it really made my day. I'm blessed to have my friends and family. Thanks!

family

2007-09-08T06:27:00.001-07:00

On the left is Kumju, my 11 year-old host sister. She loves English books, science, sugary cereal, ginseng tea, and making crafts. Yesterday she gave me a decoration she made by wrapping bright yarn around chopsticks. I told her I loved it, so today she came into my room with extra yarn and chopsticks and told me since I liked it she would teach me to make more decorations to send to my family in America. She also told me that her goal in life is to be a doctor in Africa to help the poor and sick (after she goes to Harvard). She has enough heart and spunk for three people.

In the middle is her older sister, Yaegi. Yaegi likes math, science, Korean pop music, and like every student at my school, Disney’s High School Musical. Yaegi is 13 and really smart, but according to her mom recently stopped finishing all of her homework and (!) started buying fashion magazines. I think she’s generally making it through adolescence pretty well, though, as those were her mom’s only real complaints.

On the far right is Mrs. Lee herself, my host mom. She is a radiologist and works at the clinic her husband, Mr. Lee, manages. I go out with her a lot, either to eat or pick up/drop off Yaegi and Kumju from academy. I really like talking with her. She is very small—a good two inches shorter than I am with her Korean appropriately high heels—but opinionated and smart. I don’t have a picture of my host dad, but I like him a lot as well. We don’t talk a ton, as his English is only a little better than my Korean, but he has a really warm personality and laughs a lot. He also installed a wireless router for me, which is great.

In this picture you might notice a box of Wheat Thins. That’s in homage to my American family—I got a spectacular care package full of English-language news magazines and American snacks this week. It was pretty fun explaining "granola bar" to my host family, and the Wheat Thins got good reviews as well.

in my office

2007-08-29T22:16:00.000-07:00

teaching/ please tell me where the gym is

2007-08-29T02:20:00.000-07:00

I am drowning in names. I started teaching on Monday. I have 15 different classes of middle-school girls wearing the same uniform each week. That's something like 530 identically dressed Korean girls around the same age. I want to learn all of their names, but I think it might be futile. Yesterday I asked students who came into my office what their names were, but 24 hours later I've given up on that as a conversation starter. I'm just not going to remember.

Outside of having to answer the question "teacher, you remember my name?" things during the first week are going pretty well. On Monday I introduced myself in broken Korean to the other teachers at the school, said hello in English and Korean to the students are an outdoor assembly, and then started my first class. Teaching this week isn't too challenging; I have the students ask me questions about myself from cards I give them and run through a corresponding powerpoint about my family and hometown. If they ask a question they come up with, I give them candy. I 'm getting a little tired of talking about myself, but on the whole it's gone decently. For the make-your-own question part, I've gotten "How old are you?" and "Do you have boyfriend?" in all of my classes, but I've also been asked, "What is your dream? " "What is your favorite fruit?" "What is your bloodtype?" and, probably the most random, "Did you eat breakfast?"

Overall, I like my school. The girls here are incredibly cute and energetic, I have my own office, and the other English teachers are really nice to me. Learning to teach will take time and practice if I want to engage all of the students —today some of the girls were zoning out-- but I am optimistic that I' ll get better. My homestay is also going well.

I do have moments, though, where I really struggle. Last week I signed up for yoga classes at a gym in town. It's a little over a mile from my apartment and off of the main rotary. I can find the rotary without difficulty, but after that I don't know where much is. Last night I tried to make it to my first yoga class and got horribly lost. Except for the four main roads and the rotary, the streets here do not have names. Any of them. There are few obvious landmarks or big buildings, either. Most of the streets here are nameless tiny, curved alleys with restaurants and convenience stores and small apartment buildings that to me all look the same and seem to repeat over and over. I had forgotten both my phrasebook and my cell phone, and no one I saw for two miles was, if not non-Korean, at least non-Asian. I went into a convenience store and asked where the gym was, but as I don't know how to say "gym" in Korean and had no way of finding out, the storegirl looked lost and said something that sounded like "bread store" in English. In hopes that she actually meant "bread store" as in, there are English speakers in the bread store, try asking there — I went to the closest bakery. Five people in the "bread store" tried to help me, but none of them spoke English, I still didn't know the word for gym, and my attempts to pantomime "gym" got understandably crazy looks. Eventually I saw a store I had heard about from the teacher at my school last year; she had been friends with the owner of this store and said that she spoke English. The shop owner did; she was really kind and drew a map for me. With her guidance, I eventually found the gym, though I missed the yoga class and almost broke down when trying to explain that I had a membership and wanted a locker to the very confused man at the front desk.

I am happy here, but there are times when I miss the United States and the ease of belonging very much.

maybe it's american addresses that are backwards...

2007-08-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

My address for the rest of the year-- you really do write it in this order:

Republic of Korea
Jeju-Do
Seogwipo City. Donghong-Dong 414-1
Renoyss City 1. Apt. 601 Ho
My name
697-803

and then i went to the dmz. and then i moved to an island.

2007-08-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

On Monday the 70 of us packed into two buses and headed north. After two hours on a windy, hilly road we stopped at our first destination: South Korea’s Peace Dam. According to our guide, North Korea built a dam close to the border, and South Korea, worried about potential flood damage if North Korea let the water out, built a larger dam nearby and declared it a symbol of peace. The Peace Dam was interesting, but more so was the bus ride as we continued north. The area close to the DMZ is a curious mixture of real natural beauty—dark green canopied hills, rare Korean pine trees, small, clear streams—and reminders of the area’s political volatility. Nestled into the lush landscape are uniformed men on patrol, army stations, and red signs cautioning against sections suspected of containing land mines from the Korean War.

We stopped at Chilsung, an observation post just before the DMZ. From the windows of the building, we had a decent view of both the DMZ (the 2.5 mile-wide de-militarized zone between North and South Korea) and the North. Apparently the DMZ is the most heavily fortified border in the world and there are canons (yes, canons) on both sides ready to go at any time. Through binoculars we did see North Korean soldiers, but I’m guessing there wasn’t any immediate danger as we saw them bathing in a stream.

Two days after the DMZ visit, we headed off to Yonsei University in Seoul for final workshops and some shopping. On Friday we met our school officials and nervously headed off with them to our respective areas around Korea. For most people, this meant a bus ride. For those of us on Jeju Island, it also meant two hours in the airport and a plane ride. As I’m on the south coast of the island, for me this meant a car ride as well. My co-teacher and principal met me in Seoul, and we traveled back as a group. Jin, my co-teacher, is really energetic, helpful, and great at English. My principal is polite but sort of disinterested—regardless of whether I was speaking English or Korean he nodded and went “mmmm” when I talked. I am grateful, though, that they both understood how tired I was and let me sleep through most of the trip.

I met my host family late Friday evening. I think I was more anxious then any first day of school/ date/ important thing in the last five years. I don’t have any real complaints, though—my family is really kind. I have a large room in their apartment on the sixth floor with a view of a Family Mart below and a mountain in the background. My host parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lee, are doctors. Mrs. Lee knows some English. Mr. Lee doesn’t, but he comes off as warm and good-humored. I have two host sisters, ages 12 and 14, who spend at least 4 hours a day taking classes in things like English and math after school. I live in an extremely talented family that makes me guilty for not studying more. I still haven’t figured out the bowing thing and have dropped something with my chopsticks at every meal (excluding breakfast, where we thankfully use spoons), but I’m getting by and am learning. Tomorrow I should be getting a cell phone, and on Monday I teach my first classes. Wish me luck!

small victories at the end

2007-08-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes living in Korea seems, more than anything, like a giant lesson in humility. On the average day here, I spend the first chunk sitting in a classroom with a beginning language textbook listening to a woman not much older than me try to explain how to say things like “the weather is sunny” and “today is Tuesday” in Korean. At lunch and dinner, I don’t know what dishes I’m eating or how to mix them. I’ve only recently figured out what buttons to press on the Korean washing machines. This week, though, I can claim a few small accomplishments. Today was our last day of tae kwon do and I got to prance around in a yellow belt. Last week we had a test on punching, blocking, and the three kicks we’ve learned. I got to trade in my white belt for a yellow one. It’s the easiest TKD test you can take, but whatever—I’ll roundhouse kick anyone who makes fun of me. :) I also officially finished language classes, taught my first classes for an English summer camp Fulbright holds, and visited a jinjjilbang (Korean bathhouse—I want to post about it later).

Last night we celebrated the end of language classes. As difficult as Korean is for me, I really love our songsangnims (teachers) and feel a real camaraderie with the people in my class section. It’s normal to go out for food, drinks, and/or karaoke (really popular) with your teachers here, so all of class 1C (that's what Laura and I are signing in the picture)--teachers included-- went out last night.

Tomorrow is graduation from language classes. In one week I leave orientation and head to Jeju Island to start teaching. Things are winding down quickly!

international forensics/ at least i can talk about ice cream

2007-08-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Elizabeth. My birthday is March 9th. I'm from Oregon. I'm American, but now I live in Korea. I plan to return to America in one year.

Every day, I go to school. At school, I study. Korean is difficult, but I like it. After class, I go to the cafeteria. I eat rice and kimchi. I eat the cafeteria meals, so I am not happy. After that, I go to the supermarket. I like Melon Bars. They are cheap and delicious! I eat ice cream, so, I am happy. Next, I go to tae kwon do. Tae kwon do is exciting.

Nice to meet you!

________________

Today was speech day in my language class. This took me three drafts to write and three hours to memorize.

the good and the bad

2007-07-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

Bad news: My Hangeul. I feel like my learning Korean is similar to pounding a square peg into a round hole. The only words I use everyday that I’ve really added to my Korean vocab are bathroom, cafeteria, and teacher, and—on a good day, a “how much is it?” My language teachers are energetic and persistent, my roommate, fluent in the language, is willing to help, and between my notes, textbook, workbook, phrasebook, and dictionary I have a decent Korean library. Three weeks into classes, though, I still mess up with pronunciation and forming full sentences. I’m not being humble; I’m actually in remedial classes until my test scores here improve. I have a stack of notecards, though, and I’m hoping next week will be better.

Good news: I'm living on an island in a few weeks. Yesterday they announced our preliminary school placements for next year. I’m teaching at an all-girls middle school in Seogwipo, a small town on the south coast of Jeju Island. Jeju is the only inhabited Korean island. I am really pumped to bike around the island (a 3-day trip!) and walk to the ocean (20 minutes from my school). I’ll be around 12 other people from my program, which is great, and my school comes highly recommended by the Fulbrighter who taught there last year. Here's a map and a picture from the school's website. Pray my Hangeul gets better and I can actually learn to pronounce the names of cute students like these correctly...

i ate leaves

2007-07-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Songisan, a national park in the middle of Korea. All of the Fulbrighters spent the weekend there for a conference/ retreat/ break from Korean language classes. We toured a Buddhist temple, complete with this giant gold Buddha. Quiet, nearly empty and surrounded by green hills…I could have spent a lot of time there.

Songisan is a mountain town for Korean tourists, and has a lot of unique food. Our first meal in Songisan had four different kinds of roots, three kinds of mushrooms and something like six kinds of plants to eat, all in small plates. In the left-hand corner of the photo are, no joke, deep-fried leaves and twigs. I don’t know if I’d eat them regularly but they were fun to try.

We spent Saturday hiking. Songnisan is lush, beautiful, and very hilly. I've never seen a hike more full of ups and downs. It was definitely worth it, though. The weather was perfect, I got to use my Korean (well, at least anyeonghaseyo) with the hikers we passed on the trail, the view was gorgeous, and I got a thigh workout my tae kwon do master would be proud of. Plus, at the beginning and ending of the trail there were "public fountains." The water was from natural springs in the mountains, and brightly colored ladles were chained to a rock for anyone to drink out of. I'm not sure if it was sanitary, but I liked the idea and the water tasted great.

words and food

2007-07-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Life lately has been a whirlwind of Korean language classes, cultural and teaching workshops, and planned activities. I spend the first four hours of the day in Korean immersion classes. I have technically learned something like 200 vocab words and should be able to ask about your hobbies, nationality, and job…in reality, however, the only phrases I’ve integrated into my daily conversation are hello (annyeong haseyo) and thank you (kamsamnida), I can’t remember half of my vocab cards and I reverse my vowels. My learning curve is steeeeep. I am having some fun sounding out words, though. Some words in Korea are borrowed from English, but written out phonetically in Hangeul. I got really excited when I sounded out a Hangeul sign that sounded out to “ah-see-kop-ee vs. ah-see-cuh-reem” outside of a restaurant and figured out what it meant.

The afternoons and evenings are full of lectures and activity classes. So far I’ve had hanji (Korean paper crafts), cooking (the picture is with my cooking group) and today was my first day of tae kwon do. Crafts, cooking, and sports—it just hit me that I signed up for three activity classes in things I am pretty bad at. I'll write more about the classes here later, but here's another picture from cooking class. We made pindatettok, a Korean pancake with a batter and scallion base, topped here with mussels, octopus and shrimp. It was delicious and made up for at least a couple day's worth of Tuesday breakfasts....

In between classes, we eat three meals a day in the cafeteria. There is rice and kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) at every meal, including breakfast. All of the food is Korea or Asian, with one exception: Tuesday’s Western Breakfast. Last week Western Breakfast meant black bean milk (just what it sounds like), cherry tomatoes, white bread for toast, a mashed potato thing, soup, and small, rectangular fried shrimp with ketchup. Mmmmm. I think I"ll stick with rice.

address for orientation!

2007-07-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

My name (my organization)
c/o Director of Dormitories
Kangwon National University
Chuncheon, South Korea 200-701

in korea

2007-07-07T15:35:00.001-07:00

I made it to Korea. Maia, another Willamette alumn on the program, and I had the same flight from PDX to LA. The benefits of the layover were that I got to see awesome people-- my brother and friend Darryl-- during the break. The bad part is that our bags never left after the layover, and my stuff is only now in transit from the U.S. to Korea. I have made a lot of friends as I've borrowed clothes and toiletries from other Fulbrighters.

The plane ride to Korea was noteworthy in that they gave you yellow pillows, purple blankets, and pastel turquoise socks on the plane. The huge plane of sleeping people kind of resembled an Easter basket.

I'm happy here so far. The country is beautiful-- very lush and clean-- and I liked my first day of Korean food. The program is going to be a challenge, though: four hours of language class a day, culture classes in the afternoon, lots of assignments and deadlines. I have six weeks of orientation before I'm sent to a host family and it looks like they want you be very prepared. The only Korean I know now is the alphabet, and I've been trying to sound out words I see on signs and papers. I have no idea what anything means, but I can sort of pronounce words.

In terms of how I'm adjusting to culture...it varies. I have a 40% success rate after my first day of remembering to put toilet paper in the trash, not the toilet (they can clog). I bought some forest-flavored toothpaste yesterday to hold me over until my bags come, and while it's kind of like eating a pine tree, it isn't half bad. I am starting to remember to take off my sandals when I enter our dorm room (there's a ledge on the floor for that purpose). Yesterday I tried a melon bar-- bascially honeydew icecream on a stick-- and it was delicious.

I'm off to my first Korean breakfast.

preparations and plot lines

2007-07-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

Coupled with packing, I've been cleaning out my closet in my bedroom at home. Today I came across two rolled-up posters entitled "Elizabeth's Life." I had the same-- very creative-- teacher in fifth and eighth grade. Both times I had her, she made us write and illustrate "plot lines" of our lives in a combined attempt to get us thinking about the future and teach the proper components of a story (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution).

The posters are great windows to my thoughts at different periods. In fifth grade, the major events I used for rising action were things like the family trip to Disneyland, getting a dog, and the time I burned the bottom of my feet on a trip to the beach. I predicted that the peak of my life would be winning the Caldecott Medal (really into reading at the time, winning an award for writing a children's book was the most exciting thing I could imagine for anyone). I had 2007 as the year I both graduated from college (accurate prediction) and the year I got married (way off). Deep into a theatre phase, my eighth grade life plot line chronicled every part in every school play-- 2007, version eighth grade, was all about off-Broadway shows.

It's funny how quickly and how much interest change. Tomorrow I leave for South Korea, something completely unrelated to either plot line. I'm excited, though. I'll be there until the end of July next year. The program begins with six weeks of language and teaching practice classes with 69 other students at a university in Chuncheon. After orientation, we are placed in different cities, where we stay with host families and teach in secondary schools. None of it has a connection to books or theatre, but I'm hoping this might inspire a new plot line.