I have this sort of cheesy belief in reoccurring themes - images and lessons that keep coming back to me. It's one of the many meanings behind my tattoo (an infinity symbol on the back of my kneck) - this belief in return and cycles. Anyway, one of my themes or favorite things so far in life is maps and directions. Growing up, I couldn't get lost. I have a specific memory of directing my family around Hawaii (as a 10 year old) when they'd made a wrong turn - against my direction. My older brother would ask me to go places with him just because he wasn't 100% sure where he was going. My friends here in SoKo know just to follow me and my google maps. I feel unsettled when I don't know where the cardinal directions are at any given moment. Once I got my iPhone all set up here in Korea, I felt so much more comfortable simply because I could map where I was. I couldn't necessarily READ the maps, but I could figure some more things out.
So, with that in mind, I spend a significant amount of time on Google Maps - looking up new restaurants, finding different routes to the same places I frequent, learning more about countries I dream of visiting, giving people directions, etc. I discovered some time this winter that I could Street View my school AND my apartment! The street views are from 2009, but it's still my Gu (the word for district/area). I thought I'd share little snippets of my gu witchoo, in case you wondered what my daily life looks like.
This is my school and this is my apartment. To those of you who are new to the wonders of Google Maps, look down at the bottom right corner of the map. There should be a little yellow man. Click on him, and drag him to the spot on the map I've indicated. It'll show you a street view of the location! Ba-Boom!
If you're a geo/directional weirdo like me, check this out: http://geoguessr.com/
Such a solid time waster. SO interesting!
Second on my list of random thoughts I considered worth sharing:
I was reading this post earlier today and thought it was really well written. I don't identify with everything written there, but I think it's great. I've been thinking a lot about #8 on that list - what it means to be a foreigner. Even though I grew up in white suburbia, I still lived in a fairly diverse city. I am now used to it, but for a while when I moved here I found myself surprised at how rarely I saw someone who isn't Korean (who doesn't work at my school). I live outside of the city center where you might see more foreigners. What I find totally interesting is that Seoul has a foreigner area - not a China Town, little Italy, Russian area, etc... just one area for all (there are some exceptions). So, if you want to eat non korean (or koreanized) food or see non korean people... chances are you'll have to go to Itaewon. It was a jarring experience at first, walking into a department store and seeing nothing and no one you recognized or identified with. Being foreign, being an outsider, approaching your whole existence as a learner with humility, asking for acceptance.... it's an incredible experience. Jerry Jones wrote in the blog post above, "It ain't always pretty. In fact it's often quite messy" and I couldn't agree more. Some days it's unendingly frustrating (these days usually have a lot to do with how much I've used a sidewalk... AGH!), and some days it's so blasé and normal. Either way, it's humbling. It's eye opening. Most of all, it's invaluable.
Third on my list of random thoughts I considered worth sharing:
8th period rolls around every week day and it's always an experience. 20 Korean(ish) high schoolers, their stringed instruments, and me. It happens on the daily. Recently they've been coming in and they've been nosier. Band kids are notoriously loud... and choir kids have a bit of reputation as well... but string kids are just a weird breed (in my opinion). The band teacher and choir teacher have come into my room at the beginning of class or right before the bell rings and have been struck with how quiet my students are. Not anymore! I think it's that AP tests are done and seniors only have 9 school days left (OH MY GOD, WHAT?!). Kids are getting antsy. Anyway.... it really hit me this last week that I'm going to miss my nuggets. I think that I will be in Minnesota this summer, really enjoying the low population density, the company of my family and friends, salty food, and the license to sing loudly in a car I'm driving..... and suddenly a pang of missing SoKo and my Korean kids will hit me. At some point, I'm going to want to be back in my 8th period class, hanging out with my awesome students, making music. It always goes this way, I think. As a teacher, I think you're supposed to get attached to kids. I'm not their parent... but it sort of feels like it (some days more than others). They have a way of wiggling their into your heart. I remember having so much trouble with this class of junior boys... ugh.. the frustration. Now, with three weeks left in the school year... they and I have both realized how much we'll miss each other if they can't be in orchestra next year (which is pretty likely going to happen with this crew and their scheduling issues). I believe I wrote about this earlier in the year - I thought when I moved to SoKo, it'd be the end of the goodbyes. WRONG! I learned in the winter that I needed to be preparing to say goodbye to my colleagues as they looked for new positions for the coming school year... and now I'm learning that I have to say goodbye to some of the people I spend my every day with. The people I essentially came here for (besides myself). I'm here because students want to learn. I'm here specifically because those 20 kids want to be in orchestra. I get up and go to school every day because those 60 kids (K-12) love music, and I have the joy of planning that little piece of their lives. And now it's almost time to say goodbye. What a journey it's been. First year of teaching, almost done. Holy balls, I can't believe it. Someone pinch me. More likely... someone please wake me up because I'll likely be a zombie by the time the end gets here!
Monday, May 26, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Outsourced
I think this is pretty fair.
http://www.cracked.com/article_21097_the-6-strangest-things-nobody-tells-you-about-life-in-korea.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_21097_the-6-strangest-things-nobody-tells-you-about-life-in-korea.html
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Making up for lost time
In the fall I went to Tsushima and blogged about it, and now I'd like to tell you about my more recent travel! For spring break I went to Bali with my friend (a fellow Luther alum!), Sydnie. She's been teaching band in Tokyo at an international school and I visited her for Thanksgiving! Sydnie and I traveled separately to Bali, meeting up in the airport just after immigration. Once we grabbed our luggage, we found Sydnie's cousin, Annie, who lives in Ubud. She had come to the airport with her 2-ish year old daughter, Lantana (Nana for short) in a taxi. A big reason this vacation was SO incredible is that Annie and her husband Made live in Bali and speak Indonesian (or was it Balinese? I couldn't really keep the two languages apart). Annie met Made when she was performing or studying in Bali, and they both know a lot about Balinese performance arts (theatre, dance, and music). Made is from Bali and Annie studied Asian Theatre for her master's degree - smart and wonderfully welcoming people.
I sort of want to give you a day by day, but I could write about this vacation for pages and pages… so I think it'd be best to just give you "the best of" in case you decide to visit this incredible place.
Sydnie and I planned to split our time on the island between two locations - Ubud and Sanur. I think this was an excellent choice - we loved the different sides of Bali that we got to see, and the balance we struck between seeing it all and getting to relax :) Ubud is more of an artsy, cultural center and Sanur was more resort-y. We steered clear of Kuta, the absolute resort center and enjoyed Sanur's calm and more natural feel. Sydnie and I found our hotels/home stays on Airbnb.com - I heard about this website from my friend Meg and decided to give it a go. There are a lot of "home stays" on this website, and I wasn't really sure what that meant. We chose a hotel in Sanur and a home stay in Ubud. The home stay was very much a hotel - it's just that one family owned and operated it. We had our own cabin/hut/building (Balinese compounds are hard for me to explain) with a bathroom and two beds. Breakfast was included, and it was just outside of Ubud with a beautiful view of the rice paddies. The only thing I would have done differently is to have chosen a home stay or hotel in Ubud that also had a pool. It got HOT and that would've been so nice. It was SO reasonably priced. In Sanur, we stayed in a very straightforward hotel. One thing I will say about Sanur is that it felt a little empty - that may be because we were traveling during a non-peak time (peak travel time in Bali is December and January), or because we stayed there on a Wednesday through Saturday… but it was a little TOO quiet for me. Anyway, still a really positive experience.
While we were in Ubud, Annie and Made drove and showed us around - we were so fortunate to have them as our guides. It was just perfect that we, a pair of music teachers, had performers and musically minded people to show us Balinese culture. Here's some of the stuff we experienced in Bali:
Wayang:
We met a wayang (puppet) maker who was preparing for his debut as a wayang performer. Nana was playing with the puppets while Made was goofing around, telling stories with the puppets for fun. The puppets we learned about were hand made from leather and generally last 40 or 50 years.
Wayangs (as they were explained to me) can take many forms. The one we attended was part of a temple's annual celebration. The Balinese calendar is different, and the community celebrates their temple's birthday, sort of. The Wayang can be hours long and is a big event - shutting down the streets for the performance. What's going on in this photo above is a puppet performance. You can see the large flame behind the fabric. Also behind the fabric is a team - a couple gamelan players and the main puppet guy. The puppet guy is a huge deal - He moves the puppets, does their voices, and uses little wooden hammers held by his toes to give cues, punctuate sentences, and for sound effects. All while sitting under a flame. Intense.
Costume Shop:
Annie and Made are in the process of preparing to be professors at The Univeristy of Hawaii (starting in January 2015, if I remember correctly). Part of their job while they'll be there is to coordinate and put together a large performance, so they've been ordering costume pieces to bring to Hawaii for the performance. They took us to their preferred costume shop, which they said is definitely the best in Bali. A lot of businesses and stores are also the homes of the people who run them. We spent time in their courtyard behind the store front which was also their main work area. After trying some pieces on and looking at them in the display area we went to their work area to see them working on things. I was particularly interested in the beautiful gold patterned fabric and how that was made. Luckily, they had just returned from lunch and were willing to let me watch! You can learn a ton more about this stuff here, in case you're curious.
We also went to a flute maker's home, learning about modes from Made while the flute maker made us flutes to take home. Homes are very communal and different than what I'm used to - they live in compounds with their families (like, I'd live in a different building but right next to my parents, and my brothers would each have their own building, but we'd all share a kitchen or bathroom, depending on the size of the family). I didn't take many photos there - focused more on the music and not invading their privacy.
Musical performances:
One thing you NEED to do if you visit Bali is see the performance around sunset at Uluwatu Temple. It's totally touristy, but so worth it. We hired a cab driver for the day (more on that, later) and he took us around the grounds, wielding stick to scare off the monkeys. Yep. Anyway, he timed it pretty perfectly. We had a great time looking around, taking photos, and got good seats for the performance. This performance was a kecak dance - done without instruments, but instead with a group of men chanting and singing rhythmically. (Because it's such a popular tourist thing, you can find video of the performance I attended here - about 4 minutes in you can see them accompanying dance). Really beautiful to see this performance as the sun was setting.
Food:
Going to indonesia, I was a little nervous. As someone who doesn't eat a lot of seafood in the past, I was not anticipating an easy time. I was wrong. Indonesia is the home of tempeh, they love chicken satay, the seafood I did consume was deliciously fresh, and they were big fans of fresh juices (hell yeah!). I loved every single meal I ate in Bali - seriously. It was easier for us to just eat out, not really having a kitchen in our home stays or hotels and ended up trying lots of things. Annie and Made definitely helped in that department, taking us to their favorite warungs. Nearly every meal came with a delicious fruit salad (papaya, banana, pineapple, dragon fruit, and lychee) and you could get pretty much any fresh juice at all the warungs. I eventually tried avocado juice - I don't know that I'd consume that regularly, but it was pretty tasty!
Suggested Reading:
While I was in Bali I read Fragrant Rice - a book recommended to me by the college counselor at my school. She read it when she visited Bali some years ago and said it enriched her experience. Even though buying english books in Korea are more expensive… I decided it was worth it, and I was right! I loved reading about Balinese culture from a western (Australian) perspective while experiencing it. The author married a Balinese man and they own a hotel and a couple restaurants in Ubud. We went to their restaurant, Casa Luna and it was seriously incredible. If you go, you must get the black rice pudding. Anyway, it was helpful to have cultural/spiritual things explained as I experiencing them. The spiritual life is so intertwined with daily life in Bali - it's part of what makes the air and feeling so different on the island. I felt awful, continuously stepping on beautiful flowers on the ground… but it was so unavoidable. These offerings are made so regularly, you see them EVERYWHERE.
All in all - such a wonderfully enriching and relaxing vacation. I had a great time traveling with Sydnie, and her family was so welcoming and helpful. I learned a lot and had a great time. Flights to Bali can be pretty spendy, but once you get there everything is super cheap. I think I ended up paying $20 a night for hotels and home stays - and they absolutely fine quality. Meals were always under 5 dollars, unless I went nuts with a fresh juice AND a beer with my dinner. Seriously - you all should go.
Hit me up if you plan on going, I'd love to go back with you! :)
I sort of want to give you a day by day, but I could write about this vacation for pages and pages… so I think it'd be best to just give you "the best of" in case you decide to visit this incredible place.
Sydnie and I planned to split our time on the island between two locations - Ubud and Sanur. I think this was an excellent choice - we loved the different sides of Bali that we got to see, and the balance we struck between seeing it all and getting to relax :) Ubud is more of an artsy, cultural center and Sanur was more resort-y. We steered clear of Kuta, the absolute resort center and enjoyed Sanur's calm and more natural feel. Sydnie and I found our hotels/home stays on Airbnb.com - I heard about this website from my friend Meg and decided to give it a go. There are a lot of "home stays" on this website, and I wasn't really sure what that meant. We chose a hotel in Sanur and a home stay in Ubud. The home stay was very much a hotel - it's just that one family owned and operated it. We had our own cabin/hut/building (Balinese compounds are hard for me to explain) with a bathroom and two beds. Breakfast was included, and it was just outside of Ubud with a beautiful view of the rice paddies. The only thing I would have done differently is to have chosen a home stay or hotel in Ubud that also had a pool. It got HOT and that would've been so nice. It was SO reasonably priced. In Sanur, we stayed in a very straightforward hotel. One thing I will say about Sanur is that it felt a little empty - that may be because we were traveling during a non-peak time (peak travel time in Bali is December and January), or because we stayed there on a Wednesday through Saturday… but it was a little TOO quiet for me. Anyway, still a really positive experience.
While we were in Ubud, Annie and Made drove and showed us around - we were so fortunate to have them as our guides. It was just perfect that we, a pair of music teachers, had performers and musically minded people to show us Balinese culture. Here's some of the stuff we experienced in Bali:
Wayang:
We met a wayang (puppet) maker who was preparing for his debut as a wayang performer. Nana was playing with the puppets while Made was goofing around, telling stories with the puppets for fun. The puppets we learned about were hand made from leather and generally last 40 or 50 years.
These are two puppets of the same character - one is a Balinese representation and one
is a Javanese representation. So cool.
Here you see Nana and Annie hanging out in the puppet shop :)
Made playing with the puppets. So funny.
A day later we went to the puppet maker's debut as a Wayang performer.
Wayangs (as they were explained to me) can take many forms. The one we attended was part of a temple's annual celebration. The Balinese calendar is different, and the community celebrates their temple's birthday, sort of. The Wayang can be hours long and is a big event - shutting down the streets for the performance. What's going on in this photo above is a puppet performance. You can see the large flame behind the fabric. Also behind the fabric is a team - a couple gamelan players and the main puppet guy. The puppet guy is a huge deal - He moves the puppets, does their voices, and uses little wooden hammers held by his toes to give cues, punctuate sentences, and for sound effects. All while sitting under a flame. Intense.
Costume Shop:
Annie and Made are in the process of preparing to be professors at The Univeristy of Hawaii (starting in January 2015, if I remember correctly). Part of their job while they'll be there is to coordinate and put together a large performance, so they've been ordering costume pieces to bring to Hawaii for the performance. They took us to their preferred costume shop, which they said is definitely the best in Bali. A lot of businesses and stores are also the homes of the people who run them. We spent time in their courtyard behind the store front which was also their main work area. After trying some pieces on and looking at them in the display area we went to their work area to see them working on things. I was particularly interested in the beautiful gold patterned fabric and how that was made. Luckily, they had just returned from lunch and were willing to let me watch! You can learn a ton more about this stuff here, in case you're curious.
Here are Nana and Sydnie trying on some costume pieces.
This was them decorating the fabric - I was all kinds of snoopy. The fabric is woven in Bali - they decorated it with gold foil. You can see them putting glue onto the fabric through a plastic pattern. They take away the plastic pattern, roll on the foil, and then rip it off.
Work space. Costume pieces everywhere you look.
We also went to a flute maker's home, learning about modes from Made while the flute maker made us flutes to take home. Homes are very communal and different than what I'm used to - they live in compounds with their families (like, I'd live in a different building but right next to my parents, and my brothers would each have their own building, but we'd all share a kitchen or bathroom, depending on the size of the family). I didn't take many photos there - focused more on the music and not invading their privacy.
Musical performances:
Nana showed us Gamelan. This set was typically used for funerals - I initially
thought it was because of how they were decorated, but was wrong.
It actually had to do with the mode/notes of the instrument.
This is the entrance to the performance space we visited. We saw a women's gamelan rehearsal - Nana danced her way through the session and I was in awe. There were some traditional songs and a new composition. Super neat. Because these spaces are spiritual, you must have your shoulders covered and there were suggestions (but not rules) about wearing a sarang and belt.
Later on in the week we went to see a gamelan and dance performance Made was performing in.
His sister taught the dancers and even performed - really neat.
This is Jegog - a type of music performed on bamboo instruments, ranging in size.
One thing you NEED to do if you visit Bali is see the performance around sunset at Uluwatu Temple. It's totally touristy, but so worth it. We hired a cab driver for the day (more on that, later) and he took us around the grounds, wielding stick to scare off the monkeys. Yep. Anyway, he timed it pretty perfectly. We had a great time looking around, taking photos, and got good seats for the performance. This performance was a kecak dance - done without instruments, but instead with a group of men chanting and singing rhythmically. (Because it's such a popular tourist thing, you can find video of the performance I attended here - about 4 minutes in you can see them accompanying dance). Really beautiful to see this performance as the sun was setting.
Food:
Going to indonesia, I was a little nervous. As someone who doesn't eat a lot of seafood in the past, I was not anticipating an easy time. I was wrong. Indonesia is the home of tempeh, they love chicken satay, the seafood I did consume was deliciously fresh, and they were big fans of fresh juices (hell yeah!). I loved every single meal I ate in Bali - seriously. It was easier for us to just eat out, not really having a kitchen in our home stays or hotels and ended up trying lots of things. Annie and Made definitely helped in that department, taking us to their favorite warungs. Nearly every meal came with a delicious fruit salad (papaya, banana, pineapple, dragon fruit, and lychee) and you could get pretty much any fresh juice at all the warungs. I eventually tried avocado juice - I don't know that I'd consume that regularly, but it was pretty tasty!
The cab driver pretty much planned a day for us, and dropped us off at a restaurant literally ON THE BEACH where we had the opportunity to pick out the animals we wanted to consume for dinner. This was just outside of my comfort zone, but whatever. I picked out some shrimp and called it good. Super tasty, nice relaxing time on the beach just after dark.
Wow. Early morning visit to the market - what an over stimulating experience!
One of Annie and Made's favorites - really spicy fish. These fishes and their faces were a little out of my comfort zone, but I went for it. I think it was spicy enough that even if the fish was bad, I wouldn't have noticed :)
For lunch one day we stopped at one of Annie's favorite spots from when she was studying in Bali. Everything on the menu was vegetarian… we had no clue. They ordered us a sampler platter sort of thing and everything I tasted was delicious, and some things were strangely meat like!
Drinkin a young coconut. Yummers.
Suggested Reading:
While I was in Bali I read Fragrant Rice - a book recommended to me by the college counselor at my school. She read it when she visited Bali some years ago and said it enriched her experience. Even though buying english books in Korea are more expensive… I decided it was worth it, and I was right! I loved reading about Balinese culture from a western (Australian) perspective while experiencing it. The author married a Balinese man and they own a hotel and a couple restaurants in Ubud. We went to their restaurant, Casa Luna and it was seriously incredible. If you go, you must get the black rice pudding. Anyway, it was helpful to have cultural/spiritual things explained as I experiencing them. The spiritual life is so intertwined with daily life in Bali - it's part of what makes the air and feeling so different on the island. I felt awful, continuously stepping on beautiful flowers on the ground… but it was so unavoidable. These offerings are made so regularly, you see them EVERYWHERE.
Offerings in a temple:
Offerings on the sidewalk (partially squashed):
Decorated entrance to our home stay:
Another shot of the over-stimulating market - many materials for offerings sold at the market :)
All in all - such a wonderfully enriching and relaxing vacation. I had a great time traveling with Sydnie, and her family was so welcoming and helpful. I learned a lot and had a great time. Flights to Bali can be pretty spendy, but once you get there everything is super cheap. I think I ended up paying $20 a night for hotels and home stays - and they absolutely fine quality. Meals were always under 5 dollars, unless I went nuts with a fresh juice AND a beer with my dinner. Seriously - you all should go.
Hit me up if you plan on going, I'd love to go back with you! :)
Friday, May 2, 2014
Uniqueness and Replacements
Living in a foreign country teaches you about replacements and uniqueness in a way that living far from home just doesn't.
It's something a lot of my peers, colleagues, and friends are doing these days - moving away from home. It's a trying time, attempting to define yourself outside of the college classroom in a setting you've read about, talked about, and looked forward to for quite a while. A lot of my friends have said things about finding "their target" or a coffee shop that makes lattes just like our college coffee shop. We all are, in some way, in a new place trying to find our way - it helps to find things that are familiar. (Why did I cry when I found Caribou Coffee in Seoul? I'm unsure… but I wasn't about to fight it. They were happy tears.) Moving out of the midwest or out of the city you grew up in can be hard, and moving to a country or continent that isn't your own can seriously add to those challenges. What's really neat to me is thinking about the things that I will eventually miss about South Korea. When I went home for Christmas I was so excited to eat cheese and drive a car and go to chipotle and pump my own gas and have normal sized napkins and cups at tables (the list could go on and on), but I also found myself wishing for some steamed mandu from the place across the street and being able to speak freely about any topic (assuming most around me couldn't understand what I was saying). There are so many great things about both the USA and Korea, and it's been so interesting to see what holds its place in my heart, and what can trade with another or join the party alongside other comforts.
So, onto literal replacements:
I was making 300 Kringla for my school's Culture Fair and learned about sour milk. Sour milk is a common replacement for buttermilk, which was required for the aforementioned Kringla recipe. These cookies were a commitment. Seriously. Not knowing how to read the milk containers (okay, I can find milk and soy milk, now…), I just went the replacement route. I soured my own milk - super easy, worked well in the recipe, and I felt great about myself as an adult. Look, mom! I can follow a recipe AND replace ingredients in a foreign country! I bought all the ingredients, mixed up 3 batches in my bowl that was probably intended to be a children's cereal bowl (I'm exaggerating, but the struggle was real, friends) and refrigerated it over night. Brought my heavy triple batch of dough to school, kept it in the faculty fridge, and brought it over to Melinda's apartment after school, because she has an oven. I jumped ship and didn't make them into pretty knots because it was entirely to challenging and time consuming, but the cookies were well received.
One night this week Meg and I took a long time to get home, stopping at a bunch of places for a drink or a snack and conversation. We ended up talking a lot about our job and our students. She has such a unique view of our school, knowing our students as artists and through student government. We had student elections this week and one of the candidates speeches cited our school as home. She broke it down for me. As students who have feet in two countries (often South Korea and the USA), they are unique. I've had students tell me that they weren't accepted in Korean public or private schools - other students knew they were "from" another country, even though they spoke Korean, have Korean parents, eat Korean food, and had lived in Korea for part of their childhood. Our students are generally pretty accepting of each other, knowing that life outside our school grounds and outside of South Korea is very different for each person. We, as mostly American teachers, end up aiding students in walking social boundaries, helping them to see the world through two lenses at the same time, learning how to compare and evaluate objectively. I talk so often about the differences between Korea and America with my students - they're all planning on/hoping to go to college in the US, so why not prepare them thoroughly. From my VERY American perspective, my students seem so Korean… but I'm sure from Korea's very Korean perspective, my students seem so foreign (not all have a specifically American influence). It's all relative, but when you're a child of two cultures, you can end up feeling like you don't belong in either one of them.
We, as an adult community have a similar experience. I know I've written about it before, but it's such an invaluable and all encompassing part of my life, it's hard to NOT talk about it. The place where I work is where I have all of my friends (except like, 3 who I met in an expat choir), it's where I work out, it's where I eat a third of my meals, it's who I spend my weeknight dinners with, it's who I bring to the hospital with me, it's who I pick up medicine for, it's the birthdays and transitions I help with. I barely have friends who I don't work with. I don't see my family except through Skype or on visits home. This is college, guys. But it's college on crack because nothing is hypothetical - it's all real.
We, too, as teachers belong to a community of "others"- we're away from home, dedicated to a life of unknown and adventure in a subtle way. Without our own families or a serious pool of humans to reach out to (sorry - I haven't learned enough Korean to make friends with the scores of people I'm surrounded by), we understand each other's homes and past in a way that no one else does.
On a much less poetic note - life keeps moving fast.
-Sophie and Jeff's baby was born almost two weeks ago! Cora is such a sweet little baby and it has been a really heart warming experience to visit them at the hospital and be a there for Cora's baptism.
-Solo & Ensemble Festival is coming up - Melinda, Stephen, and I are hosting and it's been such a large task. Last year our school hosted last year, so we have a lot of great resources to use, but it's nearly doubled in size. Organizing a lot of humans and locations is sort of fun - but it's been a lot of work. I'm so excited for a week from today, seeing students from all over Seoul making music at my school.
-Long weekend! Buddha's Birthday and Children's Day are monday and tuesday so we get a sweet four day weekend. I'm filling my time with noraebong (karaoke), eating at a lot of places I normally wouldn't get to during the work week, and spending time with friends.
-Seriously, only like 4 weeks of school left. Ridiculous! This school year has gone SO FAST!
-I've got plane tickets home for the summer - I'll be getting back to the USA on June 28th and returning to Seoul on August 4th.
It's something a lot of my peers, colleagues, and friends are doing these days - moving away from home. It's a trying time, attempting to define yourself outside of the college classroom in a setting you've read about, talked about, and looked forward to for quite a while. A lot of my friends have said things about finding "their target" or a coffee shop that makes lattes just like our college coffee shop. We all are, in some way, in a new place trying to find our way - it helps to find things that are familiar. (Why did I cry when I found Caribou Coffee in Seoul? I'm unsure… but I wasn't about to fight it. They were happy tears.) Moving out of the midwest or out of the city you grew up in can be hard, and moving to a country or continent that isn't your own can seriously add to those challenges. What's really neat to me is thinking about the things that I will eventually miss about South Korea. When I went home for Christmas I was so excited to eat cheese and drive a car and go to chipotle and pump my own gas and have normal sized napkins and cups at tables (the list could go on and on), but I also found myself wishing for some steamed mandu from the place across the street and being able to speak freely about any topic (assuming most around me couldn't understand what I was saying). There are so many great things about both the USA and Korea, and it's been so interesting to see what holds its place in my heart, and what can trade with another or join the party alongside other comforts.
So, onto literal replacements:
I was making 300 Kringla for my school's Culture Fair and learned about sour milk. Sour milk is a common replacement for buttermilk, which was required for the aforementioned Kringla recipe. These cookies were a commitment. Seriously. Not knowing how to read the milk containers (okay, I can find milk and soy milk, now…), I just went the replacement route. I soured my own milk - super easy, worked well in the recipe, and I felt great about myself as an adult. Look, mom! I can follow a recipe AND replace ingredients in a foreign country! I bought all the ingredients, mixed up 3 batches in my bowl that was probably intended to be a children's cereal bowl (I'm exaggerating, but the struggle was real, friends) and refrigerated it over night. Brought my heavy triple batch of dough to school, kept it in the faculty fridge, and brought it over to Melinda's apartment after school, because she has an oven. I jumped ship and didn't make them into pretty knots because it was entirely to challenging and time consuming, but the cookies were well received.
One night this week Meg and I took a long time to get home, stopping at a bunch of places for a drink or a snack and conversation. We ended up talking a lot about our job and our students. She has such a unique view of our school, knowing our students as artists and through student government. We had student elections this week and one of the candidates speeches cited our school as home. She broke it down for me. As students who have feet in two countries (often South Korea and the USA), they are unique. I've had students tell me that they weren't accepted in Korean public or private schools - other students knew they were "from" another country, even though they spoke Korean, have Korean parents, eat Korean food, and had lived in Korea for part of their childhood. Our students are generally pretty accepting of each other, knowing that life outside our school grounds and outside of South Korea is very different for each person. We, as mostly American teachers, end up aiding students in walking social boundaries, helping them to see the world through two lenses at the same time, learning how to compare and evaluate objectively. I talk so often about the differences between Korea and America with my students - they're all planning on/hoping to go to college in the US, so why not prepare them thoroughly. From my VERY American perspective, my students seem so Korean… but I'm sure from Korea's very Korean perspective, my students seem so foreign (not all have a specifically American influence). It's all relative, but when you're a child of two cultures, you can end up feeling like you don't belong in either one of them.
We, as an adult community have a similar experience. I know I've written about it before, but it's such an invaluable and all encompassing part of my life, it's hard to NOT talk about it. The place where I work is where I have all of my friends (except like, 3 who I met in an expat choir), it's where I work out, it's where I eat a third of my meals, it's who I spend my weeknight dinners with, it's who I bring to the hospital with me, it's who I pick up medicine for, it's the birthdays and transitions I help with. I barely have friends who I don't work with. I don't see my family except through Skype or on visits home. This is college, guys. But it's college on crack because nothing is hypothetical - it's all real.
We, too, as teachers belong to a community of "others"- we're away from home, dedicated to a life of unknown and adventure in a subtle way. Without our own families or a serious pool of humans to reach out to (sorry - I haven't learned enough Korean to make friends with the scores of people I'm surrounded by), we understand each other's homes and past in a way that no one else does.
On a much less poetic note - life keeps moving fast.
-Sophie and Jeff's baby was born almost two weeks ago! Cora is such a sweet little baby and it has been a really heart warming experience to visit them at the hospital and be a there for Cora's baptism.
-Solo & Ensemble Festival is coming up - Melinda, Stephen, and I are hosting and it's been such a large task. Last year our school hosted last year, so we have a lot of great resources to use, but it's nearly doubled in size. Organizing a lot of humans and locations is sort of fun - but it's been a lot of work. I'm so excited for a week from today, seeing students from all over Seoul making music at my school.
-Long weekend! Buddha's Birthday and Children's Day are monday and tuesday so we get a sweet four day weekend. I'm filling my time with noraebong (karaoke), eating at a lot of places I normally wouldn't get to during the work week, and spending time with friends.
-Seriously, only like 4 weeks of school left. Ridiculous! This school year has gone SO FAST!
-I've got plane tickets home for the summer - I'll be getting back to the USA on June 28th and returning to Seoul on August 4th.
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