Assure

Just wanted to let you know that normal life is still happening in South Korea.

Not, like, my "I go on awesome adventures and speak in a foreign language and live in Asia" normal life... but my "I do laundry and work out and cook meals" normal life.

I think it could be easy to romanticize my experience of moving to a foreign country to start my career. Yes, I chose it for the adventure and opportunity to learn about myself and the world.... but I still do normal things here.

I go grocery shopping.
I work out in the morning.
I teach classes.
I grade assignments.
I celebrate birthdays.
I go to church.
I meet new people.
I clean my apartment.
I wash dishes.
I go to school meetings.
I send out way too many emails.
I sing and play the day away.
I dread making dinner after work.

These are all things I could have done in the United States.
I chose to do them somewhere with somewhat of a language barrier, surrounded by a culture other than my own..... but I'm still living a very normal life. It's not all solo sea kayaking, eating foods I can't identify (though I have done my fair share of that), plane rides, and "soul searching".

so, to those of you who I'll see in the states during Christmas time... don't be surprised if I'm still the same me. I'm still Emmalee, living a normal life... just a plane ride away instead of a car ride away.

Things I'm very excited for in the near future:
seeing my friends and family, duhhhhh
Chipotle.
USING MY OWN OVEN TO BAKE UP A GIANT STORM
Fairmount Avenue United Methodist Church
Clyde, Maggie, Yogi, and Snowflake (aka The Herd)
snow.
Target. I can't wait for Target.
The OK Factor CD release event!
Seasonal Starbucks flavors that don't seem odd to me.

Things I'm scared of in the near future:
my cell phone not working when I land in the US
driving a car. it's been a while.
jet lag.

Caffeine... especially in seasonal flavors not available in SoKo. That will help with Jet lag, but who knows what'll happen. I am a slave to sleep normally, having no control over where or when I'll fall asleep. This could be rough. However it turns out, everything will be awesome... because I'll be Home For Christmas.

Tokyo, T.Gives, and Transitions

The school I work for didn't have school on November 28th or 29th - the staff (Canadian AND American) knew why, but some of our students had no idea why. American Thanksgiving! 

I believe most of you know this about me, but if you don't…. I think it's important for you to know.

Thanksgiving (affectionately known as T.Gives in my life) is my favorite holiday. It's my favorite holiday for  for many reasons. 

1) Food. It totally operates around food. delicious food.

2) My bros and parents and I usually have a great time making pepperoni rolls or Christmas buttons while watching The Christmas Story :)

3) I love cooking for a ton of people

4) Black Friday happens the next day

5) It means its pretty much Christmas

Historically, #6 was Christmas At Luther, but that's no longer a direct part of my life :( 

Anyway,

this year's Thanksgivings were a bit different, as I was in TOKYO!

I flew to Tokyo on Thursday morning, arriving in the city around 1:30pm. I met up with Connie and her family at their hotel. Connie studied abroad in the small town I was born in, and we were her host family. I knew Connie mostly when I was between the ages of 4 and 6, seeing her again when I was 8 or 9. Our meeting came about via Facebook  - on Tuesday I saw that her posts were popping up on my newsfeed, coming from Tokyo. I messaged her, discovering that we'd be in the city at the same time, and we coordinated our plans to spend some time together. It was so wonderful to meet her daughter (who is now the age I was when I met Connie), and spend a holiday with someone who is like family to me. Though it had been many years, I still remember presents and time spent with Connie on holidays when I was very young. As Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, I was really nervous that I'd spend it alone with a bowl of ramen noodles, crying at the thought of stuffing and pumpkin pie. Definitely no tears, just lots of love and delicious food (from a different culture!). 

After spending some time with Connie and her family, Sydnie met me at their hotel, and brought me to her apartment where I'd stay for the next three nights. Sydnie works at an international school in Tokyo, teaching band. It was so comforting and informative to spend time with someone who's going through many of the same transitions as me right now. We went to Luther, taking a lot of courses and making music together, so we had some great first year teacher conversations. We saw a bunch of different parts of the city, I met some of her colleagues (who will be stopping through Seoul on their way to New Zealand in two weeks!), spent a day at school with her, and tried lots of local cuisine. 

 Shabu Shabu Thanksgiving with Connie and Masashi

 Sophie was tired after dinner and looking at Christmas lights

 Ms. Reynolds in action!

 Tempura lunch - yummmm

 Sushi dinner

 Conveyor belt sushi, so many delicious little fishes in my belly

 WE FOUND THE MARIMEKKO STORE!

 Visiting the Meiji Shrine

 Traditional wedding at the shrine

 Traditional bamboo flute/recorder group

 wishes left at the Meiji shrine

 4 Japanese students approached us at the shrine, offering to be our guide so they could practice their english. 

Snuck a photo of the bride - look at her hair!

So, Tokyo was great.

It was refreshing to travel and see more new faces and places along with the comforts of friends and family from home. Spending time at school with Sydnie, meeting her colleagues, and learning more about another international school got my head in a bit of a different place. I hadn't really been thinking about international teaching or what's going to happen after my 2 year contract is up, but this trip sort of brought those topics up. I by no means have any answers, but I am sure that my heart and mind are much more open than when I left Minnesota. I feel stronger and more capable than ever before, which is exhilarating and meaningful. Perfect sensations and emotions to carry me through the last three weeks of my first semester as a teacher!

I think I had it somewhere in my mind that once I transitioned into my life in Korea that I'd be settled. I'd be established. I'd have a routine. I'd have a plan. Things would be similar and familiar as long as I stay here.

Definitely not true.

It's that time of year…. contract conversations are nearly completed for next year already. (I'm signed a two year contract, so no conversations for me… but this time next year I'll probably have made a formal decision.) Rumors, conversations, and announcements have painted an unclear picture of what next year will look like at my school. Many people are leaving, some for already signed contracts, and others just know it's time for them to move on and will be searching through the spring for their next position/location. I'm so happy for my colleagues who have made choices that are good for them, but it is a little hard to already know these people are leaving. Connections are a funny thing - time has a lot to do with how deeply people can connect and how much energy they're capable of putting into the here and now. It was easy to poeticize the idea of "live for today, because you don't know who will be there tomorrow" or other such sentiments when I was in Minnesota - but unless there was an act of god or illness, I knew I'd see most of my people again within the next couple weeks. Living the international teacher life, connections can be very temporary. I was eating Sundubu Jigae (google that deliciousness, if you haven't already) with Meg and Becky and we were talking about this. I confessed my recently recognized idea that I was done with transitions for a while now that I'm "established" in Korea… to which Meg responded "No, I thought that'd be true, too, but it seems we have actually entered a life of permanent transition". 

I suppose the same could be said for life at home, and looking back, I think I often felt that way. 

Maybe this is a transition into adulthood and permanent transitions, or maybe its a transition into international teacher life. Who knows. 

Anyway, glad to be with the ones I am while I'm here.

Happy for those moving on, and looking forward to new faces and fun where ever I go.

Be back in the states on December 21st - can't wait to eat chipotle, snuggle with my cats, and see all my favorite people :)

But first….. two holiday concerts.

#LETSDOTHIS

or, as Ethan would say.

"And now we GO"

Two Hearted

I'm a pretty reflective person, I like to think and remember and go over what has happened - good and bad. Moving and starting a career are two really great causes for reflection, so it seems I've got a lot of good material! Recently I've been thinking more about my transition as an expat and a member of my school community. A couple recent events/happenings that have caused great reflection in my life:

1) Jenn's friend Tim is here to visit from Canada. He arrived on Friday and came out with us on Saturday to celebrate Sarah's birthday. Spending time with Jenn and Tim helped me to realize how established I am/we are here in Seoul - as a community, as a friend group, as teachers, etc. As much as I never really foresaw this city feeling like home, it's really starting to (sorry, Mom!). It's just surprising how much culture, skill, and snip-its of useful vocabulary you slowly soak up here. It was really fun to go out as a giant group to celebrate Sarah's birthday, and even more fun because I started to think about it from an outsider's perspective - remembering how I saw these people 3 to 4 months ago as new colleagues. (I've gotten crap for calling the people I work with my "colleagues". They'll say "Come on, Emmalee… we're friends. You can call us friends") So I was seeing them as colleagues and now we're all friends.

2) The national music education group (for international schools) in Korea heard auditions on Saturday for our high school honors festivals coming up in the spring. The Basement Dwellers (because the music department is completely in the basement) left Wolgye-dong at 730 and arrived in Suwon around 9 am. We got all our recordings in order, found our rooms, received instructions, and set to work. The string team heard an incredible number of auditions. This incredible number caused us to go into overtime - listening until around 5pm. Uff da! 

It was really great to gain some context about how well my students are playing and to work with other string teachers in Korea! 

Anyway, the cause for reflection-

Around 3 pm when I started to go nuts, I texted Sophie and Melinda and they came to the rescue. They had finished their auditions and had some free time. I gave some quick pointers on what we were looking for in recordings and they helped us judge one set of auditions. Life savers! There were two other judges from another school who stuck around to help us, as well. This caused me to realize what a supportive and completing colleagues I have. I actually could not have finished that day without them - I barely made it out alive WITH them. New environments, stress of rankings, lack of consistency in ratings, differing opinions… lots of confusing factors. But I had my Basement Masters with me, and felt we could handle anything.

With all of the good things going on here, the sprinkling of snow made me SO excited, but also made me miss home. I'm very excited about going home for Christmas, but know that I'll be missing Seoul at least a little while I'm in Minnesota. I'm starting to settle and feel comfortable in two places - reminding me of Oberon's Two Hearted Ale. I never quite got the title until now - how could someone be two hearted? One heart loves this freedom and adventure, and another longs for comfort, familiarity, and the people and places I'm used to calling home. I'm so fortunate to be able to satisfy both of my hearts at this point in life. Can't wait to go home and spend time with my brothers and (pretty much) sisters, my parents, my pets, home made chex mix, christmas buttons, and Mannheim Steamroller.

In case you were wondering,

9 days until T.Gives

33 days until I fly back to the states!

37 days until Christmas!!!!!!

113 days since I flew to SoKo

PS - this is sort of odd, but it occurred to me that not all of my loyal readers are my Facebook friends. I've shared this with some of you (and perhaps my parents have shared this with some of you), but for the rest of you who are dying to see more glimpses of my life, here are two different youtube videos of my high school ensemble's performances at large group competition last week (#1  and #2). 

sweet

Today is November 11th - a day that would normally pass without a second thought.
Not in Korea!
Today is 11/11 - Pepero day. (As explained by Wikipedia)
Pepero is a sweet treat that is exchanged on november 11th because 11/11 looks like four sticks of pepero. Our student council sold them last week and they're being delivered to classes today, much like Candy Cane Grams or Christmas Grams from Mean Girls. I'm just hoping to be able to say "4 for you Glen Coco, You go Glen Coco" and have SOMEONE recognize it.


Nothing to interesting going on besides that - my first normal week in a while! Not sure I'll be able to handle the normalcy - no auditions, concerts, field trips, or major due dates for me or my students. Okay, I do have some additional recordings due this week, but only like 1 or 2.

From The Other Side

When I finished my first student teaching placement (in Owatonna, MN) my cooperating teacher (who was a total wizard, by the way) gave me flowers. The card in the flowers said "Welcome to the other side of the desk!". How beautiful to be going through the same experiences but from the other side - I loved that she pointed that out to me.

Today.

Today is Tuesday.
Not any normal Tuesday.
We had large group contest at Seoul International School. As a director, you bring your group to the host school at the scheduled time, perform for a group of judges, and receive written and recorded comments, participate in a "clinic" with one of the judges, receive a rating, and then go home.
This happens to be exactly one week after my middle school concert (my first concert at APIS), and three days after recordings for our equivalent to All-State were due.

We prepared our pieces.
We recorded and critiqued ourselves.
We discussed the moods of the pieces.
We scrubbed some measures.
I transcribed some parts to strengthen our minuscule viola section.
We watched you tubes to understand the subjects of our pieces.
We used many a metronome markings.
We worked. And worked. And worked.
For nearly months (one quarter of the school year) - we worked on our pieces.

Today was the day.
We took three buses of kids to another school, practiced, listened, warmed up, performed, and worked on stuff with a judge. I was with my 23 high school orchestra students from 845-3:35 and loved almost every minute of it. (The minutes I did NOT love where those when I couldn't find one of my first violins. That was fun.) Our performance was admittedly not the best we've ever played - but it'll never be 100% at the exact moment when you want it to be. They did their best and they listened to what I and the judges had to say. As a musician and as a teacher I struggle to define success. I'm a pretty Type-A person who tends to procrastinate and be a little too lenient. How that works - I'm not really sure. So going into this, I set some goals. My goals were pretty basic - I wanted to place at the same level as a school and I just really didn't want to get a bronze. (The awards given were bronze, silver, gold, and platinum).  I wanted band, orchestra, and chorus to be equally strong - which is rumored to not have consistently happened at my school in years past.

My school rocked.
My kids rocked.
We met my goals. We placed well, and so did the other ensembles from my school.

As soon as the performance was over, I felt as though I could sleep for the next week straight. The buildup and pressure I'd put on that performance had finally released and it took everything I had not to fall asleep. We returned to school and finished the school day. I had invited Meg, Meg, Becky, and Jen (all the single ladies) over for dinner, but my apartment was a mess. I hurried home and downed a Coke and got busy. Cooked up a meal, cleaned my apartment, and got ready. We had some delicious foods and great conversation. Near the end of the night Becky and Jenn pointed out to me that I've only been here for 3 months. I checked my count downs - 18 days to T.Gives, 50 to Christmas, and negative 100 days to "Fly To Korea!". I made that third countdown probably February 2nd of 2013 and it's been running ever since. I didn't really think about it from July to October… but it caught my eye on my dashboard in October and I realized it stopped counting down and was keeping track of how many days SINCE I'd moved to Korea!

I can't believe it's only been 100 days since I moved here. It seems like forever ago and yet like no time at all. I use twitter as an emotional outlet, and today I was re-reading some of  my tweets since I've moved to Korea. It's unbelievable what I've encountered and done in 100 days. Realizing the short amount of time I've been here makes me even more proud of what my students accomplished today.

So here I am, on the other side.
I remember the day my countdown to Korea went from triple to double digits (I believe I tweeted about it, truthfully).
and I've just now made the jump from 99 to 100 with my orchestra placing well at large group, recordings submitted, middle school concert completed, and christmas music ready to begin!
Can't believe this is my life - it's only been 3 months, but I think I could get used to this!
:)

What I Owe You

I feel as though I owe you some photos of my life.

So here you go - In this first photo you can see that my "bedroom" is above the rest of my apartment. I can almost stand up entirely in my room - it's really just where sleep. You can also see the stairs on the left side of the photo which are the best storage EVER. They're all closets/drawers/cupboards - love it.

This photo is my window? It's opposite the kitchen/bedroom (you can see in the window reflection). 

Washer in the kitchen - totally normal. I also manually turn on the gas every time I use my stove. So that's a little different than home.

My big fridge - with one USD on it, because I found one in my wallet after I moved here.

Someday I might get more ambitious and post more photos on here, but I mostly assume that if you're reading this, you're my FaceBook friend. I think I've been pretty good about posting lots of photos on FB, but if you've got any questions or are wondering about specific things in my life, let me know :)

du gae lists

That's two lists, for you non Korean speakers.
List #1: Things I've Gotten Used To
I. Carrying Things. I didn't realize how convenient cars were until I had to carry groceries (or anything I purchased) home. I don't own a car here so everything I do is through public transportation. Luckily, taxis are really affordable here. Anyway, whatever I do - I use public transportation. Getting my school stuff, lunch, violin, and sometimes work out gear to school has turned me into an even larger spectacle on the morning bus. I just didn't realize how much I relied on my car back home - that was a seriously convenient and useful mini van.

2. Not Knowing. There are so many times a day I say "I don't know" and it's in a way that I never said it back home. Went to a bakery today… wondered "What do you think is in that bun?"… and I didn't have to ask because I KNEW the answer was "I don't know". Someone calls my cell phone, and I answer thinking "I don't know who this is", knowing that "I don't know what they are saying to me". Literacy is a serious tool and strength. Without it, I sort of feel powerless, but…. still capable? I live in a WORLD of "I don't know".
(2.5 Figuring it out. Context clues. Miming. Asking for help. Google Translate. These methods are sometimes the only method to get through things.)

3. Lack of open container laws - you can consume alcohol pretty much anywhere, anytime here. I'm a fan.
(3.5 Not getting carded. Nobody checks IDs here. .)

4. Korean manerisms - half bowing all the time, handing things to people with two hands/touching my wrist (as explained by EatYourKimchi), repeating myself, responding with "Oh really?", etc.

5. Chopsticks. Hell yeah for acquiring skills.

6. Soup all the time. My friends back home made fun of me for how much I love soup, so it makes sense that I've moved to a place on this planet that ALWAYS has soup :)
I've recently tried Pho for the first time, and there's a delicious tofu soup restaurant near my apartment as well as a Shabu Shabu establishment. Winter in Seoul is rumored to be bone chillingly cold, so I'm looking forward to consuming lots of warm soup this winter yummmmmm


List # 2: Things I Haven't Gotten Used To
1. Everything is sweet. Okay, so everything isn't sugary sweet - but there are very few things I consume here that are actually salty.

2. Getting paid to do things that I like.
I seriously am not used to it.
Once a month I get an email saying "This is how much you made this month!"... and I sort of stare at it. Like, what? You pay me to be here every day? This is too good.
I get to do things that I love. I get to learn so much... and I get to do it with hilarious smart kids.

3. Prices. I still compare things to back home. The exchange rate changes, but has been pretty regularly around 1,000 won = 90 cents. In my head that turns into 1,000 won = 1 USD. I still think "how much was lettuce at home?". I'm just really not used to paying for groceries. Things are often either dirt cheap or pretty expensive here.

4. Walking everywhere. I need to invest in some more intelligent footwear options. I mean.. I have some cute shoes... but those don't really get you far. Or, they will, but they'll give you blisters.



In case you were wondering, life's pretty good in SoKo.
I had my first concert last tuesday (October 29th) - Middle School orchestra, band, and chorus (they don't say choir here). It went really well, even though I was SUPER nervous about it. My high school ensemble is heading to another international school on Tuesday for large group contest, and then we've got parent teacher conferences on friday and saturday. I submitted recordings of 7 students for the international honor orchestra festival and we should be hearing back within the next week or two...
AND BEST OF ALL:
we're starting christmas music :)