Life, Holidays, and the Pursuit of Blogging

안냥하새요!

It's my first day back at school after the holiday break, and I have a lot to write about.  Hopefully, I'll be here more often in the future; sorry for the long absence.

My first Christmas in Korea was my first Christmas ever spent away from my family. I didn't expect to get so homesick around the holidays, but the day before Christmas Eve was rough. I cried. I missed my siblings and parents and extended family.  I missed what Sufjan Stevens calls "that creepy Christmas feeling." Despite pretty lights and posters plastered in Paris Baguette featuring Jun Ji Hyun in a festive Santa hat, Ulsan didn't feel particularly Christmassey. Moreover, as a Minnesotan, the glaring absence of snow didn't help matters.

Soo looking cute by the lights at Upsquare

Soo and me after shopping in Samsandong

However, Christmas is also Jun's birthday. So, we had a celebration of our own and Skyped with my family on Christmas morning, which was Christmas Eve in Minnesota. We had dinner at our favorite little restaurant in Seongnamdong and enjoyed the relatively warm weather. My family sent me a package with more gifts and goodies than I could have hoped for which arrived a few days later. That definitely helped me feel less homesick.

Christmas-Birthday cake

Being the hopeless romantic I am, I whipped up this surprise for Jun's birthday/Christmas.  It says "saranghae," which means "I love you."

The 26th of December was the school festival, so although it was annoying to go into work the day after Christmas, I enjoyed seeing my colleagues and students perform their talents. It was especially good to see some of the soul-crushingly apathetic students (at least for my class) apply themselves in other areas. I was really impressed to see three of the boys get really into their singing performance of Kim Tae Woo's "사랑 비."   I felt better knowing that, even if they don't care about English, they might care about developing other skills. Thank God for the popularity of K-Pop.

Lights at the Lotte Hotel in Ulsan

New Year's ball in Seoul

From Jun

A few hours after the school festival, Jun and I went up to Seoul to stay with his mom and get a few things we would need for our upcoming trip to Japan.  (Both of us had January 2nd off, so with New Year's day being a holiday and falling on a Thursday, we were able to go abroad together).  We spent four days in and around Tokyo and Yokohama and visited my friend Tiearra and her fiance Ryan, who live near the naval base there.  Tiearra and I have known each other since the days of college poetry readings and heated discussions in literature courses.  (If a friend sticks with you through your obsessive crush on Dmitri Karamazov, you know they're in it for the long haul!).

At the Haneda airport

Along the way to the Ghibli Museum

Looking at this picture makes me hungry.

Yokohama

 

Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo

Ryan and Tiearra in Odaiba

We didn't actually get back to Ulsan until 5:30am on January 5th, and I had to be at work for English camp by 8:30.  It was a little rough, but I had a new batch of students and they were all delightful to teach during the 3 weeks of camp.  Actually, teaching camp classes proved to be very light and fun.  We focused on conversational English which was fun and very flexible in how and what we chose to discuss.  I'm looking forward to having all these students in my class next semester.

I turned 24 on Friday, January 9th (even though, by Korean standards, I've been 25 since the New Year).  MT and my students threw me a little surprise party and wrote me some sweet notes in English.  I was touched.  Later that night, Mikaela came over and we had a girls night and slumber party, which was really special to me since she's leaving Korea soon... I'm going to miss her a lot.  I think saying goodbye might be one of the hardest parts of expatriate life, and I'm still so new to this kind of life.  (I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on the matter in a later post).

My surprise birthday party with my students

After I finished teaching camp, I was finally allowed to take my winter vacation.  A word on vacation as a teacher in Korea...

It took ages for me to finally learn when I would be allowed to take my vacation.  It's a frustrating reality, but schedules in Korean schools are not set far ahead the way American school schedules are decided.  I had originally planned to go home to Minnesota for two weeks; I wanted to see my family and be with all five of my siblings before my brother Anthony left for medical school in Australia.  As circumstances would have it, though, I wasn't off work until after Anthony had left Minnesota.  And since my other siblings were going back to school and my parents were going back to work, there was no reason for me to travel to Minnesota, only to stay in the house while freezing my ass off and stuffing my face with stale Christmas cookies.  Instead, Gloria and I decided to travel together, and settled on spending 5 days in Vietnam and 5 days in Bali.  (Actually, Gloria is adamant that I don't mention that we traveled together to any of our colleagues, another weird symptom of Korean office politics.  Apparently, the less you share about your personal life, the better.  I think her thinking is that, if other teachers know we're close enough to take a trip together, they might want to come to me for dirt on her.  Since I'm never up on the subtleties of working dynamics since I don't understand Korean, I'm just going to go with the gag order and chalk it up to being a Korean thing I can't fully understand as a waygook).

I got back from my trip exactly 24 hours ago, and now I'm marveling that it came and went so fast.  I had an awesome time in both places and, while I could simply post pictures here, I think my vacation deserves a blog post of its own.  (My only hesitation to end this entry now is that I have been shamefully absent on my Europe blog, which has a number of unpublished fragments from my trip in May and June... but I'll make it my goal to produce a detailed, illustrated post about Vietnam and Bali by the end of the week).

I miss the sunshine and warmth of southeast Asia, but I'm happy to be home in Ulsan.  Jun came over to welcome me home yesterday and cooked me dinner.  It was sweet, and even moreso because it was completely unexpected.  (At the risk of sounding sappy, I will admit that I missed him very much while I was abroad).

I feels weird to be back at my desk at school, but it's nice to see my students and colleagues again.  I need to take a good rest when I get home so I will have the stamina to teach something fun and worthwhile, especially since I have only two weeks left with my 3rd graders!  They graduate soon and I'm feeling bittersweet about it...  I really want to give them some good memories of our class before they leave 다운중학교!