The Adventures of Sun Sung Duck and Heather, The Saga Continues

Part of me is really ready to go back to America. The part of me that wants to see my nephews, the part of me that wants to play some pinochle with my family, the part of me that wants to have a long conversation that does not have to do with teaching, Canada, politics, or Super ETS.

And then there is the part of me that knows that I may not have these strange and wonderful relationships that I have here.
Sunday, I started at Sun Sung Duck's apartment at 8 am. I found out that Sora, Sun Sung Duck's daughter, would not be able to go with us, but that Gim Bong Sue and Sun Sung Duck's husband would go with us. None of them know English. I don't know Korean.

We sat around the apartment for awhile, and I understood that a taxi was coming to get us, but I didn't really know when. Sun Sung Duck showed me some of Sora's art work, and I was tremendously impressed by the complex, abstract, human figures mounted over impressionistic jean-fronts. Quite creative and meaningful.

After an excellent breakfast, I sort of helped and watched Sun Sung Duck pack up a tremendous picnic lunch. It was huge.











Sun Sung Duck's husband has always seemed a little intimidating to me--the few times I have met him. I cannot quite explain why I feel this way. He is very tall, he has a warn and attractive face, and I'm never sure what Koreans think of me--especially when I show up at their apartments in a strange and possibly unwelcome manner. However, he is none of these things. He laughs easily, and he smiles broadly. This group of three with the talkative taxi driver made an amazing traveling group.

We went everywhere in Kyung Ju. We hiked to an ancient and amazing statue of Buddha, we saw a palace, we saw a stretching area of burial grounds that were huge mounds of earth, and of course, we had an amazing lunch.

These people are so phenomenal. I am so continually blessed to have these wonderful experiences.

Grading and the Transformers

The last week has been draining: we've had to do grades this week. I teach about sixty kids right now, and because the tuition is rather expensive and because the children's behavior is often less than self-sufficient, I suspect many of the children come from wealthy families who give them anything they want.
It is very difficult to write comments for sixty children, telling the parents how smart and wonderful they are, saying the children are really good but need to listen better, and encouraging them to do their work more often.
It is even more draining because the teachers need to do most of this work on their own time. V. annoying (forgive the Bridget Jones reference).
On to the transformers. I believe in an earlier post, I mentioned the transformer bugs. Some of the teachers have nicknamed these strange bugs such because they jump, they swim, and they crawl. My best guess can describe them as a cross between a grasshopper and a cockroach. And they are big.
My efforts to keep my apartment free of cockroaches have continued to be quite successful. I hate the ugly things, and I haven't much patience for sharing my abode with them, so I regularly spray my windows and door to keep the beasts out.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to keep out the transformers.
Last night, I had a nasty battle with a three-inch transformer that involved bleach, an old fly swatter, and several shoes. After slowing down the beast with the bleach (but not killing it), I successfully escorted the bane outside. I yelled at him a bit, and I think he was sufficiently swayed from coming back.
We will see.

Two months--and counting

It's strange how a couple of quiet days will lead right into a crazy time.
Last week was pretty crazy, but the last few days have been very busy but quiet, complete with the torrential down pour that followed me home from school tonight. My umbrella blew inside-out twice, but when the wind was gusting the worst, the rain was pounding the least.
Wow.
But I'm going to back up and tell a bit about the past weekend.
I went out with my friend Jenny on Friday. She was sad to have missed me last week when I was in Seoul, and she was ready to celebrate my birthday. She ordered chicken and gave me a strange necklace of a pig which is both beautiful and peculiar at the same time. Tae Hyun gave me a CD of James Blunt, complete with the song, "1973" which he will play for me when he sees me.
Tonight, I was wishing for a quiet night at home, but I had made an appointment to visit with Dong Won and his mother Bek Myuong Soon. My jeans and socks were wet from the rain, so she took my socks off, cuffed my jeans, and proceeded to rub my feet and ankles with a small towel. After Myuong Soon sent Dong Won to the store for milk, she tried to take off my clothes to put on dry clothes--insisting they were gifts. When I told her about a hundred times, "Anio," and, "No gifts," she pouted for a minute and began drying my jeans with a hair dryer.
What an amazing world. I felt like ripping open the Bible to point to the part where Jesus says we should wash each others' feet.
They are fasting and praying about their future, but they made me an amazing dinner with a soup that defies explanation in my realm of taste experiences. I had a brief moment when I suspected that they hadn't the food or the money to eat this well.
I don't know.
But what I do know is that I always feel blessed leaving Myuong Soon's home and Shin Bun Ock's home. And I always feel stupid remembering that I had wanted to spend the night alone in my apartment.

Turning thirty-something

Today, I made a big pot of coffee and only drank one mug this morning. I bolted all my windows carefully. I broke up another crying fit between three of my first graders. I talked to Sun Sung Duck for a half an hour while she taught me the names of some fish, and I watched her throw fish heads and gut small squid. I had an amazing eighteen course meal with Shin Bun Ock.
It was like a regular day in Meyoung Jong Dong, but I still feel a bit like a princess.
I remember being quite upset when I turned twenty-three. I felt like all the goals and dreams I had set for myself were slowly fading before my eyes.
Now, I do not feel the same sort of frantic fear about age. Yes, time is going too quickly, and yes, I'm having a wretched time getting the next project going, and yes, I don't know where I will be in six months, and yes, I miss my family dearly.
But instead of feeling frantic about my youth slipping away, I feel a growing sense of satisfaction in where I have been--not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.
So much has changed in the last twenty years, and mostly--although I'm not proud of most of it--I wouldn't change any of it. I am who I am, and these experiences and choices have created the person I am today. And I wouldn't be the same person I am if it weren't for the different choices I have made and the different places that God has let me go.
Like the Schrodinger's cat in the box. The different options may be unseen, but they open possibilities with an endless chain of eigenstates that have somehow created the amalgamation of me.

A kafkaesque 24 hours

Funny, things can seem quite bizarre if you put the right spin on everything.
It's been warm, so I fell asleep with my window cracked a bit. The screens don't lock, but I don't really have anything valuable in my bedroom.
Last night, I went to bed, and I had these strange dreams. I woke to shadows in my window, and the screen sliding open. I thought the shadow looked like a cat, so I rolled over, checked my clock that read 3:30, turned on all the lights, drank some water and went back to sleep.
The feral cats visited me in my dreams after that. They came pushing through my dreams and right into my consciousness. I woke again at 4:30, seeing the strange feral shadows and hearing the screens moving again. I sat up in bed, awake, and turned on the lights. I went to the window and sure enough, the window was open to the outside, no screen, nothing. I quickly locked the window, and turned on every light in my apartment, looking for the stray cat that must have jumped into my apartment looking for a warm body. I checked under the bed. In the bathroom. Under my desk. I was still in that vaguely dream-like panic, so I may have even opened a few cupboards and drawers
There weren't any feral cats.
Hardly reassured, I crawled back in bed for a fitful night's sleep.
This morning was a field trip to the UN Memorial. This was quite impressive. The rose bushes, the wall of names, the photographs, and the quietude were really reflective considering my own sister's recent commitment to the war in Afghanistan. It may have been more impressive if the children were not whining about how hot it was and the other teachers were comparing recent drunken binges.
Somehow this juxtaposition just diminished the whole experience for me.
This afternoon was not atypical: Cindy was crying because she didn't get enough attention, Jennifer was crying because Alex called her some name in Korean that I don't know what it means, and Katie was crying because she scraped her knee last week.
Then, one of my neighbors mentioned something about a break-in last night. She lost $200, and someone was definitely at my window, taking random stuff from my window sill with no value and leaving it outside.
Booo.
So much for the feral cats trying to break in. I think I liked that dream better.
Tonight, I met with Dong Won and Meyoung Soon. This is a charming, hospitable, Christian family I met only a week ago. They had me to their home for dinner last week and invited me over tonight. Meyoung Soon began to cry when she heard that I would leave Korea in two months. I wanted to lie and tell her that I certainly was coming back--I did tell her that I may come back, which is not a lie--but I did not know what to tell her. I love this country, and more, I love this town of Meyoung Jong Dong, but I miss my family terribly.
It's somehow strange to have people cry when they don't want you to leave--OK, except for sisters and parents.

It's a little quiet

Funny how it seems very quiet today.
I traveled to Seoul this weekend to visit a friend of my sister Mandy's, Kelly, and had an amazing time. I find this surprising: I don't care to travel alone unless I have the time to absorb and digest a new place and the people, but Kelly is inspiringly travel savvy. She pounced on Seoul with a vigor that I would attribute to chameleons or ancient explorers, and we energetically explored new places, palaces, and palatable cuisines.
Fantastic.
Home again, I'm enjoying the relative quiet and solitude in my apartment: I can hear a baby crying, some music playing (outside, not my own), a loudspeaker from a vendor on the street, and my refrigerator humming. My refrigerator is leaking again.
And so I'm back to my quiet life, in South Korea, with all its foibles and chaos and strangeness. As much as I miss my family and Mexican food, I'm enjoying my small circle of "family" that has been doing their very best to keep me well-fed and happy. In fact, I have several dinner arrangements with three different households (Tuesday with a new Christian family I have just met [the son is named Dong Won, and I can't make this up], Wednesday with Choi and Shin Bun Ock, and Friday with Jenny and Young Hee).
I love Korea.