In case you were wondering, I'm crazy.

It's been almost a week since I last posted. I've been a little busy, what with fall retreat last weekend and that silly job thing I go to every day, but that's not why you haven't heard from me. I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you the actual reason, but I owe you the truth, don't I?

Two weeks ago, I discovered that my blog has a built-in counter. Google provides me with a "Stats" tab that it took me four months to find (modern day Sherlock right here), and it tells me EVERYTHING about my blog and its viewers. I mean, really, I have your social security numbers and a PDF of your great-grandmother's birth certificate.

When I first discovered this tab, I had significantly more page views than I expected, including regular visitors from Malaysia, the Philippines, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia (to name a few). My teensy mind has had a heyday trying to process this, and I've gone through the following phases:

1. Pride: I must be the best writer in the WORLD! People from countries everywhere check my blog and it is absolutely because I'm a frickin' champion. I have more fans than JK Rowling, the Olson twins, and Big Macs combined! My words are magical and my jokes are superb, and the second I leave here I'm going to publish a book of all my amazing and unique stories! Now if you'll excuse me, Elizabeth Gilbert's agent is on the line.
2. Fear: Wait, I have how many people reading my blog? And one of them found it by googling the keywords "health check + my butt"? Oh my goodness what have I done? What if the school finds out I've been posting videos of the kids? Or if I start getting stalkers waiting outside my building? I need to delete this blog and change my name to something less famous, maybe "Angelina Jolie."
3. Curiosity: I wonder if there are any other people in Korea who had the brilliant idea to write down their experiences? I'm sure I must be the only one, but I'll check just in case...
4. Self-loathing: There are 191,000,000 results on google for "Korea blog". And every single one of them is better than mine. None of my experiences are original; if my family and friends found out about how many other Korea blogs there are, all of them with a much higher standard of writing, they wouldn't need me anymore. A drunk monkey could type a better commentary on Korean culture, and he'd look way more awesome doing it. I'm a failure.
5. Self-pity: I can't believe I even tried to write a blog, and I doubly can't believe people actually read this garbage. I bet the thousands of page views are just my grandma refreshing the page every six minutes. If my friends here found out about all the "new" and "exciting" things I've written about (that aren't new or exciting for anyone who's been here more than five minutes), I'd be the laughing stock of East Asia. I also had to google whether it was "laughing stock" or "laughing stalk" - ie, I'm the most pathetic English major on the planet.
6. Denial: Blog? What blog? Oh no, I'm not the one who wrote that mess. You must have me confused with someone else; my name's Angelina Jolie.

It's quite hard to formulate a coherent blog post when your mind is tumbling around like wet gym socks in a dryer (man, I wish I had a dryer). I considered turning my blog into something "for the masses" and writing about more of the business side of my adventure. I'm sure if I hadn't had a friend to explain everything to me as I went through the application process, I'd have followed random foreigners' blogs too. I could write about the different kinds of schools, what types of restaurants to avoid when you're not with a Korean, and what songs you can put on your ipod to keep yourself from bursting into tears on the subway. But I'm not very advice-y. I tend to write about life as I see it, and my life is messy and hilarious and (if I'm being honest with myself) pretty average. I don't know how long she's had it up, but I realized today that the tagline on my friend Angie's blog says "it's not a blog about korea. it's a blog about me... while i live in korea." Amen.

This blog isn't really about Korea. Sure, I've told some stories that wouldn't happen in the States, and honestly, most of you probably wouldn't be reading if I didn't live in a foreign land where tiny octopi are considered a delicious contribution to a lunch tray. There are hundreds of other places on the internet that you can go if you want to learn what it's like to live in Asia; this blog is about what it's like for me to live in Asia. Some things are horribly commonplace and some things are pretty special to my adventure, but it's all just my life. This blog isn't going to become any bigger than it needs to be because it's already far bigger than I ever dreamed. And I'm not going to stop writing it, no matter how many other Korea blogs out there have already covered my material. I'm not writing for them; I'm writing for me.

I'm reading a book called Bittersweet right now, and there's a little excerpt that I love. Shauna Niequist (who is fabulous, by the way) talks about art and how many people there are in the world who are creating and how we can get lost in the shuffle.

     The world doesn't need another band, per se. It doesn't, strictly speaking, need another book or another photograph or another album. The general world population will survive without one more stage production and one more gallery showing.

     This is the thing, though: you might not. We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was Creator. He was and is a million different things, but in the beginning, he was a creator. That means something for us, I think. We were made to be the things that he is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance-givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And we were certainly, absolutely, made to be creators. 

So there you have it. It's funny; I knew conceptually that moving to Korea was going to teach me a lot about myself, but I don't think you can really know what that means until you're in the middle of it. I expected to "grow and stretch and change", but I don't think I ever thought about what that would look like. I find that I'm constantly bombarded with things to consider: business ethics, culture shock, morality, standards of education, my own brokenness and incompetencies. I thought my blog would be a place where I'd post pictures and tell funny stories before they slipped out of my mind, but it turns out my little website is where I rummage through this world of sensory overload and learn what it means for me to become a part of it.

And you're just crazy enough to read about it.

You can call me Nikki Teacher

I didn't move to Korea for the job. I mean, I did, because I wouldn't have moved here just to be unemployed and homeless, but I really didn't want to teach. When I graduated from college, I adamantly avoided working in a classroom - despite the fact that I had teacher roommates, teacher best friends, and a teaching license. I have a whole list of reasons for not wanting to teach, but they can all pretty much be summed up by saying that I was too afraid to fail. If I fail at putting books on a shelf in the proper order, the world really won't come crashing to an end. But if I fail at loving children and teaching them how to be caring, functioning adults, then I could be single-handedly responsible for creating the next Hitler. That seemed like far too big a risk for someone as prone to screwing up as I am, so I told myself I would never teach.

Yet here I sit, in a classroom in Seoul, wondering how the heck I got here. Even more, though, I'm wondering how I ever thought I could do something other than teach and be fulfilled. (I can hear your "I told you so" all the way over here so zip it.) Are there times when I get so frustrated I literally think I might explode? Heck yes. Fortunately, the times when my heart feels like it grew three sizes outnumber those times ten to one, and that's why I keep going.

I don't really have anything more to say, but I wanted to share some stories about things that make my job totally fantastic. Some of them are funny while some are sweet, but all of them together have led me to realize that four little wooden tables and a dry erase board make up my favorite room in all of Korea.

• I had to use my free period to sub for another teacher who was out sick. We're doing the same lessons, so it wasn't a big deal aside from the fact that I didn't get to play on facebook for that hour like I usually do. I read the story with Meghan's kids and they filled out their workbooks lightning fast, so I let them draw pictures (don't tell Korea!). When the bell rang, one little girl skipped up to me, handed me a folded piece of paper, turned pink, and scampered off. Inside, she had drawn a picture of her holding my hand inside a big heart, and she wrote "Miss Nikki I love you!" in huge letters across the top. I'd been in the class for 45 minutes and she already adored me. Picking up this willingness to love others and express it wouldn't be the worst thing that's ever happened to my personality.
• Earlier this week, my new student had an accident... all over the classroom floor. This was something I'd honestly never dealt with; when I worked at the daycare, all the kids wore diapers, and when I student taught in a high school, most of those kids wore diapers too. Due to our language barrier, it took me a while to figure out what he was telling me, but as soon as it clicked in my mind that there was urine all over my floor, I leapt into action. I told all the kids to drag the tables onto the rug and sit under them while I went to find the janitor to mop up the tile. As soon as the kids were in place, it occurred to me that my limited Korean skills (hello, thank you, and grapes) wouldn't get the point across. Hana wasn't around, so I snatched the hand of my smartest student and took off down the hall. We literally ran everywhere in the school, looking in classrooms and storage closets, but we couldn't find the janitor anywhere. The school secretary was in the bathroom, so Evelyn and I both frantically told her what was going on. She tracked down the janitor and sent her to the room where Evelyn explained our predicament. I walked around the room, pointing out wet spots, and Evelyn trotted along behind me, pointing them out again (I think my hand gestures would have translated just fine, but you can never be too sure). I had Evelyn ask for a cleaner, hoping to get bleach or some kind of disinfectant, and the janitor sent her down to get the bottle out of the closet. When she came back, she handed me a bottle of Febreze and the janitor nodded. It was the most disgusting and stressful moment I've had all week, but really, how can you not laugh? WTF, Korea? Febreze? Oy vey.
• We've been having trouble regulating the heat in our classroom now that it's getting chilly out, so our room fluctuates from being an ice box to a sauna without warning throughout the day. I had an extra sweater on just in case, so when the room reached equator-like temperatures, I ripped it off and asked the kids if they were hot too. Brian hopped up out of his seat and shouted, "I am buuuuuurning like the fire, Teacher!" The other kids literally fell out of their chairs they were laughing so hard.
• The pencil sharpeners here are adorable; they're shaped like little houses or trucks, and they're ridiculously brightly colored. I was a tiny bit obsessed when I got here, but all in all, they just scrape wood off of pencils. The other day, I watched a little boy in Meghan's class sharpening his pencil. When he pulled it out, his eyes got huge and his whole face lit up. "Woah! Teacher, it's like magic!" New goal: obtain child-like joy and never let it go.
• During fairy tales, I always draw the story we read on the board. The kids usually laugh at my stick figures (I add triangle dresses and squiggly hair to denote females, of course), but my subpar drawings generally suffice. Today, I drew a shoemaker with a funny hat, then the kids told me I needed to draw his wife. I scribbled my standard girl on the board, and I heard a slow clap starting behind me. I turned around, and Brian was on his feet, smacking his hands together in the most proper way possible. "That is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," he said, drawing out each syllable like he was the first person to ever lay eyes on the Sistine Chapel.

I have some quotes too that are hilarious but don't really merit a whole story:

Evelyn: Miss Hana is very pretty and you are just so crazy. She will always steal your boyfriends. She will have so many husbands and you will have none.

Robin: When I was a baby, my daddy killed bad people.
Me: Is your daddy a police officer?
Robin: No.
Me: Is your daddy Batman?
Robin: No!
Me: Are you sure?
Robin: ... no...

Miss Joann: I asked you to draw a picture of an animal that starts with a "b". What did you draw?
Bella: Egg.

David: How do you spell "Imperial"?
Me: Why?
David: I am drawing the Star Wars.

Me: Who is the tooth fairy?
Brian: She comes in during the night and cuts out your tongue.

To sum up: The school gave me a few of the pictures from the field trip (service-ee!), and I was flipping through them with Hana. She started thinking out loud about how the kids probably aren't going to remember us in twenty years, and I literally teared up. I'm never going to forget the goofy little Asian kids who make my working hours just as much fun as my free time, and I really need to work harder to make sure I'm soaking up every second I've got with them.

Also, I'd give every penny I'll ever make in my life if I could keep Brian. He drives the other teachers absolutely up the wall, but seriously, I'd give the kid a kidney if he needed one. Hell, I'd steal a kidney right out of another human being if that's what he requested. I'm totally wrapped around his little finger, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Two month mark

Two months after I moved in with the Wilkinsons, I got a job at the library.

Two months after I started at the library, I started working at other branches on my days off.

Two months after I started the job at the day care, I quit.

Two months after I started the job at iSqFt, I quit.

Two months after I started the job at Amend, I started applying for jobs in Korea.

Two months after that, I moved to Asia.

For those of you who haven't yet caught on to where this is going - I've been in Seoul for two months.

*taps fingers on desk*

The past week or so, I've been fighting a general discontentedness. I mentioned it to my friend, Angie, yesterday, and she told me that most people go through a bout of homesickness/depression/what have you every three months. She said the first one hit her a month early, and it sounded to her like that's what  is hitting me right now. The more I considered it, the more it seemed to fit; that is, until I realized my own pattern.

I can't keep doing something for longer than two months.

I'm not throwing in the towel, and if you offered me a ticket home, I wouldn't take it (sorry, Grandma!). I still adore my job, my friends, the subway system, street food, you name it. But I'm just feeling... I don't know... meh. (yes, "meh" is the best word my college-educated mind can produce. thank you, miami university.) I'm in a routine now, and I'm really, really terrible at routines. I don't like when things stagnate, and I've been here just long enough to start to feel antsy. Every day, I get up at the same time, take a shower (washing everything in the same order), eat the same breakfast, walk the same route to work, and wrangle the same group of kids. I don't want a new adventure or a new life; I just want to be excited by this life again. I don't get lost trying to find McDonald's anymore, and I haven't pulled out my "100 Things to do in Seoul" book in weeks. I can read Korean now, and I finally have enough equipment to start preparing meals at home. Things are starting to steady out, and I'm not good at steady.

This is the part where I get nervous. What if this is all there is? What if my life follows this same pattern every single day until I die? What if I never meet new people or see new things or travel to new places? I'm struggling against the urge to flip my life upside down again. I could break my contract and go teach in Thailand, or sign up for a DTS somewhere in Africa, or go to seminary here at Torch. I'm in the middle of Asia with only two suitcases worth of possessions to my name; I could literally go anywhere or do anything. The thing is, though, I don't actually want to leave. I'm happy here, like that deep-rooted happiness where you can fall face-first into a pile of manure and still think "man, my life is good." I'm growing and changing literally every single day, and if Paris Baguette isn't my soulmate, then I don't know the meaning of the word. For this season of my life, I belong here - I mean really belong - and I wish I could stop fighting against it.

Due to my "meh"-ness, I spent today robotically completing my tasks and teaching my kids. After school on Mondays and Thursdays, I teach an extra class for kids who used to attend Gate but are now in elementary school. Usually it's the most painfully boring part of my day, but today was a little different.

While I was teaching, one of the boys kept peeking inside his backpack. I finally asked him what he was doing, and his eyes got huge, as though he truly thought he had been invisible the whole time. Jokingly, I asked if he had an animal in the bag. The kids all laughed, but David just crept lower in his chair. "Seriously, kid. What do you have? A mouse?" He shook his head. "A turtle?" He stared. I stared. "David, do you have a turtle in your backpack?" He nodded. "Like... a live turtle?" Another nod. "I'm... going to need to look inside your backpack."

Yep, the kid legit brought a reptile to class in a ziplock bag. And I was worried my life was getting boring.

In the meantime...

I've been posting about all the fun and exciting things that I do, but as I settle into life here, I'm finding that I do fewer and fewer exciting things. Rather than post less often, I'll just write about the mundane.

Last night, I made soup.

I'd been looking forward to Friday night all week. Not for the reason normal people look forward to Friday nights; I was planning to stay in, write some non-blog-related things, and watch a movie. Every single night for the last week and a half I've had something to do, and I was so excited to have a night to myself.

I stayed after school for a while to make sure everything was ready for Monday. Usually, I bolt out the door the second I'm allowed to on Friday afternoons, but that leaves me with a mess of a Monday morning. I took my time and finished my work before heading home.

When I got to my apartment, I threw on a chick flick on my laptop and decided I was going to make dinner. I've cooked in my kitchen an embarrassing number of times - like four in two months - so I thought I'd put on my domestic hat for an evening. I stared at the cupboard for a while. Cheetos? No. Granola bars? No. Oreos? Well, maybe as a cooking snack. Munching my cookies, I finally resigned myself to the fact that I would need to break into the one can of stupid expensive chicken noodle soup I had purchased "for an emergency." (I don't know what kind of emergency requires canned soup as a solution, but nonetheless, I was prepared.)

Turning on the gas stove is always an adventure; I never know if I'm about to blow myself up, but the flame started without issue. I set the pan on the burner to heat up and reached up into the cupboard. As my hand lifted in the air, a voice ran through my mind. "You don't have a can-opener, you dummy." It probably wasn't God since God doesn't call me a dummy, but I gripped the can and prayed for a pop-top. Hallelujah! When I pulled the little tab, only a small part of the can opened, like the opening on a can of pop. I looked inside, wondering how the noodles and vegetables would fit through the tiny hole before it hit me: I had bought a crazy expensive can of broth.

Opening the can set off a timer in my head. "I have to make something with this broth before it goes bad! And I bet I only have an hour!" The thought didn't occur to me to put the can in the refrigerator until I had more ingredients; I needed to make soup, and I needed to do it now. I pulled down a bag of macaroni noodles and started heating up some water. I'd make noodle soup! But I didn't have any chicken. I looked at the stove for a while, trying to decide if it was worth it to turn the darn thing off and go buy chicken. I finally conceded that it was, turned off the gas, and headed to the mart next door.

Ah, the mart. I purchase my milk there once a week, but other than that, I never really go inside. It's full of things I don't recognize, and while the man behind the counter is delightfully friendly, he doesn't speak a lot of English. I walked in and scanned the veggies first. "Chicken noodle soup needs carrots and celery!" I told myself. I found a massive carrot the size of my foot and a cucumber (because vegetables that start with the same letter all taste the same, apparently) and went down to the meat freezer. There was very little to choose from, and none of it looked like chicken. I pulled out the cheapest one and went to the man at the counter. "Chicken?" He shook his head no, so I went back and got another. "Chicken?" This time, he shook his head and waved his arms, as though my question had been the most serious thing he'd dealt with all day. Not having any other options, I held onto the meat and went back to the vegetable case, hoping this time there would be a magical bag of pre-chopped soup veggies I could just dump in a pan. That's when I heard some English.

Tiffany smiled and asked me what I was making. I proudly displayed my ingredients and told her I had a can of broth at home and was going to make soup. I could see her calculating in her mind whether I was serious. "So, you're gonna make soup with broth, a carrot, a cucumber, and some unidentified meat?" I debated for a second whether telling her that I planned to chop the carrot would make the "she's an idiot" expression go away, but I settled instead on saying that I also had macaroni at home to add. Tiff started taking things out of my hands and putting them away while she told me what I should do instead. She told me to walk to another mart, one that had a bigger selection, and get actual chicken, two potatoes, two packets of cream soup, and shredded cheese. After she ran through the recipe twice, I asked her where the other mart was. She was kind enough to not call me hopeless to my face, which I appreciate.

Remembering the open can of broth on my counter as a ticking time bomb, I practically ran to the other mart. I walked to the back and got my chicken then headed to the vegetable area to find potatoes. I know enough about cooking to know that red-skinned potatoes are better than regular ones, so I tried to find those first. There were three bins of grown-underground somethings: one held regular potatoes, and two held red blobs. Unfortunately, none of the red blobs were potato-shaped. I picked one up from each bin and considered them for a moment, imagining how disappointed I'd be if I got home and discovered I had purchased a radish or something equally not a potato. Choosing to be safe, I grabbed two plain potatoes and tossed them in a bag. I found the cheese and cream soup mix and headed home.

At home, I followed the directions just as Tiffany had given them to me, and after about an hour, I sat down on my bed with a steaming bowl of potato soup. I curled up with my blanket and finished How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, insanely proud of my ability to create something edible, even if it wasn't my own idea in the slightest. Tiff came up to check on me and my soup a little bit later, and I ended up heading down to her apartment to eat cookies and drink plum wine until we were both ready to pass out - about midnight.

And thus ends my thrilling Friday night in Korea.

Wedding bells and beat-uhl-jeh

Last weekend, I got to attend my first Korean wedding! Hana tells me it was actually very Westernized, but it was still a stark contrast to any wedding I've witnessed in the past. Thus, it's going on the blog.

The wedding was scheduled to begin at 1 PM, but we had to arrive early to take pictures with the bride. We found the hotel with little trouble... okay, so Hana found the hotel while a line of foreigner ducklings trotted along behind her. When we got upstairs, the families of the bride and groom lined the entranceway, all dressed in their hanboks. I wish I could have taken a picture, but my goal is to insult the locals as little as possible, and photo-ops were a strict no-no. They stood in front of giant flower displays, not unlike the ones you see on gravestones on Memorial Day, and the flowers were draped with ribbons that had Korean letters all over them. I like to imagine that the flowers are symbolic of the way marriage kills your soul, and the ribbons were covered with warnings for the bride and groom, encouraging them to run away while they still had the chance. Unfortunately, one of the flower displays said "YBM" on it, which is the company I work for, so my guess is probably a tad off-base.

On the other side of the entranceway there were two tables; one for the bride's family and one for the groom's. At Korean weddings, there are no gifts and no registry. In fact, unless you sneak your card to the bride like you're passing off insider information on Watergate, nothing goes to the newlyweds. You choose the table whose family you more want to financially bless and leave your donation. Hana told me that most people try to figure out how much the dinner will be worth then leave a little more than that amount, but she also said our dinner was worth well over seventy dollars. The school had collected all of our gifts in advance to ensure that Sarah and her new hubby actually got to keep it, and I'm almost positive none of us gave seventy dollars.

We headed to the tiny room where Sarah sat on a stool waiting for people to come in and tell her she was beautiful. She looked insanely gorgeous, and she welcomed the cloud of blond girls graciously. The photographers fluttered around the room, snapping pictures from every direction like paparazzi at the Grammys. Had I been the one sitting on the stool, I'd have gotten annoyed and probably ripped of my dress and stomped out of the room (perhaps I have both commitment and anger issues), but Sarah just smiled and waved at her adoring friends and family as they paraded through the room to see her.

After the pictures, we headed into the reception hall to find a table. Although we were early, we were a little too late to get seats in the main room, so we ended up in the overflow room next door. For some reason, there were very few women in this room, but our table more than made up for the deficiency. We took pictures of the table and tried to sound out all the words in the program - effectively embarrassing the crap out of Hana.

The wedding occurs while you're already seated at the dinner table, and no one really pays attention. The ceremony was projected onto a screen in our room, but very few people actually turned to watch it. Five cell phones went off during the ceremony, and each owner took the call and chatted as though he were just hanging out at home. All the foreigners watched the screen intently, but Hana told us no one ever really cares about that part. People only come to weddings for the food. Once the food was served, I could see why.

I took pictures of each of the courses because they were just so daggone pretty. You should be jealous that you didn't get to eat any of this deliciousness.

Salmon appetizer that looked beautiful when it came out. Then I turned it into this:

Well hello little salmon man! ^^

Mmm, steak and mashed potatoes.

Definitely not wedding cake, but it had a layer of jello on top, which was cool.

While we were eating, the screen displayed fantastically beautiful pictures of Sarah and her new husband. Apparently, they have a photo shoot two weeks before the wedding so they can have a slide show that literally looked like it was taken from the pages of a bridal magazine. I wish I could just steal the powerpoint and upload it for you, but I'm not sure that's kosher. Imagine the prettiest and artsiest wedding pictures you've ever seen and that might be kind of close. It was spectacular.

They also played Korean love songs as the pictures flashed across the screen. My table didn't recognize anything until "All You Need Is Love" came over the speakers. Hana looked a little surprised. "You know this one?" We all nodded and told her The Beatles were very famous in America, but she just looked even more confused. "Who are 'Beatles'? This is Beat-uhl-jeh!" Oh Korea, you would prounounce the name of the best thing to come out of England since Shakespeare as "Beat-uhl-jeh". And I quite love you for it.

Sometime during the meal, we were called up to take pictures with the bride and groom. We were part of the "friends and coworkers" croud, and since we were the last to arrive for the picture, we were all huddled in the corner (because we didn't stand out enough in the picture already). Sarah tossed her bouquet, and the lucky girl who caught it is promised to not only be the next to get married, but she has to achieve it within six months. Before you ask, no, it wasn't me. :) In Korea, the garter is far too risque an object to be tossed about, so the groom flung his boutonniere into the air instead. The guy who caught it made me regret not trying harder for that darn bouquet.

By the time dessert was served (not wedding cake, as that's family-only), people were already flooding out of the room. Sarah and her husband disappeared to a special ceremony where they are formally married, and the guests just finished their food and left. No hugs, no dancing, no shouting "Don't Stop Believin'" into a stolen mic so neighboring continents can hear you. The whole event lasted just two hours, and we were released with an entire afternoon and evening ahead of us. I can say with certainty that I won't be planning a Korean-style wedding for myself, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. When Sarah gets back on Monday, I'll see if I can get some details on Korean honeymoons for you. ;)

I never thought I'd see the day

My job is easy. I play with the most adorable kids in the country, the school makes all my lesson plans, and Hana deals with all the parent crap. I contractually can't work past five-thirty, my apartment is included in my salary, and I'm pretty sure Korea's never heard of No Child Left Behind. The other day, I was talking to a bunch of Korean friends about their jobs, and a tiny thrill of fear ran through me. I don't have a job! How will I pay my bills? ... then I realized that that thing I do Monday through Friday is, in fact, a job and my means by which to support myself.

Every few minutes, I change my mind on how long I'm planning to stay in this country and what I'm going to do after I leave. If you asked me - right now - what my plan is, I'd tell you that I want to finish out my year, couch-surf across southeast Asia, tour Israel and see all the places in the Bible that sound interesting, go home for Christmas, do a DTS in Africa (thanks, wifey), and find a non-profit that is just crazy enough to take me on staff. But that's right now. Usually I'm slightly more practical, and I think I'm leaning toward getting my master's and teaching elementary school back in the good ol' US of A (probably in the south, seeing as I've picked up more southern colloquialisms than I knew existed thanks to Jeanne and Tiffany). As an education major, I spent much of my time in college bashing the quality of the American education system and lamenting the fact that we've never taken a page out of Asia's smarty-pants textbooks to really teach our kids what they need to know. Like almost everything I thought I knew, though, I've changed my mind on this one.

I hate the Korean education system.

When I took my job here and started preparing to pack up my life, I had to explain Korea to a lot of people. My limited knowledge at the time told me that students went to regular school during the day then to a hagwon in the evenings. I always said it in a "bless-their-little-hearts-they-learn-so-much" kind of way, but the depravity of it never really hit me. Now that I'm in the thick of it, though, it's disgusting - and time isn't the worst part.

Education in Korea is really just about show. Korean parents want to get their kids into hagwons with "native English speakers" regardless of whether those speakers are actually good teachers. They pay insane amounts of money to parade a blonde white girl in front of their children for a few hours a week, and most of the parents can't speak enough English to actually confirm their children are learning something useful. Our school is slightly better in that we are all licensed teachers in our respective homelands, but still, it's all so focused on appearances that it makes me sick. The school provides all of our worksheets because none of us care to cover what we do in clip art. Everything the kids fill out has to have borders and pictures and everything must be printed in color. The content takes a backseat (think like the back of a greyhound bus) to the presentation. I made some extra math worksheets to use as time fillers, and I was instructed to never, ever send them home because the mommies would throw a fit. Right, because an accurate indicator of your child's progress is a starburst in the corner of the page.

Worksheets aren't the only things that have to look nice. We went on a field trip on Friday, and by the end of the day, I had forgotten every word in the English language except "WTF?" The kids were shuffled through the exhibits with hardly any time to look at anything, then we sat out in the blazing sun to have our picnic. (I had plenty to gripe about regarding the lunches, but when I typed it out it seemed kind of petty, so I deleted it.) After lunch, we were told to wander around and look at the exhibits again until it was time to take pictures. Pictures could be fun, right? Yeah, no. The school hired two professional photographers to document the trip. Each student was posed in various locations, staring off into the distance or pretending to enjoy a fountain. I watched with a combination of irritation and amusement until I was told I had to be in the pictures too. The photographer lined us up against a brick wall that stood on a slight slope. She placed me at the top then trotted down to the bottom and instructed the kids to step out one by one and pose. I tried to slink out of the picture, but she caught me. "Teacher, you must look lovingly at the child who is posing. No, more. Like you adore him." Uh, what? We did this over and over and over again until she thought I had achieved an expression that appropriately conveyed "the sun shines out this child's ass." I desperately tried to make eye contact with another foreigner to confirm that this was, in fact, completely psychotic, but all the other teachers had already loaded the bus. The photographer instructed us to pose in a handful of other ludicrous ways; the kids were having a blast, but I'd have rather been giving myself paper cuts. Finally, by the grace of God, she let us leave. On the way to the bus, I found Jeanne and asked her what the eff was up with the photo shoot. She smiled wryly. "Welcome to Korea, buddy."

Additionally, I've gotten in trouble at work multiple times the past two weeks:
- One of the mommies (who is really more of a caricature of a human being) was upset that I was sitting behind my desk when her son entered the room. I did greet him, but my enthusiasm level clearly stated that I thought preparing for the morning's lesson was more important than kissing his feet, which is unacceptable. She complained to the principal who promptly told me that I'm no longer allowed to sit in the mornings.
- That same mommy (it's safe to assume all "wtf" stories include her) had a long chat with me about how I did not scold her son enough in class. She told me that scolding is the way love is shown to children in Korea and that her son cries after school every day because I scold the other boys more than I scold him. I got the distinct impression that she told her son to cause trouble to rectify this horrendous issue because she insisted that I punish him, sometimes even if he doesn't deserve it.
- In Korea, the standard form of discipline is to have the children stand against a wall with their hands above their head. I've never in my life seen this kind of punishment in a school setting (or any other setting for that matter), so obviously I didn't bring the idea with me. One of the normal mommies insisted that we use this method on her son (only her son) to prepare him for public school, but word got back to psycho mommy and she ran to the principal. Moments later, the principal was explaining to me that even though that may be how we punish children in America, it is unacceptable in Korea and I need to stop immediately. She politely told me that it was clearly my lack of knowledge about the culture that led to this honest mistake, and that I should use other forms of discipline. I asked her what would be the preferred method of disciplining the kids and she replied, "Oh, you'll come up with something."
- Yesterday, I printed out my weekly letter to the parents where I had mentioned that we were coloring Halloween pictures during snack time to decorate the classroom. At least that's what I thought I typed; unbeknownst to me, I must have written something about teaching the kids a barrage of curse words while forcing them to take illegal drugs based on the way the principal came running down to my room, waving the blasphemous letter over her head. She breathlessly asked me why the children were coloring. Because... they're five? She explained that if the parents found out the kids were coloring in class, they'd be furious and pull their children out instantly. Aside from the fact that coloring is the number one way children develop fine motor skills, it's just plain messed up to not let kids color pictures during free time. They're children.

Kids here really aren't allowed to be kids, and it's incredibly painful to watch. During the "free time" we had on the field trip, Hana and I snuck the kids around to a little courtyard and let the kids play in a patch of dirt. The space was no bigger than a standard driveway, but the kids went nuts. They'd pick up rocks like they were made of gold, and every single one of them seemed shocked that the leaves on the ground were colors other than green. You could tell these kids never, ever got to play outside by the way they were genuinely amazed that there were sticks and bugs in the dirt.

At home, I used to whine about how America needs year-round schooling. It was partly because I was bitter that I had chosen to not go into the field that provides three months off in the summer; okay, so it was pretty much all because of that. But now that I've seen what school looks like on the other side of the world, I think I'd lead a protest against changing the laws. The three months in the summer aren't for teachers to drink mai tais by the pool (although that's a sweet benefit); summer vacation gives kids time to be kids. Yes, my five-year-olds know the definition of "onomatopoeia." But they don't know how to select the best stick for a sword fight, and honestly, that's more important.

*In other news, I've finally figured out how to link my blog to my facebook profile. There's an application called "Networked Blogs" and mine is now officially listed on there. You can "follow" it with your facebook account through the link on the right. I have no idea what special benefits this provides seeing as my posts arrive in your news feed anyway, but I'm currently the only one following my blog via facebook, and that's just sad. Make me feel loved. :)

Culture shock

I recently skimmed down my blog, looking at all my most recent posts, and I was a little disappointed. People keep sending me messages about how much they enjoy reading about my adventures and my exciting life, but most of my most recent posts are kind of depressing, or at the very least, really deep and thoughtful. I haven't written about phallic-shaped soap or impromptu adventures in flea markets for a couple of weeks now, and I don't feel like my blog is much "fun" right now. In fact, I'm in the middle of writing a post about how Korea's education system actually makes me miss Dubya's horrendous excuse for a learning plan, and it occurred to me that I might be hitting a bit of culture shock. That's fine; I knew it was coming, and my frustrations with the school definitely count as being "shocked by the culture." But I was reading a friend's blog this afternoon, and she mentioned hitting the negotiation stage of culture shock, and I got confused. A quick search on Wikipedia provided me with something, well, shocking.

There are stages of culture shock.

Like, documented, and stuff.

Like, other people follow the same pattern I'm going through.

(It never ceases to amaze me to discover that I am, in fact, normal.)

I really shouldn't be writing this post right now; I'm supposed to be making lesson plans for a project my kids are doing next week, but I'm so flabbergasted that I had to write about it. I thought culture shock was just that moment when you see a dog wearing boots or cough drops sold as candy, but it turns out it's a whole process! Mind. Blown.

According to Wikipedia, culture shock occurs in four phases:

Honeymoon phase: There's certainly no argument that I experienced this one. From the second I got here, I fell in love with Korea and all its quirks. I loved the over-priced coffee, the smelly and confusing subway, the kimbap... everything. I loved it all, and it loved me. Korea and I seemed made for each other, and it was beautiful.

Negotiation phase: This is when the rose-colored glasses come off and you realize that things aren't the way you're used to. It's when you go to the grocery store and can't find any normal looking eggs or soup without fish parts, and it starts to annoy you. I think I'm hitting this phase, even though it's early (according to wikiwisdom). The school was cute, but now it feels stupid and obnoxious. I'd literally fight someone for access to a Wendy's, and if I accidentally walk into one more of those damn hole-in-the-floor bathrooms, my head might explode.

Adjustment phase: Apparently this is the next one I have to look forward to, and trust me, I am. This is where life starts to feel normal - not over-the-moon exciting, but not pull-my-hair-out frustrating either. I'm just hoping I hit it sooner than six months in; I don't know if I can be grumpy that long.

Mastery phase: I may not be here long enough to actually reach this nirvana-like state, but it's the end goal. It's the phase where you really feel like you belong, like you understand the culture and it understands you and you fit together.

Hopefully my blog posts remain somewhat entertaining as I stumble my way through learning a new culture. You can rest assured I'll document it all - the good and the bad - with astounding exaggeration and as many pictures as I can.

(Random thought: I wonder if marriage follows these same phases? It certainly sounds plausible. Just wait til I get married, folks. The blog's going to be hilarious... and probably the cause of my divorce.)