The World at Dusk

This week was another week like every other. Teaching, studying, watching too many Korean Dramas…

I went out to dinner with some people from my class a couple of times this week, it was pretty interesting. Because everyone is from different places all over the world, the only language we all have in common is Korean, so we are all forced to practice our Korean. I can feel my conversation skills slowly getting better. I still have a long way to go, but I’m not as hopeless in conversation as I was a little while ago. My favorite classmate is this girl from France. Sometimes I get to practice my French with her too. We were walking to the subway station on Thursday, and anyone listening to our conversation would have been really confused, because we were alternating between French, Korean, and English.

My kindergarten class, which was once so wonderful with my 6 students, has finally increased to its full capacity of 10 students. It’s been a bit stressful, and the classroom feels so crowded, but the students all seem to get along pretty well. The only problem is this one student who apparently lacks all muscle control. He can’t sit or stand still. I took him out in the hallway to lecture him this week, and as I was yelling at him about standing still, his legs were slowly sliding apart and he was sinking to the floor. I don’t even think he noticed. He’s not a bad kid, but it’s so frustrating to be yelling at him every ten minutes to sit still, and on top of that the kid can’t be quiet. He’s such a talker that he has the best English in the class, but it’s really annoying trying to teach.

Friday night at work, we all had to stay an hour and a half late for a meeting. Our boss sat down with us, and invited us to air our grievances, mostly about the communication issues on the staff. I doubt that anything will be fixed by it, but it was a nice gesture that he sat down with us and listened. It’s definitely quite a change from ICEV where we were told we couldn’t even vent our grievances amongst each other while on school property. It’s nice to be in a better place.

On Friday I was walking back to the school for the meeting, and it was dusk. I’ve never walked to the school at that time of day, and the way that the setting sun hit the buildings made them look completely different than what I am used to, and it hit me, I am living in South Korea. I’ve been here for long enough, that I’ve become accustomed to pretty much everything around. However, every once in a while, the light will hit something differently, and I will look around me in wonder that this is where I am living. A semi-shy girl who spent the first 20 years of her life living in the Midwest, where the population is nice and spread out, and you can walk down a street without seeing a single person. Now here I am in a country crammed full of people who don’t look anything like me, and act nothing like me. I’ve become so used to everything here, that sometimes I’m surprised by my own foreign reflection as I pass a window. The other day I found myself referring to an American made movie as a foreign film…When I do finally decide to come back to the US, it’s going to be a rough transition, I already feel it.

Saturday I celebrated two of my friends birthdays. We went out to lunch, then wandered around Insadong. We then went to see this show called JUMP. It was hysterical. It’s a martial arts comedic performance. They have all of these people who are well-trained in Taekwondo, and they act out this story. I spent the whole 80 minute show in tears I was laughing so hard. If you ever come to Seoul, I definitely recommend it. After that we went to dinner with a bunch of other friends, then spent two hours doing karaoke…I usually get burned out after the first hour, but I stuck it out trying to be a good friend. After that we went and hung out in this funky area of Seoul called Hongdae for a while. It’s where all the artsy type college students and musicians go to hang out, and it’s a pretty interesting crowd on the weekends. By the time we were finished there, the public transportation had shut down, so we had to take a cab back to my apartment. The cab driver was a pretty chatty guy, so I spent the whole 30 minute cab ride talking to the driver in Korean. It was probably my favorite part of the whole night.