It is almost 2014 here in Korea, and I wanted to start the year off right.
I haven’t written anything personal in a bit, but I am working on changing that. I have a couple of adventures on the horizon and they will hopefully pan out.
Anyway…
It feels like a long time since I said goodbye to my friends and family back in the states. I feel quite far away from them...and not just in a physical sense...I mean, I moved half-way around the world, I was bound to lose touch with a few. I miss them, but more that the people I left behind, I miss my “fur-babies”...what can I say? My life’s ambition is to be a crazy-cat lady.
Ironically, it doesn’t feel like I have been in Korea any time at all. My day to day life is well set, I love my students more than I ever would have imagined, and I have made some fantastic new friends. But I haven’t spent that much time getting in touch with my “roots”, so to speak. I dabble at learning Korean...I even had a student that would come and teach me a new word everyday for awhile, and I try to the point of being pathetic to be culturally Korean and copy everything I see right down to how my co-workers eat lunch so I can eat like a Korean.
Funny to think that just a little over three months ago when students saw me in public they would make themselves smaller and walk faster. Now, they speak and wave to me in public, or in the case of some of my favorites, see me first and get my attention if I don’t see them. (I really do love my kids more than I can say! I honestly feel so lucky that I ended up where I am that I have such wonderful students! They are all very special to me!)
And I have changed. Not dramatically, but I have...you don’t make a major life change without a few alterations. I think, and by that I mean “I hope”, I am becoming more Korean. Three months ago I touched down in Incheon ugly-American style, with only the vaguest of ideas on how to behave like a Korean and armed with the “big three” in language (that is: hello, good-bye, and thank you). My language still isn’t great, but I can at least move around without a neon arrow pointing me out as a foreigner. I am comfortable enough to go places alone, and really, isn’t that what it’s all about...even if that behavior is not inherently Korean?
So, new year’s resolutions. I could hit you with the basic “I want to lose weight” or “I want to save more money”, but I think I need to be honest with you and myself. Without being too “hippy-dippy” part of coming to Korea was to awaken part of my soul that has been dormant. An old man in Insadong asked me if I had any culture-shock when I got to Korea and I could honestly tell him “no.” I mean, things were different, obviously, but I didn’t feel like I was being beaten over the head with the differences...I felt like I was learning things that had been pushed back into the farthest corners of my brain. Yes, I have had to work on it, but there was never the point where I was so frustrated that I wanted to give up or even feel that homesick. (Ok, yes, I miss home, but there is that little part of me that feels like I “am” home. Not that I was ever culturally Korean before, but that I was discovering something inside of me that was lost. So, more in a sense of that old country song that says “wherever you go, there you are” kinda deal.)
So, what do I want. I want to become fluent (or fluent to a degree) in Korean. I want to become more culturally Korean...learn Korean traditional dance and cooking. I want to own my own hanbok and travel the country. I want to learn how to play soccer.
And, since I am being honest, I want to be better at teaching. I think I am doing ok, but I don’t know how much my students are retaining. I am not placing focus on grammar and vocabulary (there are plenty of other teachers for that) but rather focusing on using the language. So, I would love, and I mean, LOVE, for a student to walk away from my class feeling confident in their ability to use English.
