Just a note:

I saw and ad for Diet Coke. With vitamins and minerals.

They have finally created a perfect beverage. Nay, a new food group in and of itself.

Home

I'm back in the USA!! It is interesting to think about how I'll be changing from updating this blog about life in Korea for friends and family in the States to updating about life in the States for people in Korea for the next few weeks.

So. The past few days in bullets:

* Left for Seoul/Chicago on Saturday.
* Bought the new Harry Potter at the airport. I mean, really, a 13 hr flight! Anyway.
* read a lot on the plane, only got about 4 hours of sleep out of an Ambien (SO NOT FAIR!) watched part of a few movies. Could have been a lot worse.
* Arrived in Chicago, got to hang out with my awesome family.
* It's really cool to realize that people you are related to are people you would want to hang out with even if you aren't related.
* Went to a gym where the treadmills were longer, pullup bars were higher, people racked their weights, and all in all, just more Western sized.
* Got back to Indiana, ended up at Sam's with my step-mom. Right now, I think that is one of the greatest places on earth.
* Finished Harry Potter last night.


Some observations:
* Corn and rolling fields are such an indicator of "home" to me!
* Everything is SO CLEAN!!
* Streets are huge! Heck, just about everything is huge! I was on the plane and the flight attendant brought me a diet Coke. It was in a full-sized can and it seemed enormous. Coffee in cups the size of my head.
* Baked goods!!! My goodness!!


Soon I'm going to head out and drive a car for the first time in almost a year. I have a series of errands to run in order to get ready to head to TN on Thursday.

last day

Tomorrow morning I leave for home!! I should be landing in Chicago in about 30 hours. Things have been crazy with the packing and getting things ready to move (I head to Mokpo three days after I get back from the US). Right now, there are some last minute things to throw in boxes, trash to take out, and a last cleaning. Easily done in a day.

Today was my last day at school, and that really is kind of sad. I'll miss the people here. It's a shame that my principal makes things so difficult and that I'm so far from everyone and everything. Because it is only a semester break and not the end of the school year here, there isn't the sense of closure I got when I had left the other schools where I've taught.

Korea

A friend asked (with the caveat that it is a rather broad question) "So, how's Korea?" - a question I'm sure I'm going to get asked a million times in the coming weeks. And I've been thinking about it, but am still not really sure how to answer.

Korea is: awesome, awful, filthy, and strikingly beautiful. People are offensive, offended, sometimes hostile, and often incredibly kind. I am told that I'm beautiful and that I'm too fat only minutes later. Children shout out my name and walk me home and old men spit when I walk by. Cities are crowded and polluted and the countryside is open and gorgeous. There is a wonderful recycling program and a horrible litter problem. I have been mistaken for a prostitute and given a great deal of respect for my position as a teacher.

Like anywhere, it is a place of contrasts. I cannot wait to go home next weekend, but I'm also really looking forward to coming back in August.

good things

My country school wanted me to be there on Friday so they could say goodbye, plus they wanted me to go to the end of semester lunch.

It was great! We drove out to this beautiful area on Baegun Mountain and they had set up tables and were already grilling the meat. I made sure it wasn't dog (it is summer, and that is the season for it, so I'm careful) and it was awesome! We sat in a shelter on the edge of this gorgeous, rocky, fast-moving mountain stream all afternoon.

I'm mostly done with packing - a few things here and there to throw into boxes over the next couple of days, but that's about it. I fly home Saturday!! Cannot wait!!

Bad Korea days

The past week+ has been made up of mostly bad Korea days. Well, more accurately, bad Korean school days. I don't really want to go into it right now, so I'll just say it is good that I'm going home for a while, and then moving, and that soon the ceaseless gray will go away.

Also, I like oranges. To an extreme extent. Especially cold Mandarin oranges.

Learning Korean

Today in the taxi, I was talking to the driver in my horrible Korean/English combination, and his Korean. After, Monique said something like, "Wow, that was a... conversation...well, I mean, you know..." (it was a conversation only in the most technical sense of the term, as there WERE some ideas conveyed.)

My Korean is bad, but in the past few weeks I've noticed that I'm able to use a LOT more Korean to clarify in my classes, and I can talk to kids and other teachers with a mixture of my broken Korean and their broken English. I am able to joke with the other teachers at volleyball, and have a far, far better idea of the general gist of what is going on around me than I did before. If I have to repeat myself in a taxi it, it is usually only once. I can charm children by telling them that I don't think they are are insane (michin), just a little crazy (babo).

Blurbles

* This weekend I went to a party in Mokpo.
* I'm even more psyched to me moving there next month!!
* Mexican Food. OMG. Y'ALL. So.Good. I want to eat so much Mexican food when I'm home!
* Waking up early, but bribes of coffee make it worthwhile.
* Things that are good about staying at Virginia's:
- coffee, and lots of it. And she BRINGS IT TO YOU.
- breakfast. Always good, always contains vegetables and good bread of some sort.
- the best/greatest variety of fancy shower/hair/beauty products of any person I've ever known ever.
* Things that are good about Mokpo:
- Whole wheat pasta. In Korea. I KNEW Mokpo was good!
- People there are nice. I had a lovely time.
- The air seems cleaner than Gwangyang. That might have to do with there being less proximity to the biggest steel mill in the world. (I know I tend to the hyperbolic, but this time, I'm not exaggerating)
* There are many difference between Canadians and people from the US. One that I find pretty interesting today - if you ask a Canadian where they are from, they usually say, "Canada." If you ask where someone from the US is from, they usually say, "Indiana" or "Texas." (In the past year, I've been trained to respond "USA" or "America") I don't know what this means, but I think it might mean something.
* I haven't been in very many hospitals ever. The only time I remember being in one out side of girl scout trips in elementary school was after a friend had a baby a few years ago. And the past few days, I've tripled my hospital visits. A friend was in an accident on his bike and broke a hand, foot, and shoulder. Friends, please be careful, in cars and on bikes (auto or other).

aww, they like me!!

When I said thank you and goodbye to the secretary at the school I go to on Fridays, she was upset because the English teacher hadn't told them it was my last day (I don't know if he told ANYONE that I was going to be moving...) and she LIT into him. Once she* figured out what was going on, the head teacher joined in. So he asked me to come next Friday, and I think there will be a party.

Which is good, because I really did mean to take in cookies or some other thank you, and I totally blanked on it.


* another one of the cool things about this school is that both of the head teachers while I've been there have been women - rather rare here.

blather and goodbyes

* Today is my last day at my country school. I am going to miss this place so deeply.


* Trying to pack at least one box every other day or so. I really don't have a lot, and if I wanted to, I could click into gear and get the whole place done in less than an afternoon, but at least this way I don't feel like I'm incredibly behind or anything.
* I have had almost all of my classes pulled because of testing or studying for tests or other stuff for the last two weeks. The first day is kind of fun. After that it is mind-numbingly boring and painful.
* In exactly two weeks, I'll be getting ready to leave for Seoul so I can catch my flight home.

Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann on the Libby decision

And give us someone—anyone—about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

Pardon?

Oh, for goodness' sake!.

Because it wasn't hard enough to explain the Constitution yesterday, now there is this. Though, I guess this puts a new spin on the idea of "a jury of your peers."

If Bush is so concerned with appropriate sentencing and fairness, there are maybe some more pressing issues he should think about. Like Guantanamo.