friendship food

There is an endless list of difficult things about moving to a different country alone. On the flipside of that, there are endless possibilities. One of the hardest things for me was leaving a huge community of loved ones I’ve been so blessed to have. But I knew I would have some great new people come into my life. And I most certainly have. My coworkers are some of the kindest people I’ve ever known. Feeling incredibly blessed to see them everyday and to learn from them. And feeling the most fortunate to have found the circle of friends I have here. It took some time. And we are the oddest bunch to have ever put together. But we’re together, and I’m not mad about it.

WARNING: the rest of this post is going to be weird. I’m just telling you straight up. Allow me to explain why this weirdness is occurring. As you all know, I have a deep love of all these sugary. Your homegirl likes to bake. And I’ve been deprived of that in my 12x12 square ft apartment, which only has room for an easy bake oven in Celsius degrees. (Exponentially difficult. Really. Give me back Fahrenheit.) So instead I just talk about how I USED to bake a lot. Well, I’m not sure how this all played out, but “the girls” requested that I compare them to pastries. Yeah. Sometimes we run out of things to talk about. We’re together a lot…

Well, I thought it was a great idea! But I’ve expanded from pastries because that limited me to basically just food items. I don’t like to be boxed in. So this is what I’ve come up. (and you should all  know, I spent entirely too much time on this.)

Cheryl is a chocolate chip cookie. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside; because let’s be real, she’s always got her act together, but I’ve seen her cry a few times. And she’s just the right amount of sweetness. Not too much to make you sick to your stomach, but enough to make you come back for more. Who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie? And who doesn’t love Cheryl? The two go hand in hand. And she’s from the South. Which is wildly comforting when you’re 8,000 miles away from it. Comfortable like a chocolate chip cookie.

Katie is an elegant and perfectly flavored crème brulee. It’s creamy and sweet and I just get excited when somebody says crème brulee. And at first it seems a little daunting to prepare, but once you get going, you realize that such a great product isn’t all the hard to come by. (The torch scares me, but just be gentle.) And that’s how Katie makes me feel. Those big words she uses sometimes cause me to spend more time in my dictionary than actually listening to her, but once you get to know her and speak her language, you realize your life is a lot better with her in it. Katie and crème brulee. Two things I want in my life forever.

Tab is a funfetti cupcake with rainbow sprinkles. Because it isn’t a party without funfetti and it sure ain’t a party without Tab. She’s bright and shiny and energetic and is constantly keeping the rest of us laughing. Tab makes your day a little more exciting. You’re always in for an adventure when Tab is around.

Adventures

Y'all. So much has been going down since my last post. Buddha had a birthday. I had a birthday. We took a trip to Namhae Island. Cheryl and I went to the the Seoul Zoo. Which may not sound too exciting, but everything's more exciting when you can't ask for directions or read signs and you're in one of the biggest zoos in the world.

My Mississippi roots really start to show whenever we go do touristy things. The crowds. Oh emm gee. The crowds. You would think after a significant amount of time being here I'd get used to adjummas pushing me back and forth like a ping pong ball. But. I haven't. I really haven't. So many people on such a small area of land. Just cram 'em in. We went to the Lotus Lantern Festival back in May. It was cool. The lanterns were super neat. I heard a lot of stories about Buddha in a language I don't understand. A good time for all. But I was sitting on the ground for 3 hours and this woman behind me kept balancing her camera on my head to take pictures. The old man beside me had his knee resting on top of my knee. That's not really common. They don't usually touch me, they just stare. But that's how close we were. Our knees had no where else to go but on top of each other. And I didn't mind. Until....until the music started and this man starting slapping his hands on his knees. And with every slap all of the fat in my right thigh jiggled. Like a bowl of jello. and this continued for too long. By the end of the parade Joyce was not a happy camper. Joyce wanted space and a lot of it. But now I can say I've been to the Lotus Lantern Festival and I don't ever have to go again if I don't want to. Great. 

Now let me tell you about my birthday. My birthday was an adventure. Well first let me say this. I'm glad I'm here. Korea is great. Is my job a dreamland of rainbows and sunshine? Hell no. But I'm so thankful for this time. I've said it before and I'll say it again, some days I have NO CLUE why I'm here. and some days I know EXACTLY why I'm here. I say that to say this. Even as painfully charming and gratifying this experience is turning out to be, sometimes being 8,000 miles away from everyone I've ever loved and everything I've ever known is just plain difficult. And on days like your birthday you think more heavily about the people and the circumstances that have shaped you into the person you are right now. And my darling Seoul Sisters understand this. Cheryl, Katie, and Tab are the three best things about this year. Well, beside the fact that I get to see tiny Korean all the time..but I digress. The girls only wanted my birthday to be perfect. And perfect is exactly what it was. If there is one thing in the world I love I think we all know its cupcakes. Sweet intentional Cheryl had planned for us to go to all of these cupcake shops around the city and just indulge ourselves in a smorgasbord of cupcakes all day. We’re all dressed up and ready to hit the town. Now the trouble starts. First, the girls aren’t exactly sure were any of the bakeries are…okay, not big deal. We’ll Google some directions and be one our way. It’s never that simple. We hop in a cab and after a lot of miscommunication because all of us speak Korean with ridiculous American accents we’re our way. So we thought..5 minutes down the road the cab driver realizes he’s out of gas and tells us to get out. He was nice enough to drop us off at a subway station. So we decided to train it instead of cab it. The particular station we were at was under construction. Of course it was. So we walk back up and make the trek to the next closest station. We’re just walking in our dresses and heels in the scorching heat and nobody is happy. And we’re pretending to be happy because it’s my birthday, but we’re just frustrated. Y’all. Finding this place was awful. Lol. Yeah, I just lol’d in a blog, because every time I think about this I laugh out loud. I just did it. Still laughing…We get out of the subway and we have directions to the cupcake shop because Tab as repeatedly called the sweet little lady to ask where its located. Oh, language barriers. We can’t find it. We walk up and down the same street so many times. The lady eventually finds us because she can see a group of four white girls walking up and down the street just looking lost as can be. And talk about frustrated, poor Cheryl was about to have an aneurysm. But, the important thing is that we made it. And I don’t know if it’s because it had been 6 months since I’d had a cupcake, but that thing was ballin. Delicious. One of the best cupcakes I’ve ever had. Worth every bit of the struggle to get to the place. Thankfully the rest of night went fairly smoothly. As smoothly was life can go for four foreign girls in Korea. (for four foreign…say that five times fast.) We had dinner at this little Italian place called Jenny’s Café. Because everything is a café here. And the girls had a scavenger hunt planned for me and I thought most of the things were atrocious and appalling so I refused to participate. It’s my party. I do what I want. Well, party or no party, pretty much doing what I want. It was a great night. We ate a lot of good food, we saw a lot of great friends. I wouldn't have changed a thing...except for those few hours we wandered aimlessly. 

Love and miss you all. More soon :)
xoxo

Andy and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

I think I could write an entire book at the end of this year just full of stories about the weird and funny things my students say. ESL teaching has got to be the most entertaining job. Probably the most stressful also if you care about being effective, but very entertaining. I try so hard to remember the things that happen. I make notes in my phone and my desk drawer at work is full of post-its with quotes from students or little stories so I can blog or journal about them later. And then I don’t blog or journal and my life has just become a pile of funny post-its. (Maybe not what my boss intended when he gave me all those post-its, but seems like a fine purpose to me).  And most of the stories have something to do with my students making comments about my body. It’s ridiculous how obsessed they are with how I look. I mean, I don’t worry about the extra ten (15…20…eh…) pounds hanging around because they are worried enough for all of us.

“Teacher, face so small but body so big.” “Teacher, why you have 3 necks?”

And I can’t even be offended because the look of shock and concern on their faces (still almost 6 months later). I laugh every time.

I’m gonna tell you this story and it involves me discussing my breasts. I apologize for that, but this needs to be told. In one of my classes I teach this little boy named Andy. Andy is a special individual. I have been teaching Andy the same subject for 5 months and Friday when I walked into the classroom the first thing he said to me was,

“Teacher, this book report or reading?”

I rolled my eyes and said, “Andy, how long have I been your teacher?”

He said, “Uuuhhhh….long time?”

 “A long time Andy. What do I teach you?”

 “Uh, book report?”

“Yes, Andy, book report writing.”

“But Teacher, books same color. It hard.”

“It’s not hard Andy. Read the words.”

Children…

Andy doesn’t have the highest English skills in his class (surprise surprise) but he is definitely the most hilarious. And he has this very distinct cackle that might even rival mine. And he has the nerve to tell me I “sound like witch” when I laugh. I’m like, son can you hear yourself? You sound like a deranged hyena. He didn’t know what that was. I said like the crazy hyena named Ed from the Lion King. He knew what that was and he said, “AH! TEACHER!” hahaha

So that’s Andy. Total class clown. Never wanting to stay on topic. Always making fun of somebody. Always making me laugh when I should be disciplining him.

Anyway, so one day in class I just walked over to turn the “air con” on because my class kept saying, “Teacher, hot! Me hot! Air con, please! Hot! Air con!”  Well, if you weren’t running up and down the halls with your 14 layers of clothing on you wouldn’t be so hot right now. Take a couple of jackets off…but no, it has to be air con and then teacher is cold…whatever…no respect. So I’m walking back to the board and I don’t know why he picked today to do this or what was going through this little 10 year old Korean mind but all of sudden I hear Andy’s cackle. I turn around to look at him and he is laughing hard. I mean head thrown back, mouth wide open, eyes closed kind of cackle. Laughing so hard. And now Andy is kind of a husky little Korean. You can tell he eats all of his rice. I said Andy what are you doing??? So then he puts his hands on his little boy boobs and starts to jiggle them. And he is laughing so hard. Just jiggling his little boobs. He’s making fun of me because my breasts move. He’s laughing so hard this point and his face is so red. The rest of class is just wide eye. You can tell they want to laugh but they know that what Andy is doing is wrong so they are just waiting for my response. And I lose it. I mean I just start laughing hysterically. To the point that I can’t stand up and I’m sitting on the floor of my classroom laughing. Andy sees this as a huge victory and pumps his fists in the air. Our school counselor walked by my classroom and saw me on the floor and thought I was crying. She thought I had finally collapsed under the pressure. Needless to say, we didn’t have a productive day…

Oh Andy…

I want to tell you about Sarah too. I wish I had a picture of her but every time I try to take one she runs away and screams teacher no!! She is the most adorable thing. The cutest little round face that I just want to pinch all the time. She’s 11 and a pistol of a little girl. Smart and feisty. We get along. You’re probably wondering why every time I write about students they have English names. They’re just made up. They aren’t their real names. Sometimes my students try to get me to learn their Korean names and I do really go for about ten minutes and then they quiz me the next day and I’ve forgotten them all. With the exception of a few who absolutely refuse to be called by an English name so I’ve been force to remember their real names. Sometimes my students ask my what my Korean name is and I just stare at them…right, because I look so Korean…Well Sarah likes to change her name. Her name right now is Vinny. Because when your name isn’t your real name you can change it. Anytime. Just by saying, hey I changed my name. A few weeks ago when Sarah decided to change her name she was trying out a different name everyday. It was ridiculous. And she would get mad at me when I called her Sarah. Well it just got to the point that I couldn’t remember what her current name was. So I started to call her Sarah Michelle Gellar. She says she hates it but she really loves it. Even now that she has decided on Vinny I can still get away with calling her Sarah Michelle Gellar. When she draws me pictures she always writes from: Sarah Michelle Gellar at the bottom. Also I should tell you that Sarah (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Vinny) wrote a little essay about me in her writing class. And she told me she did this but she wouldn’t let me see it. She would only tell me the things she wrote about. She listed these things out to me:

white skin

nose is up

not kind that much

tall in Korea

big eyes

not slim

earrings many

has 3 necks

everyday nail art

she wants to be model

she make fun to me

I have since stolen her writing workbook from her backpack and read what she wrote about me. It did not include these things. It was very sweet. Except for the part that said she wants to lose her weight…

My students are just weird. Perfect and weird.

Love you guys.

xoxo

Nuclear War and Friendship

First, let’s discuss the every present threats of nuclear bombs…I do appreciate all the many frantic messages I’ve received in the recent days asking about my safety and urging me to come home. It’s also really nice to know a lot of you have strategic plans of how to rescue me from the country if it comes down to that. But honestly I have a strong sense of peace about all of this. Now I may be crazy, but I think we’re all going to be okay. At least for a little while longer. Seoul keeps trucking along everyday like nothing is out of the ordinary, because well, nothing is out of the ordinary. These threats, though a little more intense these days, are as common as seaweed in my meals. If you want to understand a little better South Korea’s view to these threats read this article.

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20130405/WIRE/130409843/1083/ARTICLES?Title=Pyongyang-rumblings-have-little-effect-on-South-Koreans

Keep praying and keep mapping out those escape routes for me. And if something does go down, well here’s to hoping heaven has internet…but enough of all this nuclear bomb mess.

            I think if I chose Seoul as just a place to pass through I would be thoroughly unimpressed. There are so many things about this city that get on my freaking nerves. But since this place has been my home for 5 months now I’m starting to feel a little connection. It’s the little things that I get to experience that I wouldn’t have if I was just a visitor. Like my little man at the 7 eleven my by apartment building that gives me free coffee. We can’t have a conversation but we can smile and wave. Or like the other night when Texas (I’ll get to her, Ohio, and Tab in a moment) and I were waiting for our Chinese take out and this little boy kept staring at us. He was obviously young enough to not be in school so his exposure to foreigners is probably minimal. He would walk really close to us and stare for a few seconds with wide eyes then run away to his table. This process repeated several times. Texas had fortunately just purchased a pack of stickers for her students so she pulled them out and told me to go give him one. I motioned with my hand for him to come over and he reluctantly walked toward us, leaving several feet between us. You know, white girls are scary. So I held up the stickers and motioned for him to pick one. The biggest smile spread across his face and he ran to tell his parents about how the foreign girls gave him a sticker. It’s moments like this that make me love this time in my life. Some days I have no idea why I’m here and some days I know exactly why I’m here.

            Now, let me tell you about Texas, Ohio and Tab, or as we like to all ourselves, The Seoul Sisterhood. We even have a magic pair of pants. Cheryl, Katharine and I work together. We all affectionately refer to each other as the state we are from. Tab is Cheryl’s friend from high school. She’s been living and teaching in Seoul since August. And our personalities could not be more different. I spend the majority of our time together being embarrassed by the things Tab is saying to our cab driver, being confused by the words Ohio is using or wondering how it’s possible that Texas is the sorority girl version of my mother. But we laugh so much when we’re together and even though I feel like I always have to be in mother mode, I’m so happy we’ve all be put here together and I’m not really sure why God waited so long to do it. I’m sure I’ll have some sisterhood adventures to update you guys on soon. 

Much love to all of you. I miss my home everyday. There's no other place it. 

xoxo

4 months.

4 months. Some days have been quite pleasant. Other days have been rather caustic. I won’t lie to you. Sometimes I hate Korea. Sometimes I don’t want everybody staring at me. Sometimes I don’t want you, total stranger, to come interrupt my “me time” at the coffee shop because you need to interview the waygook for your school project. Sometimes I just want you to let me ride the subway in peace. I don’t come up to you and ask you why you’re here and how old you are, do I? Sometimes I just want to go to the market and buy all the foreign items and not have you burn holes through me with your eyes. I’m not here to offend anyone or turn anyone’s world upside down. I’m just here to buy Oreos. Sometimes I would like to complete simple daily tasks like going to the bank or the post office without those events having to turn into a game of charades. (I guess that last one’s my fault, but whateve.) And sometimes I want my job to be just a smidge less stressful…

BUT. Not every day is an “I hate Korea day.” There are many redeeming qualities to this country. For starters, the Tower Burger at KFC. Now you probably don’t know what that is because they aren’t sold in the US but they should be because they are magical. Allow me to explain to you. A delicious and tender zinger chicken filet, cheese, crispy lettuce, A HASH BROWN, creamy mayonnaise and spicy salsa all sandwiched between a lightly toasted sesame Kaiser bun. WHY HAVE WE NOT BEEN PUTTING HASH BROWNS ON OUR CHICKEN SANDWICHES?!? Somebody fix this in the next 8 months.

I won’t go into much depth about the artic winter and the frigid winds from Siberia that caused me to be a very sad and angry person from the months of December to…well, it’s still cold. But I will tell you that heated flooring is a brilliant thing. And it’s everywhere in this country. And I love it. It makes me feel fancy and luxurious.

I like that every now and then I get a small glimpse of my effort paying off. Let’s take one of yesterday’s classes for an example. I have this lovely middle school student named Jerry. Jerry is a trip. He never remembers his books and rarely does his homework, but he uses flattery to get his way. So we get along. He often tells me I am a god. Well, thank you, Jerry. I’ve been teaching Jerry for a little over four months now. EVERY single time Jerry has walked into the classroom he has greeted me by saying “Nice to meet you, teacher.” And every day I say, “Nice to SEE you, Jerry.” It had just become routine. I mean, after 4 months I didn’t really think he’d ever pick up on the difference. Well low and behold yesterday Jerry walks into the classroom and says, “Nice to see you, teacher.” I heart skipped a beat. I’m pretty sure I had a little spell of arrhythmia. I was beside myself. There was huge scene. I jumped up and down. I hugged him. I hollered. He said, “So I correct??” “You correct, Jerry! AHH!” I’m still living in the glory of that moment.

Somedays I am crazy homesick. And for those days I have Duck Dynasty episodes and french fries. Tower burgers and heated floors. I don’t really need anything else. I mean seriously, a hash brown on a sandwich. Let's just say they know my face at the KFC and they know what I'm going to order.