Switching Gears

I just finished my first week of being back in the work force. Since returning from Korea and living off our hard-earned won savings, Jenn and I have been unemployed for a month and a half, but I am once again part of the legions of 9-5'ers who sit in cubicles and mingle around water coolers. A far cry from sitting in a McDonald's-themed classroom fending off dozens of Korean rugrats vying for my attention so that I can give them a smiley face on their latest writing assignment or calling out "G-24" as I play my umpteenth game of Bingo. I never thought I'd hear myself say that I miss playing Bingo, but I just went back and read some of our old blog entries from Korea and I really miss the whole experience. Glad we did it and glad to be home, but I would be thrilled to see some of those kids again. I think teaching has one of those love/hate relationships - You can have some completely frustrating days that take everything out of you emotionally and you will be all too happy to never see any of the brats again, but when they are not in your life anymore, there is a void. I miss them.

But I have my new work to focus on. And not only is it work, it's accounting work, and not only is it accounting work, but it's accounting work on the brink of tax season. So it will take a lot of focusing. The office I work in is very nice. It is an old house renovated as an office with exposed brick walls, ceiling skylights, nicely-painted walls (not sterile white), plenty of plants, and a huge fish tank. It's quite nice and I'm trying to convince myself that the work is as attractive as the office, but I'll save you the boring details of what I did in my first week, because it is only accounting afterall. Jenn has one more week of free time and then she too will be back to work and it will be much more exciting than mine. She may not get to work with children again just yet, but she is diving into a field that she is familiar with by making lattes, mochas, etc. for the coffee-lovers in the world.

Tagged

I have been tagged. I think that only 2 people that I know know what that means so I will explain. Someone came up with this as a cute little game for bloggers to share with other bloggers (and, I suppose, their general reading audience) 5 little known things about themselves. I have taken about 2 weeks to try and come up with these 5 things that I am supposed to share and I still don't really know what to say. I guess that leads in to number 1...

1. I care what people think. I can say until I am blue in the face that I don't, that I am my own person and I do what I want, when I want, but the fact remains that, yes, I do care what you and everyone else think of what I say and do. I try to not let this effect everyday life, and it usually doesn't, but the thought is looming in the back of my mind most of the time; what are you thinking about me?? This is strange because on the opposite side of the spectrum, I am a very open and nonjudgemental person. I tend to be a people-pleaser, which has caused me trouble in the past, but now that I've learned that it is OK to say no when need be and there is no one in my life that I would mind doing anything for the people-pleasing isn't so much a disorder as it is just being happy and wanting to be with and help out family and friends when I can.
2. I love the domestic-ness of being married. I know that things like cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing, etc., are not the responsibilities of a wife and Darin and I do share the chore load around the house, but I don't mind any of it, and actually enjoy it a lot. I might be humming a different tune when I go back to work and school but so far, so good.
3. When it come to the little crafty things I do I am a total freak and perfectionist. A perfect example is... I really do enjoy my scrapbooking but the process of starting it caused me anxiety. I would keep buying things for the book but I kept putting off the actual scrapbooking. I get frustrated when I want something to turn out a certain way and I just can't get it to look like the picture in my mind of how I wanted it to look (mind you I don't always know how to get it like that or if the products even exist to achieve the desired look in the first place.) I think that this may be somewhat related to #1 and I tell myself that this is for me, and I'm the only one that has to like it, and things get a lot easier (although I did wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a page and just had to do it right then and there in case I forgot what I wanted to do in the morning. That's where the total freak part comes in.)
4. I love it when I have a lot on my plate and am constantly on the go but I can be totally lazy. It would take nothing for me to sit for hours reading a book or watching TV and not feel the least bit of guilt over it. One thing I am very proud of myself for is getting off my ass and getting to my class at the gym tonight. Don't get me wrong, I love going and I feel great after it's over but sometimes I need that extra push to get there. That's where Darin comes in and we usually make it 4 or 5 times a week, but this week I am a single woman and could have totally gotten away with staying in and watching Oprah, but I went, and it feels good.
5. For lack of anything else to disclose that is even remotely exciting, I will fess up to by carb addiction. If given the choice of chocolate or fresh baked bread, the bread will win hands down. Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate as much as the next girl but there is something about bread and dips, pita and hummous. Pretzels and nacho chips count, too. Throw in some good cheese and I am one happy girl.

Not very exciting, but 5 things nonetheless. Aren't you glad you asked, Megan?? As the rules to the game state, I am supposed to tag someone else to keep this game-a-going. I personally know two bloggers, the formentioned two knowing what being tagged is all about. One of them is kind enough to post links to other bloggers, therefore increasing the number of bloggers I am at least aware of. I tag Stephanie of The Robiltons (who hasn't posted since November; maybe this is the push she needs) Carrie, I am counting on you to let her know. :)

Here's To Life

Well, this has taken a while to get to, but we're back. It seems as if there is some alien force preventing us from blogging lately with the internet being down at our hotel, and then being down at our new (temporary) home, and then being down at surrounding family members' homes as well. So far, so good, and it seems as if we are back in business (minus the pictures). Now that we are back in Canada, we've had time to reflect on our 6 month sojourn in South Korea. What an experience. While it is true that our last week left something to be desired, now that we are no longer sick and freezing we can look back with fond memories. We have close to a thousand pictures of our trip, (most of you have seen them all) and each time I look at them it pulls at the heart strings just a little when I realize that the experience, the people we met, and the country we called home are now a thing of the past, never to be revisited (at least there are no plans so far; except Stephanie and Malachy, we are holding you to that trip to Ireland!). While there were bouts of homesickness, a year's stay would have been a piece of cake and part of us, while we are glad to be home, is definitely sad at the unexpected shortness of the trip. One of the questions we are most frequently asked is "Are you glad you did it?" and the answer is, without a doubt, YES.
It seems a little strange to be writing about this now. It is the first week of February and most of you reading this have already heard everything we have to say about our trip. I definitely wanted to get to this sooner, but life (and I'll admit, a lack of desire to finalize this) got in the way. Loads have happened in the few short weeks we have been home. We have both been offered new jobs and we have found a great place to live, all in a new city. In keeping with what is uniquely us, we will be settling down into somewhat of a normal existence in somewhere new, making new discoveries and new adventures. We both love the feel of the city we will soon call home, the urbanness of it. Not as blue collar as one place and not as farmland-ish as another, just perfect for us (we think). I am aware that a lot of family members secretly wish we were settling in closer to home but bear in mind that our second choice was Vancouver.
There will definitely be adjustments but we are looking forward to the unknown. If living in Korea has taught me anything it is that our marriage is stronger than anything life throws our way and we are just two people absolutely meant to be together. The best part is we never get sick of each other. We have worked together since we met, lived together for half of that time and had six months where we only had each other to talk to, literally spending every moment of every day together (and don't forget about those three days in a car, alone, and we still got married!) We are more than aware that not every couple has what we have and we are truly blessed with what we have been given in each other. OK, enough sap.
Once we get in our new home on March 1st, and have consistent access to the internet and photograph software, our Konbae blog will continue to grow for those of you interested. Please stay tuned. The adventure never ends no matter what country we are in and we will always raise a glass and say "Here's to Life."

One more before we go...

What a week this has been. Some of you may say "C'mon, you can't be that busy!!" but we are, and we are still sick. No, I haven't taken on that cutsey couple thing where if one person has a cold, flu, headache, whatever, it translates to we. We both have been knocked on our asses this week with a flu bug that has been going around and it didn't help that we were around close to 200 kids all week and had to pack on top of that. We are actually at school for a half a day today, which was not supposed to happen but sometimes things are beyond our realm of understanding and we just have to go with the flow for our sanity. We had big ideas for this last post but, as the trend seems to be lately, things just aren't going our way. This past week has left sort of a distorted view of our experience here and right now we just want to go. We will have internet in our hotel in Toronto where we are holding fort for a few days before we get back in action, so perhaps once our rose coloured glasses are back in place we can follow through with a proper update on our last week in Asia's Best Kept Secret. So, we are signing off (from Korea, at least) and we will see you all next year...

A Festivus For The Rest Of Us

We had to do something to celebrate Christmas, so off to Seoul we went. Our plan for Saturday was to do something new, preferably Korean, definitely indoors. We headed to the National Centre for Korean Traditional Performing Arts for a show. Every Saturday they have performance of Korean music and dance and it was absolutely beautiful. Later that night we met up with Stephanie and Malachy for a Christmas Eve dinner at Taj, a fantastic Indian restaurant (real Indian, not a single bit of kimchi to be seen!) and then headed to church. Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral was built in 1898 and is the only pure Gothic-style building in Korea and is meant to have just stunning interior. At least that's what we heard. The church is famous for midnight mass and we were really looking forward to seeing it, we just didn't account for the other million or so people that had the same plan as us. We got to the church around 11:15 and there was a line around the block to get in. We were there just a smidge too late and were hearded into the hall where we got to view the mass on a giant screen. It was in Korean but we still were able to participate by singing a few songs and receiving communion. It wasn't quite the grand Christmas mass we were expecting, but it was still nice.That is pretty much where the festivities stopped. Darin got his horrible cold back and it came full force out of nowhere. Christmas morning we went to a cafe thinking a little caffeine might help and we could carry on with our plans of going to Lotte World and surrounding ourselves with Christmas trees and lights but no such luck. This is how Darin looked the entire hour and a half we were there and pretty much for the rest of the day.The grand finale to the day was getting some Chinese take-out in Seoul and heading home early to get my sick husband all nestled and snug in his bed. It really didn't feel like Christmas at all but we are lucky and get to do it up right in January with all our family and friends, and we are so looking forward to it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!

Does this make me Mrs Claus?

Today we had another grand activity day at school. If you remember the others, you will know that this isn't even worth talking about. The theme of this one was making Christmas cards (which were to be mailed until the genius that planned the day on December 23rd realized that they wouldn't make it to the parents until the new year and then settled on stuffing them in the kids' backpacks.) As usual the kindergartens stole the show with the best of the festivities occuring after hours. If the parents signed up and dropped off a present at the school, Santa would visit them at their homes and wish them a Merry Christmas. Where do you find Santa in Korea, you ask? Well, you don't, you just make the foreign guy don the red suit and off you go ... Darin really was having a good time as Santa, but you would never know it by his miserable look in the pictures. He was happy in at least one photo when he gave Mimi her present - oh no, I guess he wasn't, there's that same scowl under all those whiskers. Mimi wasn't too sure what to make of this Santa, but she still didn't guess it was Darin with his red hair hanging out of the hat. We are off to Seoul for the weekend to find some Christmas cheer. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Yoho Yoho ...

... a blogger's life for me. At some point in every blogger's existence in cyberspace, you find yourself writing a blog about why you blog. We all do it. We all question why we spend hours every week, or even every day, writing blog entries. We all ask ourselves, do we really love it or are we just addicted? We all come up with our own personal reasons, but what it comes down to is that we are all storytellers of one sort or another and we all have stories to tell. One aspect of this trip that has given us ample supply of stories to draw from is the kids we teach. Here is something about this blog that would be really magical: We are in Korea teaching kids how to write, speak, listen to, and read English. What if some of these Korean children grow up to become fluent in the language they are studying and one day, while trolling cyberspace, come across this blog; a blog that talks about them and shows pictures of them as they were going through the process of learning English. Not all of it is good stuff, mind you, but it's all truthful and they could see what they were like in school from the teachers' perspectives. Some of these students are really a joy to teach and we will miss some of them. Some not so much. This class, in particular, was Jenn's worst and she often needed consolation from me everytime it rolled around. The classroom can seat eight comfortably, so it wasn't easy walking in when it was crammed with thirteen rugrats who rarely sat still for two minutes and usually all talked at the same time. These are two brothers at our school. The older one is Denny, who I taught, and he was very respectful and studious, although one day he came to school with spots all over his face and we were horrified that a mother sent her child to school with chicken pox. There was no outbreak at the school so it must have been some other skin condition that wasn't contagious. The younger one is Frankie, who was the bane of Jenn's existence for a few months. But he got this contraption on his face about a month ago and he's not quite so bad anymore. We aren't sure what the contraption is for yet; if it's braces, we can't figure out why it goes from his chin to his forehead. This is also the same little guy that was brave enough to wear a ponytail to emulate his favourite Canadian teacher. These are two of my hyper students. Every single day, Shelley (with the glasses) runs up to Jenn and spastically screams at her, "Hello cute girl!!!!" while frantically waving both hands. When we leave here, Jenn's days will feel incomplete without this daily greeting. She has warned me that I will have to do it every so often to ween her off it. We are going to have to get used to not being the centre of attention. But that's more of a relief really.