Twas The Night Before Christmas (again)

I got to have two Christmas Eve's this year! This morning I got up early and planned to walk to the airport bus stop. I brought both of my big suitcases because I was bring home all my summer clothes. So here I was trying to drag these big suitcases across the road, along with a heavy carry on, teetering on the top. The walk was a 20 minutes from my apartment in the snow. I finally gave up and got a taxi.

The flight was long, but good. My mom, dad and sister met me at the airport. They even made signs, haha! First we went home and had Christmas with my brother's family. Then we went out for our Christmas dinner to Olive Garden (my request!) Soon, we'll be heading to church for the midnight service. Man, long day, but it's been so great!

I was afraid that my two nephews wouldn't remember me, but thankfully they did :) They are truly the cutest kids ever. It's funny to be around kids who speak fluent English!

It's so good to be home!

Teacher! Seven More Sleeps!!

It's time to start packing! I thought I'd take the last few pictures around my apartment because I will start taking things off the walls to bring as much as I can home for Christmas. It's a weird feeling to take everything down! At this time next week, I'll be on a plane! Man, it's cold here now. I hope Michigan has snow when I get there. I haven't seen any yet this year!

My Giant Head

Yesterday in my 4th grade class, we were reading a story about sandcastles. They didn't know what a bucket was, so I was trying to explain using other words. We were comparing cups and buckets. One kid got all excited because he understood and said, "Oh, a bucket is giant like your head!" Hahahaha! He didn't know that was not a very nice thing to say. I laughed and laughed and the other kids just looked at me curiously. It's pretty funny teaching English as a second language. I sometimes crack my self up and they just have no idea what's going on. It's is pretty cool though when the students get to a point where they are able to joke in a foreign language!

Bad news

I found out last night that my aunt had a heart attack last night! This was a big surprise because she is just my parents age! It's strange being here when I get bad news about family members. I feel like I'm so far removed and there is nothing I can do. Thankfully my family is good about keeping me in the loop, so I feel somewhat connected.

My dad drove the 5 hours there this morning, which means 10 hours on the road altogether. My family was already planning to go there this weekend for a Christmas gathering. So my dad will be driving 20 hours! I'm proud of him for going though... Brothers and sisters are very special to all of us.

This Thursday, my small group is coming over to go ice skating and then come to my apartment for snacks and hot chocolate. I'm excited to have them over. I haven't had many people over to my apartment this year. I'm running out of time! :) I put up the Christmas tree (about a month ago haha!) and it will be fun for them to see my Christmas decorations.

The Tooth Fairy

Well, I can now add one more thing to my resume....tooth fairy. This week, my student came to me grinning ear to ear, proudly displaying the hole in his smile. He'd lost his first tooth. He went on to tell me that I needed to take the tooth. Confused, I asked why I should take his tooth. He gave me the, "Duh!" look and said, "Teacher! Take my tooth with you to America and put it under your pillow!" When I asked why, he said, "The tooth fairy only comes to 'English' people's houses!" Hahaha. So, I supposed I would take the tooth and be the tooth fairy. Oh man, I never thought I'd have to be the tooth fairy before having kids ;)

On Friday, he opened up in hand and showed me a wadded up kleenex. He informed me the tooth was inside. He picked apart all the shredded kleenex parts and......there was no tooth. It had fallen out on the way to school! His eyes got real big and I could see the tears coming, so I thought fast! I told him we'd write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining the situation. So, now I just can't forget to bring back American money. That'd be terrible if the "tooth fairy" forgot!

I'm discovering lately that I've been learning so much in these last couple of months about myself. Not just the self that I portray, but the true motives behind things, my own pride and ultimately my fears. I think rarely do we ever dig deep enough to reveal what's under all those layers (insecurities, culture, defenses, personality, etc.) to see who we really are. How can we see other people the way God wants us to, when we don't even see an acurate picture of ourselves. I suppose this will be a lifelong journey that I'm on.

If I had to pick a theme for my year here, I would pick, "relationships." I am learning so much about friendship. It's fun to be surrounded by other young people in my small group that have similar mindsets. We encourage each other to take the Bible literally and challenge each other on the hard issues. Not that my relationships weren't real before, but I think my attitude and expectations of each relationship I have, have changed. Friendships, even with unbelievers, can be used to glorify God.

Hard to believe it's only 3 weeks till I'll be home for Christmas!

어서오세요!

On Saturday, I met up with a Leah House from home! We grew up in the same church, but hadn't really kept up with each other since high school. She is studying in China for a year and was here visiting her Korean friend! I was a little nervous to meet up, since we hadn't talked in years...but there was SO much to talk about! First of all, it's just strange to meet up with someone from home in a foreign country. We caught up on each others lives and what we'd been doing.

It was actually really cool, because we'd both now, been to both China and Korea. It was so interesting to compare cultures! I'd forgotten many of the things that she brought up. It was fun to reminisce about old memories. It was also fun because she brought up names of people from our church growing up. It was fun to laugh about things that only people from home would think was funny.

Leah is practically fluent in Chinese. It was so strange to hear Chinese come out of a white person's mouth! She brought along two of her friends. One was Chinese, so she spoke with her some of the time in Chinese. Her other friend was Korean, so I thought it was kind of fun to practice my Korean on her :) So, here we were sitting at a restaurant speaking Chinese, Korean and English! How cool is that!? Of course her friends spoke perfect English, which put my basic Korean to shame. They thought it was fun ( or maybe funny!) to help me practice Korean.

We had a great reunion, even thought it was only for one night :( It was so cool to see someone from home!

Mean Teacher

Yesterday, I had to be the mean teacher. At the end of the day, one of my girls did something that she knew she shouldn't have done. I looked at her and told her not to do that. She was angry at me and out of her anger she spouted off something sarcastic to me. I put on the mean teacher face and got really stern with her. I calmly said some things to her in a really firm voice. Everyone in the classroom got really quiet and the girl got teary. I really don't think the girl had ever had anyone be that direct with her before. She went to her desk, put her head down and cried.

I felt bad that my firm voice scared or upset her... I don't like being the mean teacher very often, but it needed to be said. What happened next though was the most interesting. She sat in her chair until it was time for her to go. I just started playing with the other kids, being my normal self. The girl kept glancing up to meet my eyes to see if I was angry with her. Of course I wasn't.

It makes me sad when I see other people just keep glaring at the kids when they do something wrong...maybe even an hour later! I guess my philosophy is discipline and be done with it. They don't need to keep being punished!

When everyone else had left, she still had big tears in her eyes. When I asked her if she knew why I was upset, she nodded. Most of the time when she misbehaves, she denies it and gets really mad at me. This time was different. She knew she had done something wrong and she just wanted to hug me! So surprising! I just hugged her as she cried. I think for her it was such a relief to know that I still loved her, even when she messed up!

It reminded me of the way God loves me. Of course I do things wrong, and he may even discipline me, but he really just wants me to come and hug him, admitting what I've done. These kids are beginning to teach me a little more about unconditional love. I truly do think that I've learned way more this year than I could ever teach.

1 month from today I come home for Christmas!!

Smiling Experiment

Everyday I walk by a car wash on the way to school. The same worker is there every morning. He's kinda goofy and very friendly. Everyday when I walk by he gets really excited to say hello to a foreigner and waves vigorously! Other teachers have said he does that to them too. Funny thing is, I oddly look forward to that "hello" on my way to work. When he's not there, I'm subconsciously disappointed!

In this city, or I suspect any city, people are not very friendly. Passerbys look down at the ground and purposely don't make eye contact. I'm conducting an experiment. I've decided to try to smile at everyone I pass, just to see their reaction. As I figured, most just look away, but some are so caught off gaurd that they'll smile back and even follow me with their eyes as I walk past. I think people are so surprised to be smiled at by a stranger that it's almost shocking! Whether someone is what other people would call attractive or not, there's something about a smile that is captivating and makes them stand out.

In my afternoon classes, I usually have a lot of extra time after we finish all of our work. I've been struggling to think of things to do. They're so incredibly bored by the textbook work, and to be honest I am too. It's been my complaint about the Korean education system that the students are only memorizing and have no individual thinking skills or creativity, but...I wasn't doing anything to help that. Yesterday I was trying to think of any way to get them thinking. I think the most learning takes place when they are interested in a topic and actually care about it. So, I taught them how to have a debate. My question was, "Are hagwons (any kind of private school outside of their regular public schools, like our English school in the evenings) good or bad?"

They debated it for a while and really came up with some good thoughts. They were shocked when I told them that there are none of these "after school schools" in America! Most of them came to the conclusion, "Teacher, I don't know." They saw the good and bad aspects. It was just so cool to see a lighbulb click on in their brain and see them thinking for themselves! I try to make the regular work as interesting as I can, but there's only so much you can do with grammar! So, it was cool to see them genuinely interested and excited about this discussion. I need to think of more topics like this for them to debate!

The subway during rush hour is pretty miserable!

Lady carrying something on her head.

At the palace.

Old man taking a nap on a bench in the afternoon.

The market by my apartment.

The typical auction type little grocery store.

A random one-man band on the street. No one else seemed to notice!

This is the usual experience at the big grocery store. The meat department is complete chaos, with each counter trying to yell louder than the other to get you to buy their meat or fish.

Our Grandpas

In my ten year old class today, we had to read a newspaper article. It's called Kids Times and is supposed to be current events, written in children's language. Either most of the articles are too hard or aren't very very interesting. Today's though, the article sparked a good conversation. It was about the recent Earthquake in Turkey and what Korea was doing to help. One of my students informed me that Turkey helped South Korea in the Korean war. That lead to a conversation about the war. It's pretty humbling to have my 10 year old students teaching me world history, in their second language! Amazing!

I told them that my Grandpa came to Asia to fight in the Korean war. They were impressed by this and began telling me about their grandfathers who also fought in the war. It didn't occur to me until then that most of the grandfathers probably did fight. It was a cool realization that our grandpas fought together in the same war, half way across the world!

Then we started talking about the boys in our class and how they will be drafted into the military for 2 years after college. I asked them how they felt about it. They both said they didn't want to. When I went to the DMZ, the tour guide said that most Korean moms cry when their sons get the draft letter. So sad. One student said, "I wish it was like the USA, where men don't HAVE to join." :( I don't know what the answer is. I just remember how young the soldiers looked at the DMZ. Those will be my students in less than 10 years...

One Year Ago

One year ago I left on a plane to come to Korea. I'd always had a dream to live in a different country, yet I thought it was just that, a dream. I actually don't even remember applying to this job in Korea, so I was surprised when the recruiter asked for an interview. It was scary when it came time to sign the contract. Even though I was pretty unsure about the whole thing, I knew it was what God was prompting me to do. Though it had been my dream, the reality of the whole thing (a whole year, a different country, a different language...) was a little to real. God kept nudging me to do it though, and eventually I decided to go.

That day a year ago on the plane was hard. I remember sitting on the plane, teary, thinking, "God why are you asking me to do this!? Can't you see this is hard for me!?"

Tonight I sat by the river. My favorite place in Korea is sitting by the river, dangling my feet over the edge, looking at all the city lights and watching the subway trains go back and forth across the bridge. As I sat there tonight, I realized how content I am.

I have absolutely loved my time here in Korea. Almost everyday I walk out of my apartment and think, "I am so happy to be here!" I have a good job, a wonderful group of friends, a great church and I am just so fulfilled. Why is it that I am SO happy here? Is it Korea? Is it just this time in my life? I think the reason is simply that this is the first time I've been in the center of God's will. All my life so far I'd made decisions on my own. I decided to go to Spring Arbor University. I decided what I would study. This is the first time in my life that I think I truly surrendered to His will. I think that's why my heart is so full here.

God didn't put me here to watch me suffer. He placed me here, for this year (and a few extra months) to show me His faithfulness and to prove to me that He truly want me to be so fulfilled and joyful. I can honestly say that the blessings are just running over right now! My time is getting close to an end and I want to make the most of all of it!

Saturday Afternoon Painting

On the street this afternoon..

I guess I should've gotten a folding bike like this to take into my apartment at night so both wouldn't have gotten stolen...

Street food is everywhere. For some reason all the brooms only have about a foot long handle.

My Korean class is down to two students now, which is actually kind of fun. Our teacher invited us to go out for coffee after class today. It was fun because it was just the three of us speaking half English and half Korean! So fun!

Last week my I was trying to teach my 6 year olds how to use past tense. They just weren't getting it, so I used Korean to teach them English. Fortunately I am just learning that in Korean! "Teacher speaking Koreeeeaaan!!!" I only said a little bit but I think I'll just let them think I know more than I really do ;)

Then I went to Insadong to do some Christmas shopping. I bought a little painting with 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 on it for someone else, but I'd been wanting to have the street painter paint something in front of me. I took the bought painting and asked him if he'd copy it with the verse. He said yes!

This is when he first started....

Then I didn't realize he needed to take it over to the next guy, to do the calligraphy. The calligrapher seemed to be busy though, so he wasn't too inclined to do this guy a favor. They started arguing (or maybe that's just the way Korean men sound) :) He agreed to do it.
Finishing touches...

All the Koreans were amazed by this "big" dog. All the city dogs are tiny lap dogs.

Reminders

Example of short skirt, white legs, and heels. I would call this the typical Korean young woman.

This isn't my picture, because I wouldn't be able to find grass like this here, but this is the way all the middle/high school boys ride their bikes. I'm pretty sure I'd just tip over!

In every public bathroom, instead of soap dispensers, there is a bar of soap on a stick. Most of the time you have to get the toilet paper before you go into the stall. I've learned to carry a big thing of Kleenex in my purse, just in case I forget!

I recently got a newsletter from Mallary and her husband, who are teaching English in China. When I was an RA in college, she was my RD. She was and still is a mentor to me. I was reading through her letter and she was comparing one part of China to another. Her comments about China reminded me of my time there. I'd forgotten some of the things. I'd forgotten the toddlers wear split pants, so that they can go to the bathroom in public whenever needed. I'd forgotten that in the summer the men lift up their shirts for ventilation. I'd forgotten than couples wear "couples" matching t-shirts. Many things are the same in Korea, such as the loud spitting on the sidewalks, the smells, the traffic, the crowds....

I have gotten to used so seeing things here, that I forget they're picture worthy. There's a new teacher at our school this week, and in talking with her, I was reminded of all of the things she's seeing for the first time, that I used to think were strange. At lunch I went to the grocery store and was reminded how odd it is that the salespeople stand outside the store with a microphone telling the prices of the latest fruits and other random foods like an auctioneer. I'm not really sure why that's necessary, haha. When I was walking out of the grocery store, I spotted a really old woman carrying a huge bag of rice on her head! The cashier tried to convice her to put it in a bag, but she insisted on carrying on her head.

You'd think after being here for so long I would get over the short skirt factor, but for some reason I'm shocked every time! They are so short that the women carry their purse behind them when going up stairs, so you can see their underwear! Even working women where extremely mini skirts to work. What's funny is that this is acceptable, yet sleeveless shirts that show shoulder are seen as "sexy."

Even now that it's colder, the women still carry something to keep their skin from being exposed to the sun. Most of the parisols have now been replaced now with just a newspaper or purse. Whatever is in their hand, they use to shield their face from the sun.

All of these things have just become a common occurance on my walk to school each day. I need to take more pictures of the cultural differences before my time comes to and end!

Two Tickets

I was reminded today that it is only 67 days until I go home for Christmas!! I had a dream last night that I drove for the first time again.... It's been almost a year since I've driven...watch out!

Before I go home in February, I wanted to plan a week-long mission trip in Asia. I'd looked into a few things, but I didn't know how to go about it since I'll just be by myself. I didn't have any connections.......until two Sundays ago. I met a friend's old pastor, who is now a missionary in Thailand with his family. After some small talk, I found out that he owns an orphange in Thailand. It's the same orphanage that many of my friends at my church have been to, multiple times! I'd always wanted to go there! As I talked to him more about it, I asked if he would take a visitor for a week. After talking with him for 30 or 45 minutes, I decided this was the place. He told me he could pick me up at the airport, he'd let me stay with his family, he'd show me many of the different ministries in the area and he'd have me visit the orphanage for a few days! Wow, perfect! It just fell in my lap. Before coming to Korea, I had no idea where Thailand was.

So first on the radar is home for Christmas, then Thailand the first week of March, and then HOME :)

Next week is my one year mark. I cannot believe it's already been a year since I came to Korea! I really think it's going to be mixed feelings when I leave. I think I will miss Korea a lot. After all, it was my first job and first apartment. Strangely enough, this is where I made my first home. Yet, as it gets closer and closer I'm so excited to go home.

Today we started preparing a presentation for my 2nd grade class. The topic was, "My Hero." Most of the students chose superman, mom, dad, the president...but then one chose Jesus. He was pretty stumped though when he got to the question, "What is your hero's job?" Hmmmm, good question. :)

Loud and Proud

This week I went to a two night conference at our church to hear Francis Chan. He is a pastor from California and has written serval books. I would say he has been one of the most influencial people in my Christian life. I was so excited that he came to Korea, to my church! It was at the main Korean campus, so it was a Korean service, and Francis was translated. This was really my first experience in a Korean service. So interesting. I was kind of surprised at how modern the building was and how "flashy" the atmosphere was, with colored lights, fancy sound systems and the best video equipment. I thought it was so cool when we started to sing. The words were both in English and Korean on the screen. We sang songs I knew! I was so cool that they sing the same songs we do, just in Korean... They had some of their own songs too, of course. I must say, they sing LOUD.

They also pray LOUD. I don't think I've ever heard prayers that loud before! Oh man, if I didn't know what was going on, I think I might have been scared. There was also something cool about it though, cause they were obviously passionately praying. All I grew up seeing were polite, quiet prayers, but I think it's ok to be loud too.

It was awesome to see about 2,000 people gathered on a weeknight all worshiping God. There's something that gets me everytime I worship in a different culture. I remember saying the same thing about China. There is something so special about being surrounded by Koreans, singing the same song, to the same God, halfway around the world. I was trying to follow along in Korean...except I only could on the slow songs cause I can't read Korean very fast :)

I think subconsiously I have this mindset that Christianity is an "American" thing. I didn't realize I thought this until that first night at the conference. When actually, most of the Christians are not in America! I had heard a couple things about the Korean church that caused me to go in with an idea that there was something wrong with it. I was proved wrong though. I think there are some things we could even learn from the Korean church.

Before the message, they all sang this song, which they must sing every time they gather. I know have any idea what it said, but they were all rocking left to right, lifting their hands to welcome one another. A couple Korean old ladies did this to me, which I assume they were just blessing me. Yes it was kind of corny, but also kind of cool. Then they stretched their hands out to Francis Chan and sang another song, which I imagine was praying for him to deliver the Holy Spirit's message.

Francis Chan's talks were pretty convicting and great, just as I assumed they would be. It was so good to hear him in person!

Open Class

Last week, I had to do my first open class. This is when all of the kindergarten students' parents come and watch me teach their kids a lesson. Take about nerve wracking! I'm on video all day long anyway, but it's different when the parents are in the classroom! It was supposed to be a "typical" class, but we had to practice multiple times the weeks before, to make this class perfect. We even had to sing and dance! Oh boy, the things that are done at a private school to get the parents approval... So interesting. I tried to not get frustrated with the whole situation. This past weekend I was so tired and just felt so mentally and physically exhausted. I had been getting plenty of sleep, but I was still just exhausted. I think it was my bad attitude about the open class last week, that was affecting my body. Anyway, the open class went well and the parents were happy, which means my supervisors were happy :) I'm just glad it's over!

I have a new kindergartener as of today. He was so cute and nervous today! He seemed to think the day was pretty long, because he kept saying, "Teacher, math, science, show and tell and then home time?" He has no English name, so I'm stuggling to pronouce his Korean name, Haesol. It kind of comes out like Hazel, like the nut...I'll keep trying.

When the President Doesn't Come Through

Some eggplants hanging out to dry in front of this restaurant.

A few of the hundreds of policemen surrounding the protest.

On Thursday night, I was walking around the busiest part of Seoul with a couple of my small group friends. We walked up to an intersection (the Korean version of Wall Street) beside the subway. Just before we reached the subway, we heard lots of shouting on loud speakers and saw a big crowd. We crossed the street to see what what going on. It turns out a few hundred university students were protesting. The president had promised to lower tuition rates, but suprise, surprise, had not. The students gathered in the busiest intersection in Seoul and sat. Of course this made already crazy traffic, even crazier. It wasn't the students that made up most of the crowd though! It was policemen! There were hundreds of policemen in their flourecent green vests surrounding the students. It was a very strange and a little scary sight to see hundreds of policemen all in one place! They looked a little frantic. As we stood there and watched for about 15 minutes, the police threatened that they would arrest those who didn't move from the intersection. As we stood, many students busted out of the crowd, surrendering their agenda to the police's will. Each student in the protest was wearing a mask (which my dad said was to conceal their identity). Others stayed and were sprayed by fire engine hoses in order to be made to move. When they did not, they were arrested. Very odd, and a little exciting to see!

No Teacher, I didn't break the pencil

We had a little pencil dilemma today... The kids are always comparing pencils, seeing whose is sharpest or longest. For them, this is a big deal! I've told them before, that as long as it still writes, they don't need to use the pencil sharpener. I said this because the pencil sharpener, is this mysterious item that is soooo tempting to them. Once one kid uses it, suddenly they all NEED to. One of my boys held up the pencil and said, "Teacher, Pencil sharpener?" I said no, because it was sharp enough. Not even a minute later, he held it up and said, "Teacher, broken!" I knew exactly what happened. I knew he stuck his pencil the the table crack to break it, just so that he would get a new (sharp) pencil. I asked him how it broke. He said, "Someone broke it!" Haha, someone huh? There was no one else around. I kept asking him because I wanted him to tell the truth. He continued to make an elaborate story of how a ghost came in and broke the pencil when I wasn't looking." Riiiiight. :) It's funny how kids think they can fool adults. I knew all along he was lying, I just wanted him to admit that it truly was himself who broke the pencil. It was a little hard to keep a straight face when he busted out the ghost story! :) Lying is so tempting to kids... The chin began to quiver when I told him that now I don't know when he is lying or telling the truth. Even after all the naughty things they do, at the end of the day, they still want to please those who care about them!

In need of a change

South Korea has the highest suicide rate among young people in the whole world. The number has doubled in the past decade. The number of private schools like mine has doubled in the last decade as well. At 2:30 I have a class of 8 year olds. At 4:00 I have a class of 10 year olds. Both of these classes of students have already been to public school all day long. I recently listened to a man named Christian Lee talk about this issue. He says:

"If I had to go to school at 7:00 in the morning and then school ends at 3:00 or 4:00, and then I had to go to a private English school from 4:00 to 10:00 and then I had to go to some other private school for piano from 10:00 to 11:00. I would come home at midnight, and then get up at 6:00 the next morning and do it all over again...I don't know what I'd do with myself either."

When I look at the "system" this way, it makes me feel guilty that I'm even involved in the very thing that is driving these young people to be so desperate that they would even take their lives. Why am I here teaching in this system? But then Christian Lee went on to say something that caught my attention.

"All of these Christian foreign teachers are teaching these students, just thinking it's for a pay check. What they don't know, is that they're destined for influence. They're not there to get a paycheck, they're there to turn back the suicide rates. They're there to create an environment of creativity for these children that they've never had in public school."

Though I may not teach elementary kids the rest of my life, today I am called to teach my students I've been entrusted with. My students often come moping in after a long day of public school, in which they have to stand up to talk in class or are hit by the teachers if they misbehave. Even seeing their attitude go from unhappy to actually smiling and having fun learning, is such a reward. Though I only have these older students for 2 hours, 3 times a week, I shouldn't let myself have an "off" day where I don't feel like teaching. My words mean something to them and who knows, maybe someday my words or actions would reverse the statistic for one kid. That would be worth it.