메리 크리스마스! (Merry Christmas!)

Happy Holidays and a belated Merry Christmas!

Wow! The fall flew by! I can hardly believe it's the holiday season and the snow is flying...finally it's here! It has been so warm lately, but Christmas was the first real bitter day. Don't worry, I fully enjoyed the fifty degree weather for you while you were enduring the negative digits and constant snow storms. 

It's been so long since I've written, I don't know where to begin. First of all, I think most of you know, but for those of you who might not, I've extended my stay in Korea! So...I will not be seeing you next month. Instead, I'll be finishing my contract in July and theoretically coming home in August. We'll see how the spring goes though; it's anyone's guess where I'll be next fall :p

The semester is over and I'm on vacation! I didn't realize this initially when I extended, but I will have almost two months off. I have a two week winter camp for my kids the first two weeks of January, but outside of that I am pretty free; I can't complain. The second half of the semester went well overall. I made a lot of progress as a teacher, developed some good relationships with my kids and co-workers, and am looking forward to next semester. There is so much I want to change and improve...learning, learning, learning every day! I will be very sad to see my sixth graders go. They are my best students and have such big dreams.  They were also the only students I could have a conversation with, shucks...but they are on to bigger and better things - scary middle-school, poor kids. I will also miss having lunch with my mentor teacher's third grade class. When we go back to school it will be a new school year and Ji Yun (my mentor teacher) will switch to the new sixth grade, reportedly, and backed by substantial evidence, the worst attitudes in Osu Elementary. I will still teach all grades, but the hour of lunch will be with this class. Bye bye you cute little nine year olds with your innocence and excitement to try out your English (Teacher, teacher, like you kimchi? Do you have Korea love? Me: Uh....Yes, I like Korea, ha ha...) hello hormones, attitude, and a lot of rolling eyes. They are good kids at heart, I just have to find some way to motivate them and/or be a bit more strict. I guess there are options. I will spend some good time on this long holiday planning for next semester, so far, however, my attempt at work has resulted in a pretty to-do list.

On my first week off, I rediscovered that I'm a master procrastinator and have deepened my relationship with my toaster oven. 90% of my Christmas presents for people were something baked: cookies, rusks (South African biscotti), pies, etc. It was good to put my skills to use and introduce so many people to the wonderful world of pumpkin pie, but, after a few minor fights, which the burn marks prove I lost, I think the oven and I will be taking a hiatus, at least a short one, to rejuvenate our fondness for each other. 

Christmas was nice though. Christmas Eve I had a more Korean style Christmas with friends in Jeonju. What does that mean? Well, in SK, Christmas is a religious holiday and also a couples/friends holiday. Almost everyone goes out to eat and drink. Similar to Valentine's day for us, it can be sad or lonely if you are single, so many people have singles parties. My Christmas Eve was spent with a large group of friends restaurant and bar hopping. Then on Christmas I went to Seoul and spent the day with Jacqui and an international group of friends. We had Korean food, boeuf bourginon, French and Swiss (as in from Switzerland) cheese, pies, wine - it was a good day.

In other news...in these last few months I went hiking a few times, had some school festivals, a program trip to the south, visited the DMZ (before the craziness), saw Handel's "The Messiah", and had many more random Korean adventures. You can check photos of some of these things here. They tell the story pretty well.

 I think you are all wondering or have wondered about the North and the recent "tensions", so I'll address that as best I can. First off, the Korean perspective is a bit different than you receive through major Western news sources. There was some alarm and genuine fear when the Yeonpyeong bombing occurred. The day or two after it happened was unsettling and a time of recognition of the potential, the closeness, the reality of violence. However, since then there hasn't been any panic or substantial worry here. There was a heightened awareness, but mostly the threats and exercises are viewed as a lot of  political haggling, fist waving, etc. The biggest unrest among South Koreans was about their government and the military's poor response; some people were replaced, policies rewritten, etc.There is always the possibility that the North will do something crazy, that fact isn't denied, but no one is living in fear, they just want to know that all of this military that's around us will react in a decisive and timely manner. As far as reunification, which is often another curiosity, Koreans are divided. I'd say mostly by age. The younger the people are the less they desire reunification. It would more or less drag SK down. The most popular answer I hear is, "Yeah, it would be good, but many many years later." If you are really interested in NK and what life is like there, I highly recommend the book "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick. It just came out this year and shows you what life is like and has been like in NK from the perspective of NK defectors. 

Well, I think that's about all I have at the moment, but my new goal is to write every two to three weeks and tell you something interesting, insightful, or entertaining from my Korean experiences. I'll try to bring you here as best I can, so book mark this page and check back. 

My love and all of the best wishes as we begin 2011 ~