A University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate going into her second year teaching English in South Korea on a Fulbright Scholarship. Also an aspiring foreign correspondent, closet geek and proud to have a Minnesotan accent.
Awesome cafe in Cheongju where the tables are in little cubbies and you’re encouraged to leave your mark.
It’s a little bit insane. I started this blog with a picture of all my luggage, packed and ready to go to Korea.
Now I’m nearing the end of my two years here.
I’m not done yet, though! Look forward to plenty more Konglish signs and funny stories about my students and photos of trains.
I feel like I’ve pretty much only been posting photos lately!
Sorry if I’ve been bugging all of you by constantly uploading closeups of flower and shots of apartment buildings.
Since I fixed the settings on my camera I’ve felt the need to get out there and take as many pictures as I can before I leave, since the last year and a half of pictures are useless. Of course, they’re not actually useless at all, just still mad at myself that I haven’t been using my camera to the best of its abilities.
Couple that with the fact that it’s constantly beautiful out and I’m leaving in two months, which means I’ve been running around travelling and getting outside more than I have since September.
Anyway, bear with me! I went to Cheongju to hang out with some friends this weekend and we took advantage of spring to take a walk around the river and downtown.
Finally caved and bought Korean glasses. Finally I have glasses that I can wear outside of my house!
…why nylons are still a thing.
It’s finally warm enough to put away my tights for the summer, but I do feel kind of uncomfortable having completely bare legs at work since all the other teachers wear nylons. So I pull on the nylons that I bought last night, careful with my nails, rolling them down to the toe like you’re taught, and they still manage to get a run all the way from my ankle to my knee within the first ten minutes of leaving the house.
From experience, I can conclude that it is physically impossible to wear nylons more than three times without getting a run and having to throw them away. Even buying “nicer” brands (aka more expensive brands) doesn’t make them last any longer.
Since when is it acceptable for a non-disposable product to break within three times of using it?? You would think that a completely defective product would have figured itself out by now (it’s been decades since women started wearing these things regularly. Come on.) Is it because women are still (often) expected to wear nylons, and therefore they have to buy them even if they are somehow engineered to break the first time you put them on?
Am I totally crazy and just somehow doing it wrong, or do all of you have this problem too?
Streets of Sapgyo, South Korea.
But when everyone is desperately seeking to achieve the highest percentile, the result for the majority has to be disappointment. Even those who do well have been convinced by a society that only accepts one hundred percent that they need to do better.
Korea: The Impossible Country, by Daniel Tudor.
Referring to the Korean education system and the crazy race to the top here in Korea, but I think it can be pretty applicable to life in general. Korea may take it to an extreme, but I know that I definitely have to remind myself that comparing myself to my peers is not an accurate test of my success or worth.
And I mean that literally. Starting yesterday, my cold started working its way into my throat and by the end of my club class yesterday afternoon my voice was starting to get scratchy. Woke up this morning completely unable to speak above a whisper.
I have to teach six classes today.
I was able to switch around and use a lesson that doesn’t involve too much talking on my part, and my coteachers have tried to step in and keep the kids quiet so they can hear my rough man-voice.
For my club class after school I’m just going to show them a movie, since I have no coteacher and they’re hard enough to control when I’m feeling 100 percent.
Even though I don’t feel too sick (not really tired or sore), dealing with this makes me even more exhausted than usual for a Tuesday. I just want to crawl into my bed and never (attempt to) speak again ㅠㅠ
Travelling to a new place is like finally meeting someone you’ve heard all about. You already have a lot of information about the person. You know what they look like..maybe who they’ve dated…where they work. You’ve even heard stories about them or things they’ve done or said. And thanks to…
This. All of this. And it’s the reason why, when I go back home, I will never ever be able to properly talk about Korea except with other people who have lived here.
Four in a row Thursday mornings will be the death of me. Especially when one of them is literally the worst behaved class I’ve ever taught.
One more to go before the weekend (Jeju conference starts Friday so I’ll be heading up to Seoul tonight!)
