Let me never forget why I am here...

I never wanted to be a teacher, until the first time I stood in front of a class and suddenly felt like I was where I belonged.
I never wanted to teach high school, until I spent some of the best years of my life with the kids of CSA de La Pocatiere....
I didn't think I could handle elementary school, and yet now I think the transformation is complete.

Why do people become teachers? It's one part masochism, one part nice vacation time, and definitely one part of wanting to have an influence on the future. I can't even calculate how many kids I've taught over the past 9 years.... in as many different environments as one could imagine.

There are times when, as a teacher, I am ashamed of myself. I can yell at a kid (or a teen) until he or she cries. I have lied to get out of staying late at school. I have called in sick when I was in perfect health, but didn't feel like facing a group of sullen teens or hyperactive kids. I have photocopied stuff at the last minute, or assigned a "surprise in-class essay" when I didn't feel like committing myself to real teaching. On the other hand, I have also gotten myself to school at 7:00 am, or stayed until 9 pm to help kids. I have woken up at ungodly hours to get my photocopying done, or stayed up later than I should to finish off my corrections. I have felt joy at my students' achievements, and intense sadness at their passings (usually involving motor vehicles - they are teens, after all).

No matter where you are, teaching is a commitment that can either sap you of all your energy, or can make you feel like you are on top of the world.

Happily, today was an "on top of the world" day.... and I happened to bring my camera to school.

First off, I've been assigned a few (paid) extra classes that require me to be at school (awake, clean, dressed and chipper) by 8:00 am. I've decided to teach these grade 4 kids how to do cursive handwriting. This is quite a big deal to them. Every morning, I find them lined up at the door, ready to tackle the next few letters (we're progressing at about 5 letters a day). They are all enthralled with the idea of doing such pretty writing, and are the main reason that I can get myself out of bed when the sun is just rising.

I've seen kids come shining through in this class. These two girls are perfect examples of kids that I thought were hassles in regular class (neither one is sharpest lightbulb in the elevator), but these girls are simply amazing in the morning class (a factor that has spilled over into regular English class now too):


This boy is a sad case. He used to (purposely) get himself kicked out of class by acting out - spitting, pushing, hitting.... He wears the same ill-fitting clothes every day. His neck has streaks of dirt on it. I wanted so much for him to like me, to like my class, so that I could be nice to him - instead of kicking him out. For the past two mornings, he has been the first kid waiting for me at the door for morning class. He participates in class now and has even been smiling at me and speaking English in class (a few words here and there):

In his case, though, it wasn't the handwriting class that got his interest, but the "Animals Around the World" theme that I've been doing for most of November. My starting point was two-fold: I started off by modifying a presentation that Ty did for my grades 5 and 6 on African animals and a friend's high school lesson that presented all the continents. Over the month, continent by continent, I've introduced the grade 3 and 4 kids to toucans and wildebeests, chipmunks and sea turtles, ocelots and tamarins. I've taught them how to differentiate a leopard, a jaguar and a cheetah, that a kea is a damn smart bird, and that koalas are actually quite dangerous. They've listened to humpback whales sing and been shocked to discover that Japan is killing these beautiful giants of the sea (I have tried to narrow the focus to endangered/strange/excessively cute animals).

Other grades now are benefiting from the bulletin boards, full of 56 different species of animals from around the world. There is nothing cuter or more amazing than a wee Korean kid tapping a picture and saying "Bushbaby!" or "Canada Goose!".


Before embarking on this project, though. I had never really appreciated the amount of work that elementary teachers do. These kids don't just absorb information, they devour it! And you can't just assign them a 500-word essay to keep them occupied! What I've done is a drop in the bucket compared to what my aunt, or my friend Joanna, or any of the teachers I've had in the K-6 zone have done over the years.

I just hope that these kids will retain some small part of it... and one day, when perhaps they hear that the last tiger has been seen, or that the polar bears have finally succumbed to the melting of the icecaps, they might remember having heard about it somewhere before.

Nerding out over a book

The "His Dark Materials" trilogy is the sort of book series that I wish I could have read as a child - but it wasn't written back then. I'm sure that I would have been completely drawn into it, I would have acted it out with my friends, or convinced myself that I really had a Daemon on my shoulder. As it is, I'm pretty excited about the upcoming movie, perplexed about the protests at movie theatres in the US, and hoping that other kids will have a chance to experience Lyra's world.

As a grown-up (hahahahaha), and with technology on my side, at least I can still have a Daemon:

American Thanksgiving

On Saturday evening, Garrett was nice enough to host a HUGE (think 20-odd people) get-together at his place for a potluck American Thanksgiving meal (I brought wine).

If there's one thing the people of Mokpo know how to do, it's eat and drink:

Nicola looks fierce with a plate of veggie delights.

Shannon, Sloane and Rachel on the gorgeous orange vinyl couch.

Monique is glowing (happiness? wine?)

Alex is a fashion leader in his stripes and plaid. Style point!
No seriously, he IS.

This just made me laugh a bit....

Since I will be shacking up in the Taipei airport on the way to Bali, I thought I'd check this site. This is also for all my friends who may have stopovers to deal with over vacation time.

p.s. Am feeling better now... thanks for all who took the time to write/talk/chat/call me.

Countdown

Forty-two (42) days until I fly out to Bali!

Feeling Foreign

Sometimes, it just hits you - just how different you are. And that everything you do, say, and are is somehow misinterpreted. And that you, in turn, misinterpret and misunderstand everything around you.

Feeling out of sorts. Feeling down.

When my grade 3s arrived (like 5 minutes early -- or else they wouldn't have caught me), they found me crying in front of my computer. I felt children's hands on my back and shoulders, and one girl looked in my face and said, in a sort of Korean-English mix "Wae I'm sad? Wae I'm sad? Wae I'm sad?".

What could I tell them? I miss Canada, I miss my friends back home, I am looking at the wrong end of a drab Korean winter (oh, right, and a month's vacation in Bali, which had better hurry up and get here soon), I miss my friends from Suncheon last year, I miss Ty, I miss being able to express myself clearly and be understood. This is going beyond culture shock (I have missed things like food and toothpaste before, but I have assimilated enough here and I have enough Western items around me now that I don't miss little things like that anymore).

I taught my four classes in a row - I can honestly say that teaching has become such a separate part of me (the Virginia/Ms Parker dichotomy is not as strong as in La Pocatiere, but it exists nonetheless) - that I can essentially lock down however I am feeling and teach no matter how I am feeling. Funny thing, those were four of the best classes I've taught in the past two weeks.

And so, then I was sitting in the cafeteria, and it started again. I could feel the tears welling up and I knew I had to get out. As luck would have it, I was sitting across from my vice-principal, who I am convinced doesn't like me to begin with. I scooped up my un-eaten lunch and tried to escape before the onslaught of tears (not an easy task when every single kid is waving and saying "hi" to you).... and made it to my office. About five minutes later, there was a knock at the door - the vice-principal and her secretary, with a plate of cookies and a bottle of mango juice (of course, this just made me cry harder at their kindness), murmuring things like "Baginia nice teacher" and "What breakfast eat?". I felt soothed, guilty, like a prize idiot....

It's not always easy to live overseas. On this blog, you see the things like the vacations, the happy children, the outings with friends, the delightful cultural differences (or culture shock recounted with an ironic twist), you don't see the loneliness, the homesickness, the incomprehension (or the comprehension when you have just enough Korean to understand that someone is saying something a bit nasty about you). The fact that just leaving the house is enough to get you stared and pointed at. That not everyone can get over how different you are (although it is sometimes a very positive thing to be told that you are beautiful over and over, there comes a time when you want to scream "Look at ME, WHO I am not WHAT I am!"), nor are you able to get over their differences.

The objective part of me knows that this is will pass. That tomorrow, I will read this and wonder why I was being so melodramatic. The emotional part of me wants to go home and pull the covers over my head and cry, and cry, and cry.

Catching up on the week & Girls' Weekend in Busan

Right... I've been bad about not updating this week. Maybe it's because I've been super-busy, but nothing seems that interesting -- or not enough to blog. But then, that's not entirely true. Monday and Tuesday were typical nights of meeting up with friends, Wednesday was French night, Thursday was a night to reacquaint myself with the television, and Friday, I was off to Suncheon, then Busan for a fun weekend.

Well, okay, there was one thing during the week that I should have written about but didn't: My friend Jen found a wee orange kitten and I took her in for a few days (Jakob was absolutely unimpressed by that!) and learned that two cats in a tiny apartment leads to space-management and noise issues. However, after a full 24 hours of hissing and wailing, they both calmed down for the next day or so (just in time for Jen to take the little one home).

On Friday, I had a half-day at school, and hit the road to Suncheon - the first leg of my trip across Korea (from coast to coast) to Busan. I hung out with Nina, eating an amazing home-made lasagne, then meeting up with Steve. He quite generously drove me, Jessika and Emma to Busan (his girlfriend lives there, so he makes the trip every weekend). We got to Kristin's place, had a few drinks, then went off to the Haeundae Beach area to find a good hotel.


The next day, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that our hotel was only about 2 minutes' walk from the beach. We ran down, shed our cold-weather gear, then cavorted around in bare feet. It wasn't really that cold - and oh-so-nice to sink your feet into beach sand in the middle of November.


From there, we headed to the Busan Aquarium - visiting with penguins, sharks and fishies of all kinds (we even did the ultimate tourist thing of a glass-bottomed boat ride over the shark tank). It was really awesome, and made me even more impatient to go scuba-diving in January (which I said ad nauseum to Jessika).



Then, it was off to the Pusan National University area to meet up with Monique and do some retail therapy. We meandered around the overwhelming shopping streets, laughing ourselves silly, until general fatigue and sensory overload sent us back to our hotel.

For supper, Emma and I introduced Monique and Jessika to Indian food. But first, we wandered up to Haeundae Beach to drink and look at people lighting off fireworks. We bumped into a couple of waygookin - Jack and April - and made plans to go see some live music (yay!) later that night.

Exhausted and over-full on nan, basmati rice, lassis and various curries, we didn't last too long at the Star Face Club (yeah, that's the real name), even though the music was awesome. We all headed home instead of trying another place. Yeah, I'm getting boring in my old age....

The next day, Monique and I had a five hour bus ride back to Mokpo, while Emma and Jessika went their way back to Suncheon.


It was a fun, though tiring, weekend with lots of laughing and general random silliness, good food, good friends, new friends.... it just wasn't long enough!

Roadtrippin'

This weekend was a glorious busy one that reminded me of how awesome my friends are and how beautiful it is to drive through Jeollanamdo.


On Friday night, Nicola and I went to JP's for supper (bean burritos - all made from scratch - yay JP), then headed to a jimjilbang (think, naked sauna). It had been a while since I'd been in one (the sauna in Taiwan was co-ed, so we had to wear bathing suits and - eeek - swimming caps), and it was great to be back in the water and the steam, and to hang out in such a uniquely Korean way.

We were up bright and early the next day to head off with a gang of 15 folks in total on a "Photo Roadtrip" that Stu had organized. Now, a lot of the people on the trip were hardcore photo types with expensive cameras, tripods, lenses out to here.... I admit that I was coming along purely for the social aspect.




Every so often, as we made our way from Mokpo through Daewonsa to Yeosu, we would stop, everyone would pile out of the two vans, and the shutterbugging would begin. It was great fun, and a wonderful reminder of just how lovely Korea is. The colours may not be as vibrant as Canada or New England, but there were enough bright patches to satisfy us. And, I got a chance to see some of the southern coast of Yeosu (new for me), and the rugged cliffs and rolling ocean - yay.

The highlight for me was definitely going back to Daewonsa (again). It was my fourth time there - I've seen it in every season but winter.... we'll see if I'm good enough to brave the cold and head out there this year, since I would love to see it under a layer of snow. Here are some of my favourite shots from Daewonsa:





The climate inside our van (me, Stu, Nicola, Zephyr, Jen and Garrett) was definitely festive and noisy:



Anyway, once in Yeosu, I ditched the rest of the gang and made my way to Suncheon to see Nina. She is probably going to meet up with me in Bali/Lombok, and we wanted to chat a bit about it all. However, when I arrived at her place, I was thoroughly exhausted so I gave her my guidebook and just sat down in front of her TV with some homemade soup.

I left early-ish on Sunday, and did a quick bit of shopping in Gwangju (how awesome is it that the girls at Aveda know me -- I will always love that) and bumped into JP, which gave me someone to chat with on the bus ride back to Mokpo.

Anyway.... more photos are available on Facebook and on Flickr, so go take a look.

p.s. The Gap is coming in December to the Shinsegae department store in Gwangju!! This will put Starbuck's, Aveda and The Gap conveniently under one roof for me!

Bali Bali Bali Bali Bali

I'm a bit upset with myself... It's been in the works it all this time, yet I haven't even mentioned my plans for my January vacation!


On January... umm... 3rd? I'll be flying via Taiwan to Bali and from there, on to Gili Trawangan, a tiny island off the coast of Lombok. I'll stay there for about 10 days, but am spending a full month in Bali/Lombok.... possibly meeting up with Nina too at some point. But other than that, it's going to be a solo trip.

Gili Trawangan is an island with a population of about 600 people, no motorized vehicles, no ATMs, not even police! It's nothing but white beaches, bungalows and lots and lots of scuba diving.

See the whole reason why I am going there is to get my PADI diving certification up to Advanced Open Water (currently, even though I have done 4 scuba dives, I have not done so as a real live diver).


Today, finally, I booked in 10 nights in a bungalow on a beach with scuba lessons and dives every single day. Sound cool so far?

Hmmm... let's see what the website has to say:

...surrounded by white sand beaches and vibrant clear waters. The diving is year round and the fringing coral reefs that surround the Gilis support a phenomenal array of marine life that will captivate scuba divers of all levels....


...It’s just a short commute of about 60 metres from crisp white bed linen to clear blue water via the inclusive breakfast....

...We also provide for many inactivities such as our on-site masseur, relaxing in our hammocks, by the pool or chilling in one of our berugaks...


...This is probably the most popular site because of the sheer variety of life seen here on a single dive. Reef sharks are found basking in the canyons, cuttlefish, stingrays, tons of turtles in the shallows, and every full moon it is a favourite hang out for a school of huge bumphead parrot fish. Some large rays sometimes pass by as well as schooling trevelly....

...Apart from the tourist attractions like temples and waterfalls, and the usual beach activities like sunbathing and snorkeling, you can go fishing, horseriding, water skiing, wakeboarding, and there is a surf break to the south of the island for the experienced surfer...

Meh. I guess it will be okay for a few days....

Seoul Weekend: Bring on the Food

It's been a busy week, marked with amazing surreal experiences (this is Korea, after all) and delicious food (yay).

On Friday, Monique hosted a bunch of us for supper (The usual suspects: Me, Ty, Garrett, JP, Sloane, Jessica, Alex) where she served three different kinds of Kraft Dinner and tater tots. This is exciting stuff when you live in the land of kimchi.

Bright and early on Saturday morning (like, waking up at 5 am), Ty and I caught the KTX high-speed train to Seoul. Ty is heading to South Africa for a month before starting his new contract, so we decided to spend a weekend in Seoul before he left.

Our first stop was Itaewon, which I would liken to Chinatown in Toronto - except that it's Americatown in Seoul. You see mostly foreigners walking around, of all different cultures and races. It's a refreshing change from all Korean, all the time. We hit the major spots (for me): Starbucks, What the Book (a used bookstore) and Marrakech Nights - the best Moroccan restaurant ever, and a place that I go to every time I am in Seoul.

We then went to the Hongdae University area, which is a cool street with lots of shopping that I'd visited with Karen a few months back. The main reason for going there was the Doc Martens store, where I bought Ty a pair of Docs (late birthday aka going away present). Once again, it was just fun to see things that were different from Mokpo/Suncheon/Gwangju.

From there, we headed up to Sinchon to find a hotel. We did quite a bit of lost wandering before finding a suitable Love Motel to stay in. I was trying to hit a few of the same places I'd seen with Karen, but I couldn't find the same hotel we'd been to.

We'd planned to go out in the Hongdae area, so we headed back there, first for supper (Mexican - yum) and then out on the town. The funny thing was that we were both trying to drag each other to "this one place that I know you'll like" - of course, once we got there, we realized that we were trying to take each other to the same place. We headed down to a dank, smelly, dodgy basement bar that had some live music and free cocktails. While we were there, we befriended/were repeatedly bumped into a group of Canadians and Brits who were out for a friend's birthday. We decided to join them at a small 80s dance club (that I'd been to with Karen too), where we danced to appalling music for about 2 hours. From there, we said goodbye to our new friends and went back to the dank basement place to watch some more live music before almost crumbling from exhaustion (we'd been up since 5, remember) and heading home.

Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day. We went back to Itaewon to the Rocky Mountain Pub (a Canadian-themed bar with Hockey Night in Canada on the big screen) for the "truck stop breakfast", a classic 2 eggs-bacon-homefries-toast-beans sort of thing that is a real treat in Korea. Ty had to get gifts for back home, so we headed off to Insadong, which is a great street full of traditional Korean gift shops. It was super wicked crowded, and it was a bit frustrating, so we went to a small tea shop to relax. I'd been to this tea shop with Nicola on her last day in Korea last April. It's absolutely crowded with antiques and knick-knacks and featured live birds (little finches) flying freely around. It's truly an amazing place and a good escape from the Insadong crowds.

With a few hours to kill before my train back to Mokpo, we started walking down a few of the random streets around Anguk station. At one point, we found ourselves on a narrow, arty street that was full of museums, art galleries, wine and pasta bars and stores selling hand-made original jewellery. Once again, it was not typically Korean.

Choosing a random narrow staircase, we began climbing away from the street, finally stumbling upon a small, empty French restaurant with an incredible view of tiled rooftops, a pagoda (that the sun set behind as we ate) and a mountain top. Yeah - pretty much the most romantic possible place. While I chatted in French with the chef (who, by the way, had his Cordon Bleu certificate prominently displayed), Ty took a bunch of pictures -- most of the photos from that weekend are on his camera, not mine, so no pics really for the blog - except this one).


Our haute-cuisine meal consisted of potato soup served with warm crusty rolls, a salad dressed with sweet balsamic vinegar, followed by gratined eggplant and mushrooms, then duck with apples, and finally a small chocolate fondant cake thing. The food was amazing, the view was spectacular, and if felt like time had come to a standstill.

We arrived at the train station with less than an hour to go before my departure to Mokpo (Ty flies out to South Africa on Monday night) and happened upon a group of Peruvian musicians playing outside the main entrance. They reminded me a bit of a group that used to play in the Montreal metro - all long flutes and wee guitars and a bouncing rhythm.

But...my train was leaving.

I got back to Mokpo where I was attacked by Jakob for a full 45 minutes (punishment, obviously, for leaving him alone for a weekend).

It was hard to say goodbye for a month, but Ty is off to have a great time back home, visiting family and friends, spending a weekend (at least) at a game farm, and reconnecting with his homeland. I've got an upcoming roadtrip with about a dozen other people, and a Girls' Weekend in Busan coming up. It was a great weekend, and a nice way to say Goodbye for a few weeks.