Gosh. I always feel horrible for not posting, but I never feel like I have enough to talk about to fill a whole post. However, a lot has happened since we’ve been home.
First of all, since coming home, we’ve been hanging out a lot with Dave and Thwani, two South African’s in town. It’s interesting to live in Yecheon now. There are about 18 foreigners in town now. Isn’t that crazy? There were three of us this time last year, and now we have almost 20! Well, now that there are so many of us, we’ve kind of broken off into groups. We do all get together once in a while, but lately it’s just been the four of us, and I’m happy with that.
The beginning of October was the Korean holiday, Chuseok. My co-teacher invited us to his house to celebrate with his family. We’ve seen the ceremony before, it’s the same one they do for the new year, and on the anniversary of the death of each ancestor (going back to great grandparents), but this time, we took Shadi’s video camera and video taped it for you all to see what happens! You can check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuFZDEkrTTI
Korean’s bow twice for the dead. They also offer them rice, soup, fruit, protein, and rice wine. It’s really an interesting ceremony, and we are so happy to be included. After the ceremony, we all eat the food that the spirits of the ancestors ate. Cool huh?
Shadi and I have been going to the gym in the mornings. I’m hoping to lose another 20lbs by next year, and I think I can accomplish that. I’ve been eating less at work, and trying to eat better foods when I’m not at school.
This month is obviously the month of Halloween, so this week I’m doing something fun with my students. We’re making masks and watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Last Friday I had three of these classes because next Friday, I wont be at school. The students did a great job with their masks, and they got the crap scared out of them by the episode of Buffy, and I couldn’t stop laughing. So, I took some pictures and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do:
So as I said, I wont be at school next Friday. Shadi and I were picked to go on a tour of the DMZ and other locations around Seoul for two days. We are so excited, especially since my co-teacher was selected to go too!
We’ve been trying to make some plans for the next few years. We’re already talking about staying for a third year. We want to make sure we have all of my student loan debt paid off, and a lot of money saved before we come home for good. We are really happy in Korea, but we do miss aspects of our life in America. We really miss holidays with our families. We really miss Bailey. We really miss the simple things of going out with friends whenever we want, going out to dinner with our parents randomly during the week. Just simple little things like that. Sometimes it’s really frustrating when we can’t eat the things we want to do, and do the things we want to do, but our lives, I think, will be the better for everything that we’ve had to go through in Korea. We’re becoming stronger as a couple, we’re learning more about each other and what we want out of life, and how we want to raise our children. Sometimes I see what others have: a house, kids on the way, and a career, and sometimes I’m a little jealous. I’d love to own my own house and be in a job which would be rewarding and require me to work hard. I’d love to have children, but I know what we are doing now will benefit us all in the future. Just a little patience, and everything will work out better than we could ever imagine.
So we’re coming home in February for a week. Our great friends Randy and Sarah are finally getting married. It’s going to be a quick trip, but it’ll be fun. I don’t think we’ll be coming home next summer because of the trip in February. We’ve been kicking around the idea of maybe going to France for a week (and traveling around a bit in Europe), and spending some time in Lebanon with Shadi’s grandmother. We’ve also talking about maybe going to Australia for three weeks instead of the France/Lebanon trip. We’ll need to figure it out soon, especially since we’re going to have to budget for it. There are pros and cons for each trip, but we need to seriously sit down and figure it out. We’re thinking of going to Southeast Asia in the winter of 2011, and then doing a full on backpacking trip through Europe the summer of 2011 before we come home for good. Because we’re planning on that, I think Australia would be the better choice for summer 2010, but we need to talk about it.
I’ve been knitting like a fiend! I made a shawl for my grandma, and I can’t wait to send it to her. I also made my first pair of socks, and I am so excited. The socks were fun and easy, and I can’t wait to become a sock knitter. I’m also waiting on a package of yarn for winter knitting. It’s getting really cold here, and I’m making hats, gloves, cowls, and I’m going to attempt to make my first sweater. This should be exciting.
Alright that’s it for now.
All my love. K.
Note: We’re having a problem uploading the pictures. We can’t get it to work, so I’ll upload them when we fix the problem.
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