Final Farewells



Goodbye Girls!



Boss came and took away all my furniture on Saturday to give to the new teacher. That's right, the new teacher got ALL the furniture (even though she moved in early), and I was left in my apartment with only a couple blankets and my pillows, lol. Okay, so I made that sound worse than it really was... the funny thing? It's exactly how I moved IN to Korea, so it was appropriate that that's how I'm moving out as well.

I officially moved out of my apartment on (what day is it today!?!) Monday night after working until 7pm, and I've been at a hotel since then. Hotels in Korea are not cheap in this neighbourhood, it's costing me $70/night to be here - outRAgeous, really! That's what I get for working/living in the fancy-schmancy richpants neighbourhood of Bundang :)

You made Korea ALL kinds of fun :)

The hotel is nice (though it's covered in piles of my stuff), it has a soft (by Korean standards) bed, a sofa with a coffee table, free coffee and green tea, and a computer with wireless. If I could make Skype work on it that would be the bomb, but I'm fine without it really.  It has a giant TV (with a DVD player and VHS that I just noticed), and the fridge has water and juice and cookies and crackers that are all free for the noshing. Mostly I'm enjoying the giganticness of the bed, and the hot hot bubbles of the jacuzzi tub after ALL that freaking time being restricted to my hard-as-a-rock bed and the apartment's showers only!

See you in Vietnam!!!

I've spent this last week saying goodbye to everything here.  Goodbye to my young Korean-teacher friends, goodbye to moms of the girls I taught at home, goodbye to other ex-pats that I've been so happy to get to know since 2003, goodbye to my kids in the classroom and at home, goodbye to their parents...

Goodbye shellfish BBQ!

I've had my last in-country shellfish bbq with Barb, my last Korean bbq with Jill (we forgot about noraebang/karaoke!), my last shabu-shabu (also with Barb), and my last night out with $5 drink all night and dance up a storm at the Loft (my terribly favorite dirty little hole in the wall in Seoul) with Jill and Katie.

See you in Canada!!

Laying around here tonight I don't even feel sad about most things, I feel kinda empty, maybe it's better to describe it as numb.  Tomorrow I have a list of things to do, (go to the bank, cancel my cell, mail packages home, repack my travel bag, pick up my passport from the Bangladeshi Embassy in the one alloted hour, say goodbye to one last friend), pay for another night at this hotel...

I'm not feeling that stressed about it, but I am feeling a little frozen.  As a matter of fact, the only thing I'm thinking about is having another bath, disappearing down in the bubbles with my music on and the candles lit... relaxing.  So, off I go then!

See you soon in India!!

The more I make room and distance myself from Korea so that I can allow my heart to get on the plane, the more I also feel myself distance from other things in life that I just can't carry around in my backpack for the next 5 months.  To my friends and loved ones at home and abroad I'll keep in touch as I can (both with the constraints of technology and the self-imposed limits on time spent online vs. experiencing the countries I'm in), but please don't take my absences personally.  MOM: I PROMISE TO WRITE SO YOU KNOW I'M ALIVE AND WELL! 

Oh, and I just checked my inbox... 74 emails in my inbox - really world??!  That just made me run away, lol, I'll get back to it later, maybe at the airport, lol...

Goodbye Korean BBQ in Korea!

As the ancient taxi driver last night reminded me, I'm about to "recommence studies in the university of life."  I went into Itaewon to meet a friend and on the way home the driver really said that to me after asking about my travel plans (I'd only mentioned Bangladesh, Nepal and India by that time)... "Why are you going to very poor countries to have a trip?  You don't like to go to Guam? To Saipan?" 'I don't want beaches and resorts, I want to see what life is like there... I want to see the country, I want to feel what it's like to spend time there, in the country and with the people...'.  "Ah, you are a student of life... you have a new job now, you will study at the university of life." 

Strange as it sounds, he's right, it's a big world out there, and there's just so much to get to know and understand - and not ALL of it is out there, but helps me figure out stuff on the inside too. 

The next 5 months are going to be amazing for all kinds of reasons, and it starts in 2 more sleeps. 

2.

More.

Sleeps.

Thursday morning my flight leaves at 9:40.  That means I can check in around 6:40, be the first in line to deal with my visa at immigration when they open at 7, which means I leave my place here around 5:15am to catch the first airport express bus the heck outta dodge... wow!

The Dwindling Days

I have 2 more days with my babies, and 3 with most of my afternoon kids.

W. o. w.
How long have I been talking about this?  Feeling this?  Long time, long enough to know that it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm about to say goodbye to my kids, but as the time creeps closer and closer I'm sad about it.

I said goodbye to my 2 girls last night, and it sucked.  I came back sullen to my apartment and just laid on my bed staring up at the ceiling until tears came.  Shortly after that I was rescued by a friend wanting to go for dinner, saving me from being sulky and sniffly all night.  I woke up happy and glad to spend the day with my kids, but that farewell hangs over every "this is the last time I'm gonna" that I go through in a day.  Tonight Ana, the mom of my sleepover Sandy came over to pick up a couple things I had for the girls, and she was crying when she said goodbye and left, which left me crying again when I closed the door.  I hate goodbyes.

Goodbye is the farthest thing from easy.
Tensions are running high at work these days between the overstressed and overstretched Korean management and the teachers (particularly those of us who are leaving).  There is much crankiness, and a lot of the parts of working with and for someone from a different culture (for us and our Korean counterparts) are being taken personally and made into things much bigger than they truly are.  I'm sad that things are ending on more of a rough note for the school; I've loved my job there this year and hope that in the last few days everyone can just relax a little, unwind and enjoy the little time we have left together. 

Kids are coming up to me in a constant stream through the day (because my boss has yet to tell everyone which teachers are leaving next week) to ask me if I will be their teacher next week... I hate seeing their little faces get all scrunched up when I explain that I'm actually leaving the school after Monday and they'll have a new exciting teacher coming... it's not fair to have to deliver that message over and over and over again because boss doesn't want the moms to be upset about us going: HELLO, they're GOING to find out on their owwwwwwwn even if you don't tell them!!  Grr....

I hate goodbyes.  I don't care that they're inevitable and that they're a 'normal' part of life.  I hate them.  My Grandad always used to say "never say goodbye, just say see you soon, or talk to you later," but sometimes you really do say goodbye in life... perhaps it's goodbye with an I hope to see you again someday, but it's still a goodbye in case I don't ever get to see you again.  Once upon a time in Korea leaving only meant 'see you later' because part of me knew that I'd be back.  This time, it's different.

Some people I'm not going to be able to see before I leave because I've waited too long, and not everyone is where I am.  Others I've already had the chance to say that last goodbye, even if it was early by my schedule, knowing that they were going to be gone when it was time for me to leave and they won't be returning until I've already gone.  Didn't make it better, or easier.  Just longer.

Friday night I have to say goodbye to my friend of 4 years and hope that we'll cross paths again when she comes back to Canada... Saturday afternoon I'm going for lunch so I can say goodbye to all of my young Korean-teacher friends (the ones I still work with and the ones that have come and gone over the year, I am still friends with them), and then Saturday night I'm saying goodbye to the girls in Seoul that I've been hanging out with at random dancing and drinking weekends... they aren't all close friends, but they are still people I'm going to miss who are part of times I am going to miss... Sunday morning I have another goodbye brunch with a mom and daughter I've been friends with since my 2006 job... Monday all day I say goodbye to all of my kids, 40 little faces that have changed my life.

Goodbye.  Goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye and more goodbye...

Yuck.

February Update

For anyone who may pop in and be curious, I am still happily whiling away my time in Korea. After the first couple of months mom was less worried, and things were less 'random and strange' and more like home, so I found that I stopped writing. Cheeky, because I meant to, but - well, I didn't! :)

It has been a great year overall.   I LOVE THIS JOB!!  Time has gone by far too quickly, and I'm now in my final month. FINAL month. Insanity!

School, has been amazing. I have loved watching my little ones grow and learn and change. The write, they read, they only speak en English now, they're amazing and I'm so proud of them! I do wish I'd taken more time to write about their growth and changes through the year, but it will nonetheless be something I will always remember.

In June one of my little girls moved to America and her seat was filled the next day by another lovely princess; In August another little girl left and was replaced by a lovely prince. Both of my new babies were almost silent for their first couple of months, smiling but shy, lovely and hard-working and excited and so, so sweet. At the end of October my 3rd student left completing my hat-trick of replacements. This newest princess was crazy-talkative and a liiiiittle bit nutso, but she's a sweet little thing so I just try to channel her energy into things other than scratching and hitting (imagine!). She's learning... I've got one more month!

So yes, my 10 little dolls are lovely, and in the past 11 months they have become self-sufficient little monkeys. They speak English in every class, they use their manners (see Mom, I passed that on already!), they laugh and joke and tease and play, and they're happy about every minute of the day... which makes me one happy teacher.

Korea this trip has been much like the other trips. I got settled into my new little space, bedecked it with some recycled furniture, and got myself more of a routine. I went to yoga and the gym a lot (wow I love hot yoga, wow! wow! wow!), and left my apartment at every opportunity. I never once hooked up my TV, and even my very-celebrated Wii is still in its box from my arrival! I met a couple of really great new friends, and spent time catching up with some old ones. I traveled through much of the country that I hadn't seen before, I picked and roasted green tea, I made wood block prints, I visited museums and memorials, I stayed in a Buddhist temple and made paper lanterns, I ate HEAPS of Korean food, I learned to cook some Korean food, and I even found places to shop where everything was not sized -4 through 6. It's been one hell of a year.

I thought, when I first arrived, that I would probably stay here for 2 years. Grad school is expensive, the money here is good, I'm still (still!) paying off student loans and credit card debt - 2 years and I could be in the clear. A few months ago though it became clear that this year, this one year that I'm contracted for, is going to be my last year in this country that has stolen my heart. I didn't save any money, I only paid for school and paid on my loans, and I'm going home about as well off financially as I started, but sometimes it's about more than just the money.

The past year has been wonderful, and amazing, and beautiful. I've had lots of days where I was frustrated or lonely to tears, and far more when I was laughing and smiling in glee and happiness. But, it's time to go home, time to move on with life now.

That is something about living overseas in a foreign country. The rest of your life? It goes on pause. Teaching is not my job at home, it's not my career, so while I love it and it makes me very happy, it is not making it easier for me to have a life at home by being here, it is in fact making it more difficult the older I get. I have the last bit of school to finish (I need to be home for that part), and then my internship (which I tried like crazy to negotiate here, but I couldn't sort it out), and that's one more thing that can be officially crossed off my list.

It occurred to me late last night that I have not taken any time to pick up souvenirs from Korea to take home with me.  This weekend I'll go to my favourite old neighbourhood and see if anything calls my name, though it could be that after my year I'll be going home with photographs and memories, and that will be that.  If so, that's fine, as those are really the things that are most special to me anyway.

So, 16 more teaching days, 25 more days until my contract ends, and 27 until I say my final goodbyes to this country, starting my way on my next short adventure before the return home (but I'll write more about that a bit later). 

Where, has the time gone?