Pride!

It's arrived at my parents' house, officially.

I now have a Master of Arts in Writing from Northeastern University.

I spent three summers attending graduate seminars on writing and pedagogical theory on Martha's Vineyard with an extraordinary collection of professors from universities all over the country and other brilliant teacher-students who have become life-long friends (yeah, I'm talking to those of you guys who read this blog!). I spent many hours working on papers, reading and researching about writing and writing theory--especially that connected with teaching.

In my first three years of teaching at Roosevelt, I grew a lot as a person and a teacher. I've grown even more in Korea. But I know that I wouldn't have grown as much without the opportunity to engage in the reflection and writing that I did through this graduate program. It's been quite a trip, and even served as some of the initial inspiration for the starting of this blog.

From the first course I took with Professor Susan Wall where I discovered my "teaching self":

Writing is such a complex and often contradictory activity. There are rules, but most great writers break those rules; there are genres, but rarely does writing of genius confine itself to a prescribed form without ingenuity. I discovered I could teach conventions and forms, but as much as I encouraged students, they were often afraid to take the risks that they needed to take to become great writers. I realized that part of my task as a writing teacher would have to be to create an environment in which students were encouraged and rewarded for successful risks.

This was a terrifying discovery as a new teacher, because the natural extension was that I would have to start taking risks as a teacher.

--excerpt from "First Draft: A New(ish) Writing Teacher Examines Her Beliefs," final paper for Current Approaches to Teaching Writing

To my final research thesis (a teacher-research study about balancing the demands of a high-pressure test--the AP Language and Composition--with the goals of providing students with writing workshop style instruction), under the direction of Professor Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater, finished up here in South Korea this May:

As I said in the introduction of this paper, I have relocated to South Korea, where I continue to teach students in a test-based, highly competitive educational environment. However, I am fundamentally changed by my experiences as a teacher-researcher. I take risks in teaching more confidently than I did before beginning this project; even in a foreign land where I don’t always understand the language and the culture. I try to do what the best thing for my students is, rather than the best thing for the administrators, parents, political groups, or test-makers, but I also recognize a need for balance. I can’t be everything for these students, even for their writing and language development, or they will be too dependent on me, and I will make myself sick again.

What’s more, I see the need for cultural/anthropological research methods in all aspects of my life. Certainly the practice of carefully assessing all aspects of a situation, being open and honest about multiple interpretations of a single event, and learning from your mistakes have served me well in understanding Korea. Towards the end of the research year, I began a blog that I often use as a way to systematize my cultural/life observations and personal research. It was inspired in large part by the journaling I began with my research project. It has kept me honest with myself.

Finally, in the writing of this paper, I am reminded even further of the gratitude I feel for the amazing people I have had the opportunity to teach and to learn from. My students are teachers, just as much as my professors have been (and having had some really spectacular professors, that’s saying quite a lot). This job is special, but not because we’re miracle workers or martyrs. Teaching affords us a unique and direct view of the human spirit in progress and the human mind at work; one cannot but wonder at humanity’s capabilities. I hope I will always be able to appreciate that.

--excerpt from "Better than Good Enough: One AP Language and Composition teacher uses Writing Workshop techniques to develop her curriculum within the confines of a standardized testing environment," final graduate thesis

And the classes on subjects as varied as Children's Literature and Memoir Writing in between, I will always cherish these moments for reflection on the act of writing and teaching writing. Life often gets in the way of leisure time for intellectual development; I know that unless I choose to return for a Ph.D. or MFA in Creative Writing, it is unlikely I will get this kind of intellectual luxury again in such intense doses.

(But of course I spent all day researching Ph.D. programs in Australia and England... I'm so "special").

Anyhow... I'm both relieved and sad to dry the ink on this chapter in my life. I will miss it, but now I can choose my intellectual pursuits without regard to term papers and course requirements. Today, however, for the first time in awhile, I feel proud of myself and my accomplishment.

And that's a fine feeling.

Dear Rice Cooker,

Oh how I love thee!

You are so cute and pink and cook rice perfectly in about 20 minutes, the time it takes me to prepare a veggie stir fry or soup or whatever else I care to make.

I can easily combine brown and white rice so that my rice is slightly healthier than the average Korean white super-glutinous stuff.

You keep the rice stored nicely for a couple days--it doesn't dry out and I can use you to re-heat it when I want the leftovers.

How did I live without you, my darling?

Shh... don't tell Min Gi about our affair. I'm not sure he'd understand.

Korean Toilets 101

I don't much care to discuss bathroom issues, but after two years in this country, I finally have built up the nerve to address one of the most shockingly different things in Korea: public bathrooms. Bathrooms in the home are a whole other cup of tea--featuring shower heads with no shower area and drains in the floor and sometimes, the laundry machine in there with you.

Shock Number One: No Toilet Paper

Many Korean public bathrooms do not keep toilet paper in individual stalls. Carry some with you when travelling in an unfamiliar area (they sell these nice little Kleenex packs at convenience stores that work well for this purpose). Many of the bathrooms in downtown Daegu have toilet paper next to the sinks that you can carry into the stall with you.

Shock Number Two: Throwing Used Tissue in an Open Trash Can Next to the Toilet.

Ew. Extremely common. Highly unsanitary--especially with fecal and menstrual matter. Ew. I think most Koreans flush it at home these days, but the public restrooms are still wipe & toss, no flushing. Many establishments even have signs asking you not to flush the paper. I generally ignore these.

Shock Number Three: No Soap (or a communal bar/handle of soap)

Sadly, this is not a hand-washing culture. People brush their teeth 20 times a day and wash their feet before bed and wear dust masks on their faces in public, but they can't be bothered to wash their hands after using the toilet. This is another ew for me. William taught me early on to carry a small piece of soap in my bag. Another option is that hand sanitizer is now becoming widely available (the ONE good thing about the swine flu outbreak).

Shock Number Four: Squatters

This is the biggest shock for most Westerners, but I had done my research before coming to Korea, so I knew to expect it. Many public stalls in Korea have half or more squat-style toilets (If the first door you open is one and you want a bowl, keep searching the other stalls). They're basically porcelain holes in the ground with a little "splash guard" at the front. You can use them for #1 or #2, but they require flexibility and thigh strength. A couple tips for beginners: 1) Line up the fronts of your toes with the "splash guard" for proper positioning. You'll feel too far forward at first, but trust me, you want your poo going IN the squatter, not behind it. 2) Plan how you will stand up BEFORE you go all the way down--check for toilet paper, relatively clean hand grips to pull yourself up, and the location of all important items. 3) Watch pant legs as you aim.

Honestly, once you get used to them, they're pretty easy to use. I certainly don't PREFER them, but I no longer freak out because that's all that's available. Plus they help build leg muscle.

Shock Number Four: Singing and Other Fancy Toilet Seats.

Some toilet seats have a lot of super-fancy buttons. They heat the seat for you or auto wash or some other such things. It's very odd to see "luxury" in this item, especially when still a good 50% of public toilets outside the city are squatters.

Shock Number Five: Toilet Seats that Don't Fit on the Bowl.

One of my favorite downtown wine bars has a SQUARE seat with a very ROUND toilet. I've seen too small seats, too large seats, and seats where when you pee sitting up (instead of bent forward) your pee leaks out the front of the bowl (seriously... ew). It's pretty special.

Shock Number Six: Korean Men Pee at Urinals With the Door Wide Open.

Perhaps they are drunk? Perhaps they just don't care? I've seen waaaaaay too many men I don't know pee. (This is not even counting the ones I've seen peeing on the street.) I don't like to watch you pee. Could you just close the door, please??? (Sadly, my lovely future husband is no exception to this, though I'm trying to help him fix this problem... at least in public stalls...)

Shock Number Seven: Korean Women Smoke in Bathrooms.

There is still a heavy stigma associated with the wrong kind of girl if she smokes in Korea. So all the ladies addicted to nicotine, but wanting to still appear "pure," will stink up the restroom with their putrid habit. It's annoying. This is especially true in bars.

Of course, the cleanliness of bathrooms varies quite a bit, as it does in the U.S. The most disgusting bathroom I've used in the last six months was in a gift shop in Virginia, so while I've heard Westerners complain about this in Korea, I'm not so sure it's that much different. I will say that, in general, coffee shops have really nice bathrooms and traditional Korean drinking places (like hofs and sul-jips, and beer houses) have the worst I've seen here besides one bus station in the country.

Well... I think that's enough about that. I hope those of you unversed in the ways of the Korean public restroom have learned something. I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Swing Dance Updates and MT

Notice the different greens of the trees--beautiful.

This weekend I went on another "MT" with my swing dance club--out to Yeongcheon. It was a blast! I was the only foreigner there, but I wasn't treated as "the token foreigner" because I know all the folks who went well (except the new beginner class who I started to get to know) and they are my friends. It's nice to be a little accepted. Check out the album for pictures.

Yeongcheon Swing and People MT

Just before I left for America, our swing club elected a new president (happily for busy, wedding-planning me). Nan-ta, the new president, is an enthusiastic dancer and great at making everyone feel comfortable. I feel a little proud that in the last year our club has grown so much, with so many new regular members (although I was not able to maintain Ben's penchant for drawing in a large foreign crowd). I know most of the work for the club has been done by Min Gi and Gong Bi, but I did try my best to be a good ambassador for the club by travelling to some other swing events in Korea and improving my skills.

Nan-ta inspires us with confidence about his leadership abilities.

After serving as president for one year of a club in a foreign country (run in that country's language), I can say that the feeling of acceptance I felt at Swing and People has only increased since I last blogged about it. How lucky I am. Most people who move to Korea for a few years to teach find that they are unable to form more than superficial relationships with a few Koreans, and even then usually only English-speaking ones. Korea is not the easiest society to "break into" from a foreign perspective, and while Koreans are all too excited to bring you to Korean festivals and show you "culture," they're a bit hesitant to bring you into their lives in a meaningful way. Through dancing, I've found not only a new passion that will probably be with me throughout my life, but also friendships with fun, interesting people.

Jina, a friend for life.

And so, Min Gi (who feels the same way I do about the awesome folks of Swing and People) and I have decided that we will have our wedding next year at the swing dance club, in the presence of our friends and lots of great music and dancing fun. It really is the perfect choice for us, though not traditional for America or Korea. We've been going through the annoying, meticulous, detail-planning aspect, generally with a light-hearted attitude. It helps me a lot that he wants to take care of so many little things. Call me unfeminine, but I just don't care about stuff like decorations, invitations, and etiquette--not to even mention color themes, paper weight, and linens (none of which we're bothering with). I've written my opinions on weddings before in this blog. While this is a compromise from the beach surprise wedding I wanted, it's something I think I'll still have fun doing, and hopefully, so will our guests. (P.S. If you want an invite, e-mail me your address and I'll hope to see you there, on January 9)

I also uploaded a video of me dancing with Malddugi, a swing dancer from Busan who visited last night to tell us that he is also getting hitched--in November! I'm excited.



There's not much lindy (unfortunately) 'cause the song is fast, but you can get a sense of how I'm doing after about a year and half of learning to boogey. Also, I uploaded another video dancing with Juno, but Min Gi is not so good a cameraman, so while you can find it through my youtube account, I'm not going to advertise it here.

New Apartment!!!

Ok, so I mentioned last week that I have moved into the future love-nest of Min Gi and I (he's moving in more slowly--for example, his car, computer, and some of his decorations live here, but not his clothes yet; he wants to ease his mom off of having to do his laundry). It's a two-bedroom apartment near my school. Ok, actually it's just across the road from my school, like about one minute from my front door to my office. This has distinct advantages in terms of convenience, but if you recall that TFLHS is a boarding school, this does lead to some awkward moments coming back from my early yoga class and whatnot.

Anyhow, I love this apartment. I love the layout and the landlord and the size and everything! Inspired by Danielle, I have decided to give you a video tour. I have learned I'm not cut out for video blogging, but whatever. Enjoy:

Something that helped my UC

After the last two months of travel and coping with this icky thing, I've discovered one thing that DEFINITELY helps with the energy issues--a daily multivitamin.

I don't know why this helps so much, when I eat a pretty balanced diet (lots of fruits and veggies), but my fatigue is pretty much gone when I remember to do it every day. If I don't, within three days it's back to an on-again, off-again routine with feeling weak and exhausted. Perhaps there have been some mild absorption issues that the extra "boost" from the pill is resolving. At any rate, I seem to be able to function at my usual high-energy level on 7ish hours of sleep again. Yay!

Armed with this new insight, I've resumed the taekwondo--happily and with few problems--four days per week (Tuesday nights my evening class prevents me from attending a class at a good time, so I decided that's my "rest day"). I'm going mostly at 6:30 now instead of 9:20. Even though it's harder to connect with the elementary kids than it was with the middle and high schoolers I trained with before, it seems to be ok. And one of the instructors has decided to give me private instruction on the nights when the kids are doing little kid things, like playing soccer or eating chicken instead of practicing. I've been sore from using long-neglected muscles, but I'm really happy.

I also have resumed MWF yoga in the mornings. The class has really filled up! When I was doing it in June, there were about 15-18 people, now there's pretty close to 25, which is almost too many for the aerobics studio. I'm still the only foreigner, so I still feel like a giant when looking in the mirror at all the petite, yoga-loving ajummas!

I'm still readjusting my diet, finding out what works and what doesn't. Something I ate in America gave me food poisoning and I seem to have been out of UC remission since then (very unfortunate), but I'm so glad I've found something to fight the fatigue. Seriously, the fatigue has been the worst part of this so far--even worse than the painful bowel movements and frequent urges. I hadn't even realized how much happier I am in my life when I'm active (I consider myself a relatively inactive person by nature), but seriously I have been missing all that kicking, stretching, hiking, and dancing I'd been doing up until about four months ago when, you'll pardon the aptness of this expression in regards to my particular disease, the shit hit the fan.

My return to TKD!

I posted on my other blog about my return to TKD. Since what's been preventing me is related to my disease issues, I thought it would be more appropriate over there. You can read about it here.

Namsan Area of Gyeongju

Looking down at Gyeongju.

Our first Sunday back from America, Min Gi and I decided to take advantage of our jet lag and go hiking. I proposed that we head off to Palgongsan, but Min Gi smartly suggested that we go to Gyeongju, where the kitties were "couchsurfing" with our friend Hayoung, and then collect the animals after we finished. I have been to the ancient Silla capital, Gyeongju, several times, and I love it. It's a very beautiful, historic city with two UNESCO World Heritage sites!

Creepy old trees that look like vines.

The Namsan area is a small mountain range to the south of Gyeongju with many Buddhist carvings and temples still intact from the time when it was the capital. Namsan, in conjunction with the downtown historic sites, is a designated UNESCO site.

Well-preserved Bodhisattva statue, with yogurt drink offerings in front of it.

One of the things that always strikes me about visiting temples and mountain historic sites in Asia is the fact that these ancient shrines are active, living places where people worship. They aren't just some old relics for tourists to look around. I always see people praying before the statues and hear monks chanting up in the mountain temples. I avoid photographing people engaged in active worship because it feels a little too voyeuristic for me, but it is so interesting to live in a culture where the ancient is so present in modern day. I guess growing up in America makes you feel rather disconnected from the idea that religion is both ancient and modern--something a large number of congregations in America could benefit from remembering before they use all the tithes to build a snazzy new church instead of provide homeless assistance or start a food bank...

Enjoying the beautiful weather.

All in all, Namsan was very scenic. The vegetation was some of the most varied I've seen on a single Korean mountain (from the twisty old forests above to pine trees to bamboo to a brilliantly green canopy). The idea of it being a "museum without walls" is both accurate and incomplete. And for someone now out of shape from failing to hike for awhile, it's a pretty tough hike. (Really, I'd rate it about medium for Korea--along the lines of Gatbawi--but like I said, I'm out of shape for hiking right now.) I was about to die at the end of it.

The most difficult parts are also the most fun!

I got lucky with the weather, which made for some gorgeous photography. Check out the full album:

Gyeongju's Namsan Area (경주 남산)

Only in Korea...

One of my Hong Kong swing dance friends posted this video to his facebook. It is unbelievable, but makes perfect sense if you live in this country. I bring you Korea's champion synchronized swimming team, dancing to Michael Jackson, in the 63 building's aquarium in downtown Seoul. Enjoy!

Where'd the month go???

Well, I'm back in Korea. (Already?) Have been for about a week. Moving to a new apartment today and Thursday is keeping me pretty busy and jet-lag's been zapping my energy. But enough of that.

Min Gi and I had a fabulous vacation, seeing and doing lots of stuff and meeting a lot of people I love (including some new folks at swing dance and my brother's friends). This year's visit was much longer than my solo trip last year, and therefore more refreshing and energizing overall. I will now inundate you with photo albums as I summarize my trip.

Dad, Brian, and I took Min Gi on his first sailing trip. He fell in love with it. We later took Amanda's husband out (Brian declined that round) and he also enjoyed the ride. Sailing is the best:

Sailing with Dad, Brian, and Min Gi

We visited my (absolutely beautiful) alma mater, St. Mary's College of Maryland, located conveniently next to yet-to-be-discovered tourist attraction of the historic colonial settlement at the first capital of Maryland. Min Gi was inspired by the scenery and re-proposed. We also completed a 4 mile nature hike after exploring the campus and historic sites thoroughly, so we were pretty beat at the end of the day. I took some of my favorite photos of the America trip here:

St. Mary's College of Maryland at Historic St. Mary's City.

We were suppose to meet Michelle and her brother Zach for some fun white water tubing near Harper's Ferry, but got rained out. (We were able to go tubing with Michelle a week or so later, but my camera is not waterproof, so she has the only pictures from that adventure). Instead, we went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore (complete with Dolphin Show viewing) and hung around the Inner Harbor, watching the storm:

Baltimore Inner Harbor

My kind and wonderful parents whisked my siblings, guests, and me away for a five-day, four-night stay on Chincoteague Island in Virginia. We spent the time relaxing on the beach, gorging on glorious seafood, bonding with each other, kayaking around the nearby streams, and being eaten alive by evil mosquitoes. It was relaxing and heavenly:

Chincoteague

Next, Min Gi and I went on a road trip to Parkersburg, WV and Little Hocking, OH (just across the Ohio River from one another) where my aunt from Lebanon owns a very successful Lebanese restaurant and she lives with her husband, Dad's brother, respectively. While there, we gorged on Lebanese food and went to a Lebanese culture festival with my aunt's brother (and co-owner of the restaurant). There was belly-dancing and general silly fun:

West Virginia/Ohio

And (finally) we kidnapped my adopted brother, Sam, and went to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. This is a very fun, but very expensive, activity that involved getting Min Gi to pet American Beef (it was so cute!) and eat Death (aka Funnel Cake). We had a great time and took a bunch of pictures:

Montgomery County Agricultural Fair

So... I hope you get a chance to peruse whatever albums appeal to you. We also did some things that I (regrettably) didn't photograph, such as the giant dinner I hosted, or the barbecue with friends I had, or Sarah's dance recital at Carter Baron and Min Gi's and my first foray into the DC Swing Dance scene. I have so many great memories of time with family and friends. But wouldn't you know it? Three weeks wasn't enough time to see everyone I hoped to see or do everything I hoped to do.

I am actually excited about moving back "home" next year... but that concept of home keeps changing the longer I live away. I will blog more about that soon. Mostly, I just wanted you all to know I was alive!