한 국 사 랑 해 요!

I can't even begin to explain just how much I am loving my life here in Korea. The teaching part brings some unwanted stress to my life, but only because I allow it and haven't yet figured out how to take the perfectionist out of the girl and harness my terrible procrastination habits.

I've neglected many an opportunity to take a moment to write about my experiences here--large and small--but I assure you, Korea thus far has been good to me. So many moments have passed where I can't help but think to myself (and often times say out loud) "I love my life." It's the small things in life that make it so wonderful though, isn't it? My life in Korea is full of those small things...

Spring has finally arrived after a long, cold winter, which means I am starting to see color, feel warmth, and most significantly of all, see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. As we Oregonians know quite well, few moments are better in life than when the winter (or in our case, rainy) season changes to blue skies and sun, eliciting a heightened sense of happiness and energy.

Ahhh, spring.

My friends and I took advantage of the changing seasons and went for a nice long bike ride along the river a few nights ago (just like back home!). Four foreigners on bikes is quite a site to see in Jinju, so we got plenty of friendly stares and hellos from a number of people, young and old. Near the end of the ride, we happened to pass by a huge fountain along the river just at the right time to catch a colorful display of the evening water show (which was new to all of us) with everything from k-pop to traditional Korean music timed perfectly with the movement of the water. It felt like we could have been in Vegas and we seriuosly stood at the base of the fountain with our necks bent, gawking up at the water show for longer than I'd prefer to admit. It was pretty amazing. Sometimes Koreans really know how to do it... And then naturally, we ended our evening with a bowl of my favorite soup, mandu guk (dumpling soup).

Life is good.

Yesterday one of my favorite students (whom I had in my winter English camp and in my extra conversation classes that I do right now) brought my a chocolate chip cookie. Earlier in the day he gave me a stick of gum.

Today I received an impromptu Buddhist breathing meditation lesson from a fellow English teacher, followed be a long discussion about such things as past lives, hypnosis and the like. He promised to give me a tai chi lesson tomorrow...

Did I mention all 1091 of the boys (well, almost all of them) are on a three-day field trip? Each grade is going somewhere different, but I still couldn't imagine accompanying 340-380 middle school boys for three days and two nights. Me and about ten other teachers are left here at the school, passing the time by eating breakfast and lunch together and doing a lot of sitting around talking. Well, naturally I'm doing more listening than talking... I even watched a movie with the 'leftover' kids today.

한 국 사 랑 해 요!!!
(I love Korea!)