"Have a great, wonderful, nice, perfect day!"

Albert is one of my youngest students, and probably the only one who can pull off the name "Albert." He speaks in full sentences, and his mantra is "Sit up straight." At least once in class, he will exclaim, "Teacher, so-and-so is not sit up straight!" At the end of class, he will chase after me before heading to the elevator to wish me a "great, wonderful, nice, perfect day" or some other variant with just as many positive adjectives. I don't think he knows how much that makes my day.

Ever notice how the smallest things can get you down? It's really easy for me to spiral in a negative reaction to Korea.

It's too cold and the winter and too hot in the summer.

I hate not speaking the language.

The main food group is fermented food and that makes me queazy.

There's no point in lengthening the list. It's obviously easy to complain. No, I am not staying in Korea more than a year, but it's not because I hate life here. Truth be told, I find it intriguing, peaceful, and even fulfilling at times. I'm leaving because there are other things I want to do, and I can't have both. I don't love everything about Korea, but let's be honest, I don't love everything about anywhere. A little nudge is all it takes to wake up the pessimistic monster and anything can be bitterly perceived.

That realization got me thinking about what I love about places. Why was it that when, after a long journey back from Florida, I was happy to be "home"? How could I use that word? It isn't just about where you are in the world, but where you are in life, what you are doing. There is joy to be found in every place we are. Especially when, like me, you're pretty lucky with life: you have a job, a place to live, great friends, wonderful family... the list goes on.

So what makes a great, wonderful, nice, perfect day?

1. A friendly face - Obviously friends are helpful here, but beyond that, I mean strangers who don't scowl or act like no one is around but who simply smile. Recognition is always nice here. When I was studying in Japan, I developed a relationship with my neighbors' son, who was about 3 or 4. I saw Aoi-chan every day on my way to school and I would simply smile. The first few times he just stared, but eventually he would smile back and wave, even come chase after me and walk down the street with me until we parted ways. We never really exchanged a word. In Daejeon, one of my favorite people is the Family Mart lady, who sees me come in practically every day before work and always has a huge smile on her face. Sometimes I go in just for that, even if I don't actually need anything. It makes the routine pleasant, even when I am running a little late (or very late).

2. Successes - Ok, this also seems obvious but teaching I often miss small successes that are really worth noting. Tom is my favorite example here, because it took me a while to realize how far he'd come. When I first started teaching him, he didn't know a short 'a' from a long 'a' and on one occasion, actually fell asleep mid-sentence. And I don't mean mine. This was a student I taught for eight months, one on one, and at some point in January, I realized he could spell (kind of). He was reading, writing and actually carrying conversations with me, and instead of dreading the class, and hoping he was absent, I looked forward to it. He became one of my most enthusiastic students. Yet even so, I would so often get frustrated in class, either at the fact he never did his homework, or at his game of purposefully answering questions wrong (ever notice how kids really don't get tired of a joke very fast?). In all that, I forgot to be amazed that his English was now good enough to play that game.

3. The weather - I don't just mean sunshine, that one's too easy. I mean even the cold or rainy days. Appreciate the clothes you can wear, the food you can eat, the sound of the rain, coming in from the cold, a hot drink. I love the spring more because it comes after winter. Yes, winter is cold, but hey, we have heaters and sweaters and delicious warm food to warm us up, but one of my favorite times to go to a park is when it's cold, because it's so quiet, so still.

4. Cherry blossoms - The great thing about cherry blossoms is that you have to enjoy them while you can, because next week they'll be gone. They are the epitome of fleeting beauty. You can't love everything for being ephemeral, but you can't forget to enjoy something because it's always there.

The great thing is, I could probably go on for a very long time as I listed thing after thing that could get a smile out of me, and make my day, so with that, have a great, wonderful, nice, perfect day!

What Might Not Have Been

"Every man has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden untimely birth he had not been, as infants that never see the light. Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius and it was common to say that many a man was a Great-Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been." G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

Chesterton goes on to liken the entire cosmos to the salvaged goods from Robinson Crusoe's wreck: "The trees and the planets seemed like things saved from the wreck." As I read this today I looked at the single plant in my apartment, that is still in recovery after an unfortunate encounter with the freezing cold and suddenly I was amazed by the possibility of its recovery. For a moment, it seemed the poor thing was on an epic journey for survival.

Everything in the world today has survived. But most of the time, we forget to marvel at all there is, and only lament what was lost. We have so much, everything becomes worthless;. After all, it is all so easily replaced. A job today seems worth much more than it might have five years ago, because if you lose it, your chances of finding a new one are not as good. But we should always treasure what we have as though it could disappear tomorrow; we should treat everything as a blessing since the very fact that we are alive is such a wonderful gift and an amazing reality.

I am the first to be guilty of wondering what might have been. As my departure from Korea draws near, I often wish for it to come faster out of excitement for what comes next. Yet I know that I am here now, and will be for three more months and when the lament of what could be rises, I know I should instead contemplate what might not have been. What might I not have seen, whom might I not have met, what I might not have learned. I should be amazed at where I am, for it might not have been.

Giving Thanks

It's odd that Thanksgiving would make me feel homesick. I never felt we had huge traditions, but I guess it was still something we celebrated in some way. Though I'm not sure exactly what I feel homesick for. Of course Thanksgiving dinner sounds wonderful - it's hard to not get a craving for turkey in a country where meat generally equals pork.

I woke up this morning telling myself I was going to be thankful all day because, let's face it, it's a good exercise to avoid being bitter and complain. Of course I woke up sick and had to work on grad school applications all morning, then got to work and realized I had all my report cards due today and at the same time, I'm seeing everyone's status updates about going home for break. Exhaustion, frustration and jealousy were definitely suffocating gratitude.

I wanted to be in France, I wanted to be in the States. I wanted to be in BED. I really did not want to be in an academy in Daejeon, ROK, teaching English to kids who, let's face it, should probably be outside playing.

But when it comes down to it, I am grateful for this opportunity that often leaves me feeling sad and lonely. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is a time for me to reflect, to know myself better.
I have learned that, unlike I would have expected (and maybe a couple years ago, this may have been true) I do not relish in seclusion and extreme solitude. I've felt the sting of loneliness, even when in so many ways, I am not alone.
I've also come to realized that no matter what grand ideals I may spout about cultural relativism and all, I value some cultures over others. This seems rather obvious since I'm by no means saying that there is a universal hierarchy, more that I have a personal hierarchy, in spite of myself.
Kids can make me feel really insecure, especially when they're speaking in a language I don't understand, and they try my patience to the unfortunate point at which I don't want to hear Korean spoken anymore... rather inconvenient.

I know this post is entitled "Giving Thanks" and it probably seems like I'm ranting more than anything (which may be somewhat true) but the point is, it's easy (-ish) to give thanks about happy things but because something is difficult does not mean it isn't valuable. So I am grateful for all these frustrating things, for all these sad times, for all these startling realizations, because I know there is so much to learn from them.

To end on a happier note:
I am grateful to those who have stood by me and supported me through insecurities and doubts
to the family who I know is always there for me, even when they are impossible to reach, even when they are thousands of miles away
to the friends who have made everywhere I go home.

Mirrors of Insecurity

This was not what I intended to write this next blog about. On the other hand, I also intended to write this post a month ago and did not intend to write it when I meant to be working on my personal statement for grad schools. But I'm working on getting used to things not going as I intend, so I've decided to go with it. (Picture by Courtney).

I was writing my personal statement and working on accounting for my year in Korea. Specifically I was thinking about how on the one hand, certain western standards seem to have become the norm, or at least the desired goal, while on the other hand, westernization is certainly not complete. Korea is not Western, even if it has adopted certain aspects of the Western world. Of course this could get us into a long discussion of what exactly is Western since even among Western countries, there are differences in values and norms but for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick to that term.

These thoughts on standards train of thought reminded me of a set of opposing interactions I've had here. On the one hand, I have found myself completely outside the beauty standard I suppose. These have for the most part just been amusing, like students telling me I'm a man because I am too tall to be a woman or asking me why I have yellow hair. Other moments have been more comparative, like a group of young men being told to "go Korean" for women because they'll age better and still look good when white girls will look old. On the other hand, I've had conversations with young women who want to get their hair died to look like mine, or worse, have plastic surgery to get their eyes changed so they look like mine.

While I feel self-conscious from getting weird looks in the street, it seems a lot of the young women I know here are struggling with what they should look like. There is a push to conform to the standard, but they aren't sure what the standard is.

As much as some comments or looks I get make me feel insecure whether they are from students or from random middle-aged women in the store, I am far more uncomfortable when I get sincere compliments from beautiful friends who want to change everything about themselves.

On Names

When I introduce myself and people ask my name, I have one answer, whether they speak French, English, German, Japanese, Korean... I only want one answer, that is my name. I can't imagine people calling me anything other than Elyssa - or at least some phonetically distorted equivalent ^^. I expect my name to be said differently by a French speaker and an English speaker, and therefore every other language has its own version. Thus it is a strange thing to know people by English pseudonyms. As much as I can get annoyed when people butcher my name (by that I mean English speakers calling me Alyssa, or French speakers calling me Elise), I would much rather that to taking on a new name. Of course much of this may be habit, everyone may not feel the same way, but to me it is like a barrier to intimacy, to a certain part of people are.

The first time this came to mind was realizing I could not find many of my Korean friends on facebook. The second was talking to a co-teacher's boyfriend who introduced himself as "so-and-so's boyfriend" - using her Korean name, which I had never heard.
It made me curious to see if it was just about making life easier for us foreigners or if they enjoyed the idea of having an English nickname. Of 11 students I asked, two actually preferred their English names, but all the others preferred their Korean names and several seemed somewhat uneasy with their English names. Two of them were arbitrarily assigned their names on the first day of class by teachers and have had them since. Even if some do prefer having another name, the notion that every kid needs one seems misplaced. In one class there was this interesting love for English names combined with a preference for the Korean names. They found English names beautiful, as one student put it, but it wasn't them.

I'm probably thinking about this way too much (no surprise there, though), but I can't help wondering what our names mean to us, and what I am telling my kids when I call them by some randomly assigned nickname.

Separation and Riches

I feel like I am failing at describing a particularly cultural experience in Korea (and failing at describing much of anything when I don't blog for over 2 weeks), but everything is interconnected. And sometimes it is simply through seeing something in a different context that you understand more about where you came from. A cross-cultural experience may be more revealing of the visitor than of the visited, you stare into these strange lands, faced with these new experiences, and what you see is yourself in a new light.

This does not start off as the most cheerful post, but it gets better, so bear with me. There's a reason why this blog's title includes the word "hermit". I have been known to say "I like being a hermit" and yes, freak that I am, it has occurred to me to take a few months to live in complete seclusion. Over the past few months, through a series of events (and a lot of phone calls), this view of myself had slowly begun to break down. However, there was enough left of the contentment with isolation that I was quite surprised at how this first birthday alone made me feel. From the minute I got on the subway in Seoul to head back to Daejeon, I knew that I was on my own for the rest of the day. There was something very daunting about that thought. I've often isolated myself, but this isolation was forced on me, not chosen. I realized that even at my most isolated moments, people around me had cared and been there for me in spite of myself and it wasn't that they didn't care, it was just that everyone was so far away.
When I got home and started seeing the birthday wishes from people all over, it meant so much and at the same time, it was so painful.

But in the following weeks, I started realizing that I may not have family here, or best friends, and every friendship doesn't just grow at miraculous speeds, but that doesn't mean there aren't new friends to be made, people around me. When it comes down to it, I may be separated from the people who know me best, but I'm not alone, and I can build new friendships.

Going out with people, hearing where they came from, what brought them here... all these different experiences make for such an eclectic, and fascinating picture. There's so much to learn, whether from the Koreans I meet, or the other foreigners. The separation can sometimes make it hard to see the richness that surrounds me in this situation.

One of my favorite things is building relationships with my students. Of course the better their English, the easier this is, since obviously Korean is not really an option. There are always those moments in my higher level classes when I can a get talking about something they're really excited about. And they just get carried away. I had the most quiet student alone in class, and I was able to ask him about things he cared about, and he talked for almost all of the 45 minutes. Granted, this isn't some six hour conversation about something very profound or personal, but they open up, and on some level we connect. The most difficult thing for me is still when one of my kids cries because I can't help. That language barrier is a borderland that infuriates me and fascinates me all at once. I both want to conquer it and contemplate it.

Mindset Of The Month

Have you ever had someone describe something to you, whether you know it or not, and suddenly, no matter how you thought about it before, that becomes one of the ways in which you look at it? It makes sense, it's a new way to look at it, you take it into consideration. Now have you ever had that happen when you want to force yourself to not think of it in that way? Where you know that could change your perceptions of it so drastically, the experience itself will change? I suppose in many ways, that has been my struggle since I got here. I can't say I've gotten the most positive feedback about Korea, about teaching at an academy, about the food... the list goes on. It honestly scared me when I got here because for the first time, I was wondering if I was legitimately going to hate where I lived and what I did.

I remember when I was living in Japan, forcing myself into a mindset that I would strive to understand the differences and accept them, that I would taste anything I was offered and appreciate it... basically attempting to rid myself of my prejudices as much as possible. I can't exactly say I was completely successful, but over the months I was there, I realized how that mindset really impacted the way I interacted with things.

Sadly, I have not managed that in Korea. From the moment I got here, it seemed I was flooded with all the things I would hate, the negativity was crushing. All the worse things to expect, in work, in attitudes, in food even made me doubt my ability to appreciate it.

But as I look back on my first month here, I notice a few things. First, it went by so fast, and it was painless (ok, relatively painless). I've been here a month? Really? I still feel so incompetent, I feel after a month I should be much more able to navigate things, whether the school, the culture or the language. But in spite of all that, I've had fun, with the successes and the struggles both. Second, like anywhere, there are cultural differences but to me it's just learning to navigate a new job, no matter where it is. There's never been anything that I find in any way offensive or stupid, it's different, it works differently, it's effective in different ways and the fact of the matter is, I just have to get used to it. And that's fine. And the last thing is that even the most unnerving things - like it taking me over an hour, instead of the needed 5-10 minutes to find the Fulbright building because the directions on the website were completely insufficient - make for amusing stories and if you power through, you learn something, if only patience. Or where to find the post office in Mapo-gu along with the National Health Insurance Building, the Labor Union Office, the closest Starbucks to Gongdeok station and the Rotary Building. And in the end, I worried a lot less about the test, because I was too busy focusing on how to get to the testing center, which has merit.

I know it will still be something I struggle with. Are these next 11 months going to be so long and tedious, by the time they're over I feel like I just went through another four years of college? Am I going to step on the plane thinking "Good riddance, I never ever want to come back to this country"? And perhaps the worse thought, am I going to start hating my job so much that I stop caring to the point of not really doing it properly? I wonder what I'll think then. A year is both so long and so short...

For now, I'm just going to enjoy the rest of the week in Seoul with family and friends and look forward to presentation classes with brilliant 9 year olds who are each researching a country, and a conversation class where I get to take the kids to my apartment to cook and speak English. Not to mention a new month where I can actually do the curriculum properly rather than rush the last week to accomplish something I didn't know existed.