Wrap it up May

I started an experiment on May 1st. It was pretty simple really, much easier than the chem lab that nearly killed me in uni. All I did was write down something good that happened each day. The purpose was so that I could remember all the goodness that I don't write down and thus forget, and to also see if my attitude changed at all in the course of a month of focusing on the positive.

It was a lot easier for me to be negative at home. I have a few theories on that, but those are theories and shall remain with me. However, one would think that being in a strange place away from family and friends and Chik-fil-a would turn me into a sour person, constantly comparing the US to Korea, always focusing on when Korea let me down, and how different (awful) everything was. That hasn't been the case. I'm pretty positive. Most of the time. More so than a lot of expats I've met over here. Which is surprising because life is already hard here, I mean they don't have Chik-fil-a for God's sake, but why make it harder on yourself by being negative. It drives me insane.

The results were good, amazing actually. Some days I struggled to find something worthy of making the list and others I struggled to write down just one (so I didn't). It dragged May out a bit, but I enjoyed my little experiment. Good to be reminded of all that I've done and experienced. So here you go, another list.

May:
1- Had a surprise day off. Yay Worker's Day!
2- Finished a difficult assignment.
3- Lotte Mart opened in Naju.
4- Bought a bicycle.
5- Went to a birthday party where there were probably 10 countries and nationalities represented. Love multiculturalism!
6- Was beautifully reminded of God's grace and love for me when I fall short.
7- Got organized in my classroom. Felt very teachery. Also, fixed my washing machine.
8- A student told me my Korean was good.  아 싸 !
9- Found a new song. Downloaded it. Listened to it on repeat.
10- Great morning class with lots of laughter, and had an amazing bike ride.
11- Indian meal with honest and hilarious conversation with honest and hilarious friends.
12- Explored a new part of Naju (it had one?) with Aimee.
13- Coffee with Brown Eyes.
14- Found out nephew's name!
15- Got a cake for Teacher's Day.
16- Discovered a cool new blog.
17- Sister got a job!
18- Reaffirmation in a friendship.
19-Spent the most wonderful day at the park where I was exceedingly thankful for lanterns, ice cream, and friends.
20-Sports day at church. Found out I suck at jump rope, but can turn it like no other.
21- Got some major cleaning done, and felt super accomplished afterwards. Seriously guys, it was gross.
22- Finalized plans for Buddha's birthday weekend (rare three day weekend).
23- Fantastic taxi ride with guy who spoke English. He took requests for kpop songs, and was super impressed when I named about twelve for him to choose from.
24- Talked on the phone with a friend for about an hour about absolutely nothing of importance. I hadn't done that in forever, and it made me feel all girly and collegey.
25- Stayed at the most amazing hotel in Busan. First time I had experienced a waterfall shower.
26- Received the best haircut. Ever. By a hot Korean man. Period. Done.
27- First day on the beach since last August. Stayed for six hours, and got a pretty good little tan. Also, met a guy from Georgia in a New Zealand bar. My accent was super thick that night, and it really made me miss southern men who say love, sweetie, honey.
28- Buddha's Birthday=day off!
29- Found the Seoul Subway song and it reminded me of my sister's visit here. Good times.
30- Started planning my summer trip to Thailand. Wish I had more money
31- Thailand was too expensive, sooooo I bought plane tickets to Malaysia instead. Ahhhhh...the white sand beach, the palm trees, the coconuts...

May, you rocked. Thanks for wrapping it up so nicely. On to June. May you treat me oh so kindly.

And for your viewing pleasure:

They joy of it all Part 1

Because I'm so happy, you're going to get this "overly happy yeah I love everything" post. Enjoy.

Before I came to Korea, the Bible verses I needed to get me through the day were always something from Lamentations or Psalms. It was always something like this, "I remember my afflictions and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail." That one's from Lamentations. It was the kind of stuff you needed when you'd lost a love one or if you just couldn't remember the last time you felt hopeful. But I needed them all the time. Great verses and all, but sad at the same time. I was constantly searching for joy, it was a fleeting emotion, and satisfaction in life seemed a Hollywood creation.

Then this wonderful, amazing, crazy, ridicoulous thing happened. I got uncomfortable. That's right. I gave up comfort, a sense of the known, and moved away. The Lord gave me joy, in abundance. It dawned on me this weekend, in a moment of pure contentment as I looked across the park to the Gwangju skyline, sitting beside friends, sunburnt and hungry, that these moments happen so often. There are times that suck. Absolutley. No doubt about that one. Just look up the tag "hating Korea", but those moments happen few and far between. My search for joy isn't a downtrodden attempt to find friends who make me happy and laugh. God gave me those, in abundance. I'm not struggling to maintain hope or strength. God gave me that too, in abundance.

This weekend, I went to a park, arrived sweaty and thirsty, just had a damn good time.  I was with new people I'd never met, some that I'd only known a few months, but have an insanely close relationship with. It's the way it is here. Find a friend and latch on. We're forced to develop these close bonds quickly because we are all too aware of our time here. I love the fact that I was with people from all over the world this weekend, and we found community and joy through sharing a bucket of ice-cream and ten spoons, a volleyball, and a camera. And when we were wrapping up our afternoon and the sky was getting darker, the lanterns put up ahead of Buddha's birthday started to light up, I could feel how full my heart was. I wanted to roll around in all the goodness of it.

A good weekend consists of:

• lots of sunshine
• a good camera
• good food
• people who love to laugh
• the beginnings of a tan (good-bye Korean paleness)
• iced coffee
• so much laughter you get a headache and your face hurts

The Bible has a lot to say about joy. I love discovering those verses and claiming those, all the time.

Those people.

You know when you get so incredibly, obnoxiously, disgustingly lazy and you let things go that you normally wouldn't. Yeah. I'm not like that. I'm not one of those people. Those people who leave dishes all around their room, empty water bottles crowding the desk so much that they have no room for a cell phone charger, much less a laptop. You know the people I'm talking about. The ones who don't put a new trash bag in the garbage and have a million shoes around the doorway because they can't be bothered with it. The only reason the sink isn't full is because they had to wash a cup, spoon, and bowl for dinner that night; they had run out of clean dishes. When they Skype with friends, the friend will ask, "Hey, is that our bra I see hanging in the kitchen?" Clean clothes and dirty clothes piled together, that they just sniff to see if it smells good. Wet clothes still in the washer from two nights ago. I mean gross.

If I was one of those people, I would panic at the thought of having someone enter my domain of chaos. The thought would drive me to paranoia. They would judge you and wrinkle their noses. They would be unable to hide their disgust for your apartment and their distaste for you as a person. If I was one of those people and saw the air conditioning man down the hallway thinking he was heading to my place next, I would probably run into my apartment and begin to frantically clean. Then I would end up throwing away two garbage bags and a heap of recyclables, re-start the washer from two nights ago, and throw all of those clothes (dirty and clean) on my bed and cover it with a blanket.

But I'm not one of those people.

Teenage Boys vs. Korean Men: What's the Difference?

I taught high school. I use the past tense because, well, it happened in the past. Or so I thought. Apparently, I still do. Here's why:

1. Comments About Physical Appearance-
High School: Ms. P what are you wearing?! Wow, please never wear that again.
Korean Men: Ah Jennifer, you have new hair style today. You look like little girl.
Lord help me if I look the least bit tired. They will notice and comment.

2. The Smell-
High school boys smell like sweat, body odor, too much Axe body spray, and that unwashable adolescent smell that all high school boys carry with them. Windows were always open in my classroom.
Korean men smell like the cigarrette they just smoked, last nights soju, or they smell absolutely wonderful in the new cologne their girlfriends bought to help the poor soul.

3. They don't do their homework.

4. They're not highly motivated or passionate about whatever you're teaching them. I still get glazed over looks sometimes. However, the high school boys dead pan empty stare was probably from lack of souls as the Korean men glassy eyed look is from not being able to understand a word I'm saying.

5. Jokes about sex and/or bodily functions are still funny. Boys will be boys eh.

6. They come to class late.

7. They "borrow" my pens/pencils, which inevitably means I have to go buy more because they don't fully grasp the meaning of "borrow".

8. They talk while you're talking. However, I can't always understand them here.

9. They're surprised when I catch them doing something they shouldn't i.e. talking, cheating. They always act so surprised. Don't they know that teachers take a special class in uni so that we can detect any bad behavior?

10. There are still brown nosers and troublemakers; a hierarchy among students.

When I meet new people here in Korea and they find out that I teach adults, they are so envious. My job must be the pinnacle of my teaching career. Umm....well. It might not be as different from your public school job. However, here are some reasons as to why teaching my boys here is a little different from teaching my "real" boys back home.

1. Going drinking with them is perfectly acceptable.

2. They buy the drinks.

3. They buy dinner.

4. It's ok to ride in the car with them.

5. Being seen in a coffee shop with two or three of them is cool.

6. The more sloshed you get on the drinks they buy you, earns you respect at your workplace (I've yet to earn a lot of respect. I hate soju.)

I love teaching these guys. But still, when I look really closely, teaching boys is the same in any classroom.

Mine All Mine

Sometimes I sit down to write and get so frustrated as to what in the hell I should write about that I just shut my laptop and walk away. There are so many things that happen in a day or a week that I want to write about, that excite me, make me giggle with happiness or make me want to curl up and cry. I find myself censoring things because the blog is supposed to be about how exciting and adventurous my expat life is. Truth is, sometimes the only one it excites is me. I feel like there is such a demand to feed the people with this crazy international life and all of it's exotic tales of danger and conquer. My fiends back home wait with baited breath after they ask, "What's going on in your life? Are you traveling anywhere? What did you do this weekend? I bet you did something so amazing? Tell me. Tell me now."
I went to a birthday party this weekend.
Oh. Did you do anything else? Ya know, exciting?
Umm...the party was a lot of fun. It was exciting, I mean. I met a lot of new people. Had real western cake.
Oh. Well, that's cool.

I want to say, yeah actually it is cool. Western cake is amazing, and I miss it. I'm tired of this cool whip/sweet potato cake crap at Paris Baguette.

I want to write about how I fixed my own washing machine, how I can order an entire meal in another language. I want to tell you about the boy I had coffee with, who even though his English is weak, we had a fantastic conversation. How I've never had a thing for brown eyes, but his were beautiful. I'd write about how I die a little bit inside each time someone tells me that this "traveling and living abroad thing" is just a phase and when it's over I can settle down and get married. I want to post about riding shot gun in a car (so rare here!) or about God. Just God. How much I'm in love with him and how I desperately need him all the time.

So maybe in all actuality, cerealandchopsticks is telling the story of a girl who is changing, all the time whether that be through sticking her hand down a dark nasty dank hole to fix her washing machine and being triumphant, or falling for the wrong guy. I love Korea. I seriously love this country and fall a little bit more in love every week, and I want the next five months to go by very slowly. But, I'm not going to write about all these "Eat, Pray, Love" moments all the time. I'm going to write about how she's changing me; how God is leading me through this wayward life I love dearly.

Point is, the purpose of this blog isn't to be a side dish to a travel book. It's for me. It's mine. All mine.

Because Making a List is Easy

I love lists. I love that I feel more organized, and my month, week, day is a bit more planned. Making lists keeps me calm, and the stuff I have to do seem so much more doable. Therefore, I am quite ashamed that I haven't made a list about Korea yet. Shame shudders through me at this very moment. Plus, lists are so easy to read. People love reading something that looks condensed, but might not be. Ah the wonderfulness that are lists.

Ten Things You Probably Didn't Know About Korea

1. Same Sex Intemacy Yet Not Homosexuality
Boys hold hands here and it doesn't mean they're in a relationship. Korean children grow up calling their older peers brother and sister. Girls call older boys oppa and older girls unni. Boys call older boys hyung and older girls noona. So from the beginning children form tight knit bonds with each other and as they grow older, it's perfectly acceptable for men to link arms, hold hands, run hands through each other's hair, put hands on upper thighs, pretty much anything but kissing really. Girls do the same thing. These are GROWN men and women and it's totally NORMAL. At first I was a bit shocked by it all, but now I really really love it. I love how they express how much they admire and respect their friends. It's nothing sexual at all, but pure friendly affection.

2. Bowing
If you're a youngster, say anywhere below 40, then you bow. To everyone. In this Confucius society, respect to elders is the upmost important thing you can do. As a foreigner I'm exempt from this. But I think that's a little ridiculous. When in Rome, ya know? After seven months of living here I know when to bow, and I do it quite often. Also, I work for a big corporation, where I see high ups all the time. Therefore, bowing means I'm in with the in crowd, and they're usually totally impressed that I don't just wave. I miss waving...
Recently I went to a Korean wedding for one of my LG guys and I felt something akin to a pigeon or chicken with all of my bowing.

3. Fast Food Delivers
And they call Americans lazy. Instead of going to a drive through window (which they don't have here) you can just call McDonald's and they'll deliver your quarter pounder to your freaking doorstep.

4. Convenience Stores...
are everywhere. 7/11, Family Mart, MiniStop, GS25. They are on every corner, and if you don't feel like going to the bar to have a drink with friends, just go to the ministop and pull up a chair, inside or outside. Loitering laws don't exist here. Yeah, these stores blow American ones out of the water. I love it.

5. Drinking in Public
Korea is a country that puts special emphasis on drinking and how it helps/hinders you socially. With that said, soju is the end of a good night. Seriously. You can buy a massive bottle of soju for less than $3 and that stuff will knock you on your tushy. There are also no societal rules about when it's okay to drink so you'll go out with co-workers on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, who cares! But public drunkenness is a common sight here. All too common. Go to Hongdae any night and you'll see hordes of college students stumbling around. Of hang out in my town and see old men and women drinking in the middle of the day outside of the store.

Soju: The devil's drink

Here's a great link to Korean drinking customs. They also include a great clip of public drunkenness.

6. Keys

You know you live in an older not as cool as your friends building when you have keys. Most buildings now just use security pass codes with these ultra cool little boxes on the outer doors and your door so you never have to worry about leaving your keys at home...because you don't have any.
I, however, find myself hiding my keys out of shame. It's like some sort of message to the world around me, "Look. I'm not cool enough for your fancy building with it's fancy security box thingy."

7. Kids Clean The School

There is no janitor. Kids clean the school. Bathrooms, mopping, sweeping. It is glorious. I can't imagine this going down very well in America, but think of what it teaches the kids! Take care of your school because you're the one that cleans up. The teacher in me says, "muahaha". Insert evil laugh.

8. You a Hoe

Showing more cleavage than your grandmother is considered a mortal sin and you are deemed a whore here. Girls wear shirts buttoned to the absolute top button and never ever show shoulders if it can be helped. However, mini skirts and cut off jeans are no problem. I'm pretty sure I've seen girls wearing what could only be described as boy short underwear as they go out shopping.

9. Coffee Drinking Hikers

If every corner has a convenience store then in between them would be filled in with coffee shops and hiking clothing stores. Two news stores just opened up in Naju, and my friends and I made bets as to what they would be. One guessed a hiking store and he won. The next store and someone bet a coffee shop. She won. There are only two options. Coffee or hiking store. They are slowly taking over the peninsula, as they should. Koreans are coffee drinking hikers.

10. Circle Lens

This freaks the hell out of me, but it needs to be said. Koreans want bigger eyes because supposedly they believe it makes them more beautiful. I myself am totally digging that smolder glare thing these men have going on here. I digress. Women have taken to wearing circle lenses which make their eyes look large and doll-like. They are colored contact lenses that I've seen many a girl pop in as she eats dinner, drinks coffee, rides the bus, etc. All the stars wear them and they're advertised at all the optometrists. It freaks me out. Here's why:

Holy Freaking Abnormally Large Eyes Batman!!

And so ends the first list.