What I'm Thankful For

It's Thanksgiving once again! Last year, I was thankful for friends, family, Fulbright, food, faith, and a lot of other things, not all of which begin with the letter F.

This year, I didn't think about Thanksgiving very much, in part due to being so busy these past few weeks. I don't get to work this little tidbit of American culture into any of my lessons, since most of my students are doing their speech tests now, and I spend every extra minute of every day correcting drafts or journals.

But it's only appropriate that I take some time now and list at least a few of the very many things for which I am grateful this year.

1. A healthy and active body. I'm thankful that I'm surviving (so far) a winter in Korea without unlimited heating. (On that note, it snowed in Changwon today! But it didn't stick.) I'm happy to be doing taekgyeon to keep myself fit even though I bake cookies and eat them all by myself every weekend... Here's a photo of my taekgyeon performance in Seoul during Fulbright Thanksgiving the weekend before last.

I'm performing with 장봉, but it's moving too fast for you to really see ;) Photo taken by Vinnie Flores.

2. I'm thankful for all of my friends, new and old. I love Skyping home to chat with people after going months or even years without seeing them. I'm also lucky that folks in Changwon are really friendly, so even though I'm basically a hermit, I have friends here in my city. Last Sunday, I ran into Nadia, a friend I met at church but hadn't seen in a few months. Ever the hospitable host, Nadia promptly invited me to dinner at her place that night, where she and some of her friends were celebrating an early Thanksgiving. She had gone to the army base in Jinhae to get all the proper food: an enormous turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and even candied yams with marshmallows, roasted in a 된장찌개 pot! My second Thanksgiving this year was very spontaneous and simply fantastic.

Romi and part of our Thanksgiving feast, prepared by Nadia. Look at that turkey! I helped carve it. :)

New friends who live in Jangyu/Gimhae, which means I don't know how often I'll get to see them, but they're awesome all the same!

3. I'm thankful for my family, even though I haven't seen them for a while and won't for an even longer while. My parents went on a vacation to New Zealand recently, so that put them in the same hemisphere as me, but they were actually 600 miles farther away from Seoul than the Bay Area is. Also, my cousin Johanna got engaged last weekend! Congratulations, Johanna! I know you're reading this. I love my family and I love that it keeps getting bigger literally every year.

As many of you know, my grandfather passed away a few months ago. I miss him, but I'm also thankful that this event was able to bring my large family and my even larger church family together in September. I could clearly see how God used him to bless hundreds, of not thousands, of people in his long and well-lived life.

My grandparents, with A-kong sporting some killer snorkel gear, in a video hangout last year.

4. I'm thankful for my job and for the excellent Fulbright community. I'm lucky to be a part of it! My fellow teachers inspire me; they make me laugh; they keep me sane; they take my money to fund amazing progressive educational initiatives. I would be a lost and lonely 외국인 in Korea if it weren't for them.

Fulbright at the 2013 Thanksgiving dinner with the US Embassy in Seoul. I'm the one in the shirt. Taken by Vinnie Flores.

5. Last, but not least (maybe even most), I'm thankful for my students. I love 'em, and though sometimes they bring me grief, most of the time they make my life complete. I don't spend twelve hours at school every day because I like my desk, folks.

And sometimes, I find out that my students are thankful for me, too, and that just makes me melt.

A student's answer to the last journal question of the semester: What have you learned in my class?

So, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy your turducken and your parade, while I enjoy an endless feast of blessings from above. 추수감사절 축하합니다!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Busan Fireworks Festival. Note the smartphone screens...

Highlights (and a lowlight) from an all-around great weekend:

• Thanksgiving Dinner with Fulbright and the US Embassy was quite nice. I ate lots of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallow, and pumpkin pie, and I caught up with friends and colleagues. I also performed a short demonstration of taekgyeon (right in front of the American ambassador!) and only endangered the life of an audience member one time. I'll post a video of my performance soon.
• Celebrated a friend's birthday with cake and beer while a legit thunderstorm raged outside.
• Caught up with a Swattie friend and talked extensively about books for our students. I love books, and last Friday I submitted an order for a few dozen more for my school's English library. Also, I baked snickerdoodles and the aforementioned friend got to try one for the very first time.
• Walking around Seoul with my 장봉 felt only slightly incongruous. A lady mistook my stick for a handgrip and used it to steady herself as she took a seat on the subway.
• Transportation fail: having left my wallet in a hostel, I had to borrow cash from a friend to take a taxi across the city, and I accidentally took a yellow cab, whose rates are twice as expensive as the normal taxis. I gave the driver all the money I had, apologizing profusely. Miraculously, I was only one dollar short of the fare.
• Transportation win: I never book bus tickets in advance (I don't even know if it's possible), so sometimes earlier buses sell out. I arrived at the terminal at 5:30 and the next available ticket was for 8:15. I bought it but then went straight to the gate to see if I could snag an empty seat on an earlier bus. Just before the 6:00 bus left, I asked if there were any seats still available, and voila, I got right on.
• I obtained the position of photography editor for Fulbright's literary magazine, Infusion! Our staff had its first meeting today at a cozy cafe in Hongdae. I'm very excited to work on the magazine this year.

Picture is unrelated: I took that at the Busan Fireworks Festival, which was a few weekends ago. I absolutely loved it. Despite the frighteningly large crowds, the beautiful, mesmerizing show really made my whole weekend.

The U.S. Embassy's Thanksgiving Dinner

So festive!

Who: Fulbright ETAs, members of the Korean American Educational Commission (including the director, the all-powerful Mrs. Shim), and important people from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul (including the ambassador, Sung Kim).

What: An early Thanksgiving dinner, with food and performances. There was tons of food, traditional Korean songs (Arirang) and instruments (gayageum), more food, and more performances, some by current ETAs: hip hop, Irish step dance, poetry, poi, and more.

The performance of gayageum, Korean zithers, at the National Folk Museum of Korea.

Where: The National Folk Museum of Korea, after hours! It was after closing time, but some of the galleries were left open for us to wander through on our own, which was excellent. Also, the museum itself is gorgeous and is located in a beautiful, historic part of the city.

Why: The embassy and the KAEC wanted to keep everyone's minds off of the fact that, this coming Thursday, we will actually be spending Thanksgiving away from our families and friends, which is kind of sad. On the bright side, we have our Fulbright family, our Korean families, and that fighting American spirit that will get us through. Plus, they happened to have tons of American food lying around that they needed people to consume. ;) Turkey and ham, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, baked pasta, pumpkin pie, and so much more... yum!

It was great to catch up with Fulbright friends, a whole month after our Fall Conference.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, what are a few things I'm thankful for? Let's see... I'm thankful, first and foremost, that I am healthy, active, and alive. I'm thankful that I have a loving family spread out across two continents and friends who are just a few Facebook clicks away. I'm thankful to have a stable job that I absolutely love. Discovering a thirst for teaching has been a real joy over the past few months; I'm glad that I get to do it in the context of Fulbright. I'm grateful for the friends I've made in Korea and for my host family's generosity. My life here could have been a heck of a lot more difficult than it has been, so even though it's not perfect, I actually have nothing to complain about.

I acknowledge, further, my privileges as an American and a native speaker of English, as these are statuses that come equipped with rights I never had to earn, respect that I don't always deserve, and job skills that I didn't have to pay for. As long as I am in Asia, I should be aware that being Asian and being male are also privileges of their own. These are good things that I should not take for granted.

I'm thankful that I own a camera and can take photos of beautiful things. I'm thankful that I can take the GRE while abroad (even though I'm dreading it...) and that I have a say in my own education. I'm thankful for books and for writing and for the ability to create stories out of my mere imagination. I'm grateful that Koreans keep complimenting me on my Korean ability even though I know it's still not very good. I'm thankful for chocolate, tangerines, yogurt, persimmons, and Korean street food. I'm thankful for the bad TV shows I watch, the good music I listen to, and the fun and interesting blogs I read. I am grateful even for my ability to watch, listen, and read.

And lastly, I must accredit my utmost gratefulness to God for being a provider and a source of love who will never leave me. Thanks, God! Happy Thanksgiving!

Party at the Embassy (Seoul Weekend pt. 3)

"Big Korea Gate": 大漢門 or 대한문. Below it were these guards. I don't know if they were actually guards, or just tourist photo fodder. I felt sorry for them, though, because they looked like they were hot under those heavy costumes.

When the tour of the DMZ was finished, we headed back into the city proper and visited the American Embassy. There, the ambassador threw us a pool party and backyard barbecue! It was a nice way to relax after an intense morning. Plus, there was regular American picnic fare: burgers and cheese (!!!) and potato salad and freshly baked cookies (!!!). It was great! I almost forgot that I was in Korea.

Making a face at the embassy. (taken by Katelyn)

I didn't expect to swim at the party, as the forecast had called for thunderstorms, but it ended up being a fairly nice afternoon. People hung out poolside, napped, and ate. Others went for the water sports and played chicken, sharks and minnows, and the always-expected underwater-breath-holding contest. I do remember there being swarms of bugs that got more and more intense as the evening wore on. I'm glad, and kind of surprised, that I didn't get bitten.

For the better part of three hours, I just ate lots of good food and played Contact with my friends for the better part of an hour. Somehow I managed to hold them off for forever on "extremist". They were ready to hurt themselves when they finally gave up... I love a good game of Contact!

Anything else interesting happen? Not really. Did I mention that I ate tons of cheese? Haha.

In retrospect, I think I should have taken the opportunity to actually talk to the ambassador and the other important political people present at the party, but I didn't get around it. I couldn't even hear any of the speech he gave in the beginning because I was too far away. Well... maybe next time?

You can't have a pool party without a game of chicken! Katelyn on Ammy (left) beat Nina on Elaine (right), but only barely!

Amber and Kelly during Contact; they're smiling, but are also secretly frustrated, because very few words begin with E-X-T-R-E.

The Fulbiright Office in Seoul

After the party, our whole group took a trip via the Seoul metro system to the Fulbright Building in Mapo-gu. It's a fairly large and pretty building with a charcoal-gray exterior. It's pretty hard to miss.

At the Fulbright office, we went over our Fulbright contracts, line by line. It was a long and tiring meeting after a long and tiring day, but I'm glad we did it. It's important to know what's in your contract! And now that I do know all of the stipulations et cetera, I feel more confident in what I'm about to pursue: teaching (an actual job!) for one year -- and maybe more.

By the time that was over, it was late evening. My first impression of Seoul was... Big, busy, and lots of foreigners. And giant billboard advertisements and video-board ads, too (I'm not sure what they're actually called, but it's like having giant outdoor TV screens everywhere, and it's pretty striking). So after being in Goesan for six weeks, I had the same minor city-shock that I got whenever I'd take the train to Philly from Swarthmore. And, similar to when I'd travel to Philly, I was definitely looking forward to a fun-filled weekend!

A Seoul sunset.