This is ridiculous

I can remember when I first starting working as a preschool teacher at a fabulous language immersion school in Atlanta - every afternoon, while the students took their naps, my co-teacher and I would take turns power-napping as well. We were just EXHAUSTED. Our bodies and minds weren't used to spending energy this way, and it took months before we adjusted and could get through the day with energy to spare after going home.

Full circle, here I am again, falling asleep at 8pm because staying awake is impossible. Of course, it's really not a good idea to fall asleep at 8pm, no matter how tired you are, because then you end up waking up at 4am and having to lie in bed for 2 hours because your apartment is one room and if you do anything you'll wake up your peacefully snoozing husband. And he went to sleep at a normal adult hour (read:10pm). :)

On good, normal nights, I fall asleep between 9-9:30 and wake up rested and refreshed at 6am.

It amazes me that sitting, talking, and writing on a white-board can take so much out of someone. Why is this so tiring? My best guess is that it's a grand combination of mental strain, stress and the final stages of jet-lag adjustments. (which I heard can take up to a month, if not longer, to really settle)

Not to mention that we're ON pretty much all day long, and I'm sure it doesn't help that we teach 5 subjects (instead of just one like normal teachers) and are constantly having to switch gears between them.

From 9:40-11:30 I supervise the high schoolers as they do their work on the computers (I am so thankful that we have computer programs for them - I have no desire to teach high-school level science). They ask questions when they don't understand the questions. Sometimes it's because their English needs work, and sometimes it's because the question is hard. And these are smart kids, so hard for them usually means I'm not going to know the answer right off the bat. (Especially when it's science. Or world history.) I figured out pretty quickly that if I don't know the answer, I should just tell the student and then we hunt it down together.

[While I'm with the H.S. students, Adam is teaching Bible and English to the middle schoolers.]

Then we have a nice 1.5 hour break for lunch: 30 of those minutes are "office hours" when the students could come by our office and ask questions or get help. AND there always seems to be some problem or issue that sucks up most of our lunchtime, too. "Anna, can you proof-read the school schedule?" asks the school registrar....etc.

Then Adam and I swap positions. From 1pm-4:50 I've got the younger students for Math, History/Geography, and Science, while he supervises the older students.

By the time 5pm rolls around my brain is mush.

Like right now. :)

The end.

Sister

You don't get to choose your siblings.

But if I had been given the choice, I would have chosen Grace.



I love having a sister (her birth was one of the most exciting moments of my childhood), and I especially love having Grace for a sister because I think she is a beautiful person and I like hanging out with her. And I am ridiculously proud of her. And today I am feeling particularly sad that I can't be with her on her special 18th birthday.

Summary of this blog post: I love Grace!

(and really, who doesn't?)

A post from our 3rd day in Korea that I forgot about...

There is so much to say!

I have stories floating around in my head from our last days in CO
...oil paints on huge 4'x5' canvases
...crippled dogs mysteriously appearing in our bedroom
...Valentine's Day
...body-skiing down snowy mountainsides
...the 3 fabulous days we spent in San Francisco
...walking our legs off as we soaked up the sun and took in the sights
...Getting Adam's visa (hooray!) but not mine (dagnabbit!)
...our 12-hour plane flight to Korea
...waiting in the airport
...the 3 hour bus ride to Jeunju
...spending time with Adam's good friends, the Lees
...learning that nothing was going to be what we expected at our school
...trying to read the Korean alphabet
...being treated to Korean food in restaurants every day and wrestling with my chopsticks (actually, I'm getting good pretty quickly!)
...rice and kimchi for breakfast, and missing cereal something fierce
...our temporary room with the single-size bed and executive office furniture
...and oh-so much more!

I want to write all about it, but frankly I haven't the energy. 9pm is close at hand, which is when Adam and I shut down for 8 hours straight - this is some serious jetlag! It's getting better: the first two nights I popped awake at 2am, my body telling me it was time to wake up in the USA. :)

Overall, I am happy and excited and nervous. And missing real breakfasts almost as much as I miss my family and friends.

Mr. Volle has returned to Korea!

Being in Korea with Adam is like walking around with a celebrity. The Koreans are unfailingly amazed and impressed with him: he speaks polite phrases in Korean (they smile, laugh and clap him on the back), he loves Korean food (they think he's being polite, but are pleased that he is polite), his favorite dish here is kimchi, the strong-smelling, fermented cabbage flavored with red, mouth-burning spices (their jaws drop, and their eyes pop as wide as Asian-ly possible), and he was in Korea for a whole year once before, and decided to return. It's usually at this point that they say, "Ha ha, ADAM - you ARE Korean!"

He even liked the jimjilbang (Korean sauna), and gamely submitted to scrubbing the back of one of his former bosses after going from hot tub to hot tub.

The teasing he received about this event has been rather merciless. :)

My affection for the Korean saunas runs much deeper than my husband's. I go every weekend. (This isn't really saying much, since I've only had one weekend so far to practice this habit). Here's why I love it:

• It's the only bathtub I have here
• and I love bathtubs because you can be totally completely WARM, and in wintertime, I find this luxury practically necessary
• nudity can be healthy! once I got past the initial awkwardness/embarrassment of being in a room full of Korean ladies with no clothes on (the men and women have separate sides), I began to reflect on why this was a good thing: mothers and daughters go to the sauna together, beginning at infant-hood, and so Korean girls grow up having a truthful concept of what the female body actually looks like. They know that all bodies are different, and that no one actually looks like the airbrushed models or actresses they see in the media. And the same goes for the boys accompanying their fathers, too.
  
• it's cheap - you can stay as long as you like for about $5-8. Massages, meals, snacks and other extras will cost a little more, but even going without all that, I can spend a good 2 hours lounging around in saunas and hot tubs and be very very happy.
• they provide you with little shirts and shorts to wear in the common area (men and women). Both Adam and I agree that the shorts (capri-length) in particular are pretty comfy.
• You could spend all day there and have e v e r ything you need. Yes, please!

Things are looking up...

...as they always do!

Last week, Adam and I came to the grim understanding that our visa status(es) here are not quite up to legal standards. Not our fault, unless our ignorance of Korea's laws and the inability to speak Korean count against us.

We promptly informed our employers that we were extremely uncomfortable with this situation, and unless they could fix the visa issue immediately, we would have to leave the school and search elsewhere for work.

Every day since then, our principal (Joe), runs over to me every time he sees me and says very seriously, "Don't worry, Anna, don't worry about your visa, Ok? I'll take care of it, ok? Don't worry!" So, we're heartened. I for one was not looking forward to the prospect of moving locations yet again. As I told Adam, I have some typical female blood coursing through my veins afterall, because I feel this strong DESIRE to set up house - to nest, if you will. Of course, that may also have to do with my obsession with efficiency (a recent revelation to my mind, and now I make a whole lot more sense to myself. :) ). If everything has a place (home), it's easier to find, easier to use, easier to put away - in short, moving drastically limits efficiency.

Also, today has a lot of BIG news!:

• Our first week of real classes is officially over and I think some of my students learned something! (Excepting perhaps 1, who doesn't speak any English, doesn't read well, doesn't write well, and is a fairly extreme case of ADHD...I have hope yet, though!)
• I got 9 hours of sleep last night!!
• Today we opened a bank account and received check cards! Everytime we go to Dunkin Donuts we'll get "Happy Points" which is more motivtion than I needed to stop by there frequently.
• Today we also received cell phones! I love my cell phone. Adam picked it out, but it might as well have been me picking it out, because it's lovely and green and very me. More on that little green beauty in a future post.

Yes, yes. Things are looking up, and I'm not surprised at all.

La vie est tres belle!

TURMOIL

I am sitting at my desk at work, scrambling to prepare for my next 3 classes this afternoon (Math, Geography and Science) - but a 10-minute internet break sounds absolutely necessary at this point, so here I am FINALLY posting on my sorely neglected blog.

"Turmoil" is precisely the word to describe my life right now. The job has started but not really, because only half of the curriculum arrived, so I am teaching ALL SUBJECTS to four poor students, and yet we may end up having to move on to another school soon anyways, thus we haven't set up internet at our cozy, tiny apartment, which may not be our apt for long, and our visas have come but it turns out that they are all wrong, and who knows how long it's going to take to sort THAT all out........

RRRRAAAAAAAWRG.

Mental, physical, spiritual and emotional levels are fluctuating violently - BUT
at the end of the day, when I crash into our (queen-sized) bed and drift towards unconsciousness, I find myself thinking

"Good grief, what a story we have to tell... How would I write about today on my blog?"

Because in the end, this is all part of the adventure. And I love adventures. :)