Jane, and old adult student of mine, and myself at a folk village in Suwon this past Sunday.  

 

Just in case you're having trouble conceiving and REALLY want a son, feel free to hang a really long colorful ribbon with a rock on the end. This is the "hope for a son" tree.  

 

The "traditional" hemp garden that I came across this past Sunday at a folk village. Yes, it really is what it looks like! 

 
I just got back a little bit ago from a dinner with Clinton and another teacher friend. We got back a bit early, and Clinton went to bed. Leaving me on my own, of course I switched on the tele.

Some sort of show on older singles came on. It was interesting and with each moment had me thinking more. They were showing, slightly older singles, off in their own worlds enjoying themselves and their single lives.

One women came into the picture and she was discussing being in her early thirties and how it felt going to parties with all her "coupled" friends. On one hand she said, it was like she was the "entertainment". She was only 31 for god's sake! But somehow, she still reveled in that roll somehow. It made me think of being home this past month. I may not be 31, but still, everywhere I seemed to turn, either everyone I know or nearly everyone is either paired off or fully married. It was like I blinked and somehow missed that "I must complete myself with someone else" phase of life. I feel pretty much no inclination what-so-ever to bind myself to one particular person for life. In fact the whole idea scares me more than justa little.

I remember even at one point while a friend came down to visit (married friend, by the way) having a discussion about the act of marriage and divorce. I just don't believe in divorce. Why make a "vow", if only to break it when things become inconvenient or hard. She brought up that her mother-in-law had been abused and felt marriage to her now ex-husband was her only way out of abuse from her father. My answer was she still MADE THE CHOICE. If you do it, and it turns out bad, that's your lot in life. That may sound harsh to some, including one of my best friends, but that's just the way I think of things. Marriage is really FOREVER in my eyes.

I guess you could say that marriage kind of scares me. I don't take it lightly at all. For me it's a one time thing, with no turning back. After going home, I realized that I'm obviously at that stage in life where everyone else is pretty much there. What's the deal? I find it hard to believe, especially considering the divorce rate, that all these people are really ready for life with only one significant person in their world. Am I the only sane person that is more than a little scared of being with one person forever, or am I the only person that hasn't caught on to what I should do?

As the person on this particular show said, "I'll pair off when I want to!"

That's not even getting into the fact that I'm attracted to both men and women. How is that supposed to play into the whole "must settle down" thing?

 
This past Sunday rolled around and I've already caught another cold. What is it about Korea, that makes me get so damn many? Anyhow, I already had plans to do something with a couple of my old adult students and their families, so I decided to suck it up and hope for the best. After a few minutes in the car I asked Charlie to stop at a pharmacy. I got some meds and off we went again. We stopped off at Jane's house to pick up her family. Wow, that's the best looking Korean apartment I've seen. Huge living room, real hardwood floors and seating area in the balconies, not to mention a real set of furniture, none of that fake leather for them. Jane told me her husband is an art professor at a university and paints himself. Must pay well, to live where they do.

Back to the story.

We all loaded into 2 cars and were on our way once again. I hadn't really been told before that day, but apparently we were going to a folk village. Earlier that morning I had hoped this would be a short day. I forgot that usually when you do anything with Koreans, especially on a weekend, it usually is a day outing, not just a couple of hours. The downside is you can't make any other plans. The upside is that they do all the planning and you usually end up going somewhere out of the way and cool, as we did this day.
We got there only to find a huge parking lot slowly filling up. Not quite what you would expect at a "folk" village, but ah...who am I to judge? After a not so small entrance fee, we got in and were walking around. Traditional houses were all about, and older people were sitting about weaving this and spinning that. After a short picnic lunch of fruit and sushi, we started walking around for a while, family and kids in tow. I got some great pictures of a taikwando expedition, traditional activities and more. I'm hoping to add them here soon! I also bought a few Chinese wall hangings that were pretty cheap. The first, roughly translated.....3 times think, then speak. The second.....The benevolent hath no enemies. I thought they were pretty cool, cheap decorations for our apartment.
Conveniently attached to the folk village was an amusement park for kids. We went there for the last hour and a half or so. Jane and I sat on some benches while the dads took the kids on different rides; You know, the traditional "Viking Ship", and "Spinning Swings". I think she was as tired as I was, after walking around for a more than a little while. We sat there and just chatted for a while. She lives too far away from the hagwan now to attend and doesn't so much like her new teacher. She wants private lessons a couple times a month, for a hefty price. Hopefully it'll work out. Private lessons are always iffy, as they have this way of never quiet happening, for one reason or another. I'm hoping differently this time though, as Jane really knows me and I've heard so many times how she doesn't like this new teacher of hers.
I thought we were going home after the amusement park as we got in the car. Charlie called up his friend, whose kids we had for the day as well, and soon came to find out that dinner was also in order. Ah, okay, sure. Food couldn't hurt. We stopped off in Seoul at a traditional place and ate a bunch of stuff I can only hope one day to know the names of. It was actually quite good. I just didn't really appreciate it cuz I was so tired and at that point not really feeling tip top again.
On the way home we stopped and picked up Charlie's mother and she rode with us back to Uijeongbu. Thank god after a month home, my Korean didn't really drop, especially my understanding. Many younger Koreans, try (although usually fail) to at least say something in English. Older people, on the other hand, don't. The first two questions out of her mouth were to ask how old I am and if I'm married. Hehehe. Then she said I'm an "old miss". Cute, coming from a 70-plus year old.
Whew....finally I got home around 9:30 and was asleep almost immediately. A good day, but a long one.

 
Yeah! I just figured out how to download pics from my digital camera to this blog! I think it's a newer program, but either way it's cool! I'm gonna go out and take some more new pictures with my digital camera now that I know I can put them on this site for others to see right away! Enjoy!

 

This is a temple statue in Dobongsan Natioanal Park. 

 

Last summer at the top of Dobongsan Mountain 

 
I was home for a month vacation recently and one of my sisters was joking that I need to move back home, at least to the states. Everyone was throwing in their own ideas as to where I should live. My mom piped in and pointed out what should be obvious by now, that I probably don't want to live in America. Each time I come home now, I feel like things are just the same and I'm oh so not. If I do go home eventually to live, it'll have to be somewhere with lots of different people and cultures all around. I like where I'm at now though, so I wouldn't expect a change any time soon.

I got back to school this past week and today is the first day since being home that I haven't felt like I have a thousand things to do. I had 3 twelve hour days this past week because Clinton has been on vacation. It was strange coming back to the apartment without him. He's getting back sometime tonight. It'll be good to see him after 5 weeks, not just to talk, but to get back to my normal schedule at school.

School was hard this week, but I can tell the time away has been good to me. Even working so many hours, I enjoyed myself everyday. Not that I wasn't before, but I was definitely in need of a break. The only down side, besides extra classes, was having to tell kids from 4 of my classes that I wasn't going to be their teacher anymore. Up until Friday many of them were still complaining. You see, Agnes changed my schedule around a bit because of another foreign teaching leaving and because of that I had to give of some of my classes to another teacher as well. On the up side, Nora should actually be gone sometime this summer. Agnes asked me a couple times this week about if a friend of Clinton and I could come. He hasn't made up his mind yet, but either way, we're going to get rid of the wench soon enough.

Funny thing happened this past Friday. I was teaching one of my new middle school classes. Because it was Friday and I was tired, we were playing UP WORDS, a game similar to scrabble. I gave them a couple dictionaries to help with spelling. Anyhow, at one point in class, I turned around and saw most of the boys pointing at one of the books. They couldn't have been looking (it was an english to korean dicionary), but somehow they had come across the word for "penis". After getting caught, they were all cracking up, turning cherry red. All I could really do though, was just stand their laughing myself as well.

 
It's Tues. night close to around 11:30 and I'm all packed and ready to go. I got home last night at around 11:30 and was already pretty excited. Ernest, the new teacher, arrived last night and he shadowed me all day today. He seems pretty laid back, but then again he was pretty jet lagged. Anyhow, it's out of my hands. I'm out of here for the month, starting tomorrow morning. I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep well tonight. This last week has been so busy and almost every night for the last 4 or 5 nights, I've been waking up thinking about school and other things. Thankfully, all the open classes I had scheduled went pretty well and Ernest got here okay. After finishing today, it was hard to believe that I wouldn't be back for a month. I printed out my boarding passes and headed out the door with Clinton and thought that what ever happens in the next month really isn't at all in my hands. All I have left is to get up early tomorrow and catch the airport bus and then just a few planes. I didn't pack very much, but I'm anticipating going a little crazy shopping. I'm nervous, but really looking forward to seeing everyone. I think I'll feel a little out of place, as I really did after the Philippines and when I was home last June, but I'm trying not to really care about that. I'll get to see my family and friends. That's really what I'm the most excited about. Then, of course, there's the food, clothes and a ton of other things that I'm more than looking forward to buying/eating/whatever.