Fifty-Two Adventures

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 42: South Carolina State Fair

The first fall that we lived in Raleigh we learned that the North Carolina State Fair was an event that was not to be missed. If it hadn’t been for the excitement of our friends who were Carolina natives I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about the fair. In the US, most states have some sort of state fair, including Louisiana where I grew up, but the size and importance of the fair seems to vary from place to place. My memories of the Cajun Heartland State Fair which I’d attended a few times in elementary school were mostly of the carnival-type rides and spending all of my money on the game booth where you toss ping pong balls into fish bowls to win a live goldfish. One year I won three fish. After that my family stopped going to the fair. (Coincidence? I think not!)

The North Carolina State Fair was a different beast entirely. There were animal shows and art exhibits and craft tents. There were lights you could see from miles away and a huge fireworks display every evening. But the crowning achievement of the NC State fair was undoubtedly their selection of deep-fried foods. It seemed the unspoken goal of the fair was for competing vendors to figure out more and more inventive things to deep fry. Forget about corn dogs and chicken nuggets. We are talking fried mac and cheese, fried peanut butter and jelly, fried candy bars, fried Twinkies, and even fried Kool-aid. It was a feast made to clog even the healthiest of arteries.

This past week the South Carolina State Fair rolled into town here in Columbia. Having such fond (if strange) memories of the NC State Fair, we decided to see how it measured up. We went with our friends, Sam and Marya, on Friday afternoon. In our experience the fair gets crowded at night, so going in the middle of the afternoon meant we didn’t have to wade through a crush of humanity running around with foot-long corn dogs on skewers that could second as spears.

We headed towards the animal exhibits where we arrived just in time for a good old-fashioned pig race. The picture isn’t great, but there are three pigs running around this pen. Pig #1 won by a mile, just for the record.

Next we looked at some of the animals that had been submitted by their owners for prizes. This always reminds me of the part in Charlotte’s Web where Mr. Zuckerman takes Wilbur to the state fair. There was a wide variety of cows and chickens, but my favorite animal was, for obvious reasons, this rabbit with the killer cat-eye.

After we’d had enough of the animals we decided to try out the food samplings. There were tons of booths, but we weren’t overly impressed with the deep-fried selection. In the end, we got a gyro and a lemonade and vowed to continue the search for a deep-fried dessert.

Only in America, man.

We set out to explore the rest of the fair with our eyes peeled for the fried candy bars, but we couldn’t find them. We finally asked at the information booth where all the good stuff was and the girl working there directed us to a lone food cart offering a selection of fried candy bars, oreos, red velvet oreos, and cookie dough. We weren’t wowed by their inventiveness, but we got some oreos and cookie dough anyway. They were delicious, even though I could feel my thighs expanding with each bite.

I don’t know that the SC State Fair lived up to the NC State Fair, but it was still fun, even though I’m still trying to burn off the calories I ingested.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about the trials of tutoring, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure #41: Everyday I’m Tutoring, Tutoring

Even though tutoring is an ordinary part of many people’s education, the word “tutor” still conjures up a 19th century Ichabod Crane type schoolmaster in my mind. It also always makes me think of this comic which my friend Christina’s family has a long-running joke about.

I enjoy tutoring because unlike most classroom teaching I have the opportunity to work one-on-one with students and can try more than one method of explaining something until the student understands. The thing that makes tutoring an adventure for me is that I rarely know ahead of time what assignments the student will bring to work on together, but it’s my job to be competent to help them with whatever they’ve been assigned. This sometimes means a quick Google refresher coupled with liberal use of the Socratic method (“What do you think it means, Johnny?”) and a healthy dash of BS. I will admit that I’m amazed sometimes when some long-forgotten tidbit of knowledge pops into my head while tutoring and I realize those long hard days of elementary school really paid off.

In a given week of tutoring here are all of the things I need to have mastery of:

The basics of how the digestive system works.
What are xylem and phloem?
How to explain exponents to a fifth-grader.
How to make a 7th grade boy answer questions in complete sentences. (I’ve determined that it’s basically impossible).
How to master the Reading Comprehension section of the ACT in the allotted 40 minutes. (How exactly do you make a student read faster? Besides making them read a bunch of things on a timer?)
How to use “credence” in a sentence and how to explain that for some reason, we only ever use this word in the phrase “give/gave credence to.”
How to write compelling personal essays for college applications without putting my words in someone else’s “mouth.”
What happened in Tom Sawyer? All I remember is the part where he paints the fence. Also when he and Becky Thatcher get lost in the cave at Becky’s picnic. Thanks a lot, Wishbone.

I’ve realized that tutoring is similar to substitute teaching in that you can’t get by with mastery of a single subject or grade level. Tutoring is also unique in that, if you’re doing it right, you should really be working yourself out of a job. Which is good for them and bad for you. So the key is getting your students to improve enough that their parents think the tutoring is working without making them think the tutoring isn’t necessary anymore. (Just kidding, just kidding. For the record, my goal is definitely to have the students improve to the point that they don’t need me).

Things in Columbia continue to be strange and disjointed in the aftermath of the Great Flood. Parts of roads are still closed and many houses have to be knocked to the ground and rebuilt from scratch. Driving through neighborhoods there are mountains of debris in the yards from houses being completely gutted. It will take this city months to years to fully recover. The flooding has put a damper on both our adventures and on my job search progress as things here ground to a halt for an entire week. But this coming weekend we have a day trip planned to Wilmington, a beach town in North Carolina where one of my dear friends lives. We are looking forward to getting out and trying some new things in Wilmington and I will hopefully have a more interesting adventure to report back next week!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about the 1,000 Year Flood, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 39: My Best Friend’s Wedding

Last week I had the absolute privilege of being the Matron of Honor in my best friend’s wedding. My sweet Christina lived with me through all four years of college, stood in my wedding, moved to Raleigh at the same time we did, and later flew all the way to South Korea to visit us. After my family, she is the person I love most in the world.

Reverse roles – Christina as Maid of Honor and me as the bride.

One of my most favorite pictures of the two of us from when we ran the Disneyworld Marathon in 2012.

Christina is one of those girls who has it all – beauty, brains, humor, kindness, and a love for adventure – and yet for some inexplicable reason she was still single after many of our friends were married. This was hard sometimes, but Christina was always gracious about it. So when she met Andy last summer and it quickly became clear that this was a serious thing I couldn’t have been happier for her. Well, I would have been a little happier if this huge life event (meeting the ONE and getting engaged) hadn’t happened while I was on the other side of the world, but that’s just my selfishness talking.

See what I mean? You can totes tell they want to be together forever.

Right after Christina and Andy got engaged. The love is real, people.

The weeks and days before the wedding were stressful, like many weddings are, with more than their fair share of double-booked venues, botched dress alterations, and a million little details that seemed like they would never come together, but the stress of this wedding was compounded by the fact that Christina’s dad was very sick throughout the whole process. He passed away just two months before the wedding and she had to accept the unthinkable – that her dad wouldn’t be there to walk her down the aisle. So. Many. Feelings.

I left Columbia on Wednesday to head to Raleigh for the beginning of the wedding festivities. On Wednesday night we had a little bachelorette party with mostly local friends which included copious amounts of fondu and the most classic of all bachelorette activities – mini golf.

Thursday was rehearsal day and the first half of the day was absolute chaos. In an effort to be helpful I made several trips to the airport, to the craft store, and to pick up food and drinks to make sure the bride-to-be remembered to eat. One of the most fun things about this wedding was that the other women in the wedding party were also some of my best friends, so it was roommate reunion all over again.

Rehearsing. PS- Isn’t this church fabulous?

Rehearsal dinner with so many fabulous people!

Aside from the weather (which was pouring down rain all day for several days) everything from the rehearsal on Thursday night onward flowed like a dream and suddenly it was late Friday afternoon and we were zipping her into her dress and adjusting her veil and holding our bouquets and walking down the aisle to stand at the front of the church as Christina and Andy became a family.

Garter time.

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Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen? Also, the matching robes were a bridesmaid’s gift. Adorbs.

Christina’s sister, Lori, sister-in-law, Anna, and niece/flower girl, June. Does that tutu just kill you?

I cry at all weddings. Weddings of people I know and weddings of strangers and weddings of characters in movies. There is something about that moment when the bride steps onto the aisle and she is radiant and gloriously happy and the groom’s eyes (and everyone else’s) are locked on her like he never in his wildest dreams imagined someone so beautiful would choose him forever. It’s magical. But this wedding – this moment when the doors opened and my best friend in the world stepped onto that aisle holding onto her brother’s arm, with her train and her veil trailing behind her, I couldn’t even breathe.

You guys. I ugly-cried.

I tried so hard to get it under control, but of course that just meant my face was all red and contorted doing that thing where you try to smile through it, but your whole face is twitching and your nose is running from the effort. I was a hot mess. Thankfully, nobody was looking at me (except Jonathan who confirmed that I was indeed ugly-crying) because everyone was so mesmerized by Christina’s bridal beauty.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the ceremony was over and she was Mrs. Proctor and we all headed out to the most exquisite reception I had ever seen.

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The Cotton Room in downtown Durham, in case you were wondering.

As the Matron of Honor, I got to give a toast at the reception. This was my first experience writing a toast and I found it to be more difficult than I expected. Striking that perfect balance between being light and fun for people who aren’t as close to the bride as you are while also saying things that are meaningful to your friend and the relationship you have with her is tricky. Add to this the fact that my devotion to Christina borders on the creepy and you can imagine how tough of an assignment this was. But after much deliberation (and much vetoing of my ideas by Jonathan) I found a way to say how much I love her, how beautiful and holy marriage is, and how very happy I am for the two of them.

And then, we danced. And by we, I mostly mean me. I danced like a fool (because I am an epically bad dancer) for hours. And it was glorious.

At the end of the night, I hugged my sweet friend and kissed her cheek and then we all sent her off in a shower of sparklers to their honeymoon in Tahiti (dreamy, right?)

Week 39 was an epic adventure. We’ve got 13 weeks left and I don’t know that anything will top this, but I’m willing to try!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure checking out the farmer’s market and the Greek Festival you can find it here . And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty Two Weeks of Adventure # 38: Farmer’s Market and Greek Festival

The calendar says it’s fall, but Columbia hasn’t gotten the memo yet. It’s continued to hit the 90’s here most days, but since I have the ability to spend most of my time in air conditioned buildings or cars (unlike in Korea where it was equally hot but without much air conditioning), I can’t complain too much. It’s also been beautifully clear with brilliant blue skies almost every day (also a huge contrast to Korea which is frequently hazy even on sunny days) so I’ve been inspired to get out and do a little exploring.

The Soda City Farmer’s Market is open every Saturday morning in downtown Columbia. I love farmer’s markets. Back in Raleigh there is a huge, permanent farmer’s market that’s open every day with an especially big one on Saturdays. In Korea, there were two markets within walking distance of our apartment and I often got our fruits and vegetables there. The Soda City Farmer’s Market has a fun atmosphere with a combination of fresh produce, baked goods, food trucks/stalls, and art, jewelry, and crafts made by local artisans.

The most unique part of this market compared with others I’ve been to was a produce stand that allowed you to take a box and fill it as full as you could with whatever produce items you wanted. It was $10 for the entire box and there was a good variety of fruits and veggies to choose from that all came from a local farm.

I managed to pack in corn, kale, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, a spaghetti squash, yellow squash, apples, peaches, an eggplant, and some mushrooms.

I had a moment of nostalgia when I passed this tent selling Korean food. It was only about 10 AM so I wasn’t ready to eat, otherwise I would have been all over that mandu!

Sorry to the lady who was standing right there while I was trying to get a picture of the menu board!

In the afternoon we went to the Greek Festival which was going on all weekend long at the Greek Orthodox Church.

My dad is Greek and I grew up eating Greek food so it’s always a little nostalgic to me to eat it. The festival was packed but the gyros we ended up with were well worth the wait.

We also got to see a little Greek dancing.

I’d heard rumors of a baklava sundae, but couldn’t find it anywhere so we didn’t end up having any desserts. Probably for the best considering all the yummy foods we’ve been indulging in lately and the fact that I have a bridesmaid’s dress to fit into for a Very Important Wedding this weekend!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure teaching the 7th grade you can find it here . And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty Two Weeks of Adventure #37: Tales From the Seventh Grade

I have a friend who teaches 6th grade history and media studies at a private school in Raleigh. She is pretty great at what she does and seems to really enjoy it (for the most part). I’ve always felt a bit in awe of her, knowing that she voluntarily goes into whole classrooms full of tweens on a daily basis. Another friend (the one we went hiking with in Charlotte last week) teaches history and Latin to middle schoolers and also coaches several teams. Again, a fantastic teacher who seems to genuinely enjoy what he does. I’ve always felt that it takes a special person and personality to enjoy that awkward middle school age group and I’ve also always felt that I was not one of them. This week I put that theory to the test.

I am still actively seeking employment here in Columbia as several part-time and freelance opportunities I’d been trying to line up have fallen through. One of the few things I have been successful at was getting hired on as a tutor at a local (very nice) private school. When I interviewed to be a tutor I also interviewed to work as a substitute teacher and this week I got my first call to come in.

I got a text at 8 AM asking if I could sub last-minute. I was still in pajamas and hadn’t even had a first cup of coffee. So naturally I said yes. I had no idea what grade or subject I’d be teaching, but I pulled myself together and said a quick prayer that it was something I knew something about. Especially since this was technically my first time teaching in an American classroom.

When I arrived at the school I was taken to a middle school classroom full of maps where I deduced that the class had something to do with geography. It was 7th grade geography. Luckily, the teacher had created a PPT presentation for that day which was on the computer. I quickly tried to remember everything I knew about maps, globes, equivalency and confluency. The reservoir in my brain proved to be decidedly shallow, but, as every good teacher knows, when in doubt, fake it! Or Google it if you have time and/or can do it discreetly.

The first class came in wearing neon green and orange and yellow (it was Spirit week, and “Neon Day,” a memo I clearly had not gotten in my black and white ensemble) and talking a mile a minute. “I’m Mrs. Dunn. I’m subbing today,” I said over the sound of their chatter and my own pounding heart. And then…I taught.

I taught four geography classes and a homeroom class. To 7th graders. And I kind of loved it.

Sure, they were more chatty and rambunctious than was probably ideal, but I was surprised by how endearing I found them. In seventh grade they’ve reached the age where they’ve realized that one great way to get out of work when they have a sub is to distract them with lots and lots of questions, most of which I didn’t answer.

“Where’s Ms. H? Are you our permanent sub? Could you be our permanent sub? You have an accent (hah!) Where are you from? What’s on your shirt? Is it kangaroos? Is it dinosaurs? I think it’s cats. Where’d you get it? Where is your necklace from?”

And a few of which I did:

Student: Are you normally a geographer teacher?

Me: No, I used to teach English.

S: Then how do you know so much about geography?

M: Because I’m an adult.

S: I can see why you were a teacher. You’re good at it. I actually feel like I’m learning something.

M: Thanks. (Maybe this was sucking up, but it still made me feel good!)

There were also the funny compliments which were possibly meant only to distract me, but I like to think they were genuine.

S: I love your eyebrows.

M: Thanks.

S: No, really. They’re perfect. Look! (All the girls in the classroom look and sigh in envy) Wow. They really are.

M: Ummmm, thanks… (If only they know. My eyebrows are actually the bane of my existence beauty-wise. They look ridiculous 92% of the time).

In the end we made it through with few casualties and apart from feeling rather more tired than normal I have to admit that I had fun. Perhaps teaching middle school is not quite the hell I imagined it to be, but it still was a big adventure!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure hiking in Charlotte you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 36: Hiking in Charlotte

This past weekend was our first real weekend in Columbia. So naturally, we left town. 🙂

Some of our best friends live in Charlotte which is only 1.5 hours form Columbia. Since it was Labor Day Weekend and there was no work or school on Monday we headed to Charlotte on Sunday afternoon after attending our first church service in Columbia. (It was an Anglican church, so that was new, but more on that later).

After arriving in Charlotte we joined our friends and the four of us piled into the car and headed to Crowders Mountain, the closest hiking spot in the area. It was a 45 min – 1 hr drive to the trail head.

The trail was gentler than most of the Korean hikes we’re used to, which was fortunate since the Dunn clan isn’t in peak physical condition these days. After about an hour we made it to the top and enjoyed the view. While it was a much smaller mountain with a lower elevation than the ones around Daegu (a measly 1,624 ft), the air was much clearer which made for a better view.

We loved being able to hop in the car and see our friends who we’ve missed so much over the past two years. We also loved getting to do some hiking which was one of our favorite activities in Korea.

After hiking we went back to Brandon and Christy’s house where we had dinner together with Bill and Jordan, a couple they’ve become close to while we’ve been gone but who we’d never met before. (Spoiler: They were totally great). After dinner we played a pretty intense game of Funglish (I’m still convinced the boys were totally cheating) that went on into the wee hours of the night, mainly because we girls were so infuriated that the boys kept getting the easiest cards and we refused to admit defeat.

We didn’t get home til 2 AM which felt wild and crazy for someone like me who is normally in bed by 10 if not before, but it was well worth it. We deeply missed sharing life with our friends while we were gone and we want to take full advantage of being so close to them now.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about my epic roommate reunion you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 35: Epic College Roommate Reunion

After a whirlwind first week in America I left my hubby and new home and headed up to Chicago and then Wisconsin for a reunion with my college roommates at our friend Anna’s family lake house – a place that holds a lot of sweet memories for all of us of our time in college and beyond.

To be honest I was nervous to see these girls after two years living abroad. While we’ve all been friends for a long time now, through five post-college years and different life stages I was anxious about whether it would feel the same to come back together after being gone for two years during which I grew and changed at what felt like an accelerated pace. It also felt strange that the other girls had all seen one another without me on multiple occasions during my time in Korea and frankly, I was worried about whether or not I still fit.

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Together again! We all made it! 2 from South Carolina, 2 from North Carolina and one from the Chicago area (where we all met).

I was relieved to find that even though some things were different and I had moments where I felt disconnected from the lives and experiences of my friends, for the most part I still felt like we clicked and meshed well together. And more importantly than our different life experiences over the past few years, we still care about each other and are genuinely interested in each others’ lives.

One of the most exciting things about the weekend was celebrating Christina, who is getting married this month, with some special bachelorette activities. (And by bachelorette activities I mean Christina wore this headdress and we gave her lingerie and lots of dubious marital advice and drank tequila).

Asharae describes this headpiece as her crowning achievement in crafting and I am inclined to agree! My favorite part of this picture though is Taylor in the background eating chips and guac and saying something with her eyes closed.

Unfortunately, it was fairly cool (for August) and rainy during our weekend at the lake, so we didn’t do a lot of our usual lake activities like sunbathing and water skiing. We did make it out on the lake for some casual boat rides around the rain, but mostly we stayed cozy inside eating tons and tons of foods, talking each others’ ears off, playing games, and watching movies. Basically, it was perfection.

I brought my friends some gifts from Korea – superhero minion socks, scary face masks, and hilarious lip masks, all of which we tried out on the spot.

Since I’ve gotten really into makeup and makeup artistry over the past year or so, my friends graciously allowed me to do makeup experiments on them – some more successfully than others – to try out new things and practice looks for Christina’s wedding.

The best part of the whole weekend was that this time when we all said goodbye we knew it would only be 4 weeks til we will be reunited again at Christina’s wedding which three of us will stand in as bridesmaids while Asharae and her husband do the photography.

I am so incredibly thankful for these women and for their friendship over years and miles. It’s kind of a big deal. ; )

Thank you also to all of you who have sent such kind and encouraging messages during a very busy and stressful time. Now that moving and my travels are done I am ready to get back to more regular posting here and to figure out what normal life will look like in this new season. I admit that the transition has been both easier and harder than I anticipated, but more on that later. For now, thanks to the many of you who have shown such kindness and support over the past few months and especially the past few weeks. It is genuinely appreciated.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about our not-so-extreme home makeover you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

52 Weeks of Adventure #34: (Not-So) Extreme Home Makeover

Well, we did it. We packed up a moving truck, drove it to South Carolina, and put all of our things in a quiet little condo that we now call home. We arrived in Columbia with all of our stuff last Monday and worked like crazy (along with both sets of parents who were generous and kind and came to see us/haul boxes and paint things when we arrived) and one week later, we are officially moved in.

It was fun to unpack our things and re-discover everything we own. It was also fun (for me, at least) to have a chance to decorate and make the condo feel like our space. In Korea, we lived a temporary life. All of our furniture had either been provided by our schools or was purchased used from other foreigners with little regard for the aesthetic value. When we first moved to Korea, our living room wall was wallpapered with a print of cats sitting in windowsills. Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for creative self expression.

My first priority in the condo was to do some painting. I think paint is the easiest (and cheapest) way to spruce up a room or create a new look. In our last apartment in the US way back before Korea, we had some bright accent walls that made our generic apartment more fun. We wanted to try something new in the new space and ultimately chose a cool-toned theme throughout with lots of blues, grays, and greens. We’re both pretty pleased with the results.

Living Room – Before

Living room/kitchen pass through before

Living Room After

Front entryway

We painted an accent wall in the living room a bright mid-toned blue and created a wall gallery for our scratch-off “Where have you been?” map and some travel photos.

The furniture and rug were all things we already owned, but I did add in a few blue throw pillows to tie the color together.

The office/room where guests will sleep on the floor is mainly about the bookshelves. I picked a dark gray for the walls, but kept up the blue and green theme with the rug and the curtains.

Office before.

Office after!

In our last US apartment we only painted one accent wall in the master bedroom and it was a bright red. I decide that this time around I’d like to try a full room color, but since a lot of our bedding is green, I felt limited on color options. I eventually settled on a pale sage green.

Master bedroom before

Master bedroom after

The master bedroom is a really large space and after moving in our bed, end tables, and dresser, there was still a lot of empty space. We thought a chair would be nice to make a little reading nook, but we’d already picked up a few new things for other rooms and didn’t want the expensive of a new piece of furniture. I asked my friend Lorien for advice on a place to look for a cheap chair and she sent me a picture of this one saying she was selling it. Blanket over the top and a couple of throw pillows and it looks like it was made for that corner.

We are really happy with our space and can’t wait to have some of our North and South Carolina friends over to visit. It was a TON of work to get all of this done in a week, but it feels so good to have everything settled and be able to breathe just a teensy bit. Now on to the next adventure – finding a way to pay the bills!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about saying goodbye to one home and hello to another, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

52 Weeks of Adventure #33: So Long, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Unbelievably, it came. It came the way Christmas came despite the Grinch’s best efforts at keeping it away. It came like the downward plunge part of the roller coaster, where the build-up seems to last forever as tick-tick-tick your way to the top and then suddenly you are plunging downhill and the whole thing is over in a matter of seconds.

Friday was both our final day in Korea and (because of the time difference) our first day in America. We somehow made it through our long trip back to America with our 4 suitcases full of everything we’ve collected over these years. But before we left, we said good-bye to some of our favorite places and some of our favorite people.

We went to Busan, our favorite Korean city, and said good-bye to the water, and the skyline, and the beach, covered in fully-clothed Koreans hiding under umbrellas.

We ate our last bingsu and our last bulgogi and mandu and (mercifully) our last kimchi.

We went to the noraebang (like a private karaoke room) for the last time and I bellowed out a painful rendition of Colors of the Wind while my friend Josh performed an interpretive dance.

We sold, donated, or threw out all of our things. And we said goodbye to the friends we’ve made who will now be scattered all over the wide world, to Canada and India and South Africa, and good old Kansas, USA.

We said good-bye to our steaming hot apartment, our twin-sized bed, and our wallpaper with silvery butterflies.

We said goodbye to the cutest children and the pushiest elderly people in the world.

We said good-bye to city living, to daily cultural misunderstandings, to the background noise of screeching buses and old people spitting in the street and unintelligible Korean chatter.

We said goodbye to our home.

And then.

We said Hello.

My amazing family!!!!

With my grandparents at their regular breakfast joint.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about my final days of teaching and my English summer camp, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 32: Summer English Camp and the Last Days of Teaching

Last week I taught the last classes I will ever teach in Korea. (Though I suppose no one really knows the future, so maybe they won’t be the last!)

While the regular school semester ended on July 24th, one of the weird quirks of the contract for native English teachers is that we are still required to go to work from 8:30 to 4:30 every day over summer vacation, even though school is not in session. Every school is different in terms of what they expect their native teachers to be doing during this time. Some schools will ask the teacher to teach some low-level classes to a small group of students who are behind, some will ask teachers to practice English with the students by calling them all at their homes, and almost all schools will require their native teacher to run an English camp that can last for anywhere between 2 days and 2 weeks.

Even with English camps and other classes, most teachers will end up with a lot of time doing what we call deskwarming. Sitting at our desks streaming TV shows and reading books because there is no real work to do, but we are still required to be physically present. Some days when I am desk warming I don’t see another living soul all day. (The regular teachers get vacation like the students do, so they might pop in and out occasionally to take care of something, but for the most part they are gone). Some teachers find this maddening. I don’t mind it so much since I feel like I’m basically getting paid to come sit at my desk and work on my own writing projects.

This summer is admittedly a little different because there’s so much packing and cleaning and sorting that needs to happen, so sitting at my desk for 8 hours really does feel like it’s wasting valuable time, but we are managing to squeeze everything in in the after-work hours and I think we’re going to make it. Wednesday is our last day of work. We’ll move out of our apartment Thursday morning and head to Seoul, then we’ll spend the night near the airport before flying to America on Friday. In the midst of all the busyness, I don’t know quite how to process all that it means to be leaving Korea permanently and to be returning back to a home that’s not quite our home.

This summer Jonathan and I each had a 3-day camp and we were able to help out at each others’ schools. His school is a bit bigger than mine and had about 4x the number of students attending, so it was significantly more stressful. My camp ended up only having 14 students total so it was very relaxed.

For camp we prepared themed lessons with special games and craft activities we wouldn’t normally have time or freedom to do within the normal curriculum. In the past I’ve done a Winter Olympics camp and a Harry Potter camp. This year we just did a bunch of random topics like music, sports, movies, dinosaurs, space, under the sea, pirates, and superheroes. As always, they liked some of the themes and activities more than others, but overall it seemed to go OK.

My Co-teacher added all the cutesy stickers and fonts to the pictures. 🙂

This is the big rock outside of my school. It says “Daegu Ehyun Elementary School” in case you were wondering.

How cute is my CoT? This is NOT the infamous CoT, by the way. This is my other adorable, sweet and very helpful CoT, May.

And so ends my two years of teaching in a Korean elementary school. While I’m ready for a break from teaching, I know I’ll miss these sweet little faces. I’ve learned so many things about teaching, about the world, about myself, about Jonathan, and about God during these years and although sometimes they have been very hard, they have been richly rewarding and fulfilling. Besides our decision to get married, both Jonathan and I consider Korea the best decision we ever made, even when we’ve hated it. This experience has shaped us profoundly and I believe it will continue to do so even as we move on to a new adventure.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about my trip up Daegu Tower and out to a Korean village, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Lily Ellyn

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Fifty-Two Adventures

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 42: South Carolina State Fair

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure #41: Everyday I’m Tutoring, Tutoring

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 39: My Best Friend’s Wedding

Fifty Two Weeks of Adventure # 38: Farmer’s Market and Greek Festival

Fifty Two Weeks of Adventure #37: Tales From the Seventh Grade

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 36: Hiking in Charlotte

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 35: Epic College Roommate Reunion

52 Weeks of Adventure #34: (Not-So) Extreme Home Makeover

52 Weeks of Adventure #33: So Long, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 32: Summer English Camp and the Last Days of Teaching

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