Sunny Perfection

Birds chirping. Bugs. Grass. Dirt. Trees. Roads with sky and earth as far as the eye can see. Beaches where you have space to breathe and people actually swimming. Avocados. Speaking English. Blue cloudless skies. Sun that radiates heat. People saying "Sorry" and "Excuse me". A cup of coffee for less than $2. Bike rides where your only company is sky, sun, grass, and cows. Showing my collar bone and not feeling self conscience. A huge real oven. Hiking without traffic jams. Clean air.

I'm not dead folks, I'm just zoned out in a world where I'm acutely aware of everything I lacked in Korea. You really can't appreciate everyday simplicities until they are stripped from your life for a year. After two glorious weeks in South Africa, I am safely situated outside by my dad's pool soaking up sunshine. My last two weeks in Korea were a blur of packing, routine, and closing out my life for a year. Thankfully it never felt like I was leaving and thankfully I have not missed anything about my life in Korea besides the friends that I made. It was a good run, full of wonderful people, learning, and traveling but I'm finished (or pinishee as my old students would say). Being back in the continent of Africa, temporary as it is, has made me Rachel again, and reminded me of what really completes me.

My time in South Africa was spent an hour north of Durban reunited with friends, hiking up a chain ladder on a sheer cliff to the second highest waterfall in the world (Tugela Falls), beach time, running where I have space to breathe, exploring Cape Town, surfing, hiking Table Mountain, crafting and catching up with old friends. Before I visited South Africa I knew I would love it: beautiful beaches, mountains, good weather, and the simple fact that it is in the continent of Africa. South Africa did not disappoint but it still surprised me. For the majority of the trip I did not feel that I was in the continent of Africa. My first trips to Africa were in rural poverty stricken areas where I was certainly a minority. Poor roads, lack of infrastructure, but beautiful and rich culture and geography made up the trips. In South Africa I could blend in as long as I didn't talk much and expose my American accent. I could have all the comforts of life in the US: hot showers, semi-familiar foods, good roads (well actually better roads than Michigan), safe drinking water, cute coffee shops and boutique stores, and the pleasure of effortlessly communicating in English. I felt as though one could live in South Africa without any knowledge of the other side of the country. Aside of the beautiful homes that filled many rich suburbs of Cape Town, and the fancy buildings of "downtown" Cape Town, most of the population actually lives in poverty. Whereas other African countries I visited the poverty and simplicity of life is right in your face, in South Africa it seems it would be easy to completely ignore the darker side of South Africa. I can see why tourists flock to South Africa to get their "Africa experience": it is actually a developed country, just one with a big gap between rich and poor.

Analysis aside, South Africa temporarily quenched my growing surfing addiction, and allowed me to enjoy vacation time before facing figuring out my "future". And for those that are asking: I will for sure be in northwestern US at the end of November for my big brother's wedding. So if you're anywhere near Seattle or Portland I would love to see you! In the meantime, I'm waiting waiting for Peace Corps, filling out lots of applications, mountain biking with my dad, baking, and trying to do some volunteer work. I owe many of you personal e-mails. I promise I haven't forgotten. I'm just trying to sort my life out (no excuse, I know). And in case anyone is confused about my exact location in the world, I am in Gaborone, Botswana living with my dearest father. Well, back to tanning and application duty! 

Open Doors

As usual I'm blogging to procrastinate. If nothing else that's what this blog has been good for. I officially have two months and four days left in Korea and this means two months and four days to make a plan for what I'm doing next, plan a ridiculous number of lessons for all the teaching I'm doing this summer (yep no deskwarming this "vacation"), make some semblance of a plan for my trip to Bali and the Philippines (in true Rachel fashion this is less pressing to me seeing as all my trips are rather spontaneous), figure out packing and shipping my stuff somewhere (since I don't have a future plan or home yet, sigh), figuring out getting all my money sent to my U.S. bank account after I leave, planning and finalizing my visit to my friend in South Africa and seeing my family (or maybe just my dad) in Botswana, and most importantly keeping busy with the awesome activities I've been doing here and seeing important people before I leave. This flurry of activity is also my attempt to reduce the mix of confusion about liiiife, sadness about leaving Korea, and general stress about making a plan that I've been feeling lately.

REALLY don't want to say goodbye to these little guys.
Also, as you can see I have great classroom management skills (NOT!)

Two weeks ago I was forced to officially tell my school that I'm not staying for another year. I was half hoping the renewal notice just somehow wouldn't come and I could keep playing the game where I haven't in fact booked my tickets to South Africa and I am still very much unsure about whether or not I will stay another year (which actually isn't so far from the truth). My announcement brought more sadness than I expected and each day my students (even the devil ones) seem to get cuter and more pleasant, making me wonder if I made the wrong decision. And my after school class doesn't help matters. A few of my little 1st and 2nd graders are beginning to read and it fills me with such pride and joy only to be crushed two seconds later when I get the sinking realization that I'm leaving them in two months and they could be stuck with a terrible, loser native teacher who either doesn't care about them and or doesn't know how to teach little ones who speak almost no English (not that I really know how to either). That's a bit extreme, but regardless I will be creating a VERY detailed plan of everything I've done with the little ones in the hope that their little sponge brains will continue to absorb English once I'm gone.

So even though on a daily basis, I get frequent semi freak out moments of "Where in the world will I be at the end of September?", "I will have no job in September!", "What am I doing with my life?", "Did I make the right decision not to stay at my current school?" I am TRYING to chill out and realize that some things are just not in my control. I've always been the person who at least SEEMS to have her life together. I always have a plan. I always am employed. I always know where I'm going next. I'm obsessive about saving money so that I always have emergency money (that got me far since I have less money in my savings at the moment than I did in middle school). Well right now I'm not going to pretend that I have my life in order any more, because I most certainly don't. I don't have a plan for next year, I am very poor but luckily completely debt free at the moment (adios student loan!), and I don't even know where my family will be in two months. In the midst of my confusion and obsessing I stumbled upon (quite literally stumbled upon) this quote:


"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." 
— Helen Keller

I think right now I'm a bit stuck looking at the door(s) of happiness that have recently closed: this year in Korea, wonderful opportunities for travel the last four years, good internships, etc, that I haven't quite found that new door. Or it hasn't opened for me just yet. I've often had the image of being in a waiting room with doors surrounding me and the feeling of being trapped. Which doors are open? Which is the right one to go into? So for now I'm searching for that door by filling out lots of applications and trusting that God will open the right door for me.

But in the midst of my waiting this past month has been filled with lots of wonderful adventures:

-Running my last half marathon (until it cools down at least) in a beautiful mountain city two hours away from Seoul (Hwacheon). Clean refreshing air and good weather even if it was a bit hot! Plus lots of freebies of course!

-Spent the beginning of the month taking advantage of a long weekend to couch surf in the southern coastal city of Busan. Beautiful weather, and wonderful people!

- Two weekends ago hiking the second tallest mountain in Korea in Jirisan National Park with two of my good friends. A weekend completely void of other waygooks (foreigners) surprisingly, and lots of friendly, kind and generous Koreans. From the moment we stepped off the bus there were kind Koreans helping us. We stayed in a minbak which is like budget hotel where you sleep traditional Korean style on the floor in a small room. It was quite pleasant and a good night's sleep for the money. On the entire hike friendly Korean hikers (all AT LEAST 20 years older than us) stopped to chat, share food with us, or get pictures with us. I successfully understood and spoke some Korean and I was once again amazed at how kind and generous Koreans usually are. I'm going to miss hiking in Korea!

-Going to see German films at the Goethe Institute in Seoul with a new German speaking Korean friend.

-Attending Language Cast meetups in Seoul to meet friendly people and practice my German and Korean.

Picnic in the park while learning Korean 

-Continuing to meet with my amazing language exchange partner to study Korean. Usually I compare my Korean to those who speak it much better than me but when I think about how far I've come and how I can now understand quite a bit and have a simple conversation, I suppose I've done well given my sub-par study efforts. My language partner, Eunjung has become a close friend and yet another person who I REALLY don't want to say goodbye to. She has promised to visit me wherever I go next and I most certainly will be returning to Korea in the near future to visit her and some of the other lovely people I've met here. She has been an incredible friend and teacher for me, and I've enjoyed helping her with her English.

Due to my obsessive planning nature all my weekends for the next two months besides three are fully booked. Looking forward to a visit from a friend I haven't seen in two years (this weekend! YES!), mud festival, helping at an English vacation bible school, and couchsurfing in the Philippines and Bali with lots of beach, mountains, scuba diving and relaxing time. But in the meantime, for my friends around the world and those who think I always have my life together: I don't have too much of a clue where I will be or what I will be doing post September, and I REALLY don't have my life together. Just waiting, waiting for the right door to open.

Marathon!

Marathon in Korea? Check. Sore legs? Check. Yellow dust filled lungs? Check.

March 20th was the Seoul International Marathon. Months of lackluster winter training and marathon day finally arrived, rainy and cold. Saturday was beautiful--warm and sunny. Sunday morning however, was chilly, rainy and had dangerously high levels of yellow dust blown over from China. For those of you who don't know about yellow dust google it. Because of polluted China every spring yellow dust blows over Korea and it's harmful to breathe. Also, the dust is apparently worse in the rain (found this out after I ran four hours in the rain). Rain, cold, and yellow dust aside I was running this dang marathon! I paid for it and I dragged my butt outside in arctic temperatures all winter to run.

In spite of its name, the Seoul "International" marathon was not very international. My friend Shea and I were surrounded by a sea of black heads at the start with the occasional blonde or brown head poking conspicuously out. Out of 24,000 runners, the Seoul marathon "boosted" 1,000 foreign runners. Amongst the Koreans Shea and I started the race and took the advice of starting off slow 100% to heart. Excuse all the runner jargon coming up. As a cross country runner I only started becoming more successful once I convinced myself to "risk" starting off fast, but the marathon start was heaven for my obsession with pacing myself. My first 5k was 30 minutes, I think a new record slow for me. But it paid off, I negative split my marathon (i.e. I ran faster the second half).

The marathon wove through Seoul, closing off some of the busiest streets in this buzzing city. Runners were encouraged by Seoul citizens cheers of "Fighting" (Konglish cheer). The enthusiastic Korean supporters kept my spirits high for the whole race. During the 25-35k of the race my legs went completely numb. No joke. I kept reaching down to feel if there were really still there. It was a strange but glorious sensation. With no feeling in my legs, I flew. No pain therefore I just picked up the pace. Then the numbness started wear off and I realized I was tired. No matter I could keep going. Then I reached the 37k and experienced the true meaning of "hitting the wall". Grateful for my ability to effortlessly switch between thinking in kilometers and miles, I started thinking about the remaining distance in miles instead of kilometers since the number was smaller. 5k is only 3.1 miles. I can do that. Side note: one marathon and I am now an expert at jogging through aid stations and chugging water or gatorade, and eating while running. It's actually quite easy.

For any runner, hardcore or recreational, doing a marathon is a necessary evil I think. The experience is taxing mentally, physically, and spiritually. Those last 5 kilometers felt like the other 37 combined. I prayed, I almost cried, and I just kept chugging along even though every step brought shooting pain up my Achilles and my knees ached. For some reason unknown to me a marathon is 26.2 miles or 42.195 kilometers and that 195 meters makes a  HUGE difference. I reached the 41k mark and cried tears of joy! Just one more kilometer to go! I can do this! The crowd of supporters increased and I knew I was closer to seeing a friend who had promised to come out and cheer for us at the finish. WAIT! WHAT? A sign loomed closer reading "1 km to go!" If I had had the energy I would have yelled in protest! You may think 195 meters is minuscule. That's less than half a lap around a track. But it's a BIG deal when you've just run 41 kilometers.

A few long minutes later I reached the Olympic Stadium and finished to the cheers of "Go waygookin!" (Go foreigner!). My friend Shea finished a bit later and we hobbled our way to our belongings (a looooooong process). Now I know what it's like to be old. Walking up and down stairs was a mission but it was a happy mission. The good old endorphins kicked in and Shea and I actually mentioned when we should do another marathon. Crazy!

Three goals complete: 1. Finish the marathon  2. Run under 4 hours (3:54:51) 3. Have an overall positive marathon experience. Naturally, as soon as we crossed the finish line the clouds disappeared and the sun shone. Go figure. Never mind, even with my yellow dust filled lungs, and stiff granny legs, I was on an endorphine high.

My friend Choua cheered us in the rain and brought us home baked sweet treats! She is awesome!

I'm trying to latch onto all the good things that happen each week and remember them so here are the events of last week that made me smile:

-Teaching grades 1 and 2. These little fireballs are so easy please. Singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" is quite possibly the most exciting thing they've done in their lives ( or at least they act like that). Teaching the little ones allows me to be completely ridiculous and not be ridiculed for it (so basically I get to be myself 100% for an hour twice a week).

-Seeing my old 6th grade students around my part of town. They are so cute in their smart middle school uniforms and are always pleasantly shocked to see me. Their deep bows of respect and surprised "Teacher!" leaves me grinning!

-Not being able to speak Korean and not looking Korean. This means I can get up Saturday morning in the most random attire and not have a clue what people are saying about me. Today an ajumma commented on the fact that I was wearing sandals and shook her head disapprovingly. Yeah I know it's still cold out and it actually snowed two days ago, but I felt like wearing my Birkenstocks. I just smiled and let her continue thinking how crazy foreigners are. Gotta keep those stereotypes going right? ;) Only risk is that most of my students live near me and I often see them when I'm out and about. I also have to preserve my Rachel Teacher reputation.

-90s theme parties. Yes, I'm not a true 90s child but I still enjoy 90s themed parties. Dress up, good music and good friends.

-Visiting Gyeongju, a city in the south of Korea and breathing in semi fresh air, and seeing GRASS and very few buildings more than a few stories high! Glorious!!

LAST thing! Many people are asking when I'm coming "home" which I just take to mean what am I doing post Korea. Good question. Don't really know at the moment in spite of my OCD applying rampages and obsession with having my life planned out. Here are the possibilities:

1. Peace Corps. I am currently in the looong Peace Corps process. Waiting to get interviewed. If I do Peace Corps I HOPE I will start in October but it will all depend on how quick they give me an assignment. I don't know where I would be assigned but I'm hoping for a French speaking African country or somewhere in Latin America. Peace Corps is 27 months and after I will probably go straight and get my PhD.

2. Grad school in Germany. This option is looking less likely because I didn't get a scholarship that would have funded my master's study. BUT school in Germany is dirt cheap so I'm still applying to one program and keeping my options open.

3. Grad school at University of Cape Town in South Africa. This is the option my family is rooting for of course, but it's just one option. Classes would start February 2012 so I have to figure out what I would do in the meantime.

4. Find an interesting job somewhere. Currently looking out west: Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington.

What I do plan on directly after Korea is heading straight to South Africa to visit a good friend and see the fam. Anyway, I wish I had a set plan but life never seems to be that simple for me. But I'm sure something will work out! :)