A Very Overdue Happy New Year

First off, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write an update! A month seems like a long time, but it flew by and it's been my busiest yet, so sitting down to blog wasn't really a priority. But if I put it off much longer, I'll be tempted to make this too wordy and that's never good. So here are the highlights from the last month, as short and sweet as I think I'm capable of making them : )

December:

• I ended up getting into the holiday cheer after all, and had a lovely Christmas. I was able to video chat with my family and open gifts with them, which made me feel a little closer to home!
  
• My friend Shana came to stay with me for the weekend of Christmas, and her spontaneous trip drove me to be spontaneous as well: I tried roasted and marinated silk worm larvae one night, and the next day I tried freshly chopped mini-octopus tentacles. The tentacles were still wriggling, so you have to chew really hard and really fast so they don't stick to your mouth or esophagus. If they attach to the esophagus, you can suffocate and die. It was a thrilling way to spend my first Christmas away from home!
• I worked on Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years, which wasn't too bad actually. I got a sweet card from one of my students and she made me feel better about working on Christmas. It read
  

"To T. Kendra. Hi Teacher! I'm ____. I'm really happy that you teach me [Reading and Writing, Listening and Speaking]. Today is Christmas...Actually, in Christmas, you should be with your family but you can't...However, you can be with your student!! Merry Christmas!"

She put into words how I felt anyway, which was that a day with students was better than a day alone at home, and in addition to her card I got a few treats from other students as well, which made me feel appreciated and like I was where I belonged.

• I got sick right before New Years Eve with a cough and cold that has lasted until now, so that's been no fun. New Years Eve was spent with a few co-workers at an Indian Restaurant and watching the countdown in Seoul on TV. Then I went home to cough myself into the New Year.

January:

• Since I teach at a private English academy, we don't have winter vacation (hence working on Christmas and New Years), and instead we teach extra classes during the month that our students have a break from public school. Our whole schedule changes so we work days instead of evenings, and I am teaching an extra three-hour class two mornings a week. I actually love the class because it's a listening class, but the listening is US sitcoms! We work on dictation, fluency, accuracy, and comprehension skills. Unfortunately the wrong books came, so the material is too high for the kids, but that just means that we work through everything really slowly, which is fine by me that early in the morning. My class is full of sweet kids, too, and I try to keep things fun and upbeat since I know it's their vacation and their parents are making them take extra English classes instead of sleeping in or having fun, which is how I spent my breaks when I was their age.
  
• I started working with a comedy sketch group in December, and have met a great new group of people through that, which has been exciting. It's nice to branch out from my school and get involved with things on my own. This past weekend I went to an open mic night and shared my spoken word poetry, which I hadn't done since leaving the US, and met some cool new people through that as well. It's so important to find things that make you feel like you, even when you're thousands of miles away from the people and things that feel the most familiar. I still love Korea, but I also know I'm getting into that phase where I need to combine things from my life in the US with my life here, or I'll feel even farther away than I am.
  

Well that brings me up to the present! I promise to try to write more often, though, and I'd like to start writing more about Korea and not just my life, but what I'm learning and observing, so hopefully if I write more often I'll be able to share more of that as well!