Dinner for Two

Okay, here's the deal with pictures. It takes a lot longer to upload pics here than it does on Facebook. That's just the plain truth. And I have a LOT of pics so far. So I'm going to choose a few favorites to post here, and then if you want to see all of them, you can follow the link to the album on Facebook right here. Hopefully it works. I changed the album privacy setting to "everyone," so I think you should be able to see it, even if you don't have a Facebook account.

Here's the school I work at. Yea! It's real! The town in the distance is Janghowan. It's about a mile and a half away. There's another town, Gamgok, that is a little closer, but it's behind those trees.

The Philippino exchange students introduced us to an all-you-can-eat restaurant where you cook the food in a burner set in the middle of your table. From left to right, it's me, Jared, Michael, Becky and Jon-David.

Me, in front of the Jogyesu Temple, the main Buddhist Temple in Korea.

I hiked a trail by a nearby Catholic Church, and part of the trail was lined with about 15-20 of these reliefs of the life of Christ. This one is the Garden of Gethsemane...

...and this is the Resurrection.

My Temple =]

So, the funniest thing happened to me last night. I had gone to Seoul with Becky and Jon-David, two of the other English teachers. They showed me where the Temple was, and then I stayed to do a session. I was making my way back to Gamgok from there by myself--a 45-minute subway ride and another hour and a half+ bus ride. Anyhow, I stopped outside the bus station to get something to eat at a little burger shop (first burger I've had since I got here. And I ended up getting a chicken burger sandwich).

I was sitting there eating at a little table. In front of me was a couple facing me, and a woman with her little boy with their backs to me. The little boy, who was about 3 years old or so, got up to play. When he saw me his eyes got REALLY big. He pointed at me and then said something to his mom. When she didn't respond he began tugging on her sleeve. She turned to look at him, and he pointed at me again. I was laughing pretty hard by this point, and she looked at me a little embarrassed. She said "sorry" and I just waved and said "It's okay." The little boy said something again to his mom, and she told him to say "Hello!" He didn't really get it at first, and then all of a sudden he got shy and hid behind his chair. After a little bit he started looking at me from between the slats in his chair, and I bent over a bit so I could see him. We played a little international game of peek-a-boo for a bit. Then, with his mom engrossed in her conversation, he came over and climbed up onto the chair across from me. =] He had a little happy-meal-type toy car he was playing with, so I said "car" and he repeated it a couple of times. I told him my name (one of the few phrases I've learned is "Na-nun Rebekah imnida"--my name is Rebekah). Then I asked him what his name is (something like "irum-i mwo shimnikka?"). He told me--and I couldn't really understand him. It started with a "d" sound, but I couldn't make out the rest. But I asked him twice, and he said the same thing both times, so I'm pretty sure he understood me, even if I couldn't understand him. He just sat there playing with his car, driving it on the table and the wall next to us while I finished eating. His mom and her friend and I all finished at about the same time, and when she realized her little boy was just sitting there across from me she kind of laughed and said sorry again at the same time. I laughed, and said "bye-bye!" to her little boy. He said "bye-bye" a couple of times back to me as we both left.

So, even if my English students don't learn English, at least I taught a few words to a little three year old boy.

Sometimes "Bekahs" go to South Korea...

...though it doesn't happen often. But it did this time.

Let's start from the beginning. Around mid-July I (on a whim) applied for a job to teach Social Welfare and English at a small university outside of Seoul, South Korea. The job ad came through my Social Work program at USU, from a professor who had worked in the sociology department there for 30+ years, and was now working at the university in South Korea (called "Far East University"). Applying for the job was kind of one of those "Wow, wouldn't that be cool?!" kind of things. I didn't know if I was really serious about it, because to be frankly honest I've never really been interested in going to South Korea. Literally, on all my lists of places to travel to, South Korea was never on it. Not that I thought it was a bad place--I'm just more of a Visit-Europe type of girl, always dreaming I could go to England and all of the UK, France, Denmark, Italy, down to Egypt and maybe some other countries in between. I would stop off in Spain too for good measure, because it's there in the middle of everything, the culture seems beautiful , and then I wouldn't be wasting my Spanish. (I'd go to South Africa, too, but it's not in Europe. And, now that David has lived in South Africa, I figure he can escort me around when I can finally pay for it). But this South Korea job was a chance for me to travel and get paid (a decent amount, actually, for a social worker who has just finished her masters degree) for it.

Anyhow, about 3 weeks ago (literally, THREE weeks ago) I heard back from the program. I had gotten the job, and they would like me to come by September 1st. What the...? That was two weeks away!!! When I got my mission call, I had two MONTHS to prepare, and they had given me a detailed list of things to bring and do beforehand. The lists I got from the university were sparse at best, most of them pertaining to things I would need in order to get a working visa 90 days after I got to South Korea. There were some other problems as well with the school's organization of getting me down here, so I won't lie--I was REALLY hesitant. I emailed a couple of friends that had served missions in South Korea and got information from them. I worked out making sure the school was real (having heard that some people get offers to "teach English" in other countries and then arrive to find the offer no longer exists, and they are therefore forced to figure out how to get themselves back home), and I emailed my professors from USU to see what they thought about the idea. A few of them knew Dr. Kim personally, so that helped calm my nerves a bit.

Up to the time my mom was flying me to the airport, I was seriously considering not coming because I was so nervous. There were, of course, many prayers thrown out there to figure out if this was a good idea. There was really no concrete answer, except for the emphasis on pursuing a goal that I've felt prompted several times in the past year to work towards--getting my PhD. I talked to a friend who is in his PhD program right now for Social Work, and he said that teaching social work in South Korea at a university (even if it is small) would set me apart from other applicants, so this could potentially be a chance to travel and improve my resume a bit.

I think the hardest part was getting on that plane from San Diego to San Francisco. By the time I got to San Francisco, though, I was feeling a lot more confident. I did, however, have to move some of my things from one suitcase to another, because I hadn't had time to weigh each of my bags to see if they were the correct weight. That experience was oddly, overly stressful. It all worked out though. Since then, I feel like everything has been kind of surreal. I got here South Korea's Thursday night. A man from Far East came and picked me and another teacher (and his wife) up from the airport, and drove us to our housing. We're living in an international house on campus, and the room I'm staying in is really nice. It's kind of like a nice hotel room. It was oddly comforting to have such a nice room. I guess they do that on purpose, so we feel better about the whole experience.

Anyhow, Friday morning we met with some of the students, introduced ourselves, had a little "American Culture" day, and then planned out the teaching schedule. We're supposed to have 2-3 more teachers coming next week as well (I was a little frustrated when I found that out, knowing I could have had a little more time to prepare to come!!). We walked into town, a little over a mile away, and our supervisor showed us where the grocery stores and a few little places to eat were. The town we're in is small, but it seems like we have almost everything we would need there. I haven't taken a walk on my own around the whole school yet, but I'll try to this evening so I can post some pictures. We went into Seoul for a little while yesterday, but we didn't stay long (we were all so tired!) so we just went to a few shops, learned how to ride the buses and subway, and did a very little sightseeing. I figure I'll go back to Seoul, and hopefully do some more sightseeing around the country, once I get a little more settled here in Gamgok.

Craziness, I know. But here I am. My contract is for a year, so it'll be over next August. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll stay the whole year (the penalty for breaking the contract is minimal--I just have to pay back the amount they paid for me to fly here), but it's been a great experience so far.

I'll post pictures soon!
Love,
Bekah

Summer Remodeling

So, here are a few of the things I've been working on while I've been in San Diego:

I completely redid the laundry room. I didn't take a before picture, but the walls were a lime green with a 70's style wallpaper on the wall behind the washer and dryer. I removed the wallpaper and the old shelf that was up above the washer/dryer, painted the room, took out the old laminate tile and installed the new tile. New shelving and a new doorknob later and we were done. =] I like it.

I helped Britte make these Bridal Shower cakes for our friend, Emilyssa. Mostly I helped make the little flowers on the cakes and the bodies (which I sculpted out of fondant). It was fun for my first cake decorating experience, but I realized I'm probably way too perfectionistic while I was making the flowers!

Britte and I took down the old tile from our parents' bathroom. The pipe broke quite a while ago, and we finally decided we were smart enough to fix it. Eventually we decided we should just completely redo the whole shower area. Taking out the ugly old tile was actually pretty fun, but big trash bags were necessary.

Britte sanded down the glue on the old greenboard that was still good, so we didn't have to replace that section. In case you were wondering, you don't use "greenboard" any more, you use a mold resistant cement board. Fortunately, they still paint one side of the cement board green, probably because they know people like us (who work on their own home repairs) will freak out if we don't use the right supplies.

Sweeping the old greenboard pieces out of the tub in preparation for putting up the new ones.

Setting the tiles. It's a good thing there were two of us because it made it easier. For the most part I spread the grout and Britte pushed the tiles into place.

Cutting tiles. It was actually kind of fun, I felt like I was back in ceramics class...

...except I didn't get this wet in ceramics class, even on the wheel!

Britte takes a break in the newly tiled tub.

Here's the end product! (The curtain looks way brighter than it actually is. In reality it's more of a calm teal color. I'm assuming it's the flash causing the difference).

And on to the next project!!! The most frustrating part of this bathroom was the plumbing. The old plumbing was so messed up that removing the old pipes was incredibly hard. I actually had to heat the old pipe and twist the pieces out with a plumbers wrench. Ridiculous. Then attaching the new system took forever because the pipes we were trying to attach the new system to were a little bent, and to top it off we couldn't get the pipes to drain completely. Anyhow, we finally fixed the water problem by draining all the pipes in the house (you have to turn the water to the house off and then turn all the faucets, including the hoses outside, on) and then with a little more solder and a few "love-taps" with a hammer we got our new pipes to fit into the old ones.

Here's the finished product. Looks the same as the other one, but we decided to put the decorative line on top. Yea for like-new bathrooms!

And to top it off, here's my adorable nephew! =] He directed me in remodeling the play-doh into a bunch of animals. This was my favorite remodeling project so far, even if I didn't get to use the propane torch.

I keep wishing I had something amazing to write...

The best I can do right now is, I'm still alive. I made it through graduation. No tripping, thank goodness. I don't know why that's my biggest fear. Maybe because I fell off the back of the risers once at a choral concert... I'll include some graduation pics for your (and my) amusement.

Outside, walking to the Spectrum. It's tradition that the master's students walk from one side of campus to the other. Thank goodness it wasn't snowing!



Where's Waldo (Or, in this case, Bekah)?



Getting my hood. The instructions for the hood literally tell you to put it on in a certain direction and then have someone help you fix the back. Luckily the school provides people who are obviously (based on the number of layers they were wearing) qualified to help fix your hood for you.



Walking across the stage. And Mike's finger. Someday I'll edit that out. But not today. Today you get all the gory details.



Graduated =]

So, "now what" you ask? Now I'm studying for a licensure exam I'm taking soon. I'll go down to San Diego for July, to help get some of my grandpa's things taken care of. Then looking for a job, hopefully working by August. Probably in Utah, preferably in the Salt Lakish area, but I may not be too picky, considering the job market and economy. And such.

I have only two problems that I need to fix in order to be a normal person again. 1: Graduate school, and the attending projects, papers and other such fun things that I toiled over into the wee hours of the morning in order to complete graduate school, has left me with the terrible habit of staying up late. My brain can't shut down early enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I'm hoping that my time in Cali will rearrange this problem, since my family tend to be early-going-to-bedders. 2: I now have the tendency to "need" to be busy. Because my brain tells me that if I'm not doing something important, it's because I've forgotten the important things that need to be done. Then I sit and wrack my brain for the things I should be doing. This also causes a problem in the social arena. I've been generally "too busy" to do many fun things for the past two years. So, when someone mentions something it takes me forever to decide if I have time to do it. I'll have to retrain my brain to stop being so stingy with my time, I suppose.

Nothing else too exciting, friends. I finished a crafty project I've been working on. I moved, but only temporarily, until I leave for Cali in a couple of weeks. I have some time to do things like take a look at some painfully neglected genealogy, books, and projects I want to complete someday. Hopefully someday is coming soon. He seems to keep running further away from me, despite my efforts to cage him in. I finished graduate school with the relief of finding my turtle still alive. He has neither died from neglect nor committed suicide out of the sheer rage of living in a much colder climate than he would prefer. And that alone is a huge accomplishment.

By the way, thanks for everything you guys. I couldn't have gotten through the past two years without you =]

~Bekahjo

Oceans

In honor of my new-found freedom and the ability to use 2 hours or so in the manner that I so pleased, I went to go see "Oceans" this week. When I first walked into the theater it was empty, but it was early afternoon so I wasn't too surprised. Just before the trailers started a bunch of couples came in and scattered themselves around the theater, and I thought "How nice that all these couples decided to spend their date learning about the ocean!" I reveled during the previews that I wasn't the only person in the world who liked movies/documentaries like this.

Then the movie started. A small pair of feet wearing little kid pajamas scurried across a hard wood floor. Then little children were suddenly attacking Tina Fey and Steve Carell. What the...? Then I realized that I was sitting in the "Date Night" theater. I pulled my ticket out to see if I misread it. Theater 5. I'm pretty sure I'm in theater 5. I sat and pondered for a minute whether I would stay in there and just watch Date Night by default. I like Steve Carell. I haven't seen Tina Fey in many things, but she seemed entertaining. Then I went through the whole "Do I really want to sit here and watch this?" debate. And I didn't. So, looking like a fool because I, of course, sat in the front row where I could prop my feet up on that bar thing, I got up and left the theater. As I did, I checked the number of the theater. Five. My ticket again. Five. I checked that the stub didn't say Date Night. It said Oceans. Okay, so I've determined I'm not crazy. Good. I like that feeling. I went around the corner to the candy people. They were helping people, but I decided to be a little more brash than usual, and gave one of them "the mother look," as my brother's like to call it. One of them came over right away. "Umm, I'm here to watch Oceans, and my ticket says theater five but it's playing Date Night." "Oh yeah, sorry," the kid says "they changed the theater. It's in six now." Pause, in which I internally say to this kid "Did you think it might be a good idea to tell your customers this?" Instead I said "How far into the movie is it?" "Well, I think the previews probably just ended. If it's too far into the movie, we can exchange your ticket for a later showing." I decided then I didn't care, if the movie was good I'd probably buy it anyhow later on, and stopped torturing the awkward candy kid.

Still, what kind of movie theater doesn't tell you which theater to go into? Isn't the entire purpose of purchasing a ticket with the theater number on it supposed to ensure that I will, eventually, make it into the movie I paid to see?

Anyhow, when I got in there it was just a few minutes in, and they were starting with classic shots of whales breaching, so I figured I hadn't missed much. I settled down, this time higher up in the seating area so I could take in the whole picture. The only other people in the theater was this grandma and mom with her two boys. The older one was sitting up on the top row by himself, right under the projector, and the younger one kept running between sitting with his mom and sitting with his brother. It was pretty fun to hear them get grossed out by some of the stuff in the movie though. I was a little sad there weren't more people there. There was this GREAT scene in the movie though! They were showing these spider crabs off the coast of Australia, I think, and it was like a battle scene. One group of spider crabs made their way towards another large group. They began attacking each other like crazy. Then the camera panned out and there were literally THOUSANDS of these spider crabs all attacking each other. I felt like I was watching that scene in Lord of the Rings, at the Battle of Helms Deep.

Maybe this is why I'm not married. I'm too boring. I'd rather watch Oceans than Date Night. The thing is though, I think this stuff IS fun. Where are all these people that get as much enjoyment out of the same things I do? For example, right now my roommates are out in the front room watching Baby Momma. And I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Tina Fey, and there may be some point in time where I actually want to watch that movie...but I'd kind of rather read, or go on a walk, or swim, or sew or do calligraphy or go hiking or plan my future. Bah.