to: a new year, with love: amanda
Well, friends, here we are, at the end of winter vacation and already six months into my contract. What a whirlwind of emotions and experiences it has been, and still six more months to go!
This week begins a new academic school year here at Yeoju Girls’ High School. March 2nd is the first day of school, and I can only imagine that time will fly by even faster than last semester, with a full load of classes to teach, extra classes in the evenings, the weather growing more beautiful, the days becoming longer and lighter, continually finding more mountains to hike, food to eat, people to meet, language to study, nooks and crannies to explore…
Though Korea has more than a usual amount of frustrating days, with no end of cultural differences to adjust to, the frequent isolated times where it feels no meaningful connection has been made for the entirety of the day, and several sick to the senses days where any sort of normalcy is absent…. I must say that Korea has only continued to grow on me. It is a beautiful country: the landscape, the cuisine, the people. Koreans are incredibly kind-hearted people whose deeply- rooted values of hierarchical respect, filial duties and studious, hard-working mindsets continually astound me. I feel that, no matter how many words I used, I could never quite capture the level of respect and honor that has been given to me here.
As a brief editorial note, I realize I didn’t post in this blog for a little over a month, and for this I apologize, but I decided not to try and catch up on my vacation travels through Taiwan and Thailand, and instead limit this blog’s content to Korea.
So, Korea it is. I am sure I will be able to keep you entertained with material in the next six months: we have lost sixteen teachers at my school, including four of my best young female teacher friends, and gained sixteen new ones. I have been moved to a cubicle desk on my own, and no longer have Mr. Choi sitting beside me. I will no longer be teaching classes on my own, for my classroom has been taken away and I will now be co-teaching all of my classes, each of which will have 35+ students.
In another note, we have summer, hiking, a school festival, an entirely new semester, and summer camp to look forward to before this year’s adventures in Korea come to an end. So, here’s to a new year, in continual meditation on the fact that change, though sometimes painful, is the regular and necessary rhythm of life.
To a new year! Here we go.
Two of the teachers that left for different schools-- during finals week last semester when we snuck out of school to get a waffle and some coffee from Ti Amo 🙂