It’s been awhile since my last post and I have a bunch I’ve been wanting to do on teaching, but I just got back from a weekend trip to Busan, in the southern part of the country, and realized I haven’t written much on Korea itself in awhile so I figured I’d start with that.

So. Busan. It’s basically a beach resort, not entirely unlike Ocean City, Md., or some of the beach towns in New Jersey. It very clearly makes a lot of money off of tourists, particularly the Westerners who flock there for Buddha’s Birthday weekend, which is the reason I was there.

Everyone has at least one day off for Buddha’s Birthday, so most foreigners plan trips for the holiday. My original plan was to go somewhere outside of Korea for the weekend, preferably Cambodia or Taiwan. However, it turned out that Cambodia was a bit too pricey and the flight too long for such a short stay, and the other teachers and I waited too long to book flights to Taiwan. As awesome a city as I’m sure Taipei is, I wasn’t exactly in a position to drop $600 on plane tickets at the time, so it will have to wait. So we settled on Busan.

It really did remind me a lot of beach towns at home, not only because of the cluster of hotels and slightly cheesy bars lining the beach, but also because of the somewhat destitute neighborhoods found in the less touristy parts of town.

Megan, Alison and Toriann are the other girls I went with (we all teach at the same school). We stayed in a hostel, which was a first for Megan and me, and it was a really great time. Our roommates were quite entertaining and we spent our first full night in Busan sitting outside of a Family Mart (think 7-11) drinking soju and beer with them. Soju is a notorious Korean drink and it costs the equivalent of $1.50. You can imagine how high quality that is.

The couple who ran the hostel were really nice and they had the most adorable baby. As we were leaving on Sunday, it occurred to me that that didn’t seem to be a bad life. The woman was cleaning up and seeing guests off, the man was reading on the couch and the baby was just being happy and cute. It just seemed like a quiet, pleasant little scene and I kind of envied them for a minute. But anyway, that’s getting off topic.

The hostel was a little removed from the beach, so we got to know the Busan subway and bus systems very well. The subway was decent. The bus…not so much. We were on one for almost an hour before deciding to get off and switch to the subway because it was taking a ridiculous amount of time to get to the beach. But this did give us a chance to see a lot of Busan that we would have missed otherwise.

This is where the dismal side comes in. Korean cities, from what I’ve seen so far, aren’t really beautiful. Most of the buildings look the same with enormous, bright and often tacky signs splashed over them. There are some really cool buildings and neighborhoods  in Seoul, but the not-so-glamorous buildings seems to be the norm in most of the smaller towns. The countryside is incredibly beautiful, but the towns are less so. Busan was no different.

In fact, there were sections where it looked pretty sad and desolate, with shops clearly gone out of business, empty storefronts, just sort of dreary all around. Obviously that isn’t a scene that is unique to Korea by any means, but it was sadly interesting to see the contrast between the lively tourist section and the “real” areas of Busan.

One place in the city that was gorgeous was the beach. I’m used to the flat beaches of the East Coast, so this was a pleasantly new experience. There were small islands loosely shrouded in fog off the coast and gorgeous cliffs at the other end of the beach. The water was still a little chilly but Megan convinced me to dive in and it was glorious. I hadn’t actually swam in the ocean in years but it was completely perfect.

I kept telling everyone that this would be part of my dream life: swimming on a perfect, gorgeous day, beer in hand, talking with friends, thinking about good and important things. I spent quite a while just swimming and thinking and it was completely awesome and refreshing.

Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend was rainy, so that was pretty much the end of any sightseeing. On Saturday, we hung out at a restaurant called Fuzzy Navel and played cards all afternoon, which was also relaxing and a lot of fun. I have to say, though,  based on the scene in Busan, it would appear that Buddha’s Birthday Weekend is just a good excuse for foreigners to party.

The bars and restaurants were packed with other teachers, which was really fun, but it did also seem like a typical scene you would either see at home or would expect from stereotypical Westerners: loud, slightly obnoxious and for the most part, completely wasted. Not that I wasn’t partaking in plenty drinks of my own, because I was. Just making an observation about the foreign culture in general.

It was a really fun weekend and it’s always nice to see other parts of Korea. Seoul is great, but just being away and recharging is great and helps you keep perspective.

So that’s my update and my sort of excuse for not having stuck to my plan of blogging more frequently. Next up: lots more to say about teaching and kids.

Earlier today, I found out that my brother is being deployed to Afghanistan next month. This is really devastating on many levels, but that’s not something I want to go too in depth on right now, except for the way it relates to teaching. Maybe I’ll write more about him going to Afghanistan another time, but I don’t think I can at this point.

I found out at the end of the school day, but had an after-school class to teach so I didn’t really have time to think much about it. But I felt incredibly sad and found myself struggling to keep my composure several times during the after-school session. Part of this is probably because I’ve been thinking about my brother a lot lately when I’m working with some of the boys I teach.

During the past week or so, I’ve struggled a lot with my fourth period class. There are 10 children in the bunch and they’re all great, but they’re a lot to handle in a group setting. Five of them are boys and they’re all friends and don’t like the whole sitting down and doing work aspect of class. I admire their energy and their spirit but I’ve been struggling to find a way to give them their freedom and teach class without having to stop 15 times (and that number is not much of an exaggeration).

Sometimes when I’ve lost control of the class and am feeling disappointed and frustrated, I find myself just watching the kids play and laugh and talk with each other. I’ll look in their pretty, dark little eyes and see the joy and wonder there and I’m often overcome by a sense of awe. I remember how young they are and how new everything is to them and I don’t really want to interrupt what they’re doing. I just want to let them learn and explore, and to observe this wonderful scene in front of me.

During the past couple of days, I’ve started seeing the boys as my brother and his friends when they were that age. Teachers were forever sending home reports about how much they talked in class or got up out of their seat or didn’t listen to directions. I was only four years older, but I always thought they were so cute and funny. And they were. Just like my boys are.

When I started looking at them in that way, I felt a stronger affection for them and appreciated the way they were acting. I thought about all the reports that my parents used to get about my brother, and looking back, he and his friends were never doing anything wrong. They were being children and didn’t like having to sit still when they wanted to play or being reprimanded for goofing around with their friends.

My after-school class only consists of two children, a boy and a girl, and it’s a conversation/speaking fluency class. We don’t have a set curriculum and since these kids are only four years old (American years), I try to read books and do puzzles, and help them learn words just by talking to them.

The little boy, William, is always playing jokes and trying to make Alyssa, the other student, and me laugh. Again, I try to find a balance between giving him the freedom to have fun and also doing actual work in the class, but every time I looked at him today, I saw my brother.

This made it a little difficult emotionally to get through our hour-long session, but I think I managed to keep things light. Every time William tried to make a joke or veered off topic a little, I tried to be curious and encouraging. Maybe there was some part of me that wanted to give him the freedom and positive feedback my brother and his friends were often denied in school. I’m not sure. As helpful as it has been to think about my brother as a little boy when it comes to teaching, it also fills me with a deep sadness, especially when I think about him as a soldier now.

I guess this post is a bit rambly and I’m not entirely clear on the thoughts myself yet, so hopefully I’ll figure that out in the next few days or so. But I do know that there is a connection between the two and that this new way of looking at my students will absolutely inform my interactions with them from now on.

Today was my first non-Easter. The day was quiet and happy – brunch with a couple of friends followed by some spring cleaning and a nice nap. Just a pleasant, normal Sunday.

The ordinariness of the day really struck me when I thought about past Easters, especially last year’s holiday.

When I remember Easters from when I was younger, I remember them being happy events where my siblings and I would get up and open our Easter baskets, eat tons of candy and hunt for hidden eggs and eventually go to church. I always used to tell myself that I was really excited about going to church, since that was the most important part of the day.

In truth, going to Mass felt like an inconvenience. My parents always included new movies and magazines in our Easter baskets and I would have much rather spent time reading or watching a movie than having to get all dressed up and sit through a service. But it would have been a sin to say that.

I even used to tell myself that Easter was my favorite holiday. I felt obligated to say that since Easter is supposed to be more important than Christmas. Halloween and Christmas were without a doubt more exciting, for obvious reasons, but I was trying to be a good Catholic girl.

When I got older, my dedication to being Catholic intensified and I became insistent about going to Easter Mass and even to seeing the stations of the cross on Good Friday. I would reprimand my little sister if she complained about having to go to church on Easter morning, even though she was just expressing the thoughts I had kept to myself as a child.

Last Easter was probably my most devout. Ironically enough, that was two months before I accepted that there is no god and became an atheist. This was a battle that had been going on inside of me for months, although I spent most of that time trying to suppress and explain away the increasing sense of uncertainty I had about Catholicism and the existence of God.

Challenged on the subject by a friend of mine, I was trying to address real questions and criticisms of religion for the first time in my life. This became deeply personal and I was terrified. I was trying to be honest about why I was a believer but couldn’t give any real answers aside from “this is how I was raised so it’s right” and “I just know.”

For months, the doubt grew but I kept it locked up and became more religious than I had ever been before. I prayed the rosary, attended Mass regularly, joined a Bible study group and prayed over Bible quotes and reflections almost every night. By Lent, I desperately tried to tell myself that I was really at peace and trusted God’s plan for me, regardless of my personal misery at the time.

Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of good things going on around that time, too. But my spiritual life was in turmoil and I was very scared. I didn’t tell anyone what I was thinking or feeling about this. Looking back, I’m ashamed at how pious I made myself out to be to my friends and family. On some levels I really still believed but there was a serious doubt and frustration that I refused to access until later on.

I remember last year especially, I always tried to be especially reverent and “close to God” on Easter. I really willed myself to feel a deep, happy spiritual connection that deep down, I knew wasn’t there. I wasn’t connecting to anyone, it was just a story I was writing in my head. I reflected on this today and could actually feel the amount of emotional pressure I had put into the attempt to make last Easter a really important spiritual day.  Really, Easter Sunday never felt that different from any other day, but I haven’t been able to admit that until very recently.

Last Easter now seems to me like my last stand as a Catholic, and as a believer in general. I continued to go to Mass for about two months after that but eventually, it all fell apart. I never regained the ability to “feel close” to God. Going to Mass had once been a calming experience, but toward the end of last spring, I would leave feeling anxious and emotionally out of control.

I prayed to God to reach out to me, to let me know he was there, and I felt nothing. I’m sure I told myself that Jesus was with me and I’d feel God’s presence again soon, but it was over. It took a little while to admit it but somewhere along the way, I stopped believing. I knew it wasn’t real and I couldn’t find it in myself to pretend anymore.

It’s been about five weeks since I arrived in Seoul, and although there is quite a bit of adjusting that comes with moving here, there are also some pretty good perks. I spent most of yesterday indulging in a few of my favorites.

The day started with a visit to a Buddhist temple (see post below) with a few friends. It was not a religious or spiritual experience for me and it wasn’t meant to be. But after a little time spent sitting on a rather comfortable cushion on the floor in a beautiful room listening to Sanskrit chants and getting in touch with some serious thoughts that have been floating around my mind, I thought, god, I’m so comfortable right now. I could do this for hours. And I love the whole sitting on the floor situation.

This goes for everywhere that I do this. I love the informality of it, the intimacy. It just feels easier to talk to people when you’re comfortable and relaxed, and there’s something about lounging on cushions on the floor that fosters that kind of atmosphere, at least for me.

After the temple, we went to the most wonderful little tea house. It’s easy to miss because it’s tucked between two other buildings on a crowded and popular street, and there’s nothing about the exterior that suggests what’s inside. But Jamie, one of the people I was with, has been there before and knew exactly where to find it.

As soon as we walked inside, there was something about it that felt familiar to me. There was a warmth to the quiet room, which was all wood and soft earth tones and more cushions. I knew I hadn’t been anywhere like it in Korea before, but still, I felt that I kind of knew the place. And then it hit me.

The perfect little tea house reminded me of Malý Buddha, an Asian restaurant in Prague. I don’t remember really liking the food there, but it’s one of my favorite restaurants I’ve ever been to. They have delicious tea and the interior is warm and beautiful, the kind of place where you could sit for hours and get lost in your own thoughts. That’s what the tea house reminded me of.

The tea itself was incredible. We had plum and wild pear teas, which come with dried fruit at the bottom for flavor. Since none of us had eaten much, we also sampled the honey cakes, which were tiny little squares of honey and were pretty delicious. Once we finished, a waiter brought over another tea set, this one with jasmine tea. We hadn’t ordered it but when we asked, he simply said, “service” and set it down.

This is another thing to love about Korea. Lots of places bring over free drinks and things for no apparent reason. They just drop it and say “service,” which means that it’s free and pretty fantastic.

I have big plans to go back to the tea house and just sit for hours reading or writing. Everything about it was calming and inviting, and I love to find places where you can get a break from everything going on around you and just sit with the quiet.

The calm evaporated as soon as we got back onto the street, however. It’s basically in the middle of a row of shops and galleries and street vendors, and there are people and color and noises everywhere. This is also wonderful, in a completely different way.

It’s probably impossible to see everything in one day. We were there for hours and still had a long list of places we wanted to check out on a second trip.

Among those that we did get to were a vendor selling pastries that are basically deep-fried pancakes with honey inside; the Gaga art gallery, where an artist was showing his graphic design work and the owner insisted on taking a picture with us (he didn’t say why, but he apparently plans to post it on his Web site. Whatever.); a street performance of traditional Korean music and dance and a stand where an old man was selling snails and larvae. No one sampled his culinary treats, but I decided I’m going to work up the courage before the year is through.

The street is one of the most popular in Insadong, which is know for being an artsy part of town. The streets and outdoor markets here are great because there is so much happening and so much to take in: the food, the smells, the people, the stores and gorgeous handmade goods such as scarves, pillows and cushions. It’s stimulating and exciting and diverse, which is true of a lot of Seoul.

The larvae man

When we finished with Insadong, we grabbed dinner at a Korean restaurant: spicy rice, chicken and ramen. Delicious. And it’s cheap, only about $8 per person, which is perfect for people whose budgets are pretty tight because they haven’t gotten their first paychecks yet.

And then, to top off all the rest of the day’s goodness, we met up with another friend and went to Rainbow. Last week I thought Woodstock was going to be my favorite bar in Seoul. That all changed the first time I went to Rainbow.

This place is a hookah bar in Gangnam, which is 15 minutes from my apartment so already I’m loving that it’s an easy walk home. Add to that the fact that the interior is decked out in these colorful tapestries and everyone is sitting on the floor, smoking from the hookah, having a few drinks, talking and completely relaxed, and you have perfection, at least by my standards.

The hookah wasn’t working out very well for me this time because I have a little bit of a cold and can’t stop coughing as it is, so I spent more time taking in the scene than I did smoking. As I sat there, on my precious cushions on my precious heated floors in the dimly lit room, I thought, “I’m really starting to love living in Asia.”

I visited a Buddhist temple today, which is something I’ve wanted to do for awhile, and the experience was interesting and quite personal for a few reasons.

First, the visit made me realize how deeply unreligious I’ve actually become. I watched the crowd of mostly older women going through their prayer rituals and leaving candles and bottles of water as offerings and it occurred to me how foreign such things are to me.

It wasn’t long ago that I was quite religious myself. I was raised Catholic and attended Mass regularly until about the beginning of last summer. At that point, I began to seriously examine questions and anxieties I had had about religion and about God and that eventually led me to become an atheist.

This post isn’t about my journey away from the faith, so I’m not going to go into the details here, but I think it’s worth mentioning because it has a lot to do with why today was kind of a strange experience for me.

The women laid the bottles of water and candles at the Buddha’s feet, and I tried to put this scene in perspective by thinking about flowers and other offerings I used to see made to God. I watched the women perform their prayer rituals of repeatedly standing up then kneeling down and bowing their head to the ground, and thought about the hundreds of times I had knelt and bowed my head in prayer.

During those times, I always wanted so much to feel deeply connected to God and above whatever anxiety and unhappiness were causing my stress at the moment. I wanted to offer those things up to God and focused as much energy as I could on those prayers. Today I wondered if the women at the temple were having the Buddhist equivalent of such an experience. I tried to remember the deep emotions I had when I used to pray, but I couldn’t really feel them at all.

When a monk in a light gray robe entered and began the Sanskrit chants, I stared up at the three enormous statues of Buddha in the center of the room and tried to imagine what the people around me thought and felt when they looked at him. Maybe it’s like when I used to look at Jesus on the cross and believed I felt a connection with him, I thought. When I look at the cross now, I still feel some odd sense of familiarity and several other emotions but of course I don’t feel the same sense of awe and reverence I once did.  And when I looked at the Buddhas in front of me this afternoon, all I could see were painted gold statues.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about that part of the experience. Even though I’m not religious anymore, I still have strong memories and feelings about it and I’m wondering if those will surface in the next few days.

It was also kind of refreshing, though. The experience did make me think a lot about my religious history, but I also felt completely outside of it and I realized that some of the anxiety I had about not being religious was finally gone. Deep as the memories go, the idea actually seems very foreign to me when I’m witnessing a religious ceremony.

So there was that aspect of the day. Then there was the element that I really enjoyed and felt drawn to.

Before going to the temple, I had had a romantic vision of a quiet place filled with chanting and the scent of incense where I could sit and meditate and think away from the rest of the world for awhile.

The temple was not quite as peaceful as I had hoped, but I think that might have been because it’s in the middle of a very busy neighborhood and I just didn’t feel especially removed from the noises and chaos of the city. It was very beautiful, though, and once the monk began chanting, I did find that it was a bit more of what I had expected.

I sat on a cushion on the floor and closed my eyes, letting my mind wander as I listened to the monk. The sound was gorgeous and it was ideal because I didn’t know what he was saying, so it was enough to help me relax and contemplate but it wasn’t distracting.

I’ve never seriously meditated before but I’m quite interested and want to try it out now. I’ve gotten into the habit of journaling fairly frequently but I think meditation might help me out as well.

I’ve always been a little fascinated by Buddhism and I would actually like to go back to this temple or go see another, and I’ve been thinking about going on a temple-stay at some point in the next few months. Apparently you can spend an entire weekend at one and I’m really intrigued by the idea of doing it, mostly to get out of the city and go to a quiet place where I can sit and reflect and recharge.

But then I wonder if it’s wrong for me to go back to the temple and even spend a weekend at one when I’m definitely not interested in becoming Buddhist and am not religious at all. It’s something I’ll have to think about, I guess. For the time being, I’ll keep listening to these gorgeous Sanskrit chants I’ve been finding on youtube and try to recreate the experience in my apartment.

I’ve been meaning to write more frequently about teaching, but haven’t because I’ve been a little lazy on the blog posting and also because the past week and a half have been very stressful and I’ve been trying to sort my thoughts on what has been happening. It’s not that I’m not enjoying teaching, because I am very much, but things have been chaotic at school and I’m struggling quite a bit with classroom management.

The kids are great and I know it’s my responsibility to find effective ways to teach. But I’ve found myself feeling really frustrated by the number of times I have to turn off the lights to signal that it’s quiet time and then hear an even louder roar in response, or how often I find myself repeating requests for them to quiet down so I can explain a game or worksheet.

It’s not their fault and I worry a lot about venting my frustration onto them. This is my struggle and I’m here for them, so I do try to be extra careful about my tone of voice and how I interact with them when I’m trying to get some kind of order in the class. I think it will take time for us to get into a routine, but I have also been feeling extra stress because I’ve spoken with my director about managing the class and she was helpful, but I’m starting to feel more pressure to “reign them in.”

That’s also my issue, though, and I don’t want them to suffer because I’m having a hard time right now. The most important thing to me is that they feel loved and encouraged and safe when they’re in class with me, and I don’t want to subconsciously make them feel anything less than that.

However, the frustration is real. I’ve been reading the book “Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children,” and I’ve found it to be quite helpful. I strongly recommend it to anyone who works with children or has children. It’s an excellent read. I did take some comfort in the chapter in which Dr. Thomas Gordon, the author of the book, writes that it’s natural for adults to sometimes not feel accepting of a child because of his or her behaviors.

I don’t think I’ve felt that I didn’t accept any of the children but there has been an element of stress. I’ve been wanting to try out the no-lose problem solving method that’s described in the book and today I got my chance. If you’re unfamiliar with the method, this post from the P.E.T. blog gives a summary. Basically, both the adult and child in the situation work together to reach a solution to a problem that meets both of their needs, rather than one person “winning” and the other “losing,” or giving up what they want.

This was the scenario today: It was my fourth period class, not my homeroom. There are 10 kids and most of them speak English reasonably well and are considered to be some of the most advanced in their grade. It’s taken some time to get to know them but they’re a pretty solid group. As much as I love my homeroom, it is nice to spend time with the students who better understand what I’m saying and are more used to being in school because we’re able to talk and do more activities.

There are two boys in particular who are very bright and friendly. Their names are Jamie and Thomas. I really enjoy having them in class, but they’re very good friends and refuse to stop talking. Ever.

This isn’t usually a problem, except when I’m trying to go over the directions for a project or worksheet, or I’m reading a book to the class and everyone is trying to listen over the din of their voices. It’s frustrating to me and I know it’s distracting the other kids. I’m completely happy to have everyone chatting while they’re doing their work, but the constant talking is keeping me from giving attention to everyone else.

Today after class, I had them stay an extra few minutes. They protested at first and even seemed nervous. I think they thought they were going to be scolded or were getting in trouble. But I didn’t want to repeat the same thing I had been saying for two weeks: “Guys, please be quiet for just a minute so I can explain what we’re doing in class, and then you can talk all you want;” or “Jamie and Thomas, it’s hard for everyone else to hear the story when you guys keep talking.” I wanted to find a solution that worked for all three of us.

I knelt down and said, “I know you guys are friends and that you like to talk to each other a lot, and that’s totally fine. But it’s frustrating to me when I’m trying to teach or read a story and I can’t concentrate and everyone else is distracted because you guys are talking. I don’t want to separate your seats because I don’t think you want that and I don’t think we need to do that.”

They nodded and said they didn’t want to be separated but when I asked if they thought they could be a little quieter and talk less during class, they said no. I appreciated their honesty and thanked them for that. Then I said, “OK, so you guys want to sit with each other and be able to talk during class, but I want you guys to pay attention to the work we’re doing and not talk over me when we’re doing a lesson. So what can we do to fix this? What do you guys think?”

They looked at me somewhat blankly for a minute and then seemed a little suspicious. Maybe they were still waiting for me to reprimand them. But then I asked them what kinds of things they like to do in class and what kind of things they don’t like to do, and they said they like games and art projects. So we agreed that if we did more interesting things in class, they would be willing to quiet down when I’m explaining directions and talk when they’re doing their work instead.

It was a little difficult because their English is good, but there still might have been things they didn’t understand. And since this was my first real attempt at using this method, I’m sure there are a million things I could have done differently and better. (And I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this.) I’m optimistic, though, and hope that we’re able to work together and all have a better experience from this point on.

We high-fived before they left the classroom and I tried to make it clear that I wasn’t angry and that I wanted to know what would work for them. They did seem a little confused, but I’m committed to coming up with things that will be fun for them to do and I hope that will send the message that I care about their input and we can develop mutual respect.

I would love to be able to do this with all of the students, but the reality is that right now, it’s simply not possible to have full conversations with at least half of those I teach. I try to communicate with them in other ways, but I’m hoping that there’s enough common language between the more advanced students and me so that we can use this method all the time.

I started writing this post on Saturday but didn’t get to finish until now so it’s a little late but I still wanted to share.

The day I had today was a good summary of what life in Seoul has been so far: lots of Western action randomly infused with eccentric Asian moments.

Despite my best intentions, I did not make it to the St. Paddy’s Day parade in Itaewon. I overslept by five hours, which is probably because I was out in Itaewon until 4 a.m. After finally returning to the land of the living around 1 p.m., I hailed a cab to the Seoul Museum of Art, where I had plans to meet up with a friend of one of my cousins to see the Andy Warhol exhibit that’s going on right now.

The cab driver spoke no English and I spoke about three words of Korean, so that was great. He kept trying to talk to me and I kept saying “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” which made him laugh a lot. Then I tried “yes, yes…ne (Korean for yes),” because I figured that even though I didn’t know what I was actually agreeing with, he might recognize the word. That only made him laugh harder.

I finally made it to the museum and into the exhibit, which had drawn a decent-sized crowd. The broken English translations were kind of humorous: “Besides his artistic passion were busted in other fields like here, launching fashion magazine <<interview>> and etc.;” “Andy Warhol had a hobby to collect whatever and he put those exciting things in the box around his desk and called it ‘time capsule.’”

There were several self-portraits, as well as ones of Marilyn Monroe, Mick Jagger and other celebrities. Overall it was worth seeing, but I don’t think I really get the Andy Warhol thing. I can appreciate the creativity but the exhibit just didn’t do it for me. Lisa, the friend I met up with, is a huge Andy Warhol fan, so she was excited about it, although she said she thought it was much tamer than one would have been in the States.

Lisa had two friends with her and it was a pleasant surprise to recognize one of them from Mount St. Mary’s, where I went to college. There is a LOT of MSM pride and camaraderie floating around, so it was cool to see a familiar face and chat about Mount professors and stories. I swear, no matter where I go, I always find someone connected to that school. And I kind of love it.

After a dinner of dumplings that cost 2,500 won (about $2), we were going to head home. But then we discovered a Dr. Fish cafe. This is where you stick your feet into a pool and these little fish eat the bacteria and dead skin off of them. Apparently people pay $50 at home to have it done. We paid $1.50.

Fish waiting to eat the dead skin off our feet. Delicious.

Once the initial shock of having 15 fish eating at your feet wears off, it’s actually kind of fun. If you look too long, though, it does start to freak you out, at least during the first few minutes. It feels kind of like dull dog nails are scratching at you, or like you have a severe case of pins and needles.

I was skeptical at first, but the flesh-eating fish are good at what they do. My feet were a bit smoother when they came out of the water than they were when they went in. But I would never pay more than $2 for their services.

There actually isn’t that much to say about celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Seoul, except that it was kind of a bizarre experience. Last weekend, some of my co-workers and I discovered what looked like a pretty cool Irish pub not far from where we live, and we had been planning on going all out to celebrate there.

Gorgeous dog at the empty Irish bar

Well, we got to the bar and it was nice but…it was completely dead. There was no one at all on the first floor except a nervous-looking Korean host wearing a St. Patrick’s Day 2010 party t-shirt, and an enormous, beautiful, bored-looking dog who met us at the door.

The second floor was not much better. There was a table of Korean businessmen having dinner and that was about it.

We all looked at each other in slight disbelief. OK, yeah, it’s a work night and yeah, it’s Korea, but still. It was St. Patrick’s Day! The weird thing was that the bar was completely decked out for a party. All of the hosts and servers were wearing special t-shirts and there were signs and decorations everywhere.

We asked one of the servers what was up and he explained that they’re having a big party this Saturday night so it will be busy then. Apparently everyone celebrates the weekend after St. Patrick’s Day because there is also a huge parade happening Saturday in Itaewon, the neighborhood where most of the foreigners hang out.

So the Irish bar was a disappointment. We tried another American/Canadian bar and didn’t even make it up the stairs because we could see that it was empty. Fantastic.

A sad sight on St. Patrick's Day

We ended up at Woodstock, which I’ve decided is my favorite bar in Seoul so far, and it will probably stay that way. It’s small and smoky and kind of a dive,  just an overall good time.

The crowd is a good mix of Koreans and not-obnoxious foreigners. The bartenders are also pretty nice – they gave us free shots for no apparent reason and lollipops at the end of the night. OK by me.

Woodstock was kind of dead at first, too, but then several groups of foreigners in their St. Paddy’s Day get-ups rolled in.There wasn’t really any Irish music, unless you count “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” but it was still a good time.

The festive booze was a little expensive ($12 for one Guinness) so I got a shot of Jameson and then went for the cheapo beers. I thought it was a reasonable decision.

So that’s St. Patrick’s Day in Seoul. I’m thinking about going to the parade on Saturday so if I do, maybe I’ll get a better sense of the celebrations. Since it’s in Itaewon, though, I’ll probably just feel like I’m hanging out at home.

I’ve been working on a post about North Korea, which I’ve been wanting to write for the past week or so, and found myself unable to finish it every time I tried. I’d sit down to work on it, and my thoughts would go to a thousand different places. I’d feel restless and compelled to do other things, such as clean my apartment, which has always been an avoidance and procrastination tactic for me. “Oh, I can’t work until I’ve cleaned up my room/apartment/bathroom/laundry, whatever.” Then I’d be too tired to even attempt the thing I was really avoiding, and it would be put off to another day and then another.

So tonight I came home, sat down and said, “Alright, I’m still awake enough to write this. Let’s do it.” And then I remembered 10 different e-mails I wanted to reply to, and noticed all the loose change on my table that was bothering me, remembered a video I wanted to watch…same old thing.

Then I realized what was going on. This blog so far isn’t what I wanted it to be. Of course I want to write about living in Seoul and teaching my beautiful students. But it was supposed to be about more than that.

My year in Seoul is not just about traveling and teaching and meeting cool people from all over the world. It’s about self-discovery and becoming fully myself. There have been moments when I’ve wondered if there has ever been a time in the past 24 years when I really knew who I was. I made the conscious decision to really begin that journey when I made this fresh start in my life. And I wanted to write about all of that on this blog.

I’ve had massive anxiety about blogging in the past, not because I didn’t want to do it, but because I was really uncomfortable expressing my opinions. Why that was the case, I’m not entirely sure, I’m still sorting that out. There was a part of me that really wanted a place to write openly about my thoughts and feelings, but I was scared. For the past few years I hid behind the “I’m a journalist, I have to be objective” thing.

I don’t have that excuse anymore. And while I’ve been much more honest, authentic and open in my everyday interactions, I’ve still felt that I was holding back when it came to writing. Not that I haven’t been honest about my thoughts in what I’ve written so far but…I could be better.

So that’s where I’m going from here. There will still be plenty of writing about life in Seoul and my adventures as a first-time teacher, but it will be more personal and cover a lot of other topics, too.

It’s been about two and a half weeks since I arrived in South Korea and there are a few things I’ve really come to appreciate about my current home.

1. The heating system – Most buildings are equipped with ondol, a system that has been popular in Korea in one form or another since 1000 BC (according to wikipedia). Ondol is divine. Rooms are typically heated by warm water being run through the pipes beneath the floor, although I think there are other ways of achieving the same effect. Someone pointed out to me the other day that using that much water to heat the floor seems wasteful, and that may be true but…it feels like pure bliss. There’s just something incredibly soothing about walking around on nice, toasty floorboards when you’re relaxing in your apartment. Or crawling around with six-year-olds.

2. Sweets – I was warned before coming to South Korea that the country was lacking in good chocolate, a fact that has been disproved again and again (OK, on a daily basis) since I got here. The sugary options in Seoul are almost as praise-worthy as the heated floors. There are coffee shops and bakeries every few blocks and the croissants and cakes are delicious. It’s true that the chocolate doesn’t taste the same as at home (it’s a little lighter and sometimes sweeter), but I think I might like this better. There’s also a somewhat bizarre assortment of seemingly imported frozen goodies.

Izac, for example, is a supposedly European concoction made up of thin wafers, vanilla ice cream and hardened caramel. And there is a brand of chocolate bars called Ghana, which I think come from the African country but I’ve having a tough time pinning that information down. Either way, they’re pretty fantastic.

3. The subway system – OK, truth be told, I don’t really know that much about Seoul’s public transportation system. The buses could be terrible but the subway is actually a joy to ride. Well, that might be taking it a little far, but coming from Washington, D.C., ANYTHING would have been an improvement. The trains are clean, modern and have cell service and wifi connection. And they actually run. On time. Without breakdowns and track fires and delays every few hours. What a concept, right?

There is a lot more to love about Seoul, but I’ll save those for another post.

There is one huge downside to living in this city, however: the smell.

If there is one thing that could drive a person crazy here, it’s the abundance of pungent odors that assault you every 20 steps or so. I don’t know what it is – sometimes sewage, sometimes a food I couldn’t begin to name and probably wouldn’t dare try. Whatever it is, it stinks. I’ll probably get over it after a few more weeks. I’ve already accepted it as a fact of life, and it’s a small price to pay for being here. But still. The stench is pretty gross.