Part 1 Complete

I've been in a really thankful mood lately. This is mostly a good thing except for the times when the euphoria stemming from my thankfulness leads me to get caught up in happiness for the happiness' sake, thereby leaving God out of the picture, I realized as I walked through the forest to church this morning.

I've really been blessed in many different areas through my job teaching SAT in Korea, despite the difficulties it may present at times. I'm fairly certain that this appreciation of my circumstances would not be possible had I not crossed the bridge from "bemused tourist" to "settled foreigner" a few weeks ago, when I no longer found Korean culture as alien and enigmatic as I did when I first arrived. As a settled foreigner, I've come to the stage where I have a solid network and schedule and have actually arrived at a point where I enjoy and appreciate certain aspects of Korea. So while I'm still annoyed at the fact that most bathrooms here do not have paper towels or any other materials for drying one's hands, I can accept it because of the positive aspects of life here, such as the bargain rates for drugs (prescription of course) and the governmental "tax" on trash which seems to reduce waste. I just can't figure out why foods such as crackers and cookies are individually wrapped more frequently here than in the U.S.

Teaching in Korea this summer has also allowed me a number of opportunities I wouldn't have had elsewhere. When I stop to think about it, I almost feel like I'm getting paid to blog and hang out with friends, a surprising number of whom ended up in Korea this summer. At times, I find it hard to believe that I'm able to subsist here for the summer and that I'll be able to return home with some money saved. Teaching SAT Writing and training students how to write essays reinforces the basic tools of writing to me, and teaching Novel Reading classes gives me an excuse to read all of the classic novels I've always wanted to but never had the chance to do, all while studying the content, form, and style of these works in order to strengthen my own writing. I do all this while absorbing Korean culture and picking up some Korean (the equivalent of First Week of Beginning Korean, but Korean nonetheless). At no other time or place can I imagine such a serendipitous confluence of factors, and for that I have no choice but to be thankful.

The first session of SAT classes ended on Friday, launching me towards my current state of contentedness. It was sad to see many of the students leave for the last time, particularly my 2nd morning class, which was the best class I've had so far. Not only was this class actually interested in the SAT material and in scoring well on the test, it was comprised of many varied personalities. To overgeneralize somewhat, the class was made of a few hyper/easily amused girls, some intelligent but reserved girls, a class clown, and an inappropriate video gamer with a penchant for humorously misanthropic remarks. Teaching really is about the interaction a teacher has with his or her students, and this class made it easy to enjoy teaching.

Either there's some sort of Pan's Labyrinth thing going on or it's the invention of a new Asian Pose

I had been collecting 1,000 won from students everytime they didn't do their homework, and used the money to buy food for them on Friday. The morning classes had been somewhat diligent and only had enough money for pizza. The afternoon class, however, had amassed a collection of 25,000 won among 5 students and were able to get a meal of dumplings, jajangmyeon (black bean sauced noodles), jampong (noodles in seafood/kimchi soup), and tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork).

Another type of part 1 is coming to a close, as Janice leaves this week for Hawai'i then Japan, and as this weekend will be Jihoon's last free weekend. It's been fun, guys.

Now I face a dilemma- to add or not to add the students who friended me on facebook?