I Could Really Stand to... Cheer Up!

Hello, everyone!

Let me just say... Holy Hell. This week was one for the books as far as exhausting all my emotional wherewithal. 

Random things first:

Sunset over Seoul. Man am I going to miss this... 

On Tuesday night I finished marathoning Orange Is the New Black so that was emotional.

Then Itunes managed to delete all my notes beyond recovery, and wiped my library from my phone and my computer.

Cannot play songs. 

So Wednesday when I got to school I was a wreck. 

Managed to fix that by pulling a library from last month. Unfortunately I am missing songs from albums that I packed away already, so I can't put those all back on yet. Alas. 

Also Wednesday a fucking bird managed to find a way into my classroom.

Like... How. 

 So I ran to the subject room and enlisted the help of another teacher to go in and open all the windows. This warning from the principal just in: Stop using the AC. Open the Windows.

The windows have no screens, and this bird got in while I had all the windows closed. I shudder to think how it will go with the windows all open all the time.

We also got informed that we couldn't order anything online for camp, which has since been resolved, but overall Wednesday was a shit day. Friday I left school early and went to Costso to look for things for camp and turns out it was a fruitless search since we can't buy things from there. Shit shit shit. At least we can order things online now...


Thursday the young teachers took me out to dinner for the last day of school. It was lovely. I was very sad because I love them all so much.

Now the main part of the week:

I had to say goodbye to my students this week, and it went about as well as expected. I cried a lot.


My last class surprised me with a box of random gifts, mostly things so that  would remember Korea.

Like seaweed.

When they walked in with the box I burst into tears.

Me, crying uncontrollably at the sweetness of my babies

Me, unable to get my shit together

This is them at the end of class. 5-1, the sweetest angel babies.

Hahaha

I also made the English leaders and the ones who gave me big presents redo it so I could have an appropriate reaction.

Wow! SO SHOCKED.

OMG!

The last class. Definitely the hardest to say goodbye to. 

 Here are my pics with my other classes:

6-2. The girls cried a lot in this class. They're a tough class but they kept getting better and better as the year went on.

They're supposed to be making hearts.

 6-3. They told me to come teach them in middle school when I come back, and gave me directions just like our lesson. "The Sinsa Middle school is IN FRONT OF the Nammyeong School." Also they thought I was 40.

God dammit. I'm tearing up looking at them. 

 In 6-1 one of the students has an aid so So Jung got in too!

In the front is my boy who lived in America for 3 years

The girls cried a lot too. I cried a lot. 

5-2. The first class I had to say goodbye to this week. They fucking love pictures.

Try to find me I blend in.

 Dear god this isn't any easier today.

5-3. They always finished all the activities like 10 minutes before everyone else because they were really quiet.

What is this

What are you looking at?

 Seunghee took pics with my 3rd and 4th grade classes, but she hasn't sent them yet haha. Also my poor heart broke so much with 5th and 6th grade. I had them for 2 full years, and I met them often. My school is small, so I met my 6th graders all 3 times they had English in a week. I met 5th grade 2 times of 3.

I met my current 6th graders twice in 4th and 5th grade, and 3 times a week in 6th grade, so I'm really close with them. I know all their names and a lot about them, so my god does it hurt to leave them. I really, really love them a lot. I watched them grow up a lot in these 2 years...


Anyway, here are some of the gifts I got.

On the day my Itunes broke, one boy brought me a massager.

I know it looks weird. But he spent his allowance on it and it feels great on my shoulders after a long day on my computer, so I cried a lot when he gave it to me. I was pretty emotional that day. 

It's also to tighten your skin...?

A boy in 5-1 gave me a book on Korean culture so I would't forget Korea.

It's really pretty!

 Some of my students visited me individually to give me things.

My 4th grade girls

5th graders

 So Jung also organized for all the 4th-6th grade students to write me letters and somehow I didn't notice, so now she's binding them up for me together. I don't deserve her.


On Friday we had a staff meeting and I had to say goodbye to the teachers too.

I wrote some notes in Korean and everyone was really surprised. Tina helped me sound better than I actually am.

 I told all my students and the staff the same thing: "Please love the new teacher. But don't love them more than me." Cue laughter. Actually a lot of the teachers laughed really, really hard at that one.

 Then they presented me with a small gift.

The 6-2 head teacher doesn't really speak English but he threw in a "thank you" and "be happy" after saying them in Korean. 

After, a lot of the old teachers came up to say goodbye and I cried a lot again. Like the one teacher who teaches us the drums came up and (she had said this to me before but reiterated to the other teachers) "She's learning the samullori drums and she's really good. But she only learned 2 of the 4! How can she leave?"

And one of the subject teachers told me it was so nice that I could speak Korean and she'd never met a native teacher who spoke Korean before.

And one told me "I will miss your bright smile."

And "I've met many native teachers and you are the best."


I legitimately had to stop writing for a second because I'm crying again.


After I collected myself, I went outside. All the teachers were going out to lunch with their grade levels for the last day, so I went to meet the 6th grade teachers.


But...

I found all 9 of the young teachers waiting for me.

Not pictured: Jin Sang the male teacher who is also one of the youngins 

They gave me a box. Seunghee announced, "We know purple is your favorite color and that you wear a lot of accessories, so we got you this."


It's a traditional Korean jewelry box.

So pretty!

How it's made.

I've always seen the boxes but never bought one for myself. Now I have the most beautiful one ever and I will never, ever forget the people who gave it to me.

Especially these lovely ladies. 

I may not know all their favorite colors or what they wanted to be when they were kids, or anything like that. It was hard to communicate sometimes in English and Korean. But these are some of the best friends I have ever had, and they are seriously such a wonderful group of people. I've never met a more beautiful group of young women in my life... Each one of you is a star. I don't know enough ways in English, Italian, Korean, or any other known language to tell you how much admiration and adoration I have for each one of you. I love you all so much!

This group of people made my time in Korea interesting to say the least. 

Nammyeong Elementary School... I'll never forget you~

It's been very hot here recently, so on Saturday we met up with Lauren and Gahyeon for some margaritas at Gusto Taco, since we gotta frequent our faves while we can. 

Sunday brought us to dance class where we did Twice's "Cheer Up!" again. 

It was really fun! And I needed to Cheer Up!

Featuring Tina singing the whole god damn song. 

Lol we learned more this time! And the studio has been using the Facebook Live function a lot, so you can see that being filmed too. 

It's impossible to be sad during that song~ Even watching it now cheered me up from the sadness of reliving my goodbyes. 

Only English camp left. Then it's all last minute travels and things and packing up my life. 

This week felt like I'm making the wrong choice to go home. I hate goodbyes. 

Trying to channel GRAY this week:

"Quit doing useless things

Go ahead and do it

Just go ahead and do it

If you worry too much about everything, even things that should work out don't

So just go ahead and do it

...

It's not something that'll work out as planned anyways 

So let's have fun enjoying it

Just go ahead and do it"

Just gonna go ahead and do camp and the other things this week.


I started watching this show called "Crime Scene" at the recommendation of So Jung, who has never steered me wrong.

It's a variety show, so famous people are the main cast. Hani from EXID and Hong Jinho (a professional gamer) are among them, and the other people are pretty famous too (Park Jiyoon, Jang Jin, Jang Dongmin) and there is also a guest. Each week they are given a scenario and role cards, and one of the members is the detective. They have an elaborate set and lots of clues, and they all have to figure out who is the criminal. If they guess right, those who voted for the criminal get money. If they are wrong, the criminal gets money.

They mostly stay in character but it's a variety show so they're also always dicks to each other in really funny ways. And they have really funny references like a reporter from Bispatch (Dispatch is a famous trashy tabloid in Korea that gets scoops on idols) or having things like the Up & Down hotel (EXID's breakout was from a fancam of Hani performing their song Up & Down) and things like that.

It's amazing!

Anyway back to work tomorrow. 

This week should be less sad, and I'm sure camp with remind me why I want to go home. Here's to hoping this week has less tears and more smiles than last week~