My work schedule has picked up a bit. I actually felt like full-time employee last week somehow. On Thursdays, I teach in Hayang, where JiMin is one of my students in a lively class of middle schoolers. I'm also giving private lessons to Mrs. Joe's daughter, Su Jung, who has taken over some of Justin's with recruiting tasks. Su Jung is my age, and while she seems to understand most everything I say, she needs to work on putting together coherent sentences that follow the correct subject-verb-object word order. Last week, I asked SuJung if she would accompany me on a makeup shopping trip. And she agreed. But when Saturday came, I found the thought of a somewhat awkward shopping trip to be less than appealing. My internal dialogue went something like this:
Me: Ugh! I don't want to go shopping tonight.
My conscience: Why not?
Me: Well, I just don't want to feel like I'm working on a Saturday night. I don't want to have to use my patient English mode all afternoon and then all night, too.
My conscience: Well, that sounds kind of selfish. You never seemed to mind that when you worked for CIEP.
Me: Well, yea, but with my job now, I have to be in that mode all day.
My conscience: Look, you can't just blow off SuJung. Do you remember how you excused yourself from hanging out with Jimin at WooBang Land a few months ago because you wanted to go to Jeju Island with your friends? And how you felt you'd let her down? You just can't be this way with people. You have to follow through.
So, I went anyway, and I was very glad I did. We shared a few laughs, made a few purchases, and she bought me dinner at a great Western restaurant. (SuJung studied cooking in college and knows what's what when it comes to finding a good restaurant. Also, it was pretty cute watching her goggle at some pretty and decadent cupcakes in a bakery window downtown. Once past the language barrier, SuJung is a great candidate to be my Korean friend.)
I tend to be skeptical when it comes to trying new products and have become pretty committed to Bare Minerals, which my friend Brittany got me hooked on a few years ago, but I quickly realized I wasn't going to have the luxury of being that picky. So I bought a few things at a Nature Republic--the only cosmetics store I've ever seen that uses a male celebrity to advertise it's products. The clerk at Nature Republic put my purchases as well as a dozen other samples (a defining quality of Korean face/body shops) into a bag with Rain's black-and-white photo. It strikes me as odd that they'd choose Rain to advertise such a feminine product. Then again, Rain's face is everywhere. The Korean superstar also advertises bakery items via Tous Les Jours, "hand phones" via SK Telecom, Lotte duty-free items, Pepsi in China, Clear shampoo in the Philippines, and various other products across Asia.
I've recently become keenly aware of time's passing. And I've realized that if there are things that I'm going to do in Korea, then now is not the time for stalling. This is exactly why I've decided to go to Seoul next weekend to see my friend Raeann from Colorado, who just arrived in Korea one week ago and based on our short conversation, is about as uncertain as I was one week in. I was going to wait for a more convenient weekend, but again, my weekends are numbered now, so what the heck! Also, I asked my boss to let me take my final vacation days at the end of my contract in March, so that I can go to Japan on my way out of Asia! I'm currently looking for a ticket to Japan on March 25 or 26th.
Mother May I finally made it into my menu of classroom games, and it's a real hit! I never realized how funny it could be to call a classmate "mother" or "father" in such a hierarchical culture, but some of my students got a real kick out of it! I overheard one winner giving another a hard time about using informal Korean because, he joked, "I am father!"
Good choice on the trip to Japan. It is so different and yet similar to Korea. Take advantage of the time you have!
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