Monday, October 11, 2010

Boxes

I can't do it. I can't reduce my life down to boxes! What will I do with all my shoes??

I've exactly about a week left in Korea...hard to believe the time has come so fast! 2 1/2 years of my life....the people, the sites, the sounds, the tastes, the boozey nights, the love....I can't pack any of that in a box.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Perhaps a change in my blog title is needed...

...as I am leaving Korea in about a month! It's very hard to believe....but I've got a ticket to China and a ticket home. I still need to sort the tickets in between that will get me from China to Thailand and then back to Korea but as soon as Air Asia gets their act together, I will do that!

Need to post a few pics from my trip to England and Ireland...will do that soon :)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Bali - Tulamben

I went to Bali back in July 2009 and got PADI certified! Here are pictures from the best dive :)




Tulamben Wreck Divers
(I'm on the far left)

Good thing nobody stepped on THIS guy...


Had to do the whole "take off the mask and blow air back into it" thing among other tests to get my certification...HATED this part!


Crazy school of fish


My friend Ben and I swimming through the ship


Look at that diver all certified and....stuff!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Seungchan's Song

(Actually written on April 28th, 2010 from my hospital bed)

“When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me,

Speaking words of wisdom, ‘Let it be.’

And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me,

Speaking words of wisdom, ‘Let it be.’ ”

It was my birthday and I couldn’t stop crying. I lay in my bed clutching my stomach crying from the pain – physical and mental. This was the third birthday I’d spent away from home. I didn’t even realize this fact until Monday at school and they’d just brought me a cake that said, “My Mother is an Alien” in Korean. It was a chocolate ice cream cake though so definitely wasn’t going to complain about a tiny little bit of writing that I didn’t understand anyway. I was just so thankful they hadn’t gotten one of those awful Tour le Jour cakes with the consistency of a cleaning sponge. And anyway…I’m an alien in this country so by that right, I might have been birthed by an alien. In a way, ones birthday is an unrecognized and indirect celebration of his or her mother’s intensive labor accomplishment. So overall, in a most obscure way, it was almost appropriate – my alien cake.

An alien…as I expressed in “Roots” not long ago, I’ve begun to feel more and more alienated as of late. Monday became the pinnacle point of this feeling - Happy Birthday to me. I’d just spent a weekend feeling incredibly ill and yet I attempted to “run myself better” (race slogan) with a half marathon on Sunday. Instead, I ran myself sicker. While the pain in my entire abdomen continued to toy with me all Monday, I wrote it off as typical digestion problems due to recent diet changes from my trip and maybe some dehydration from both that and my race. So many problems inside…I had no idea what was going on inside of me physically but I knew something wasn’t right. Emotionally, I was having so many crazy thoughts about age, life, love, relationships…

That’s why I was crying. I skyped with my mother for a bit that night but I seriously have the best mother in the world and it just made me feel more homesick and more alone to be so far away from someone so important to me. Then Dave called. He told me I was making him feel old and that I needed to stop it with all the serious talk and just relax – sound advice. He also seconded my mother’s opinion that I go to the doctor about my stomach problems so I finally agreed that it might be a good idea. It was a good talk. Still my mind was troubled with those crazy thoughts but I tried the best method of distraction that I know – music. I grabbed my iPod and fell asleep listening to the Beatles, “Let It Be” on repeat.

OOOOOOOOWWWWWW! The pain continued to worsen Tuesday. The morning wasn’t exactly normal but it wasn't as bad as the rest of the day. I even was smiling in a few of my morning classes. Without even having realized it, I’d put on my “John & Paul & Ringo & George” shirt that morning, perhaps subconsciously inspired by my previous night’s self-sedation method. My Teddy Bear class was all excited about the letters on my shirt. I explained that those are names of the men that sing the “Yellow Submarine” song that I taught them just a few weeks ago and that these men called themselves, “The Beatles.” They loved it. My Broadway-star-in-training lead the class in a rousing rendition of the chorus almost immediately.

At the end of the class, one of the students came up to me and said (and then sang), “Ingrid-Teacher – Let it be…..let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. This is Beatles song.”

I looked at him with wide-eyes and just said, “Yes, Seungchan…..yes it is. How do you know this song?”

Out of all the Beatles’ songs that a 4-year-old Korean boy would know…I thought it would have been “Hey Jude.”

“I love this song,” he said.

A few hours later, tears streamed down my face from the excruciating pain in my stomach as I rode in a taxi on the way to the hospital. Little Seungchan’s singing came to mind. I went through the other lyrics of that song in my head (see above if you are not familiar) and at what seemed to be just the right moment I looked up and saw the hospital name on the building….Saint Mary’s Catholic Hospital.

It wasn’t until much later after a shocking recap of my day learning I’d developed pylrenophitis and would have to be hospitalized that I finally realized the extreme coincidence of all this on top of so many other little similar surreal experiences that happened upon my hospital arrival. I shed many tears that day…some from pain, some from sorrow and some as a daughter calling for her mother. I telephoned her at the end of the night after and was telling her the story of all these coincidences, she said, “Honey…it’s not just coincidence.”

Words of wisdom. I love you Mama.



I was diagnosed with acute pyelonephritis. When I entered the hospital on April 27th, my infection was severe. I had a spiking fever, extreme pain and uncontrollable dehydration. A microabscess was found in my right kidney. After spending 5 days in the hospital to be treated with intravenous antibiotics, I will continue to take oral antibiotics for 3 weeks until the infection is completely gone.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Singapore...

OH YEAH! Those photos are all from July 2009 by the way...I'll add Bali in there too VERY soon! (or at least soon by my standards heehee)

Random Singapore

You can go anywhere in SE Asia and ALWAYS find SoKo English teachers! (At a Bar in Chijmes)

They don't cage their animals at the Singapore Zoo...these guys were swinging all around and above us! AWESOME!

The famous Raffles Hotel courtyard

Government building that looks like it has a spaceship on top

Ridiculously huge malls line Orchard Road

Singapore Gardens


First and Last Half Marathon...


Didn't love it. Afterthought: NEVER doing it again. To quote Laura Petry, "There isn't a bone in my body screaming, 'FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE LIE DOWN IN A HOT TUB!'"

At least I got a cool bag out of it.


Pre-race...before the horror

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Merlion....

The Merlion is sort of a Singapore mascot...with the head of a lion and the body of a fish.

Takin' a drink of Merlion spit...July 2009

Updating....


Thought I'd just try posting one picture at a time of some past adventures since I suck at doing it all at once....
Singapore skyline - July 2009 (yeah I know....I have an amazing ability to procrastinate)

Expiration Date....

October 18th - my last day of teaching. What am I gonna do? Uhhhhh.....yeah that's a good question! Any ideas???

Monday, April 12, 2010

Roots

I cried. I couldn't help it. This was the second time she'd tried and failed miserably. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing she could do. We can't communicate....it seems like it's always this way now.

In two days, I'll celebrate my two-year anniversary of being in Korea. Two years. TWO FRIGGIN' YEARS.

I don't even understand how that happened.

The first 9 months of being here, I snubbed my nose at all the people that had stayed in this country longer than a year. This is just a continuation of college....minus the classes. GOD, I can just feel myself getting dumber. Then I became one of them. Now I watch all the newbies widen their eyes every time I tell them that I've been here, "almost two years."

Two days before I mark this milestone and set off on another SE Asian adventure, I thought I'd celebrate with a trip to the salon for highlights and a trim. I usually revel in these sorts of things. Several friends of mine had recommended this salon. I was impressed with the set-up. After being ushered around and generally consulted about my wants and needs, two different people came and asked me about my color more specifically. They smiled and repeated the exact words I said with the usual Korean mistakes. It seemed promising. I foresaw myself spinning out of that chair with shiny golden locks that you only see on shampoo commercials.

After two ladies meticulously colored my hair and set it for ages in a conditioning "treatment," I was ready for the results. When the towel came off, my heart dropped. ROOTS....dark, dingy roots accompanied by god-awful streaks of orange and white. I explained myself once again to one of the girls. She apologized profusely and proceeded to re-color my hair, in particular - the roots. I watched her a bit more this time....and could tell it was going to be a hopeless cause. She was nervous. I don't think she actually knew what "root" meant or how to color it. I was probably the first white person she'd ever worked on.

After time number two came out just as disastrous, I couldn't help myself. I started to cry. I cried because I'm different and no matter how much they try to smile and make me feel welcome, I'm still a foreigner with a different physique that they just don't understand. I cried because I felt so helpless knowing that yelling, kicking and screaming would make no difference. They still wouldn't understand me.

I cried because of my roots. My dear roots that Asia just can't cover.

I'd give anything in the world to get in the Chrysler and drive down the road about 15 minutes to that little town with about 4 traffics lights called Maiden, North Carolina. I'd pull up in front of Backstreet Hair Company, forgetting to lock the doors and probably shouting, "Hey ya'll!" to an old familiar face or two. I'd walk in, plop down in the chair giving Teresa a vague idea of what to do and she'd start filling me in on all the latest gossip around town.

Two hours later, I'd spin out of the chair with shiny golden locks and absolutely no roots because you see, when you're home, you don't notice your roots.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Singapore - A Fine City!

Beautiful, clean city. Too friggin' hot, even for a southern gal and WAY too many rules for a rebel. Fine...fine....fine and I mean that in the legal sense. Basically don't do drugs here....or smoke in public....or litter.....or spit. Oh yeah and don't forget to flush the toilet, that'll be like 500 Singapore dollars. Don't pick the flowers. Don't urinate on the elevator/lift (actually that's not a bad one but why would that even need to be in the lawbooks???) And don't chew gum or feed the poor helpless dirty pigeons. All of the above will cost you.

Honestly though, I had an amazing time. Ben and Tina showed me the "finer" side of the city and it was so nice, I forgot all about the ridiculous humidity, the silly rules and....what was that again? :)


Long time, no post...

I realized when even my mother had the time to check this thing out that it's high-time I did an update.....Need to add Singapore and Bali next I think....yeah? Alright, alright. On it.