Day to Day

I don’t even know where to start! We have been so busy lately. Of course, it has mostly been good busy. I work 9 1/2 hour days, and I am gone for 11 hours. Seth’s schedule is a little different, but it averages out that he his gone for about the same amount of time. On most days, we have been spending time with Korean and foreign friends. Here are a few of the things we have done.

We went to downtown Daegu and had delicious Italian food with one of Seth’s co-teachers, Peter. It was a great night of relaxation and fun.

My co-teacher’s niece, Minhee and her brother, Chanhee,, took us out for Italian food and bowling. We have had lots of spaghetti and pizza because everyone knows that I love Italian food. They all want to take us to their favorite Italian restaurants J It’s great! Many of the restaurants are Western-style. The only big difference is that most of them are very small. Also, you usually call the server with a button that is at the table. After having Italian, we went bowling., the bowling alley was similar except for the fact that it wasn’t one very long wide room; the bowling alley located on three separate floors of a building.

We saw Shutter Island at the local Lotte Theater with a few other native English teachers who live near us. The theater was built like bowling alley. It is many floors high. You purchase your tickets on one floor, and then take the elevator up to the floor that your movie is playing on. They also have assigned seating J I was soooo happy to find that they have American style popcorn. I have had a very hard time finding it. Most of the most popular adult movies are in English with Korean subtitles! Yay! Twilight Saga J

We had a native English teacher over to hang out and play games.

We had a Korean friend and a Kenyan friend over to play Wii, watch a movie, and have Chinese food. We had our Kenyan friend order the Chinese for us because we had no idea what to say. The Chinese food was delicious and very authentic. I liked it a lot better than American Chinese food.

We also went to a Korean concert. Seth’s principal gave him tickets to the orchestra that was playing at the university near our apartment. It was beautiful. They played many songs that I didn’t know, but they also played some that I did know, like “My Heart Will Go On” and “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Tonight will are hosting “Taco Night” for all of native English teachers in Seongsoe (West Daegu).

Our apartment is small, but it is very cozy. We have received many compliments about it from Koreans and foreigners. All of the furniture is used. Our co-teachers got it from a previous native English teacher. We were told by a few Koreans that even though our apartment is a traditional Korean-style apartment, it has the feel of foreigners. I am curious to find out how our apartment is different from a Korean’s apartment. We haven’t been to one yet!

We just realized that after the Dell technician fixed out computer, we lost 3/4 of our files that were saved on our old hard drive. I was devastated, and I am still very upset. We had hours and hours worth of college essays, projects, resumes, job applications, financial information, lessons plans, pictures, etc. on our old hard drive. Now, we have lost most of it for good. We are going to see if there is any possible way to retrieve those files, but it is highly unlikely. I feel like a huge part of my life is missing. Despite being very angry about it, I am trying to accept that God is teaching me an important lesson from this experience. I really don’t want to learn this lesson! Before leaving for Korea, our church was going through a series on stewardship. I learned a lot about material blessings and spiritual blessings, and I believe this is a big reminder that no matter how much time I spent on those files and no matter how important they are to me, they are just files. They are not as important as building relationships. Learning lessons can be such a pain!

-Anna-Teacher :)