Bits and Pieces

I have not written for a while… well, no, that’s not quite true. I have written a lot, I just haven’t finished anything - story of my life. Apparently my first report card said something to the effect of: Melina does a wonderful job on everything we do in class… she just never finishes anything. (Interestingly enough, my mother’s first report card said something quite similar.)

So I have a few blog ideas that I have started writing (not going to tell you what they are – spoilers) and hopefully those will get finished in the nearish future. Until then, here are some bits and pieces, some of which were originally supposed to be entire blogs, and others of which are random scribblings from blank pages in my planner. It’s a lot. I won’t be hurt if you don’t read it all… Well, actually I might be, so just don’t tell me.

Children’s Camp: July 31^st – August 1^st I went with a group from

my church to a retreat site where we held a weekend camp for the children that are part of my church’s English ministry. I had NO idea what I was getting into… The Children’s pastor had decided to do an abbreviated VBS and I was in charge of leading three of the crafts. Sounds easy enough. The problem – basic craft supplies that are readily available in the US are unheard of in Korea… alternate craft supplies that I thought might be easier to find are ALSO unavailable in Korea – something I found out AFTER getting to the retreat site. So my dear friend Stephanie (who unwittingly got placed in charge of the entire VBS) and I spent hours reworking the crafts, figuring out each just in time for me to present it to 75 elementary students. It was crazy. It was stressful. BUT, it was wonderful. Because really, WHO CARES ABOUT THE CRAFTS??? The kids had a blast coloring, taping, gluing…trying, failing, moving on. I learned so much that weekend. It’s not about me – I don’t have to be in control (reality check – I never really am) because God’s got it covered. I need to chill and not worry. It’s gonna be alright. I also got to meet some really great kids and watch them learn about and praise God. Beautiful.

Random Scribblings:

I bought new shoes the other day that I thought would be very practical. As it turns out they were neither comfortable, nor easy to walk in. So much for practical! I’m wearing them again today though – I refuse to let them be a waste of money! (You should be happy to know, after that day I kept wearing them and now find them quite comfortable and practical. In fact, I’m wearing them right now. Haha! I win!)

I grabbed my book, stuffed it in my purse, and headed down to the river. As I walked I was looking at the tall grasses along the bank. Suddenly, I saw coming toward me, an older man dressed in hot pink, riding a unicycle, and holding a bright green umbrella over his head (it was neither raining, nor particularly sunny). I laughed and he laughed back, then he was gone – another day in Korea… A little further on I saw a little girl learning to ride her bike. Her dad had one hand on the handles and the other on her back. They were approaching a drop in the path and I could see the girl’s fear mounting as they got closer. When they reached the crest her dad stopped the bike to reassure her and she immediately took the opportunity to jump off the bike. Nothing in the world was going to convince her that this was safe. I didn’t need to understand a single word to know exactly what she was saying. She reminded me a lot of myself. If I am not in control, I won’t do it. Trust is not something I’m very good at. (This happened not long before the Children’s Camp… Think God’s trying to teach me something?)

I was supposed to meet a friend in Insadong today. She got lost, so I’m here alone. I don’t mind really. It’s a good opportunity to explore things and areas I might not otherwise see. I’ve wandered into a traditional tea shop where all the tables seat a minimum of four. But there are only a few other people here, so I don’t feel bad taking up an entire table. I ordered iced Jujubee tea and have found that I don’t like it. Maybe by the time I get to the bottom of this large mug I will have developed a taste for it. Just before I came in here I was stopped by a group of High School girls who wanted to interview me for a class. They asked my name, where I was from, and why I was at Insadong. Then they took a picture with me. They said it was for geography – I wonder what the assignment was exactly… Oh, and I finished my tea – I wouldn’t order it again, but the last sip wasn’t as vile as the first… (By the time I left, the place had gotten much busier and I was starting to feel awkward at my large empty table.)

Reflection: This term is almost over and I will soon have new classes and new students. There are some I am sad to say goodbye to, but one class in particular that I cannot wait to be rid of: my Mon/Wed Mega class (I know that means nothing to you, but whatever). They are horrible. Give me a headache and make me wanna cry kind of horrible. It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, NOTHING works with this class. This evening I was reading my Bible and a passage from Zechariah 11:7-9 really stood out to me. The prophet says, “I took two staffs and called one Favor and the other Union, and I pastured the flock… The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them and said, ‘I will not be your shepherd. Let the dying die, and the perishing perish. Let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.’” Tomorrow’s my last day with those kids. I kinda want to quote this verse to them! Haha. But really, what a great example to me of God’s frustration with us. He tries to lead us with Favor and Union, but we detest him, so he says ‘fine, have it your way.’ Good thing he’s more patient with us than I am with my class!

Ok, that's enough for now.

Later!

The Nice Girl's Dilemma

*Note, this post has nothing to do with Korea, but everything to do with my life.*

I consider myself amongst the ranks of the “nice girls”. We try to show kindness to others, we want them to feel welcome and happy, we say friendly things, and when we think mean things, we (usually) keep them to ourselves. We’re not perfect, we’re just pretty nice.

Well, we nice girls have a dilemma. If you are one of these nice girls then you probably already know what’s coming next because it’s happened to you at least once, likely more. You see, as mentioned above, we like people to feel welcome, so we talk to the outsiders and the shy people, the ones who don’t have many friends or aren’t sure where they fit in. At a social gathering, we’re the ones who go talk to the person who’s sitting alone. It’s part of who we are – we’re being nice. Most of the time this works out well… when it’s aimed at another girl… However, when we’re nice to boys, well, that’s where we get into trouble.

We like to be nice to everyone – that is, after all, what makes us nice girls – and so we’re nice to lonely boys too. Unfortunately, sometimes they misread our niceness as interest, or they become infatuated with us because, well, no one else talks to them. They make advances and we try to tell them we’re not interested (in a nice way, of course). This usually doesn’t work so we have to take more drastic measures… and we end up feeling not so nice. In the end, we back off and leave them lonely again… just waiting for the next nice girl. (We could also call this the lonely boy paradox)

So what is a nice girl to do? After a situation like this we still see lonely boys and want to be nice, but we’re scared to talk to them. We know that if we don’t talk to them, it is likely that no one will. We are torn between going against our nature and putting ourselves in a potentially… awkward situation. This is our dilemma. What do we end up doing? Take a guess – we ARE nice girls after all.

*Sigh*

Leonard and Lucy - Forgetful

Do you remember the movie Memento? Leonard can’t make new memories so he relies on Polaroid pictures and tattoos all over his body to help him keep track of people and clues to solving his wife’s murder. Or how about, on the lighter side, 50 First Dates where Lucy falls for Harry over and over, but forgets him each day. Committed to pursuing her, he reminds her repeatedly of their love and works with her dad and brother to help give her a normal life.

In some ways I’m an awful lot like poor Leonard and Lucy – God shows his faithfulness to me again and again, but I can’t seem to remember it for very long. Each time something in my life does not go as planned (and let’s face it, that’s pretty darn often) my first instinct is to panic and cry, “God! Why aren’t you taking care of me?!” I yell at him for a while and tell him how disappointed I am. Eventually I calm down, but I let him know that this is still a problem and he needs to fix it… and you know what – he does. Then my prayers switch to, “God! You’re so good! How could I have doubted you? Never again!”… until the next time something goes wrong…

Is there something wrong with my head?! Why is it that when things don’t go my way I automatically doubt God’s faithfulness? It’s embarrassing! Unlike Leonard and Lucy, I don’t have some traumatic experience to explain my poor memory – just the opposite – I have every reason to remember. And like Harry, in 50 First Dates, God keeps showing me how much he loves me even though I forget him and question his goodness. Wow. If someone treated me the way I treat God, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t still be sticking around. But thankfully, he’s God and I am not! *Whew*

In my life right now I can think of several situations that are not playing out the way I anticipated. Some of them are being resolved before my eyes, but with others I’m still waiting. So rather than fall back into my bad habit, I am reminding myself of God’s faithfulness. I may not see how this could possibly resolve, but I do know he’s always taken care of me in the past so I have every reason to believe that he will do it again. I may be forgetful, but he certainly is not.

4th of July (I'm American, no matter where I live)

For the 4^th of July weekend June, Natalie, and I decided to go to the beach at Gangneun. June went early to meet a friend, but for Natalie and myself, like the trip to the Butterfly festival, this required getting tickets for the last bus out at 10:30 and a mad dash after work Friday to get to the bus station in time. The three hour bus ride was not bad and they even showed the Brazil vs. Netherlands game. Once there, we walked down the strip of restaurants and motels along the beach until we came to the Star Beach Motel, decided that was a good name, and went in to find it decently priced. (I stole some of Natalie's pic's so hers are marked with an *)

*

We settled in, then went for a 2am snack before going to bed (the snack consisted of “point and order” food at a local café/bar… always an adventure).

*

View from our motel window.

Saturday was rainy… all day. We went to a BBQ hosted by some other Americans in the area and most people joined teams to play dodge ball (I happily sat that one out). It was fun meeting some other people (Kim!) and enjoying the beach. By late afternoon we were drenched so we went back to the hotel to dry off and change before enjoying a wonderful crab and assorted seafood dinner.

* The raw squid (right) was pretty good, but that red and orange stuff - NASTY.*

*Shrimp and Snails - both pretty good.*

*Our crab we picked from the tank. Sorry Mr. Crab!*

*

*Mmmm, fish head soup.*

*Kim and June*

*Natalie and Me*

Sunday started a little overcast, but the clouds burned off and it turned into a beautiful sunshiny day. Natalie had to leave early, but June and I spent the day walking the beach, sunbathing, and getting hit on by strange men – June by an older Korean man and me by a South Asian man with a thick accent.

Man: Hello. Where are you from? Me: Umm, (looking to June for help, but getting nothing) Seoul. Man: Where are you from? Me: (realizing June has moved behind me) um, USA… Man: Are you from Transylvania? (ok, so he probably didn’t actually say ‘Transylvania’ but that’s what it sounded like) Me: It was nice to meet you (walk away). Thanks a lot June!

June and my feet - can you guess whose are whose?

Star spangled me.

All in all, it was a good weekend with good friends both old and new. Happy Independence Day all!

They call me "Melina Teacher"

“Teacher, what’s your name?” If one of my students had asked that question today I would not have been surprised, after all, this is only week 2 of our term. However, a girl asked me that a couple weeks ago… in week 13 of last term. Back in the States, students referred to me as ‘Miss Lawson’. Here, I am officially ‘Melina Teacher’, however some call me ‘Melina’ and one calls me ‘Melly Jelly’, but to most I am simply ‘Teacher’. And so it came to pass that after 13 weeks in which I memorized approximately 70 names, this darling girl still didn’t know the name of her teacher. *Sigh*

I'm bringing this one home with me in my suitcase.

This job has its ups and downs like any job, but I do love my students (even the ones who forget my name). Sometimes they drive me crazy, but they also make me laugh a lot and I enjoy working with them.

Would you just look at those hard workers?

Here are some things I think are funny: Whenever a student asks where I’m from and respond, “America,” they seem surprised. I’m not quite sure what they were expecting me to say… They love to abbreviate words, but it doesn’t always turn out quite right – It took me forever to figure out that “Aypuh” is short for “A+”, and I cringe whenever they call the “Thinking Project” “Think Puh” (Half the time it sounds like they’re saying “Think Poo”) I get asked almost weekly if I’m married or have a boyfriend (they obviously don’t listen to the answer to someone else’s question) and when I answer “no” I am repeatedly told to “Marry a Korean and stay forever” – I guess that means they like me?

Good team work.

Working at an academy can be difficult for several reasons, one of them being that a lot of what I do is teaching test taking skills rather than English, but it can also be very rewarding. I love letting them be creative during story prediction and the Thinking Project. Some of them give very normal answers, but others get really excited when they realize there’s no wrong answer and they can say whatever they want.

Got to love his octopus flying machine.

I also love watching students who have to repeat a level start to take leadership as they now find themselves a little ahead of most of the other students. They are familiar with classroom protocol and the methods used in class so they feel more confident volunteering answers.

The first picture was all straight-faced, so I told them I'd give them F's if they didn't smile... don't they look happy? ;)

Presenting their "flying machine" sandals.

I had to be quick to get even this good of a shot of his face! It might be the only photo of him in existence!

One of my favorite things is getting the quiet students to talk. I had a boy last term named Jetal. He was the kind of kid that, as one teacher said, when you asked him what he did last weekend you expected him to say, “Teacher, I killed someone.” He was very quiet, frowny, and just seemed generally unhappy and unengaged. So, in week 1 I decided that my goal for each class with him was to get him to laugh. I spent the next 12 weeks trying different tactics. At first, I counted it a victory when I caught a grin involuntarily flit across his face, but by the end of the term he was actually laughing and joking with me and other students. Success.

Birthday

I’m a 5 kind of girl. I’m 5 feet tall and was born on 5/15/85. This year I turned 25 and here are the 5 things I did on my birthday weekend:

1. Saturday began with brunch at Butterfinger Pancakes. I was joined by Muang, Lizze, June, and Natalie, making it a party of 5. I had delicious pancakes, French toast, eggs, potatoes, hash browns, bacon, and sausage and washed it all down with a banana milkshake. ^_^ They had to roll me out of the place, but it was worth it.

June, Me, and Muang.

Lizze and Natalie

2. Next, Muang, Lizze, and I met up with Pajai and went to the Seoul Museum of Art for the August Rodin exhibit where we saw 113 of his sculptures, including The Hand of God, The Thinker, and The Kiss. It was amazing. Lizze and I had fun making up our own interpretations of the works as well as listening to the audio guide.

(This is obviously NOT Rodin, but while pictures weren't aloud inside, there were some fun things outside.)

3. Getting home from the museum was an adventure in and of itself complete with getting separated, wrong turns, and dying cell phones. Once back in Bundang Muang and one of her friends, Lizze, and I watched movies until about 3am.

4. Sunday I went with Muang, Virginia, and a few of their friends to the Lantern Festival in celebration of Buddha’s birthday. There were booths for face painting, crafts, and to show how Buddhism looks in different Asian countries. I enjoyed seeing variations in culture and how each people group has taken the same ideas and made them distinctly their own, but despite the festive atmosphere I found myself saddened as I looked around and saw crowds of people embracing a false hope. I know for many the festival was about as ‘religious’ as Santa is on Christmas, but for many others, Buddhism is a stumbling block keeping them caught in a life of trying to earn what has been freely given.

Muang getting in touch with her roots.

At the Cambodia booth (In honor of Sudea).

These boys sang and danced then tumbled off the stage waving and smiling for all the cameras.

5. In the evening Muang and I met up with Lizze and Steven to watch the Lantern Parade (technically this is part of the festival, but I’m counting it as a separate event because it was so different from the rest of the day and because it just wouldn’t be as cool if I only had 4 events). The parade was beautiful and though the crowd was enormous, I think there were even more participants than spectators. I took lots of pictures, but most didn’t turn out very well. Though I love my little camera, night shots of moving objects are not her specialty. I also took a few videos which turned out better. At one point, a man from the parade came over and handed me his large yellow lantern illumined by a small candle. Birthday present?

All in all it was a great weekend with great friends, and, as Steven would say, it was “5-tastic”!

Pictures:http://www.flickr.com/photos/scribbledjourneys/

Videos:http://www.youtube.com/user/scribbledjourneys

Butterflies and Paper

When I got back from the Butterfly Festival I had every intention of blogging about it right away. I had a good start since I had scribbled down several details of the weekend while I was still down there and the day after I got home I faithfully uploaded all of my pictures … but that’s where it stopped. *Sigh* I am a procrastinator to the core – even with things I want to do! So, without even further ado, here’s what I did 2 weeks ago:

Friday April 30^th I packed my bag in the morning and took it to work with me. I was logged out of the system and my computer was turned off at 9:55. I had my last class lined up and ready to walk out the door the moment the bell rang. As soon as they left I grabbed my stuff and raced down to the taxi that my friend June had waiting. Why? I get off of work at 10pm and we had to get to the bus station for our bus leaving at 10:30. We made it in perfect time and soon we were loaded on along with June’s friend (my soon to be friend), Natalie.

We arrived in Gwangju at 1:30am and after a little searching found a decently priced “love motel” with a bed just big enough for the three of us to squeeze into providing no one moved too much. We were all pretty hungry so we ventured out and soon found a happening sushi restaurant. Nothing like a little raw fish at 3am!

Saturday we slept in and caught a 2pm bus to Hampyeong, the home of the world’s only butterfly festival. The bus was, of course, oversold so Natalie and I sat on the floor of the aisle and I thanked the Lord I was wearing leggings under my dress! We got there around 3 and across the street from the Expo Park there were several vendors where we left our heavy overnight bags with a nice man selling silkworm larva, snails, and corn on a stick. On our way in I had two Jehovah’s Witness ladies try to convert me while Natalie and June were taking pictures with the Bull. Then there was a booth where some police officers asked us to sign something saying we wouldn’t drink and drive. We tried to explain that we came by bus, but it wasn’t worth it, so we just signed.

This big guy is right outside the Butterfly Expo Park. Why? I have no idea, but pictures were required.

I think this might be my favorite from the whole weekend!

Butterfly Festival - Every little girl's dream come true.

These boys were fishing... yes, fishing. They waded around and caught them with their chubby little hands and dropped them in jars of murky water. Yum?

You might not be able to tell, but this is painted on cardboard.

We finally made it into the park and had a fun afternoon of face paint, strange statues, interesting exhibits, a cute gift shop, and … NO BUTTERFLIES!!! The sun was going down and we were leaving a little disappointed when we ran into some foreigners we had met on the bus who pointed us in the right direction. When we got there the butterflies were all sleeping on the flowers, but we figured we had better see them. Unfortunately, we got there about closing time and were shooed out. We took pictures as quickly as we could joking that we would just snap pictures of everything and look at it later.

Aren't we sweet?

We then caught the 8:10 bus up to Jeonju where we stayed the night at a wonderful “love motel” with two, count them – two beds! Sunday we slept in again then had lunch at the Hanok Village where we discovered there was a Hanji (traditional Korean paper) festival. (If you aren’t aware of this yet, Korea is ALL about festivals) Jeondong Catholic Cathedral was nearby and had some booths up to participate in the festival. We bought some crafts from a Nun to support earthquake victims in Chile and she kindly let us leave our bags at her booth.

The inscription on the book says that this is a holy place because it is where the first Korean Christians were martyred in 1791.

This was not at the church, but was nearby.

A paper festival may not sound very interesting, but really was amazing. There was jewelry made with paper, a parade of clothes made from paper, even usable furniture made from paper! And of course there was lots of just plain paper.

We ended the day with some delicious bibimbap and caught a late bus home. When I crawled into my own bed at 3am my feet were swollen and tired from so much walking but it was worth it for a wonderful weekend.

(I took 350 pictures, so if you'd like to see more of the trip you can check them out here http://www.flickr.com/photos/scribbledjourneys/.)