Three weeks into a five week winter vacation.

It’s funny. It’s a break so I’m allowed to be lazy and do nothing all day, right? But I can’t seem to do that without feeling guilty. So I made a weekly schedule on Sunday and I managed to be relatively responsible with my time. I actually do have alot of things that I needed to do over the break. So far this break, I’ve finally finished and sent all my applications for law school AND grad school (and I’m $600 poorer). That was the biggest thing. I am tutoring two girls, one with reading and one with writing, and so that takes up a good 5 hours a week. Other than that, I’ve been in constant communication with Sevenstar, trying to get this writing program off the ground, one year into the program. It’s amazing how much work that Sevenstar alone requires. Other than that, I still need to type up 90 last wills to be published at the end of this month for the graduating class and order and organize the supplies for the Cambodia mission trip that I’m going to in the first week of February.

And then the biggest thing that I have yet to get started in is the study abroad program that I’ve become in charge of until the summer. I need to plan and organize a 4 month study program for students who are preparing to study abroad, to help them adjust and adapt to the American educational system and all. So far, I’ve picked The Hatchet, The Island of Blue Dolphins and The Outsiders as the books I’m going to teach from, but I haven’t decided for sure if I want to do those. I need to implement United States history into the program as well, since these students have never learned that. It’s alot of work and I’ve started none.

It’s weird how I multi-task. I SUPER multi-task. I have multiple tabs open on Chrome, ranging from plane tickets to RDU, Youtube to watch mr-removed kpop videos, gmail is always open with a chat, Google Calendar open bc im trying to learn how to use that, facebook open, HuffPo open, and piratebay open to dl movies, and other random websites. I always have things splattered across and I shallowly touch on all of them, without being able to delve into one fully because I’m lazy to commit to one.

Its only 2:30PM and I feel tired and ready for a nap. When I’ve done nothing except reply to Sevenstar emails since the morning.

FML. Listen to the nice song and calm down.

angry and confused at the sudden end of the swimming. they were squawking up a storm. eff the ice, they seemed to be saying.

had a lot of things to do so i thought i’d be productive and go to a coffee shop near the apt to work so I went to Starbucks, bought a grande vanilla spice latte cus I was feeling tired, and sat down to work only to realize there was no free wifi. everything on my list requires wifi. but I already bought my expensive coffee and sat down so I can’t go to another coffee shop holding my grande coffee cup. so fail.
so fail on so many counts.

so I came back to the apt to work instead.

productive fail. home sweet home it is.

so anyways, my sister and I were thinking,, man if he were to come to our apr accidentally, what would we do, two girls in an apartment.. we were thinking, how do we say ‘what the hell are you doing?’ in Korean? and the best we came up with was ‘지옥으로 가십시오’ haajahaha

bring your dog to the (dead grass) park day! I was too scared to get a closer picture. they could’ve jumped the fence and attacked me!

I’ve developed an affinity (ha) for walking. I love it.

I’ve gained about 8 lbs since the summer. I’ve said ill go on a diet but I just love eating too much to actually go through with it. but when I try to go jogging, my joints would hurt like crazy. I thought I was getting osteoporosis like my mom but apparently it’s because my joints can’t handle my weight hahaha so my mom told me to go walking instead, so it doesn’t put so much pressure on my knees.

I started earlier this week and I love it. since I’m staying at my sister’s house in bundang, she has this awesome huge park and these long manmade river paths that’s perfect for all the old ajummas and ajusshis with their huge visors to walk during the day. and of course it’s perfect for me too. I put my ipod on shuffle and just walk away. I usually only listen over and over to the same playlist, and so I never get the chance to listen to all the songs of my ipod which is such a waste since I have like 30 gigs of music on it but now I just shuffle it and just walk next to the river and people watch. I love it.

who would’ve thought I would leave America, with it’s rolling green hills and clear blue skies, to fall in love with a manmade park in korea filled with power walking grandmas and grandpas.

I love it

it was hard.

i started crying 15 seconds into it. after that conversation, i couldn’t focus on anything.. and considering i need to make the final exams for 8th and 9th grade, it was a bad time to get a brain fart.

this is the right thing to do, right? aside from the fact that i havent been accepted to any grad school yet and i’m not even 100% sure what i want to study and what i want to do after i graduate.. and other than the thousands of dollars of debt that i’m sure to be in, nothing is for certain. i am leaving the one certain, sure thing that’s been steady in my life for the past three years.. leaving the people who i’ve opened my heart to, in degrees that i’ve never done before in my life.. leaving a constant job, with a firm salary and safe housing, to go for uncertainty and insecurity.

i know i’m thinking illogically right now. i wasn’t going to be an english teacher forever. ESL/EFL is not something that I was going to do for the rest of my life. and as much as i absolutely love and respect the middle school, the rest of the CCA leaders.. I’m not so sure about. I wasn’t going to be an English teacher forever. Sure, I’m good at it and I’ve learned alot during the past three years, but I’m too smart/too gifted/too talented to stay and just be an English teacher in Korea, right?

Sure, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Law school? Pretty sure I’d hate it. Grad school? Okay. But Education? Educational Policy? What do I do with that? Sure, I want to teach, but I don’t know what I would teach. Political Science? But I don’t want to go to grad school for PoliSci.. I don’t want to teach secondary school in the States.. I would want to teach college level, but what would I teach, seriously? Education Policy sounds interesting enough, but what would I do with that? Why haven’t I figured this out by now? Is it because I’ve been too brainwashed and too assimilated into CCA that I’ve forgotten what my interests were? Or is it that I’ve finally grown and matured after I’ve come to CCA and I’ve realized that maybe teaching English really is what I’m good at, that I’ve finally come to know myself and this is it?

People keep saying “Amy, you’re too good to just be an English teacher..” and maybe that’s true. But what am I good at then? I’m good at writing. I’m good at reading. Isn’t that an English teacher?

It’s a little too late to be backtracking now. Its an uncertain and ambiguous future. But I chose this path. It’s on we go. Let’s hope this works out.

our janitor grandma, who’s been working at our school for more than 10 years, had to quit today because her arthritis had been getting worse. at any other place, the news of the janitor leaving would not have been big news. however, the middle school decided that she deserves a farewell befitting of anyone else at our school and we got all of the students, all 300+ of them, to write her a short note of thank you. we put it together in a gift box, bought her some oriental medicine for her arthritis, made her a plaque, and brought her into the office today during lunch time to say farewell. she’s a short stubby lady whos always talking to herself and laughing at nothing, but as soon as she came into the office, where all of us were gathered, her smile disappeared. her eyes started to well up with tears, and when we started singing 당신은 시냇가에 심은 나무라, the song that CCA sings for all teachers who leave, the grandma started bawling. like her shoulders were heaving and she was bawling her tears out. she was so overcome with emotions. i started crying, and i looked around and youmi was crying, youmi was crying, eunyoung was crying, half of all the girl teachers were crying as well. after we finished singing, our vice principal read her her plaque that we specially made for her, and she was crying so hard that the vice principal joked and said “we made you a plaque. but if you dont stop crying, we’re not going to give it to you!” and she stopped crying right away lol she kept saying “you dont need to do this. this is too much. you dont need to do this” and crying some more. we took a picture with her and said our good byes.

later that day, i passed by her sitting at a bench with the new janitor lady whos replacing her, and the new lady was reading her her cards that the students had made for her. i guess she can’t read well or her eyes aren’t good, but she was crying again.

teacher or janitor, it doesn’t matter. everyone works hard and deserves  respect.