The promised catch-up

Graduate School

So, I've been accepted to both of the universities I've applied to: The University of Queensland and The University of Technology, Sydney. Oh, what a pain though. UQ offers US federal student loans but UTS doesn't. UTS has a great Master's in Journalism program in a great city for media work and UQ's is just okay--UQ is in Brisbane and too far from the city center... The only way I can go to UTS is if I get a private student loan but alas! No bank lists UTS on their approved school list. The only two banks that do are not currently accepting applications (damn credit crunch!). So, I'm stuck. I just can't go to the school I want to and it really makes me mad. UQ is a good school and obviously affordable, but I just don't want to go there anymore... Since the ball dropped on student loans last week, I've discovered one more school that may fit: The University of Sydney--they give US federal aid and are actually in the same neighborhood as UTS. The only problem: their program is a Master's in Media Practice and not a Master's in Journalism. I'm not sure exactly what the difference is yet but so far it looks like 1/3 less classes... Will a Master's in Media Practice be a reputable degree for what I want to do? I'm not sure... At any rate, I've decided that I'm still moving to Australia. I'm going to get my work holiday visa and just work for a bit until I can figure this school stuff out. Instead of trying to start in February, I might just wait until July. Maybe the credit crisis will be over then and I can get a loan for the school I want to go to... Or maybe in that meantime/worktime I'll check out The University of Sydney and find it's a great school with great opportunities and I'll want to go there... Who knows.

Anyway, as long as I'm putting off school for a big, I might as well do a little more travelling before I buckle down with a job and stuff in AU. Here's my current thought: India-Pakistan-India-Sri Lanka-Thailand-Cambodia-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore-Australia. I guess if I can't go back to school then I better spend my money elsewhere on something equally exciting! :)

Blog Business

I'm thinking about changing things up a bit... I realized the other day that my blog title and blog address are not the same (what was I thinking?) so I hurried up and snatched up the "twentyfirstcenturynomad" blog address and I'm thinking about moving things over there... I can't move everything as in old posts and photos, but I can make some links for past reading... I'm also thinking of switching from Picasa to Flickr as my photo sharing provider. Has anyone else made a similar move? What do you find to be Flickr's benefits and pitfalls? The big hassle and annoying part is that if I want to move my Picasa photos to Flickr, I will have to download each individual photo and re-upload them to Flickr. Bahh! That will take FOREVER!! Should I bother?

English Camp

Oi! Two weeks of 14 hour work days!! I can't believe I did three weeks of this stuff back in January! Camp went well. As always, I made some new friends with some really lovely foreigners though I won't lie and say that every day was happy. There were some cranky teachers that second week who really didn't want to participate! But I understand. We were all tired and just ready to go home. Looking back at my pictures though, I've realized we had some good times. The first week was a little challenging because my team was pretty quiet but they pulled off a first place win in EVERY competition and by the end of the week, I'd like to think they made friends with each other. The second week was MUCH better and the kids worked really well together. We didn't win a thing though. In fact, we were constantly placed last. Oh well. Lucky for me it never broke their spirits and they had fun anyway. I didn't take any photos from the second week because I got too tired to lug around my camera and it was too hot to work so hard, but I do have photos from week 1. Enjoy!!

Summer Classes

Now that camp is over, I get to teach two summer classes for one and a half weeks. The pros: provided curriculum and small classes (one with 10 students and one with 4). The cons: the curriculum isn't amazing and I think the classes are too short (one hour). I really wish I had more time to really teach them something worthwhile and give them an opportunity to apply it. This curriculum is okay (it's not amazing) but it needs something more. There needs to be more activities and students need an opportunity to learn from context via deduction. This just doesn't offer anything more than scripted conversations. I really wish that Korean understood deductive learning. Everything taught here is by memorization. Seriously, what happens when these kids graduate or move to another country and can't speak or learn because there's no script for them? They need to learn on their own. Teachers need to teach kids to learn independently, not co-dependently. This is ultimately why I'm leaving Korea. But until I do, I have 5 more classes to teach. *Sigh*. At least this week is almost over!

Saying Goodbye

Two weeks ago, I left Munchang for good. My last two days there were filled with movie time with my boys and cleaning my desk. Saying goodbye to the teachers was okay but I realized I was definitely going to miss some of them. Jun has shown me true Korean hospitality and I am so grateful for everything she has done. None of my Korean teachers have ever gone out to dinner with me as a friend--no one except her. Saying goodbye was difficult. I also had to say goodbye to Kim Hong Gi--a co-teacher who has had a crush on me for a while. lol. He is a really nice man with golden patience. I can count on one hand the number of times I've broken down at work pre-Korea but once I came here, it happened a lot more often and unfortunately he got more of those breakdowns than anyone else. I am so glad he never judged me for it and was always gracious and attentive when it happened. I'm lucky to have had such good co-teachers.

I also had to say goodbye to Mr. Bak and another Mr. Jeong (I think that's his name!!). It was especially difficult to say goodbye to Mr. Bak. In the year that I've known him, we've hardly exchanged much at all because neither of us speaks the other's language, but we've somehow solidified a silent friendship over one commonality: photography. He is so amazing at it. Way better than me. He's a professional and he uses professional equipment. I'll never forget the first day we met; he was intrigued by my camera and wanted to show me his and his photos. I was immediately humbled. I don't want to sound too conceited, but I'm pretty much accustomed to being the best photographer in the room but when I saw his work, I was almost humiliated by my own. He's that good. Over the next few months, I taught him random Korean words and he would give me the thumbs up or thumbs down on my photos. He would bring in his camera and let me play around with his 300mm lens; I would bring in my fish eye and he would fool around with it. Then we went hiking with his kids back in March and I'll never forget what happened: his son fell off the waterfall, he fell in and both almost drowned with hypothermia. Saving their lives is the single most impactful and incredible thing I've ever done. I still feel a little lost on the subject most days. Knowing that you are responsible for someone else's life is indescribable. Sometimes it feels like a big secret--no one could ever understand or fully know the chain of events that day. No one will ever feel the divine the way we do when we think about what happened. On my last day at Munchang, I learned that he didn't even know how to swim. Mr. Bak said to me at lunch: "That day, I don't know swim. It is miracle." How can I put that into words? My skin crawled in the moment and every hair said a prayer of thanks. It really was a miracle. I also learned that he wanted me to come over to his house for dinner but when he asked his sons they started to cry--they didn't want to remember so the dinner was cancelled. I understand but I hope that one day they will be able to talk about it.

Near the end of my last day, I went to say goodbye to Mr. Bak in the music room and he greeted me with all of his new camera equipment. His English had improved so much from being my friend that he was able to tell me that he was sorry I had an Olympus camera and he had a Cannon; he wanted to let me borrow his equipment but everything was incompatible. Then he played me a song on his saxophone. I cried and everyone laughed. Oh well. Then he took me outside and took some photos. I probably looked like crap because I was still a little shaken but oh well. Then him and Mr. Jeong rushed me to the bus station because I was about to miss my ride to Incheon. We made it just in time and while I waited for the bus to pull away, they sat outside the whole time, waving to me. And just before it left, they disappeared momentarily and then reappeared on the bus with an ice cream of me. I was so moved. I balled the whole way to Incheon. Saying goodbye is a lot easier when people don't do nice things for you! But I'm happy they did. I will always have sweet memories of the teacher's at Munchang. They were a hard bunch to leave.

Moving on now...

I'm so tired of packing and cleaning. Today I scrubbed down my bedroom pretty good but it pretty much exhausted me and I still have two more rooms to do--the bathroom and kitchen. The bathroom isn't too bad--just a little pink mold--but the kitchen is another story. I'm honestly shocked. So, before I left for camp two weeks ago, I really cleaned my kitchen good. However, upon my return home Monday, I found TONS of mold on the walls, on the counter, on the floor, and I even found a ton of weevils crawling around on my counter! I don't know how they got there! I haven't left out any bread or wheat products. In fact, I didn't leave out anything! I'm really confused... To top it off, my sink faucet is leaking and dripping all over the counter and my sink, adding to the mold problem and ruining my sponges. Sometimes it's really hard to believe that this place was brand new when I moved in... To give you an idea of how bad the mold problem is here, I once found mold growing in a bottle of BLEACH water!! Can you believe that?! I'm pretty sure that the sooner I move out, the longer I'll live. Something unnatural is happening in that place...

Body Melody

Working at a boys school, one often encounters... unpleasant smells. Every day I'm here there is at least one boy who lets one rip in class. The usual reaction is mortification as the smell permeates throughout the unventilated room. The boys seated around said student often move their desks and yell in horror. Oh, the poor kid who farted today!! He really had a stinky one! Even I considered leaving!

Once everyone calmed down, my co-teacher (a 50-something yr old man) asked me, "What is English expression for body melody?" I laughed. It made me think of the beans song. :) So, I explained to him and all the boys in my class the word fart and it's many different uses as both a noun and verb. Quite entertaining.

Poor kid was called Fart Boy for the rest of class.

Feelings... Whoa, feelings...

Watch this first. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.



Can I just admit here that I'm completely freaked about what to do and where to go next?

I submitted my application to University of Queensland yesterday (that's a university in Brisbane, Australia) for a masters in journalism program, and while part of me says, "Yay!!" a part of me also questions, "Are you doing this because it's the right time or because it's convenient and safe?" I'm not sure what the correct answer is. I feel like getting a masters is a significant step towards growing up and adult-hood but I'm not so sure that I want to go that far yet... I kind of like being a recent college graduate. Will getting my masters also mean getting serious about a career?

I still plan on moving to Australia even if I'm not accepted to UQ (but for my sanity, please pray that I am accepted--if not because I want to go here, I need it so I have choices). However, knowing I'm moving there no matter what and that I don't have to go back to school doesn't exactly make me feel any better--I'm still moving into The Great Unknown. I have no idea what's waiting for me on the other side of the ocean.

I'm afraid that I won't make friends. I'm afraid I won't find a job. I'm afraid I won't find a place to live or decent roommates to live with. I'm afraid that I'll run out of money. I'm afraid of being alone, missing my family and friends. I'm afraid of failing in my very first completely independent move. I'm afraid that I'll need some help and have no one to call. I don't know anyone there. There will be no one to tell me if I'm doing something wrong. There will be no one to help me set up a life. If I have immigration questions, no one will be there to show me where to go or what to do. If I need something, there will be no one to tell me where to find it.

It's just me.

Up until this point, every major move I've had to make has involved someone else. There has always been someone there to help me or comfort me and say, "You'll be just fine." But this time, there's no one waiting on the other side. I had these same fears of not-knowing when I moved to Seattle for school but there were advisers and resident life staff to help me adjust. I had these same fears of not-knowing when I went to China and Vietnam but there were my service counselors, team leader(s) and team mates to help me understand the culture and the task at hand. I had these same fears of not-knowing when I applied to Peace Corps but I had advisers and placement officers to answer all my questions because they had done it before themselves. I had these same fears of not-knowing when I moved to Korea but there was my school to take care of me and a contract that assured me that a place was prepared for me before I even arrived.

But this time, there's no one. It's just me. There's no one to take care of me. No one to guide me. It's the ultimate test of my Independence. I feel just like Indiana Jones. I'm taking a big leap of faith. He says, "Only a leap from the lions head will he prove his worth." I feel like this is one big test to prove my worth as an independent woman capable of fully taking care of herself. I may fail miserably and be miserable because of it... But I may also have the best, most rewarding experience of my life.

I keep telling myself that I will survive, that I won't fall to my death. I will make friends (I always do). I will find a job (I have many marketable skills). I will be able to handle all of those unforeseen problems without any help (I am a resourceful woman). Yes, it is scary moving to another country without a job set up, an apartment arranged and no friends to help me adjust, but I guess it's worth the risk.

Jones had faith when he took the leap and knew he would succeed because he wanted to more than anything else. I want to too. I do have faith. I will succeed. I believe in myself and my capabilities and know that this is not where life ends--this is just another beginning, another leap of faith. Hope it's a graceful landing.