This may be one of the last blogs I write from Korea
My time is winding down here, day by day. I have about a week and a half left in Korea, my last full week of work (next week) will be spent away at a university, teaching English camp with four other Native English teachers and AWAY from my co-teacher, the Jang, yay! I am actually really excited for this because it will be with only good English students that WANT to be involved, it will be fun lessons and I will be with people who don’t ignore my presence at school! Yay all around!
This past week at school hasn’t been too bad; it is my last week of normal classes. I have been showing the movie Tangled in class, so not even teaching! Also, Mr. Jang has been MIA all week and found out only yesterday it is because he was hospitalized for high blood-pressure. Took three days for people to even think to bother telling me anything! Oh, Korea
I had to change my trip to Australia Australia Australia Sydney Sydney Australia
I will officially be home Tuesday, August 2! I was able to change my ticket for free (reward ticket) and now I am flying through Vancouver, BC and have an EIGHT hour lay-over in Vancouver. So, I will go out and explore the city a bit (I’ve been before, but why not?!?). The flight from Sydney-Vancouver is FOURTEEN HOURS!! Officially my longest flight yet. At first I was like oh no! I can’t watch movies! I am landing in Vancouver 7:30 AM , so will need to sleep if I am going to go out…then realized I could have TWO nights of sleep on that plane. I can watch like 3 movies and still get an entire night of sleep! Gonna be a loooong traveling day. I get into Seattle
Speaking of flights, I was able to get ALL of my flights (Seoul-Hong Kong, Hong-Kong to Sydney and Sydney-Seattle) for $190!!! I used miles for the Seoul -Hong Kong sector (I am flying Virgin Atlantic HK-Sydney for $70 thanks to Colin!!!) and miles for Sydney-Seattle. In total, if I don’t fly premium on the HK-Sydney sector, my flights are currently valued at over $5,000!!! Sweetness! If I fly premium (cross your fingers!) they are worth A LOT more! Gotta love practically free airline tickets!!
This Saturday, I am headed to what is known as Mud Fest, for the day with my friend Rebecca from my town. The following Saturday, my last weekend in Korea Korea
I went and saw the final Harry Potter Wednesday night with some of my friends here. We are all crazy fans and we even had a mini-marathon Saturday, which involved more theoretical discussion on the World of Harry Potter than watching, but it was fun! The movie was AMAZING. Simply…amazing. I LOVE the books. I was waaay late to the game (started them two years ago) and have read them twice. LOVE THEM. I’ve never really been all that into the movies, saw them, but didn’t ever LOVE any of them. I LOVED this movie. It was great. I wept…for an hour. Yes, an entire hour. At first, Korea Korea Korea Korea Australia
As my time winds down here, I am packing and packing away, yet I still seem to have a mountain of stuff to pack. I brought over approximately 160 pounds of luggage between checked and carry-on baggage (yes, I am insane). No matter how much I travel, I cannot get ride of the compulsion to pack too much shit. I have gone through a lot of my stuff here (brought over a lot of toiletries that weighed a lot and are gone), have gotten rid of a lot of stuff or am leaving it here and I have sent a lot of stuff home, but I still have to deal with Thai Air’s 44 pound weight limit for checked baggage. It is crazy! I figured I could just check a bag for an extra $70 or maybe $100 at the most and would just deal…but no. They charge $7 per extra KILO of checked luggage over 44 pounds (a kilo is two pounds-ish.) It can get very expensive to check anything above the 44 pound allowance if you have a lot of additional weight. My bag is most certainly going to weigh more, but I am trying to not spend more than $50 in overages…we will see. There might be (probably will be) a frantic throwing shit out moment. Oh the joys of Kimberly traveling.
I thought I would share my crazy ass morning with you, because well, it is funny now that it is over. So, I have too much shit as I just told you, so I am sending stuff home. I have sent a few small, heavy boxes home already, but was waiting until near the very end to send a very large box, full of much lighter weight stuff home. I have this box, it is about 2 feet by 2 feet, a pretty large box, but I didn’t think it was that heavy, so figured I could carry it the ten minutes to school. As soon as I started walking I knew, that this was a bad, bad decision. I had to stop constantly because it was so bulky and my arms were killing me. It wasn’t super heavy, just so large that is made it very difficult to carry. I decided as soon as I saw a taxi, I would get in it and go to school. Of course, when you need a taxi…they are MIA. So, I walked and stopped and readjusted and continually did this. After about 15 minutes of walking, and only being about half way there (it was taking me way longer to get to school) a guy on a motorcycle stopped and was seemingly asking me if I needed help and where I was going. Through a lot of wild gesturing, I figured out he wanted me to put my box on the back of his motorcycle…the box that wasn’t taped up because I ran out of tape for the top. I show him my badge of where I work when he is asking (in Korean) where to go. He takes off, and I start running my ass off trying to keep up. Oh and PS, during this whole debacle, there are many teachers from my school passing me, in a CAR, watching me struggle with the fucking box. Nice, eh? So, I am running, sweating my ass off and I lose the taxi and am just praying that 1) the box doesn’t fall of/all my shit fly out into the street and 2) He understood where to take it. I arrive at school breathless and literally soaked in sweat. I take the box from him, thank him profusely and struggle across the parking lot with the box that is now falling apart and all of the tape is falling off of due to the extreme humidity. Again, all the teachers watching me struggle. Finally, the PE teacher figures he should probably help me and takes the box and puts it on his shoulder. I think he underestimated its weight because he made a crazy sound when he was walking with it. He lugged it upstairs for me and set it down. Now, the sad box sits atop my desk, practically dead. I am either going to take a taxi to the post office during lunch, or have someone drive my ass there. Not going to attempt to carry that beast again. Why does this shit always happen to me?
As my week has wrapped up here at school (it is the last week of the semester), I have gotten three very sweet, very kind and touching notes from some of my favorite girls. The first one I found on my desk yesterday after a day of teaching, it read:
To: Kimberly
Hello <3, I’m Sujeong. I’m 3 grade 2 class, I’m so sad that I heard that you go back to the U.S.
The note had lots of little drawings, it really touched my heart. I didn’t know who the student was, but had a pretty good idea. Today, through the help of the most kind/helpful English teachers here, I found out who she was and was able to thank her, give her candy and a hug!
My first class of the day (one of my two favorites, filled with the majority of my favorite girls), I got two additional notes, one from my favorite student. It read:
Hello~Kim Berley
You will going to the America America
Sorry T^T
I can’t finish but please read this!
She (Kim Da-In, pronounced Kim Die-ing) happened to be sitting in front of me during Harry Potter the other night (at a movie theater called Cinus)…love this girl! She came up to me last week and was like, “Kimberlyyyyyyyyyyyy you go to America
Love Kimberly.
Hello, Kimberly teacher!
We are Da-In and Ye-Eun! We don’t want you will go America
We are so sad!
(Da-In part)
I was really excited because you taught me. So really and really thank you!
(Ye-Eun part)
You taught me one month ago, because my English contest. I think your class is really fun! I feel good with your class. Really thank you! I saw you 3 months ago maybe~You went Dae-Jeon. I went there too! I didn’t have brave than. ^ ^; So I can’t talk with you.
(Together)
Please don’t forget us. We are miss everyday, Kimberly!
TGIF!
Ye-Eun-Today is my birthday~! YEAH!
So cute! They added in the (parts) LOL! Love it. Just really, really love it. Sending me out with good thoughts and feelings of most of the students here!
Even though there are things here that I will miss, I am so looking forward to going home; I am actually ok that I will be in Australia Australia , but really ready to see my family and friends, and also so excited to leave Korea
So over/ready to be done with: my stupid ass co-teacher, the crazy humidity, marble sidewalks with tons of rain resulting in falling, the slowest/worst internet I have ever experienced anywhere in the World, people staring/pointing/clearly laughing at me, rude teachers at this school, the smell of kimchi/kimchi BO, the psycho students at my school, being disrespected by co-teacher on a regular basis…and so much more.
Looking forward to: My family and friends!!! Can’t wait to see everyone, but also, access to good, vegetarian food all the time, restaurants with good food, no humidity, my comfortable bed, a dryer, being able to take baths, my nice ass gym/the classes at the gym, TV in English, being able to drive, the radio, my new job, being in Seattle during the summer, wine, Trader Joes, no scary ass weird colored spiders, a country that doesn’t smell bad, being able to be understood/being able to communicate…and so much more!
Even with all of the things that I am looking forward to leaving behind, I am still definitely going to miss all of the amazing friends I have made here, the efficient public transportation on trains, cheap ass alcohol, some of the students and a few of the teachers I taught with at my school…other than that….nada!
Just ready to be home. Two and a half weeks until I am home!!! A week and a half until Australia
See most of you VERY soon! Those in Korea, hopefully I will get a chance to say good-bye to you all at mud festival!
Laters! Kimberly
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