March: beginnings and endings
Trip Start
Aug 20, 2009
1
23
26
Trip End
Aug 26, 2010
Sokcho, Gangwon, Korea Rep.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
I returned to Seoul on a chilly morning, dirty, bug-bitten, exhausted, greasy, and generally broken down and smiling. Korea meant reunions with all the foreigner friends living life in the Land of the Morning Calm and Chaos. The next week was full of bus rides and late nights, catching up on all of the details of life at home and abroad (both terms becoming harder to define).
In Korea, March is the start of the school year and despite various debate and scads of incomprehensible discussions and decisions, my schedule basically stayed the same. I still work at the Girls' High School 3 days a week, and go to the elementary school to teach 1st graders and 2nd graders on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In another lucky stroke, all of my co-workers remained the same. In Korea, teachers are not allowed to teach at one school for more than 5 years, so the turnover rate of teachers is much higher than in America. Tenure is non-existant. Although my schedule is virtually the same, the start of the school year brought all the same excitement as it does in America. One surprise on the first day of school was the arrival of another foreign EPIK teacher at Yang Yang Girls' Middle School. Although the High School and Middle School are two separate entities, we share a building, a faculty bathroom, a cafeteria - basically we're the same campus. The new arrival turned out to be a 22 year old American girl - practically a guaranteed recipe for friendship.
With new arrivals of EPIK teachers, however, are the inevitable departures of EPIK teachers. As exciting as the new school year was, it was one long series of saying goodbye to friends whose contracts had ended and who now had new plans, new trips, and new lives to explore. The young expat crowd in Korea is not known for sitting still or settling down. In a few months I will probably do the same, but having members of the waygook (foreign) family suddenly disappear left me paddling in a violent wake of "The Temporary Life." Always coming, always going, always missing someone in every country.
The silver lining of living abroad has a touch of gray.
Regardless, the coming April promises spring. . . maybe Korea will begin to thaw?
