Completing 24 Years

I like how they count age in Korea. You are 1 year old the day you are born, which makes sense. You are starting your first year of life. With Western age, we only count a year as "lived" once all 365 days have passed. I'm turning 24 tomorrow, which means I have successfully completed 24 years of life on Earth and am working my way towards 25. 

I think from now on, my birthday blog posts will be written from a place of accomplishment. I completed another year! I made it! I'm still here! I mean all of that in the least morbid way possible. The fact that nothing truly bad happened to me last year? Amazing.

The gratefulness I feel for my life is overwhelming sometimes. Everything I'm about to say will sound so corny, but it's all 100% genuine.

I truly didn't know my heart could handle this much love. I love my family. My friends. All 519 of my students. All the countries I've lived in and visited. I'm one of the luckiest people in the world.

I'm meeting up with my friends tonight for my birthday (tomorrow, my actual birthday, is a national holiday. God bless Korea) and these are some A+ people. I know I trust way too easily but I think I'm a pretty good judge of character and I know for a fact I want these people in my life for the rest of my life. They're truly, genuinely GOOD. And so funny my abs and cheeks often hurt from hanging out with them. It's hard to believe that at this time last year, I didn't know any of these people existed. 

Life is so, so good right now. I never thought I'd enjoy getting older, but I'm very excited to be 24 and to live another year. 

Ideal Future

Front porch.

Dog.

Book.

Coffee.

What country am I in? Don't know.

What's my occupation? No idea.

How much money do I have? Enough to afford a dog, book, coffee, and a front porch. 

6 Months Living in Korea

been to a lot of temples

It's hard to believe that I left the United States six months ago! Six months isn't my longest time abroad (that's eight months), but six months is the longest time I've spent in any place that isn't America. 

Ranking of places I've spent the most time:

1. USA (21 years)

2. Korea (6 months)

3. Scotland (5 months)

4. Slovakia (2 months)

And all the other countries I've spent anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks.

So how am I dealing? How does it feel? 

Well, when I was in Taiwan for a week I was EXCITED to get back to Korea. To be in my apartment and my own bed and to see my friends and have the schedule of going to work and seeing my students. 

I'm not really homesick. Of course, I miss my family and I really should call them more often, but I use that guilt to send them postcards fairly often. People LOVE postcards. If you're reading this you should go send someone a letter. Bonus points if it's to a different country. 

I'm sure I'll get homesick around the holidays. I've spent three 4th of July's away from home but I've never missed a Thanksgiving or Christmas, so I'm sure that'll suck emotionally. 

6 months. Still going strong. Cheers to 6 months more. Time truly does pass too quickly. 

Independence Day: Cherry Blossoms and Colonialism in Korea

I wrote this back in April but never published it, so here ya go! I added a little more and revised it for August 15th, Korea's independence day.

cherry blossoms behind my school

My favorite thing about traveling is the opportunity to learn about history where it happened. The more I travel the more I realize that this world is filled with billions and billions of stories. I will never have the time to learn about every facet of every place and that saddens me, but it also gives me the drive to learn as much as I can when I have the chance to do so.

I knew next to nothing about Korean history before I came. The American public school system does Korea, and all of Asia, so dirty. I know that the US was involved in a war here and I know a little about the drama with North Korea and nuclear proliferation, but that's it. Let me share with you one interesting fact I've learned since being here.

April is National Poetry Month, so I've been writing a poem a day. And yes, they are all shit. However, one of my shitty poems led me down a path of historical knowledge. I decided to write about the cherry blossoms since they line my walk to school and are blooming EVERYWHERE, so I brought up their Wikipedia page just to learn a little bit more.

"The origins of cherry blossoms in South Korea is contentious. The Japanese planted Yoshino cherry trees at Seoul's Changgyeonggung Palace and the viewing of cherry blossoms was introduced to Korea during Japanese rule.^[51] The festivals continued even after the Japanese surrendered at the end of WWII but have been controversial, and many cherry trees were cut down to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese surrender because they were seen as symbols of the occupation."

Who knew that cherry blossoms could be a symbol of colonialism? Now we know!

Traveling as a white monolingual American has forced me to think long and hard about colonialism and globalism and the exchange of cultures. How people with my skin color have done terrible things to others. How people who speak my sole language have forced that language upon others, to the point where I can travel to almost anywhere and get around just fine without learning the local language. (The English language is a WHOLE other post for some other time. I have so many thoughts about English. Language is such an intrinsic part of us and I don't think native English speakers spend enough time thinking about how LUCKY we are to be born into this language.) I think about how my American passport grants me access to so, so many countries and people and cultures that others are barred from ever experiencing just because we were born between different borders.

I'm very thankful to Korea for allowing me to live and work in their country. I have learned so much already. Not to undermine their history but to make it brief since I can't sum up a country's entire history in one blog post, but man Korea has had a shit time. Invasion and war and rape and oppression. Japan removed itself in 1945 and the Korean War ended in 1953. The progress this country has made in 66 years is outstanding. This country's history deserves a lot more attention from people on the outside (as does every country, but this is where I currently am so of course that's where my attention is focused) so I'll link a few books and articles below if you want to do further reading. This is a very short list of resources but don't worry, I'm working on an exhaustive list of Korean reading material. :)

Books:

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

The Korean War by Max Hastings

Articles:

Korean Skin Care Secrets

Anton Hur's blog 

good English site for Korean news, about Korea from Korea

grateful + thankful + LUCKY

family photos on my fridge

I am extremely grateful for my life. I am very lucky. Of course, I've had some really shit times and I'm sure I'll have shit times again, but now I am thankfully much more mentally and emotionally capable of dealing with those shit times. Maybe it's maturity or maybe it's the SSRI's, but either way, I'm thankful for my life.

I have friends in almost every time zone. A family that will always be there for me if/when I need it. Seven library cards from different libraries that all sync with my Libby account so I'm never stranded without a book on my kindle or audiobook in my ears. A job that I love. Enough money to consistently have tasty food. Enough money to travel. A nice boy texting me. Air conditioning. An American passport.
I hate it when travel bloggers say shit like "I'm not lucky! I worked hard to get here!" Like I'm sure you did boo. We've all worked hard, you ain't special.

I typed and erased so many metaphors about life and luck and self-worth. Things about cookies crumbling. Silver spoons. Goats. Idk.

Lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky.