Happy Chuseok

Today is Chuseok (Korean T-giving), so I have four days off of work. Everyone goes to their eldest relatives house & they make a ton of food which they then offer to the graves of their relatives as offerings.

It is only day 2 of my 6 day break and it feels really good. I am going to spend the next six days with other NETs (specifically my two favorite people that I met at orientation). I'm assuming their will be a lot of binge drinking, eating, movie watching, and then Friday/Saturday we are meeting up with a big group to go rafting in a city near my town.

I know I've only been teaching for a month, but it is physically and mentally exhausting. Planning & teaching is a lot of work. Not to mention, it is hard to be constantly nice & cheerful for more than 40 hours a week. I will say that all my years of waiting tables and being fake nice for hours on end is finally being put to use.

I have a very monotonous routine during the week. Wake up, walk to school, teach, eat lunch, teach more, walk home, watch movies online, eat dinner, bed. My life is boring during the week, but I have had some interesting weekends.

I spent most of last weekend with my Korean mom, Miss Jung. We went on a long hike Friday after school, 2.4 km straight up hill and then 2.4 straight down. I was exhausted & super sweaty towards the end while Miss Jung seemed fine. I've come to the conclusion Koreans don't sweat much or at all. It is probably why deodorant is not widely available and why Koreans can wear long sleeves & pants when it is SUPER hot outside.


Saturday I went to Miss Jung's mentor's house up in the mountains. I'm still not sure what the whole mentor-student relationship is, I think the idea of it is not easily translated into English. My co-teacher goes there every other weekend to visit her & she told me she wants to retire to the area (completely understandable, it is GORGEOUS).




Mentor (I don't know her real name) is a tiny sixty year old Korean woman who lives up in the mountains with her driver/right hand man. She has been living on this property for ten years and she recently just started farming the area, the eight years before she meditated all day long. Miss Jung told me that Mentor "meets" people when she meditates - apparently she always meets with Buddha, frequently meets with Jesus, and sometimes meets with E.T. (like Spielberg style E.T.). When E.T. comes, he leaves marks on her arms that disappear after a couple of days. As many of you know, my emotions are written all over my face and it was hard for me to contain myself when I heard E.T., it was the highlight of my weekend.

Besides learning about E.T. I picked & sorted peppers with a bunch of Korean people for three hours, ate a lot of delicious food, and played with a German Shepherd puppy (made me miss my puppy). I was invited back whenever I want to go because according to Mentor I bring good luck to the house as the price of peppers went up twice the cost of last year after I had some dream about ticks. I'm still confused about how my dream brought them luck, I just go with what people say and nod/smile a lot.

I'll probably go back since I like the food & the dog so much and I want to hear more about E.T. You know me, the crazier people are the more I enjoy them.

Cheers!