We Must Cultivate Our Garden/Il faut cultiver son jardin

Joel has a new hobby. We have two narrow balconies on either side of our 14th-floor apartment: one has the refrigerator and the washing machine, but the other is pretty much empty except for the A/C unit (and it has a shelf for planters outside of one of the windows). A few months ago, when one of his friends moved from here to Seoul, Joel bought several planters and a large bag of potting soil from him and decided to start a balcony garden. He ordered a few packets of seeds from the internet. When they arrived in mid-March, he planted spearmint, basil, fish peppers, cayenne peppers, eggplants, chives, and a packet of "mixed Oriental greens" that came as a freebie from the vendor that he ordered from.

It stayed cold throughout most of March and the beginning of April, so after nearly three weeks we began to get discouraged. Then one morning, we saw that a handful of the chives had sprouted. The eggplant and the cayenne peppers soon followed, and after that the basil, spearmint, and one lone fish pepper. Soon the greens came up as well.

Since then, the garden has...well, grown, for lack of a better word. After the first planters started sprouting, Joel bought more seeds from E-mart and Daiso (the local dollar store) and has now gone through five large bags of potting soil to plant peppermint, lavender, lemon basil, green beans, marigolds, and cosmos. He has packets of thyme, asters, and more basil still waiting. He has plans to buy an extra laundry drying rack for the beans to climb. Every time we go shopping, he looks at the seeds and picks up a few more packets. I fear we will soon run out of room on the balcony.

Though I often tease him that this is becoming a minor obsession, it is a welcome distraction these days. For nearly two weeks, we were inundated with frantic coverage of North Korea's bellicose rhetoric and constantly speculation that they could launch a missile "at any moment." Both of my parents, several members of my family in Brazil, and a handful of friends back home sent concerned messages. While there was definitely nothing to worry about (NK does this crap all the time to pressure governments into giving them aid, and our longtime expat friends say pull similar stunts every year), and we certainly appreciate the concern (it's nice to know you guys are thinking of us), I would be lying if I said things weren't a little tense.

And now all of this chaos in Boston. Seriously, who the hell bombs a marathon? I woke up on Tuesday morning (remember, we are 14 hours ahead of Texas) to find my Twitter stream dominated by posts about what happened in Boston - people maimed, limbs lost, deaths and hospitalizations, and internet resources to find missing loved ones. The JFK Library was on fire. A fertilizer plant explosion destroys half of a central Texas town and registers as a small earthquake. And then a manhunt for the marathon bombing suspects puts the entire city of Boston on lockdown. Guys, wtf happened to America while we've been gone?

There is a blog post that has been circulating through the expat community over the last few months about what happens to people when they live abroad. I hadn't really given it too much thought, since I knew that we would miss things and be changed by the experience - but now that we have extended our contract and it is sinking in that we will be gone for a while, some things have been weighing on me more. The "honeymoon phase" of culture shock has definitely worn off, and now some of the things about Korea that I used to find fascinating or amusing are getting annoying. I miss Western food, especially Tex-Mex; I just about died when Joel actually found Corona and limes at E-mart a few weeks ago. I am still trying to figure out what friendship means in a place where nearly every relationship has an expiration date. We have missed two weddings already and will miss at least two more (one of which is our best man's, which is really sad for me), and we are barely making it back home to see my maid of honor get hitched (congratulations, Babushka!). Our friends are starting careers, having children, and making lives.

Meanwhile, we are floating in some kind of strange limbo, watching the cherry blossoms flower and shed thousands of petals to the wind.

I guess life just boils down to cultivating your own garden. While friendships here are so short-lived, Joel and I have been spending a lot of one-on-one time together, which has been really nice. We have also been putting a lot of effort into planning trips during our school vacations. We got really lucky and found dirt-cheap airfare to Japan for our July vacation: 90.5 hours in Tokyo for only $188 round trip. We also booked our flight to Italy and reserved an apartment in Venice for our post-contract "grand vacation." Definitely something to look forward to.

In the meantime, at least Joel has the balcony garden to tend...which, admittedly, is a more productive hobby than my ongoing obsession with Skyrim.

Faith, Tolerance, and a New Pope/Tolerância, fé e um novo papa

A few weeks ago, my mother-in-law sent me an e-mail asking for my thoughts on Pope Benedict XVI's resignation. I thought it was unusual, but interesting, so I laid out my thoughts in the semi-organized manner typical of my longer, subject-treating e-mails. She politely thanked me for my thoughts, and that was the end of it.

Unfortunately, it was also one of the few non-acidic comments I have heard on the Catholic Church and the papacy over the last month.

Being Catholic is not easy, even back home. If you are a practicing Catholic who finds yourself in the unhappy situation of having a religious discussion with an uninformed non-Catholic, it frequently morphs into a simultaneous probe of your personal life and assessment of your common sense. "You're Catholic? How does that, like, affect you?" "Wait, you're Catholic? But you seem like such a logical person!" "So do you not believe in birth control?" "Are you guys gonna have, like, a bunch of kids?" "You know the rhythm method doesn't work, right?" (Side note: Catholics don't even use the rhythm method anymore.) "Do you go to confession and stuff?" "Do you really think people go to hell if they don't do that?" Even better is the unsolicited (and usually inappropriate) commentary. "Those Catholic priests are a bunch of perverts." "I think they're pedophiles because they can't get married, so they're totally repressed." (Side note: This theory has no psychological basis whatsoever.) "The Catholic Church hates women." "Those stupid Catholics don't want us to have birth control." The list goes on...and on...and on.

Here in Korea, it's even more difficult. Out of all of the expats we know here in Gwangju, I don't think we know any other Catholics. There is only one Catholic parish I know of that has an English Mass here, and it is an hour away by bus and then subway, which means that we go to Korean Mass where I can only catch every couple of words. It's not that being around areligious people bothers me - most of our good friends here are not really religious, but we still love them dearly and they respect our faith - but it's not uncommon to walk into a bar or restaurant frequented by expats and hear someone who clearly knows everything ranting entirely too loudly about how they love all people and accept all lifestyles and that Catholics/Christians/Muslims are so narrow-minded/intolerant/hateful/bigoted/judgmental/condescending/insert-negative-adjective-here that it just makes them sick. As if every person who adheres to an Abrahamic faith is exactly the same.

The election of a new pope is no different. I remember in 2005, when John Paul II finally passed on, I got a loving text message from my brother informing me that "Hey your pope died." To be fair, it was a joke, and he was in high school at the time - but frankly, the things I see people my age posting to Facebook now aren't much more enlightened.
"Check out the new pope - same as the old pope!"
"You've gone to hell, Catholic Church...I thought we were saved when the sky didn't fall in December, but apparently the end of the world has finally arrived."
"The new pope is on the front page. Just what the world needs - another lunatic running the masses."
Never mind that he has come to be known for his personal piety and humility. Or that he was especially active in interfaith dialogue and ecumenism as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Or that he lived in a small apartment, rather than the bishop's residence, and cooked his own meals and took the bus to work. Or that he has worked for social justice and poverty alleviation for most of his career. The next day after Cardinal Bergoglio (now Pope Francis I) was elected, I saw a headline that read, "Will the new pope derail the [UN] Commission on the Status of Women?" The man hadn't been in office for 24 hours, much less even made a public statement. Guys, really?

To be fair, most of our friends who have discussed this with me have been level-headed and delicate (probably because they could tell I was upset). But it just gets under my skin to see all of these hateful and condescending messages from people who typically preach messages of human rights, justice, acceptance, and equality. The Catholic Church has two millenia of history of Doctors of the Church arguing and squabbling over theology and doctrine. Today it is made up of 1.2 billion people, all with different beliefs, opinions, hopes, and dreams. Some of us are pro-life and some pro-choice; some are conservative and some support same-sex marriage; some are traditionalists and some believe in feminist liberation theology; some practice more and some practice less. We are clergy, laity, rich, poor, professionals, housewives, travelers, vagabonds, scholars, lobbyists, and politicians. But the one thing we all have in common with each other and with every non-Catholic that walks this Earth is that we are human. And frankly, if you believe in love of any kind, then you should respect our right to choose a lifestyle without judgment, just like every woman, homosexual, immigrant, ethnic minority, and overweight person that is so carefully defended.

Yes, we have a new pope. Seriously, people, let's everybody just calm the fuck down.

Bronchitis is a Bitch / Bronquite é um pentelho

Joel and I were supposed to go skiing on the weekend of February 22nd. We had intended to spend that Saturday skiing at Muju resort, which is a ski town about three hours north of us. We were super excited for the trip - I had a hotel room booked for us, and it would have been a great way to unwind before the start of a new teaching session.

And then I got sick with bronchitis.

I don't get sick very often, but (as my former roommate always pointed out) when I do, it is legit. My freshman year of college, I only fell ill once (with what I thought was strep throat) right as final exams started. I was so fatigued that I nearly passed out walking across campus to take my physics final, and my throat was so sore that I couldn't talk for a week and a half. I ate so little that I dropped ten pounds and, at 129 lbs (58.5 kilos) was at the lowest weight of my adult life. My junior year, I caught the flu and ran a fever so high that Joel and my roommate rushed me to the hospital and called my father, who made the drive up from north Houston (normally about an hour and a half trip) in 40 minutes.

So yeah, I don't get bronchitis often, but when I do, I am down for the count.

The first weekend I was sick, I slept nearly the entire day on Saturday - I think I might have been awake for a collective four hours out of the entire day. I coughed and hacked and stumbled through work the next week, but luckily for me it was finals week, so I didn't have to do anything besides administer and grade tests. Unfortunately, being sick means being tired, which means not being able to do anything fun outside of work. I haven't been able to go hiking or do yoga for two weeks now, and I don't really have the energy to go out. I missed two great shows downtown last weekend because I was feeling like crap. Obviously I need to rest, so I let myself sleep in, but when you work from two to ten that pretty much means you only see about half an hour of daylight.

It's starting to get really depressing.

A big part of it has also been that we are all really sick of the persistently cold weather. It is starting to warm up again, so I think the bitter cold may have finally passed for good, at least until next year. In the meantime, I have been playing a lot of Skyrim on the Xbox, which we got last week - around the time I first got sick.

On the bright(er) side, I got one of several new Wake Up! classes this month. Wake Up! is the introductory, absolute beginner course for new young kids that know basically zero English. We get to teach them the alphabet, numbers, basic objects, and greetings, and the best part is that we get to name them. Some of them already have names, but I took my chance and gave the nameless ones names from Game of Thrones. I have Arya, Sansa, and Catlyn, and my day was made complete yesterday when I got two new students, a boy and a girl. The boy already had the name Jamie, so naturally the girl became Cersei. (Too easy, right?) I also got two new boys in my English World (who became Ned and Rikon) and a new girl in my first-year middle school class (Brienne). Speaking of, the new season of GoT starts at the end of this month, on Easter Sunday. Something else to look forward to.

In the meantime, I will continue to recover from bronchitis and play Skyrim.

Friendships, Relationships, and what it means to be Faithful/Amizades, Relacionamentos, e Fidelidade

My best friend got engaged last week. She goes home to visit her family about once every 18 months or so, and this time she brought her boyfriend, a lively Scottish man with a playful sense of humor, with her. Everyone seemed to know what it was about: her family and friends on both sides of the world apparently all saw it coming, so when she made her phone calls to all her girlfriends, they squealed with delight and rejoiced with her that she would finally be joining the marriage bandwagon.

That is, everyone except me.

I can't really say that I was surprised, either - as soon as I saw that it was her calling, I knew what was up - but when she told me before leaving that she was not ready to get engaged and had no intention of doing so on the trip, I (perhaps foolishly) believed her. So when she rattled off the story of his rather unimpressive proposal (in her parents' garage, with no romance or fanfare), made in spite of the fact that she had asked him to wait, I held back my internal cringe, smiled, and offered a muted congratulations.

We had a fight about it over Skype a few days later.

I have been doing a lot of hard thinking about what it means to be a good and faithful friend, and trying to figure out if those two are somehow mutually exclusive. The aforementioned friend has always said that she believes that "honesty is the best policy" in just about every situation. While I have pretty much always disagreed with her, I did believe it to be true within friendships...until now.

Case study #1: When I was in college, I made a friend while living in a Catholic community house the summer after my freshman year. She was a beautiful girl, gentle and cheerful, and it seemed like nearly every guy at the university Catholic student center wanted to date her. Somehow, she managed to pick the absolute worst one. He belittled her, disrespected her (hell, he showed up over an hour late to their first two dates), repeatedly broke his promises to her, and one night she even showed me an e-mail exchange between him and some woman he'd met online that indicated that he was cheating on her. All of her roommates and her sisters told her over and over again that he was bad news and that she deserved better. And she cut us all out of her life and stayed with him, until she dropped out of college and moved back home, and her father finally confronted her about it. Now she is married to a much better man, but it was over a year before she started talking to me again.

Case study #2: After moving back to Texas from Cincinnati, Joel and I were happy to plug back into our old group of friends (and make some new ones, too). We were all a pretty close-knit group, and in groups like that there are very few secrets. One of my girlfriends was really distraught when she and I discovered (what we thought was) really strong evidence that a mutual friend was cheating on his girlfriend. Several of us went around in circles trying to decide what to do about it, until I finally decided I was tired of it all, and just called her. I told her that I didn't know anything for certain, and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it just didn't feel right. The end result: they both stopped talking to me, moved in together, and eventually got married.

Sometimes we fear that our friends are in questionable, harmful, or destructive relationships, and sometimes we know they are in them. But does it ever do any good to point it out? Does it make you a good friend to be the voice of reason, or to present evidence of infidelity, or even to voice concerns? The logical answer seems to be yes, but now I am not so sure. In all of my experience, and in all the stories I have ever heard told like the ones above, the person confronted always chooses their significant other, without fail. Never once has someone taken the counsel of their friend to heart. Instead, more often than not, they shut them out of their life completely.

Back to my recently engaged friend. She has only really known him well for about five months now. I have never met him in person, but based on the 10-minute Skype conversation I had with him once, I like him a lot, and I am glad that he makes her happy. But based on some details of his past history, and the age difference (she is 27 and he is 36), I just think that it would be prudent for them to date for a while before getting hitched. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only person in her life calling for restraint. We got into a spat when she called me while waiting for her flight. Turns out she didn't like his proposal either, and she was also uncomfortable with getting engaged so soon - basically, the same things that were bothering me - but she was upset with me because she "needed me to be excited for her."

What?

What does it mean to be a good friend - should we place value on being honest, or being comforting? Should we wish our friends to be well or to be happy, when those two seem to oppose each other? Is it our duty to share fully in joy or sorrow that may not be good for our friends?

Does it make me a good friend to confront someone with the reality that they are being disrespected or abused by the person they love, if they are not willing to face it? Does presenting someone with evidence of infidelity make me a faithful friend, or just nosy, or both? Conversely, can I call myself a good friend if I see them being cuckolded and stay silent? Where do you draw the line between minding your own business and being a faithful friend? Can that line even be drawn? More importantly, how would I react to friends bringing these same concerns to me?

Friendships are difficult here. We create bonds so much more quickly than back home, because our time here is so short (at least for most of us), and it is so hard to know where the traditional boundaries fall. It's hard not to wonder if it is worth making friends at all.

Winter Blues: Easily Cured by Epic Ski Trips

So I knew that it had been a long time since I had written anything on this blog, but I didn't realize that it had been over a month until I logged on to update just now. I have been telling myself for the last few weeks or so that I needed to write, but slogging through this winter had just made me...sluggish. Lazy. Though I undoubtedly seem wimpy to people who have experienced "real" winters (e.g. in Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, or Canada), growing up in Texas simply did not prepare me for this kind of gray, extended cold. Even the year in Cincinnati didn't help - plus I absolutely hated it there, so I may not have been able to distinguish the cold-induced misery from my general distaste of the place.

I have had a legitimate case of the winter blues, pretty much since shortly after New Year's. I have had trouble waking up early, which means I have not been exercising or taking quiet time in the mornings much at all. I hate going outside, which means I haven't gone to the market or to E-mart to buy groceries, which means I haven't cooked at all. I haven't wanted to Skype (sorry friends), go out, answer e-mails, or really do anything at all...except play Fable on Xbox. I have definitely done plenty of that.

I also had a bit of disappointment earlier this month when I wanted to go see Aung San Suu Kyi accept an award for democracy here in Gwangju. My Korean teacher was gracious enough to call City Hall to get information about where the award ceremony would be, and at what time, and she even let us reschedule one of the classes so that I could go see her (there are only two of us in the class, and the other student was going to be gone that day, too, but still). Anyway, I had to take both the bus and the subway to the convention center on other side of town (a trip that took over an hour one way), and when I got there, they told me that I needed an invitation to get in. I even had a random Korean dude try to help me, but no dice. It wouldn't have been a huge deal, even, except that a friend of mine who lives right by the convention center got there early and was able to get in with the crowd that followed her into the building. Talk about a let-down.

Things have not been the greatest at work, either. Our Korean head teacher has implemented a new policy that all afternoon teachers have to be in two hours earlier than usual on the first day of the new session, ostensibly to prepare for our classes. What this actually means is that we are supposed to come in early so that we can get our test scores into the one computer shared by thirteen afternoon teachers. Unfortunately, there is always someone (usually multiple people) who isn't able to get their grades into the computer before classes start anyway...because there is only one computer for thirteen of us. On top of that, the kinder program is holding its big graduation ceremony this Friday, which puts additional strain on the kinder teachers (and, of course the Korean head teacher). Combined with the fact that we didn't have any kind of extended time off between the end of September and the New Year, and then again until last weekend...suffice it to say that tempers have run a little hot.

Luckily, the stressful monotony was broken for us last weekend with a ski trip to High1, a ski/snowboarding resort in Gangwondo (the northeastern-most province in South Korea). There is a Daegu-based travel group that organizes occasional trips to that resort, so we opted for a change of scenery and hopped onto a bus to Daegu to catch the group tour to the resort over the Lunar New Year. It was definitely a hike to get there and back - three hours from Gwangju to Daegu, and then another three to the resort - but it was absolutely worth it. We got in two full days of skiing on Sunday and Monday, and the travel group hosted a party on Sunday night.

Alas, we did not have a say in the color of our rented ski clothes. Luckily, Joel was pretty excited about his bright pink ski jacket.

I was also happy with my much-more-subdued blue jacket...and the matching hat (now my new favorite hat) that I picked up for only W10K. 

 It was really nice to meet some new people and make new friends, though we were really surprised at how few Americans were on the trip. Apparently, most of the Irish people who travel to Korea to teach wind up in Daegu, so there is a massive Irish community there; we also met lots of English and Scottish people, several South Africans, a few Aussies and Kiwis, and a couple of Canadians. There were maybe ten Americans that we met on the trip - including us. The skiing was really good, too - the nice thing about this particular resort is that it had several long beginner-level runs from the top of the mountain down to the valley, so I was able to get some good practice - and I even screwed up the courage to try some of the intermediate-level runs. In the end, we had such a good time that we are planning to go to Muju (the ski resort on our side of the peninsula, which is much closer) this coming weekend for a skiing day-trip.

I had another minor let-down this past week when I headed into church on Wednesday morning to go to Ash Wednesday Mass...and found out that they were only holding one Mass, and it was while we were at work. Seriously, guys - what kind of church only has one Mass on Ash Wednesday? That was disappointing, but I am trying to keep a positive attitude this year for Lent (or, at least, keep more of my complaints to myself). Hopefully we will start to get some warmer weather soon now that March is on its way.

If not...there is always skiing. And Game of Thrones.

Investigating Investigative Journalism

No, not another witty, insightful post by yours truly - just another slice of good ol' fashioned Daily Show humor. I heart Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Happy New Year!/Feliz ano novo!

Happy New Year from the ROK, family and friends! Joel and I ushered in a bitterly cold New Year in good health and good spirits (in all senses) at the Gwangju Speakeasy with friends who have become our family. Still, we miss you all dearly and hope your New Year was filled with joy, loved ones, and champagne (if you like it).

Also, I hope that any drunk friends that you may have put to bed that night appreciated it as much as mine did. That's what friends are for, after all.

As I mentioned before, we signed a contract extension with our school, which means we will be staying here until the end of January next year. We are pretty happy about our decision, as it means we now have more time to pay off debt, save money (for our fabulous post-contract extended vacation), and spend time with the friends that we've made here. For me personally, it means more time to hike this country's beautiful mountains and to study Korean. Unfortunately, it also means more time spent away from our cat - we miss him terribly, but the pictures that my brother sends us occasionally help to abate the pet-loneliness (the captions are his as well). Thanks, bro.

hanging out with my socks. a favorite spot.

assimilation complete.

also he's getting fat.

another favorite spot. he prefers water fresh from the tap, because he is a feline of distinguished tastes.

last one
you should frame this.

We started a new session this month with new classes - all of the middle school, 6th grade, and advanced classes were re-sorted according to the results of the students' level-up tests, so we all have new classes with a combination of new and old students. A new session is always a little hectic, what with making sure the students get their books and finishing our lesson plans, but this has added a whole new element of confusion to the mix. We had to come in about two hours early on the first day to plan for our classes, and several of us still had curveballs (like Joel and one of his co-teachers, who found out that their books were switched five minutes before class, after they'd already made lesson plans with the ones they were originally given). On a more positive note, it's been interesting to see some of our elementary school students in these new classes, and of course all of the teachers have been exchanging intel on students that we got from each other. I always knew that my teachers talked about me in school, but dang. This puts a whole lot of things from high school into perspective. Also on the (really) positive side - it turns out that I don't have to do winter intensives this month, since no students signed up for conversation classes. That means I can go back to my yoga studio and take Korean class on weekday mornings again. Hooray!

My Korean classes have been going well, too. I started Beginner 4 on Tuesday with another teacher who is from the U.K. She is pretty cool, and we get along well - we might even become friends! Yay. I know that I am learning something, at least, because I find that I understand my students (and my Korean co-teachers) more with each day that passes. I am no stellar conversationalist - I still struggle to hold even simple exchanges - but the language is slowly opening up for me, which is always really exciting. I am toying with the idea of taking a Korean language proficiency test before I go home. We'll see how things go.

Other than that, there is no major news - we might go skiing later this month, and (if the time works with my schedule) I might get to see Aung San Suu Kyi, the Lady of Burma, give a speech at Chonnam University (!!!). She is coming here to watch the Special Olympics and accept a human rights prize awarded to her in 2004. I don't know what time she is giving her speech yet, but I have my fingers crossed that it will be before work. How cool would it be to see someone who won the Nobel Peace Prize, back when it still meant something?