I remember my last day of middle school. Middle school was without a doubt the most miserable period of my life. Nonetheless, there I was on my last day, crying because I could never be in middle school again. I can't tell you how many times I have wished that I was one of those teenage kids with adult wisdom who narrate books.
I tend to make things look rosy right before they were over. I thought about how much I loved Charlotte--which I did--before we left. We have had a wonderful time here, and every time I go onto Craigslist to look at rental shoeboxes in our price range, I am afraid that we are making a mistake. So I am glad that my mind is not doing its whitewashing thing right now.
It's actually quite the opposite. I had an outing with my staff in which I was the only foreigner, and I was glad it would be the last time I was part of some Korean social ritual with its nerve-wracking mile long list of rules (several of which I am already breaking by being the boss, yet female and relatively young). My staff and most Koreans are very polite, and will not tell me when I commit some faux pas, but nonetheless I feel like I always have to be on my guard. Look what happened to
Bill Gates. Today we were at the park, and yet another Korean grandmother tried to explain to me why it was bad for me to let my son play in the dirt, and I almost unloaded on her. Daegu has very little free entertainment to offer parents of young children, and there certainly aren't parks with playground equipment. Xander has to make do with exercise equipment, a stone ampitheater, a gazebo, and a basketball court, and I think he does so rather nicely.
We have really enjoyed our time here, and I'm sure we'll look back upon it fondly. However, I'm not ready to start thinking about how easy things are here when we're making this leap of faith to Hawaii. I'll take the sour grapes.
In other news, we saw a lantern festival last weekend. X grooved to the Korean drums and generally had a blast. A dear friend who loved Hawaii assures me that there are lantern festivals there, too.
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| X makes dirt piles on the basketball hoop |
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| Downtown on Children's Day |
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| Lanterns with Jin! |
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| Lanterns floating into the air |
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| Grooving to Korean drums while holding his own lantern |
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