The Last Day

Well I have been off work for 4 days now and it is quite strange. Boring to say the least since I sit around and do nothing almost all day. I sit around and read, walk around the lake, sleep late and sit around on the internet way to long.

My last day was sad but I really had no emotions about it almost the entire day. I remember asking all the former teachers, "What's it feel like? Are you excited? Why aren't you excited I'd be bouncing around happy."

But I wasn't. I was happy for sure but mostly just numb to the fact that it was over. I finally understood what they were feeling. Sure my experience there was never the best one. And as always when it's over and you can look back on it and think, "Oh well, it really wasn't that bad." But I know it kind of was. I really had no extreme feelings. The kids still made me angry at times and at other times they made me laugh. It was like any other day, but they knew. If I could stay their teacher I would. I love those kids.

Princeton class was my first of the day and Harris, who I love, was ignoring me. He wasn't happy that I was leaving. Aimee, who never really talked to me a whole lot but was super sweet, looks at me and says quietly, "Teacher don't go," and I wanted to say, "Okay, I won't."

I used to sing "Where I stood" by Missy Higgins to Stanford class. On the last day they sang it for me. They couldn't remember a lot of the words but it was still amazing. I have it on my camera but unfortunately I left my camera cord somewhere.

I ate lunch with Harvard class who used to scream with, I'm not exaggerating, sheer happiness when I walked into their class. I'll never forget that, "Yay Ashley Teacher!" I still don't know why they liked me so much. Maybe it was because I taught them cartoon network and they got to watch TV with me. I didn't regularly teach them on Mondays so I asked their head teacher if I could eat with them. They were so happy and I was glad to sit with them.

I visited Yale class. Every time Sue sees me she screams, "ASHLEY TEACHER!" So cute. And she learned how to say, "What is that?" So she would ask me that every day.

Brown class was the same. I had gotten into the habit of telling them to punch out their cards nicely. So the kids would say, "Teacher me punching nicely." And I would laugh and give them a happy face. "Who's punching nicely?"

Dartmouth class was the last. Rosa was not happy with me leaving. She practically begged me in that kid whiny voice to stay. "Why do you have to go?" she asked. "Because I have to." It's hard to explain to these kids that I signed a contract that meant I would be here for only a year and that my year was up. She told me, "I love Ashley teacher. Ashley teacher is my favorite," and I just wanted to pick her up and take her with me.

At the end of the day I went up to the playroom to say goodbye. The Korean teacher was in there singing some song with them to get them to listen and not talk. I waited for a time to interrupt to say goodbye. My boss came up and told them that I was leaving and to say bye to me. Gabriel said, "Thank you for teaching me," and kind of teared up. It broke my heart. How can you leave these kids? Brian said he would go home and cry for four hours. I didn't cry but I was sad. Took a few more pictures said goodbye and got ready for my afternoon classes.

I think the saddest thing is that they won't remember me because they're so young. I always joked with them, "Don't be sad! When Ashley teacher is gone you'll be like, 'YAY no more Ashley teacher!' and then we'll have a party." They laughed but it's the truth. Kids forget and they forget fast. But I'll remember them and I'll wonder what they're doing with there lives.

Anyways I'm preparing for Southeast Asia now. I can't believe that it's coming up in 26 days. All the rest of my friends are ending their contracts soon. It's sad to think I'll never be around these people again. No more game nights. No more ridiculous late nights at Hongdae and taking a taxi at 3 in the morning only to all hang out again at the park the next day. I'm going to miss this. I miss it already.

Japan

Japan pictures finally. But I would like to take a moment to seriously say Jincha (really) Blogger? Why is it so freakishly difficult to move pictures around? Don't mind me. My quarantine has gotten me a little crazy. I don't know how anyone could live under house arrest. I'm surprised I'm not talking to my imaginary friends yet.

By the way I don't have Swine Flu! My results came back negative! I was relieved for about two seconds until I was told they still think I might have it since I got my test before I spent the whole day with infected person number two. Yeah 3 of the 6 of us have it. But not me!! I'm showing no symptoms at all so hopefully I'm still in the clear.

For Japan we went to Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. These are the pictures that I took. Soon I will be stealing pictures from others and may post another Japan pictures blog.

This is the Floating Garden. Basically a very tall building where you can see the whole city.

A butt shot of the Floating Garden.

We took a elevator half way there. Then this very long escalator ride the rest of the way.

From the some what top of the Floating Garden. It cost about 800 yen (100 yen roughly equals a $1. However their currency is stronger than the dollar I think) and we were on a budget.

Me in front of a bubble window. I think I look like I'm in front of a green screen.

Osaka

Giant Hello Kitty. She really is every where.

We went on this giant ferris wheel at night. This is the view of Osaka.

Osaka at night.

These are fried octopus balls. Apparently very famous in Osaka. I didn't really like them. They were really mushy as if the batter hadn't completely cooked yet.

Dave was obsessed with this place. It was conveyor belt sushi. The place had just opened and it was 100 yen a plate. I think total we ended up with 21 plates or something. They had tasty salmon (my favorite) and some other strange things such as sausage on top of rice wrapped in a skinny piece of seaweed. Overall delicious.

This was in Kyoto. A Buddhist temple and was the first one we saw. I'm sad we didn't really get to see Kyoto much. It was a lot bigger then we had thought and spent a good 2 hours walking to still see pretty much nothing. After walking a long time it was nice to sit on the steps inside the temple.

I don't remember but I'm sure apart of the Buddhist temple. It was quite big.

This is where you take a brass cup with a long handle and rinse your hands as well as your mouth. This is to cleanse yourself before you pray.

Another temple? Same one.. I don't know they all look the same honestly.

This is Osaka Castle. It was quite the adventure to get there but a beautiful walk nonetheless.


Closer shot of the Castle.

I know this is why I need to post faster because I don't know where this from. But it's pretty haha.

Temple

A road that goes through a building. That's right cars go THROUGH the building. How would you like to work in that building?

Temple in Tokyo right near the hostel we were staying at. Also by our hostel was an amusement park. That was joyous...

More Temple at night.

There was this big aquarium outside of the Sony Building. I especially like this picture but I feel like, (is this a shark?), he is sad! He looks like he has no teeth and he just stayed right near the corner of the tank with his face pressed up against the glass. Poor thing :(

On our way to another temple.

These are wooden plates that you can write your wishes and gratitude to your family. Most of them wished for their parents prosperity and others about love in many different languages.

Funny sign in Tokyo subway.

The most AMAZING sink I have ever seen. Found in a Wendy's bathroom I believe. The far left is soap. The middle is water. The end is where you dry your hands. I love this sink!

Goodbye Japan!

Quarantine

What do you do in your last month of working in hell? Get quarantined, that's what. Someone's "weak body" and mind apparently could not handle staying healthy. We all joked about it, "He better have it since we have to cover his classes." Little did we know he actually did and what it would mean for all of us.

I got many texts Thursday night saying to come back to the school but lucky for me my phone was on vibrate. Plus I was a 40 minute bus ride away. There was no going back. When I finally picked up my phone I saw, "THIS IS NOT A JOKE. SCHOOL IS CANCELED UNTIL THE 17TH." I stared at my phone in total shock. Dave thought someone had died. No worse, someone from our school had swine flu.

The Boss calls me and tells me that I have a high risk of having it since I had a runny nose and was sneezing Monday. She tells me I need to go back to my apartment and call her when I get there.

Korea has this irrational fear of swine flu. They are very paranoid about it and have taken some what extreme measures to try and keep it contained. Ever since this whole swine flu thing came about we had been told from my boss that we need to stay healthy. We were not supposed to go out, party, meet people. Basically we weren't supposed to have a life outside of ECC. No one listened of course. What a stupid thing to ask all of us.

Months went by and with random temperature checks we all seemed relatively fine. July came and with it our first big vacation since Guam in January. I headed off to Japan, others went to Taiwan, Singapore, China and a very few stayed in Korea. By the time we got back that someone wasn't looking too good. But no way did he have swine flu. It's amazing how humans seem to believe that nothing can happen to them. Me included, as a self proclaimed hypochondriac, still couldn't believe that it loomed so close to me. That I could actually have this flu that has freaked the world out.

I can not think of a word that can truly express what Friday was like for me. We arrived at school at around 8:50 and were told that we were going to all go to the hospital and get tested for swine flu. A few gems of the rant my crazy boss said yesterday morning:

You should all feel responsible for this. You should feel sorry for the Korean teachers. We did not leave Seoul. You went away. We wanted to go travel but we couldn't. You are all responsible for this. This could make our business collapse. This is very bad for our school. We are losing 30 million won for being closed a week. Who is going to pay for that? Are you? No more drinking. You are all to stay in your houses. Do not be around other people. Drinking is not allowed.

Basically we were being blamed for swine flu being in Korea because we are Americans. Being a some what looking white person with an American accent I have never really experienced racism. Just because we were foreigners we were being blamed for someone else getting swine flu. I didn't know that since we are American we are the harbingers of swine flu. It must seek us out first so we can be its vessels in infecting the Korean population *insert evil laugh here.* In the words of Michelle Tanner, "puhlease!"

After her pep talk we sit around while the Korean teachers all have their own personal meeting. All of us are fuming. Amazed how a women could somehow take our English words and arrange them in such a way to be as offensive as possible. One of the secretaries takes all of our temperatures and lucky for me topped the group with a 37.9 degree Celsius temp. Boy do I miss our measurements because I had to immediately get online and convert it to find out that I had a 100.22 degree temperature. Hooray this is just fabulous. Looking back I contribute it to being completely pissed off.

Awhile later Boss comes back and goes, "Ashley you have a high fever. You need to go to the hospital." About 3 hours later I'm finally taken away along with another foreign teacher and a Korean teacher that sat next to the infected person. It's lunch time for the doctors so we have to wait 30 minutes for them to give us face masks to wear and take our temperature again. 37.3 now (or 99.14) and they ask if we had had any symptoms. I say I had a runny nose awhile back and the doctor freaks out saying "That is not enough to be concerned with swine flu." They don't want to test us, but since my test results were going to affect Dave I had to get tested. They were less then happy.

A picture of a picture taken from my phone of me in the face mask. Swine Flu Ninja.

Geez a whole other story. Dave works at Jamsil ECC, another branch of the YBM ECC company. His boss is calling his phone Thursday night but he had left it at my place. When someone at his work told him to call his boss she asked, "You're girlfriend is named Ashley right?" They had found out quite quickly about what happened to my school. She asked him when was the last time he'd seen me. He was like, "I saw her today." She basically asked him to not see me until this was all over. A text message from Dave's boss to my phone:

"This is for David. Please do not see her until latent period has ended."

He wasn't allowed to go to school Friday, unexpected day off, and can't go back until they find out if I have it or not. So to go back to the story I HAD to get tested. They gave us all Tamiflu but said we shouldn't take it unless we have a fever. They then hand us a piece of paper saying that the government is issuing a mandatory quaratine on us until the test results come in. We go back to school and the boss tells us that we need to finish making the homework packets for the kids, since they'll be missing a week of class, then we could go home. She obviously either has no idea what state mandated quarantine means or is above Korean law.

I finish my worksheets, print them, staple them and give them to my Korean partner teachers by about 3:40. I ask Sarah, the head afternoon teacher if I was free. She nods and says yes and I grab my purse and run out of the building. I go to the grocery store since I have no food for my quarantine and 40 minutes later the boss calls me.

"Where are you?"
"I'm at home."
"Well you need to come back here. We are not done yet. This is not a vacation."
"Sarah said I could go home."
(Something in Korean to Sarah) "She said she didn't say that."
Some more bitching when I finally just intrupt her, "Okay I'm coming back."

I get back and she is just as pissed as I am. I go to Sarah, "I asked you if I could leave and you said yes." She said she never said that. That her back was turn when I asked her. I didn't realize that you completely lose the ability to hear when your back is turned. Then the boss is having some fighting words with me and we're in a stare down. I tell her, "You said that when I was done with the worksheets that I could go home."

"I never said that," she says. I throw my hands up in the air and say, "Are you kidding me?!" I tell her that that paper says that I'm supposed to be in quarantine. She tells me that I have a very slim chance of having it. Funny because the day before she was almost positive that I did have it. I ask her what it is I have to do now. She gives me this look, "You need to really prepare for your classes on Monday. Not just going in there with a book." I say fine and go to my desk. Another one of my partner Korean teachers asks me to make another worksheet for my intensives phonics class and I happily almost start. That is until Sarah comes by all smuggly handing me a stack of papers and asks me to cut the strips then put them in envelopes.

At first I'm really irritated at this. I left my house to do busy work. But then I just start cutting very slowly, making everything perfect. Sarah comes by and says I don't have to cut perfectly. So I start slowly putting the slips of paper in the envelopes and make nice stacks. My partner Korean teacher comes back and asks me if I'm busy. I tell her Sarah told me to do these. "Well, can you do the phonics worksheets. They're a little more important." Sure! I say smiling, "Here you go Sarah." And I hand the stack back to her and she angrily goes back to her desk.

I'm finally done with everything by about 5:30. Another two hours are spent not being told anything. We are waiting for people to come in and talk to us... in Korean. People from corporate come and rattle on in Korean. No one translates for us and the foreign teachers stare blankly at eachother. Then we wait longer for the Manager to come and speak Korean to us! Go figure. We are told that we are supposed to text the boss and manager two times a day. Once at 10 am and once at 6 pm. We are to stay in our apartments and if they call us and ask us to be at the school at any time we should be able to get there quickly. School is canceled on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday we are to be at school by 10 am to have "Happy Call" time with the students. By 7:20 I'm finally back home and officially quarantined.

Rafting

I don't have many pictures from when I went rafting on the 4th but hopefully they'll be up soon.

This was where we went rafting at. We had gotten up at about 5 in the morning to catch a bus to Inje. The bus was actually really nice and we watched Quantum of Solace the whole way there. Once we got to the place we went into pension that we were staying at. Then we set off to go rafting. We suited up in our helmets, life jackets and water shoes.

When we got to the beginning of the river we had a lesson in safety. Basically if you fall into the river you lay on your back, feet facing down the river and arms out. All 8 of us (Natalie, Bill, Jess K, Brett, Abbi, Lety, Dave and me) got into our raft and set off. Not two minutes into the trip we hit our first rapid. I go flying out of the raft and am floating backwards down the river. Apparently I had forgotten the safety position. Everyone is yelling at me "Don't stand up! Safety position."

Now from first hand knowledge I can tell you I wasn't trying to stand up. The rocks in the water were basically to my chest and I was trying to get around them. Finally I got into the safety position and Dragon (our guide) pulled me in. My legs were cut up a little and I had a nice bump on my leg where I collided with a rock. My face, they say, was quite funny when I was floating down. Something resembling terror.

Since it was the 4th of July we decided to cook out. We cooked chicken pieces, some onion and green peppers and made rice. No fireworks but fun nonetheless. After dinner we all played Cranium. But midway through the guys decided that they needed to get more stuff to drink. After 45 minutes the girls gave up on them and pulled out all the mats to sleep on. When they finally came back they were all irritated that we were ready to sleep when they were just talking to some Korean rafting guides.

Somehow we all got up and went over. We set up a makeshift beer pong table using a bottle lid as the ball.
Me about to throw the "ball." I'm pretty terrible at this game and I end up not play for very long.

The Koreans were watching us and some actually came over and learned how to play. They loved it! After about 2 in the morning we finally all went to sleep and left the next day at around 11.

Roof Top BBQ

We had a roof top BBQ for a mini Krista's going away party. One of many we had for her.

This was what we cooked out on. Tiny but it was still really good. So much food I miss from back home. Mostly grill stuff.


The spread. Hamburgers, pasta salad, deviled eggs, chips and Krista made this ice cream cake that was delicious. That giant bottle of orange stuff was supposed to be margarita's.

Ryan who takes the best pictures.

The amazing Krista who is now living the good relaxing life in Australia. Lucky!! We miss you <3

Buddha's Birthday Lantern Festival

Basically I never blog because A. I hadn't done anything interesting in a long time. and B. Because I'm bad a taking pictures so I would wait for people to upload them. Believe it or not it takes people forever to do so. So these are pictures from the Lantern Festival I went to in celebration of Buddha's Birthday.













The floats were amazing! There were so many people there too carrying lanterns. It was a cold rainy day and we got there kind of late. Most of the little side things were closing down but at least we so the parade.

What I want to do when I get home

I was writing a comment back to Rachael when I started listing things that I want to do when I get home. I found it funny the things I really want to do (which mostly includes eating) are things that I felt were kind of boring while I was there. But anywhere here is a list of things I want to do when I get home:

1. I immediately want some Rancho Grande. I have been craving those greasy tacos and cheese dip for 10 months.

2. Bubble Tea! I found a bubble tea place here but it's not as good as Tea Drops down town.

3. Olive Garden. Boy do I miss those amazing bread sticks and salad. These things are very hard to get here in Korea. Side story: Dave and I went to Bennigans a few months ago. When we sat down the waitress beings us water and bread. We hadn't seen bread at a restaurant in months. So we're munching on it and looking at the menu. Come to find out everything was about 20,000 won or more. So we ate the bread and bolted. lol.. first time I've ever done that.

4. Shopping! I miss places that have more then the F size, which means one size fits all. I miss Victoria's Secret underwear and bras because there is no way I can find a bra that fits here. I miss jeans that aren't made for size negative 0 people. Some Koreans are abnormally small. Sometimes I look at them and wonder how they are walking because they are just bones.

5. Visit my family and friends. I can't wait to see all of you again. And I'm just glad to know that during that probably emotional time that I'll be coming back home I have all of you there for me.. and to distract me :)

6. Driving! Though I probably won't do much of it if their is any snow on the ground. By the time I get home it will have been 15 months since I had driven a car. I'm going to need good weather before I get behind the wheel again. Can you all just pick me up? haha

7. Westport/ The Plaza/ Downtown City Market. Though I lived there my whole life these places seem new to me now and I really want to see and explore them again. I'm sure once I get there I'll be like.. okay bored lol

8. Walmart.. damn you Walmart weaseling your way into my heart.. It's just so darn convenient!! If I want something here in Korea I have to take a bus or a taxi to the closest big store and then I can only buy as much as I can carry. About 2 shopping bags.

9. The oven. I've had this urge to bake stuff for months now.

10. Food in general.. Wendys, normal pan crust Pizza Hut (with no corn or potato wedges on the pizza), Taco Bell, Indian Food (they have it here but it's strangely not as good as back home), Thai Place, buying practically anything I need to make any dish at Hy-Vee (yeah if I want to make spring rolls I can do it), my mom's egg rolls, mashed potatoes, Applebee's app sampler.. I feel fat just looking at all of this lol.

11. A mani/pedi. Sure they do them here but unless you are Korean they just shake their heads and tell you no. I've finally stopped biting my nails.. I'd love a nice manicure.

8 weeks of ECC left then I'm off for a month.. Then traveling for 6 weeks.. then back home. Can't wait to see everyone and KC.

Revision on what I must do:
12. Get my eyebrow waxed. OH MY GOSH I haven't done them in at least a year.. I'm in some serious need.