As we get closer to winter break, it seems my ability to pin down any one moment worth writing about is fading fast under a mountain of small anecdotes and bits of conversations I've had lately.
I went to Oman again, because my work visa hasn't processed yet. Aruna drove me again (I made sure to get his name this time) and we had a pretty good trip, talking about most of the same stuff we'd talked about last time: marriage, languages, and cultures. I gave him some tips on how to speak English better. He's a really fast learner, and it seems to me that maybe he's one of those people who's naturally gifted with the ability to learn languages.
Despite my best efforts to keep up my Korean studies, I feel like I've reached a plateau, and am doubtful when I will have the opportunity to start moving onward and upward again. I speak with Song at least a little bit every day, but my work has kept me so busy that I just don't have the time to devote to studying that I had in Korea. Also, I don't have little Korean elementary school students running up to me and just blabbing away anymore. Since I'm less surrounded by it, and totally beat after almost every day at work, I have little chance to improve. It's disheartening.
In fact, I had a four day weekend that ended yesterday, and somehow during that whole weekend I didn't even have time to answer the 12 messages I've had sitting in my e-mail inbox for the past several weeks. Somehow, the 70% load that I've been given has translated into about 60 hours a week, roughly. Granted, I'm tutoring and substituting about 10 hours a week, but still, I'm not sure where all the time's going.
Song's been doing good. She brought back some mangoes from her flight to Thailand, and they tasted great. I realized that mangoes are definitely my favorite fruit in the world.
My roommates have been fun to hang out with. We've been talking about a little bit of everything, but mostly they've been filling me in on their thoughts about the different cultures around here. They're all Muslim, and we had a good talk about religion a couple nights ago. It was honest and open and nobody's feelings got hurt, so that was cool. I've realized that the thing I like the most about them is that no matter the subject, it's refreshing to listen to their views about things simply because they have new perspectives. Mohammed, the guy from Egypt, can't speak English very well, so I told him that I would help him along a little bit. I have to stop by the elementary library at work and pick out a kids book for him to look over and study. His English level seems pretty similar to my Korean level, so I'm guessing the book's gonna have to be something along the lines of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
I'm the coach of the Under 14 Boys Basketball team, by the way. Not sure if I said that already. Anyways, we had our second game last Wednesday, and we won it, so now we're 1-1. The boys were pumped, and I was too. But, somehow I left all the jerseys at the school we were playing at across town, and I'm waiting with baited breath to get them back, since they probably cost at least $500 or so.
Ok, that's it. I'm done. I was at work for 12 hours today. Enough said.
No comments:
Post a Comment