Summer plans

Well, the year's almost up for now. Only a few more weeks left of school. All the classes I'd been taking have finished up, and I got a pretty good grade for my CELTA course:



I've started planning what to do for the summer. Looks like I'll be back in the U.S. for about a month. It'll be the first time in 3 years.

Man, 3 years.

I can still remember my first night in Korea. I was in some love motel (more on Korean love motels later), but I didn't know it at the time. I just thought it was some random hotel.

Getting food to eat was a big deal my first three days. I was scared to walk into a restaurant, because I had no clue what to order. I just ate at a bakery I'd found because it was easier to just pick up some bread and take it to the counter. No language needed for that.

Dubai was a bit different. I'd already visited here, so I understood some of the basics of the place: you speak in English everywhere you go, it's really hot in the summer and that encompasses a lot of conversations, there's a lot more Western food, etc. I rode in the taxi from the airport, and it felt good to be out of Korea and into something new.

I imagine that much hasn't changed since I've been in the U.S., aside from TSA patdowns. In fact, I can't say as I'm aching to go back. It'll be nice to see family and friends, but it honestly wouldn't bother me if I didn't go back for a few more years. I'm not easily convinced that all my worries, fears and misgivings will be placated by the American way of life, or that a taste of home will remind me of all that I've forgotten I need and want.

It was best summed up by Ciaran, my Irish co-worker during my first several months in Korea. We'd got to talking about being home and missing it, and the ups and downs of our life in Korea, and he told me his story about the first time he'd gone home after living abroad. He got off the plane, and his dad picked him up. A hug and a decent conversation on the way home, and a bunch more hugs when he walked in the door and his mom and older brothers greeted him. And then that was it. Within 30 minutes, everything had gone back to normal. His dad was sitting in the living room, watching TV. His mom was in the kitchen, making food and watching TV. His brothers were each in their rooms, watching TV. And he realized that everything he'd been aching for, all those feelings of home, were little more than select memories that the salesman in his mind had chosen to market.

For me, the point is not so much how his family reacted to his homecoming, as the fact that everything went back to normal. But, then again, maybe stories like that are the little lies I've been telling myself to get me through the past 3 years.

p.s. I've run across stories like this before: http://ryan927.blogspot.com/2008/05/missing-boat.html