you ever feel overwhelmed by problems? i mean, not your own. cuz generally i feel productive enough to fix those. but other people's. and their problems are everywhere. and they're big. and you can't do anything about them. i mean, yeah prayer. and really, i know it's important and works. but somehow i still feel helpless...or more like not helpful to them. i guess it's good because it makes doing the small things even more rewarding. i mean, i have to look for the small things to do for people because i can't do anything about the big stuff.

so i realized something this past month. i am pretty normal. i mean considering. i realized that this year has brought about change in the last 3 things that had been constants in my life. my immediate family changed with a wedding. my old school family changed with fighting. and my missionary family changed with a resignation. but i'm stable. normal. and life is great. ya know, considering.

ok, so news. i'm going to santiago for 2 months! its not until the end of october, but believe you me, the countdown has started. i've got ants in my pants. i'm doing my student teaching down there at SCS. more than anything i'm excited about getting to be a part of the vallette family again. even after 8 yrs, i still miss seeing them and doing holidays and family functions without them. AND now they have a new addition. i cant wait to meet baby Jason!

november

it's november and it's 65* outside! the sun is shining and the breeze is nice and it's a good day. ruthie and i planned a picnic for melissa on the perfect day... we had crackers and cheese and pb & j... we took pictures and funny videos and THEN! there was a snake! ...i HATE snakes!

so i'm past the half way mark on this semester and it feels pretty nice. i'm pretty sure i'll make it through all my classes with the required grades, maybe not much better than the requirement, but it doesn't matter that much now. i have my schedule for next semester and i will no longer have to wake up at 6:15am!! woohoo and i will again have all my classes with my friend lena. at this point i'm about 70% sure i want to do my second half of student teaching at scs in the DR... but i could still use some prayer about this decision.

in the past month i've been able to visit iwu, oklahoma and michigan. i've seen michelle, hannah, dianna, steph, andrea, julia, ashley, rachel, amanda, jess boyce, kady, david, jess jenness, caryn and brittany. and lots more. but it's been great and i've loved getting to catch up with all these friends who i havent gotten to see for over a year. even though traveling around to see everyone is hectic (and the oklahoma roadtrip was a bit crazy), in the end i feel so blessed to continue to have these people in my life. :)

ok. ruthie and i are on to our next adventure: second hand store and second hand bookstore in ft wayne...

WEST

"I'm glad i never lived next to the water
So I could never get used to the beach
And I'm glad I never grew up on a mountain
To figure out how high the world could reach
I love the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street

For some the world's a treasure to discover
And your scenery should never stay the same
And they're trading in their dreams for explanations
All in an attempt to entertain"
---good ol' jonny mclaughlin


wow, could those lyrics be any LESS true for how i feel about indiana and where i live. i'm back, except i'm not back in northwest indiana, but out in the cornfields. i'm not just feeling the culture shock of living in the states again, but now i'm figuring out this whole country road and rural people living thing. oh. and i've got roommates again. i mean, theyre great ones, if you've gotta have some...but its weird having to SHARE space, food and time with people again.

so, update: i'm at grace college for transition to teaching (elementary education). i'm taking 16 hrs this semester and my classes are ridiculous, but i've got the whole student thing down again. except so far not up the the standards i had previously in school life...thanks to biology. this coming week i've got a music teaching lesson, three tests, and two papers.

and this weekend...crystal's here!! right now we're all watching dirty dancing. ya know, in honor of patrick swayze. tomorrow we're going shopping in ft wayne. and jenny's meeting up with us. it'll be good to spend time with the girls..its been a while. and there's lots to catch up on :)

earlier tonight i was busy stalking one of my friends on facebook/blog. and saw that he was talking about if he could do anything... and earlier i was talking to michelle about direction... it just makes me think about how frequently i've changed my mind on that. and now, i'm spending oh so much money on a new 'plan' but what if i take another trip somewhere and change my mind again? am i just supposed to stay put until i can go on with the current plan so i dont screw it up? but the reality is...i want to travel, but how do i decide which thing i want more?

and why does everything in that paragraph say "i" ?

goodbye korea

this is my last post from south korea. it's crazy that it's been a year. and while i'm very ready to go to school and move forward with becoming a teacher... i don't want to leave. i like it here. i like life here, a lot.

ever since i thought of going back to school for elementary education, i've considered coming back here an option. lifechurch sunday services are held at an international school called gsis. and i have friends that work there now. well, lately it's becoming a more forefront option. definitely something i'll be looking into and praying about for the next year. anyone want to come back with me?? :)

this past week has flown by. not only have i been preparing to leave, i've also been helping transition two new teachers to slp. they have been following me and another teacher around all week. it's been fine, but mostly i'm thankful that tomorrow i'll have my classes to myself one more time to say goodbye. it's going to be a very hard day. i'll have goodbyes lasting through the entire day. mostly it's three classes i'm very sad to be leaving. both my preschool classes, and my old preschool class. theyre all amazing kids and i wish i could follow them all around and make sure they get only the best things in life. but i guess that's part of teaching... or so i'm told. something else i'll have to learn, on top of the goodbye thing. i'm pretty good at that already though.

in case it's not been made clear... here's what's next for me:
tomorrow is my last day as a teacher at slp. at 10am on saturday i fly out of seoul and arrive into chicago at 3:30pm on saturday. i will sleep at home and then sunday morning i move to columbia city, indiana. i am living with ruthie and melissa duttweiler. i start classes on monday. yes, like monday august 31. i will take classes for fall '09 and spring '10. i will student teach fall '10. in december '10 i will be an elementary teacher.

"in front of them all"

this past saturday i had the opportunity to go the DMZ--demilitarized zone. i went with liz and two of her friends visiting from indiana (sarah and marlise). i had to wake up at 4:30am and be at the USO office by 7:00am. in case you dont know me well: i dont do mornings. but we made it, despite me not having my passport, liz and sarah not having collared shirts and marlise having opened toed shoes. :)
i sat in a window seat on our way up. we went along the han river all the way north. i started noticing on the way up that there was barbed wire running along the gated shore. and then there were military posts every mile or so. the later explanation we got is that the han is also the imjin river...the border river between north and south... ...
so anyways, we got up to camp bonifas, which is the last military base outside of the DMZ. there we got briefed on the history and current situation. and what was expected of us. it was really interesting to hear about the level of security and day to day intensity of their jobs up there. then we got on military buses and began our journey into the dmz. the first thing we camp upon was a blockade that is set up so that tanks cannot come through. there was A LOT of vegetation! i dont know why i was so surprised by it. i guess i hadnt really thought about it that much. but i think its what scared me most. i mean, when we were on the bus we couldnt see anything except directly in front of us. nothing has been cleared in over 50 years... finally we came out of that and were able to see the south korean village...the freedom village, or taeseong-dong.
then we got to the JSA--joint security area. we got off the buses and filed in two lines through a building to 'the line.' the MDL--military demarcation line. i was at the end of the end of the line. so when i was finally able to see anything, i realized i was staring at north korea. kinda fun, eh? there were 2 ROK--republic of korea (the good guys)--soldiers on the sides of our group. a UN soldier giving us the tour and 3 more ROK soldiers down on the line in front of us. we could only see 1 DPRK--democratic people's republic of korea (bad guys)--soldier. he was a bit freaked out by all 90 of us tourists and i got a good picture of him with his binoculars checking us out. we took some pictures and then walked into T-2. its the middle "temporary" building set up by the UN where all armistice talks are held. there were 2 ROK soldiers in here too. they locked the n korea door so we were safe. this was my chance to stand on the MDL and IN NORTH KOREA!
we left the JSA and went to the third tunnel. yes...third. because they've found 4 in total of n korea trying to spy/invade. the tunnel was intense. we walked straight down for uhm...at least 15 min. oh and we had to wear yellow hard hats. then we walked through the tunnel for another 15 min...apparently n koreans are shorter than americans bc dude, it was a LOW ceiling. when we got to the end there was a door. and we could look through a window to see another door which was the MDL quite a bit underground. then we turned around and went back the way we came. that was quite hard. quite. couldve used my lost inhaler at that point, lol.
then we watched a movie about all the tunnels and all the assassination attempts and all the post armistice agreement signing events...crazy. the DPRK military is a bit intense and insane.
after lunch we headed to an observation post. it was on a cliff so we could see quite a bit of n korea. we could see gijeong-dong, the north korean propaganda village from there. with their ridiculously large flag (30 meters wide). and tons of statues/monuments of kim il-seong and kim jeong-il. we werent allowed to take pictures except for behind a stupid yellow line. so my pictures didnt exactly turn out. but i saw it. should be good enough, right?
after this we went back to camp bonifas and got back on our bus back to seoul. when we got back, we went into the korean war memorial museum. it was incredibly interesting as well. that day was seriously one of the coolest experiences of my life. ...sorry i wrote in such detail. but it's that cool to me.

it's august.

i'm back in korea and i can't believe that i was even gone for the past week.

my family and friends had the coolest surprise i've ever received waiting for me at the airport. kady! i was so amazed and thankful to have her around for the week. and what a week it was.
-coldstone outing...
-shopping
-craig's goodbye party
-crazy carnival ride! (ask about that sometime)
-hair cut and new drivers license
-packing, moving and unpacking in columbia city
-roadtrip to st. louis, LUKE'S WEDDING
i seriously can't believe i was home. and i can't believe i only have a month left...

even after just a week, it was so good to be back with my kids. i love them so much and i have so much fun watching them grow up and realizing how much english theyre actually learning. i'm going to miss them TONS! well certain ones more than others. i'm starting to wonder how much i'm going to miss my coworkers, church and friends, and actually korea. i really like living here. but i dont know how much of it is liking korea and how much of it is liking living as a foreigner. when i was home and was sharing with person after person about living here... i started to realize when i was describing it, that a lot of what i was saying was similar to my life in the DR. maybe it's all just related to living in a foreign country... somehow. i find it easier. and more comforting. weird, but not sure how to explain.

goggles and swim caps

ok. so my sporadic updates are not from lack of eventfulness... its just that it all seems normal now. (it's going to be interesting living in indiana after this year)

we went on a "field trip" yesterday to the swimming pool. it was also the day of my last (and most difficult) open class. so i wore shorts and a tank to the pool. i was not planning on getting wet. i figured the swim instructors and the three other teachers could handle it. well... one of my preschoolers was have issues with her goggles, so i went over to her to help her out. the kids were so adorable with their goggles and all of them had swim caps. so then, without (an english) warning, i was soaked. one of the instructors told the 50some students to splash me!! so at this point i just jumped in. when the pool fun was over we followed the girls into the showers, where christina and i proceeded to rinse off our naked lil girls. they stripped their suits and just stood there in lines waiting for us to rinse them off. then they pranced into the changing room and changed. i proceeded to glare at the jerk instructor that got me all wet and then plop onto the cold tile floor waiting for jason to take pictures of all the kids. when we got back to school i changed into my dress for open class. i had a science activity with the lil newbie kids. when i walked in, they were all freaking out bc amy had smelly clay. so when i told her to put it away she started pouting. then hugh started pouting bc his helicopter pieces were white and not colored. so i switched him. but then amy wanted by pink balloon. so i gave it to her, but then she popped it. so i had to give her her old one back. and then hugh and jessica popped their balloons and jessica started crying. so i made her stop crying but then she climbed onto my lap and the strap on my dress started ripping. SOOO, i went home and changed for the third time that day. i ended up having to make a-young (one of my best/favorite students) write 'lines' today bc she was so disrespectful. and then my open class didnt go well bc the students wouldn't talk. they wouldnt even repeat new vocab words i was teaching them. my boss left me a note saying that the parents think the material i'm doing is too boring and that the kids dont speak enough. IT'S THE SCHOOL'S CURRICULUM!! bah
anyways, today stephanie offered to take all of the staff to a movie and dinner. no one went. so bryan and i went. it was incredibly awkward. i felt like i was in a class being taught on how to act like a 21yr old korean girl. i was disregarded and pushed aside so much by stephanie. she would barely answer anything i said to her. i was expected to sit there and listen. it was ridiculous. she was all talking it up with bryan. at one point bryan looked at me and was like "so beth, what do you think?" it's unbelievable that i can be one of her best teachers and that means squat to her. she treats the male teachers so much better. and she treats christina better bc she's older. but i get nothing. it's soooo completely different from the american merit based system. and i've had class after class tell be about the difference in certain cultures, but it's still so insulting when you have to live it.

ok. well that's just a small glimpse as to what my days consist of. haha.

i'll be in chicago/nwindiana from july 25-july 30. and st louis for july 31-aug 1.