Figured it might be nice to give you all a short update:

I'm sitting in Josh's house in upstate NY right now, relaxing and eating leftover Easter jellybeans.

My flights were smooth and were great for me, although the flight to Detroit got a little scary as one passenger had a pretty serious medical emergency midflight. They actually did the "if there's a doctor or nurse on board, please come to the front of the plane!" thing.

SO for those playing along at home: I left Incheon at 520 on June 2nd, and then thanks to some speedy flying and tailwinds I arrived in Detroit at 430pm. I felt like a Time Lord.

I had a long layover in Detroit which was mostly spent feeling dazed. I did get some Wendy's for dinner, for one because it just felt right to eat America fast food. It was also my cheapest option. While I think Korea's inexpensiveness is exaggerated, it was kinda annoying to have to pay $2.30 for a bottle of water instead of the 70 cents I got so used to paying!

Suffice to say I'm very happy to be back. It was great to wake up at 4am this morning and hear birds. I'll probably get sick of that really fast. But birds and the occasional coyote is a welcome change from cat fights, dog fights, revving motorcycles, and of course: early morning construction.

I feel as though this will probably be it for me, as far as posting goes. Maybe I'll do some comparisons here and there as I think of them, but my journeys ended.
To quote an amazing children's book ('Pigs in the House): Although it had been fun to roam, it was good to be back home.

Thanks for reading along, I hope you enjoyed it!
~Hannah

Korea In Retrospect

This is it, my last day in Korea. I leave for the airport tomorrow morning, and my flight to Syracuse (via Detroit) leaves at 520pm. Today is my busy day bouncing around and getting things done. Well, I've done all the outside things: I got my pension from the Korean government (you pay into a pension from your pay check every month and then if, like me, you're not retiring in Korea, they give you that money back), I canceled my cellphone (they seemed very to confused as to why I would want to cancel my phone), and then I closed my bank account and transferred my last paycheck to America. What's left now is just a lot of cleaning and some last minute packing!

Since the DMZ trip I've just laid low and tried to organize my life. Packing, shipping, and cleaning. Last Friday was my goodbye lunch for the office at a really nice vegetarian restaurant. Saturday night the lovely ladies in the photo at the top of this entry surprised me with homemade fondue and a night at Gwangju's most infamous spots.

I made cards for all my coworkers and exchanged email addresses, so hopefully they will keep in touch. It was sad leaving some of my students (mainly my third graders and two particularly awesome 7th graders) but most of the students seemed as apathetic to my leaving as they were to my existence. I did get some sweet and heartfelt letters, some chocolate and two very thoughtful gifts: a little beaded fish from a third grader who remembered how much I love the animals, and some blue nail polish from the aforementioned seventh graders, who somehow managed to remember that blue is my favorite color. I was also given a wilted clover, but that will not be coming back to America with me.

My time here in Korea has been roughly a bajillion times harder than I ever expected it to be. I know now that one of my biggest mistakes was not allowing myself to build a support system until it was too late. I hid much of my unhappiness from absolutely everyone, both here and at home and that meant that when I finally snapped there was no going back. I'd let myself be too miserable for too long without telling anyone what was happening. I thought people only wanted to hear about the good, so that's the only thing I focused on, but I wasn't doing a good job of convincing myself that what I was saying was true. If I've learned anything from this experience it's that I can never keep myself that closed off again. Despite what some people might try to tell me it's not worth acting happy all the time if you don't mean it. I think it's far better to be honest with your feelings, because then people can help you. I convinced myself that no one wanted to listen to my negative feelings and allowed myself to fall into a very, very deep depression that no one realized I was in because I put all my effort into showing up with a smile. Now I know better than to EVER do something like that again. It was possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life.

I have met some very amazing people while here, and I will miss all of them. My coworkers were fantastic people, and even just some everyday people at my favorite places. Like the packing genie at the post office, or the Paris Baguette girl who made sure I always got my favorite blueberry pastry, even if there were none on display and even if I didn't ask.

It's been a challenging year with A LOT of changes all across the board in my life. It's been a huge challenge. I'm not sure if I'd come back and do it all again, but I know that leaving know is undoubtedly the right decision. I may miss my adorable little third graders calling me a hippo but leaving now is a decision that I'm very at peace with, and very happy about. Of course, I still can't believe it's ONLY been ten months! I feel like I've been here for three years!

To quote the Grateful Dead, a band I've never actually listened to: What a long, strange trip it's been. To quote Lykke Li, an artist I listen to a lot: I'm good, I'm gone.

Hannahfish out!