In Which Lyn Babbles About Baseball

Sera, Hye In, my forehead

Or, You Can Skip To the End if You're Not Interested in Baseball, There is Also My Last Day at MunHwa.



Hey,

So on Tuesday night I went to a baseball game in Korea. The KIA Tigers (Gwangju's team) V the Samsung Lions (Daegu's team). At least I'm pretty sure it was Samsung...I will add pictures when my iPod stops being a whiney child. It didn't get a lot of attention today so it's upset with me. Anyway. Baseball. Now, I like American baseball as much as the next Red Sox fan, though maybe a bit less than the hardcore fan, but I love watching Asian baseball games. They're awesome.

For those of you who don't know, I went to Japan my freshmen year of college. While there I had the opportunity to see a baseball game there. I was amused because it was so polite. Before that game I had only been to a Red Sox game (or half of one) and only watched the Red Sox on TV. Those games are most definitely NOT polite. The fans took turns cheering, each had a special group cheering section who knew these songs and chants. They did dances in the stand (or at least that's what it looked like to me) and it was so cool. They also had cheerleaders who came out between innings (I knew the 7th inning stretch, but I think one before that too...), and a very cute dancing mascot.

Needless to say, I was excited when my Korean friend Sera invited me to a baseball game. Britton and I went after work (my second to last day), and got to see the last half of the game. Not even half. KIA was winning until we got there T_T but it was still fun. There were cheerleaders, and a small section for Samsung cheering, but there was one guy with a megaphone leading the cheering for everyone. I didn't get a lot of it as my Korean is still not great, but I had a great time anyway. It was not as polite as the Japanese baseball game, people got into the game a lot more, but still far more polite than I'm used to with baseball.

Then, the next day, the end came. I had to say good-bye to MunHwa. In some ways it was harder than I thought it would be, in others it was easier. Saying good-bye to my classes was easier. My grade 4s I said good-bye to last week and that was difficult (they're so cute~) but this week was easy. I thought it would be more difficult because this week I had to say good bye to two classes I've had for my entire time (and almost entire time) here, but it went smoothly. Saying good bye to the office was a bit harder than I thought it would be, though, and I will miss working with all of them. I'm going to try to keep in touch, but as you probably know, if you know me, I suck at that. I'm currently sitting in my friend's room in Japan, on vacation, I'll write about that next time, but I'm ready for my next adventure in Korea, at my new school. I move the day I get back to Gwangju from Japan. I'll post baseball pictures in this tomorrow, if my iPod cooperates, other than that, my next post will be next week.

Laters

In Which Lyn Reappears Again

Or A Year in Review

Hey all!

Sorry I disappeared, again, for so long! I'm very bad at this blog thing apparently. I'm working on it. Hopefully next year will be better. I'm staying in Korea for one more year, though, do to circumstances, I'm switching academies. I will be working at ELC, still in Gwangju, just another part of the city. I'm often told that where I'm moving (Suwan/Shinchang) is it's own little mini-city (or suburb). As I get ready to leave MunHwa and start my second year here I'm looking back on my year here. I can't believe it's been that long. It feels both longer and shorter at the same time. So much has happened.

When I got here I was excited but didn't know what to expect really. Everything was so new and different. There's very little Roman letters anywhere and the language is nothing like any that I know (well maybe a little like Japanese, but not enough to help). Teaching has been my dream forever, so that part of it was what I was looking forward to the most. I don't remember when I first decided I was going to be a teacher but I know it's been since at least 7th grade. I still don't really feel like a real teacher. I probably won't even in 20 years when I'm at an American High School teaching Latin. However the experience has been very rewarding. I've dealt with classes that have outright hated me and weren't shy about showing it (just said good-bye to them on Friday, YES!), I've dealt with classes that adored me and made it difficult to punish them because of them (also said good-bye to them on Friday, sad), and everything in between. There were times when I really questioned what I was doing. However, I've loved almost every minute of it.

I'm working on learning the language and I'm getting further than I have in any other language. I have a bunch of new (and old) Korean friends who are really helping with that. I've made better friends with the foreign community here and they're awesome. I found some geeky friends who I get to table-top with, and I was really missing that so I was very excited. One of them is awesome and helping me with my knitting, which I started doing again. I started volunteering at a foreign restaurant and it's great. I love helping out there. The friends I've made here are amazing and I know that I will always remember them (and hopefully the friendship will survive me coming back stateside). The whole experience has been amazing. I've had a great time and most of my doubts about my future career have gone away.

I am sad to be leaving MunHwa, but at the same time it'll be nice for a new experience. MunHwa is very open-ended about their curriculum. I got to make it up (sometimes as I went). ELC has a set curriculum that I have to follow. The difference is one I'm looking forward to because it's nice to have practice with both. As I look forward, instead of back, I'm excited.

I know this was rather short after my long absence, and not much of a review, but it suits my purposes. I'll try to keep this up better than I did last year. I will definitely be writing again shortly as I'm going to a baseball game on Tuesday and will want to talk about that, and the differences between here and home and Japan. I am going to Japan (by flying boat!) and I'll update after that too. So hopefully it'll be more often than it was! Hope you all keep reading even though it's only me here now.

~Lyn~