Thank you

What I know for sure is that if you are feeling down there are two things that can help you get out of it: gratitude and humour. I'm setting out to do both in this blog post.

Thank you so much for your support both in the short term (as I reached out feeling unhappy and stuck) and in the long term just being away from home: being my champion, sending me mail, sending me social media messages, doing video chats, and being my friend both in Korea and Canada. The smallest gestures can mean so much - I will try to remember that when I return to Canada. I usually like to do something big and showy, but now I know the small things can equal the big. One time a teacher here gave me a chunk of cheddar cheese from a giant log that was gifted to her. Do you know what the gift of cheese means in Korea? It's so expensive here! I promise if I have a cheese windfall, I will give you a chunk.

I'm not going to leave Korea now, as some of you suggested to me privately. It was nice to feel that support, knowing that if I couldn't handle it - I would be okay. If it was THAT bad, I would. I have done it before and I would do it again - to leave a job that makes me unhappy. Life is too short to do something that doesn't bring you joy. But, there's just enough that is tipping me the other way to stay:

1) I am able to save some money here and would have to pay the school back my recruitment fee and the reimbursement for my flight here, so it wouldn't be worth it financially.

Although, money isn't everything - sticking it out for the next 5 months doesn't cause me enough pain to give that up.

2) I have 2 planned holidays coming up plus I really hope to travel when my contract is over. I would lose those opportunities if I went home.

3) We just applied for Kenneth's Permanent Residency using a Korean address and just the hassle in re-routing that makes my eye twitch.

There's so many other ones, but those are the big ones.

Now to give you some funnies:

It's a first for me to have a man cook for me for two reasons: The men I've dated aren't great cooks and I have some food anxiety that makes people too nervous to cook for me. Mostly I'm just scared of not liking it and then offending them for not eating it. But, Kenneth has cooked for me a few times and had great results. One time he made me spaghetti and the sauce was so delicious and flavourful.

Me: What tomato sauce is this? It's so delicious! Canned? Jarred?
K: Round
Me: What?
K: Real tomatoes . . . round!

Just typing this made me laugh so hard. He one upped me and made his own tomato sauce. Okay, Martha Stewart!

I'm enjoying my students learning more words and piecing together things once they realize they are connected. Last week Derek said to me:

House . . . . fish . . . . three! (which he's told me many times)
House . . . fish . . . two .  . .
One. . . dead

After he said "two" I wasn't sure whether he got two more or one died, but didn't want to pry. Luckily he was okay to talk about it. A few days later he said, "House . . .  fish . . . . new small."

Later that day he drew a "fish house" on the back of a worksheet which was giant blue square!

I hope this brightened your day. It did for me as I wrote it!

Lots of love,

Alli