Almost heading home...

I'm now a week away from my trip back to the states. I leave Daegu on December 6th which is a Saturday morning. I have to fly all over the place. I'm going from Daegu to Seoul, then from Seoul to Tokyo, then from Tokyo to Detroit, then from Detroit to Tampa. I'm anticipating being completely exhausted when I arrive in Tampa. Though I am extremely excited to have some of my Dad's delicious Cuban food and some of the other delicious things that I have missed over the past year. I feel like such a honky for being so excited about food, but I've made an official (written) list of all the foods I want to eat when I get home. I will have to double up the workouts so I don't gain a million pounds while I'm at home.

Well, Friday was my last official day working and as I expected it was really sad - the morning anyway. I pretty much knew that the hardest thing for me would be saying goodbye to my kindergarten students, and I was right. I hadn't even made it all the way into the classroom before I started crying. They all surprised me with cards that they had made, and even their parents wrote me letters (in Hangul of course so it will take me a long time to translate them, I'll have to enlist a Korean friend to help me). I thought it was so cute and sweet. I really will miss those kids like crazy. One of them, Kate, was one of the first students that I ever taught on my very first days at ECC so you can only imagine my attachment. But I took lots of pictures and got some funny videos of them being silly, so I'll always have lots of memories to look back on. My afternoon classes weren't really sad. I had a snack party with each class and I told them to be nice to their new teacher, and I said good-bye. A few of the students wrote me cards or gave me little presents. It was sweet. Then after work I went over to Ashley teacher's new apartment and had dinner with all the korean teachers. I'm really going to miss working with them, but at least I can find a way to hang out with them when I get back.

After Friday, even though I was supposed to be "done" working, things didn't really get any easier. Actually I spent most of the weekend feeling very overextended. On Friday night I pulled an all-nighter to try to pack up all of my apartment. I got a lot done but not nearly as much as I needed to. On Saturday morning (running on no sleep) I went to meet Nick and Young-gi at the hospital for Nick's hernia surgery. It was really bad timing (on the doctor's part, not Nick's) but I'm glad he was finally able to do it, and that I was able to be here. Especially because they don't really provide you with nursing care in Korea. In Korea, they assume/demand that the family do all the work for the patient. Aside from putting in meds and administering IV's and shit they don't do anything... at all. I think I would have been worried sick if I was at home when he was having this surgery. And Thank God for Young-gi. I don't know what we would've done without her. After Nick's surgery he was able to get some sleep so I had to go into school to get all the remainder of my work done. I had to make lesson plans, finish the kindie kid's writing books, clean out my desk, just a ton of stuff. I didn't get out of there until like 4:30 PM. Then I went home, got a few more things packed up and then I made myself a bag for the hospital and got ready for salsa. Even though I didn't really feel like salsa dancing, I felt that it was my responsibility to go to the last salsa class. A few of my Korean salsa students had made plans with me to take me out to eat so I had to go. So I went to the hospital for a little while and then went to the second (Intermediate) salsa class and to eat some galbi afterwards.

I spent Saturday night at the hospital. On Sunday morning I woke up and went straight to my apartment to get my stuff ready to move out. I have to say that I feel truly lucky because I have made some really amazing friends here in Korea. Elly and Janita came over and helped me clean up, Matt came over and was practically my work horse (he carried all my stuff over to Nick's and even helped clean), and Erin, my Kindergarted Korean co-teacher, came over with her car and drove all my stuff over to Nick's. They all helped so much. Even Stephanie, who will be moving into the apartment today, came over and cleaned a lot. By Sunday evening I was exhausted but I felt like I could finally relax a little. Matt and I headed over to the hospital after getting some Mcdonald's and Baskin Robbins for Nick. We all ate (it was Nick's first meal since Friday evening) and watched a movie. Then this morning (Monday) Nick was discharged and we came to his apartment. So now I'm at Nick's getting all my stuff ready for my trip and trying to leave my other things organized.

5 days til I'm home.