impossible goodbyes
i never thought that the end of my wharton webmail account meant that like ... i wouldn't ever be able to access all those old e-mails! i thought they would just be frozen in time for ever and ever. all those cover letters and english papers and frantic messages from JMHH are gone! and that, more than anything else, marks the sad fact that i am no longer a college student!
not to mention all the alumni events that i am so not attending these days. won and i agree that looking back at penn is startling to the extent that we were so caught up in so many different prevailing opinions and philosophies which otherwise wouldn't have appealed or even made sense to us. so it might be great that this year is being spent away from anyone from penn. on the other hand, so much free food is never a bad thing. oh well...
this weekend was the first i've spent in jeonju for a long time. the school schedule has been really crazy for the past month - first there was chuseok, then field trips, then my gyeongju conference, now midterms and next week field day. the hardest hit are my monday classes, who i won't see for five weeks straight as a result of all of this madness. but in a really sweet gesture, my 2-3 class substituted one of their study halls for my class last thursday and gave me a rousing "i love you" and made hearts for me [hard to describe in words but basically like making an "M" like in YMCA].
i'm being challenged in lots of ways here, but i can't help but wonder whether these challenges would be arising wherever i were. and although really funny, precious, memorable moments do make me smile or laugh here, i'd hope they'd do the same anywhere! well, on a day to day basis some of my co-teachers at school do make me feel like a fun and interesting human being, esp. mr. chung and ms. oh. my students are generally great. i can share random silliness with other ETAs like ej blowsquad. and "what if you couldn't distinguish between the taste of mint and the sense of something increasing".
but it's just one year. i'm still trying to figure out travel plans and future plans and how i want to have changed by july 2005. totally fresh and totally futile...
not to mention all the alumni events that i am so not attending these days. won and i agree that looking back at penn is startling to the extent that we were so caught up in so many different prevailing opinions and philosophies which otherwise wouldn't have appealed or even made sense to us. so it might be great that this year is being spent away from anyone from penn. on the other hand, so much free food is never a bad thing. oh well...
this weekend was the first i've spent in jeonju for a long time. the school schedule has been really crazy for the past month - first there was chuseok, then field trips, then my gyeongju conference, now midterms and next week field day. the hardest hit are my monday classes, who i won't see for five weeks straight as a result of all of this madness. but in a really sweet gesture, my 2-3 class substituted one of their study halls for my class last thursday and gave me a rousing "i love you" and made hearts for me [hard to describe in words but basically like making an "M" like in YMCA].
i'm being challenged in lots of ways here, but i can't help but wonder whether these challenges would be arising wherever i were. and although really funny, precious, memorable moments do make me smile or laugh here, i'd hope they'd do the same anywhere! well, on a day to day basis some of my co-teachers at school do make me feel like a fun and interesting human being, esp. mr. chung and ms. oh. my students are generally great. i can share random silliness with other ETAs like ej blowsquad. and "what if you couldn't distinguish between the taste of mint and the sense of something increasing".
but it's just one year. i'm still trying to figure out travel plans and future plans and how i want to have changed by july 2005. totally fresh and totally futile...