Week 55: DMZ–Headed Towards Destruction

Headed Towards Destruction:

North Korea, a communist country. A country no one can exit, no one can enter. A corrupt government and a country based on lies and fallacies. A country still divided by war and a mystery to many.

Promise you this is the only place you will see a road desserted like this in South Korea–there are 20 million just in Seoul. Can you say, Busy?

 This town’s about 200 Meters away from N. Korea

Recently I had the privilege to get as close to North Korea as possible; through a telescope I even saw a North Korean walking down the street (he looked short). The best part was walking through the 3rd tunnel, a tunnel the North Koreans built in preparing for invasion of South Korea. One sign in the tunnel read “x,y,z…shows the double sidedness of the North Koreans…” couldn’t help but laugh at that biased sign.

Week 53: Kinderest Kids

After 10 weeks working with Kinderest, maybe you think I don’t care or am keeping a secret; such is not the case. Sorry! Since moving to Seoul, posting weekly blogs has become a challenge since my computer is broken (not even at my house…where there is no internet anyway)…and there’s one computer in the building for 11+ teachers to share.

Nevertheless, it’s time you saw how CUTE my students are!

During the regular school day, I teach one class of 11-5 year-olds…this is THREE years old international age!!! From 4-6pm I head 2 afterschool classes, with 6 and 9 kids, respectively. In one day I may teach 26 kids (international ages 3-5 years) letters and words of the alphabet, cooking, art,

science, math, Bible songs, sports and P.E. themes, and serve lunch–included positive promotion of fruits and veggies.

At the end of my morning class we sing, “The Goodbye Song.” After they all run and cling to my arms, waist, and legs saying “Gageema Ms. Keever, Gageema” (“Don’t go Ms. Keever, don’t go). There puppy dog eyes are adorable, as are their slimy and even snotty ‘po-po’s’ (smooches on the cheek).

My favorite Korean holiday is this week: Teacher’s Day!!! Just found out that public school’s actually close and give teacher’s a nice 3-day weekend. Last year I had just arrived to Korea and taught only 3 days but was showered with gifts. Not to sound greedy but it’s lovely to be showered with love and gifts and have a day to honor teacher’s and feel like a Queen for a day.

However, my Korean partner teacher said it’s actually illegal or something of the sort for parents to give gifts because it may seem like bribary. Being that there aren’t grades for 3 year olds, I’m hoping that ‘rule’ is void kk^^

Anywho, aren’t my Seoul kids cute!? Still, I miss my Newtons in Busan. Hope I can see them again when I visit there.

Week 52: It’s a Celebration!

Spring time, in Korea, is a time for festivals, festivities, and celebrations. My friend, Justine, mimed in a performing arts festival:

There was a lantern festival to celebrate Buddha’s birthday. After seeing 10,000 lanterns I was ‘lantern’d out’…

The breathing, hissing dragon was the best part

but had to take this one for my mom, since it’s her favorite animal:

HOWEVER, 🙂 =) ;-p the awesome celebration is under the radar. It’s an anniversary. May 7, 2009 was my ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY. I’ve been in Korea for one year now. Honestly, most of the year I planned my ‘escape’ on a daily basis. I was sure–and let everyone who beckoned the idea for me to stay in Korea a second year– that the second my 1 year anniversary arrives, I was running out of this country like a chicken with my head cut off.

The reasons were many. Nevertheless, once I got past some painful experiences, I’ve been able to (slowly) feel positive results:

…and I aint just talking about Acupuncture. Despite being a mostly mountainous country

…I’ve still been sick way more than any other place or time in my life…honestly around 90% of the time. Yet, when the opportunity arrives to experience the country and people’s beauty…

the resulting calming affect keeps me going just long enough.

No, I’m not certain of what career path I’ll be in for the rest of life.

No, I’m not a perfect Christian; my relationship does waver with my God.

No, I don’t have the Baywatch beach body after eating lots of Korean food.

No, I’m not a lot of things I wish I were, but I will say after having deeply considered and faced head-on many trails and tribulations this past year in Korea, I’m probably a “better me” than before, and that’s something to celebrate about.

By the way: I extended my contract another 4 months in Korea. There will be no chicken-with-the-head-cut-off running out of the country, but on the contrary I’m sure some tears will probably be shed when it’s time to say goodbye. Maybe ‘bittersweet’ is the result of perseverance.

Week 51: VooDoo Doll

The problem with western medicine is it focuses only on the illness. As soon as the medicine is gone, the problem usually returns. More often than not, the illness comes back even stronger than the previous time. I don’t want to mask my illness, I want to conquer them.

That said, I’ve decided to turn to oriental medicine, which focuses on the cause of the illness, the equilibrium of the whole body and weakened immune system. After nearly one year in Korea, hundreds of pills, many doctors visits later and no sign of improvement, I’ve found an oriental medicine doctor who has really keened in on my body and is positive on improvement in my health.

The diagnosis? Something along the lines of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (I also gave a self-diagnosis of this some time back, but never by the Dr.). My body is very weak, I am exerting a lot of energy but my body is not able to reproduce that energy, due to my bodies inability to sleep deeply, restfully, and for long periods of time. Thus, my body does not have the energy resources to fight off the many pollutants, bacterias, and virus’ that come my way (**reminder**: I live in one of the biggest [polluted] cities in the world, in a country where people don’t cover their mouths when sneezing, and few people honestly wash their hands (and even less use soap), and I work with classrooms full of small children all day). Rx: My body is weak, tired, and sick.

The treatment: vertical: Acupuncture 2x/week for a month ($20USD/visit) and horizontal: oriental medicine to be taken 2x/day for 3 weeks ($200USD/42 medicine packets). The two treatments combined form a cross and network together for some good ol’ (expensive!) natural healing.

Each treatment (thus far) consists of 22 acupuncture (needle) points.(and that’s a SPORTS bra so dont even start trippin’ on me)

While the Dr. is extracting the needles (you can still see some sticking out of my feet)