Stephanie in Suwon

Cherry blossoms in my grape slushy. White butterflies dancing in the sunlight. The smell of the subway, balancing on the edge of the platform and feeling the rush of wind as it arrives and you push your way on while trying to avoid the high heels of the Korean girl in front of you. It’s official. We’ve extended our contracts until October. My feelings regarding this remain dichotomous, as always, ever divided. On one hand, I am excited about this opportunity as this will afford Dave and I the chance to travel more extensively, and travel plans currently include Japan, Thailand (again), possibly Cambodia, and Laos as well. I’m on this side of the globe, I’m damn well going to take advantage of that and it is with great anticipation that I plunge myself into this next segment of this thing that I’ve gotten myself into. On the other hand…I do miss home. I miss my family, I miss my friends. I miss acting. I miss dancing. I miss tea at Steeps and rehearsals with KGB. I miss dinner at The Co...

These past few weekends have seen me involving myself in such activities as: sleeping in, drinking coffee until two in the afternoon, matinees with girlfriends, date nights with Dave, sitting alone in coffee shops with my computer drinking black tea lattes and listening to the white noise that is the Korean language reverberate around me. Shots at Pavox with friends, glasses of red wine at home with Dave, movies and episodes of CSI and Scrubs found on the internet. In other words, dear readers, I’ve been relaxing. And let me tell you, it’s been a while. Weekends in Korea, for the vast majority of our stay here thus far, have ranged from fairly busy to jam-fucking-packed. Seoul is a variable cornucopia of sights to see, places to go and things to do. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Seoul is the city with perpetual insomnia that keeps forgetting its medication because it’s drunk most, if not all, of the time. Museums, art shows, shopping, restaurants, movies, theatre, shopping...

I am currently lucky enough to be teaching the highest level English class that my school has to offer. These kids are incredible, barely sixteen years old and fluent. The literature we read comes from the worls of Walt Witman, Maya Angelou, Ray Bradbury, Pearl Buckman and Henry Longfellow. And they dig it. I dig it. They are the quietest bunch that I teach, but rather then being due to disinterest or sullen resentment, I find them to simply be shy in that painful, junior high. I'm-one-of-the-smart-kids kinda way. I can actually talk to them, and sometimes, they actually talk to me. One of their assignments was to write a poem for me. During class we had talked about being young, getting older, and what growing up can be like for different kinds of people in different cultures. They acknowledged their cultures obsession with education and the stressees placed on Korean students as opposed to students in the western world. We then talked about high school drop-outs, teen pregnecy,...