Change

We are on the brink of great change here at Poly School.
Today we had our kindergarten graduation.  The three kindergarten classes - Alisa's, Roman's, and mine - performed a song and a drama for which they have been practicing the past few weeks.  The performances went pretty well, I thought.  The kids seemed happy to be finished with it.  And then suddenly we had to say our goodbyes.  Like last year, this took me by surprise, somewhat.  I had spent a whole year with this class and I've come to love them quite a bit.  Each of them have such a strong personality; they're such unique kids.  We had a good year together and it's hard to see the year end because I enjoyed teaching them so much.  Some of my students will come back for afternoon classes, but others I probably won't every see again.  So that's sad.  I'm not sure yet what my next class will be like or what grade level I'll be teaching; I'll find that out sometime next week.
Another big change is that most of our Korean co-teachers are finishing their contract and are leaving Poly now, and my co-teacher, Chavie, who has been with me since I got here, is one of them.  This will make my job quite a bit different as I have come to depend on her for so much.  I will miss her.
A third change, greater than the others, is that we are moving to a whole new location.  As I've mentioned, our school is going to be moving to I-dong (pronounced 'ee dong'), on the other side of town.  On Tuesday, we're all going to be moving out of our current apartments and into our new ones.  We don't know where they are yet, but the director has hinted that they could be smaller than what we have now.(!) (I didn't know they got smaller).  It'll be cool to live in a new place, closer to a lot of our friends, but I can't help but feel sad that we're leaving our current end of town.  I've come to like it here despite it's flaws.
One thing that does excite me about moving to I-dong is its restaurants.  Last weekend, a friend brought me and others to a restaurant that sells this soup called 'hae-jan-guk'.  It's Korean hangover soup and it's delicious.
I hadn't expected to encounter so much change at this point in my Korean experience, but I think it's going to be good for me.  I have been getting into a bit of a rut at school lately and these changes will make it all feel like a whole new experience; and that's exciting.

There will be some things about this area that we will miss though.  Two people we will miss especially are the baker at the bakery, and the buffet lady at the lunch buffet, who are both within a minutes walk from our school.  This week, Alisa and I brought them a goodbye present; we gave them each a bottle of wine.  But the thing about gifts and Koreans is that when you give a Korean a gift, you always get it back.  When we gave the wine to the baker and his wife, they gave us a free coffee and hot chocolate.  When we gave the wine to buffet lady, she gave us a Korean rice desert called duk (pronounced just like the animal).  We're not huge fans of duk (it tastes just like you'd expect - rice), but Alisa made the point that it's possible that buffet lady isn't a huge fan of wine either.  So I guess it's the thought that counts.

My new favourite band lately is called Rusted Root.  They're from Pittsburgh and they have a great beat.  Check them out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA9Jv0dTPjU&feature=related

Thanks for reading,
Michael