This is an understatement. Korea is nothing like I have ever seen before. The flight was unglodly long, but I was sitting in an exit row, which meant I had all the leg room I needed. And I was siting next to two really nice military guys. On their way to different stations around South Korea. I didn't ask if it had anything to do with the USA's increasing worry about North Korea. I just assumed. And we had an unspoken drinking contest on the flight. We matched each other on free shitty Korean beer. No one won. No one got too drunk. It was the most boring and least expensive (or most expensive, depending on how you look at the ticket cost factor) drinking contest of my life.

And now I'm here. It was a 2 hour cab ride to the school. I am sitting at their small desk typing on their silly keyboard which is configured only slightly differently. But just differently enough for me to have to erase and retype something at least every sentence. Typing is difficult and this post is taking much more effort than it should. We went into the city today (Gwangjoo, not Seoul) and it is a small noisy smelly place. We walked through a crazy outdoor market filled with street performers and dead fish and cute socks and shirts with delightfully absurd English statements on them. One shirt actually said "T-shirt design" and I got happy. I found a vending machine that sold coffee, tea, and had a pay phone attached. I got happier. We went to a Korean Baskin-Robbins and saw a possibly lost child wander the sidewalk and into the street and I felt conflicted, but still happy. I have been eating nothing but Kimchee (pickled vegetables/radishes) and rice and soup, and I am not feeling so happy. Tomorrow I get my schedule and start teaching either tomorrow or Tuesday. I am 14 hours ahead of New York. Class starts at 7:40 every day, and that makes me sad too. The students go to class until 10-ish each night, and while i don't have to teach until then, that still makes me sad. The girls are so cute and they are in love with my non-brown non-Asian eyes. When I took off my sunglasses there was a visible panic and a roar of giggles and flutter of pointing. I am, for once, not exagerating. I caused a small pre-teen riot by taking of my sunglasses.

I have little to really say, but the length of this email would not prove it. I am in a small shock being here. It feels more like being anywhere else at times. And at other times, I have never felt further from home and more foreign. I am the sore thumb in a sea of homogeneous fingers. But my deftness with chopsticks impresses them. And my eyes. Always my eyes.

I am living in a mini-apartment with another American (born in Seoul though) and the minister on campus. I am living with a man of the cloth, and he is pleasant. He picked me up from the airport. He bought me ice cream and dinner. He is trying to make me feel as comfortable as possible. He showed me the beginners Koren books in the library. His English is troubled at best. And on this campus, his English is the best.

I must leave now. My presence in the computer lab is making the girls nervous. Every time I look over my shoulder, I catch one of them looking away from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch them staring. I don't find it rude, per se, but I now find Americans fascination with the foreign-ness of an immigrant less rude. I cannot stress enough how foreign I feel. I an feeling well adjusted. Little culture shock and no jet lag. But I know one day, culture shock will come up and swallow me whole and by then, it will be too late. But until that day, I will observe the amazing fashion and surprising easy-going-ness of the people around me. And I will teach. Until I have more to say and time to say it, I am off.

current mood: hopeful