Outsider

This week was beyond busy. My school is currently short one teacher, so in addition to my usual busy schedule, I took on two extra classes and am still trying to finish writing monthly progress reports that were due a week and a half ago. One of the extra classes is a high-level 1st and 2nd grade class, which is really pretty easy to teach since I can just adapt my 2nd-4th grade lessons for a slightly younger age. The other class is an adult class, the anticipation of which caused me a ridiculous amount of stress earlier this week.

I've been working with kids for long enough to more-or-less have them figured out. I understand them. I generally know how to motivate them. I know what to do if a lesson flops or if I have extra time at the end of the class. There are always more pictures to be colored, songs to be sung, games to be played, and the prospect of a sticker at the end of a lesson will motivate even the most reluctant five-year-old.

Adult students, on the other hand, are a mystery to me. They don't color. Singing embarrasses them. They're too serious for games. Stickers have no motivating value whatsoever.

This is not my first adult class. I also teach a class of mothers for two hours every Friday morning. While I was initially terrified of teaching the mothers' class, it has become one of the highlights of my week. I look forward to spending Friday mornings (and lunch after class) with a group of adults. Even though their English is limited, it's a nice break from a week that's otherwise entirely spent with very small children. However, it took me a while to get to the point of enjoying it. It took gaining some familiarity with the students and textbook and also gaining some confidence in myself.

Now I find myself going through the same thing with a different group of students and different textbook, but I'm finding that the adjustment is a little easier this time. Even though it is stressful, I think it's probably a good learning experience for me, and I'm hoping I learn to enjoy this new class as much as I enjoy my Friday morning mothers' class.

So after a beyond-busy week, this weekend is a much-needed Sabbath. I considered spending today hiking since the weather has been perfect lately, but when I awoke at 7 AM to the sound of rain hitting my window, I decided a slow, lazy day was probably more along the lines of what I need anyway, and I went back to sleep for three more hours. Since it was still raining when I woke up "for real" at 10:00, I spent the rest of my morning and early afternoon cleaning my apartment, grading papers, and working on progress reports (almost finished).

My allergies have been terrible for about a month now. My constant use of tissues is becoming a national environmental threat. Today I think I may have unearthed at least part of the problem. I cleaned my apartment pretty thoroughly last weekend, but since the weather was so nice this week, I left my windows open while I was at work. My week was so busy that I literally only came home to sleep, so I didn't notice the thick film of yellow dust that managed to collect on my table, dresser, counter, and floors. Today I sat at my table for the first time since last weekend. I ran my hand across the top and then looked at my finger tips and they were covered in yellow powder. I realized that what was on my fingers was just a visible sign of what I've been breathing in, not only outdoors but also right in my own apartment. It's no wonder that I wake up every morning with my eyes swollen and matted and my nose completely blocked.

So this yellow dust scare prompted a thorough cleaning of my very small apartment. It ended up being a much bigger chore than I originally intended, involving moving the furniture, washing just about every item in the apartment, mopping the floor, and even handwashing the bedding. It was unbelievable to watch the water turn yellow-gray as I rinsed out the rags and mop and washed my quilt. Now my apartment is freakishly clean, and I won't be opening my windows for a while.

By 4PM, it was still raining, but I was tired of being cooped up and was afraid that I might just find something else to clean (like the kitchen or closet), so I hopped on the bus and decided to do a little shopping since I still have a little bit of a clothing crisis. I only have one pair of pants that's appropriate for work and doesn't need to be pinned at the waist to keep it from falling down. The pins work, but since my time between classes is at a premium, I don't like the undue wasting of precious minutes in the bathroom unpinning and repinning my trousers! I only went to three stores but didn't see anything that was right (and in my size), so I decided I was tired of the rain (even though I'd only been out in it to run between the bus stops and the stores) and headed home again.

Inspired by my morning sterilizing of my apartment, I decided to tackle my tiny refrigerator. Since I hadn't been home for meals this week, it contained quite a few questionable (and a few no-question-necessary) items to be dealt with. Of course, dealing with them left my refrigerator almost completely empty, and even though I don't see myself being home for meals this week, I just can't have that, so I went to the grocery store, along with every other person in my town and maybe even a few others from the looks of it.

My experience has been that big grocery stores in Korea tend to be crowded and chaotic, but this was crowded and chaotic beyond measure. Kids racing grocery carts, darting in and out of old people very slowly pushing grocery carts down the center of the aisle, people having long conversations with friends right in front of the skim milk, people crowded every 10 feet around a stand with free samples of tofu or kimchi or spam. Add to that at least double the necessary number of employees hollering the current sales and then the promotional people outshouting each other on the benefits of their products. On top of all the din and discord, the store song, to the annoyingly mind-numbing tune of "Happy Talk" from Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, is played over the PA system.

I thought I was going to lose whatever string of sanity still remained in my brain after breathing in the fumes from the cleaning chemicals earlier in the day. I pushed the woman chatting in front of the skim milk aside (it's not as rude in Korea as it probably sounds to Westerners reading this), restocked my supply of tissues, grabbed another pack of bottled water, and headed for the check-out counters, each of which had a line at least 10 people long. At the very moment I arrived at the check-out counter, my stars must have aligned, because a woman was opening a new register, so I didn't have to wait. Assah! ("Cool!")

I got home, put my purchases in the refrigerator, and realized that they didn't make that much of a difference. In the off chance that I'm home for a meal this week or more likely that I want to eat tomorrow, skim milk and bottled water weren't going to cut it. (Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration since the refrigerator wasn't totally empty. The items that were spared my nihilistic tackling of questionable substances included a carton of eggs, some yogurt, mango chutney, sweet pickles, and some lime juice.) It had stopped raining, so I decided I'd brave one more grocery store--this one is smaller, a little farther from my home, and a little more expensive but generally doesn't have the zoo-like quality of the store I was just in.

I got there and wondered why I even bothered with the first place. The second store was practically empty, confirming my earlier thought that the entire city and then some were in the first store tonight. I picked up a few other groceries and then headed to the produce section where I got a little carried away and bought just about every kind of vegetable in stock. I guess I'll be taking some salads in to school this week. I even bought two potatoes, and potatoes are right up there with pickled silk worms and dog meat on my list of less-than-favorite foods. (Actually, I sort of have a plan for the potatoes which might render them edible.)

One thing I find frustrating about buying groceries here is that you often have to buy things in bulk. I wanted one onion, but they come in a bag of 8. Similarly, I ended up with 6 apples, 7 carrots, and enough spinach for Popeye. I think I'll ask Joy tomorrow if she can use some of the onions. Every time I've bought onions here, I've ended up throwing at least half of them away.

So once my refrigerator was fully loaded with a ridiculous amount of vegetables, I decided to take a walk tonight. The rain clouds had dispersed, and the air felt as if it had been washed clean. I changed into my walking clothes (I'm such a nerd--I actually have walking clothes now!), discovered that my hair is long enough to be wound into a proper bun (something I haven't done since I was in 9th grade), and I set off on my usual route that makes a big circle around my town. It usually takes me about 40 minutes to make the whole circle at my EMHerbert lightning pace, but I managed to do it in 30 tonight, so I did another a lap.

It was a really pleasant evening, and as I walked, I let my mind wander to all sorts of places. As frequently happens, I thought a lot about the Church and my place in it, a place I used to be sure of but find myself questioning more and more these days. I stopped working at the church in Seoul because I wanted to take some weekend trips this spring. As it turned out, with my greatly increased teaching schedule, I need my weekends just to rest and not be committed to an additional day of teaching at the church.

On my second lap around my town tonight, I passed a large church and could hear music coming from inside. I stopped for a few minutes to listen. The church is at the base of a mountain, and even though there were streetlights, the sidewalk in front of it was dark because of the shadows of the trees lining the road. I stood there in the damp, cool, darkness and just listened to the faint sound of hymns from a Saturday evening service inside. I looked up at the lights shining through the stained glass windows and wondered what was being sung, preached, and prayed within those walls. It dawned on me that I have become an outsider in the literal sense, though I think theologically I've been at a distance for some time.

It made me realize that this past month, I've missed the rhythm and ritual of worship and the community of the congregation, though at the same time, the thought of spending another day during the week fully engaged with people made me feel weary to my very core. Is this burn out? An introvert pushed to her social limits? Culture shock (my universal scapegoat while I'm in Korea)? I feel like I need to go to church tomorrow, but I know that there is no way I can slip in and be relatively unnoticed in just about any church in the country, and I feel like that's what I need--to be allowed to sit within the community but to be in a quiet sanctuary. People try to be welcoming and friendly, but sometimes it's overwhelming to stand out quite so much and be reminded that no matter how much I love Korea, how much kimchi I eat, how much of the language and culture I learn, I will always be an outsider here.