An Ordinary Day

I don’t have much to share today. It seemed to be a normal day of ups and downs. As has been the case recently, the ups were when I was with people and the downs were when I was alone. The highlights of today were giving a mid-term to a Hotel English class, free-talking with a student about the Lord’s prayer and having dinner with the students I meet with a few times a week early in the morning. The down times were when I felt exhausted or perhaps a little depressed. It reminded me of when I have grieved the loss of someone. When I was with people I sometimes would forget about the loss, but then when I was alone I remembered what had happened and my heart sank back into sadness.

I had more time to myself today because my free-talkers canceled or didn’t show up. This can be frustrating or disappointing but in my case this was a nice break which enabled me to get everything done for my class tomorrow so that all I have to do is go to class or drop off my stuff in my office if I get to work early enough. This is probably the first time I am completely ready for the class with the powerpoint presentation already posted on the website. The downside is that I didn’t get to eat 떡복이 (dokboki) with a student who said she’d bring some this week.

I was also surprised by a colleague who came to my office to invite me to lunch. I guess some foreign professors were going to McDonald’s. Even though I’ve been here for a year and am in a bazaar emotional state, going to McDonald’s didn’t sound too appealing so we went to a spaghetti place instead. This gave us a chance to talk about some things before our classes at 1pm. I tried to pay for his meal but he insisted on going dutch (of course I didn’t push him too hard).

I think the mid-term was more enjoyable for everyone than the previous classes because students got to participate in the class more and they were basically leaders of the class. One class in particular did a great job of keeping us entertained while also showing their understanding of the hotel environment.

After class I talked with a few foreign professors for a while about some of the things going on that were related to school and our plans for the summer vacation. Eventually I went back to my office to work on class prep. for tomorrow. I forgot about my 4:00 free-talking appointment because the other students canceled. This wasn’t a big deal because I was working in my office. There are some students who take my energy and some who give it. She is the latter type of student. We have a running joke about “Bible study” and she told me she studied the Lord’s Prayer in English. I’ve been thinking about learning that prayer in Korean so we spent our free-talking time translating it from Korean to English. One would think this would be the same as in English but it seemed to me to be quite different though she said it was the same. For example, rather than saying “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” it says, “your will has been done in heaven, may it also be done on earth” or something like that. It seemed to me to explicate the things that the English version implies. This was very refreshing to me.

After she left, I went back to working on some things for the next class which I finished while I was waiting for students to come at 6pm. I really was worn out by the time they came to my office and they knew it. I also tried a different method of free-talking which seemed to be much more difficult. I think all of us were frustrated at points but I guess it was good practice for all of us.

After that I met some other students in the lobby of another building so we could have dinner together. We ended up going to the fast food version of a Korean restaurant which I believe is still healthier than McDonald’s or Burger King. They wanted to go there because it is much cheaper than other types of restaurants. This was a good time but I don’t know that it was all that effective as a “free-talking” session. Nonetheless I keep learning more about students every day.

After that I came home. Of course we stopped for ice cream on the way back and I got a coffee-flavored ice cream something or other (as Mrs. Carl used to say). I intended to go running tonight but I figured that I should work a while until I get tired. By the time I thought of running it was already 10pm and I wondered if that would be productive and if I would be more exhausted tomorrow. Since I have an important meeting tomorrow I decided to call it a day and go to bed.

So now it is at the end of the day and all I have left to do is to brush my teeth, do a little meditating (I’m not sure how to manage this one), and get some shuteye. I think tomorrow could be an interesting day. I’m just not sure how much to share.