Today is Yom Kippur. I'm sad that there's no Jewish Temple for me to go to, but I pretty much figured that there wouldn't be much of any Jewish population in Korea. Although it's possible to do so, I decided I've decided not to keep kosher for the first year I'm in Korea (meaning if I stayed another year, I'd switch back) because of all the pork and wee sea beasties in everything. But then again, a good foreign friend of mine manages to keep vegetarian here, so it can be done. It just requires vigilance and persistence. But, to be honest, I also wanted to dive into Korean cuisine exactly as it is for a while. At any rate, it seems that my life after school does include Judaism and that makes me happy. I'm plowing through "Jewish Wisdom" by Joseph Telushkin and observing the High Holidays. Maybe when I get back stateside, I'll actually complete my conversion process. Shock and gasp! And have a big ol' party with lots of kugel.
I'm excited for some coffee after the sun goes down (oh, and food...but really I'm just no good without coffee), but I like remembering throughout the day what today is. Today is a day for Jews to express grief in our own and our larger communities' shortcomings. Then we pause before renewing our efforts with focus for the next year.
So teaching is still going well. It's a goal this week to renew my efforts at memorizing my students names. Korean names are tricky. It feels like when I hear them, I just let them slide right off my brain because they're so unfamiliar to me and seem so similar to each other. But I can't do that.
My secondary co-teacher (high school) let me know last week that I'm not supposed to just teach from my book or the powerpoints he told me to make. They don't have the listening skills to really get anything out of me doing anything resembling lecturing, regardless of how much scribbling I do and or pictoral examples I show them. He said that I have more flexibility than I thought (er, or what I was told...but hey, they're Korean and I'm American. communication problems are bound to occur) and just need to get my students talking (like at the middle school). He reminded me that I have to SLOW DOWN when I speak and use simple sentences. I know I have an astoundingly easy an awesome job, but there are days when I wish I taught younger students or students this age with more English skills. Their apparent age and intelligence has nothing to do with how well they speak and understand English, something I readily forget. I just expect students to have magic little gummy brains that pick all this stuff right up. But all of my students are past magical language aquisition time. My own experience with foreign languages isn't enough of a lesson apparently... sigh.
--entry finished at home after COFFEE, food, and a nap--
On Saturday, I went to my first artist's collective meeting in Gwangju. I've been to one of their gallery openings and subsequent artist's talks, but was my first meeting. We introduced ourselves and our goals and some of the members summarized the collective's brief history (about 6 months...boy am I lucky!). Then we discussed getting an opening together for November (which I hope to be a part of...which means FINISHING SOME WORK! I'll be going to draw once I finish typing here) and Sara(h) also gave us an assignment for our next meeting. I am stoked...I've already been thinking about it a bunch and it'll give me a great springboard for more art ideas. The project is to bring in 9 photographs, one for each of the following criteria (and we're not supposed to include portraits):
1. something important to you
2. something you do every day
3. something that makes you laugh
4. a special place
5. something beautiful
6. something you admire
7. something you'd like to see change
8. something that makes you happy
9. anything you'd like
My drawing that I just started last week is based on a photograph that I took of strange little pile of dead, baby mammals that I saw on the street a few weeks ago. It sounds completely horrifying and disgusting but it was more strange and befuddling. The animals were so young, I'm not sure what they were (although I have a theory) and they weren't bloody or mutilated at all. It was just this little grouping of mammalian fetuses that I could have easily missed. I paused for a moment, going back and forth about whether or not I was comfortable taking a picture and decided that I was, but only for use as a reference. My complete lack of understanding about the situation just seemed artistically compelling. And I've never worked from a photograph that I've taken before...so I feel like the assignment from the collective came at a really great time. I'm so happy to be involved in an artistic community...just gotta make that work!
As I said, I'm going to go do some of that meow, prep for class and get me to bed. It's late already, but in “real life” (after college in my mind), I seem to be rejoicing in keeping my sleep schedule pretty liberal without just sleeping way too much (which has been a problem for years, so hurrah!)
And just to keep track of them, some goals for Korea I've come up with:
1. Get some hanbok pants
2. Show at the GIC gallery
3. Hike a mountain
4. Complete a detailed drawing of a temple
5. Start Korean lessons
6. Try skate fish
That's all for now.
-Tamz
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