Life

My aunt Martha died on Saturday morning. As you may or may not know, she was diagnosed with cancer just five and a half months ago, but cancer is an aggressive, unforgiving bitch and she was gone faster than any of her doctors anticipated. So I am dealing with that…or at least trying to. Being this far away from my family at a time like this is difficult. I did get to say goodbye to her, so I don’t feel like there were things left unsaid, and I don’t feel as guilty about not being there as I had anticipated. When this opportunity came up, Martha told me to go for it, even though she knew that it meant that I wouldn’t be moving to Portland to be with her. She even said she was proud of me.
She is being cremated, but there is a remembrance ceremony for her on November 10th. The date was chosen to accommodate a number of people who want to attend but need some time to make travel plans (like me for example). So yesterday, I discussed my situation with my supervisor and asked to take off the eighth, ninth, and twelfth, so I could fly to Portland for the weekend. He talked to the vice president of the school, who is not the most understanding woman I have ever met (ok, she’s a bitch), and came back to tell me that the school could not let me go because “in the past we(the school) have had foreign teachers fly home and never come back. You(me) can not go because we don’t want to lose you.” I was dumbfounded when I left work yesterday. What…the...fuck?
So now I have to convince them that I am not actually flying home, and that I do in fact enjoy my life over here and have every intention of boarding my return flight. I am pissed. Their concerns, while they may be legitimate in some cases, have no bearing in my situation and I hate the fact that because some other teacher skipped town on them I can’t go back to the US for one weekend.
But, other than that my life here is grand. Seriously. I have made a bunch of new friends who hale from myriad locales including Ireland, England, Germany, Canada, Uzbekistan, Russia, India, South Africa, Korea(obviously, and the US. Many of us have become super fans for the Suwon Samsung Bluewings (the local professional soccer team). We sit in the diehard fan section behind the North goal and sing, shout, and cheer our way through the entire 90 minutes. It is a tad difficult at time because the majority of the cheers and songs are in Korean, but I just mimic the sounds of the words and hope that no one notices. And yes, they do sing We Are The Champions in Korean, at the end of each winning game.
This coming weekend I am traveling by bus to the Southern tip of the Korean peninsula to visit a world famous (being featured on the travel channel qualifies it as such, in my book) lantern festival in Jin Ju. It is my first real excursion to a different region of the country, outside of my trips to Seoul, since I arrived here, and I hope to travel much more over the coming months. This country is beautiful, there is so much to see, so many towering mountains to climb.