This is how my 2011 began (14 hours before yours!) digging in the snow for a very excited Korean man's cross (we found it grandma). If you had told me last year when I was driving down MacDill Ave singing "Party in the USA" at the top of my lungs with Emily Grim I would be here in exactly a year I would have been speechless, here's to 2011 and more surprises.
Jeju island is rapidly turning into one of the coolest experiences of my life, I am astounded by just how purely different it is here. I had pretty much given up on travelling, since I wasnt seeing much of a difference between LA, Boston, DC or Tampa except a few local eccentricities it seemed corporations and the internet had effectively homogenized the entire world. Right now I am sitting in a cafe, a true mom and pop cafe where the owner is trying to give me lessons in Korean from the counter, and making her daughter sit across from me and practice her english. "Espresso make me sad, to learn to english to be flier" was her last sentence, which I roughly translate to, I dont like working in this cafe, I want to learn english to be a flight attendant. I am getting really good at understanding broken english, especially when the subject of the verb is 'cute boy'. My female students seem almost exclusively interested in the cute older boys in the other camp. The girls bring them water at meals, and carry mirrors to constantly adjust their hair, which most American girls would make a tertiary priority when the wind is howling at 30 miles and hour and the slush is flying up off the ground. These girls are driven, at the tender age of 14.
These are my students on new year's day (forgive the quality, it was shot on my phone) playing a game pretty much like a dice throwing game.
I have to go now and write a 45 question test that my boss didnt tell me about until 30 minutes ago.
