week 2: settling in

as most of you know, i am a fickle blogger. however, with my move to korea, i am committed to changing my past blogging habits. mostly, because i don't want to forget this experience, and i am terrible at writing in a journal. but, also because i want to share my life in korea with my family and friends back home.

unfortunately, the decision to start this blog has presented me with a problem: what, exactly, do i want this blog to be?

is it a travel log?
is it a diary?
is it a photo album?
is it a study in korean culture?
is it a teaching log?
is it a random sampling of my thoughts?

i suppose in many ways, this is the ultimate question facing bloggers (or, maybe i'm just obsessive). regardless, figuring out how to blog about my life in korea has been complicated.

but...

i have persevered and finally found a solution to my problem. unfortunately, now i have a ridiculously long list of things i want to write about. so, faithful readers, please bear with me.

week 2:

forrest gave me some great advice during my first week: make your house your own. most of my time the second week was spent doing just that. i continued to clean, moved some furniture around, reorganized the kitchen, and finally unpacked. this process did wonders for my emotional health. my little studio is now very much mine, and if i may brag a bit, in true brooke fashion, is very well organized.






it also helps that i have some reminders of home thanks to my amazing parents. they gave me this card when i left for korea, and the heart post-it notes were stuck onto individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies. yes, mom, this means that i ate all of them, and they were delish! (i found the seashells on a beach on jindo island during the ship festival. story to follow in week 3's update.)



but, the highlight of week 2 came on wednesday.

i was walking up to school in the morning, when i heard some girls yelling "teacher! bird! teacher! bird!" as they hung out of a 4th floor window . "yes," i said, "i hear the bird." i was slightly confused at why they were so excited about a bird chirping in a tree. pretty standard. it wasn't until lunch time that i realized what had them so excited: there was a huge, beautiful owl in the tree right outside of our building. it was one of the most awe inspiring animals i've ever seen. sadly, i didn't have my camera with me, but he looked just like this:


while the owl sighting was thrilling, the best part of wednesday came during lunch. i had a conversation (via students translating), with the vice principal, who is always especially kind to me, about how rare owl sightings are in korea. during that conversation, he had one of the students ask me if i knew who he was. "yes, of course i know him. he's the vice principal," i said.

he seemed quite pleased with my recognition of his title and position. i asked the students to tell me his name. they did; i can't remember it all, but his family name is mun, which is pronounced like moon. this pronunciation similarity then became a game of charades and ended in my decision to call him mr. moon from now on. he agreed.

lunch that afternoon was spent bridging cultural divides and relishing in an amazing pumpkin soup.