Happy Thanksgiving

Today was a heady return to the good old days of eating fruit and drinking coffee in various teaching lounges for hours. That's right, I spent part of the day lying on a couch in the nutritionist's office drinking free coffee and reading a book with a personal heater directed at my feet, after which I went to lunch, and then to the nurse's office for a dessert of coffee and persimmons. At which point she invited me to return in the 7th period for the early dinner of donggasu-kimbap and ddukbokki she had ordered for us (being her, the nutritionist, another teacher, and me). I didn't even know that donggasu-kimbap (only a combination of two of my favorite foods here) even existed. Oh yeah, and I taught some classes and stuff.

I don't think they did it because it was Thanksgiving. I don't even think they remembered that I told them about that. I think they did it because they are kind, warm, open-hearted people who genuinely enjoy treating their friends. But it was fitting that it happened on Thanksgiving, because it helped remind me of how thankful I am for these people. Without them, I would've spent those hours using my butt as a chair-warmer and surfing the internet for useless time-wasting material. Without them, this would just be a job, boring and necessary. Instead, it's an experience. Thank you, thank you for my friends here in Korea. Thank you for every student who ever spoke up during my lessons while everyone else was sleeping. Thank you for Hye-eun, who said her English had improved through talking to me at a time when I felt like I was failing her. Thank you for the taxi driver who gave me a discounted fare for speaking (pathetically disjointed) Korean with him. As you can tell from these thank-yous, not every moment here has been perfect or successful. What I'm thankful for is all the people and moments that make those failures totally worthwhile.