Excuse me while I wax nostalgic over the past 12 months.
It’s March, which in the world of Korean kindergartens means the end of the school year. Kids are graduating and moving on to Elementary school, friends are heading back to the countries they hail from, and coworkers are shuffling around to different jobs and locations within the city.
It sucks.
My students. My lovely, lovely students. For the past year, I got into work and when the clock hit 9:50, I locked myself in a room with the same 7 year olds (5-6 years old by Western standards), and we were stuck together for the next 5 hours. EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don’t care who you are or what your opinion of children is. You can’t help but get super attached to these kids when you spend thousands of hours with them. We laughed at each other, we screamed at each other, we hated each other, and we loved each other. The little hellions graduated yesterday, and tomorrow is the last day I get to spend with them before they go on to first grade.
This sucks.
Friends. The problem with living as an expat in Korea is that life is kind of put on fast forward. Most people are only here temporarily, for anywhere between one and three years on average from what I’ve noticed. Because of this, you’re really forced to take advantage of every situation you have to hang out with and form bonds with the people you meet because before you know it, it’s time for either you or them to go. I’ve made some amazing friends recently. I’ve also met some acquaintances that were awesome and would have been great friends had locations, schedules, and laziness not all interfered. February marks the season of expired contracts. Several people I hold dear are leaving Korea for good this week while several others are going to do some traveling and visit home for a month or two before returning to Korea in the summer. This means a lot of goodbyes and prolonged “see ya later”s this week.
This sucks.
Coworkers. I’ve spent the past year working with such a dynamic, awesome group of people. I honestly can’t say there’s a single person at my job that I don’t like. The Korean staff has been fun, supportive, and helpful and we managed to make it through the year without having a single token white weirdo on the foreign staff (or maybe the white weirdo was me…). We haven’t always gotten along perfectly, and there’s always some sort of drama going on with someone, but I at least like to think that at the end of the day, we all love and respect each other. They’ve kind of become my family here in Korea. Just like family, though, a few people are moving on. Be it to different jobs or to different positions placing them outside the school building, it’s hard to say goodbye to any of the people I’ve spent the past year working, arguing, and drinking with.
This sucks.
I know everyone will just roll with things, and the current state of things will easily evolve into something new and different and just as good if not even better, but I hate change. I like the status quo. Let me be lazy, complacent, and get fat and be happy!
This sucks.
