Thoughts

Well it's officially getting colder and becoming the holiday season in my mind. As far as Korea, there isn't much of a "holiday season" when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is no American Thanksgiving here obviously, and Christmas is kind of a small holiday and celebrated mostly by couples... Kind of like our valentines day but even less of a deal. It makes me miss home...being in the cold weather, going inside to a cozy house, the fall colors, the christmas decorations, the hot meals, particularly anything that can be made in an oven :) I just really miss all of that when I know it's all there and I am here. :) One of the things that has been kind of hard for me here is having community. There just aren't as many people for us to really connect with here. There are some great people and a few that live close to us, but most of the people we have met live close to an hour away. And everyone lives in a small apartment it seems. There is nothing I love more than spending quality time with people I love in a cozy home over meal or game or coffee. I didn't think that I would miss being with people in their home or mine so much.

Anyway, this week Jon and I have phone testing. It comes around way to quickly. We stay an hour to 2 hours after school is over at 6:00 (7 on T/Th) and eat dinner at school - which is the nice part, we order out - and then we call 10-20 kids and ask them ten questions and write down everything they say. It's mainly for their parents to hear them speaking English. It just makes for a long week, and it creeps up on us faster than we expected each month. It is funny also because sometimes we will call a house and someone will just start speaking to us in Korean for a minute or two and no kid will come to the phone so we just say thank you and hang up because we have no idea what they just said. I'm sure we've offended people more than once because we had no clue what they were saying. What are we to do?

One of the best parts of our time here has been how much time Jon and I have been spending together. We never have and quite possibly never will again spend so much time together day in and day out in a year. Our apartment is one room and so we are always within 10 feet of each other in here and we walk down one flight of stairs to work at desks that are right up next to each other. It's awesome. I think going back to the states won't be so much of a culture shock reversal as it will be getting used to not being next to Jon 24/7. When we get a house that has more than one room and jobs that aren't together it will be really different and really hard. This is a precious year - we are loving it and loving all the things God is doing in our marriage and friendship and our relationship with him together.