It's funny to me the silly things that trigger homesickness for me. Today I was hit with that feeling of distance and separation on the subway. I saw a woman talking on her mobile phone, and she suddenly grinned and then burst into laughter. That was enough to send a pang of homesickness through my body. When I was in Thailand, seeing a movie in a theater did the same thing to me. In contrast, there are times when I have to remind myself that I am in a foreign country. When I first arrived here, I was snoozing on a bus and I thought to myself I should really look out the window and see what Korea looks like. Oh yeah, I am in Korea!! I don't know how it's possible to forget that I am a strange land at one moment and in the next moment be struck by the realization that I am not, in fact, at home. I don't particularly understand the things that bring on the homesickness, and I think the surprise of the onslaught of emotion makes it feel more intense than it should be. However, the year in Korea is just starting so I had better suck it up and get used to it.

I had my first day of work teaching English today. I think that it went well.... well, sort of. I ended up teaching a class, but prepped the wrong lesson, which meant that I got to lead a discussion on a reading passage that I had no idea what was about. One thing I will say about these Korean kids is that they are damn smart, and cute also. I keep forgetting that English is the second language. They are probably on par with kids in the US speaking in English (or maybe even better), but English is not their native language. I guess that is what happens when kids go to school all day long- literally until about 10 p.m.