Homeward Bound

I am homeward bound in 10 working days or 20 calendar days if you include weekends. Yeah! I am excited to be with Yanne, family and friends. The only thing I will miss about Korea is bicycling to work.

Over 2 billion people do this daily without a desire to be stuck in traffic, listening to some jackass' loud stereo reverberating through their car or paying $4 a gallon. I love to bike to work. The sidewalks here are wide enough for me and the dozens of moped/scooter delivery guys who share the bike path. Yes, a little dangerous. Living 20-25 minutes away from work is a small item that I will miss about Suwon. Another item about Korea I will miss is.......nothing.

I think I understand why a lot of Koreans prefer living in Western countries. Our lifestyle, overall, is better. Our air, our infrastructure, medicine, education (post-secondary) all are strong pull agents. I'll miss hanging with Bernard and playing basketball at the local park court that needs some urgent maintenance. Nothing else comes to mind. Sad, maybe.

What about the students? I won't miss them. They are fun, cute and cuddly but managing their behavior takes up a lot of class time. They are mostly bratty and uninspired to learn a second language at this time. Maybe their teacher is uninspired too? I often refer to it as "baby sitting." Expensive baby sitting. I keep them occupied with good English activities but they get out of hand. They're kids. They want to play. It's not a good job and school management is not very good either although the owner is honest and a good guy. I imagine teaching is the same in inner city schools minus the guns, gangs, drugs, beatings, bomb threats and the like.

I needed Korea for financial, mental and emotional reasons I have written about before. I was in a funk. I go home to Yanne, family and friends and start new.