Problems with Perfection

I am sitting at my computer in a state of agitation...and frustration.  Maybe these both amount to the same mess of feelings, I'm not really certain.  Regardless, I am having a classic student moment of freaking out over grades.  In the last 24 hour time period I have literally failed (earned scores below 60%) two homework assignments in two different courses.  In the grand scheme of things the number of points lost does not amount to much, but in my mind this is a big deal.  


I used to be a good student.  Scratch that.  I am accustomed to being an excellent student who earned marks at the top of her class.  Not doing well is a new sensation for me and frankly, I don't like it at all.  In case you haven't noticed, I am a type-A perfectionist and I am angry at myself for my shortcomings.  What's a girl to do when her brain is all amped up and it's getting late?  She searches for quotes about perfectionism to try and make herself feel like less of a failure.  In case you're wondering, there are some good ones out there.  Here's what I found that seemed to make sense to me at this very moment...


The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues.  You can't separate them.  They're wedded.  ~Henry Miller


Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.  ~Confucius


Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.  ~Harriet Braiker


The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four.  Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.  ~Winston Churchill


I think Dr. Harriet Braiker really summed up what I'm feeling at this very moment--demoralized...without further motivation to proceed knowing that more failure is imminent.  This is where three years of therapy and six years of teaching must intervene in my pity party.  Don't I tell my students on a regular basis, "it's okay that you didn't get a perfect score as long as you learn from the mistakes you made." ? 


I'm not sure if I've written about this yet, but I have just started studying Italian.  At the start of May I enrolled in an online class through the University of Wisconsin because I wanted to challenge myself and because I hope to someday be bilingual.  In fact, I already have a plan for my second career should I ever decide to quit teaching (more about this later).  As most people who study a language quickly figure out, it isn't as easy as it sounds.  I'm trying to train my brain to forget the Spanish I studied in high school (which, by the way, seems to be coming back at quite an inopportune time) and learn the Italian pronunciation of a bunch of similar looking words.  I'm trying to cram hundreds of new words into my tired, overworked brain.  I'm trying to figure out accent marks--when to use them and which direction they should point.  Most of all, I'm trying to enjoy the process of learning.  


Last week I was standing outside my apartment talking to a friend, all-the-while getting attacked by mosquitos.  When I got back inside I was curious how to say "mosquito" in Italian so I looked it up in my trusty Oxford dictionary.  Then I got a brilliant idea to try to use my new word in a sentence.  From my limited studies I was able to come up with, "Mi piace primavera in Seoul, ma non mi piace zanzara!"  Roughly translated:  "I like spring in Seoul, but I do NOT like mosquitos!"  I posted this as a Facebook status and a few hours later my mosaic teacher in Venice responded (in Italian of course): "Brava colleen la prossima volta parleremo italiano un abbraccio".   I didn't know all of the words she used, so with a little help from Google Translate I was able to figure out that she said, "Good job!  Next time we will speak Italian.  A hug!"  That alone was a small success in my language learning and I really am looking forward to traveling back to Venice next summer where I will be able to practice what I'm learning.  Right now I'm just trying to get over the fact that this isn't going to come easily to me and I am going to have to practice...and fail...before I get to a place where I feel comfortable conversing in another language.


As for the second failed assignment, I think there might be an error in the online answer system so I'm going to do a bit of investigation tomorrow and (if I'm right) send an email to the professor to ask about it.  With only two days of school left in this school year I've got to take off my teacher hat and start thinking like a student again!  I can tell it's going to be a fun, er interesting, summer.


I guess I should wrap things up and head to bed, but before I do I wanted to go back to those quotes I posted earlier.  I know that I'm always going to struggle with the desire to be perfect.  I also know that this is something that will never be achieved.  Henry Miller hit the nail on the head when he said that a man's faults are just as important as his virtues.  The faults and flaws help us humans to be compassionate, endearing, interesting beings.  Being a logical/mathematical/linear thinker is sometimes challenging because, as Winston Churchill notes, life most often does not follow an equation or a recipe.  It is unpredictable, challenging, and confusing, but isn't that what makes life interesting.


Since I'm excited about Italian at the moment, I'll close with this proverb that made me chuckle:  He that will have a perfect brother must resign himself to remain brotherless.

A Week of Discovery...Stitchin' and Bitchin' (well only a little)

It has been a good week here at Seoul Foreign School.  While many of the students and my colleagues jetted off to exotic locale, I stayed here in Seoul to help out with a Discovery Week course called Sew & Sew, So & So (this is how we advertised it) but Jo and I lovingly referred to it as a stitch and bitch.  We had some preliminary ideas about how the week would go and what we hoped the students would accomplish, but our group of sewers evolved, learned, and grew so quickly that they truly blew us away with their commitment and determination.  Here's a quick recap of the week (with photos of course)... 


Monday:
We handed out class booklets and went through some sewing basics with the girls before taking a little field trip to the costume room to scavenge for fabric for our initial project (in teacher language this was a sort of "pre-assessment" to see how skilled our little sewers were with scissors, a needle, and some thread.  They found all sorts of goodies and we had them sew two or three circles to a piece of base cloth using different stitches and a bit of wonder under (fantastic double sided interfacing for you non sewers out there).  Miraculously we managed to avoid adhering anything to the iron itself and most of the girls did end up getting a couple of circles stitched with various degrees of success.  Interesting observations of the morning included the following: 1) we had a girl who literally could not cut a curved line (or a straight one for that matter), 2) we needed to instruct the students to be careful not to sew their projects to themselves or the furniture (yes, this happened), and 3) we had some girls who were already sewing superstars.  We broke for lunch, then gathered the girls back together so they could design the projects they would be working on for the rest of the week and to create their shopping list for our big trip to the fabric market on Tuesday.  The girls came up with all sorts of interesting projects and left very excited.  Jo and I noted that some of their designs were very ambitious considering what we had witnessed during the morning.

Time for a bit of breakfast before getting to work.

The costume room had a plethora of fabric choices!

Learning to wonder under applique pieces.

Stitching on the first pieces.

Remember what I wrote about sewing things to the couch...here it is ladies and gentlemen.  Thankfully this was the only instance of sewing our pieces to unintended objects.

Professionals at work.

So focused!

The first group of completed "pre-assessments".

Group 2

Group 3...aren't they lovely?

Tuesday:
We set off from school and grabbed taxis to Dongdaemun Market.  This place is absolutely fabulous and has everything a sewer could ever dream of.  Within the first minutes of arriving I noticed that one of our little darlings had to be accompanied by her mom since she had forgotten her directions, info, and cell phone at school and had no clue where to go that morning.  We also managed to leave one of the girls behind because we thought we only had twelve girls...oops!  Thank goodness for mobile phones:).  Only one or two of the girls had ever been to the market before so we helped orient them and took them on a floor by floor shopping tour.  You could see that they were just giddy as they pawed through collections of buttons, found sparkles and bobbles galore, and searched for the perfect fabrics.  As the girls shopped, Ruth, Jo, and I wandered and watched after the group.  After about three hours in the market we were all exhausted and loaded down with our purchases.  It was definitely time for a lunch break and Taco, Chili, Chili was calling our name.  Everyone grabbed a quick bite and we loaded up three taxis with our purchases for the trip back to the school.  The sheer amount of supplies purchased was incredible and I wondered if the girls' skill and motivation would match their ambition.

Shopping, shopping, shopping!

Okay, so I was short on pictures from our shopping day so we tried an elevator shot.  How many people can you fit in an elevator before it's considered "full" in Korea?  Oh, twenty-something!

Wednesday:
All of the girls arrived ready to get started on their projects.  Within the first hour there were bits and scraps everywhere!  Many of the girls started off with simple projects like cushions, some tackled embroidery, and a few even ventured over to the sewing machine where Jo gave them a lesson.  When it came time for a coffee break we couldn't even convince one of the students to stop work and leave the classroom!  Overall, Wednesday was chaotic and exhausting.  When we left for the afternoon it looked like the fabric market had exploded all over the classroom and we could see several projects nearing completion.  I went straight home, took an Excedrin migraine, and climbed into bed!

This young lady is a master seamstress--she went home on Tuesday night and whipped up an apron for her sister.

Planning and cutting.

This is going to be some sort of bag.

Yes, even I was stitching!

A cushion in the making.

Another piece of the bag-to-be.

An adventurous hand stitcher!

Don't get your hopes up--this young lady didn't finish a single project!

Jo giving a machine sewing lesson!

Thursday:
Thankfully Thursday was quieter and less frenetic--the girls were clearly focused on their projects and as we stitched we rocked out to a variety of tunes from several different iPods.  It was really cool to see the girls becoming more self sufficient.  They asked for help and advice, but they were much more confident in their design and sewing skills.  Many of the girls finished their first projects and were enthusiastically starting on a second...or third:).  Apparently I was so hard at work on my own little project that I didn't take any photos, but don't worry, I'll make up for it on Friday!


Friday:
We met for the last time on Friday and the girls were no less enthusiastic today.  In fact, many were incredibly focused on finishing all of their projects.  The morning flew by with everyone hard at work and when noon rolled around we all trekked outside to the courtyard by E-dong for a picnic.  Jo picked up a collection of fruits, pastries, and other goodies and we passed the lunch hour enjoying the sunshine.  Back inside the classroom everyone started to wrap up their projects and Mrs. Han (our school seamstress) was hard at work assembling bits and pieces of cushions, bags, and other miscellaneous items.  At 2:30 we started cleaning up and gathered everyone, and their creations, together for a group Sew & Sew photo opportunity!  Jo and I were thoroughly amazed at what the girls had managed to accomplish in a week's time!  It was such fun to see their skills and confidence develop over the course of the week and we all left quite content with how the Discovery Week experience turned out.  

Trying to finish those final projects!

The young lady on the right sort of flitted around all week trying to decide on a project.  She ended up making these very "interesting" looking rabbits that we called 'mixed mitosis bunnies' and named Mixie, Maxie, and Moxie.

My almost finished project.  I hand stitched that ENTIRE thing.  Can you imagine the fun scrapbook embellishments it will hold?!

Aren't they sweet?

Lunching outside.

A compilation of completed projects!

Not one, but TWO, finished bags!  This young lady hand stitched every single one of those bobbles on the bag  on the right and then proceeded to post on FB, "I love my DW!"

A set of finished cushions!

Pencil cases and pillow cases!

All sorts of stitching goodness!!

Our attempt at taking a photo of everything we made this week...unfortunately, several items didn't make the photo shoot.

Patiently waiting for the group photo to take place.

Here we are...The Sew & Sew, So & So Discovery Week Group!

Beautifully designed creations!

Don't you love those pillow designs?!

It's hard to believe how quickly the week passed and although I didn't leave the city of Seoul, I went home each day pretty exhausted from the constant buzz of activity happening all day long!  For my first Discovery Week experience, this was a really fantastic one and I'm already scheming up an idea for next year.  Since I came back from Venice in March I've been planning to pitch and Art & Soul of Venice trip that would introduce kids to mosaic art, mask making, art, culture, food, language, and the sights of Venice.  I'm not sure if I can recruit enough students to make it happen, but I'm sure going to give it a try:)!  If Venice doesn't go then I'll most likely stay in Seoul for a second round of Sew & Sew!  Oh the possibilities to discover...