What's a girl to do?

This practice of traveling on my own is new so I had some trouble deciding what the heck to do with myself on my first real day spent in London.  With nobody requiring me to wake up early, I rolled out of bed around 8:30am, showered, and made it down to breakfast around 9:30.  As I ate I allowed Rick Steves to help me plan my day and decided to take a morning jaunt out to Greenwich.  My handy London Pass got me a free ticket down the river and I sat back and enjoyed watching the city pass by as I cruised down the Thames.  

"Action Figure Jane" joined me on the river cruise.  Here she is with the Houses of Parliament in the background.

Three trips to London and I still haven't taken a spin on The Eye.

Cleopatra's Needle

Three red buses crossing the real London Bridge.

St. Paul's as seen from the River Thames.

The Tower of London

Tower Bridge lifting to allow a ship to pass beneath.

The merry ship filled with teenage train-ees hanging from the masts.

Once in Greenwich I did what every good science teacher does…headed for the observatory.  It was a good hike up to the top of a hill, which was made longer by the closure of the park that usually serves as a short cut of sorts (they are already making preparations for the equestrian events that will be held there during the 2012 Olympic Games).  Unfortunately I missed seeing the official time ball drop at precisely 1:00pm, but I did get to stand with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and the other in the western hemisphere at the same time.  Yep, the Prime Meridian runs straight through Greenwich and this little town has the distinction of regulating world time.  I got the privilege of watching a group of boys from a school group all making nice and standing with smiles on their faces as their teacher tried to coax them all into one big line for a photo.  As I waited in the queue I made small talk with another British young man who looked to be about middle school age who was planning to shock his teacher by “planking” the prime meridian while she filmed him.  

Yep, I'm in Greenwich!

Standards of time and measure.

The official "time ball" which rises, then drops at precisely 1pm GMT each day.

Standing on the Prime Meridian!

Amusing schoolboys...

View of London from Greenwich.

Standing directly on the dividing line between the Eastern and Western hemispheres!

After exploring the observatory exhibits I decided I couldn’t leave without visiting the brand new planetarium.  I joined two groups of school children (the woman who sold me the ticket felt the need to warn me before I purchased the £6 ticket to which I answered, “I’m a teacher, I think I can handle it”) to watch the 25-minute show.  To be honest, I don’t know how much of the show I actually managed to stay awake for, but what I did see was pretty cool.  Still travel weary, I skipped the Maritime and Military museums and opted not to visit the Queen’s House.  On my way to find the DLR I came across the daily market—if you know me, I’m a shopper at heart and I love finding cool and unique things, so I was in heaven.  There were several funky stalls and I made a few small purchases to bring home before grabbing the train back into the city.  

A cute little garden store in Greenwich.

Before returning to my hotel for the day I decided to check out the Tower Bridge Experience.  I’ve photographed and driven across the bridge before but I really wanted to take in the view from the pedestrian walkways that were built to allow people access across the bridge during a lift.  I have to say, it wasn’t the phenomenal view I was hoping for, but it was still pretty neat to walk across the bridge high above the other pedestrians and cars.  It still amazes me how humans managed to engineer such things when technology was much more primitive than what we have today.  

A view from the pedestrian walkway of Tower Bridge.

Imagine being the men who hammered in all of those rivets!

Inside the engine room where the bridge mechanism used to be steam powered.

Just in case you get a hankering to wrench on the old bridge mechanism.

I need one of these signs for my classroom--hehe!

From the bridge I could see the Tate Modern Museum, which stands directly in front of my hotel, so I walked along the Thames nearly the entire way back.  As always, the distance was a bit longer than it appeared but I discovered several restaurants to check out during my stay.  I forced myself out of the hotel for dinner with the laptop in tow to do a bit of homework before heading to bed.  More fun awaits tomorrow and hopefully some sunny weather to go with it!

Southwark Cathedral

Bizarre sculpture encountered on my walk along the South Bank back to the hotel.

Recycling barges--check out all of those cans and soda bottles.

A more picturesque view.

Crossing the Pond

During my recent trip to England, I managed to keep a pretty decent journal of what I saw and did...mostly so I would remember when it comes time to turn my photos into a scrapbook.  For anyone else who is reading and interested, here's how I spent the last two weeks!

I last visited London in the summer of 2009 and for the last two years the city has been beckoning me to return.  On Monday, July 11^th I hopped on a plane and headed across the pond for my third trip to the city on the Thames.  The first day (travel) was thankfully uneventful, although I did sit next to the French/German teacher from my high school during my first flight.  The eight hour trek from Calgary, Canada to London actually went by too fast and I didn’t manage to accomplish anything productive aside from watching a couple of movies.  When I landed at Heathrow on Tuesday I was on my own and forced to navigate the London Underground with a 45.5-pound suitcase, a 20-something pound backpack (worse to manage than the suitcase), a purse, and a trusty tube map.  Though exhausted and feeling quite nauseated from the lack of sleep and too much plane food, I found my residence for my five days in London.  Yes, I’ll ashamedly admit that my map reading and navigation skills leave a little something to be desired and it took me nearly twenty minutes and some back and forth traveling before I found the place, but I did it!!  I should also note that I took my learnings from previous trips and tried asking for help.  Unfortunately this failed, but alas, I learned how to orient a map.  It was too early to check into the hotel on Tuesday so I dropped off my luggage (stupidly kept the backpack, however) and meandered about the neighborhood…until the backpack became so heavy that I was forced to park myself on a bench.  Thankfully I had a second wind and found a Starbucks just a stones throw from my residence.  I thanked God profusely for this discovery and I have become a daily regular in order to enjoy a bit of home and make use of the free wifi.  I should never have checked into the hotel at 3pm as that’s when the time change hit me like a load of bricks and I committed the cardinal sin of traveling…I took a nap…a really long one.  I didn’t even get up to have dinner.  Here's where I crashed for the first five days of my trip.

London School of Economics:  Bankside House

It wasn't a posh hotel or even a quaint little hostel, but it was clean, had a bathroom in the room, and offered a full English breakfast every morning.  Not too bad for 77 pounds a night.  Plus, who goes to London just to hang out at the hotel?  Definitely not me!

Gramps

It has been exactly a month since I've taken the time to sit down and examine what's been happening in my life.  In the last 30 days I've gone through a number of emotions, wrapped up my first school year abroad, said good-bye to my departing friends, moved to a new apartment, traveled to another new country, returned to the US, watched my parents move to a new city, helped my little brother move out on his own, and I am now sitting in my room at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, WA (my last home of record).  


During the last week I have also watched my 91 year old grandpa take a rapid journey towards what will soon be the end of his life.  In the last twelve months gramps has undergone a list of medical treatments and surgeries that is nearly as long as the list of things I've done in the last month...spindle cell sarcoma on the knee, surgery to remove, radiation, renal cell carcinoma in the kidney, surgery to remove (yep, you can live with only one kidney), detection of nodules in the lungs, gallstones, Ecoli, surgery to remove gallbladder, nodules growing faster than expected, lungs filling with fluid, trips to the ER, and on Wednesday he got to take a trip to the hospital in an ambulance (for the second time).  Through everything the man has remained positive and his sense of humor always comes out of the surgeries and procedures entirely intact.  Unfortunately his cribbage game has steadily declined over the last year, but I'd say it's about time I finally started beating the old man after all of the times he's skunked me.


Today I got the phone call from my mom that the doctors were giving gramps about 24 hours until the end and although the thought of death is sad and difficult, I don't want him to suffer.  I know that my grandpa has lived a full life...and that he was surprised to have made it quite this long (if you've had the pleasure of hearing his experiences as a medic in WWII you'd know he never put money on making it home from the war).  He still recounts times spent with my grandma and things that my mom did to get in trouble when she was little.  He rarely complains and finds it funny when others gripe about little things (just ask him what he said to the new people who were complaining about the food at his retirement home--"It's a hell of a lot better than sea rations").  He takes pleasure in Wii bowling and winning a "Reese's Pieces" because his name was drawn on the day he wore his name tag to lunch.  Last year before his 90th birthday, gramps decided to grow a full beard and he thought it was hilarious to rebel against shaving.  I think he's going out a happy man with few regrets.  I wonder if I'll feel the same when God determines I'm through here.  I truly hope so.  

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”

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...