Home sweet Home

This week has been full of reminders of home, beginning with Halloween last Friday, which is definitely not a holiday celebrated in Korea. I made a lesson on Halloween for my sixth graders which they loved. I taught them all about the holiday; how we dress up, trick or treat and of all of the characteristic things like witches, devils, ghosts and black cats. I taught them to sing "Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, Give me something good to eat!" and told them I would give them candy if they sung it to me in the hallway. Big mistake! I ran out of candy in about an hour and they're still singing the song a week later. Now, I just tell them to sing it four times and when they're done I say "Halloween is over, silly!" It's pretty funny, but at least they're speaking English! At the end of the lesson, I posted pictures of my childhood halloweens, and they absolutely loved them. It was a really fun lesson and I really enjoyed sharing some of my culture... even if it is a silly, meaningless holiday, it's still great.

On Friday night, foreigners took over parts of the city, surely scaring Koreans with our ridiculous costumes everywhere we went. My friends and I went to a bar crawl in the Pusan National University (PNU) area, which also happens to be my neighborhood... and one of the coolest areas in the city! There were some ridiculous costumes, which was quite impressive seeing as there is nothing Halloween-themed sold in Korea. One guy went as Dokdo Island (the controversial island that Japan is trying to claim from Korea). One girl was an ipod Nano, and some of my friends went as Busan Pants Party 2008 (That's a reference to the pick up line "Would you like to come to the party...in my pants?" in case you hadn't heard of it...eh hem, Mom and Dad). I went as an 80's pop girl, which I know is not very creative, but I found the coolest, vintage 80's dress and leg warmers so I had a lot of fun. It was a blast and we were all so partied out after Friday that I think pretty much everyone sat around and watched movies for the rest of the weekend.

This week, all of us Americans eagerly awaited the elections, which didn't take place until Wednesday for us! When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I immediately checked the news, but the polls were just beginning to close and nothing had been counted yet. So, at school I found myself sneaking over to my laptop every 10 minutes during class to refresh the NYTimes homepage, which I don't think my co-teacher appreciated too much (but I know she understood how important it was for me). By 1 p.m. it was getting very close and I was at the edge of my seat waiting in anticipation...but I had to teach my first grade class! I turned off my computer and decided not to check again until all of my students had left the classroom. Finally, at 2 o'clock the classroom emptied and I frantically pulled up the news. "OBAMA" popped up on to the screen and I let out an excited scream of happiness and relief.

Yesterday, I was overwhelmed with emotion thinking about home and the pride I feel for our country. I know not all of you reading this may have voted for him or voted at all, but I think we can all agree that change was desperately needed and that we have found an honest, capable man to do the job. I don't think anyone put it better than Barack himself when he said, "Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."

It's been an interesting week, and I'm reminded of how great it is to live abroad, but at the same time how lucky I am to have such a great home to return to.