Amanda Takes Off...

"What's the hardest thing about being in America after living in Korea?" one of the members of my admin team asked me.

Without hesitation I said, "Being able to understand every word around me."

I can not wait until my grad class is over this quarter. I'll only get a month off before my next class, but I'm just over it.

I love my job. I am finally, finally doing exactly what I wanted to do when I decided to go into education almost ten years ago. My kids are amazing, and the work is rewarding. My admin and I get along. But I forgot how much I hate the standard school year calendar.

Good Man and I went out with Diana and Min Gi last night. I bowled my best game ever—142. I called Grandpa to tell him. He was very proud and I can tell he's happy that one of the grandkids is into bowling.

And then I found out that Grandma is in the hospital again.

I hate DST. It completely messes up my sleep and since everyone uses electricity, daylight saving saves nothing.

American life is boring.

Good Man doesn't want to live in Korea. I don't want to live in America. Yet we're basically stuck here until he gets citizenship because no way in hell are we going through that time suck of getting him a green card again. I know it's for the best—when he has his American citizenship, he'll be dual and we can come and go here and there as we please, for the most part. But right now, waiting for that citizenship?

And I worry about being sucked into American life. I worry that the longer we stay here, the harder it will be to leave. Logically, I know that's pretty ridiculous. I left Atlanta after seven years. It was the only thing I knew in my adult life. I left Korea even though I was happy there. I have itchy feet. He has itchy feet. One of the things we've agreed on all along is that we won't live in either of our countries forever. I know we'll move, eventually, but I worry. It's in my nature to pre-worry.

My car is making a rattling noise and I am afraid it's going to cost us thousands of dollars to fix and seriously, I'd rather use that money to go to Korea this summer.

I finished the second Pippi book (꼬 마백만장자 삐삐) today. I'm still below where I should be (if I'm perfectly on track to reach my goal), but hey, I'm trucking along. That's what matters.

I'm going to start the third Pippi book next. I'm on a roll with these books and I've gotten into the translator's groove. No reason to quit now!

Good Man and I are celebrating the one year anniversary of our legal ceremony in less than two weeks. We're debating between going somewhere and doing something around here. What complicates it (slightly) is that I have a class on Friday nights until 9:30 and Good Man has class on Mondays, so making it a three-day weekend is impossible. Plus, Mother and Father are coming for Good Man's graduation ceremony in May and I'd like to keep my two remaining personal days for his graduation. And we're going to Mom and George's at the end of next month, which sort of make me "ehhhh" about going somewhere else for just one night.

I was missing Korea today. Korea's rice cake looks bigger than America's.

"Why don't we have more friends around here?" I lamented.

"Because we don't believe in God," Good Man answered.

"I hate it here. I want to go back to Korea."

"How can you be unhappy in a country with electric staplers?" Good Man asked me.

I stared at him. "What?"

"America! You have electric staplers! Americans are lazy, and being lazy is good for invention. Because you want what you want, then you imagine, then make reality. Heaven for lazy people, and you want happiness? Then you buy it..."

My jaw dropped. "I don't want to buy friends."

"No, but we can make more friends."

I laughed, "Make more friends and buy electric staplers?"

"Exactly."

"What is that?"

I looked in the direction Good Man was pointing. "Public Storage? You can—"

"I know, I know. You rent—pay—and put stuff there, right?"

"Right," I nodded.

"That is so—! Stupid! Americans have huge cars. Huge houses. Huge yards—yards they are never outside in! And then they rent more space to keep stuff! America is so...awkward!"

It's been over a year since I've done one of these posts.

Amanda

Good Man

Good Man's Favorite

In this photo you can see a necklace with a penny in it. That's the penny that was taped into my shoe on 3/6/09. It's an Indian head wheat back penny from 1890. It was a birthday gift from my father years ago. A friend of mine told me that when she was married it was the age of the penny which determined how many happy years of marriage the couple would have together.

My Favorite

I love this photo. I'm going to print it up as an 8 by 10 and frame it. In color it's OK. In black and white...I adore it. All of that negative space off to the right—it's negative space full of possibility.