OCTOBER, THE END

October has been a hectic month for me and I am not sorry to see it go. Beginning with the Jinju Lantern Festival I have traveled almost every week in October (if you count trips to Daegu, which I am starting to). I had my first and second NKD meetings, the Fulbright Fall Conference in Gyeongju and our school festival, which threw an entire week into uproar. I bicycled past traditional houses in Gyeongju and sang in Korean in front of over 700 middle school students. This month I have made some of the memories that I will cherish long after I have left Korea. But now I am tired.

Life moves at different paces and, personally, I enjoy a nice brisk trot. Lately though, life has been galloping and I need it to slow down. Early in September when I had just arrived in Gumi I had so much time on my hands that I piled my to-do list higher and higher. The result being a nice fat cold when alls said and done. I might sound sad — I am sad — but it is a sadness of letting go. The fact is I love everything I am doing here in Korea. I love teaching, traveling, studying Korean, blogging, volunteering and building friendships, new and old, but in doing everything I love I am losing me a little bit. Without time to reflect it's all action, action, action. My body is moving, but my self feels more and more lost. I need to cut back. I was so excited about this chance to grow, about all this opportunity, that my tree is now in dire need of pruning. And of all my pursuits the easiest to clip is traveling.

I didn't travel to Korea for excitement, for new sights and smells. I traveled to Korea for people and for kitchen tables — for the student yelling Beyonce lyrics in the hallway and the bus that is always late. I would rather miss a thousand glorious Buddhist temples, than miss the moment when my host cousin held my hand as we walked to the market. So many hours of perhaps 'unproductive' time led up to that moment, yet they made possible this unexpected treasure.

I could say, oh, there will be time later for everything. If I don't travel now, I will have time in the spring or next year. In some ways I really believe this is true. The time for travel will become possible. However, I also want to know that if there was never more time, if I left Korea today or tomorrow, I could say I spent my energy on the people I met, rather than the places I went.

All that being said, I still have some commitments to fulfill. This weekend I am traveling to Gwangju to teach a class for the Korean Bridge Initiative, a nonprofit providing English language classes to motivated students who can't afford hagwons. Although I somewhat dread traveling once more I am excited for the chance to teach such motivated high school students. Since they are higher level and more mature I can follow my passions and do a creative lesson on scanning poetry (something I could never do with my middle schoolers).

After Saturday I look forward to some quality time in Gumi for the rest of the semester. And, despite my moaning and groaning, look forward to uploading photos of Gyeongju and some adorable video of my school festival soon!