I am TRULY BLESSED!!!!

I feel as if I am so so lucky, fortunate, & truly blessed with so many of the things that I have going on for me here in Korea. First of all I teach at a really great elementary school which is only a 10 minute bus ride (15-20 min by bike). I teach at the SAME school 5 days a week, I have 1 main co-teacher who is the greatest!!! She is so nice; very warm, sweet, helpful, supportive, and is very active (hands-on) with me in the classroom. We have so much fun teaching together in the classroom. I've learned to become comfortable with the basic, simple, monotonous, (in my mind boring) routine of the English text book lessons and have decided to "go with the flow" and add my own little bits of creativity in the beginning of each class for warm up. I have the kids put the hands in the air, clap 5 times, touch their head, shoulders, knees and toes, etc. My co-teacher usually pulls up this song and other cute kids songs from the Internet & will play this song, all with "If you're Happy and you Know it, Clap Your Hands!" on the TV screen. I have 4 other co-teachers that I teach 4th grade with and they are all so fun and great as well. I have a great relationship with many of the other faculty members here as well as with the Vice-Principal (we are on the same volleyball team) "B TEAM, B TEAM Pieting!!!" (fighting). He is the most enthusiastic, supportive & encouraging guy you will ever meet. It's so much fun to see many of these teachers playing FULL OUT on the volleyball court. We usually have food & drinks in the gym afterwards!!!!
I love Miryang, the town I'm living in, it's small, quiet, quaint and centrally located in btw. 2 major cities. I am especially thankful & most grateful for the 15 other English teachers that live here as well. We all keep in touch weekly to plan activities together. Whether it be bowling, dinner, hiking, traveling, rugby, or going to the bar for drinks, etc. everyone treats each other like one big family. There is a great sense of community here and is no wonder that many of these teachers here are re-newing their contracts and will be staying an extra year. I have a nice, new, clean apt. with 2 great neighbors who live next door to me. I feel as if I have been truly blessed by the grace of God, and I know that He has been looking over me, and taking care of me ever since I left NY on August 28th. I knew it was a good omen when we left on the day of the Full Moon of Virgo.

Unfortunately I can not say that about many of my other teacher friends. Many teachers teach at 3, 4 or 5 different schools, having to drive 30 min to each school. Some of them have co-teachers that do not even stay in the room, and who leave them alone with the students in class. Some of my other friends teach in schools where the children are wild, loud, and very disrespectful. They scream, curse, and say all kinds of rude, nasty things to these teachers; and they are challenged with how to elicit help from the teachers or from people at the school. One guy teaches in most rural town where he has to walk 2 miles just to get to the nearest store & their are no taxis available either. It baffles me has to the crazy and absurd conditions some of them have to go through. I feel as if I'm living in a dream world compared to them!!!

I am especially excited that I've booked my ticket for Bangkok, Thailand and will be spend 6 nights down there enjoying the beautiful warm weather and gorgeous beaches at the end of Feb. for my winter break. Then from Bangkok, I fly directly to Seoul where I will be picking Flo up at the airport that evening as she will be flying in from NJ!!!!! She will be in Korea with me for 14 days and will travel all around the country during that time. I am so so excited!!!! My first visitor!!! Yipeee!!!!!! My mom wants to visit here as well, but my dad doesn't seem to have any interest. Anyone else wanna come visit me? I picked up a used sofa from Dan & Kim that you can use to sleep if you choose. Just a thought.

I'm learning to speak Korean a lil more each day, and I can pretty much read everything I see in Korean. The alphabet is really cool and easy in the sense that each vowel (letter) only has ONE sound. Not like in English where a letter like "o" "e" "a" "g" can have a different sound based on the word. Like George & gum. Or like all the difficult and different sounds vowels make in English.Vowels like "a" and "u" can sound several different ways such as "uniform" "umbrella" "put" etc. But in Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, each vowel only has ONE distinct sound and it never changes. So once you memorize the sound of each letter, (vowel or consonant) you can easily start to read signs, menus, cities, etc in Korean. It took me a while to actually get the 'correct' pronunciation of some of the unique Korean sounds, but after listening to them over and over, I finally got it correct. I was pleased to get a nice compliment from a few of the native Korean teachers here. When they asked me where I lived and told them the name of my apt in Korean (Haeng bok Villa) they, replied: "Darren, this is not your first time in Korea, right? You have been here before haven't you?" I was proud to say, "No actually, this is my first time, I've nearly been here 3 months now." They just assumed that b/c my pronunciation was so good, that I had been here before. I was very flattered to receive such a nice compliment from them because it made me feel good and helped boost my confidence that I'm actually learning more than I think. It has been several weeks since I've actually listened to one of my Korean Language lessons I have on my iPod and this compliment, has actually encouraged me to continue listening to more lessons this past week.

I'm also starting to realize how much I doubt myself and "beat myself up" for "not being good enough" not preparing lessons well enough, not doing enough (as much as I know I can do), etc. But what I'm also getting, is that I am a pretty darn great guy, person, teacher, friend, etc. And I'm also finally starting to realize that I can very easily use my good looks, charming personality, and my GREAT attitude and outlook on life to take me pretty far in life, and especially far here in Korea. This could be looked at as both a good and a bad thing. I guess it is good for now because I don't have to try so hard to do well here, and I can just relax, take it easy and enjoy the "easy" life here. This can be looked at as a bad thing if I allow myself to get lazy, complacent, and just rest on my laurels instead of challenging myself to STEP UP and demand more of myself. For now I look at it as a good thing. It's nice knowing that I'm liked, respected and well-received just because of my great attitude, my humble & grateful personality, and my thirst, passion and curiosity to learn about the Korean language and Korean culture.

If you come to Korea with the right attitude, you will no doubt find yourself having the time of your life here. If you come to Korea expecting things (the way they run/handle business) to be exactly the same as it is back home, you are undoubtedly setting yourself up for failure. I just can't understand understand some of the ridiculous and petty little things some of the English teachers here complain about. YOU are the one who voluntarily chose to come to Korea... don't expect them(Koreans) to change the way they do business just because you come from a country with different standards and a different set of values. So what I think I'm trying to say is that maybe the reason that I've been BLESSED with the fortunate situation in which I've been placed is because of my open, humble, grateful attitude in which I've approached this whole trip. Even when I was first told that we were being assigned to a 'rural town' in a 'rural province' in southern Korea, I was like, "OK, I guess that is where I'm "supposed to" be teaching English." By totally being open & trusting God, I have created lots of good karma that has been coming back to me ever since. Maybe that's why I get these most beautiful, adorable, and precious children running up to me at school with their arms wide open, wrapping around my leg saying, "Darren, teacha, Darren teacha, I love you!" My heart just melts when I see this beautiful expression of love and gratitude towards me. As Tony Robbins, one of my first mentors always reminds us:

"Live everyday with an ATTITUDE of GRATITUDE!"