On Monday night my host family wanted to have a goodbye dinner for me and two of the other Hwacheon ETAs. Although I am not very close to my host family the dinner was a really nice gesture. My host father even apologized for not spending more time with me and blamed it on work. He's very proud of the fact that he worked every weekend for the past eight years!
On Tuesday the teachers I meet and cook with every week threw me an amazing going away party. I nearly cried when I saw the efforts they exerted to make my party special. We feasted on seafood pajeon (which they cooked for me the first time we met), potato pancakes, yogurt parfaits, fruit, an ice cream cake, Dutch coffee and most importantly non-alcoholic beer. Each of the three teachers I was closest to contributed something to make the party a success. I will really miss Kyeonghee, Juhee and Myoungjin. I truly believe I would have been much lonelier at school and in Korea if they never reached out to me. Our meetings were something I looked forward to every week and I will really miss them when I teach next year.
Last night our school hosted a going away dinner for Amy, the other ETA, and I. The dinner was so much fun mainly because it's incredibly entertaining to see how drunk all of the teachers get. Two of the teachers had to be carried from the restaurant to the bar because they were too drunk to walk but didn't want to go home! I was really moved by how many teachers came up to me to say thank you and to wish me well. One of my closest teacher friends even told me that I was the reason she decided to travel alone to Hong Kong. She had always wanted to go but was nervous about her English ability not being high enough to allow her to easily manage the trip alone. I was so touched that I was able to increase her confidence. I cannot wait to see pictures from her trip in a few months. Juhee also promised that her next trip will be to America! I can only hope. After the dinner a large number of teachers went to a bar and then karaoke. It was so fun to see so many of my co-workers really cut loose. I even discovered that one of my co-teachers could breakdance when he started dancing at karaoke!
Today, I had pizza at school with some of the younger male teachers. It was nice to say goodbye to them. They all have very high English levels and are the closest to me age-wise, which is nice. After school, I had coffee with two of the other ETAs in Hwacheon. We wanted to meet to say goodbye since we are not sure when we will see each other again. Luckily our goodbyes weren't too difficult because Maggie lives just outside the city and Rachel, my best friend, will visit New York during her month in America. Rachel will return to Korea in August to teach English again as an ETA.
Tomorrow is my last day of school and I know it will be tough to say a final goodbye to all the people who have supported me during my year here. I will also have a goodbye dinner with the Kyeong family. I lived with the Kyeongs during February and really want to say goodbye to them. They were an amazing host family and I will miss them terribly. I never imagined saying goodbye to Korea would be so difficult.
No comments:
Post a Comment