Christmas Tree Tetris

Another year, another Christmas away from home. With so much bad going on in the world, it's hard to get that spirit up, but that is also exactly why Christmas spirit is so important. Or holiday spirit. Solstice. Whatever you call it, we just passed the longest night, and I truly hope this means a new beginning, a path toward things getting better.

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

I finally put my Christmas decorations up last night! I love seasonal decor. When I was growing up, my mom always had amazing collections for each holiday season. We'd pull out the boxes and bins, unwrap each item and find a perfect place for it. Christmas was always the best, though, because my mom has the biggest collection of ornaments I have ever seen, and we would buy a new one each year. Each one was wrapped carefully in tissue paper, and each box was like a precious archaeological dig, documenting our years as a family. There was the first ornament my mom bought after she moved up to the NW from California. There were ornaments I made in preschool and kindergarten. I always looked for my favorites, like the white sparkly angel who gleamed rainbow in the colored lights, the little hand-made reindeer, the clear ball that looked like a floating soap bubble.

It's a bit small, but it will do.

Every ornament had to be placed just right. It was a puzzle to solve. Larger ornaments were tricky, and spacing was every important. In the end one of us would teeter at the top of a step-ladder to perch the angel at the top as the house filled with the smell of pine. These will always be some of my most treasured childhood memories.

Honestly, it's pretty tough to spend Christmas abroad, divorced from all the traditions I grew up in. For me, this time of year is all about family, and that's one thing I really don't have over here. I always do my best to stay upbeat but decorating cookies alone with my tiny tree just isn't the same.

At least I have my own small bit of Christmas to enjoy. Tonight is all about sugar cookies and very late Christmas cards, and if that can't get me in the mood for Christmas, I don't know what will.

This Dustpan Gives Me +1 Artillery

I was attacked.

Improvised weaponry.

Okay let me explain. As you may be able to tell from the above photo, it snowed! We've had a couple brief flurries but this was the first, real, proper, Norman Rockwell white Christmas snow.

Gotta keep warm.

I let my 3rd period class out a bit early to enjoy the snow, because it's almost the end of the year and kids deserve a bit of time to run around like the maniacs they are. Mostly that seemed to involve a lot of snow-throwing, from the standard ball form to the full dust-pan AoE attack. Mostly I kept to the side, under cover as I was in my school shoes and was in possession of neither a hat nor a pair of gloves. Severely underprepared.

As I turned to go back into my blissfully warm classroom, I saw him-- a favorite student, a frenemy, but most of all-- a 16 year old boy in possession of a gigantic armful of snow. I was frozen in place. Our eyes locked. There was nothing I could do.

He sprinted toward me and before I had a chance to run away, dumped the LARGEST pile of snow I have ever seen a single person carry DIRECTLY on my head. For a moment I was too shocked to react, and as the snow started to drip off my nose, I saw him with the clearest "oh shit I just threw a snowdrift on a teacher I am so screwed" look. I thought about messing with him, but couldn't help but burst into joyful laughter and attempt to retaliate.

My biggest mistake was in forgetting that Han Gil is ON THE BASEBALL TEAM and I can't throw worth a damn. Well, I can throw HARD I just lack in accuracy. I did manage to get a decent bit of snow down the back of his coat by using stealth mode, but all in all he was the victor.

However, I can't honestly complain. Sure, my coat is still a bit damp and my hair looks a mess, but there's something so uncontrollably joyful about running around in the snow like a kid. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much. If I've learned nothing else in my 27 years on this planet, I've learned to take pleasure in the smallest things, or in this case, the biggest pile of snow that has ever been thrown in my face.

Happy Holidays everyone~

Not a Moment But a Movement

I've been trying to write this post for a while, trying to put my thoughts into some sort of order rather than funneling my rage, disappointment, fear, and sadness into a incoherent jumble of sound of fury. If I'm going to scream, I want it to signify something. I can't promise that it will, but I think I'm ready to try.

Now, I've never been the most patriotic of people. I grew up in a hippie stronghold in the middle of a consistently Democratic state, and while my parents are about as American as they come, we were never the sort of people to chant USA! USA! well...ever. When my family asks if I'll ever move back to the states, my stock reasons against it usually boil down to "but my country hates me". However, despite all that, there have always been so many things to love about the USA. While it could be better, the diversity and opportunity are real, especially compared to a homogeneous place like South Korea.

As so many have said, fuck 2016. For a while I even had to delete the Facebook app from my phone, because the constant bombardment of depressing news was just too much for me. It all came to a head two last month. Watching the election was not unlike that tumblr meme, which goes like this.

me (to america): hoe don't do it.
america: *does it*
me: omg

While 99% of me was sure there was no way the American people could be stupid enough to elect that cheeto man to office, there was a small part of me that was entirely unsurprised when it happened. A resigned, hopeless, almost nihilistic part of me even thought...good. You get what you asked for, people. You wished on the monkey's paw, don't be surprised when everything falls apart. Let's just scrap the country and start over. We're only 200 years in, that's barely past the tutorial! Or maybe...did you have autosave turned on? A backup? No?

But this isn't a game. This is real life, real people. This is my queer sister and her trans partner. This is the lives of my friends and family. This is a country that has abandoned so many of its own people. If I feel hated as a cis, white, bisexual woman, how must immigrants, people of color, and all those people who have it even worse than me, feel right now? If I am disappointed and hurting, how must they feel?

More than ever, I feel my privilege, and it leaves me torn. There's an entire ocean between me and Tronald Dump (I hope to keep it that was as much as possible) and it would be so, so easy to just ignore it all. My friends and most of my family back the US live in very liberal areas and are comparatively safe. A treacherous part of me wants to keep my head down, focus on the day to day of my job, and leave the fighting to someone else. But I hate that part.

The bigger, better part of me wants to fight, and simultaneously makes me feel incredibly guilty for being an ocean away, unable to be on the front lines. It takes more than a blog post, a tweet, a donation. I tell myself that teaching kids to be better people in any country adds to the global non-shittiness quotient, but it's hard to believe when the shit has so dramatically hit the fan in my own country. Sure, it feels as if my country hates me, but have I already abandoned my country? Is it my responsibility as a teacher to go home?

Admittedly, a big part of this is that ongoing existential crisis I've been grappling with for the past few months. What am I doing with my life? Am I really accomplishing anything? What will my legacy be? I blame Lin-Manuel Miranda for that last one. His quotes are haunting me.

On the one hand, being an American abroad gives me a better perspective on the global impact of American politics. It's often surreal to live in a country that has such a generally positive opinion of the US. Just like the US, Korea's political system is rife with corruption and nepotism, college graduates are unable to find jobs, and women are still fighting for many rights that they should have without question. However, many of the people I talk to seem genuinely surprised to find out that America isn't the shining city on the hill it claims to be. They believe in the American dream as much as I wish I could.

I'm doing the best I can. I may not be strong, or loud; my voice can reach only a few. I want to believe in an America that is everything we like to say it is. So I'm going to keep fighting, in the small things I can do. I'm going to teach my students. I'm going to call out racism and inequality and shittiness when I see it. I'm not going to keep my head down, even when I want to.

“You're gonna miss each and every shot you can't be bothered to take. That's not living life--that's just being a tourist. Take every shot, Kate. If it's worth caring about, no matter how impossible you think it is--you take the shot.”

-Hawkeye, Matt Fraction 

 

I Write Poems Not Posts (forgive me)

Quarter Life Crisis (in iambic pentameter)

Now leave behind a life that's closing in
a thought I'll always have until I die.
If maybe somewhere far beyond, within
another world, my heart could learn to fly
To swoop and soar above the land below
Far from the twisted reach of fears that creep.
Like Icarus, I saw that indigo
Of sky and fell- from high, in love, asleep.
Yet who am I to blame and point away
forever, I'm the master of my fate
A life unspent leaves nothing to repay
So must I find the sky, to elevate
Remember- not one day is given free
And even if you fall, aim for the sea.