I think it's fair to say that 2013 somewhat abounded with newness and changes for my life. I graduated from college, got married, moved to the other side of the world, and ate my first fish.
All this adultness that was violently thrust upon me came coupled with advice and warnings. Suffice it to say, this well-meant advice did not perfectly prepare me for every little glitch. As this year goes out with a bang (literally....fireworks on the beach tonight), I am going to re-hash pieces of advice I have been given and add to them those little amendments that life teaches you in the form of curveballs and/or sucky situations.
1. What they tell you: As a teacher, ignore the kid misbehaving just for attention. Affirm the kids who are behaving well.
What they don't tell you: If you ignore the kid who keeps going over to stand by the window, he will eventually JUMP OUT THE BLOODY WINDOW.
Fortunately, my classroom is on the first floor, so I use "bloody" here in only the expressively exclamatory sense.
2. What they tell you: Marital disputes happen.
What they don't tell you: Sometimes they will involve things like one person needing the kitchen table for lesson planning, but the other person needing it (NEEDING IT) to build a fort.
Have fun guessing which person was which.
3. What they tell you: Squatty potties exist in Asia.
What they don't tell you: SQUATTY POTTIES EXIST IN ASIA.
Ok, maybe they do tell you that, and I just refused to believe it.
4. What they tell you: If you move to a foreign country, you will experience some culture shock.
What they don't tell you: If you move to a foreign country, the odds of someone literally inserting raw fish into your mouth increase somewhat dramatically and/or will actually happen to you.
5. What they tell you: As a teacher, you will probably have favorite and least favorite students.
What they don't tell you: Your least favorite student will be terribly behaved, but incredibly adorable, and on the last day of the semester he will be ridiculously tender and affectionate and rip your heart out.
6. What they tell you: Don't expect your first Christmas away from home to be anything like the Christmases you are used to.
What they don't tell you: You will spend your first Christmas away from home playing hide-and-seek and cooking tteok mandu guk and tteokbokki with Korean children (and loving every minute of it).
7. What they tell you: The "Korean surprise" exists, so expect last-minute changes, unanticipated events, etc.
What they don't tell you: Sometimes you will be shuffled onto a neon-light-riddled, beer-bottle-brimmed, heading-to-god-knows-where bus, and you just have to roll with it (but you will probably have a lot of fun).
8. What they tell you: The four years of college might be the most formative and self-discovering period of your life.
What they don't tell you: Sometimes you learn far more about yourself in the first six months after college than you ever have in your entire life. (I LIKE RAW TOMATOES, GUYS.)
9. What they tell you (or, more likely, what I told myself): When you graduate from college, you will magically become a grown-up with real-people social skills and a more refined taste in music, beverages, and activities.
What they don't tell you: You may spend your first months in the grown-up-people world panicking about the fact that you still haven't magically acquired those social skills, and wearing superhero socks and listening to Disney music are both technically still norms for you.
10. What they tell you: Kids are unpredictable.
What they don't tell you: This means that sometimes they stab each other with pencils, sometimes they rummage through their bags to find a random present for you, sometimes they ask how to spell "poop" with zero context, sometimes they draw a portrait of you that rattles your self-image a bit, sometimes they yell "TEACHER" and hug you for no reason, and yes, sometimes they actually jump out windows.
.................................
Since a new year is upon us and all, I'm going to take off my sassy pants now and have a tender moment (or, as tender of a moment as a girl can have while sitting by herself in front of a computer monitor and listening to Pink Floyd).
2013 was awesome because by the end of it, I loved more people than I did at the beginning of it. Right now, I love all the people I ever did, except more, because of all the people I've met in the past months. What if the passing years are just like a giant rolling snowball, and you meet more and more people to love over time? Does your heart explode when you are 80? Serious question.
Anyways, here are some tender pictures to end a tender year. Cheers to 2014, Korea (and you too, America, whenever you catch up)!
