I just got off a skype call with my mother, which as many of you know can be tough thing. This distance has begun to help bridge the gap between my mother and me. The first weeks I heard from her every day but as time has rolled on, our conversations are becoming more substantial with greater depth and time between them. Who knew that it would only take 6000 miles distance to work on our relationship, OK many of you. At least it is working, or so I think.
The kicker is that I received an FB message from my sister today that apparently I had a conversation with my mother Sunday morning (Korea time). Mind you that I had been out for my friends goodbye party that night. When I researched the accusation, my sister was correct, I had a 20 minute conversation with my mother which I completely don't remember. (Grandma would be so proud, just kidding).
I was a little ashamed to talk to my mother now to find out what we discussed while I was inebriated. Luckily and surprisingly she was more concerned than anything. How refreshing because I was worried that things would have been different. As so many of us here are learning, this experience is helping us to grow, not be afraid, be more confident and not worry what other people think. This is especially true for me. I feel I have always held back from communicating with my mother because I didn't want to be judged or I was tired of being judged since she often compares my life to hers. Things are beginning to change. I was able to talk to her tonight about what had happened yesterday. She laughed. Sigh of relief for me.
She reminded me briefly about our conversation and filled me in on the latest news with everything. The part that pulled at my heart strings was when she told me that my grandma thinks of me as one of her daughters. (Tears, again). That statement means so much to me because I have always called my grandma my life coach and I would not be here if it weren't for her blessing and encouragement. She has helped me through most every major decision in my life. I have been sooo soooo soooooooo lucky, fortunate, grateful, appreciative and every other word used to describe my admiration for my grandmother, who I have lived with for the past four years. I am still shooting myself in the foot for not having a tape recorder handy during the late night chats I had with her about her life and experiences or finishing the cookbook we began working on for all the women in the family when I moved in. WE HAVE TO FINISH IT!
Of everything, I miss my grandma. A huge part of me wishes I was there to help take care of her, as best I could. I know I'm not a caretaker, but I tried my best and of anything I have always wanted to be there for my family and especially my grandma. I also know that most of my family has been so supportive of me exploring the world and I am so grateful. Thank you.
I sit here also, thinking of my other grandmother, Grammie. Losing her a year before my college graduation was one of the toughest things I have ever had to live through. She was my biggest champion for finishing college. She was one of the luckiest grandparents to have every single one of her grandchildren graduate with a college degree. Education was so important to her and I so wished she could have seen me graduate. I may not have had the closest relationship with her, but she has been such a huge motivator in my life. Her influence helped me return to school and finish! She was my biggest supporter and I never had the chance to thank her for it. I miss you Grammie! Thank you because without my degree I wouldn't be here now.
Things just got too emotional. Time to cut the string.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Things You Do When You're Away from Home
Here is a shocker for many of you. I just finished cooking most of my meals for the week! Yes, that is right I cooked. I still can't believe it myself especially since I have to make everything fresh and only have a two burner mini-stove to use. Yep, no microwave! (Oh how I miss my microwave popcorn).
I started cooking because I grew tired of just eating Korean food and thank goodness I have a friend who lives on an American military base in Daegu so she can help me buy items that I can't get at the grocery store here. Thanks Kristen!
I have made quesadillas, chicken and beef Philly cheese steaks, various pastas, vegetables, enchiladas, salads (very very hard to find here, although they have all the ingredients), breakfast potatoes and many more. I found out from a fellow foreign teacher that he made eggplant Parmesan in a toaster oven! I can't wait to get that recipe. The funny thing too is that I tell the Korean teachers at my school and most of the stuff they have never tried, so I bring it in for them to taste. I wish I had a tape recorder for my grandma (Ms. Gourmet Chef) to hear them say I'm a good cook. Haa haa! It cracks me up how they comment on the dishes, because like I said they have all the ingredients just never thought of mixing them all together I guess. I'm not sure what their favorite is but so far they have really enjoyed the potatoes and quesadillas.
This weekend I was lucky enough to find dried cranberries, walnuts and feta cheese to make a "Brownstone" favorite (thank you Kim & Glen) , the harvest salad sans raspberry vinaigrette. I also whipped up a semi-Greek salad. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I am really looking forward to making breakfast tomorrow for some of the other teachers. The menu will either be breakfast sandwiches (thanks Vinaka), breakfast burritos, or omelets with breakfast potatoes and bacon.
Oh I also made smoothies last week, which even though there are a bunch of Smoothie Kings around, the other teachers hadn't had a banana, strawberry, blueberry and apple juice smoothie (another props to Vinaka for that quick fix).
If you have any suggestions or stove top recipes that you could share I will try my best to gather the ingredients and attempt cooking it. I am always looking for an excuse to go to Costco, which I still have not been to yet. Oh and the Daejeon International Culture Center will be hosting free cooking classes in January so I am hoping to learn how to cook some of my favorite Korean dishes.
Love to all and look forward to hearing from you!
Annyong-hi chumuseyo
(Goodnight)
I started cooking because I grew tired of just eating Korean food and thank goodness I have a friend who lives on an American military base in Daegu so she can help me buy items that I can't get at the grocery store here. Thanks Kristen!
I have made quesadillas, chicken and beef Philly cheese steaks, various pastas, vegetables, enchiladas, salads (very very hard to find here, although they have all the ingredients), breakfast potatoes and many more. I found out from a fellow foreign teacher that he made eggplant Parmesan in a toaster oven! I can't wait to get that recipe. The funny thing too is that I tell the Korean teachers at my school and most of the stuff they have never tried, so I bring it in for them to taste. I wish I had a tape recorder for my grandma (Ms. Gourmet Chef) to hear them say I'm a good cook. Haa haa! It cracks me up how they comment on the dishes, because like I said they have all the ingredients just never thought of mixing them all together I guess. I'm not sure what their favorite is but so far they have really enjoyed the potatoes and quesadillas.
This weekend I was lucky enough to find dried cranberries, walnuts and feta cheese to make a "Brownstone" favorite (thank you Kim & Glen) , the harvest salad sans raspberry vinaigrette. I also whipped up a semi-Greek salad. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. I am really looking forward to making breakfast tomorrow for some of the other teachers. The menu will either be breakfast sandwiches (thanks Vinaka), breakfast burritos, or omelets with breakfast potatoes and bacon.
Oh I also made smoothies last week, which even though there are a bunch of Smoothie Kings around, the other teachers hadn't had a banana, strawberry, blueberry and apple juice smoothie (another props to Vinaka for that quick fix).
If you have any suggestions or stove top recipes that you could share I will try my best to gather the ingredients and attempt cooking it. I am always looking for an excuse to go to Costco, which I still have not been to yet. Oh and the Daejeon International Culture Center will be hosting free cooking classes in January so I am hoping to learn how to cook some of my favorite Korean dishes.
Love to all and look forward to hearing from you!
Annyong-hi chumuseyo
(Goodnight)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Opps! It has been awhile!
Obviously I'm not very good at this blogging thing but I hope to fix that now. After talking to my friend Vicki back home yesterday, she helped motivate me. My goal was to write about everything and as each day passed my list of things to write got to be so big that I started to get overwhelmed. So thanks to her advice, I am going to try to post what I'm doing now. Thanks Vicki!
I just got home from my Thanksgiving dinner with 25 other foreign teachers at a steak restaurant. It was delicious but I did miss the turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie! Apparently, it is very rare to find turkey anywhere and if you are lucky to find it at Costco, it is really expensive. Plus no one I know has an oven! We discussed how we could cook a turkey in a toaster oven. We were all surprised that everyone showed up to dinner also because we were all together last night for some friends goodbye party and many of us did not get home until after dawn! It was a great dinner with wonderful company and definitely amusing seeing all of our beautiful faces the day after a long night.
Things here are going well. I am really enjoying the experience of immersing myself in the culture. I have been trying to learn some Korean because not many of the people in my area speak English, even at the school I work at only 2 of the 5 Korean teachers speak English well. It has been challenging but fun. I live above a chicken restaurant about a 5 minute walk from my school but my neighborhood is a suburb of Daejon and downtown is about a 30 minute bus ride. It isn't bad and actually I think its better for me because if I lived downtown I would be broke!
I am the only foreign teacher at my school, which so far hasn't been too bad. I was confused the first day because I was shuffled from classroom to classroom, which I thought was weird because I thought I was going to have my own classroom and that I would be only be teaching kindergarten. Come to find out that I would be teaching 12 different classes throughout the day for times anywhere between 10, 20, 25, and 50 minutes. What? This seems weird and how is this going to work? That is the way the system is set up.I actually really enjoy it because it makes my day go by fast, I don't get bored and it keeps me on my toes. But it is overwhelming to think that I teach 175 students! Thank goodness I don't have to grade papers! The other nice thing is that the school provides us dinner every night, so I have been able to try most of the Korean dishes. Gotta say though that my favorite is the BBQ and shabu shabu (Shabu-shabu means “swish-swish,” referring to the swishing action when you cook a very thin slice of beef in hot water. It is cooked and eaten at the table.)
I know there is much more to share but I want to keep these short. Please feel free to post questions or what you wanna know and I will try to answer them as soon as possible.
Until next time,
Happy Thanksgiving
I just got home from my Thanksgiving dinner with 25 other foreign teachers at a steak restaurant. It was delicious but I did miss the turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie! Apparently, it is very rare to find turkey anywhere and if you are lucky to find it at Costco, it is really expensive. Plus no one I know has an oven! We discussed how we could cook a turkey in a toaster oven. We were all surprised that everyone showed up to dinner also because we were all together last night for some friends goodbye party and many of us did not get home until after dawn! It was a great dinner with wonderful company and definitely amusing seeing all of our beautiful faces the day after a long night.
Things here are going well. I am really enjoying the experience of immersing myself in the culture. I have been trying to learn some Korean because not many of the people in my area speak English, even at the school I work at only 2 of the 5 Korean teachers speak English well. It has been challenging but fun. I live above a chicken restaurant about a 5 minute walk from my school but my neighborhood is a suburb of Daejon and downtown is about a 30 minute bus ride. It isn't bad and actually I think its better for me because if I lived downtown I would be broke!
I am the only foreign teacher at my school, which so far hasn't been too bad. I was confused the first day because I was shuffled from classroom to classroom, which I thought was weird because I thought I was going to have my own classroom and that I would be only be teaching kindergarten. Come to find out that I would be teaching 12 different classes throughout the day for times anywhere between 10, 20, 25, and 50 minutes. What? This seems weird and how is this going to work? That is the way the system is set up.I actually really enjoy it because it makes my day go by fast, I don't get bored and it keeps me on my toes. But it is overwhelming to think that I teach 175 students! Thank goodness I don't have to grade papers! The other nice thing is that the school provides us dinner every night, so I have been able to try most of the Korean dishes. Gotta say though that my favorite is the BBQ and shabu shabu (Shabu-shabu means “swish-swish,” referring to the swishing action when you cook a very thin slice of beef in hot water. It is cooked and eaten at the table.)
I know there is much more to share but I want to keep these short. Please feel free to post questions or what you wanna know and I will try to answer them as soon as possible.
Until next time,
Happy Thanksgiving
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