Take THAT, Potter Kids....

Yeah, so I know you're all perfect and wonderful and musical and artistic and beautiful and spiritual and funky and dread locked and cool and librarians and world travelers and communicators and bloggers and aunts and uncles and hipsters...yeah, I know all this...but WHO was at the potter house decorating sugar cookies with Ma Potter and groaning at Pa Potter's puns on Easter Sunday in KOrea??? That's right...your decidedly less cool dopplegangers. So take that, Potter kids. We're moving in on your territory and you better get here to Korea fast, or it's gonna get all Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation up in here.

xoxoxox,

Ninny Beth Potter

PS. this photo is blurry so as to create a creepy single white femalish vibe. Also, your parents acted willingly and knowingly to help us make this post.

an offer you can't refuse

Even if you're new to this blog or you've never met me, this offer STANDS... Read below:

I've replaced the laptop and harddrive now (see last post), even though I feel a bit disloyal to my old electronics and I'm ready to start rebuilding...To that end, I'm starting a song drive called

Songs for Stickers

Here's how it works:

1. You send me some of your amazing music via yousendit or another big file sender. This can be one song, an album or an entire zip of a band that you adore and think I should have. I download it and love you.

2. You send me your mailing address and contact info (my outlook was among the casualties) to karyn.daley@gmail.com

3. I send you via korean mail some very cool, very korean stickers. A different kind of sticker for every artist that you help me replace and/or discover. And we get the chance to connect or reconnect in a genuine exchange of love and music!!!! The grand prize for those who go above and beyond the call of duty in this little project are some truly fabulous Korean StandUp comedian SOCKS. No, seriously.

4. I will let you know periodically what I got so that we don't double efforts.

5. I will worship you in spirit across oceans and thank you personally when I return to the USA next year. In the meantime, I will think of you every time I run across some Iron and Wine or Depeche Mode on my reconstructed itunes.

Wanna play??? I hope so!

I'm pretty sure that I only know people of impeccable musical taste so I'm excited to see this disaster turn into something memorable. If you can't do the music, still send me your contact info. I don't want to lose you in the craziness of the electronic age.

love,KaRyn/ ninnybeth

Enjoy the Silence

I'm writing this melancholy post to the crappy "This thing is about to crash" whirling sounds of the korean university computer in my officetel.

Yesterday, in what can only be called a true disaster, I lost my ipod, my laptop and my external harddrive in one fell swoop. A friend was carrying the aforementioned electronics along with his $1,000 camera in his backpack on the way to a party where I would be providing the music. He left the backpack in the front seat of the taxi.

All my music. All my poems. All my song lyrics. All my pictures. gone.

We've put out an APB (I don't even know what that stands for) to the police stations, cab companies and foreigner services, but for now, my life is as quiet as a life can be without a past and without itunes.

If you know me well you will understand when I tell you that I cried for a moment, threw a churro across the room and then shrugged my shoulders and got my guitar ready for a performance at the party. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we lose things so that we can make room for something new. I believe in the goodness of friends to help me replace memories and music. I'll let you know when the time has come to rebuild.

In the meantime, shoot a little prayer up to the Big Guy if you will. He knows the taxi driver's name. He knows where I am and he knows where my harddrive is and he can make the two converge if we send out enough faith vibes.

kamsahapnida.

Note To Self....

One year in Korea does not a Korean make.

To inaugurate my little brother's entrance into the MTC (FINALLY!) I thought I would update everyone on the progress of my mission. I'm at the one year mark with one more to go and things are moving right along. This has been a really challenging year for me, but not in the way that I thought it would be. When I loaded up my life and put my dreams in the hands of asia, I had a few rational fears: Will I have any friends? Will anyone be able to feel me? Would I be bland, unknowable, unrecognizable because I can not communicate with words? Will I get lost? Will I be safe? Will I love Korea? Will I love myself in Korea?

The answer is of course, Yes, Yes, Yes!!!! and NO NONONONONONONONONONO!

In the last week, I have had lesson after lesson that has reaffirmed the dichotomy of my life in Korea. I got lost/found. I choked/and recovered. I spoke/with my hands. I wrote/and I listened. I cooked/bought. I fell/got up. I sweated/and chose lazy. I sang/ I danced/ I loved/ I missed it/ I misunderstood/ and I finally got it.

I discovered that the 5500 bus goes to Suji, NOT bundang (a freshman mistake) BUT I also discovered that I am resourceful enough to figure out a way to get to work when I am lost in a strange city with no wallet and a dead cell phone. I am brave and functional in Korea.

I had a conversation on the telephone with a mom at school in Korean and we understood one another. I can communicate in Korea.

I almost suffocated on a triangle tortilla chip that was lodged in my esophagus sending home the message that WESTERN FOOD KILLS and that chewing your food before you consume it is a fine, fine idea. I am still myself in Korea.

I am creating masterpieces again in the kitchen and on the guitar. I MADE tteokbokki! HOMEMADE TTEOKBOKKI! and it was delicious and I made it. And a song is gestating almost ready to pop. Just in case you think this is a small thing, more than anything food and music are the hallmarks of my family culture and I will bring home something more valuable from Korea than some refrigerator magnets and hanbok. I can create in korea!!! I can make beautiful things inspired by this place. I am still an artist in Korea.

Ilsun, my cell phone patron and sister-in-law to one of my dearest friends, lost her father suddenly in a car accident. My friend called me to share her grief. I was touched and honored. Somehow, she knows me and trusts me. Somehow I am family to her and she is family to me though we operate under different cultural mores and expectations. I am known in Korea and I love in Korea.

And the first week of school is over and over and over. I still don't fully understand the differences between asian school culture and western school culture. I don't get it and I don't really like it. I'm bridging the gaps though. And somehow, I'm more moderate in all of my hard work. I can let the kids be kids. I can touch and giggle and let a lesson go if it isn't really working. I can stop and realize that this is about them and not about me. I can love them even when they don't listen and I can see all the complexity of a 5 year old's world. I can change in korea.

So that's the report. I realize this was more for myself than anyone, but I think it's important for me to write it down; to look for the clues to see it and see it how it really is.

Congraduation! It's Gradulation Day

This Kindergarten graduation was more involved than that one where I finished 4 years of University. They got more swag too. Seriously.

School Daze

Here's a robot for you.

It's the first week of the new school year. Korea does it a bit differently but not unpleasantly. We start in March just as spring is starting to rev up and I kind of dig it for the obvious reason...everything dies in Winter including my motivation to teach small children and Spring brings with it new students (which bring the possibility of new weird ticks and stories), new books (which bring the possibility of cracked spines and feeling of a year well done when they fall apart) and new energy. I'm starting to get excited about the next year of my life which seemed a near impossible feat just a few short days ago...here's a brief update of life events:

I spent a full day at immigration last Friday, breathing other people's air and hating on Korea and the leap year (ask me if you want to know the full story). I picked up our new teacher/friend Krisanne from the airport Sunday night with little to NO trauma (evidently, the gods think that i have had enough airport adventures to last a lifetime). I discovered Monday that I have bronchitis (not TB or whooping cough as previously self-diagnosed) and acquired medication that appears to be working HALLELUJAH! I've decided to apply to business school (as counter-intuitive as that sounds) so that I can make my dreams about Sixteen Stones a reality. AND I signed another year contract...one more year in Korea, friends. That's 12 more months of wonky pictures of konglish signs, pathetic stories of miscommunication mayhem, and jonesing for baked cheetos and chili dogs. Tada!!!