Muryoro Anah Deurimnida!!

This translates to: FREE HUGS!!!

Where: Downtown Suncheon
The Crew: Carol (insitgator), Mel, Juliann (Mel's Korean Student), a slew of Carol's boy students, Mary Katherine, Vanessa S., Nina, Virginia, Lana, Bryce, Kristin, Nancy and myself.

Why? Watch this video:
Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story! (music by sick puppies)


After seeing this video on YouTube, Carol became inspired to do this in her Korean city of Suncheon. So, armed with signs and bigs smiles, we headed out to the downtown shopping area to distribute our free hugs.

Now, I should tell you, Koreans aren't really huggy people. They bow, they handshake, but for the most part, hugs are not in their interactive vocabulary. This has been one of the aspects of Canadian life that I miss the most. I love hugs...giving and receiving. In this one afternoon (about 3 hours), I more than made up for my 15 months of hug-celibacy.

To be honest, I'm sure that I got more strange looks than I did hugs, but it didn't matter. I couldn't stop smiling and laughing...it was so therapeutic. I hugged old women, young children, lots of students and some very confused looking men. Some people kept coming back for more. Some people would walk by, look scared, then they'd come back because they had changed their minds and wanted in on the free hugs.

There was a video camera going to catch the love and hopefully, once Kristin finishes the edit, I'm going to post it on here, but until then, here are a couple of pictures:




Some funny situations:
Children running away screaming.
Shop owners looking out at us with disapproval, but then us winnig them over with a nice hug.
People giving us a wide berth to avoid the hugs.
Old women patting my bum.
The "cold fish" hug. This is when the person just stands there and has no idea what to do.

Here's a description of the best hug that happened:
A Korean (let's say a young woman), is walking towards me as I'm holding my sign. At first, she looks confused, then skeptical. Suddenly, her eyes brighten, a big smile spreads across her face and she actually runs into my arms and gives me a great, big hug. Oh mercy.

I can't even describe fully how good this afternoon made me feel. I want to thank Carol and give her many, many cudos for having the gumption (yes...GUMPTION) to organise something like this in a very foreign country. I hope that our effots brought a little bit of light into some peoples lives, if only for a short while. I know it will stay with me for a long time.
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In other news, my school finally got me my new washing machine!! w00t. It's a beautiful thing. It's about twice as big as my old one and it purrs like a kitten (not really, but you get the idea). I never thought I'd actually be excited to do laundry!!

Along the "home improvements" front, all the units in my building all got new cupboards in the kitchen and a new sink. Holy Heck!! What's going on?! They do look quite a lot nicer than the old (REALLY old) ones, and there's a bit more cupboard space too. Unfortunately this surprise has a few drawbacks that keep me from fully enjoying it. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I think you all agree that the following points would kinda burst your bubbles too:
I walked into the working dudes smoking in my apt. smelly!
One of the new drawers has no handle to open it.
My new sink leaks.
They unplugged my fridge and didn't plug it back in and didn't tell me. I realised this the following morning.
*sigh* Ah well, it happens. Thanks for the new kitchen, Korea!
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Last week my workload picked up significantly, which resulted in my body screaming "WTF?!?" by the time Friday rolled around. To be perfectly honest, it's not any heavier than the work schedules of you folks in Canader (in fact, it's prolly still less), but I've become accustomed to f-ing around on the computer during my free periods at school. Well, until the end of this semester, MSN and YouTube are going to have to take a back seat to "the real world". You see, I agreed to do an after school class for some students. The pay is pretty good and I finish at 5:20, so it's not so bad. I also do a regular extra class during the school day (as do almost all the teachers I know). Anyway, these extra classes radically change my lesson planning regime. Without them, I have to plan a whopping ONE lesson per week, plus teacher workshop activities. The reason for this extremely light prep schedule is that I teach all of my student classes (all 9 of them) the same thing. Each extra class I do needs its own lesson, so, that bumps my prep time to 7 lessons per week plus teacher workshops. I'm not all that good at math, but I think that's a 700% increase in busyness. I like being busy (I get more done that way), so bring it on!! (Just let me complain a little if I'm tired, ok?)

Right now it's Sunday, it's 1:33pm and I'm still in my PJ's listening to David Bowie. Life is good!