Canada & Transitions

August 24, 2013

I'm back at work now after having a fantastic 17 days of vacation. Once my summer vacation classes ended, I went home to pack before taking the 2am bus to Incheon Airport. After a 5-hour bus ride and 13-hour flight, I was in Toronto.

The time I spent in Canada was never wasted. For the first week, I powered through jet lag and I was solidly booked. I spent a few days bonding with some family at my grandfather's cottage, got mall-shopping out of my system, caught up with great family/friends, and consumed as much Tim Horton's coffee as I could. I also fit in an amazing trip to see my friends in Toronto (Let's go, Blue Jays!) and my mom hosted a barbecue in our backyard. My second week had a bit more wiggle room but I still found myself busy trying to get in all those Canadian experiences that aren't so easy to come by in Korea: spending more time with family, drinking more Canadian beer, drinking more Tim's coffee, and watching movies at the drive in.

Since coming back to Korea, I've been settling back in to a new semester. Although my teaching schedule is the same, students have been shifted between classes in order to improve class dynamics (and so far it's been working wonders). My optimistic perception is probably also aided by the fact that, for at least this first week of school, I am only teaching classes until noon due to the heat. Yeah, the heat sucks (to describe it as 33 degrees with 63% humidity seems to do no justice. It's really damn hot.) but luckily I have A/C in both my office and apartment.

On top of the new semester, this is also the week when many teaching contracts are coming to an end so I've been forced to say goodbye to people who originally came to Korea with me in August 2011. This also means that new people are arriving to fill those contracts. New semesters, new people, new seasons.

And so, I've been sensing an impending phase of transition. My first year had a distinct feeling to it (wide-eyed novelty), my second has had a distinct feeling to it (less novelty, more assimilation), and now I'm moving into my third. It's too soon to tell what this new phase will entail but I'm looking forward to finding out!

I'll end this post with some pictures of the beautiful country that I'll always call "home".

Time spent on Georgian Bay:




First coffee & what served as my car for the week:





I took a trip to visit some of my favourite relatives who live in Lindsay. 
My aunt took me to  "The World's Smallest Bookstore" in Kinmount, ON:



Toronto & backyard s'mores:



Reading on the plane. One of the books I picked up at The World's Smallest:

2 comments

  1. Awesome post Lindsay! One thing though the World's Smallest Bookstore was in Kinmount, lol. Oh Well close enough.

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