Ben's Korean Adventures ... Continue.

Hey friends and family.

Long time no messages, eh? haha. Guess what? [reading the subject line of this message probably gave you a hint already, but still ... make a good guess ... I'm waiting ...] Yep! I'm back in Korea. Woo hoo~~ Woo hoo~~ haha

Some of you may already know that and have already gotten a message like this through some other means, but I thought that for old time's sake, I'd send one more message this way as well and frankly didn't feel like going through the list and removing emails. If you're hurt by that ... then sorry? haha. Besides, who wouldn't want to get one more of my fun, funny messages in their inbox penned (metaphorically) by yours truly (typed while batting eyelashes cutely)? [actually I can think of a few people, but they're definitely not on this list ... I think. ;-)]

Anyway, this time around I'm not going to blast you with messages like before. I'm just gonna give you a passive thing you can do it you'd like: you can follow this link [https://photos.app.goo.gl/D3WBqfiEVK6eD1w37] and watch videos of what's going on with me. There's one right now, and my goal is to make one a week ... for this next year ... and we'll see how it goes. haha. I've been known to do year-long challenges before, and this is my new one. The first video was spliced together pretty quickly, but I'll try to make them better and better each time. Maybe. I can only promise one thing: lots of me talking. hahah. Oh, and things from Korea. Probably. So if you think that's for you, do it. If not, that's cool too. I think there's even a way to officially join the album that I've given you the link for (because it's through Google Photos and pretty much everyone has a Google account by now, right?), but I can't give you exact directions for doing that right now. I can figure it out later if you need that. 

For anyone in here with whom I've not had direct contact in a long time and still wants to have direct contact with me (ie- email, phone call, video chat, etc), send me a reply! I'm not very good at culling friends, and I'd rather just keep all of you in my life forever, so that's my favor I'm asking of you. 

Ah! Another favor just sprang to mind! My new place is still very bare. I'll put my address at the bottom, and if any of you happen to want to send me a letter (preferably with something colorful inside that can be hung on walls with tape -- aka- pictures and/or coloring pages), I would love to hear from you (even without the colorful thing to put on my wall, although I will be slightly disappointed ^^), and you may even get something in return. You'll just have to try it out to see if that's true or not. But my guess is that it's true. haha ;-) 

AND! In case I didn't get around to seeing anyone who really wanted to see me again before I left the country, I'm sorry. :-( This Covid world in which we live has changed a lot for all of us, and in my case, it tied me down a lot more than I had expected/hoped. I wanted to see more people in person before going, but I do firmly believe in the quarantining that was happening at that time. I hope that you all are also being safe and staying healthy. For anyone not in one of those states, I deeply hope for your swift return to both health and safety. 

Alright. Time to get back to other life things here. As always, if you wanna video chat or call, I'm up for it. Right now I'm 13 hours ahead of Midwest time (aka- Eastern Daylight Savings Time), so working out a good time for both of us can be a bit tricky, but it's not impossible. Also, for anyone who had my back-in-America number saved in their phone (other any other old numbers for that matter), 260.302.2299 has now been resigned to a Google Voice number for my other email address, but I still have access to it. For texts or calls, though, 260.627.9186 is still a better number (being my Voice number for this email address) [and any other numbers for me can be deleted and forgotten]. Sorry if that's confusing ... that's just the way I like to live ... be as complicated as possible about things that don't really matter in the long run yet will still clog up address books and cause people to fall into inner turmoil as they try to figure out which number to use to reach me at any given moment. mwuhahaha!!! ;-) 

Ok. Looks like this is a classic Ben email -- probably longer than it needed to be, but I'm gonna leave it that way. And add more. Again ... mwuhahahahahhaha. 

Thank you all for the love and support you've shown me over the years. Right now I was just reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite songs ["For Good" from "Wicked"]:

I've heard it said,

That people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn.

And we are led to those

Who help us most to grow if we let them.

And we help them in return.

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you.

[I just had to make that green ... hahahah] I was given this soundtrack by a friend ages and ages ago, and I think it really is true. Thanks for all of you being part of my life and helping to shape me into the person I am today. I owe you a debt that'll never be paid in full, but I will always strive to continue paying it forward. :-)

Ok. Time for me to really go do other stuff. Real ending of email ... now.

Lots of love,

Ben

Republic of Korea,
Chungcheongnam-do, Cheonan-si, Seobuk-gu
Buldang 4-ro 39-49, (Buldang-dong 866), 303-ho
Benjamin Graves
31164

ps- I've attached the song for you ... just in case you don't know it ... yet. ;-)

Ben's Korean Adventures: The Resurgence

How about that title, eh? Hah. It has literally been years since I last sat down and tried to write a message to everyone like this. There were so many times when the thought crossed my mind to make time and do it, but then ... I just didn't. Life has that way of keeping us busy and preoccupied, doesn't it? It's still rather amazing to me to think that I moved to Korea more than 6 years ago. That time has really flown past. As I stop and think about that time, the accumulated memories verify that 6 years truly have passed ... but still ... it feels like a fraction of that time has actually passed. When I get closer to the triple digits will it still feel the same way? Only time will tell, but my best guess is that the answer is "yes". Whatever the case of one's perception of the passage of time may be, I should probably get into the matters at hand ... what has happened in the past 3 or 4 years since my last message, shouldn't I?

Jumping back a little bit, I worked at the same English kindergarten from when I arrived here in 2011 until this past April (2017). My run there was full or joys and frustrations and delights and anxieties, which kept me on my toes for those 5.5 years of teaching, but by the end of my last teaching year, I knew that my time there had come to an end. I was really ready to move onto something new, but I wasn't convinced that I should leave Korea in order to take that next step, so I decided to refocus and enroll in Korean language classes at a university in Seoul.

Between finishing work at the end of April and the beginning of classes in September, I spent a long vacation back in the States. I was able to meet up with a lot of family and friends, and unfortunately I wasn't able to see everyone, but it was still a really good experience. It was a very tangible reminder of all the good things I'm missing out on by living abroad, and I'm grateful to everyone who spent time with me and just hung out during that stretch. I eagerly look forward to the next time I can just come back and hang out for a long period like that.

Korean language classes ... just this past Monday and Tuesday I took my final exams, and apparently I'm still an "A" student. In general, being back in the classroom — this time as a student instead of a teacher — was really good and also really frustrating at times. I don't think I was ever a very demanding student (of my teachers) when I was young ... although if any of my former teachers happen to be reading this and think differently, please tell me so that I can adjust my memories, but now, after having been a teacher for the past 6ish years, I think my expectations have greatly increased. I think that also comes with age, though, and an understanding that the money I spent connects to each and every minute I spent in that classroom.

All that being the case, it was great to study with teachers who presented the material in easily-accessible ways and provided ample opportunities to practice all of these things during our class time. At the same time, though, it was frustrating to see things happen during class that I wouldn't encourage in my own class room were I the teacher. Beyond the teachers, my fellow classmates also shaped my experience (for better and worse) more than I had expected. I ended up becoming rather good friends with one gal and one guy (the only other guy out of 16 students, by the way), and beyond them ... I think it was difficult to connect with others. I also got to know some students from other classes and other levels (I just completed level 3), so I found other people to connect with ... but it could have been swell to have a bigger group of friends in my own classroom. This, again, was affected by my former experiences ... as a foreigner who's been living in Korea for a while, as a language-teacher turned language learner, and as a person in his 30s (when a lot of other students were still in their 20s).

So at the end of the day, or at the end of the term in this case, I decided to stop my formal classroom education after just one 3-month term. I had intended to study through level 4, but it was all a bit more stressful than I had expected/wanted, so instead I'm gonna spend this next stretch (specifically the 3 months that I would have been studying level 4) still covering the same textbook material (with the help of some language exchange partners and my school friends and a lot of elbow grease) while also trying to work out my near future plan. I need to do some job searching and research into higher education and mental defragmentation to decide where I want to be come next year. As always, the possibilities are potentially limitless, so I'm faced with the difficult task of narrowing down those possibilities into a few that really line up with me.

That's pretty much it. I haven't played much ultimate frisbee for more than a year now — partially due to a lack of interest and partially due to a lack of opportunity. I would like to play more, but now that I have a little more flexibility in my schedule, the weather's turned cold, so it's not the most ideal time for outdoor sports. Ha. I still play some games. I still try to hang out with friends when I can. I still talk to strangers all the time. Ha. Even if we haven't exchanged direct contact in long time, just shoot me a reply (just a line or two is enough) to let me know how your life is going. I would love to hear from you, and it's nice to know what's going on on the other side of the world.

Lots of love,
Ben

Ah- And ... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

ps- I don't know if I'll try to write more messages like this in the near future, but if you don't want to receive these kinds of messages any longer, just tell me. No offense will be taken, of course. ^^