July 3rd: 5:30am, Seoul, Incheon Int'l Airport

12-hours of death later, I'm in Seoul.

I think the worst of my humanity comes out when I'm on a 10-hr+ international flight. An old guy next to me who insisted on sitting window (even though my seat said window, which I gave to him, b/c you know, he's "elderly" right?), kept on FARTING and pushing my elbow off the elbow rest. For about twelve hours I was plotting his death. This was part-rational retaliation, part-delirious malice induced by lack of sleep and economy-class claustrophobia. The funniest part was when I was glaring at him imagining a world of horror for him, he suddenly woke up from his fart-filled dreams and looked at me, while I was severe death-glaring at him. He looked surprised at my expression. Death to old men like him.

I had bimbibap for "dinner" (at LA time midnight) and a cheesy omelette at 2am Seoul time. Both were ok - I anticipate not much consumption of food for the next 12-hours of travel to get to Taitung, Taiwan.

Incheon Airport is so beautiful and calm. It's glossy, sleek, glittery, kept spotless, and people walk calmy, quietly. Polar opposite to LAX.

My group seems really cool. There's only four of us who flew out of LAX yesterday/last night - Akemi, a sophomore from Norcal, Jeanette (our sort-of "site leader") who took Chinese with me (and graduated already with me), and Kim, a teacher from Pennsylvania who volunteered with ETA4 in Vietnam last year and is accompanying us as a "curriculum advisor." While we were waiting to board, Akemi taught us how to play cribbage, which is a really fun strategy board game that is super-complicated but once you get the hang of it, it's fun!

*ps. On a creeper note, while we were waiting at the gate, we saw this father with two half-asian toddlers, and he was speaking GERMAN to them, and they were super-adorbs and speaking German back. It was cool. I don't know why.

For some reason now, I don't feel too tired, even though I've only slept three hours last night. It's becoming more and more real what's ahead of me - I feel like there this great expectation out there for us to be really good teachers, but I kind of feel underprepared. After writing this, I'm going to try look at the curriculum guide and kind of plan my first day.

Miss you all. Random facebook posts, emails, comments, about random stuff happening to you is greatly appreciated.

Love!

ps. Random: as I type this, there's a super loud flute solo sounding like something out of the LOTR shire BLASTING out of the ceiling airport speakers. I think it's meant to set a calm aura, but people are looking confused. ;D