Squee!

"Well, I'm going home, back to the place where I belong
And where your love has always been enough for me
I'm not running from, no, I think you got me all wrong
I don't regret this life I chose for me
But these places and these faces are getting old
So I'm going home, well I'm going home"

It's really winding down this week. The weekend flew by with laundry, Harry Potter 5 & 6, and one last hangover for the road. My wardrobe is now pared down, with most things going to hopefully be reused by other clothes-shopping-challenged white folks. The underwear I've hated for the last year is now safely in a garbage bag waiting to be finished being filled, and my to-do list has ceased growing, and is being drastically cut down as I cross things off.

I've booked a hotel for Saturday night, so I have less things to worry about Sunday--I'll be an 8-minute shuttle ride from the airport, and I'll have a clean, cool room to spend my last Korean evening. On Saturday, Yuria and I went for one last galbi trip, and it was a little sad, despite being very delicious. For once I had spicy galbi that didn't make me sick, and I wish I'd discovered it sooner--yum! Hopefully I'll be able to find something comparable to share with y'all back home.

Tomorrow morning, I go to meet a guy I've never met in front of a gas station, so he can take me to the pension office. I've been paying part of my paycheck into the national pension scheme (I love that they use the word scheme here), and I get that back, plus the money Mrs. Baek has to pay to match my contribution. So that plus my last month's pay, plus the bonus month's pay most contracts pay makes for a neat little sum to bring home (over 6 million won).

I'm leaving at a good time. Swine flu is shutting down entire public schools, and all of the hagwons in surrounding areas. As a result, any teachers traveling next week are going to be in quarantine for a week, and all other teachers have to pick up the slack. We have also been informed that anyone planning on leaving the country for the Thanksgiving holiday will have their contract terminated. I understand why it's being done, but I think it's irrational. We didn't come to South Korea to sit in our apartments and watch TV, despite how amusing that may be sometimes. We came to see the world.

I still don't know what I'm going to do, despite everyone and their mom asking me. I just want to get to American soil, because if there's one thing I've learned in this month overseas is how much I love my homeland. I may disagree with the government (as a matter of fact, I do), and there are certainly things I value highly in Korea, but at the end of the day I'm a patriot, and I can't wait for a good ol' Colorado sunset.