... Well, it's been interesting returning to Korea after having 2 weeks with Ike where I was completely independent. I think most people who spend time in another country must be rather independent, otherwise how could they give up their comfortable lives with their family and friends to go live alone in a strange land?
Living with a host family, however, has severely limited my independence here. This has been one of the hardest things to adjust to during my grant year so far. Don't get me wrong -- my host family is very kind and generous, and I love them to death! But that doesn't make it any easier when they treat me like a child, as is often the case. Just the constant having to let people know where I am, what I'm doing, having to eat what they give me when they give me, etc gets tiring very fast. Having 2 weeks of freedom has made me much more sensitive to all of this now that I'm back, and I am definitely a little grumpier because of all of it! What if I want to sleep in late? Have a bagel for breakfast instead of rice? Go work out after work and have a late dinner? Or just lock myself in my room and watch a movie while I eat the brownies I made IN BED? Nope, none of this is ok in my life here in Korea.
Despite my best efforts to sleep a little later since it is my winter vacation after all, my host father still has to go to work early, so everyone is up and moving around starting at 6:15am. Since the walls here are paper thin and I hear everything, I am woken up too. So that means that I can either stay up as late as I want and just not get enough sleep, or go to bed at 10:30. I guess I'll go with the former, since I know myself well enough to know that I need my sleep. However, this early to bed, early to rise, lack of independence is making me want to make plans for the 3 weeks of my winter vacation that I have left "open". I'm thinking of spending some/most of the last week of January in Busan, and maybe even trying to sneak in another visit to Japan in the end of February. So much for sleeping late, free reading and knitting in my PJs all day during those 3 free weeks! :-)
Anyway, I have some more adjusting to do back to my life here as part of a Korean family.
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1 comment:
Have you tried earplugs?
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