Yay, human rights.

I'm glad to see that freedom of speech is alive and well in South Korea....

My Irish eyes are smilin'!

I'm an Irish citizen!!!!

A little backstory.

Both of my paternal grandparents were born in Ireland--one in modern-day Northern Ireland, and one in the modern-day Republic of Ireland (although both were born before the split). They both emigrated to New York as adults, where they met and got married. My dad was born there.*

Two and a half years ago, I mentioned to a co-worker of mine that two of my grandparents were Irish. He told me that I could apply for Irish citizenship through them, but it seemed improbable. Then, about a year ago, I was bored (okay, FINE...I was procrastinating) so I googled it. Turns out he was right! According to Irish law, my dad's already considered a citizen because he was born to Ireland-born citizens; he just wasn't on the books as such. I, being born to an Irish citizen (albeit one born in the States), was eligible to apply for citizenship. Which would then give me EU citizenship. Hot DANG.

Starting this past March, I began assembling the documents required for my application. Basically, they included birth, marriage, and death certificates (as applicable) for me, my dad, and whichever of his parents I chose; I had to prove that my grandparent was born in Ireland, that my dad was his/her son, and that I'm his daughter. I also assembled official copies for my sister and for my dad's Irish passport application. The process probably cost me over a hundred hours worth of work, mainly due to my grandparents' elusive marriage record. Also employed in the effort were my dad's fabulous cousin Dorothy, who hunted down my grandmother's 1910 birth certificate for me in Ireland (thanks, Dorfee!), and my sister and father, who dutifully copied and notarized and mailed whatever I required. And my dad financed all that document-gathering. Because he is wonderful and generous, not to mention handsome and charming!

Fast forward to about a month ago. Finally, eight months after I began the whole effort, we had a complete little army of stamped and watermarked certificates. I asked my dad, who was back in Atlanta, to photocopy the whole shebang and send it off to the New York consulate, where it would take up to a year to process--and once I had my citizenship, I could apply for a passport. That time frame was less than ideal, since I'd ideally like to teach in Germany once my contract in Korea runs out in July, and it's approximately 34,927 times easier to get a job in Europe if you're a European than if you're an American. (Thus, most of the basis of the appeal for me of Irish citizenship.)

Then, my dad had a brilliant idea: I live in Seoul now, so couldn't I send the application to the Irish embassy in Seoul? Surely they received far fewer citizenship and passport applications than the New York consulate did; maybe Seoul could process it more quickly than New York could. I e-mailed the embassy and told them about New York's up-to-one-year waiting time. The response was even better than I had hoped: not only was I allowed to apply through the Seoul embassy, but I could do my citizenship and passport at the same time--and it would take eight or nine weeks for both. My dad mailed me all my documents the next day.

Before I left Seoul for Christmas vacation, I subwayed over to the embassy and delivered all my documents. They told me the website where I could check on the progress of my passport application, and I wrote down my application number. Today, two weeks after that, I got home from vacation and saw the note with my application number. I went online to see if the passport office in Dublin had received my application yet, and this is what I saw.

Application Number Entered: 10126664624
Status: Application approved on 02/01/2009. Passport will issue to your Local Office within 10 days.
Issue Date: 05/01/2009
Last Updated: 02/01/2009

Not only have they received my application, but it's been approved! That means that my citizenship application has already been approved, too! After all that work, I'm finally an Irish citizen!!!!!



This is great news, and not only because of the employment opportunities it opens up for me for next year. My grandfather died before I was born, but my grandmother lived close to us almost my whole life and was a constant presence in it. She died two and a half years ago--actually, it was the same summer that I learned that I could apply for citizenship. (She was almost 96 years old!) Since she died, I feel like I've really been getting in touch with my Irish roots, as hackneyed as that sounds. First there was her memorial service in Atlanta; then, four months later, we drove her ashes up to New Jersey to bury them next to my grandfather, which included another little memorial service with lots of extended family and live Irish music. And eight months after that, my dad took my sister and stepmother and I to Ireland, where we spent time with tons of extended family and even got to see the houses where both of my grandparents were born!  Pictures can be found here.

That trip was really great for me. Finally, I felt like I understood a bit about the context from which my grandparents came, and I felt so much more in touch with my Irish roots. That was June of 2007; the following March, I began the citizenship process. And today, I found out that my citizenship was granted. I couldn't be prouder to say that I'm Irish.


To commemorate the occasion, here's one last picture. My sister and dad and I are standing in front of my grandmother's one-room schoolhouse--did I mention that she was born in 1910?! The schoolhouse is still there!--reenacting an old-timey class photo, complete with serious expressions and painfully upright posture.


This year's Saint Patrick's Day is going to be a fun one FOR SURE. :c)

*Over the course of my research, I noticed that my grandparents got married in July of 1952, and my dad--their only child, born when they were both in their forties--was born in January of 1953. When I realized the brevity of that interval, I asked my dad if he knew what that meant. And he, ever the witty one (he learned it from me), acknowledged it. "I was a premie," he said with a sideways smile.

Teacher's pet or domestic slave?

Dear, sweet Andy--one of the kids in my Monday/Wednesday/Friday first grade class--once wrote his weekly "picture diary" about helping his mom clear the table and wash dishes after dinner.  I told him it was really nice of him to help out his mom like that.

That was about two months ago.  Since then, all of Andy's picture diaries have involved manual labor and the sheer glee it brings him.  I figure either he's kissing up to me because of my erstwhile praise....or he's a modern-day Cinderella.  Or Cinderfeller.

Picture Diary

Andy,   12/12/08

After I finished my homework I fold the laundry.  I fold the towel, underwear and panties.  It was very fun.

No laundry-folding until you finish your homework, and I MEAN IT!

Stupid snot-faced kids.

I forget if I mentioned this on my blog, but a couple months ago my boss was really riding me for about three or four weeks.  One of my classes happened to have a high concentration of parents who Really Care A Lot About Their Children's Supplementary English Education....and observed classes and commented ALL the time.  I only started teaching these wee-wahs in September, but apparently they've nitpicked every teacher they've had at my school, asking for little tweaks and complaining about curriculum changes until the counselor--the Korean who serves as an ambassador between the teachers and parents--quits.  Seriously, there have been three or four counselors who have quit in recent months, and they've all had this one class.  The kids are totally fine; it's just the parents who are.....involved.  Ahem.

Anyway, for a while there my boss was talking to me every single day about little things she wanted me to change.  She started observing my classes, requesting changes in my syllabi, and all that.  It all ended okay; after a while, she was satisfied and moved on to some other poor teacher.  She has a habit of doing this; she'll focus on one foreign teacher at a time, heap criticism on them until they're drowning, and then move on.  The majority of her advice and requests are legitimate and helpful; it's just the quantity and frequency--and often, the style of delivery--that can make being in her hotseat so unpleasant.  Poor Roommate Kyle is currently in the hotseat.  I make him lots of cups of sympathy tea when we get home.

Anyway, the heat is off of me for now, and I haven't heard a peep from the parents of this one class in weeks.  Woohoo!  I'm writing about them now because I just graded a spelling and vocabulary test I gave them.  For being in first grade, they're pretty advanced in their English ability.  They're certainly nowhere close to native speakers, but they do pretty well.  Plus, they actually do their homework.  I can't tell you how much easier that makes my job.

For their weekly spelling-and-vocab tests, they have twenty words they have to spell, and they have to match definitions with eight of those words.  Plus, I'm a complete stickler for capitalization and punctuation; if there's a dash missing or a lowercase letter where there should be an uppercase letter, I take off half a point.  On this particular test, they had words like leather, brighter, Indian reservation, the Rocky Mountains, and--the piece de resistance--the Mississippi River.  (It was mentioned in one of our textbooks.)

And do you know what?  Out of seven first-graders, ONE missed that word.  She forgot one of the "iss"es.  The rest of them nailed it--capitalization and all.  In fact, with two bonus words, my little rockstars had an average grade of 100.

WHO ARE THESE MUTANT CHILDREN???

New pictures (with stories!) on facebook!

Go look!  You don't need to have a facebook account.

BILLY JOEL CONCERT AAAAAH!!!!!!!

On Saturday, I went to see Billy Joel in Seoul.  It was EPIC.  And I really should type out the whole story for y'all, but honestly, I don't feel like it.  Sorry!  HOWEVER, I put up pictures on facebook and captioned them copiously, so you should check out that album.  You can look at the pictures even if you don't have a facebook account.  I hope you'll go check them out!  It truly was an amazing experience, and I have some really fun pictures from it.

Enjoy!

Adventures in Grading: part epic punishment.

Picture Diary

by Polly

Today my family sat on the sofa.  We watched on TV.  It was very fun.  I was looking for it many hours.  I watched and watched.  Then my father came with my younger brother.  I said that I had to watch on TV.  My mother was angry to me.  "Polly, you must be nice to your father!"  I was so scared.  I had to go out of the house.  I walked slowly outside.  Tac... Tac... Tac...  I cried and thought, 'I don't know how to do.'  2 minutes went by.  I jumped 5 times on the ground.  My nose was cold, and my ears were cold too.  I wanted to go in.  Soon the door was opened and my mother said that I could come in to the house.  I was so sad in that time.

Sympathy for Korea's high school seniors.

Today is the college entrance exam.  High school seniors all around the country take this exam, which determines which college they will get into, which determines what jobs they'll get, which determines their quality of life for the next....oh, seventy years.  Korea puts a LOT of stock in credentials, and this test is one of the most pivotal things that a Korean citizen does in his or her entire life.

An excellent post on Roboseyo details the exam and its impact on society.  There's also an embedded video by SeoulGlow, wherein Michael Hurt, a celebrity blogger in Seoul, interviews high schoolers about their feelings on the exam.  The post and the video are quite compelling; I hope you'll take a look and let me know what you think in the comments.

Korea is trying to kill me.

A few weeks ago I had pinkeye.  A little over a week ago I caught a cold that made me hoarse and hack-y and snotty, and I'm STILL coughing so much at night that it keeps me awake for an hour.  Then, on Friday, I ate some pizza at Costco and got a wicked case of food poisoning.  I'll spare you the details, except to say that my body turned itself inside out trying to get rid of whatever was in that pizza.  I spent almost the whole weekend shuttling back and forth between the couch and the bathroom.

I'm pretty sure Korea's trying to kill me.

It's a good thing my immune system is so committed to its job, because I have Big Things coming up.  Well, one Big Thing in particular: BILLY JOEL.  I'm going to a Billy Joel concert (in Seoul!!!) on Saturday!  I forget how much I've told you all about that whole situation, so in case I'm being redundant, here's the short(ish) summary.

1)  Tickets were kind of expensive.

2)  I couldn't find anyone who liked Billy Joel enough to pay 88,000 won for the cheap seats.

3)  I did a search for people who like Billy Joel on facebook.

4)  I sent a bunch of people messages, asking if they were interested in going to the concert.

5)  Several of them replied ecstatically and wired me 88,000 won.

6)  I now hold tickets for me and 12 strangers to go see Billy Joel on Saturday.

How awesome is that???  It's a bit of a social experiment; I hope these people turn out to be as cool as they seem from their facebook messages.    :c)

Adventures in Grading, part Creep-tastic

Picture Diary

by Polly

Today I washed my mother's feet.First I'd like to wash my younger brother's feet, but my mom said "Polly, please wash my feet."  I didn't want to do it but I did it.  My mother's feet feet were beautiful but too big.  I want to have big and beautiful feet as my mother.  I will drink milk and do exercise to be like my mother's feet.  I want to go to the park after my feet are changed.I also want to swim in the river after my feet are big!

What the poo?!  I showed this to Kyle, who was seriously disturbed by it.  I pointed out that this was probably part of a foot-washing ceremony at church, but then Kyle noted that the picture that goes with the journal is definitely of a bathroom, complete with toothbrushes and a shower.  So Polly indeed seems to have been required to wash her mother and brother's feet.  But hey....if she's lucky, at least she'll end up with giant flipper feet when she's grown up!

....?!?!

Willpower: 1. Creeping obesity: 0.

I consider it a personal triumph that for the past month and a half I have walked past Paris Baguette, our local bakery, on my walk to and from school but didn't give in until today.

I win!

Incidentally, the chocolate croissant was delicious.

Korean marketing gimmicks are brilliant.

Last night, several of the teachers at my school went out for an wine buffet.  For 15,000 won (which, right now, is $10.78), we drank as much wine as we liked.  It was EXCELLENT.  It was an evening of sparkling conversation, quality people, and copious amounts of the loveyness that red wine always brings.

On our way there, we passed a dancing coffee cup.  It was dancing to the Wonder Girls song "Nobody," which is popular here to an unholy degree.  Not to say that I don't enjoy it, because I totally do.  (I can't help it!  It's INFECTIOUS.)  The video I linked to takes two minutes to get to the actual song, but the backstory is kind of cute, too.

Anyway!  Dancing coffee cup: check.  Naturally, I stopped to take a picture and a video.

The best part is, I didn't know that Jess and Eric were going to start dancing with the coffee cup!  And they didn't know I was taking a video!  Perfect serendipity, no?  And when the coffee cup starts air-humping Eric (I mean, who can blame it?): simply priceless.

Then, we drank some wine!

It was lovely.  If you'd like to see more pictures--and there are lots of great ones--you can see them here.

After that, we went to a noraebang!  A noraebang is an establishment with private karaoke rooms, and it's a staple in Korean entertainment.  You pay 15,000 won (or so) for an hour, choose your songs, and make a fool of yourself in front of your friends.  It's really quite brilliant.

Jess and I did most of the heavy lifting when it came to singing.  Kyle mostly spectated, occasionally rolling around on the floor or pretending to sing (then getting angry when we changed the song).  Fun was had by all!  I'd post a video of Jess and I singing ABBA, but I like Jess too much to do that.

I WILL show you pictures, though!