Becoming a Good Simple Notebook

"If you can learn to speak one language well, than you can certainly learn to speak one or more other languages."

Adapting to a new place that speaks another language is always quite the experience. When I moved to Turkey in 2009, I was 14 and I was moving from a town of 88,000 to a mega-city of 18 million. I remember being nervous about using public transport on my own for the first time and about attending a new school that was an hour away from where I lived. There were new smells in the city, new sounds that were loud and different, but most nerve-racking of all, there was a new language spoken and I didn't know it.

Language is such a unique thing. It is the strongest glue that holds one culture together, and yet the strongest barrier that keeps two cultures apart. I have had many experiences already in the week and a half in which I've been able to try and communicate with other people who don't speak English. Of course, I have failed many times and we couldn't understand each other, but a few times it has worked. Last week I went to an electronics store and tried to ask for an adapter. I acted out plugging in something to the wall and the man led me to the area that had extension chords, but no adapters. On Tuesday, I went into a different store again asking for the same thing, and this time using my broken Korean I said, "America. Korea." and he understood. I bought two.

It's the little language victories that keep me going as I adjust to a new place. Acting out an adapter and buying one. Ordering lunch in a foreign language on my own. Finding my Accounting class and being the only native English speaker in it. Discovering a campus Christian prayer room by following signs. Asking a lady on the road where a market nearby was and understanding her gestures - ("Big market where?") Asking for the price of different foods and then buying bananas from a street vendor.

As I progress in my Korean day by day, I must remind myself that I CAN learn Korean. I have learned English and Turkish and I know that if I continue to study and practice, I will be able to learn Korean as well. As everyone knows, "It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work," "Faith is mighty, but faith with action is mightier," and also "Desiring is helpful, but desiring and work is INVINCIBLE." I will continue dreaming and desiring and having faith that someday I will speak Korean fluently, and I will continue working at it through study and practice. (And someday my dream of becoming a Good Simple Notebook may come true..!) Though my Korean speaking skills are fairly poor, I can only hope that it makes people SMILE and that it sounds as CUTE as these English translations do:

 

안녕 한국! (Hello Korea!)

I'm in KOREA!Where do I begin? So many thoughts, so many excitements! There is no way to write everything that I've thought and experienced over the last few days, so I thought it would be easier to write a few random initial thoughts below and include a few photos to show you about my life here.

Clara, Susanna, Stephanie and I (all from UNC) at the Incheon Airport in Seoul, Korea.

Coming into my dorm room at 9 pm Monday with keys and a nametag in hand. Excited! :)

• Our orientation leader is about as TCK as someone can get. He shared "where he was from" today for us and it probably took about 2 minutes for him to explain every country he has lived in and where he grew up. He did 8th through 11th grade in Ankara, Turkey, so that is exciting! We have spoken some Turkish together. It is nice to have a TCK friend around who also doesn't know quite where they are from, and who has ended up in Korea over the years.
  
• Laughing and smiling (which are the same word in Turkish) is a universal language. My roommates and I haven't talked much, but we have definitely smiled at each other. One is shy in her English and my conversational Korean is close to zero, but smiling is one thing we are both good at! The other one and I have laughed together a lot and talked more. I'm so excited to get to know them both over the next few months!

With my roommate Se Young at the International Student Welcome Dinner (It was freezing, but the food was delicious!)

• You know you're in Asia when you buy a men's foot brace and it's barely large enough, and when taking showers is a knee work-out. ;)

• My Korean reading skills are quickly getting better and better. I've been learning random Korean words every hour it seems. I remember about half of them 10 minutes after I learn them, and half of that half I remember the next day. Lots of repetition, repetition, repetition! I've been coming up with helpful little hints to remember each word. For example, it is really cold here, so I learned the word for cold - 추위 - which sounds like "chew, woah!" because when you're shivering, your teeth chatter (like chewing?) Haha. It's silly, but it helps!
  
• Signs on campus are in Korean. Signs around town are in Korean. Staff speak Korean. Restaurant and store owners speak Korean. Most students here only speak Korean. It seems as though I will be learning Korean, and learning it quickly.

A typical restaurant menu. I will be learning how to read Korean foods VERY quickly

• The food is amazing here, but the hardest thing is ordering, as you can see in the photo above. Some things haven't set well with my stomach, but almost everything tastes wonderful. (I'm not so sure about liking the Kimchi yet..) I'm so glad to be living in a rice-eating country! I will be getting very good at chopsticks ASAP. :)

My first meal in Korea (Bulgogi) at the airport.

Eating Kimbap on campus on the first day. :)

• Last but not least, end every sentence with "ah-sim-nee-dah" or "hess-so-yo" and you've basically got Korean down. :)

More blog posts to come! School begins Monday and I am so excited for the adventures to continue! Thank you for your continued prayers as I adjust to a new country, culture, food and friends. :)

Farewell Feelings

In less than 4 hours, I leave a place I've called home for so many years, and begin an adventure elsewhere. It's a strange feeling, departing a place that has become known and comfortable in the last two months, to be welcomed as a foreigner in a place unknown.

My feelings are all over the place. Nervous. Excited. Joyful. Overwhelmed. Freaked out. Ready. Lost. Anxious. Can't wait. Curious. 

Yet with all the excitement and new things about to come my way, leaving home is what seems the hardest. Overseas flight by myself? Done that. Give me a new country to travel to on my own? Check. Throw me into a place I don't speak the language? Been there. Have me make a million cultural blunders and travel mistakes? Yup. But have me leave home again..? Yup. Check. Been there. Done that. But it never gets easier.

Honestly, I am SO excited for my new home. I look forward to making new friends, moving into a dorm, not living out of a suitcase for a while, finding new pockets of town to explore and new cultural things to discover. (And for finally being there!) Creating a new home can be exhilarating and I can't wait! I'm excited for new tastes, new sounds, new culture to participate in, new friends, new sights, new school, new country...

I grew up learning the transition model "RAFT" - Reconciliation, Affirmation, Farewell, Think Destination. This past week I completed R and A, and last night I did F at a goodbye party with close friends. Now it's time for T: Think Destination. It's time to leave behind what's holding me back, and look straight ahead into the unknown future in a new place. I may not know what's coming, but I'm excited and ready to take it on with open hands and a heart eager to love and learn. 

Korea, here I come! Time to leave for the airport. :)

Discoveries

"For many, darkness means silence. But for the blind, darkness means listen."*

Last week I went to a museum here in Istanbul called Dialogue in the Dark. It is an interactive museum where a blind person leads you around in the dark to help you experience what life is like without sight. 

You ride trams, walk on sand, find park benches and trees, listen for nearby streams, order tea, read signs.. All in complete darkness. 

This past semester I had the chance to meet and become close friends with two blind students. Unfortunately, our relationship bonded mostly through a terrible accident they were affected in, but by God's hand they both survived and through it a relationship was developed. 

The experience at the museum taught me many things, but it mainly gave me a glimpse of understanding what daily life is like for my friends and for others who are blind. An hour and a half is barely a fraction of the time a blind person spends without access to light, but it is quite a while for someone who is used to getting around by sight and can still have a life-long impact.

Lots of time is spent fumbling around looking for things and trying to figure out where you are, but one thing I noticed it this: the blind must constantly live in a state of discovery. Each moment of their lives are spent finding new things and figuring out where they are and what their surroundings are. 

Can you imagine the joy of completing a 1000 piece puzzle by yourself when you finally put the last piece in? It is difficult and the process can be frustrating, but in the end you have created a marvelous masterpiece. In the same way, the blind live each moment putting puzzle pieces together, finding precious discoveries in every thing they do. 

I take many things for granted. It was a complete eye-opening experience to have my eyes taken from me. There is so much more in life to be enjoyed and discovered that is beyond what we experience everyday. Who knew that finding a bike on a sidewalk and spending a few minutes searching for a bell on it would be so gratifying once you finally heard the precious sound? Or that discovering a park bench and spending a few moments in silence would teach you that the touch of a friend's hand or the faint sound of a calling bird could mean so much more without eyes than with them?

I hope that I may too be able to live my life this way, making each moment I live a joyous discovery.



*Quote said by our guide at Dialogue in the Dark

The Ordinary

For a long time now I have felt numb. Numb to saying goodbye to people and places. Numb to recognizing beauty and uniqueness.

Though as I sit quietly on the shores of the Agean Sea, I am utterly amazed by the beauty God has placed in even the simplest of things. 

A sunset. It happens every day, and yet we often miss it. We seek instead, satisfaction in the new, the untouched, the latest news, the newly released album, finding that once we get those things, we are simply eager for more. We go on seeking to find something unusual and unique to satisfy us, living as if the everyday gifts like a sunset are not enough; as if they are "ordinary."

Ordinary?! That we would choose to believe that a flaming sphere that warms the earth and provokes the seasons and gives us light and causes plants to grow and keeps us alive and rises each morning and sets each night is ordinary? Our perspective must be changed. 

In the past week I've wandered through ancient Ephesus, tracked up hillsides of long-forgotten ruins, explored where Paul the Apostle once walked 2000 years ago, walked the streets of famous Antalya, stayed at a 5 star hotel, been offered nine different kinds of Turkish baklava at one meal, walked on the beaches and eaten the foods of the Mediterranean, been around a hundred kids who grew up abroad like me, seen best friends from my past, watched my beloved sister get engaged, flown five times in ten days...

Yet, I continued to be numb to the significant beauty of it all until I took a few minutes to watch the sun go down one day. It caught my glance. It captivated me. It showed me that if there is awe-inspiring beauty in the simplest of things, there must be beauty in the seemingly bigger things too. 

If something we see each evening is that amazing and can impact us so much, how much greater is the beauty that God desires for us to partake with him each day?

All the while this past week, the sun set each evening and rose again each morn. How did I manage to let it slip by unseen? I know nothing but this: through my many imperfections, God has shown me grace. 

As the sun sets and I see Your face,

May I remember Your intimate grace,

You washed my feet, You formed my hands,

You made me a part of Your great plans.

Though I choose to see the earth as plain,

As uninteresting, unsatisfactory, known, the same,

Though I am numb to your great design,

And see this world and its ways as mine,

You warm my heart and make it new,

And in my failures, I turn back to you.  

You rub my numbness. You help me heal,

And pinch by pinch, teach me to feel. 

Though many sunsets pass me unseen,

I doubt not Your grace and love for me. 

For You take my "simple", my "ordinary",

And in one moment, make it extraordinary. 

Raisins

There is a part of town in Istanbul called Zincirlikuyu that is known (by me at least) for its metrobus stop. The metrobus is a long bus that gets its own express lane on the highway. I've taken it a few days by myself, but they've changed around the exits since when I used to live here and I've gotten lost with all the signs. It's like an underground maze, with miles of walking and signs few and far between. Sure, it's easy for those who have taken it often during the last year, but for one who expected it to be an easy "turn right and go up the stairs" like it used to be, it's not so easy anymore. Not only are the signs difficult to follow, the experience reminds me each time that I'm living in a labyrinth of time. Though my body is in the present, my head is still stuck in the past and my mind is focused on the future.  

Change is hard. Returning to a place you once knew well and realizing it's different is like biting into a raisin cookie when you thought it was chocolate chip. 

On Friday I returned to my high school for "alumni day". Ten alumni showed up and considering the size of my school, it was a pretty good turn out. It was wonderful to be back at the school again and see some old friends, but it was also a big reminder that things change. I barely know any of the high schoolers now, and many teachers have turned over too. They've also remodeled the outside playground area, and made some fixes to a few rooms inside. 

Of course, many things have stayed the same. The stage still has the ugly, stained blue carpet that I played piano on for four years during assembly, and the staircase still has that low spot where those of us taller than 5'5" have to duck. Amidst all the changes with people and remodeling, it's these little things that hold me together. 

I watched Kate & Leopold this last week. (I needed a sappy romance movie to cheer me up after a frustrating time at the Korean consulate). It's another Meg Ryan movie about a man named Leopold from the 1800s who comes to present day New York through a time portal. He goes through complete culture shock and simply, ultimate change-shock! I feel like I can relate to him a lot these days. 

But even raisin cookies can be good when you throw out your expectations and find something else good you weren't even looking for. Leopold fell in love when he went to the future. The new remodeling of the school actually looks nice and was a good investment. The new people in high school show that the school is growing and thriving. 

Despite change, being back has been a really good experience and I have loved the time I've had to catch up with family and old friends. 

Even if it means I have to eat a raisin cookie every so often, it has all been so worth it. :)

Story Shoes

"...Ballet Shoes and Skating Shoes and Theater Shoes and Movie Shoes...I'd start with Skating Shoes, it's my favorite, although Ballet Shoes is completely wonderful." -- You've Got Mail

You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. 

Leather shoes, tennis shoes, work shoes, lace-up shoes, stiletto shoes, dirty shoes, rain shoes, no shoes...

When there are 18 million people living in your city - that's 36,000,000 shoes being worn on one day, in one city alone. (Then multiply that by how many pairs each person owns! Wow.)

Above are just a few of the shoes I saw today. I am back in Istanbul now and it's been great to see old friends and make new ones too. I've spent the last few days outside of the city, skiing in Uludağ and swimming in the thermal pools of Yalova for the holidays. 

Today I was reminded of the movie "You've Got Mail" which stars Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. If you haven't seen it, there is a scene in the movie where Meg goes to the children's area in Fox Books and helps a lady find the "Shoes Books". Because of Meg's circumstances with loosing her job,  confusion in her romantic life, and connection with the books, she cries when helping the lady. 

Thee "Shoes Books" series by Noel Streatfeild tells stories about the lives of children who wore different types of shoes. Though I've never read the books myself, as I was waiting for public transport and staring down at the shoes around me today, I was struck with the fact that everyone has a story.

There are so many we pass each day whose story we will never hear. This past week I got to listen to my dad tell stories of his past, and hear about the hard and good and crazy things he has done over the years. I got to listen and learn from the wisdom of old and new friends as they shared what they had experienced over their life and what they had learned from their mistakes and accomplishments. and most importantly, I got to tell someone about my life story and why I decided to give my life over to God because of how Jesus Christ walked in my shoes 2000 years ago.

Whether you're wearing ballet shoes or skating shoes or no shoes at all, you have a story and someone is yearning to hear it. Don't hesitate to share it. Take time to listen to the stories of others who are needing to share theirs too, you both will be glad you did.

Now that my ski boots are off and I am back in the city, I am ready for things to calm down a bit and return to a balanced schedule. I look forward to the next two months and all that I will get to experience here. Day by day, I hope to be able to hear even more stories of the lives of those walking all around me. 

I'm bound to catch at least one.

There's 18 million of them.