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An Accidental Pilgrim: Feckin February! - The Long Goodbye
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Sunday, 24 February 2013. I'm looking down the barrel of the last week of what has been a real bitch of a month. As an english teacher in Korea, February and August are the months you brace yourself for. These are the two months when contracts end and newly minted friends strike out for distant shores. It just happens to be a reeeeeaally long night! We both come from different places and will part to move on to new and still more different places. Will it survive...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: April 2012
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Friday, 6 April 2012. The Long Good Friday. Disclaimer: this post is fairly whiny, but hang in there, it has a happy ending.*. It all began at bedtime on Holy Thursday night. As a teacher who is in daily contact with 119 snot-nosed, germ riddled students - taking vitamins and supplements has assumed vital importance. If I was forced to choose between brushing my teeth and taking vitamins, dental hygiene would win out.eventually. It was 11.30pm. What church activi...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: May 2012
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Thursday, 10 May 2012. The Time / Friend Continuum. As I start my second year here, and brace myself for a second round of saying goodbye to friends leaving Korea, I've been thinking a lot about how making and maintaining friendships works differently for us ex-pats. Here in Korea, with only two colleagues I can chat with easily in english, one of whom is a busy single mother, the two circles hardly overlap at all! Wednesday - Dinner Club! Thursday - again, dinne...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: A nice cup of tea and a sit down.
http://anaccidentalpilgrim.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-nice-cup-of-tea-and-sit-down.html
The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Sunday, 10 March 2013. A nice cup of tea and a sit down. I have three more weeks in Korea before I begin a nice, meandering trip home via Australia, Amsterdam and the UK, and as the departure date draws closer I find myself remembering my last trip home. There was a single activity which highlighted more clearly than anything else, just how long and how far I had been from home. It was the humble cup of tea. The blends we drink in Ireland are mostly Indian and Ke...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: July 2011
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Sunday, 24 July 2011. Girls just wanna have fun - boys, read this at your peril! Accidental Pilgrim is a seriously. Pissed miss today. Well and truly hacked off indeed. This is not helped by the fact that there is no one to blame but Mother Nature. Like she'll take a blind bit of notice! Yesterday though, Lush and I decided to do a recce of the Food Hall in Lotte Department Store and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles! Did you catch that? That's thirty minutes...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: August 2011
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Friday, 26 August 2011. Why some Waygook women are blind. or . The emasculation of the Asian male. I haven't blogged for almost a month now, and not for lack of material, but rather lack of internet connection and then simple inclination. But something happened this week which had my fingers itching for the keyboard, though it took me a day or two to get my thoughts in order. Sweet momma - the shock on their faces! They chorused in mystification. In fact when I v...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: December 2012
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Monday, 17 December 2012. I had a pretty good weekend this week, it was busy - but then again here in Korea, I'm only NOT busy when I'm sick! Still, in all the happy, hectic socialising there were lots of moments where I could only stop and give thanks. There were several moments on Friday night, when I was out on a friend's hwaeshik (work dinner) when I was grateful for my friends here in Korea and particularly grateful that FDA will be staying for another year.
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An Accidental Pilgrim: October 2011
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Thursday, 20 October 2011. Language Learning - the pleasures and the pratfalls. Do you remember that scene from 'The Matrix' where Neo is 'plugged in' to a training programme for about half an hour and then wakes up to proclaim, "I know Kung Fu! Oh how often I have longed for something like that.for Kung Fu. Since, sadly, there is as yet no way of learning a language without time or effort, at least I have the infinite advantage of total immersion. Ordering a cof...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: June 2011
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Friday, 24 June 2011. Norae Bang or Bust! It's true what they say : it's always the nights when you really want to curl up at home in your pyjamas, yet instead you drag your sorry carcass out - those are the nights that are usually epic. I said, 'Hell yeah! I've been to my friends Phillipino Norae Bang a few times but this was my first time at a proper Korean joint with some of my Korean friends. Between the natives and the long-termers who have been here ove...
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An Accidental Pilgrim: Worthless Witterings
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The Life and Whines of a Returned Ex-Pat. Wednesday, 20 February 2013. When last I posted, I was gearing up to spending Lunar New Year with my friend and her extended family. I had been warned that only two members of the clan spoke english and so had been preparing accordingly. I started meeting a language exchange partner, initially once a week and then amping it up to twice a week in January. I even learned a Trot song in case we had a session! More on the weirdness of Trot music in a later post.).
