Attempting to Live a Good Story...: I'm a stir-fry dinner. [4 dayssss!!]

I've never been a big fan of stir-fry. In the Milhous house, it's a pretty common dinner staple. Throw some veggies, chicken, and sauces in the wok, cook some rice, and voila! (Okay, that's how simple it seems when my wonderful mother does it!) I don't know why, but I've just never got excited when my mom answered the all-important question of "what's for din-din?" with "stir fry!"

I know my posts have dwindled (I tried to warn you!) but I'm just so overwhelmed. Between attempting to pack my life up again, clean my apartment, spend time with amazing friends, teach at least a few hours a day, and keep some semblance of sanity, I'm exhausted.

In the midst of this, I feel like I'm a combo of emotions at all times - and the combo is likely to change every 5 minutes. Excited, anxious, stressed, joyful, sad, prepared, unprepared, and overwhelmed to just name a few.

Because of this: I'm a stir-fry dinner.

Stir-fry has multiple ingredients, right? As you mix and cook them together, the flavors combine, creating a new mixture of flavors all the time. Even if you stop adding ingredients, the longer they sit together, mix together, or cook together, the flavor, textures, and meal in general would continue to be affected by each other.

It's the same with my emotions right now. For example, the excitement for going home is affected by the sadness I feel at leaving this life I've molded in Korea. Or when I finally feel prepared to leave, it changes how unprepared I feel for moving home without a job lined up or confirmation on graduate school in the fall. These feelings are constantly changing, evolving, and wavering in strength. See? I'm a stir fry.

Sometimes when my mom made stir-fry for dinner, she would add a few ingredients that made it 20x better to me. She'd add those weird baby corn things or water chestnuts and I absolutely loved them. I would focus on those aspects and the entire dish would be more appealing.

I've decided to do that for right now. I'm going to focus on the excitement for the future, the great fuzzy feelings and memories of this past year, joy at having had this opportunity, and hope for what's yet to come in my life.

and folks? only 4 more days until Hawaii.

please start praying that my luggage is under the weight limit. [I'm not joking]

and here are some recent pics for those of you who aren't on facebook :)

Lunch with the Native Chinese Teacher (Xian Jing) from my school

and the native Japanese teacher too!

Sun Yup - one of my 3rd grade students who had just graduated!

Teachers Lunch after the graduation - delicious, great quality Korean beef BBQ

Winter Camp students - so much fun!

example of a student's work... I love the last line!

The coffee man who always talks to me on my walk to school!

haha when I walked up, a back hoe came from the left and I had to wait for it to stop moving and then was motioned to jump over an open ditch. Construction zones aren't a big deal here.