and then there were two

alisun has officially finished her year in korea. as i type she's probably somewhere over the pacific. i think i'm in denial about not having salsa and alisun in my daily life when i go home. part of me thinks that i'll get to jfk and they'll be there waiting. when it comes down to it, they made korea for me. of course it's a great country and everything was amazing, but i can't imagine what my year would've been like if i hadn't met them.



last night salsa and i helped alisun with last minute cleaning. i went home at about 1 am to get a few hours of sleep, and at 2:50 i was up again and on my way to help al get her suitcases to the airport bus stop for her 4 am bus ride. man am i GLAD that i stuck with my original plan of sending most of my things home in advance. her two suitcases were quite heavy, plus she had a rolling carry-on and her purse. waiting for the bus was interesting, most of the time was spent watching one of the biggest spiders i've ever seen working on a web. it's weird something so trivial can unexpectly be associated with something you'll remember forever.

it definitely didn't feel like good-bye. salsa and i had work on our minds plus the three of us were too tired to be emotional. what were al's final words? "thank you for coming to my restaurant." someone was definitely lacking sleep.

as for me, most of my stuff is packed. i only have a few clothes out and one box of souvenirs left to mail out. kimchi is updated on his shots, and i need to get him to the vet sometime this weekend to get his certificate of health. the smaller details are coming into play. just yesterday i was looking things up on japan airlines website, curious about meal and movie selection. so far it looks like i'll have my own little tv, which is really nice. on the way here i was subjected to a giant screen showing miss congeniality 2, beauty shop, and the sandlot 2 (which i didn't even know was in existence)

tomorrow is my last day with my tuesday/thursday kids. that includes two of my favorite classes, one of which only realized on tuesday that i wasn't coming back to korea. guess they just thought i was going on vacation. in total, three teaching days left, with monday being my last. not sure how i feel about it, part of me wants to be finished already and part of me knows i'll really miss some of the kids. but i'm really greatful that i have tuesday off to really clean and run errands. also, this weekend i won't really have anyone around, considering alisun's gone and melissa is going to pentaport rock festival with aaron, tom, and tom's friends. but i'm looking forward to some "alone time." it's kind of ironic that i'll go out the same way i came in, on my own.