Homesickness

So, I haven't written in here in a while. I have now been here for three weeks and I've been very busy trying to stay busy.

I've been a bit homesick since I got here because I've never been away from my family, and this is just about as far away as I could possibly get from them. I also had a really hard time the first week because I didn't have anyone to talk to except my co-teacher who doesn't speak English very well. I was in desperate need of conversation with someone who understood my American sense of humor and understood my American points of view and understood... Well, someone who just understood what I was saying! So the first week I walked around the town looking quite possibly very pathetic; like a lost puppy looking for someone to spot her, take her home, rub her belly and feed her treats. It was very lonely the first few days, until I ran into a girl at the grocery store downstairs from my school who looked very obviously non-Korean. I nervously walked up to her and asked if she spoke English and she perked right up and said "Yes!" We spoke for a total of about 2 minutes because she was in a rush to get back to work (she was buying candy for her students) and she told me to look her up on Facebook. She gave me her name and spelled it out for me, but my memory is so bad that by the time I got to the school (no more than 5 minutes later), I had already forgotten it. I WAS DEVASTATED! I had finally made a friend here in Korea and she spoke English and she was from Canada and she was talkative, and I FORGOT HER NAME! I didn't know what to do, so I logged onto Facebook and said that I didn't know what to do. Well, as it turns out, my cousin back in San Diego read my post, started searching Facebook through all the people in my city, and found her based on the fact that I had said she was Canadian and her name ended in something that sounded like "...enka." I couldn't believe he found her! I quickly added her as a friend, we went out to dinner that same night, and she began to introduce me to all of the other foreigners in Daejeon. It's been much easier since then because now I have English-speaking friends; people who have been here longer than I have and have been through the same feelings of homesickness and loneliness, etc. They've been great! They've taken me under their wings and have been showing me the ropes of this place. I still miss my family and my boyfriend, but it's definitely better now that I know people here.

(The pictures are from my first weekend here; only one day after my new friend Prianka introduced me to everyone.)