I wonder if Meryl Streep knows

This afternoon I went to Suncheon University for my Korean class, but all the foreign students had some sort of event they were attending, so it was just me and the teacher. She invited me to go to a tea house with her and her good friend. They are both in their 60s, and have been studying English for about 10 years. They both speak quite well actually. It was interesting talking to them. We went to a coffee house on the ocean near Yeosu and I had a milkshake and they talked about their children and their wish that they could travel more. Both of them seem upperclass (my teacher's husband was the first president of Suncheon University) and have grown children who have studied at prestigous universities in the States. Both of them said they wish they were more free from their husbands (though they seemed to have pretty free lives). My teacher even mentioned the Bridges of Madison County as a movie that she liked very much. This struck me because I'd had almost the same conversation back in the fall with my host mother (the conversation in which she told me, "I don't think you can understand."). My host mother also identified with the movie, and said that many Korean women did. It was interesting to hear this echoed by women a couple decades older than her. My Korean teacher even said that if she could live her life over again she wouldn't get married. I don't think that they dislike their husbands, they just dislike the fact that they have to do whatever their husbands decide is best. At the same time I imagine the husbands being sort of like empty figureheads, or doddering old kings--their word is followed for tradition's sake but the women are the real heads of the households. I can see why that would be so frustrating. Just the other day my host mother told me her husband is like a fourth child, and she seems very aware that this is occurs more often in Korea than in Western countries. The Bridges of Madison County--a milestone in the Korean feminist movement. I should watch it sometime.

I haven't written in awhile because my mother visited for a week and a half, which was really nice. It sort of felt like I was seeing Korea in a new way while she was here. I guess maybe I was sort of stepping back and appreciating the experience I've already gained here. It felt like a different place while she was here, and now it's slowly going back to normal. I finally have the iPod that my family bought me for Christmas, so it is a nice new addition, another kind of filter to this experience I guess. It's nice to walk to the university listening to Modest Mouse or the Delgados. My entire music library of 4026 songs is on there, and the iPod isn't even half full. Needless to say, a great gift.

What else is new? I'm reading Middlemarch by George Eliot and really enjoying it. It's movie time with my classes and we're watching Mean Girls, because my students wanted to see a movie about American high school, and I thought Mean Girls was a pretty good one. And it's a good movie, one I can stand watching 18 times. I would say I'm on about viewing 5 or 6 and I'm still laughing at the jokes.

I feel like I suddenly jumped from hovering about the 3 months left mark for a long time to suddenly only 2 1/2 months left. Because Mom visited I guess. Last night I had a dream that I was at Renn Fayre at Reed, though that happened two weekends ago. It was a nice dream, seeing all my friends, except for the ending when it turned out that all my teeth had fake crowns on them and the crowns were coming off. That was kind of gross. Oh, and also, for some reason freshmen had been appointed Renn Fayre czars and thus for some reason there were very few people attending and practically no events (though there was a homebrewed keg of beer). When I woke up I felt relief, at first that my teeth were normal and second because in reality no one at Reed would ever appointment freshmen as Renn Fayre czars.