Dear Family and Friends,

And “thus the whirligig of time …”

As I’ve been preparing to at long last write, Shakespeare’s phrase “thus the whirligig of time exacts his revenges…” (from Twelfth Night) keeps popping to mind. Although I’d say that it is not time itself that whirls but what memory reduces time to: a colorful blur of memories punctuated by recollections of perfect clarity. It is hard to believe that while the calendar has flipped to August and I’ve just returned from Singapore, this blog remains halted at the DMZ in February. And yet I will still feel compelled to return you all to February as I do want to finish my visit to the DMZ (I continue to consider this one of my most important visits). And you are likely to be curious about my last week of February, in Bangkok, with 18 of my students, building with Habitat for Humanity. After that… well…

Have you ever looked back upon your life and regretted that you cannot remember a thing for a stretch of weeks???

Looking back just now, I remember nothing - not a thing - between the beginning of March and the end of April. Instead, I have an impression of scattered panic (what shall I teach?? how shall I teach it???) before my memory coalesces in the midst of April with my students performing their skits inspired by Charlotte’s Web followed by a two day city-sponsored trip with other “native” English speaking teachers with the program that supervises us. A friend had a serious accident on that trip and my computer developed a grave overheating problem – issues that I was still dealing with when I hugged my parents and dearest aunt in Seoul at the beginning of their visit at the beginning of May. A week later, after my beloveds crossed away through the airport gates in Daegu, computer problems, my usual workload, plus preparing for what turned out to be a series of “demonstration” classes consumed me to the point that my writing voice gradually faded and was gone by the end of the school semester on July 13^th – which could not come fast enough but still came as a surprise at its conclusion.

A flight to and stay in Malaysia, a summer camp back in Daegu and then other flights to Indonesia and Singapore and I now find my writing voice revived with whirled together memories just a few days before I return to the air – this time to visit Seattle after fourteen months abroad. And then I will begin another semester in Daegu in September.

Hence why the phrase “...the whirligig of time exacts his revenges” feels so apt - to me.

One thing I do know is that I have passed the point in which the description “Laura Drumm quit the life she knew and journeyed to Asia to travel, learn about the world and teach English for a year. This is mainly a blog to keep her friends and family fully in the loop - but also record her adventures and explore writing.” I have now established that that I love traveling, I love writing, that I love teaching, and that I have the wherewithal to continue all in the immediate future. This knowledge has changed into the life “I know” and although I am about to attempt to bring this blog up to date, I have broken with writing at this blog long enough to contemplate likely change of what and how I will write in the future. But that is the future and I left off a while back in the past so…

A few of my lovely first year students (aka high school sophmores) and I during our "demonstration class" on May 31, 2007.