I've Got News!

Well, the contract has been signed, and the countersigned contract has been returned, my SMOE school has been informed, my airplane ticket has been bought (for way too much won), so it's now pretty much official, Tuttle will be returning to good ol' Georgia in early August to take a full-time position as a science teacher at a stable Atlanta-area independent school for 2023-24, and hopefully some years thereafter.

While I was on vacation in Thailand (I might end up making a couple of posts later on this) I decided to test the waters since I was reaching the retirement age here in Korea. Frankly, 62 is a ridiculously young age to put a quality teacher out to pasture--I personally have a good ten years left in me! Especially now I've got new lenses after cataract surgery in 2017, a new shoulder following my terrible accident, and a brain MRI that demonstrated I am in "perfect" brain health a few months ago.

So I updated my resume, worked up a solid cover letter, and sent it out to schools looking for such as me identified on the GISA website. To be honest, I am highly qualified, quite energetic, and a pretty good candidate for MS/HS science teaching jobs. Due to age, I didn't have high expectations--I was mainly just testing the format--but got a fair amount of interest, and eventually the job offer.

I know I don't post much these days, which I explain honestly by pointing out that not much newsworthy has been going on--heck, my last post was really just the same post I've made a dozen times with photos of the Yeouido cherry blossoms. Well, to be fair, they are blogworthy no matter how many times you've seen them!

Anyway.

I think this is blogworthy, fer shure!

This blog was inaugurated on the acceptance of a position teaching English in Korea, after umpteen years teaching science and math in my home state of Georgia, and so should probably end on leaving Korea to teach science and math in Goergia. But before that, I want to be sure to memorialize, or blogorize, some of my final, special times here--two and a half months transpired from contract to arrival in Korea, and it's just about the same timeframe before I begin my new job.

So therefore, I hope to at least capture some of my last weeks here before moving on to the next stage in my life--and letting my Patch of Seoul grow on its own.

2023 Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival

After years of Covid closures, the Cherry Blossom Festival finally returned to Junjungno, the street that circles around the top end of Yeouido at the Korean government's legislative center.

Of course, the flowers return every year, but this is the first time the crowds of people have returned to view them since 2019! You can see there lots and lots of folks, possibly more than I expected on a Sunday morning before the Festival officially opened on Monday.


The pic above shows that the festival is not just about the cherries (a gift to Korea from the Japanese governemnt from around the same time as they gifted the ones found in Washington, DC's tidal basin to the US), but is actualy the "spring flower" festival, what with the 개나리 kenari, aka golden bell, a member of the forsythia family. Below, a gorgeous tulip in one of the roadside planters, followed by two little fellows posing for photo ops!