Long anticipated

Miraculously, though I've been on the road and will be for every single month this year, my week-long stint at home coincided with the Cleveland Museum of Art's annual solstice party. Previously, I had never been in town, so this was a big treat.

It wasn't until after the party that I remembered that now the days get shorter. Aside from celebrating the longest day, I was happy to have finished opening my show at Heights Arts—it's up through the beginning of August, so visit if you can!

This year, I stayed in the dorm with the rest of the Korean school, which is an older building and much more charming and comfortable. It has been wonderful to stop in Oakland at the always gorgeous Mills campus to teach again for the Middlebury School of Korean.

I had worried about how we'd get all my bags and packages up the hills, so I was relieved to meet the bilingual student assistant in the school's dedicated golf cart.

Teaching for the Korean school is always a treat because they are so good with hospitality. This is the fruit spread prepared for us. All the fresh fruit here has been exactly what I needed.

I only had a little bit of time with these students but walked them through 1-sheet joomchi, multiple sheet joomchi, paper thread, and hanji cord. The director (Dr. Kang is pictured on the right in the foreground) and teachers create a safe and positive community where students are able to learn so much, so quickly. I was really impressed by the skills of students who had only studied for a couple weeks and worked hard to communicate with me in a language that they hadn't spoken before. Of course there are also higher level students, but it's always a special challenge to dialogue with newbies.

Everyone worked hard on their joomchi pieces. Here's the flag of South Carolina (I didn't know that's what he was doing until the very end when he held it up; it's made up of many separate pieces).

Pictures do no justice to the landscaping and variety of plant life on campus. I had given myself the full stay here instead of rushing to Australia, which allowed time to see some friends (still two more scheduled for today before the late night flight to Sydney). I've spent inordinate amounts of worry about the weight of my bags and even sent a local friend home with what I deemed excess baggage. As much as I wish I didn't do this, I always do this, like how some dogs always circle the spot before relieving themselves. Today I'll get one more visit to a paper mill, and then off to Western Australia, a trip well over a year in the making.