A bunch of us drove to the city limit and saw this sky. Deep thanks for all the bussday love. I will re: post-haste. Ah miss yew, elee

tldr;

It's friday night and I should be out with the rest of my friends--fixing my hair, checking my teeth, spilling beer, laughing with and at people. I could be out, enjoying this freedom, my youth, exulting in the richness of my time and place.

But no. I'm at home. This week is all about recovery.

Earlier this week, I went to the dentist to finally get some work done on a tooth I broke awhile back. Lost a lot of blood then caught the flu the day after. >:| I'm medicated, but still don't feel rested. There is so much to do. I try not to think yet about everything coming soon, all the things I need to do, but one thing--that I need to pay my student loan bill--breaks through and now my head floods--I have to remember to write people back, and how many emails can I send in the next two hours. For how long can I continue the commute to work? Will I be able to pull my weight living with my relatives, will I be too busy, will we fight? How much should I/can I/will I burden them? Should I lighten my hair? Does whitening tooth paste really work? I need health insurance. I'm already sick. I must get started. Maybe I should work out. I could go to the gym. At least 30 minutes, a few dumbbell workouts. I haven't talked to my parents in awhile. I should call. I wonder what they're doing right now.....

These kind of thoughts usually emerge during the course of my commute and act as a web of constraints my responsibilities impose on me, or maybe I just put it on myself. Example, each class this term kicked the shit out of me emotionally during the first week. I told another teacher, dude..it feels like i'm herding pidgeons. But some useful advice I got from a fellow teacher was 1) have fun and 2) take it slow. Teaching at a hagwon/language academy is about perception vs. reality--in particular, what hagwons can, in reality, teach and what they can't. These academy classes are fundamentally not equipped to teach content. Instead, we focus on skills. Do the students know how to identify the topic and main idea of the paragraph? Find the major details? That is our job. Students learn when they are actively figuring things out, trying to teach themselves, not passively drifting through a class, expecting to be taught. It is implausible to actually teach them about the U.S. civil war or abstract art or seagulls (real topics). I want to design my classes not around what I will do, but what the students will do, to let them take command of their own learning, and to encourage using English as a way of thinking, learning about the world around us. Epiphany sounds too transcendent, but this was quite a realization for me. It probably won't make teaching any easier, but worthwhile, maybe.

Like these students, from one of my favorite classes. They're presenting a yoga pose and one of them wore his aikido uniform to class, so of course I made him go up, then took a photo. heh heh.

Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and will never leave me to face my perils alone.” -Thomas merton

#4 THINGS I NEED TO REMIND MYSELF:

-this is only temporary

-nothing lasts forever

-be positive

-everything takes time

it won't be long until morning comes

I woke up late again this morning. You snooze, you lose. what? I missed my bus + had to wait 25 minutes for the next one. sigh!

Today, on the bus, i remembered to eat the snack my aunt packed for me. The strawberries were sweet and satisfying. More snacks should be like that, which leads me to,

#3 Strawberries in korea are the best i ever had!

Anyway, for a few weeks now i've been making a 70 minute commute to work. Each way. That's about 3 hours of travel per day. Yikes. At least the time passes comfortably. The ride is monotonous, but also soothing and meditative, the utter lack of thinking unnecessary, no worry possible in this bus with its heated seats and quiet aisles. It is bliss.

Yet soon, i imagine, it will all become too boring to continue because continuing would be a sort of death and show a terrible lack of respect for my valuable time. So i'd like to move from Bundang, closer, within reach of my school, over the river, all that water, the bridge, all those miles away....to Ilsan, where i will live....alone?

No. No, i wouldn't. Not now. I live too far from my work but i am sure at this point that i should stay here, this is where i will be. More and more my uncle, aunt, their kids are truly becoming family. They constitute the only ties i still have to home and their presence is immeasurably comforting. My progress adjusting here is being followed and checked up on by family and friends abroad as well (this very blog is a testament to that!) and i'm grateful for all the extensions of support. Hopefully it is mutual!

surviving in korea #2

My friend remarked to me on the phone, "There's a line in the movie 'Juno' that i really liked...

Juno: I think i'm in love with you.

Paulie Bleeker: You mean as friends?

Juno: No, i mean, for real. Cause you're, like, the coolest person i've ever met, and you don't even have to try.

Paulie Bleeker: I try really hard, actually."

We talked about how lots of things...like getting your errands done, buying bread, flossing your teeth and basically keeping your life from degenerating into a state of entropy requires extraordinary effort. And when life actually functions, it looks effortless. Isn't that ironic? Like a sculpture that looks effortlessly crafted or a one handed backhand that looks so carefree...things that take enormous amounts of effort, energy, training, thought to be distilled into one object or moment that looks as though it took no effort at all. What paradox!

During the grueling orientation + training week for CDI, i felt nothing like a teacher--not loud, not powerful, not affecting much at all. But something happened once i met the students--i felt prepared and did not panic. I only thought: Weird, this is exactly what i expected.

Although moving to Korea was a meditated decision, i am sitting here in a room much too big, already bored of devising lessons plans and feeling unsure of what the rest of the year will bring. But! I am here and i want to celebrate it, like d.eggers wrote, "revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its echoes...the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha! being that much more layered, the depth luxurious, not soul-sucking or numbing but edifying, ramifying." so there is first the experience: me, moving here. then there are the echoes from these things having been done before (i guess moving in/out of atlanta/chicago) and the awareness of what i learned then, accepting and embracing those lessons as enrichment. and above all recognizing its value in the present. so,

#2 Harder, better, faster, stronger. finally finally finally.

surviving in korea

It's been 2 weeks but i am learning to survive in korea. it has been impossible to ignore so i have to write it out. this will be a little serious, mostly boring, but i promise, you won't be wasting your time.

#1 Koreans are aggressive shoppers!

My uncle and aunt asked if i wanted to join them on a food run to E-mart(a massive grocery store that also sells clothes/accessories). I was willing but not ready. There, i saw what was wrong with Korea, the glaring flaws of it, aghast, amazed. Look how things are! LOOK, at how, for instance, there are all these people pushing, climbing over each other to get on the elevator! Look at how their legs are working and strong enough to use the stairs! Look at how people charge past, and in their hurriedness, literally, move you aside because you are in their way! Have you heard about this? How if this happens, you just have to take it? It's completely ridiculous.

But soon it will be okay. Of course it will take time. A part of surviving here, i realize, is getting through the long day, fighting the weather and the crowds and then still holding a door open for someone.