Moray odeeyae?

I can't believe I haven't updated in two months...but time ran away from me. A lot has changed since then, so maybe a bullet point update would be best.

• I got a job au pairing in Tokyo. Sounds like a great deal and is definitely a perfect way for me to introduce myself to the city and figure out exactly what I want to do there and how I will do it. It's a single dad with 3 sons ages 6, 8, and 14. He has already been really awesome about talking to me about finding a teaching job and other options that I have there. He owns an art gallery and mainly needs help with organizing things.
• I have never had issues with leaving anywhere in my life and have never really cried because I was leaving a place, but I cannot stop crying when I think about leaving here. I feel like so much happened in one year and for me it was an intense experience. Honestly, the tears are a mixture of sadness, happiness, relief, and disbelief. It feels like a release of everything negative that I didn't let myself process just turning into liquid and coming out of my eyes.
• I got two new co workers that are great. I wish they would have come to Korea sooner so I could get to know them better.
• One of my students taught me a really cool new phrase. We were talking about nicknames and hers had something to do with food. She said that she had a beggar in her stomach meaning she ate a lot, like her stomach was always begging for food. I LOVED it and still do. So now when I'm hungry all day (which is often) I say my stomach is a beggar. For some reason, I am wildly amused by this.
• This is my LAST SUNDAY in Cheonan.
• I'm really thankful for the people that I had in my life this past year. While my boss made some things difficult, my friends made life fun. I learned so much, grew, and worked through a lot with them. More than I probably know.

My next entry will probably be from Tokyo. This life is crazy, it takes you places you would never predict. I love it.

Silver linings only exist because of the grossness they line

While walking home from my gym last night I got to thinking about differences. The differences between waiting and laziness, expecting and stupidity, faith and ignorance...so many thin lines that we are never really taught how to distinguish between. And really, you may have extremely strong faith that to many people LOOKS like ignorance but isn't. But how can you tell? How do you know when to keep pressing forward and when to find a different way? How do some people find these amazing opportunities and others flounder around for years? Who decides what people deserve and what they don't? I decided a long time ago that life is anything but fair. Opportunity doesn't seek out those most worthy, it seems like it just happens whenever it wants and whoever is around can take advantage. I am still trying so hard to be optimistic, I really am. I hate that the pessimism and negativity come out here, but that is what my life is right now. As always though, there IS a silver lining.
I was told a wonderful story about a bowl of jelly the other morning. Yeah, a bowl of jelly. Basically the story ended with: If God can provide them with a bowl of jelly, he can provide you with the perfect next step. I know that God is more than able, I believe my steps are ordered, I KNOW God can take care of me. I do wonder though if I am doing something to get in His way, I wonder if maybe I'm just not listening or not doing what I'm supposed to.
Another silver lining: this year I have learned more about the reality of people than I ever thought I would. True motivation, deception, culture, negotiation, blackmail, and consideration. One day I'll sort through it all, but it has definitely given me a fresh perspective that will help me the rest of my life for sure.

Sunday with Buddha

It's Sunday night and my apartment feels like an armpit. If you don't know what an armpit feels like, it's really humid and smells like clothes that won't dry. The smell is from my clothes that won't dry because it's humid, I don't have a dryer, and my laundry room is attached to my bedroom/living room/whatever room where I'm sitting now is supposed to be. That's my laundry room on the left with all the boxes on the floor that are now soaking wet due to sideways rain. I have also discovered that most mornings Korea smells like a wet dog. This is not the most attractive scent to associate with an entire country.

There's never that much to do on Sunday night but I always feel like the day is full. It didn't rain today and for Korea's three week rainy season, that is miraculous. Although, like I said before, all the rain makes Korea one giant armpit of nasty stickiness that refuses to leave your skin. SO I added to the grossness of it all by working up a sweat through climbing an obscene amount of stairs to see the largest sitting Buddha in Asia. In this picture you can't even see the end of the stairs...but it was a lot. To add to the experience, there were speakers in the woods next to the stairs that were playing Buddhist prayers. So I was climbing this massive amount of stairs, by myself, in sandals, in the sticky humidity listening to a creeper voice thanking Buddha for rain and love. It was an experience, to be sure.

I will say though, when I got to the top, it was pretty worth it.

The backdrop of the mountain against this huge Buddha and a temple just below was really pretty. It was also quiet and smelled clean, a rare thing in Korea. I think that's why I like temples here, they are generally away from the city so they are quiet and smell nice.
I found the nicest monk, too. I guess that all monks are probably really kind, but this one pointed out things he thought were pretty that I should take pictures of. I appreciated it, took the pictures and held back laughing in case he took it the wrong way. He even found a really nice bench for me to sit on.

This is a picture of the flower he wanted me to take a picture of. He beckoned me after he showed me where the water was (to be fair I was sweating and probably looked like I needed water, so I appreciated him pointing that out to me). Then, he pointed to this flower and said, "Ippoyo. Handpone" which means, "Beautiful. Cell phone." The cell phone part meaning he wanted me to take a picture of it. I thought it was a bit odd, bit was amused so I took a picture. I was about to walk away when he beckoned me again from inside what looked like a classroom. He wanted to show me this little balcony where you could see trees and a little waterfall and there was a bench to sit on. THEN he walked down to the end of the balcony and asked me to follow him and showed me where there was this tree growing peaches. He was super proud of them. Or maybe they were plums...either way, he was so glad to show me the pretty things he saw in nature and I really appreciated him doing that even though there was a language barrier.

Here we see my favorite monk taking a very important phone call in the classroom/learning center/church ish place. I honestly have no idea what it was, but it was right outside the Buddha. I was also very amused by him talking on a cell phone. I guess I still have the stereotype monk meditating day and night. I don't really think about monks on cell phones.

As you can tell, I have discovered adding pictures to my blog and thoroughly enjoyed intertwining the story of my temple adventure with the pics. I'm sure there will be more to come.

I've done it once and I can do it again

Every night I have this new routine: do something to get me closer to moving to Tokyo. Japan is a tough job market, even for teachers. Another thing that has been a part of this routine has been the inability to fall asleep. Yes, my friends, insomnia. I think there are a lot of reasons for it but I feel the biggest reason is stress. I’m not normally a stressed out person but I guess things are stacking up.
So here is a short story about faith, insomnia, and peace. How those go together I don’t really know but here’s the story anyways. The other night I was applying for jobs and was actually starting to feel sleepy. This is a first in a long time. I think it’s the first time I’ve felt sleepy and not just tired since I’ve been back (maybe 5 weeks, then?). I tried to go to sleep but it was just not working out which led me to start getting really frustrated. I just felt like everything was not working out. Keep in mind I haven’t been sleeping well for weeks and I’m unhappy with a few things right now so I guess I was kind of pouting. Then I remembered something, my steps are ordered. I remembered a time when I was co-leader for a trip to West Africa and my co-leader was praying for me. Afterwards, he reminded me that my steps were ordered and not to worry about the future like I do because it wasn’t something to worry about. After this memory, I felt peace. I know that I still have to work hard, explore every opportunity, apply for as many jobs as I can find; but it’s okay. My step was slightly springier the next day and I slept decent.
This is next part is only semi related to the above, but since this isn’t an essay or anything I don’t need to have nice transitions. I will say though that by not writing transitions, I feel like a really awful writer. I think of it this way though, if the blog’s purpose if for you to know what’s going on in my life, what better way to hear it than the way I think it? I know, good theory. Today I played the what-if game. I’m kind of obsessed with it and it helps me feel better about most decisions. The way to play is think of something you are about to do and then think of the craziest/worst thing that could happen as an outcome. Great game. Also a kinda scary game and the only time I wasn’t happy that I played was when I got my tattoo. Anyways, I played that game about Japan and realized even if it doesn’t work out, everything will still work out. I realize that is a really unclear statement, but I’m sure you can put it together.
I have to remind myself often that what I hate about my job isn’t my job, it’s my boss. It’s really awful, but I can’t even look at him. Literally. When he goes by, I look away. We do not speak at work, not at all. Today I realized that sometimes my stress and anger with my boss comes out with my students and it made me very unhappy for realize. I like teaching, I like playing with them, challenging them, showing them how to learn. I feel awful for getting impatient, frustrated, not allowing them to explore. Now I realize I have to make a conscious effort to show them love, kindness, and provide a creative atmosphere for them to learn. Yeah, I sound kinda like a hippy, but I really believe it’s good for them to have a creative atmosphere. And I’ll stop there and not go in depth with my teaching philosophies. I just want them to know they are not their grade, they can explore and be wrong and it’s okay. Sometimes learning is about mistakes.
Everyday I find myself trying really, really hard to see the good in everything. I know there’s good. The most difficult part about feeling sad or frustrated is I’m not really sure I know how to handle it for long periods of time. I want to change it, but I really don’t know how. I know my life is not a very difficult thing by any measure, but I am still glad to have my family and friends to support me when I feel knocked down by it all. And when I say glad I mean that I do really think that if I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t make it.

Life is not all joy

What we deserve and what we settle for. It seems like life really wants me to learn this lesson right now. The things I have in my life right now are the things I settled for but that doesn’t mean they are the things I deserve. I accept that and can admit that while some things are awful, other things are great. I’m hoping to soon make the awful things ALSO great things and keep the great, then I really can’t imagine what life will feel like. All that aside, I saw something today that absolutely disgusted me and also made me remember the saying, “we get what we settle for.” I was teaching my last class of the day and we finished early. They had actually been really good (sometimes they’re little shits) and so instead of reviewing we free talked. They still had to speak English, but we weren’t really talking about anything in particular and there were only 15 minutes of class left anyways. My boss comes in and gives them some fried squid left over from that morning and leaves. Five minutes later I hear YELLING. This isn’t uncommon, my boss has a really intense temper but usually he can scream it out in 10 minutes or so. Also, there were three classes going on at the time so I figured this was just another passing tantrum. It lasted awhile, then I heard his wife speaking Korean, then I heard him yell some more, then he threw some stuff, then he threw large things up against the wall of my classroom (I actually think he threw HER up against the wall of my classroom since the whole thing shook), then he yelled more, then he threw more stuff, then she talked, then he slapped her, and I think it stopped then. If I remember correctly, he went into his office and slammed the door. Obviously, at this point my students aren’t studying. They can’t even hear me because of all the yelling and it’s very distracting since my boss and his wife were fighting like this right outside my door. But once his office door slammed I figured that was it. One of my students, a girl, told me she was scared. I told her she shouldn’t be scared, she should be angry. I asked her if she thought it was okay that he did that and she said no. I told her she was right and that she should NEVER let a man treat her that way. She just nodded. There was thankfully only five minutes left of class so I didn’t have to fill too much awkward time. I was so angry that my boss thought doing something like that was okay, especially with children around and in a workplace. Ridiculous. Class lets out and I punch out. As I’m punching out he starts in on his wife again except this time he is yelling and throwing things simultaneously and with me 2 feet away. There was also 2 other teachers very nearby and one teacher had to kind of skip out of the way. I pressed the button for the elevator and it was then that he got SO angry that he started throwing glass at her. Coffee cups to be specific…not sure if it was the coffeepot too since I wasn’t at the right angle to observe. A Korean teacher then told us we really had to leave, even though we WERE leaving and just waiting for the elevator. I was really upset by this for obvious reasons. Besides the fact that he is abusive to his wife, I LEFT without doing anything. I had no idea what to do. The Korean teacher than left with us said that the police wouldn’t have done anything and if I would have stayed he probably would have hurt me too, but I still felt guilty for just walking away. I was disgusted that my boss felt he was within his rights to treat her that way. That is how you treat a dog. And in America, you can’t even treat a dog that way. Here is where the story gets even worse.I walked most of the way home with two other teachers and we talked about what we just saw. Our conversation wandered to some other shady business going on such as my co worker not having health insurance but has already been employed 4 months. She’s really angry about this and my boss’s wife was supposed to take care of it yesterday but didn’t. Once she found this out and a few other things she said something to the effect that my boss’s wife deserved what she got today. I nearly snapped. No woman deserves abuse from her husband, no matter how forgetful or bitchy that woman happens to be. She kinda took it back when she realized I did not agree even a little bit with her comment, and I know she said it out of anger about how she is being treated but not having health insurance does not justify domestic violence. That’s on par with saying rape is justified by the victim’s clothing. There you go. I don’t really think my boss’s wife deserves to be treated as she is. I think she needs to leave my boss or get the police involved or something. But…she is accepting it. I deserve a better job than what I have now, but I accept what I have now. The difference there is I am accepting it until I find that better job. It seems we can always accept the present if we know there is some sort of brighter future.

downgrading and game playing

Success. It’s something people can try their whole lives to find, something people will never find, something people give up trying to find, a thing that some never bother to define. I think the last one is the reason some people never find it: they never bothered to define it. So what is it? What is success? I guess it depends who you’re asking. I have a friend who told me success to him was raising a happy, healthy family. This included a good job with a happy marriage, of course. That was success to him and I hope he gets there. Success to others is lots and lots of money, stuff, a great job with tons of vacation, retiring early…it could be a lot of things. Sometimes I think about where I am now and compare it to where I thought I’d be. I now wonder why I thought I’d be a part of corporate America at 23; jonesing for a new car, a bigger house, a bigger salary, a resort infused vacation. The last few weeks have been rocky, really rocky. I’ve been really angry. The anger comes from frustration and the frustration comes from not being able to control certain things. You never realize how tight a grip you need in order to feel comfortable until you have nothing to grip. Despite this, I’m glad I’m here. I can learn to let go of the anger, work through the frustration and still see how beautiful life is. Still realize that while my road does not look like what I thought it would, it will still lead me to my definition of success. My road always was a little off with weird obstacles, I’m not sure why I thought it would ever change. In other non emotional news, it seems North Korea doesn’t want to bomb South Korea, they want to bomb Hawaii! I feel this is going a little too far for some food and aid, but I guess you do what you feel you need to. Who knows what’s going to happen with the North, but I really hope they change their foreign policy before the entire country starves. I am also noticing that people in America care much more about the aggressive North than South Korea does. No one here is taking a second look, this is pretty normal. Yeah, they think it’s scary that there’s so many threats going on, but it seems strange to be so scared of a country that has been relying on you for so long. I think it seems strange anyways. I’m just not seeing what the North has to bargain with.I moved again. This time I refused to do it so my boss came over with our bus driver and packed and moved everything in my apartment. I made a sandwich and watched them. I was really angry after it all though because my new apartment was DIRTY, missing light bulbs, without a stove, no air conditioner (I only point this out because my last apartment DID have one) and the gas wasn’t hooked up (no hot water). I didn’t realize the gas wasn’t hooked up until I had to take a shower. Good thing no one was living in my old apartment yet since I went there to take the shower instead. My boss has no concern for anyone but himself. Another instance is the air conditioner in my classroom. My classroom has no windows and it’s getting hot and humid in Korea. With 10 kids in a small space it gets really hot and humid. About a week ago, I notice my air conditioner isn’t making my room cold so I tell my boss. Of course he does nothing about it. Today I got frustrated with the lack of action and took all my students in the hallway because I was too hot and it was colder in the hallway. Of course this makes my boss mad and he wants an explanation so I tell him that the air conditioner is broke and I told him about it a week ago and he never fixed it. I made him feel stupid and he doesn’t like kids in the hallway, so he fixed it. Everything has to be his problem for him to do anything, absolutely ridiculous. These games are getting old.

Strawberry Swing

It’s Friday and I’m quarantined. It gives me too much time to think in a small space and makes me feel for those two journalists detained in North Korea. I’m quarantined because within 3 or 4 days of being back I started up flu like symptoms. Honestly, I feel sick. Not sure it’s swine flu…but we’ll see when those test results come back. They were supposed to be back tonight but they are NOT, so I guess it’s tomorrow.I just got back from America. My best friend is married…it’s crazy. My best friend is married, one of my other best friend’s is engaged and pregnant with her second child, and my other very close friend (who is basically me) lives in Russia. I will never tire of saying, ‘life is weird.’ I feel like in this blog I tend to stay away from how I feel about everything unless I’m angry. Also, I’ve gotten really behind. If anyone still reads this…sorry about that. I know that by deciding to live overseas I made a choice, a choice that is accompanied by some fallout. What I mean by that is when you go to live overseas you naturally lose touch with some people, naturally grow apart from others, and grow in a different direction than you would have back home. I knew this when I decided to leave but I had no idea what it would feel like. You don’t even realize it’s happened though, and there’s the rub. It’s like not realizing you lost your wallet until you reach for it and it’s not there. At first, you feel emotional and panicked, but after a few minutes you realize there’s not much to do anyways so you may as well chill out. I have never felt lonely in Korea until today. I realize that this is probably due in large part to the fact that I’m quarantined, but the feeling is still there. I was thinking about the life I chose and talking to a close friend of mine who lives in Russia. I told her that when you choose a life like this, you just have to accept this strange loneliness. You know there are people that love you very much, but you chose to live very far away from them so you have to deal with whatever you find where you end up. I’m not complaining, I know what I chose. Most of the time, I love it and would never choose a different life. But there are definitely times when I realize that the things I care about more than myself are very far away. In unrelated news, my co worker did a midnight run. If you don’t know what that is, it’s when an employee leaves the country they’re working in without any prior notification to their employer. My boss didn’t find out until 5 minutes after the first lesson started (there’s some good management for you). He called me pretty panicked. We had just been to the public health office on orders from a doctor to get me tested for swine flu. The office put me on quarantine and said I couldn’t go anywhere and my bosses last sentence to me when he called was, “You’re quarantined, right?” I’m not sure if he was asking if I was still around and not leaving without notice, or if he was trying to get me to work today. Either way, he was freaking out. I guess with all this free time I could figure out my life. Then again, what’s the rush? I’ve been saying I need to figure out my life for at LEAST a year now, what’s another day?