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?