Let me start off by saying that Vietnamese coffee (and food) may be the best I've ever had. Seriously. Yum. I write this as I sit in one of the many coffee shops in Ho Chi Minh City.
Second, I can say with confidence that this has been the best trip of my life so far for many reasons. Not the least of which is that I did it by myself. That made for a few lonely moments, and going to the bar (which I only did once) wasn't nearly as much fun, but proving to myself that I could travel to the most different country I've ever been to on my own and survive was so worth it. Not to mention having complete freedom and control on your vacation is no small thing.
This is why I wanted to come to Asia in the first place - all the things I've seen and done here are what drew me back in the very beginning, three years ago. For awhile, I thought I would never realize that dream, and now I've started to. And there's so much more to see. Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia... I've already booked trips to Japan and China. I know I won't get to see every place I want to go, at least not this year -reality calls - but now I feel like I've reaffirmed how important it is to do as much as I can while I'm already over here.
Tonight, I leave for the land of the morning calm (korea). I need to remember to take more advantage of that country also. This post was more of a feeling-oriented, sense of empowerment update. I'll write a longer one after I get back telling about this trip and what I actually did. Much more exciting. :)
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
the definition of insanity
Well, folks, it's blogging Sunday again. And let me just first provide you with the disclaimer that at the moment I feel like an emotional wreck, so this post will probably result in me coming off like a psychopath.
It's funny how certain songs can take you back. More than just, "oh, that song makes me think of middle school," which is what tends to happen when I watch reruns of Dawson's Creek. I mean songs that very specifically remind you of a particular life event or something you went through.
"Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair just came on my Pandora shuffle, and instantly I was 18 again, somewhere on US Highway 281 between Corpus Christi and Granbury, wondering what happened to my life. Maybe this hits me so hard because almost 9 years later, I'm still wondering. Anyway, at that time in my life, I was just starting college (at a college I had only decided to attend 3 weeks before school started), my first boyfriend had just broken up with me, and for a lot of reasons I felt like I had gone from being on top of the world after just finishing high school to everything going right down the crapper. The year was a series of difficult life lessons that ended up being some of the best memories I have. My first taste of adulthood, although I was still such a baby. (I'll probably look back on my life right now in 10 years and think I'm a baby now, but that's just the way it goes).
Hearing that song today sort of made me feel like what I'm going through now mirrors what I went through then. Now, I am not nearly so naive, there is no guy in the picture, and I am an actual adult rather than a college student, but I still find that I make a lot of the same mistakes and find myself in similar predicaments (....isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Maybe we don't need to entertain that...) I mean seriously, what is that? I've uprooted myself enough to realize that I often fall victim "geographical solution," where you relocate yourself as a solution to your problems, instead of dealing with them, and of course what happens is that they follow you.
I get so excited about the next phase, the next adventure, and then once I'm in it, I can't wait to leave. I have a constant countdown running in my head. I'm now afraid that I don't know how to live without one. Seven months. 30 weeks. 200 days, give or take. The amount of time it's been since last Christmas. That's how long I have until I can come home. I don't want to treat this like a prison sentence, but that's what it feels like sometimes. I keep imagining the moment I will walk through the doors of the international terminal at DFW airport to see my parents there waiting for me. I imagine the feeling that this was all worth it, that I got what I came for. I imagine the sense of accomplishment I will have for seeing this through.
On the other hand, today I was thinking about the sadness I felt when I was leaving Korea the first time. Today, it occurred to me that I honestly don't think I would feel that way if I left Korea tomorrow. See, last time, I had connected with people, I had gotten to the point where I liked my kids and had more or less made peace with the school. This time, I don't really have any problems with the school or my job, I mean sure there are mild annoyances, but that's any job. But I have no social support system. Outside of work and the gym, I feel the most secure and happy when I'm spending time with my three friends in this country, each of whom lives in a different city and therefore is not a part of my day to day life. Honestly, if I left to come home right now I don't think I would care. I would feel sad that it didn't work out, but I don't think there is anything at all I would miss (I did miss things about Korea itself last time, but by now I think I've been Korea-ified enough to last me a lifetime). Of course, if I did that I would miss out on the severance pay and free plane ticket home I will receive at the end, but I'm talking more about my own feelings than about practical things. I think this whole thing is something I was trying to make up for botching when I was 23/24 and now I just want to move past it, which I ironically couldn't achieve (or chose not to achieve) without coming back.
I keep trying not to be alone, and I keep ending up alone anyway. What is the point?
It's funny how certain songs can take you back. More than just, "oh, that song makes me think of middle school," which is what tends to happen when I watch reruns of Dawson's Creek. I mean songs that very specifically remind you of a particular life event or something you went through.
"Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair just came on my Pandora shuffle, and instantly I was 18 again, somewhere on US Highway 281 between Corpus Christi and Granbury, wondering what happened to my life. Maybe this hits me so hard because almost 9 years later, I'm still wondering. Anyway, at that time in my life, I was just starting college (at a college I had only decided to attend 3 weeks before school started), my first boyfriend had just broken up with me, and for a lot of reasons I felt like I had gone from being on top of the world after just finishing high school to everything going right down the crapper. The year was a series of difficult life lessons that ended up being some of the best memories I have. My first taste of adulthood, although I was still such a baby. (I'll probably look back on my life right now in 10 years and think I'm a baby now, but that's just the way it goes).
Hearing that song today sort of made me feel like what I'm going through now mirrors what I went through then. Now, I am not nearly so naive, there is no guy in the picture, and I am an actual adult rather than a college student, but I still find that I make a lot of the same mistakes and find myself in similar predicaments (....isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Maybe we don't need to entertain that...) I mean seriously, what is that? I've uprooted myself enough to realize that I often fall victim "geographical solution," where you relocate yourself as a solution to your problems, instead of dealing with them, and of course what happens is that they follow you.
I get so excited about the next phase, the next adventure, and then once I'm in it, I can't wait to leave. I have a constant countdown running in my head. I'm now afraid that I don't know how to live without one. Seven months. 30 weeks. 200 days, give or take. The amount of time it's been since last Christmas. That's how long I have until I can come home. I don't want to treat this like a prison sentence, but that's what it feels like sometimes. I keep imagining the moment I will walk through the doors of the international terminal at DFW airport to see my parents there waiting for me. I imagine the feeling that this was all worth it, that I got what I came for. I imagine the sense of accomplishment I will have for seeing this through.
On the other hand, today I was thinking about the sadness I felt when I was leaving Korea the first time. Today, it occurred to me that I honestly don't think I would feel that way if I left Korea tomorrow. See, last time, I had connected with people, I had gotten to the point where I liked my kids and had more or less made peace with the school. This time, I don't really have any problems with the school or my job, I mean sure there are mild annoyances, but that's any job. But I have no social support system. Outside of work and the gym, I feel the most secure and happy when I'm spending time with my three friends in this country, each of whom lives in a different city and therefore is not a part of my day to day life. Honestly, if I left to come home right now I don't think I would care. I would feel sad that it didn't work out, but I don't think there is anything at all I would miss (I did miss things about Korea itself last time, but by now I think I've been Korea-ified enough to last me a lifetime). Of course, if I did that I would miss out on the severance pay and free plane ticket home I will receive at the end, but I'm talking more about my own feelings than about practical things. I think this whole thing is something I was trying to make up for botching when I was 23/24 and now I just want to move past it, which I ironically couldn't achieve (or chose not to achieve) without coming back.
I keep trying not to be alone, and I keep ending up alone anyway. What is the point?
Saturday, July 14, 2012
enjoying the ride
Being able to show someone around really shows me how far I've come. It solidifies my confidence that I know what I'm doing and I've really settled in and found my groove. This weekend, my dear friend Brandy who lives the Seoul area came to visit me. I've met up with Brandy in Seoul a few times since I've been here, but this was her first trip to Daejeon.
I'm happy to report that it was a fabulous one! First of all, it's just so nice to have someone to hang out with - especially someone who knows me, who I'm not worried about making a good impression on. (That was a terrible sentence. Oh, well.) Anyway, we shopped, we ate Mexican food, we went to Starbucks, we hit up some bars I'd been wanting to try and/or hadn't been to in a long time. Most foreigners were away at the mud festival (which Brandy and I both kept saying we were so glad we chose to skip) so all the foreigner hangouts were pretty sparse, but that's ok. We had fun anyway.
This morning, she's on her way back home and I've spending this rainy Sunday watching movies and making pancakes. I'll do more productive things like laundry and getting stuff ready for the week later on this afternoon. Speaking of rain, the rainy season has definitely arrived. It's rained for at least a couple of hours every day for the past week or so. I don't really mind it though. It's not too hot, just incredibly humid. And I like the clouds because they mean the sun isn't waking me up at 5:30 a.m.
I read on Facebook yesterday that someone I know (not well, but we went to the same college, have mutual friends and both ended up in Korea, so we became FB friends) pulled a midnight run this weekend. Apparently, things were so bad at his school that he, his wife, and three other teachers all planned and executed this massive escape all at once. That means come tomorrow morning, the school will be short FIVE foreign teachers. Wow. I don't blame them. They said the school was flagrantly stealing from them and their boss was a total jerk. I feel so fortunate that, while my school has its flaws, it's nothing so bad as that. There has never been a problem with pay, and our directors do A LOT for us. The owner is a little sketch, but in my opinion, the directors make up for it, and things could be a million times worse.
However, I did learn on Friday that a teacher is leaving at the end of August (8 months before his contract is up), which ordinarily wouldn't really affect me, but the school is probably not going to replace him. Our afternoon enrollment has been going down every month, so right now it appears that we can get by with one less teacher. This means that all the foreign teachers are going to get more classes come September, which I am none too happy about, but I just gotta roll with it. And try my best to demand more money, but who knows whether that will work or not. I've more or less come to terms with it, it's only 6 months, it's just Korea, and I feel like I know what I'm doing well enough now that I can handle it. It'll be ok. And who knows, maybe they'll replace him after all. But I'm not holding my breath.
It would take a lot for me to give up and come home early this time. Things would have to get really, really bad. And I really don't see that happening (fingers crossed). Plus, I have so many exciting things planned in the next six months that I don't want to give up. And there's the big chunk of money we get at the end of the year (assuming the school doesn't do anything shady, like fire us right before our contracts are up or shut down and refuse to pay anyone's severance or flight tickets home, but again, I really don't see that happening. I just know other people it has happened to. At other schools. But even in the grand scheme of things, that would suck but it wouldn't be the end of the world.) And, most importantly, there's the promise I made to myself to finish this and prove to myself I can do it, unless circumstances beyond my control prevent me from it. But so far, so good. All I can do is relax and go with the flow.
I'm finally starting to let go and enjoy the ride. Let's keep that going.
And in other news, two weeks from this very moment, I will be exploring the streets of Ho Chi Minh City!!!! What is UP.
I'm happy to report that it was a fabulous one! First of all, it's just so nice to have someone to hang out with - especially someone who knows me, who I'm not worried about making a good impression on. (That was a terrible sentence. Oh, well.) Anyway, we shopped, we ate Mexican food, we went to Starbucks, we hit up some bars I'd been wanting to try and/or hadn't been to in a long time. Most foreigners were away at the mud festival (which Brandy and I both kept saying we were so glad we chose to skip) so all the foreigner hangouts were pretty sparse, but that's ok. We had fun anyway.
This morning, she's on her way back home and I've spending this rainy Sunday watching movies and making pancakes. I'll do more productive things like laundry and getting stuff ready for the week later on this afternoon. Speaking of rain, the rainy season has definitely arrived. It's rained for at least a couple of hours every day for the past week or so. I don't really mind it though. It's not too hot, just incredibly humid. And I like the clouds because they mean the sun isn't waking me up at 5:30 a.m.
I read on Facebook yesterday that someone I know (not well, but we went to the same college, have mutual friends and both ended up in Korea, so we became FB friends) pulled a midnight run this weekend. Apparently, things were so bad at his school that he, his wife, and three other teachers all planned and executed this massive escape all at once. That means come tomorrow morning, the school will be short FIVE foreign teachers. Wow. I don't blame them. They said the school was flagrantly stealing from them and their boss was a total jerk. I feel so fortunate that, while my school has its flaws, it's nothing so bad as that. There has never been a problem with pay, and our directors do A LOT for us. The owner is a little sketch, but in my opinion, the directors make up for it, and things could be a million times worse.
However, I did learn on Friday that a teacher is leaving at the end of August (8 months before his contract is up), which ordinarily wouldn't really affect me, but the school is probably not going to replace him. Our afternoon enrollment has been going down every month, so right now it appears that we can get by with one less teacher. This means that all the foreign teachers are going to get more classes come September, which I am none too happy about, but I just gotta roll with it. And try my best to demand more money, but who knows whether that will work or not. I've more or less come to terms with it, it's only 6 months, it's just Korea, and I feel like I know what I'm doing well enough now that I can handle it. It'll be ok. And who knows, maybe they'll replace him after all. But I'm not holding my breath.
It would take a lot for me to give up and come home early this time. Things would have to get really, really bad. And I really don't see that happening (fingers crossed). Plus, I have so many exciting things planned in the next six months that I don't want to give up. And there's the big chunk of money we get at the end of the year (assuming the school doesn't do anything shady, like fire us right before our contracts are up or shut down and refuse to pay anyone's severance or flight tickets home, but again, I really don't see that happening. I just know other people it has happened to. At other schools. But even in the grand scheme of things, that would suck but it wouldn't be the end of the world.) And, most importantly, there's the promise I made to myself to finish this and prove to myself I can do it, unless circumstances beyond my control prevent me from it. But so far, so good. All I can do is relax and go with the flow.
I'm finally starting to let go and enjoy the ride. Let's keep that going.
And in other news, two weeks from this very moment, I will be exploring the streets of Ho Chi Minh City!!!! What is UP.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
getting over the hump and where things start to get shady
I guess Sunday has become my designated blog day. Although I don't think I posted last week.
I'm still on the roller coaster. I wake up most mornings thinking, "crap, I'm still here." I feel like I'm inching, inching along to the six month mark. In three weeks, I'll be in Vietnam, and that will be the five month mark, a pretty good milestone, especially considering I'll pass it while on vacation. Then, a month later, the much-anticipated halfway point will arrive. This is such a big deal to me because I kind of see it as getting over the hump. The first half of things tends to go by slower than the second half, so I'm sort of counting on this experience to be that way too. I don't know, halfway just seems like such an accomplishment. Like, if I can make it through half of this, surely I can make it through the other half. That sounds really dumb, but I know what I mean.
Plus, the second half includes my Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) trip to Japan with a friend who's coming to visit from home (two exciting things rolled into a very exciting 10 days!) and my trip to China for Christmas. As well as smaller things like Halloween, lunar New Year (which I probably won't do anything big for but it's still a five-day weekend), the kindergarten talent show and graduation, and then I'll be HOME. Please, time, hurry up. I want to enjoy my time here, I just want to do it quicker.
Also, the six month mark will occur simultaneously with my birthday! I plan on hitting up a wine buffet in Seoul that a friend of mine went to for her birthday, and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, the Friday night of my birthday weekend (my birthday is on a Sunday this year, so the wine festivities will take place on Saturday), I got guilted into helping chaperone the PAJAMA PARTY at school. Which means Rachael, Pierre and I, along with some of the Korean teachers, are basically babysitting a bunch of elementary school kids ALL NIGHT LONG. Oh, and did I mention we don't get paid for it? They can't technically make us do it, but she (my boss) pushed and pushed until I felt like I couldn't say no.
So, along those lines, things are starting to get a tad shady at my school. I mean, hagwons are always a little on the shady side, but our owner has started getting a little shadier. The enrollment in our afternoon program has gone down (that's when the elementary and middle school kids come after public school), so we're doing this summer intensive program where the kids come in the morning while they have a month off from public school, which means we each are teaching an extra class every day for the month of August. Originally, we were told we would be paid overtime for that class. Now, we've been told no one will be paid extra for it because we won't technically be going over the legal cap of 30 teaching hours a week where he would legally have to pay us overtime. The hours we get paid for don't include planning time, which I knew, but I just think it's shady that we were told we would get paid and now we're not. And that I have to stay up all night on a Friday with a bunch of 8 year olds and not get paid for it.
Ok. Rant over. At the very least, Rachael, Pierre and I are all in this together and we should have some good stories to tell. I keep trying to go back to my mantra: It's just Korea. It's just Korea. It's temporary. And really, my directors at school (shady owner aside) have been so great, and things could so totally, definitely be ten thousand times worse. I am just trying to train myself not to borrow trouble. I let my imagination run wild sometimes and think "what if this happened or that happened or they try to make me do this or it interferes with this and what would I do?" But I can't live like that. I'll drive myself crazy. All I can do is take it as it comes. Take it as it comes. Take it as it comes. Mantra #2. There's no way I can be prepared for every little thing. Or even most things.
One really great thing did happen this past week. I started a "swimming class" at the gym in the building where my school is. I hadn't done it until now because I thought they were just learn to swim classes, but with the help of my Korean partner teacher, I signed up for the expert level class for the month of July, and it is fantastic! It's just like swim practice back home. It's a great workout, the people are nice (even though they barely speak English) and I think it's totally what I need.
So, for now, I'm just going to try and focus on that and the things I have planned that are coming up. Next weekend, my friend is coming to visit from Seoul. It's ridiculous how excited I get about having someone around to hang out with me on the weekend. Having stuff to do keeps my mind from going all nutzoid. Like last weekend, I went to Seoul to meet up with another friend and register for our overseas ballots at the US Embassy. I didn't go all crazy weird that weekend. Anyway, and then Vietnam, etc., etc. Hopefully, going to Vietnam will refresh me and restore my faith in why I'm here. Because, if I'm being honest, most days, my desire for this to be over and to go home outweighs my passion for being here. However, the travel/sightseeing days usually make up for that. I'm going to stop now. I'm rambling.
I'm still on the roller coaster. I wake up most mornings thinking, "crap, I'm still here." I feel like I'm inching, inching along to the six month mark. In three weeks, I'll be in Vietnam, and that will be the five month mark, a pretty good milestone, especially considering I'll pass it while on vacation. Then, a month later, the much-anticipated halfway point will arrive. This is such a big deal to me because I kind of see it as getting over the hump. The first half of things tends to go by slower than the second half, so I'm sort of counting on this experience to be that way too. I don't know, halfway just seems like such an accomplishment. Like, if I can make it through half of this, surely I can make it through the other half. That sounds really dumb, but I know what I mean.
Plus, the second half includes my Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) trip to Japan with a friend who's coming to visit from home (two exciting things rolled into a very exciting 10 days!) and my trip to China for Christmas. As well as smaller things like Halloween, lunar New Year (which I probably won't do anything big for but it's still a five-day weekend), the kindergarten talent show and graduation, and then I'll be HOME. Please, time, hurry up. I want to enjoy my time here, I just want to do it quicker.
Also, the six month mark will occur simultaneously with my birthday! I plan on hitting up a wine buffet in Seoul that a friend of mine went to for her birthday, and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, the Friday night of my birthday weekend (my birthday is on a Sunday this year, so the wine festivities will take place on Saturday), I got guilted into helping chaperone the PAJAMA PARTY at school. Which means Rachael, Pierre and I, along with some of the Korean teachers, are basically babysitting a bunch of elementary school kids ALL NIGHT LONG. Oh, and did I mention we don't get paid for it? They can't technically make us do it, but she (my boss) pushed and pushed until I felt like I couldn't say no.
So, along those lines, things are starting to get a tad shady at my school. I mean, hagwons are always a little on the shady side, but our owner has started getting a little shadier. The enrollment in our afternoon program has gone down (that's when the elementary and middle school kids come after public school), so we're doing this summer intensive program where the kids come in the morning while they have a month off from public school, which means we each are teaching an extra class every day for the month of August. Originally, we were told we would be paid overtime for that class. Now, we've been told no one will be paid extra for it because we won't technically be going over the legal cap of 30 teaching hours a week where he would legally have to pay us overtime. The hours we get paid for don't include planning time, which I knew, but I just think it's shady that we were told we would get paid and now we're not. And that I have to stay up all night on a Friday with a bunch of 8 year olds and not get paid for it.
Ok. Rant over. At the very least, Rachael, Pierre and I are all in this together and we should have some good stories to tell. I keep trying to go back to my mantra: It's just Korea. It's just Korea. It's temporary. And really, my directors at school (shady owner aside) have been so great, and things could so totally, definitely be ten thousand times worse. I am just trying to train myself not to borrow trouble. I let my imagination run wild sometimes and think "what if this happened or that happened or they try to make me do this or it interferes with this and what would I do?" But I can't live like that. I'll drive myself crazy. All I can do is take it as it comes. Take it as it comes. Take it as it comes. Mantra #2. There's no way I can be prepared for every little thing. Or even most things.
One really great thing did happen this past week. I started a "swimming class" at the gym in the building where my school is. I hadn't done it until now because I thought they were just learn to swim classes, but with the help of my Korean partner teacher, I signed up for the expert level class for the month of July, and it is fantastic! It's just like swim practice back home. It's a great workout, the people are nice (even though they barely speak English) and I think it's totally what I need.
So, for now, I'm just going to try and focus on that and the things I have planned that are coming up. Next weekend, my friend is coming to visit from Seoul. It's ridiculous how excited I get about having someone around to hang out with me on the weekend. Having stuff to do keeps my mind from going all nutzoid. Like last weekend, I went to Seoul to meet up with another friend and register for our overseas ballots at the US Embassy. I didn't go all crazy weird that weekend. Anyway, and then Vietnam, etc., etc. Hopefully, going to Vietnam will refresh me and restore my faith in why I'm here. Because, if I'm being honest, most days, my desire for this to be over and to go home outweighs my passion for being here. However, the travel/sightseeing days usually make up for that. I'm going to stop now. I'm rambling.
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