25 and Illiterate - First week in South Korea!

 I have lived in South Korea for 5 days now. The first day I was kind of on a rollercoaster of emotions. At one point I would be really excited and happy to be here and then soon all I could think of were ways to get back home as soon as possible. On day #5, I have embraced this place as my home, and am working to establish friendship and a community here.

A little bit about my life here. I live in a new area, called Jeonggwan, which is on the outskirts of the huge metropolis city of Busan. Busan is the largest port city in Korea (I am sure many of the container ships from here end up in Long Beach...maybe that is even the route my Tuscon took!). It is also the second largest city in the country with over 3.5 million people and is known for it's beautiful beaches. It is very hilly in this part of Korea and so you get a very interesting juxtaposition of uniform skyskrapers "nestled" between rolling hills. It's winter here and much of the vegetation is dormant, but it is still beautiful.

Jeonggwan is about a 10 minute drive north of the major part of the city. I was a little disappointed to find that I was not in the heart of the city, which means it will be a 30 minute bus ride to meet up with other expats and explore the city, but I love my apartment and school so much already that I can't complain. Not to mention, Jeonggwan is the up and coming new place to live, so people are moving in daily and new shopping malls, restaurants and stores will be opening soon.

I teach at a hagwon called ECC. ECC is a chain of schools, but the branch I am working at is brand new and opens on Monday. The school is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment and I already really love my director and the other teachers I work with. Everyone has been incredibly accommodating, from letting me sleep at their house when my heat needed to be repaired, to paying for all my home necessities, to giving me copies of Korean dramas with English subtitles to help me learn Korean, to leaving presents of juice and treats on my desk everyday! If I need anything, the native teachers I work with are there to help. It's very comforting knowing I'm not left alone to figure it out here!

I love my accommodation because it is so freaking feminine! It has a light pink wall paper on three walls and then bright pink floral paper on the 4th. I absolutely love my heated floors and enjoy how simple living is here without having to cut out the creature comforts I am dependent on ;). I have a TV with hundreds of channels, many which are in English (CNN, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, etc.), internet of course, I have a clean and tidy bathroom, a dresser, a cabinet for my shoes, a washer and a hot plate to cook on. I am still getting used to the open shower, but I purchased some bathroom shoes so it's not a big deal. My bed is much harder than I am used to (my behind is actually numb as I sit and type this out!) but I will either adjust, or go to the SuperMart and buy a mattress pad. I also live right above a 711, which #1 makes me laugh and #2 settles any soda or chocolate craving that may come along...so much for easy holiday weight loss!

I have eaten at a few traditional restaurants and really like Korean food provided it's not too spicy. They eat a lot of vegetables, meat and seafood here and I have already embarrassed myself with my poor chopstick skills. Although, I refuse to take the fork the server discretely places near me because I have GOT to get better at it. It's a utensil! How hard could it be to pick up?!? I had duck (which is actually Chinese) the other night and was surprised by how sweet and delicious it was. The groceries stores have a lot of standard American food, so I have had Kellogg's cereal and peanut butter sandwiches when I am cooking for myself...nothing has changed ;).

The most interesting sensation that I have experienced so far is feeling completely illiterate! I haven't studied Hangul, the Korean alphabet, in depth yet and it is so weird not being able to identify even the sign for the restroom! Many signs are in English and hangul, but I still am very reliant on others to help me "read" and then translate basic words. I have started to study Korean and it is going to be a long road! Everything sounds the same to me. How do you train your ear to pick up new sounds and then train your mind to remember them? I hope by the end of the January I will be able to read a few basic words and say common greetings.

I hate writing entries like this, because I feel they are boring. There is little emotion, depth or self expression in this kind of writing, but hopefully it's enjoyable to someone. I'm going to go for my last run of 2010 and first run in Korea now!

Fall in Recap

Disclaimer: this blog is freaking boring at first because it is just a recap. No creativity went into this writing. I am falling asleep as I write it, but it may be worthwhile to remember one day. :)

A lot has happened since I last posted. In October I went to Washington DC and NYC to check out graduate schools, specifically George Washington University and Columbia. The trip was really just an excuse to go back East for the fall and I had a great time traveling with my friend Sugar and visiting Aubrey, Julia, Cindy, Christina, Caitlyn and many other friends who happened to be in the city. I thought visiting the campuses of the universities I was most interested in would really help move me in a direction toward grad school, but I found that I was not very impressed by George Washington and discovered I needed a little more time to refine exactly what I wanted to study within the field of education. When I got back from my trip, I started applying to teaching positions again. At this point I was feeling more than fed up with retail, I had been working at Nordstrom since July, due to the inconvenient hours, stress on my feet and little pay. I explored international teaching positions earlier in the year, but the timing was off. I liked the idea of teaching abroad, but was not emotionally in a place where I could really handle the added stress of being away from everything familiar.

As I returned from my October trip, on a whim I applied to an English teaching position in Korea. A recruiter called me that day to interview me and by the end of the week I had interviewed with the director of a hugwon in Busan and been offered a job to start in December. After some discussion and research I accepted the job and began to live my life louder than I had the courage to do in years.

November and December of 2010 were more fun than I can remember having in a long time. I had no inhibitions and was finally willing to let new people into my life. Before I accepted the job, I intentionally was spending my time with people that weren’t worth it. I was afraid to create meaningful relationships again because I didn’t want to open myself up to being hurt by anyone else. Having a departure date gave me confidence to make friendships. I didn’t think anything could get too deep in a two month period, so I was safe to live and love openly and then say goodbye. I did live and love openly. I went on a girls trip to Vegas, went to clubs in LA and Orange County, went to organized activities with other LDS friends, I went to parties, I danced with friends, I danced alone in my room, I sang in the shower, I spent time spoiling Max and Audrey, I was spontaneous, I smiled all the time and I made up for all the laughing I’d missed out on. Living so freely felt incredible and probably had a greater healing impact than anything to this point.

My plan to have fun then peace out, did not exactly go according to plan. Much to my surprise, I made friends that I am deeply attached to. I don’t know what happened to me in the mess of marriage and divorce, but I somehow forgot or didn’t believe that people really cared to get to know me and then would continue to care about me unless there was something in it for them. I was highly sensitive to being manipulated or used and additionally felt like I had little to offer seeing as I couldn’t trust people and was unsure about my beliefs.

This group of friends did not see the person I saw. They openly loved and accepted all of me. Their words were always kind and encouraging. They were interested in listening to what I was going through and were accepting of the things I struggled accepting about myself. They gave hugs freely, laughed easily and could go from dancing to deep conversation within minutes. Some of these friendships were established weeks before I left, but I know they are going to still be there when I get back. I am moved and deeply emotional due to the gratitude I feel for these people in my life. At a time when I have given God the least amount of attention he deserves, I can’t help but be humbled by this testimony that he still cares about me and wants me to have hope, friendship and love in my life.

I am in Korea now, starting another chapter. There will be more to come!

Here are a few pics of these beloved months and friends:

Try again. Fail Better.

Written on 12/05/2010

I am not sure where to begin. I have been ignoring myself for a long time now. It is so easy to be distracted when there are always friends, parties and the world wide web around. I feel really out of sync with who I am. I am not sure what I want or what I believe anymore. Or maybe it is not that I am not sure, but I have been ignoring it for a long time. I have stopped thinking about the future and have been living in the moment. The problem is, when you live in the moment you only experience the emotion of that moment. Your emotions are so much more shallow because you don't have hope, you don't have a plan, you don't have a foundation. The shallow emotion is attractive. It is easier. It is so much work to be emotionally aware. It hurts to constantly be self evaluating, realizing what needs to change and then actually following through and fixing things. I feel like I am loosing my ability to change. I used to view myself as someone with tenacity, self discipline, and character. Now I'm not sure. I feel like I can be blown where ever the wing takes me. 

I feel really alone. I sometimes miss Tyler. Should I be embarrassed that I still love him? It doesn't make sense because I don't think he ever really got me. I think I miss him because there is safety in knowing once upon a time I trusted someone. Although that belief was proven wrong, I think I associate that ability to be open and trusting, with Tyler. I miss parts of who I was when I was with him. I am scared to even believe I can give of myself to someone again. Again, I don't understand why. I got through rejection once before, I could probably get through it again. 

Overcoming this fear is essential. Not because I want a relationship now but because hope seems to be a package deal for me. If I can't hope in finding someone who I can love and who will love me in return, then I can't hope in marriage, families, stability, etc. Nothing really matters when you don't have hope. Se la vie; eat, drink and be merry; carpe diem. Days can be filled with adventures, laughter and intellect, but the next morning those things are gone and you have to come up with something or someone else to make the day rich. I want everyday to be rich again. 

The few moments when I choose to be honest with myself I know exactly what I want and it stings. It stings because I was so close to having it and because it now feels so far away. 

I'm going to work on hope for now. I'm going to start thinking about the future and believing that my future can be filled with good things. I'm going to risk trusting again. I'm going to believe I can try again and it will turn out better.