A time to laugh

"Say kimchi!"
Originally uploaded by digitalnut.

On my birthday recently, my 3rd grade elementary school students surrounded me on the playground and belted out a stirring rendition of "Happy Birthday." It was the highlight of a day I was originally dreading.

A few days later, five of those students came to my classroom during their lunch recess to practice a Q & A we had studied earlier in exchange for a Jolly Rancher. Another piece of candy pursuaded them to pose for the camera. I had to pull a face and snap another picture to get them to smile though.

The first shot that didn't take is definitely worth comparing here.

Americans not allowed

Not allow to enter American
Originally uploaded by digitalnut.

In June 2002, two South Korean girls were accidentally and tragically crushed to death by US Military vehicles conducting exercises. There followed an intense flare-up of anti-American sentiment complete with protests, some of which turned violent.

Many business also posted signs, like this one in Chuncheon, stating American were not welcome. This sign was posted on the door of my favorite DVD room where I often went to watch current American movies in the comfort of an air conditioned room with surround sound.

I snapped this picture, got scolded by the manager, and never returned, even after the country cooled off and the signs came down.

Hmm..., I wonder, if, in addition to excluding Americans, the manager also pulled all the American DVDs. Since Hollywood flicks usually consititue some 70% of the movie choices in Korea, I doubt it.

On the bus to Everland

One the bus to Everland
Originally uploaded by digitalnut.

After a week of tough midterms last week, my students got a day off for a field trip to Everland, the largest amusement park in Korea and I was lucky enough to get to tag along.

The most fun I had was on the two hour bus rides, to and from the park, mingling with the students. Some kids played the typical shy game but most were eager to talk and snap pictures. It's the ideal time to practice speaking, outside the classroom, where we chat about real-world stuff.

I don't always manage to remember names (in this picture, I could tell you two out of three) but personalities always stand out. The boy on the left is outgoing and chatty, the girl in the middle eager and attentive, and the girl on the right is solemn and shy - this picture captured a rare smile.

Birthday wishes

I wasn't looking forward to my birthday yesterday because, with the biggest exception of my students, I'm pretty unhappy and lonely at my job these days (to put it mildly). To my surprise however, my Korean co-teacher (who's about the most dull, unimaginative woman I've ever met) presented me with a nice Korean DVD as a gift. I'm interested in Korean movies lately and I recently bought a portable DVD player from Hong Kong. That she remembered this and made the connection to buy such a practical gift impressed me.

I had not planned to tell anyone it was my birthday but, since my co-teacher already knew, she passed the word around school and, all day long, I received shouts of "Happy birthday to you!" from my middle school students (instead of just "Happy birthday!" - it was a little comical) in class, in the halls, and in the cafeteria at lunchtime. These students are usually very outgoing and most of them are eager to practice speaking but today it felt like they tried especially hard to be friendly.

The best treat of all though happened when I was sitting outside near the elementary school playground in the late morning between classes. (Being so far out in the country as we are here, the elementary and middle schools are located in the same building and I teach at both of them) It was such a beautiful, cool day! My 3rd grade elementary school class came outside with their homeroom teacher to practice their recorders (and they sound just as awful in Korea they do in America). I could hear them coming out but I didn't pay much attention until, suddenly, they swarmed around me and broke out into an enthusiastic, spontaneous rendition of "Happy Birthday." They sang it perfectly, just like I'd taught them a few weeks earlier. (They mostly already knew the song in English but I helped them polish it up a bit and they remembered everything.)

In my time in Korea, I usually get more excited about the endearing qualities of my 4th and 5th grade students but, yesterday, those 3rd grade kids lifted my spirits and helped me look beyond the dumb things I've been obsessed with lately. I had some free time to kill and their teacher didn't seem to mind that they were spending more time trying to talk to me than screeching on their recorders so we "talked" for half an hour. Picture 15+ students fighting for your attention and then only being able to understand 15% of what they're trying to say once they get it.

Such is my life in Korea and, on days like yesterday , I have to admit I love it.

Rooftop View

Nearby homes
Originally uploaded by digitalnut.

Winter is finally a fading memory and the trees and gardens as seen from the rooftop of my five story apartment building are returning.

Birthday lanterns for Buddha

Birthday lanterns
Originally uploaded by digitalnut.

After traveling to Everland, the largest amusement park in Korea, with my middle school students on Thursday, we all had the day off Friday for Children's Day on Friday. I took the bus to Seoul in the afternoon and met up with Jen and some friends to visit a large Buddhist temple in Seoul.

I was unaware of the birthday celebrations for Buddha's 2,550th birthday. And there was an enoromous crowd gathered under the beautiful, colorful lanterns. After being allowed to pass through the temple among actual worshippers, we joined the crowd outside for a concert.

We were amused by the selection of songs from the '60s being played by the electric band in English. The locals seemed to enjoy it too, though some of them seemed to have trouble clapping to the rhythm.

After the temple, we went to Itaewon for dinner at Pancho's. I had a delicious chicken chimichanga and satisfied perhaps the number one craving I have in Korea after home cooking: mexican food.

"That's OK."

"That's OK."
Originally uploaded by digitalnut.

My new game is to randomly turn one of my students out to take pictures with my camera. After a 20 second lesson on how to press the shutter, with no other instruction, they usually take off and return 15 minutes later with as many as 50 pictures. I am rarely disappointed by the results. In fact, I am frequently stunned by some of the amazing pictures they take.

One such conscripted photographer, a middle school girl, took this picture. Though these girls are two of my best, most vocal and experimental 9th grade students, I doubt they ever would have posed like this for me.

A few tweaks in Picasa to remove the haze and sharpen the colors and, wallah, here's my latest favorite guest photograph.

$5 more for water

The apartment building where I dwell, far out in the Korean countryside, draws its water supply from a well. When the water level in the well is low, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get water for such extravagant tasks as washing the dishes or taking a shower. It doesn't happen often, but once it caused me to miss church because I couldn't take a shower one Sunday morning in time to get dressed and catch the one bus that would get me to Seoul on time for opening services.

Two weeks ago, a petition was circulated to convert the building water supply from the well to piped water from the county. If switched, our individual monthly service fee would rise from about $10 a month to $15 a month. A small price to pay for reliable water, right?

The problem is the buses. Not only do they only pass through every one or two hours on the way to and from the "city" of Gapyeong where I can catch buses and trains to bigger and better cities, they stop running altogether at 8 PM. This means I must frequently rely on taxis to get home from excursions to Seoul or Chuncheon at night or during the day when I don't want to wait an hour for the next bus home. Taxis into the country are expensive, nearly $9 from the Gapyeong bus terminal to my apartment building.

With a minimum of two or three $9 taxis a week, I don't relish the thought of being forced to pay even $5 more a month if I can avoid it, even if it means going without water on occasion. I signed "No" on the petition to change to piped water.

Last week the results of the petition came back: Yes - 46, No - 1.

I lose.

The apartment building where I dwell, far out in the Korean countryside, draws its water supply from a well. When the water level in the well is low, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get water for such extravagant tasks as washing the dishes or taking a shower. It doesn't happen often, but once it caused me to miss church because I couldn't take a shower one Sunday morning in time to get dressed and catch the one bus that would get me to Seoul on time for the opening services.

Last week, a petition was circulated to convert the building water supply from the well to piped water from the county. If switched, our individual monthly service fee would rise from about $10 a month to $15 a month. A small price to pay for reliable water, right?

The problem is the buses. Not only do they only pass through every one or two hours on the way to and from the "city" of Gapyeong where I can catch buses and trains to bigger and better cities, they stop running altogether at 8 PM. This means I must frequently rely on taxis to get home from excursions to Seoul or Chuncheon at night or during the day when I don't want to wait an hour for the next bus home. Taxis into the country are expensive, nearly $9 from the Gapyeong bus terminal to my apartment building.

With a minimum of two or three $9 taxis a week, I don't relish the thought of being forced to pay even $5 more a month if I can avoid it, even if it means going without water on occasion. I signed "No" on the petition to change to piped water.

Yesterday the results of the petition came back: Yes - 46, No - 1.

I lose.

I'm back! It's been a nice 2 1/2 year hiatus; now it's time to get back to writing and posting pictures.

It's been more than two weeks now since I've been able to access or edit my blog. And not it's been three days since I've been able to access hotmail. Why?!!

Welcome to Ministry of Labor, Republic of Korea, Labor Standards Act: "Article 71 (Menstruation Leave)

An employer shall allow a female worker one day's menstruation leave with pay per month. "

Hmmm . . . What a progressive country I work in. Hard to imagine anyone would ever use such a benefit; a woman would have to announce why she was taking the day off and surely it would be hard to keep her coworkers from knowing why she was absent.

---

. . . after

before . . .

How did I get here? What train of damnation brought me here so swiftly? Why did I so readily ignore the pavers on this road to hell? I so readily supplied those pavers, a willingly blind accomplice to my own personal destruction. How anxious I was to sublimate my supposed eternal agenda in favor of the dark secrets of my heart. How utterly foolish I was to think I could aspire to those lofty peaks as I wallowed in the gutter of self-satisfaction.

Cast all of my upcoming psycho self-analysis aside and think on my own about the root of my problems. What do I fear? Of what am I uncertain? Why am I reluctant to face or concede my shortcomings especially when there exists the possibility I could break the chains that bind me? Do these musings of late bear any worth or do they just mask or shelter me from yet again facing the truth? I should bear in mind they ought never become more than a means and never the and itself.

Mine is the life of the damned, the life of the miserable, lonely, unhappy, unfulfilled, discontent, disquieted, abandoned, the life of the damned.

I am alone.

How I got here may some day be a lesson to others how not to live. But really, what did I do so wrong that would engender such misery? Am I really as bad, repugnant, despicable, and without redemption that I deserve such punishment? If not, then how did I really get here?

What did I really do to get here?

Where is here? Here is lonely, alone, unhappy, single, nearly friendless, neglected, forgotten, bitter, and, once more, damned.

If I don't self-implode of my own doing it will be due only to the elusive grace of God.

Happiness is elusive. So is lasting peace. So are true friends, caring friends, unconditional friends. Do they exist? It's doubtful.

Where can I turn for peace?

If the time should come that I can think about dating again, I'll have a fundamental problem to overcome: the plague. Yes, I have the plague or something equivalent to it that makes the softer sex run away, screaming for life. I can recall at least four instances of such terror-runnings over the past twelve months.

The cause of this fundamental and monumental problem is both obvious and murky to me. Obvious because I can hear a professional making the cause and effect link after suffering through an hour of listening to my sad tale; murky because I just don't' get why behavior A leads to outcome B. Thus I flounder and fight the tide that would bring me home to the sheltered harbor I dream will protect me from the frequent, sudden, violent storms I new endure.

Dating then is a distant, sometimes pleasant, often forgettable, memory, not a present hope. And my pain grows.

When it comes to interacting with others, I know I can be an ass. I know that even as I try to avoid this tendency, as I try to be a nice person, people tend to think of me with ill regard. I don't mean kind, charitable people; rather, I mean worldly, do-it-on-your-own people, the types who are subject to their daily changing personal whims.

This all flies in the face of the kind of persona I try and think I exude. In spite of my easily offended nature, I think of myself in terms of being a thoughtful, considerate, jovial person. I go out of my way to offer the types of common courtesies to my coworkers I hope they'll offer in return. I am more patient and forgiving than most. I almost daily seek to initiate conversations and interactions that will promote and build on common ground.

So I take severe exception to people who appear to take long-term offense to me or my behavior. I cannot help but take it personally, deeply personally, when others shut themselves off to me under the guise that I am impossible to work with, especially when they do so without so much as attempting to seek a common ground or understanding themselves.

Of course this rant all has relevant context. Excluding the drama of my problems with C. some months back and dismissing the ongoing but (I hope) improving problems with the K.T., I feel embroiled in yet another growing misunderstanding between S. and myself, which would be bad enough by itself but it's spreading to the reasonable, stable half of that partnership, G.

And I'm faced with the same problem I always encounter in such situations: should I act and proceed as though I don't care, that it doesn't bother me, and as if I'm completely ignorant of the change in the other person's behavior or should I instead confront the problem and, in this instance, the dreary, tedious, dull, reactionary, contrary, small-minded, frumpy, borish perpetrator of said problem?

If it's possible to feel worse about myself, I'm sure I'll discover it. I don't just feel physically fat, I feel obese in all my other selves: emotionally, spiritually, and more selves I can't think of.

Why did I allow myself to be led down this path of misery and loneliness? Why did I slumber? Why did I permit so many powerful opportunities to go unrealized? Why do I yet go down this path?

Was I really so lazy, incompetent, and/or stupid to think I could procrastinate my salvation 'til the time felt right? I think that's it: in the end, I was just stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Yet I still go down this path. Sometimes I even run. Do I sprint? I've been a f*** little s***, haven't I? Who else has squandered so many rich blessings? I have spent them all, like so much expendable capital thinking (rather not thinking) there wouldn't be an end to them. What an idiotic thing to do. What a childish, stupid thing to do.

Yet I still go down this path. I curse the lost things, the vanished chances. I curse the day I set foot on this path. I recall it too well. F*** that day.

Yet, I still go down this path. The kind people, the chances to grow and advance, the chances to serve and love and show charity - I spit on them all. I reject them, squander them, spend them, all to save myself the inconvenience of leaving this path, this path with the all-too-well-worn rut, and striking out into the unknown.

The unknown. I'm such the adventurer, right? Then why this 10+ year reluctance to take on the most eternal of challenges, this life altering (if by God's grace I could get it to work) self-peace process?

I live in self-imposed, solitary confinement, in the midst of a sea of people. When I muster the desire or the courage or the stupidity (no hard task) to venture out to interact with others, the smallest infraction is all it takes for me to give up. Were anyone to accuse me of not trying hard enough they would be right - though it feels I've become raw from trying. Remaining open and vulnerable in spite of the harshness of human(not-so)kind - what could possibly be harder? I'm damned, aren't I?

Ugh, just move on.