I feel the need to add some things to this blog. I feel like this is a rant/vent/life lesson that I've revealed in various snippets on other communication accounts, but I feel like I need to say some things.
First, a quote by one of my favorite authors to set the stage:
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut.
It has come to my attention that I have not been following that sage advice. I realize that it's very difficult to sum up all of my adventures in a weekly blog post, but I want to clarify something to everyone and myself.
I am so incredibly happy here in Seoul.
Yes, some days suck. Yes, I wish my Korean was better or that I had studied more before I came, or I wish I had prepared more for my winter camp, and I wish a million billion gazillion different things.
Most of my friends here are in their second year, so it's great to be around them but also hard because they aren't going through the same things that I am. Also I saw Tina's experience from afar, so I had a lot of expectations coming into this thing. It's hard to be surrounded by people who are telling you everything will be fine because they already did it while you're just experiencing everything for the first time.
Sunday nights are always hard because I have to leave my English bubble of friends and go back to work and reality. The weekends are always full of fantastical events and things. So I get a little down, and I feel like it's filtered into these posts.
I am also trying to unlearn a lot of bad habits I picked up in graduate school. When I was still doing my Master's program, I would have full-on panic attacks if I tried to watch and entire 45 minute episode of TV because I had a million other things I should have been doing. Even my best work was scrutinized and critiqued to the point where I fluctuated between "I'm awesome look at how much hard work I did" to "Everyone will hate this and I'm worthless." I had a lot of trust issues because of some falling out with friends. Anxiety issues that had been really small suddenly became really prominent.
It was exhausting.
Obviously, my remedy of moving to the other side of the world to a country and culture so very different from my own was not going to be a quick-fix.
I'm only just getting better at relaxing. My school schedule is a little hectic, but I am finally adjusting to my crazy schedule and having (amazing, wonderful, sweet, kind, generous, awesome) coteachers. teaching elementary kids for the first time, learning another new language that uses a completely different alphabet and system, paying back loans and managing monthly paychecks, and still finding time to do fun things and see new places.
It took me a little longer than other people to adjust. And that's okay. I realize that now.
Don't read this blog and assume it's the whole story. I can't tell you all the wonderful things that happen on a day to day basis (like when I shocked my kids today by being able to say time in Korean, which I just learned in class yesterday) and I can't tell you all of the lows either (I lost one of my cute masks that I sometimes wear when I walk to school).
I blog for my family and readers, but I also blog for myself too. As such, please read this with the thought that I am my audience too. When I want to remember my time in Korea, I want to have a nice record of the things I did here. And I think it's easy to just romanticize everything and act like life isn't hard here. I want to remember the things I experienced here, and that includes both the amazing and terrible.
My experience here is more than a weekly blog post. It's more than an hour-long skype call every few months (or week or year or whatever). It's more than the facebook statuses. It's too easy to be caught up in the high highs and low lows and take those for the be-all end-all and not to see the whole picture that I'm experiencing here.
So when I seem really happy, be happy with me. And remember that I probably also almost got hit by a crazy driver on a motorcycle on the sidewalk, or I missed the bus and had to wait 25 minutes in the cold to get to Tina's apartment, or I got surprised with a lesson I hadn't planned for. But I got through it. Sometimes barely, sometimes spectacularly.
But when I seem really anxious or sad let me feel those things for a little bit, but then remind me that I've only been learning Korean for 2 months so it's okay if I mess up. And remember that I've seen Super Junior twice (and found my first group to obsessively fangirl over), and Korean music makes me deliriously happy even though I don't understand it, and the dramas have silly plots and devices but I'll enjoy them all the same. And remember that the stars aligned to give me not only an awesome coteacher, but a really great friend to have here in Korea, and that the principal told me that everyone in the school likes me and is happy I came to Korea. And remember that I get to share all of this with the most incredible person I know, and that I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
So, "I urge you to please notice when you are happy," and remember that I am too.
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