Oh, what a week this has been already, after two days back. I am really looking forward to my vacation with my dad—though I did get a day off for the conference, since I spent two and a half out of three days traveling, it wasn’t very restful. I am having trouble readjusting.
On Friday afternoon, before my journey began, I had a TKD test—the fourth form—which I passed, of course. Contrary to what I expected in the beginning, when I struggled with foot position alone, the forms are becoming easier now that I am used to the style employed. In fact, on Thursday afternoon alone I learned the fifth form, even though I will not be tested on it until the end of April! I believe I will be a blue belt at that point, but I’m not sure. TKD is going relatively well. I can’t say that I enjoy my fellow students in the 4:00 class quite as much as I did those in the 6:00, but the time works so much better with my schedule that I won’t even think about switching back. The one day a week I have to do the 6:00 class is torture of sorts now, anyway…it’s draining for this old lady to be away from home until so late, especially now that I’m getting up so early. Most of the kids in my new class go to Oksan Elementary School, so I don’t really know them well yet. They are friendly, though, and funny in their own way.
After my test, I ducked out early to meet my co-teacher, Kyoung Hee Sam, and the fifth grade teacher, so they could take me to Buyeo’s bus terminal. Unfortunately, I missed one bus to Seoul by four minutes. In fact, I probably would have been able to catch it, but I made a mistake somewhere in calculating the forty-minute intervals between buses. I thought the next one would be at 5:40, not 5:20. I had to wait, and then traffic was absolutely horrendous. The journey usually takes me two hours, but this time it was three. So there I was, stranded in southern Seoul, hungry, irritable, tired, and sick. I didn’t want to attend the conference anyway, so all these obstacles in my path did nothing to improve my attitude toward the reunion. I mean, I was embarking on a day-long journey both ways for a “conference” that would last only six hours, rendering it essentially useless, but would somehow leave me pretty much no time to see the place I had traveled so long to reach. Also, I have an attitude about reunions and I avoid them at all costs. My senior year at Pomona, I adopted disguises and a brisk walk to avoid “catchup” conversations with all my friends. I absolutely loathe these trite discussions, involving the same questions and answers over and over. My feeling is that if you are REALLY friends, you would have kept in touch anyway, so what’s the point in discussing your most recent vacation and future plans with someone who’s clearly not your friend? But then again, even though I hate such encounters in principle, once I am immersed in such an atmosphere, I do all right and even enjoy hearing about others’ trips to Cambodia, for example, and job prospects after Fulbright (as long as it doesn’t involve consulting J).
Back to tired, hungry, angry Jen. I met with my friend Paul there and we went out to dinner. He’s the one I met last October at the Halloween party. We’ve kept in touch since and I’ve seen him the few times I’ve been to Seoul, too. We have some similar interests—namely, hip hop and good books and Korea and Cape Town and social activism—so we get along pretty well. However, I feel like I’ve been in a bad mood the last few times we’ve met, which is potentially problematic because we really don’t see each other that much and our friendship doesn’t have a strong foundation to draw upon. I do have some of his books hostage, though, so I suppose there will be at least one more chance to redeem myself. He took me to a good tofu restaurant and I ate until I was literally stuffed and slightly more cheerful. Then I had to head the hour across town to my regular hotel. They unkindly overcharged me, but it was after midnight and raining, so I really didn’t have room to complain.
I woke up early and headed to the airport. I was under the assumption it was an hour later than it actually was, but then once I was on my way, I figured it would be just as nice to sit in an airport coffee shop as one elsewhere, like I’d been planning. Little did I know I would be there for the next SEVEN HOURS. I had little to no information at the time—the only announcements made in English were those telling us flights were canceled, even though this information was posted on digital signs everywhere in the airport—but I learned later that the cancellations were due to the weather. It was drizzling. Keep in mind that Korea is absolutely drenched with continuous downpour for six straight weeks. How is it possible that the airport could be closed in this mild weather and still operate at any time in the summer? I am still confused about this. Contrary to all expectations and logic, though, flights were canceled a good part of the day, and when they did begin to run again, no one was kind enough to inform me. I had to resort to harassing ticket agents for information because they were only calling standby numbers in Korean (apparently—I could hardly even understand the English coming from the loudspeakers, let alone the Korean!) They kept trying to redirect me to the standby ticket counter, where a noisy angry crowd had gathered to yell at an agent who ignored them and worked on his computer. Yes, Korean Airlines staff are exceedingly helpful. Just when I was about to give up and go home (remember, I didn’t want to go, anyway), they booked me a seat on my last try at the ticket counter. I didn’t get to the hotel until 6 pm, thereby missing the entire first day of the conference. So now I was down to three hours of actual conference, rendering the trip even less fruitful than I had thought it would be.
I was in a foul mood that entire day. I wrote quite a bit in my journal, but I fear it is not fit for any eyes but my own. Bianca said I looked ready to explode with rage. I’ve always suspected my face is easy to read, and she confirmed it, saying that if at any point in my life someone pretends to not know how I feel, it’s an outrageous lie. I’m surprised ANYBODY approached me at dinner. The dinner which featured 95% meat, on top of everything else. I ate pumpkin soup and bread and brooded.
By that night, with the help of a walk with Bianca, I was in better spirits and at least made the rounds of hotel rooms with B and Nika (my roommates) to chat to all our friends. For some overtly sexist reason, the hotel had prepared the rooms along gender lines, so while we were squished into a room that barely fit our beds, all the boys were in spacious suites where not only was the bedroom twice the size of the girls’ entire suite, but there was an even bigger adjacent entertaining room. It was nice for visiting purpose, but why the discrimination? It really bothered me and I cannot come up with one reason why the rooms would have been prepared this way. I’m told that’s how it was last year, too. Outrageous.
On Sunday, I finally attended the conference. We elementary ETAs were sequestered, as usual, and assigned the task of rewriting Orientation booklets for the incoming elementary ETAs. I will probably curse the workload later and do a much worse job on it than I would like, but I feel I owe it to those who will take my place to at least leave them with the little wisdom I’ve gleaned from this year. That way, they can at least start where I am and hopefully progress further. I know I would have appreciated far more assistance from Fulbright than I actually received, mostly in the realm of teaching. I was not prepared at all for creating and executing meaningful and enjoyable English lessons for two hundred easily excitable children. I still am not very good at it, but I have at least a few helpful hints for the brave souls who take on Korea’s youngest generation. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to teaching to those who can actually understand more than one word I say.
I never thought this would happen before, but at the moment, I am sick of kids. It’s all I can do to pretend to smile when I see them and I become irritated much of the time when they bother me outside of class. I used to always have a smile and a little time for kids…where is this hardened heart coming from? Have I lost my touch and my patience? Is it just the language thing, or would this happen if I were working with English-speaking kids, too? Even when I worked daycare and was surrounded by biters for nine hours a day, I managed to safeguard my love for the kids. Now, it is running short and it makes it hard to care about my teaching at all. Today I found that I was just trying to get through the required time and I realized I didn’t really care about the material or whether the kids understood or enjoyed it. This is NOT a good development. I suppose it is time for me to take some time off. Even taking my own feelings out of account, I don’t think I could stay here another year, if only because I think it would be a disservice to the kids to retain a teacher who at the moment, can hardly stand them. Seriously, even my cute little girls…I run away from them. What is wrong with me?
Back to Jeju…I forgot to mention that as a wonderful topper to the weekend, it was cloudy, rainy, and miserable the whole time. On Sunday afternoon, a group of us braved the weather to do some sightseeing around Seogwipo, the city we were staying in. We saw a couple waterfalls and walked to an island that becomes connected to the mainland at low tide. Pretty cool…I finally realized my dream of parting the sea! I want to go to a festival in a couple weeks which celebrates a similar event, but with a much larger island that is farther away from the mainland—a kilometer or so, I believe. It only happens a couple times a year. I am not sure if I will make it there, though.
Sunday night, we stayed in again and wandered from room to room. I stayed up much later than someone with overwhelming ear and nasal pain should, but I did enjoy talking to some of my friends.
On Monday, everyone began leaving. I took a long walk in the morning and then hopped on the shuttle bus at noon. I flew out at 3:30, arrived in Seoul at 4:30, took the subway across town (an hour and forty minutes!), and managed to catch the last bus to Buyeo. I was anxious the whole ride, thinking (hoping!) I would miss it, but luck (or something) was with me. I didn’t get home until 9:40.
I wish I had been able to enjoy Jeju while I was there, but with the rain and the short short trip, it was just not possible. Now I will have to go back. I have Hallasan to climb, beaches to see, oranges to eat….Jeju for a day is just a tease! It’s a little strange to think that’s our last official time together, but we all have at least three more months here, so I think (hope) that I will see all my friends at least once more. Even though the days seemingly creep by here in Hongsan, my time in Korea is rapidly coming to a close. It’s hard to believe I graduated nearly a year ago already…where DID all the time go? All I have to show for it is a gaping hole where my patience used to lie and a stone heart. Little rascally children are always stealing everything.