I am engaged in a constant and often vicious battle against nature itself. Specifically, against entropy and inertia. Entropy in the classroom—everything always seems to be coming apart, mixing together in a chaotic mess (sometimes with the help of my students, all of whom were born in barns, I fear), thus requiring extensive organizing on my part, only to fall apart again. The desks are always crooked and dirty; my desk is always piled with miscellaneous papers, colored pencil stubs, alphabet letters, and all manner of props; my thoughts are always scattered everywhere…It’s a never-ending battle for an organizational freak like me.
And inertia in everyday life—my first impulse is always to do the easy thing, to rest, to be lazy, to stay home, and I must fight it. I did not come to Korea to sit in my room in the countryside all the time. I usually accomplish this by placing myself in situations in which I have no choice but to be active, like continuing on a hiking loop in which I will most likely get lost, etc. These battles against classroom entropy and small-town inertia occupy an embarrassingly large portion of my time.
Today, for instance, I talked myself out of a day trip (I had the day off for “Sports Day”) with the excuse of illness. I actually have been a little sick and I am concerned that my health could interfere with my upcoming plans. Now that I have time to baby myself, I take shameful advantage of it. I did get a lot of reading and relaxing done and it was a nice day after all. But I probably didn’t need to stay in the house the entire day. Especially since it was Day 7 since I last showered and I was out of shampoo (laziness/the environmental instinct compelled me to add water to the bottle and wash with that. It was surprisingly effective, even with all the grease!). So as it was getting on evening, I took a little walk to my new favorite place in Hongsan-myeon, which also happens to be the second-highest “mountain” in the area. It’s awesome—a short but strenuous climb over huge rocks, where you can get a fabulous view of the surrounding area since the usual obstructing trees can’t grow there. It was only the second time I climbed here and I love it. I need to come more often. Also, I was able to see where I went wrong in my walk on Tuesday, trying to find Geumji-sa. You can see so much up high…I love it.
My middle-aged hiking friend keeps texting me. We made plans to hike on Sunday and I am trying to decide if he is merely being very Korean or is actually creepy. Cultural differences always make it so hard to tell. Well, I could still probably take him in a fight.
9 days to Taiwan!!!