Belated Blogiversary: Slurring Toward Epiphany

November has done away with itself quickly despite having had an abundance of long days, probably aided by an absence of any typical Thanksgiving to observe and a slew of post-op hours spent waiting for the pain to pass, eyes closed and mind wildly unfocused. Posting anything on the blogiversary proper was impossible as sensitivity to any light source, be it computer screen or morning sun filtered red through clenched eyelids, felt like what I imagine is the reason we warn children not to look directly at an eclipse. Adam lovingly played guide-dog through the weekend, alternately spoon-feeding me limited distractions and finding amusement in my inability to be still (I am a restless patient who is anything but).

I'm still relearning to see, still adjusting to a different blur with the eventual promise of clarity. Much like waiting for a drunken story to slur its way toward epiphany, I hold out for a resolution of keener sight in a sharper world. In a matter of frenzied weeks, our last travels from Seoul begin with New Year's in Cambodia. I'll be meeting the sunrise over Angkor Wat with eager eyes and ready heart, and such a sight is well worth this wait.

Kind of a Big Deal

Things have been happening since April.

I flew back to the U.S. for a short visit, which was filled with family, friends, forced cat cuddles, rehearsed answers to inevitable questions, hectic running of errands, walking in good weather and good company, and a LOT of good food. I felt a little out of place and as if the time was spent in a vacuum of premature nostaligia, but it satisfied a need for the familiar and it satiated a craving for the trappings of "home" a little while longer.

I started wearing jean shorts again for the first time since my early teenage years, body image be damned. My legs, like the rest of me, aren't getting any younger, and if I can't bear to bare my skin now, then when? I'm trying to pay less mind to the matters of thighs and the blues and purples of veins whispering through thin skin.

I've had my first patbingsu of the summer, the cold, sweet clarion call of the season.

Most importantly, I've made a decision. It's kind of a big deal, and it affects quite a lot. After much research, deliberation, and support from Adam and my supervisor/mentor at work: I've been accepted to a teaching certification program, and next month, I begin the first course. It's a big commitment on top of my current teaching schedule over here, but it's also a big step toward a future I really want. Doing this requires a certain sacrifice and a little change of immediate plans, but if all the logistics work out according to plan, I'll be a certified teacher by 2016.

So things are happening, and I'm excited. Here goes nothing, and everything.

Try Not to Blink

Most posts like these hover closer to the turn of the calendar: heralding a New Year, pondering all it may portend while probing the experiences of the one so freshly left behind. Accomplishments are crowed and hopes are cooed, bearing the standards of our midwinter rebirths. The good is grasped tightly in writing so any bad beyond the horizon can't blot it out entirely when the world feels darker and colder. This post attempts these things, of course; however, it requires that I slide the scale a bit. My last and coming year are not framed by the beginnings of Januarys, but the ends. January 25 marks our anniversary of living in Seoul, where we've just signed on for another contract to end February, 2015. My year is therefore slightly shifted from the usual count, and my reflections are skewed accordingly.

'Expect the unexpected' is a trope of the traveler, and, as expected, the past year it has proven it true enough.

I've learned a new language - not enough to hold a conversation, but enough to form grammatically-correct sentences with a little struggle, and more than enough to survive. I learned to read and write a new alphabet in less than a week. I can navigate the subway and direct a taxi with the basics. I can peruse a menu and order the usuals, and while my vocabulary may not always suffice, I can at least amuse those patient enough with a decent accent.

I've tried to embrace the cultures that have welcomed me as a guest, even if there are times I've wanted to fold my arms and click my heels on the off-chance such a transplant doesn't require a tornado and a head wound.

I've visited three countries outside of Korea, four if you count a few steps beyond an invisible line into the negotiating territory of North Korea. Malaysia, Japan, and the Philippines have shown me glimpses of worlds to which I'd never previously given much thought beyond romanticized stories or fingers tracing a map. I've stared like a child at whale sharks and guarded my belongings from unscrupulous monkeys. I've sipped soju on rooftops and tasted corner store sake on my boyfriend's lips. I played darts with an audience of chirping geckos and learned how to shuffle cards like an adult. I've wandered through painted palaces built, burned, and rebuilt over thousands of lifetimes before mine, and I've spent several cumulative hours looking for a place to pee. I've collected prayer beads from cool-tiled mosques, shrines in caves, and temples on the edge of the sea. I've retraced countless steps and found my way before I even realized I was lost. I've confirmed an uncanny ability to know my way around by recognition of subtle landmarks, and I've thanked God for Adam's sense of direction in the face of my hopelessness (without a handy compass or the convenience of tree moss, I've accepted that I will never have those bearings - seriously, where the hell is North?).

My ability to endure spicy foods has grown to a point at which I am not filled with dread to try a bite of something new (and instead, every so often, I'm filled only with mild regret and temporary pain). I saw Basquiat's art and remembered to try to make some of my own, too. I nursed bruises and scrapes from a Spartan Race and hunted mosquitoes with vengeance. I explored with my parents when they came for a surreal visit. I climbed a mountain with terrifying, humbling views, afraid to reach the top, but more afraid not to. I was caught by the monsoon in the park when we lingered too long for the summer sun's liking. I cried under cherry blossoms and laughed in the glow of thousands of lanterns floating through crowded streets. I played in the mud, sang in sweaty bars, and fed neighborhood alley cats in the rain.

I've fallen in love with teaching and had my heart repeatedly broken by dozens of unfairly-adorable 6-year-olds. I encouraged sarcasm in a couple third graders, fanned infant flames of feminism in a few others, and asked "Why?" a million times.

I've forged new friendships while aching for the ones on the other side of the world. I've seized opportunities across oceans while missing milestones at home - weddings of dear friends, the birth of my nephew, my cat learning patience - and knowing there will be more. Technology helps to soothe the pangs of these particular casualties of my time here, but sometimes the sense of removal is strong and homesickness flairs when I can only celebrate these occasions via Skype. I also feel these things knowing that one day, I will feel the same for my life in Seoul. There is a certain peril with this brand of adventure: the heart-seam-ripping feeling of longing for home and longing for hazard abroad, as if one can be ignored or made dormant while the other is satisfied. This longing exists, dully, just under my ribs, with semi-frequent  bouts of acute immediacy. It has taught me that Home is not where, but with whom (which seems to make things infinitely more difficult), and it spurs a selfish desire to transplant everyone I love to wherever I happen to be.

I've been reminded over and over again of my luck, that I get to share all of this with someone I love in ways I never knew possible. He has taught me more about living - and about myself - than I'm sure he ever intended. I couldn't ask for a better partner (or a better travel buddy, to boot). I wouldn't be where I am without him, physically and otherwise, and I'm excited for our next year together, and the year after, and the years after that.

I've felt unsure more times than I thought tolerable. There were stretches when depression stole the throne, as it does from time to time. I've known discomfort as a constant shadow, and I've let fear drive discovery.

I've been happy.

Altogether, 2013 delivered more than I could have imagined; I'm sure this year has much more in store. I'll look forward to good things - expected and unexpected - and try not to blink.

The oldest and wisest we've ever been

A nearly 2-month-long inability to write anything decent - or even coherent - for this space is ridiculous. My thoughts have been weak and my attempts to write them weaker. So, allow me to lift something I wrote elsewhere, tweak it a bit, and lazily deposit it here (self-plagiarism is all the rage):

Today, at 26, I am in a place - literally and metaphorically - I never planned for, even as little as 2 years ago. Right now, I'm working on that whole being-in-my-twenties thing by living life as I can. Some days, it's an adventure of exhilarating reaffirmation that I exist, and other days it's the kind of soul-rending, mind-enfeebling, heart-crippling "What Am I Doing With This Life" wandering that - obviously, and appropriately - plagues all twenty-somethings. I think we sometimes feel like we've reached a point at which we believe we know what we're doing (or believe we should) because - quite simply - each new day, we're the oldest and wisest we've ever been. We have only hindsight to teach us and hope to guide us. We are careful to keep old wounds closed and learn to analyze the scars, pouring over the lines as if they will map out the future. I expect this is a notion that can carry us well into our old age, right up until death, when all our oldest, wisest-ness will be just a comfort, if we're lucky. Maybe we should take comfort now in knowing what we can, feeling what we do, and putting the pieces together as we find them.

Today, you are your oldest and wisest. Let's all have a drink and take it a day at a time, because our days are quick to build the lifetimes we may never see coming.

The Foreign Becomes Familiar

Now that we're comfortably settling into our lives in Korea, there are quite a lot of things I've learned - at least, as much as you can learn in nearly 3 months. Korea is a beautiful country with exquisite palaces, breathtaking mountains, and endless opportunities in urban discovery; every weekend is filled with as much exploration as we can pack in. As with everything, there is a balance of good and not-so-good, and some lessons weigh heavier in my mind than others. Through it all - and it is all so much - sometimes it is enough to just keep my head above water and finally make time to write. To complement my often-fragmented thoughts of late, here is a fragmented list of 10 things I've learned, through teaching, traveling, or just living:

1. The Seoul subway is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite form of transportation. Depending on the time of day, it is either a smooth, quick, and efficient way from here to there or a harried, nauseating meat-packing facility on rails straight out of a claustrophobic's nightmare.

2. Skype is made of magic.

3. I will never be able to speak Korean nearly as well as my 6-year-old students can speak English. It is mind-blowing to think that my classroom of Kindergartners are speaking and writing complete sentences in a second language when Kindergartners in the U.S. are barely writing their own names in their native tongue. This speaks volumes about America's educational deficit on a global scale. However, American students have a childhood in which they can play outside after school and spend time just being a kid. Creativity is fostered there, but here, creativity is frowned upon as frivolous. Korean children are instead shuttled from school to school, from academy to activity, from the time they are old enough to hold a pencil, and play is a luxury. As far advanced as my kiddos may be academically, their adult-like schedules rarely allow unadulterated time for childhood. Both systems sacrifice something, but in my eyes, I'd rather my child have the ability to balance academics with getting to be a child.

4. To force myself past the Ick. While the majority of my Kindergartners are heart-wrenchingly adorable and achingly sweet, it doesn't make up for the fact that their bodily fluids occur at times and in places you wouldn't expect, and this is made worse by the kids' inability to keep their hands (and mouths) to themselves. I even concocted "Touchy" the Alligator, a visually-reminding friend I drew on the board with a big toothy grin. Each time I saw/received inappropriate touching, I erased one of Touchy's teeth. This character has evolved into a tiger who loses his stripes, mostly because I got tired of drawing an alligator and I prefer the alliterative aspect. Now, if the touch is accidental (like a kiddo wanting a hug and his or her hand inadvertently lands on a boob), I'm not going to promote body shame; I simply move the hand away without a reaction. However, when a kid grabs my hand and puts it in his mouth, or a girl comes up behind me to squeeze my ass, giggling, or a particularly snotty child wipes her nose before grabbing my hair for a yank, I calmly explain why we don't touch that way while gagging or screaming "Why?!" inside. This system has lessened the amount of snot and saliva I encounter on a daily basis, but that still hasn't stopped the putrid parade in its tracks. I'm still figuring out the best self-therapy to deal with the most recent incident in which I thought one of my Kindergarten boys was approaching me to sit on my lap, only to start rubbing his junk on my knee. I am coming to terms with the fact that I may never recover and will just physically recoil whenever the memory resurfaces.

5. When you eat nearly all of your meals with chopsticks, a fork can feel surprisingly heavy and unwieldy. How quickly the foreign becomes familiar.

6. Not to compare myself to the typical Korean woman. While I am by no means overweight, I do not have legs like a deer stretched on the rack, nor a waist appearing to be sucked in by forces akin to a black hole, nor wrists delicate enough to snap under the pressure of a firm handshake. As much as the American social conscious is preoccupied with image and struggles to deal with the omnipresent, media-fueled pressure to attain an idealized, packaged beauty, Korea seems to transcend such consciousness into virtual obsession. It's inescapable: I can't go one subway stop without seeing an advertisement for plastic surgery in which the (perfectly lovely) Before is transformed into an altogether unrecognizable After with features verging on the cartoonish - any "flaws" have been molded into an acceptably narrow jawline, exaggeratedly rounded eye shape, or tucked-away ear placement deemed pretty by social standards. All personality and traces of real life are erased and and replaced by blank, uniform "beauty." Worse, it starts  young - I have been told by more than one 6-year-old that she is not pretty because her eyes are small and that she doesn't like sweets because they will make her fat. Six years old. My heart breaks when a child can't enjoy a piece of candy because it has been laced with fear and shame. It devastates me even further when they tell me I am beautiful or have pretty hair, because in race toward "pretty," they see Western traits as something to achieve rather than celebrating themselves as they are. Why are these 6-year-olds even aware of this pressure to be thin and have uniform faces to be... successful? Attractive? Worth love? In a related vein, the fact that I even have an ass at all is probably going to be a problem when it comes time to shop for pants.

7. I am not and probably never will be okay with the smell of silkworm chrysalis sizzling away on a street vendor's griddle. I love so much about experiencing new cultures and the accompanying foods, and I never want to be that person who gags at another culture's common snack, but the clouds of steam billowing from cooking worm pupa just reek of death and dishwater. I'm really sorry, guys. Gross.

8. Cherry blossoms. I get it now. The yearly frenzy over the trees is totally justified, and I will do my best to explain in a post next week.

9. If I start thinking about space, I can and will spiral into an existential depression. (Okay, this one isn't entirely new, but I relearned it.) The parameters of the human brain can only handle so much, and my mind especially cannot emotionally handle such functions like entertaining ideas about the universe, real or theoretical, because: What lies beyond the edge of the universe? There has to be something, right? How can nothingness exist? Oh my god, what is really going on inside that nebula the size of 15 Earths stacked on top of each other and black holes are what?! I can barely handle philosophies about existence on THIS planet, much less a whole universe, because I will never stop thinking about them and will eventually lose my mind when answers run out. Case in point: Adam recently showed me the Planck mission's map of the universe, charting the lights and limits of space, and I nearly imploded.

10. A job can be both stressful and satisfying. My days are long, requiring diligence and mindful dedication. You cannot mindlessly pass your workday when you are helming consecutive classroom hours of Kindergartners, second-graders, and third-graders until 7:30pm three days of the week, then grading and developing lesson plans until 5pm after morning Kindergarten on my 2 "short" days. You must be vigilantly adaptable, always engaged, and constantly thinking ahead.

BUT.

I see the difference I and my fellow teachers make every day. I work with people who genuinely care about what they do and about each other. My students actually WANT to learn, and (for the most part) like to listen to what I have to teach them - even when my sarcasm takes over. I was tapped to provide sketches for a new grammar textbook developing in Adam's research and development department, and when it is printed, I will have a credit as a published illustrator. For all my teaching, I am always learning. I have access to free Korean food for lunch and dinner if I want it. My demanding schedule and extraneous duties are compensated for with a rent-free apartment and a generous paycheck, and I'm watching my savings steadily swell. And when I am crying with co-workers over devastating news from home displaying the worst depths of humanity and have no idea how I am going to smile for my Kindergartners, I can walk into a classroom that evil has left untouched and all it takes is a hug from one of my kiddos as I sing them their favorite Muppets song to remind me of the overwhelming goodness that exists to mend shattered hearts.