Oh Good Lord! It`s already the nearing the end of November and I find the time passing a lot more quickly than I would have expected. The past coupple of weeks have produced some interesting developments. I`m really glad that I`ve gotten myself involved with the seoul artists collective. After our group meeting, I imediately sensed that I had found a group of individuals who were like minded and had similar ambitions towards their art as me. It`s alwayns nice to find other people who take their work seriously. Exhibiting here will be really great for my CV as well as my confidence I think. I think it will also be good for my psyche because since I`ve been working on my piece over the past coupple of weeks, I`ve felt my mood distinctly shift. I don`t know how to describe it other than I feel I`m being useful or putting my time to good use by being buisy making my art in the evenings. No longer am I feeling bad about being at home rather than getting out every night because I`m at home working on my art. The additional instigation of a fast approaching due date has left me feeling like I`m back in my Studio Arts days where getting the work done and working until it was done for the critique was a way of life. I like the pressure of preparing work for a due date and knowing that what I make will be seen by others. I just hope it works out. The idea with this project is that I`m making a comment on how my understanding and the memories that i have made in Korea have been shaped by my identity as a Canadian. I bring my identity, my education and everything that is entailed along with me whereever I go. I`m playing with photcoppy transfers and photo collage. I like the idea of integrating the text from travel journals with the photos I have taken when visiting these tourist destinations. The personal meets the impersonal. It`s taking on more of an installation quality than I originally expected,and although i have a theme I`m working with, It feels quite liberating to be able to get away from art making on a strictly academic level. I don`t need to justify it as much and i find that I am taking more risks with form and media than I have in the past. There`s also the fact that I can`t really work with my chosen media (oils) while I`m here..... not in my appartment anyway. Anywho, The deadline is just over a week away and I have to admit I`m beginning to feel the pressure a little bit. It will just have to get done and that`s that.
School has been ok. I have been putting in more effort into developing lessons that follow the book but also are a bit more entertaining and enthuse the kids a bit more. Especially the grade 6s. They need to be pulled up by their boot straps. In certain instances Iève startd modifying the book by just skipping the most lame parts, but then my co-teacher brings me back to earth reminding me that I have to cover this material as some parents might ask the kids why they have not filled out allllll the sections of their book and complain to the school about it. ARGH! So creativity is limited, but I havenèt quite given up, yet. My school life is not quite as exciting as I had hoped it might be, but the women are really lovely and Seung Eun and I have been becoming better friends. Two of the ladies in my office are very newly pregnant, so that will be very interesting to watch develop over the coming months. I'm still slightly shocked by the state of womens rights and social expectations towards women here. Being beautiful, Getting married and having a baby still seems to be the golden standard. Maybe I'm fooling myself to believe that it isn't still like this everywhere, but maybe it's more hidden in other parts of the westen world than it is here. Today for example i had said that I wanted to go back on the pill because it had regulated my skin, weight and cycles and they kinda flipped out and were telling me the most rediculous nonsense about myths surrounding birth control and things like tampons and alternatinve methods of womanly care. It moments like this when I feel how open and free we are in Canada. When grown women scream and blush and shy away from the concept of using a tampon because they might have to touch themselves in such primitive parts kinda shock me and freeks me out....... What? The cultural sensitivity kinda trips me out.
I had a serious talk with my co-teachers and my head teacher about the possibility of moving closer to downtown. I mean I don't want to complain, but i really think it was shitty of my school to put me in an appartment so god damn far away from everything and everyone. I'm not complaining about the commute to school. Half an hour is a perfectly reasonable commute, what is unreasonable is the fact that it's half an hour further away from downtown from my already far away school!!!!!!!! If I had to commute even 40 minutes to school from closer to down town it would be fine to me! I wouldn't complain, but at the end of all this it appears that the school has locked me into a 1 year lease in a bad appartment in a dessolate part of town. No one will come and visite me and it really limits my options for going out on weeknights when I know it's going to take me 1 1/2 hours to get there and get back. So after much discussion and parusal of the contract my head teacher informed me that I WOULD be able to move if I absolutely insisted on it, but I had rather not because it will be a very loooong, difficult and exprensive process for me. I will have to pay KRW 300,000.00 roughly CAN$300.00 to my landlord for breaking my contract and requesting alease transfer. Then I will have to find an appartment that will rent me a room without a deposit on a 1 year contract and since I'm only here for 9 more months I'll have to break my contract agin when I leave. In the event that I can actually find an appartment near a subway that will rent to me I will then have to pay them KRW 300,000.00 for another lease transfer form and on top of all that i will have to pay an exorbitant sum of money to have movers move all of the crappy furniture my school bought me from one appartment to the other. Altogehter, shitty and unreasonable, but I would like my school to realise that they put me in a living situation which has made my life that much more difficult and lonely here. Yes, may of them live even further in the sticks than i do, but they also live ther with their families, boyfriends, wives or husbands etc... But I will just have to pretend that I'm one of the West Island kids who go into town on the weekends to party hardy and have to wait till the next morning to take the commuter trains back home. Every outting will have to be planned and scheduled in accordance with train schedules and reasonable amounts of travel time. FRIG!!!!!
Despite all this bullshit I have been making a point to get out and meet new peeps as much as possible. I also joined a Korean Court Culture Class at the Royal National museum at Gyeongbokgung Palace. It has ben really fun and surprisingly hands on. Alice, Jeanie and a coupple other SMOE teachers are also attending, so it has almost become a weekly outing for us the past coupple of weeks. so far we have learnt how to make soap in the form of certain important artifacts... we learned how to write our names on traditional papper with ink and brush (and we got to use the kings' official seal as well), and this last week we also learned how to make bi bim bap! Korean cooking is fairly simple and quite yummy although this one has a LOT of steps to it Sesame, soya sauce, garlic and chili, yup. I guess because it's a dish based on left overs (like sheaperds pie) but when you make it from scratch there are a lot of things to make!!!!!!! I'm going to steal some of Jeanie and alices photos off facebook because I've been desperately bad at taking pictures the past coupple of weeks...... eek.
Well, that's pretty much it. I met a coupple people who went to school in Montreal, so hopefully I'll be able to meet up with them and reminisce a bit..... I find I miss Montreal and everyone there A LOT MORE than I expected to... :(
I expect I'll be quite buisy the next coupple of weeks, it's the end of the school year here so things are getting cranked up into high gear to make sure all the units are covered. Students are in full review mode and exam panic. It could explain why they've been such disinterested shits.... more important things to worry about. hahahaha!
I've found out I'm doing 3 weeks of winter compas this break which leaves me with not that much time off AT ALLLLLLL actually. I don't thinkl I have a full week in over a month of holiday. Suck, but at least I've been assigned the drama and art modules to write lesson plans for and to instruct. Yeeeeeeeeeeehoooooooooooooooooooooooo! Hooray, finally something creative and wide open to teach. YAY! At least that will make the fact that I can't be travelling or on a beach somewhere during that time seem slightly more bearable. LOL! Sigh... More frequent posts to come because I finally found an internet cable company who will install internet in my appartment!!!!!! Most places do not offer service outside of this province..... BECAUSE I DON'T LIVE IN SEOUL, OR EVEN THAT PROVINCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But internet at home soooooooooooon! Also paycheque soooooon COSTCO here I come!
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