January can be a chilly time of year. Despite my best efforts to kick start 2010 off with a positive "bang", it has unfortunately been anything but positive. I have lived through what some would call an EXTREME Winter every single year of my life in Canada. But for some reson this comparatively mild and easy Winter in Seoul has been slowly reducing me to a state of shell shocked debris.
I have been finding rather than becoming more settled in Korea, the longer that I am here the more UN-settled I seem to be becoming. I have not had the easiest time adjusting to the culture and my particular situation. I have really tried to find the best out of my living situation, my school and also my increasingly poor state of health, but recently I've come to a point where it's just no good. Things have to change or else I feel that my time in Korea may soon be coming to an end. I did a lot of thinking about the positives in my life and I do feel that there are many. I have made several good friends at work and around town. I am making money and paying back my student loans. I have had the opportunity to live in and experience this foreign culture. i find that every month, things are getting easier. I have also had the opportunity to work on my artwork and make some good contacts. I feel that there are many good things that could develop out of my life in Korea, but before this can happen I have some major problems that have to be resolved. The biggest and baddest one of all is my stinking apartment situation. So due to a number of circumstances (mostly bad construction and poor maintenance) my apartment is full of mould. The colder wheather this winter has only increased the growth and it's in the walls and ceilings which are not possibl to scrub. The point is that it has been making me increasingly sicker and sicker. Now I have bronchitus and also other related health problems that are serious enough to be worried about and to make it a serious point of discussion. basically I have to reduce the stress in my life so that I can get healthy. in order to reduce the stress I have to move.
And so, the past weeks have been consumed with the complicated and frustrating business of trying to convince the people that can help me (mainly my school) that i need to move and that they should help me and pay for the expenses. Many letters, emails, phon calls, meetings and Dr.s appointments later it has been concluded that my school WILL help me move. YAY! and yet a resounding NAY. The entire moving process here is extremely complicated. It's doubly complicated because it is the end of the school year and the school has no cash to pull out and make things happen quickly. The school has told me that I must be patient, make the best out of my situation and trust that this matter will be eventually resolved in good time and due course. Do I really have a choice, no not really. And so, now i sit, wait to be called and do my best to scrub the mould off of my ceiling and not get sicker. The only problem is that the situation is as they call it delicate and volatile, so that means it's entirely open to change, fate, luck and cosmic timing to decide when they find someone to take over my apartment and a place that I can move into at the same time within their price range and in my area. OHHH MYYYY GOOOOOOOD!!!!!! So complicated. But there we go. Well at least I have a lot of experience moving. HAHA! This move will be a downright breeze in comparison. I have people helping me, I have movers and I have almost no clothes or furniture or people to notify of a change of address. EASY PEAZY! NO WOORIES! IT'LL BE A BREEZE! That's the way to think. So here's to figuring shit out and beginning to live a happy, healthy and balanced life in Seoul, South Korea.
Down to positive business! Winter camp is done! YAYAYAYAYAY!
I do not have cancer! YAYAYAAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
I have some very awsome friends! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAWWWWW!
I have the opportunity to turn things around here and make things better! YARR!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A week spent meditating on my life in Korea
A walk around the temple before bed
Night lit by the light of lanterns hanging
The lotus reads "life"
The mountains by the light of the early morning
Night lit by the light of lanterns hanging 
The lotus reads "life"
The mountains by the light of the early morning .....very early
Dawn hits the staircase on my way up to my
Dawn hits the staircase on my way up to my third meditation session of the day.... hmmmm
When they say monastic living they mean it. Picture
Even Pollish monks can rock out when the occasion calls for it!
When they say monastic living they mean it. Picture a dark little box with a heated floor and 1 mattress...
but that's ok, because you don't sleep much when
you are a Buddhist monk anyway.
Even Pollish monks can rock out when the occasion calls for it! luv ya Miaho
The day before the intensive lunar New Years retreat began
The day before the intensive lunar New Years retreat began I was lucky enough to join the monks as they cut loose for a night
My Korean On-ni!!!!!
Guitars, BBQ, SOJU, salsa dancing...
My Korean On-ni!!!!!
Guitars, BBQ, SOJU, salsa dancing... and you thought temple stays were just about meditation
Getting all purified at an amazing spa in near the DMZ!
Skating and sledging on a frozen lake in the DMZ.
Getting all purified at an amazing spa in near the DMZ! Naked outside in -15oc wheather is always interesting.
But when you're naked with nuns... it's even more so.
Skating and sledging on a frozen lake in the DMZ. Freeeeezing! but hilarious!
Sliding accross the ice on traditional Korean sleds
Drinking tea after a long meditative hike with Po Hwa Sunim, the temples' head monk
Hwagyesa International Zen Center through the woods
Mark this week as a special week in my Korean adventure and maybe the greater adventure of life. Egged on by the lack of anything more worthwile to do with my vacation, I decided that it was high time to make my dreams of a temple stay a reality. A Monday-Sunday intensive week of meditating, hiking, sleeping little and thinking much. What I was not expecting was the level of commraderie and community that I found within the temple walls. Here, everyone is equally valued and respected in a quiet, seious and yet light hearted environment which was like nothing I'd yet experienced in Korea. the hustle and bustle of Seoul was stripped away and the stillness that has been lacking from my life since my arrival here was reclaimed.
Sliding accross the ice on traditional Korean sleds
Drinking tea after a long meditative hike with Po Hwa Sunim, the temples' head monk Hwagyesa International Zen Center through the woods
Mark this week as a special week in my Korean adventure and maybe the greater adventure of life. Egged on by the lack of anything more worthwile to do with my vacation, I decided that it was high time to make my dreams of a temple stay a reality. A Monday-Sunday intensive week of meditating, hiking, sleeping little and thinking much. What I was not expecting was the level of commraderie and community that I found within the temple walls. Here, everyone is equally valued and respected in a quiet, seious and yet light hearted environment which was like nothing I'd yet experienced in Korea. the hustle and bustle of Seoul was stripped away and the stillness that has been lacking from my life since my arrival here was reclaimed. I was very lucky in my choice of weeks to stay at the temple for I had the best of both worlds so to speek. I participated in the regular schedule of this fully functional Zen Center for the first coupple days of my stay. Temple life is a completely different routine. As the burdens of the outside world are stripped away, the 24/7 schedule of this environment seems slightly less dramatic. Every day, as your body and mind adjust you need less food and less sleep to sustain you throughout the day. The schedule reads:
3AM -Meditation
4AM -108 Bows
4:30AM -Chanting
5Am -Meditation
6AM -Breakfast and chores
7-11AM -Meditation
11:30AM Lunch
12PM -Hike, instruction
2-4PM -Meditation
4:30PM -Dinner
6PM -Chanting
6:30-9PM -Meditation
9:30PM -Lights out.
Sustaining this simple lifestyle grows upon itself, and in a very short amount of time everything else begins to quickly fade into the background. The temple is run with military precision. This is serious business. Breakfast at 6AM means be there at 5:58! or no food! or worse the Zen Master will chew you out! It definitely got easier with each day that passed. The first two days were reallllllllly hard!!!!!!!!
After our all out excursion day on Wednesday in which we: went to the spa, went for tea, went ice skating in the DMZ, had an amazing dinner with drinks and songs and dancing and enough car giggles to sattisfy even the silliest 10 year old, well it was down to serious business.
The 15th marked the beginning of the Lunar New Year and also the beginning of the intensicve Winter retreat. the monks will litterally sit in meditation for 21.5 hours a day taking only 5 minute breaks every hour and 3 1hour breaks for meals and showers. NUUUTZ!!! During the retreat you are not supposed to touch your spine to the ground. I followed along Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the quite intense distinction of choosing to sleep at night. But they're the Monks, not me. All things considered, I think I did pretty well. I worked my way up to sitting for 7 hours on the last day. Not too shabby. And with regular practice i could probably to more! I made some solid aquaintances and had some major reflection time. It was the first time in Korea that I have had the chance to just be myself and live my own life appart from being Alex the english teacher. In that way, it was truely an amazing experience. It has also given me a more positive outlook on Korea and my position here. Doing is the key and I intend to keep doing as much as possible in the future. That includes leaving all of those things that cause me anxiety and unhappiness behind and trying to incorporate more of the things that make me happy into my every day life.
That is my goal in this new year. We shall see how I fare.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Life on the other side of WINTER CAMP.
It is 2010! Holly Jeeeese! This year has been gearing up to be all about work and finding my way outside of school. I began the New Year by celebrating dinner and then drinks with a bunch of the teachers from the Canadian Connections agency. It was quite nice. We ate Galbi, drank makoli and soju and celebrated all things Korean. Haha! Then we headed back to one of the girls' appartments to continue the party before heading over to City Hall for the countdown. Due to the fact that there were many people traveling together and no one seemed to know exactly how to get there, we ended up NOT making it exactly to City Hall but to a random street near City Hall... Which was nevertheless filled with people and music and more riot poliece than I have ever seen in my life (WHY?). At midnight everyone seemed to have fireworks and punctually set them all off in one giant blur of cheep smoke, bangs, sparks and flying ash. Wonderful. Everyone was wired for sound after that, so we all headed over to Hongdae. We ended up at the Zen Bar and met up with a number of other SMOE teachers. It really seemes to be the place to go for foreigners; which is probably why I've never been there. ahaha.
We danced the night away and I ended up crashing at someones appartment. New Years day was a slow recovery, which culminated in a giant shoppiong spree in Myong-dong. Yee whoooo! That's how you start a new year! Some new shoes, toiletries, party dresses and books later, I made my way home. The 28th I began my first winter camp at Gawon Elementary School. There were 4 foreign teachers teaching 16 kids a day with rotating classes. It was a small camp comparatively speaking and the school had really good resources actually. So the first week, I was teaching the drama unit. I had to develop my own curriculum, and after negotiating for what seemed like forever with the camp directors I ended up doing a lesson based on drama games for ESL kids. It actually began with yoga and breathing and stretching, then voice and memory exercises and games and finally with pantomime skits. It went very well. Although they gave us this space which was absolutely FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING COLD!!!!!! It was the auditorium on the top floor of the school and although it was a nice open room, the school did not seem to understand that it was an unproductive space to work in when it was only about 10-15C and all of the kids were distracted by the fact that they couldn't feel their toes or fingers.... EUGH!!!! The slight inconvenience of cold was made up by the enthusiasm of the kids, the availability of resources and also the super meals and treats they treated the teachers to every day. MAN, I wish my school treated me this well allll the time!!!!!!!!
The second week was super awsome!!!!!!!!!! To be honest, it's really helped me restore my faith that I AM in the right profession. I am an art specialist and therefore this opportunity to create and teach an arts curriculum was a great thing for me. It ended up being more difficult to please the camp directors when I was creating the lesson. I wanted to create an formidable art project. they wanted me to do word searches, fill in the blanks and colouring books. Ummmm...no. I ended up doing a unit on fairy tales where we taught the story and then did a book based on the plot and character summary and development. It turned out really well, but I think it only worked because of all the prep work i put into the lesson before hand. MAN!! Doing art with kids is a whole different kettle of fish than monitoring and guiding teens or University students through their projects. In those cases the golden rule is not to touch your students work and to let them work through their difficulties. NOT WITH KIDS! I ended up doing a good deal of the project (all the paper folding and picture selection) before the kids even got there due to time constraints. It was like ok first we do this, then we do this, now we're onto this step and everyone let's go we only have this many minutes for this step!!! And we're done! It was so different but at least all my experience with managing groups of kids made it possible to get the projects completed! Some more than others.. yet, still all good and individual. FABULOUS!
At the end of camp the last day was a talent show! Every morning and after the main lesson, each homeroom had been practicing and rehearsing their routines. I ended up choosing to sing "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music". Each child was given a favorite thing which they made a poster for and we read and re-read and sang and sang and sang that song over and over again until they had it down. On the day of the show I think my group were the tightest and most entertaining hands down. Now I know what it feels like to be a stage mom!
The only other development in my life in this new year appart from teaching has been a returning interest in the temple and exploring that avenue of my life. On the first sunday of the New Year, I once again made the treck out to the Hagweysa Temple at Suyu station to participate in the guided meditation and dharma talk in English. It was so interesting and relaxing that I finally decided to apply for a temple stay. The result is that tomorrow I head back there for my week of vacation to do a meditation retreat. I don`t know if it will be relaxing, motivating, horrifying, terrible, awakening, inspiring... All I can do is show up with an open mind and a good attitude. And honestly if I really can't take it i can always bail. I'm not becoming a nun or signing my life away, I'm just going to try to spend a week of my life listening and sitting in silence. There are scarrier prospects. Everyone has been super supportive, so I suspect they will also want to hear all about it when I get out. hahaha I make it sound like I'm going to jail or something. Well for now, that's all folks! Talk to you in a week, maybe I'll have discovered the purpose of my life or answered some deep meaningful questions about self and spirituality... or maybe I will have just spent a week not sleeping very much and doing a lot of meneal labour. We shall see...
We danced the night away and I ended up crashing at someones appartment. New Years day was a slow recovery, which culminated in a giant shoppiong spree in Myong-dong. Yee whoooo! That's how you start a new year! Some new shoes, toiletries, party dresses and books later, I made my way home. The 28th I began my first winter camp at Gawon Elementary School. There were 4 foreign teachers teaching 16 kids a day with rotating classes. It was a small camp comparatively speaking and the school had really good resources actually. So the first week, I was teaching the drama unit. I had to develop my own curriculum, and after negotiating for what seemed like forever with the camp directors I ended up doing a lesson based on drama games for ESL kids. It actually began with yoga and breathing and stretching, then voice and memory exercises and games and finally with pantomime skits. It went very well. Although they gave us this space which was absolutely FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING COLD!!!!!! It was the auditorium on the top floor of the school and although it was a nice open room, the school did not seem to understand that it was an unproductive space to work in when it was only about 10-15C and all of the kids were distracted by the fact that they couldn't feel their toes or fingers.... EUGH!!!! The slight inconvenience of cold was made up by the enthusiasm of the kids, the availability of resources and also the super meals and treats they treated the teachers to every day. MAN, I wish my school treated me this well allll the time!!!!!!!!
The second week was super awsome!!!!!!!!!! To be honest, it's really helped me restore my faith that I AM in the right profession. I am an art specialist and therefore this opportunity to create and teach an arts curriculum was a great thing for me. It ended up being more difficult to please the camp directors when I was creating the lesson. I wanted to create an formidable art project. they wanted me to do word searches, fill in the blanks and colouring books. Ummmm...no. I ended up doing a unit on fairy tales where we taught the story and then did a book based on the plot and character summary and development. It turned out really well, but I think it only worked because of all the prep work i put into the lesson before hand. MAN!! Doing art with kids is a whole different kettle of fish than monitoring and guiding teens or University students through their projects. In those cases the golden rule is not to touch your students work and to let them work through their difficulties. NOT WITH KIDS! I ended up doing a good deal of the project (all the paper folding and picture selection) before the kids even got there due to time constraints. It was like ok first we do this, then we do this, now we're onto this step and everyone let's go we only have this many minutes for this step!!! And we're done! It was so different but at least all my experience with managing groups of kids made it possible to get the projects completed! Some more than others.. yet, still all good and individual. FABULOUS!
At the end of camp the last day was a talent show! Every morning and after the main lesson, each homeroom had been practicing and rehearsing their routines. I ended up choosing to sing "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music". Each child was given a favorite thing which they made a poster for and we read and re-read and sang and sang and sang that song over and over again until they had it down. On the day of the show I think my group were the tightest and most entertaining hands down. Now I know what it feels like to be a stage mom!
The only other development in my life in this new year appart from teaching has been a returning interest in the temple and exploring that avenue of my life. On the first sunday of the New Year, I once again made the treck out to the Hagweysa Temple at Suyu station to participate in the guided meditation and dharma talk in English. It was so interesting and relaxing that I finally decided to apply for a temple stay. The result is that tomorrow I head back there for my week of vacation to do a meditation retreat. I don`t know if it will be relaxing, motivating, horrifying, terrible, awakening, inspiring... All I can do is show up with an open mind and a good attitude. And honestly if I really can't take it i can always bail. I'm not becoming a nun or signing my life away, I'm just going to try to spend a week of my life listening and sitting in silence. There are scarrier prospects. Everyone has been super supportive, so I suspect they will also want to hear all about it when I get out. hahaha I make it sound like I'm going to jail or something. Well for now, that's all folks! Talk to you in a week, maybe I'll have discovered the purpose of my life or answered some deep meaningful questions about self and spirituality... or maybe I will have just spent a week not sleeping very much and doing a lot of meneal labour. We shall see...
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