On Childrens' Day, May 5, 2010, i attended a peaceful protest outside of the Japanese embassy with my friends helen and Kate in support of "The Korean Council for the women drafted for military sexual slavery by Japan". for more information on this extremely sad and worthy issue visite http://www.womenandwar.net
This group meets infront of the Japanes embassy every Wednesday at 12noon to demand restitution for the war crimes commited against Korean women during WWII.
You can sign a petition in suport of the demands to the Japanese government. This was the most peaceful, spriritual and touching protest I have ever participated in. There were children singing and dancing for the "Halmonis" the surviving victimes known as "the comfort women".
This has been a very pivotal week for me in Korea. It has been a week where I have had to completely re-adjust my mindframe, re-asses my values and my reasons for being here and also remind myself about my long term goals both personally and professionally.
After the drama of last week, I felt that it was really important this week to evaluate the issues that were brought against me and to take them into consideration head on.
I neither feel happy nor proud of the fight that I had with Sarah last weekend -who likes to fight?- but I think it was obviously something that had been building up for along time that needed to come out. I flatly refuse to be treated like shit by anyone, and I should have put an end to this a long time ago. While I am not pleased about the way in which things came out, I am in fact relieved to be out of such a degrading and poisonous environment. I feel that this break will give me a chace to re-direct my life here in Korea for the better. Sometimes it takes a hard slap in the face to wake up and realise that you need to make changes in your life if you want to remain on the track that you set out for yourself. Life is full or re-callibrations. This would be one of those moments when my life is in need of re-callibration and fine tuning.
So this week I worked on three things. :
1) Trying to get in touch with other friends in Seoul and working on strengthening those relationships. And acknowledge that my passive behavior was partially responsible.
2) Begining to motivate myself to get back into my former wonderful physical and mental shape.
3) Begin to re-evaluate my reasons for being here and focus on my short and long term goals.
Firstly, I know that I am a social person. I like meeting new people and hanging out in a variety of different groups of people. I always have. I have many sides to my personality and so I find that I like having many different kinds of people as friends, so that I can enjoy and explore those many different colours of my pesonality with like minded people. Since being here, I have made a lot of aquaintances, but I have not put in the necessary work to foster many of those relationships, and thus, have ended up dependent on just a few key relationships. So this week I have been phonning people and trying to get out and make new aquaintances. And I feel that I am on the right track. This experience has brought me closer to a coupple girls in particular who shared the experience last week with me; Helen and Kate. I also met a coupple of their friends; Erin and Lauren, who I quite like and have exchanged numbers with. I also decided to go ahead with my intention of attending the "World DJ Festival" and went on line and put out a call for people going to the festival. Consequently, I am going to the festival this evening with a group of 10 or so other public school teachers that I met once or twice earlier this year. I am hoping to make some more connexions through that and also to just have fun meeting new people. I have proven to myself that I am capable of making new friends ANY DAY, if I approach it with the right attitude. I have to fight my passive behavior and actively search out and try to meet new people. Listening, showing interest in other peoples lives and being open goes a long way.
Secondly, I have to acknowledge and begin to take steps toward getting back into shape because it is causing me a lot of unhappiness and frustration in my life right now. I know what to do. I have been an athlete most of my life and I have been successful with weight loss in the past. I just got lazy. I just got lazy and began to tell myself that I didn't mind the extra pounds, that maybe it was just who I was and that if people liked me, that my weight wouldnt matter. But the fact of the matter is that I have been progresively allowing myself to become more and more unhealthy and unhappy in my own body. This unhealthy body has been the gateway towards an unhealthy mind (creating a circle of negative thinking that has caused me a lot of suffering this year). And after having been in such fabulous shape a the past coupple of years i know what the difference is and how bad i actually feel right now. So I bought a gym membership on Monday and I worked out 3 times this week. It was pitiful in comparison with the weight i was lifting the pace and distance I was running before, but you have to start somewhere and the most important part is TO START!!!!!! Now that I am on the pathway, I don't think that I will fall off of it. I want to feel strong and comfortable in my body again. I want to wear dresses and shorts and have a slim waist. I want to have people comliment me on my looks and tell me that I am strong and healthy. I don't want people to stare at me in disrespectful ways. Especially being in korea where the women are ALLLL tiny and so concerned with their appearnces, it is extremely difficult to find clothing that fits me and not feel like a ginormous blimp!!!!!!! This is something that I have been putting off and pushing away for a while now, and it has got to change. And it will change.
Thirdly, I feel as though I have lost track of my reasons for being here. Why did I come here? What do I want to acomplish? Where do I see myself in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years? What are my professional goals concerning my teaching and my art practice? I came here to pay back debt, but I have not been managing my money very well recently, and it is time to become more responsible on that front if I ever want to get out of debt. What can I do to enjoy my experience here more? What do I want to do with the time remaining on my contract? What do I want to see? Where do i want to go? What can I do to be a better teacher, co-worker and expat representing Canadian culture? How can I be a more active, generous, productive and happy person? I don't know the answers to all of these questions, but I think it is important to start asking them and to begin chipping away at them slowly but surely. I AM my own person, and I am getting to an age where I can no longer reasonably expect to be assited in my day to day life and troubles. These are problems for which I know the solutions but have not been willing and able to motivate myself to do the hard work necessary to get the job done. Perhaps, I do have, like my mom has pointed out, a "LOW " personality. Something against which I am constantly fighting in order to move forward and not to stagnate and become low and depressive in my life.
It is hard to fight the negative aspects of ones personality, but it is something that I have done successfully in the past and something that I think I am able to do now again. I also have things to look forward to this month. TODAY, I am going to the "World DJ Festival" I am sooooooo excited to see so much live delicious music and to be out in a large croud experiencing Korean Indie and youth culture. Next week is the "Lotus Lantern Festival". I have plans to attend each day with Silvia, Jeannie and others. I also have the "Fundraising Art Auction" at Roofers next week in which I have 1 painting on the block and i am hoping to make some new and important art contacts. I have to get a CV and some cards made this week in preparation of that. The week after that is Buddhas' bithday and a long weekend. I was origianlly intending to go to one of the three jewel temples near Pusan, but I have recently concocted a plan with Helen to go to TAIWAN for the weekend and you know, I think i am going to go for it. JUST FREEKING GO FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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