New Beginnings After Rough Endings

The month of August 2011 will not go down in the story of my life as the best time I've ever had (or even a good time period). While ending a job and beginning a new one can be complicated and tough mentally, physically and emotionally, doing so in a foreign country is doubly so. Add to that having to complete a new and complicated VISA process and the horrors of packing up and moving to a new part of town and appartment and you can understand why the past 4 weeks do not top my list of best summers ever.

However, what's done is done. The job at Garak is over. The money has been wired into my acount and I have successfully moved out of my apartment in bangi-dong and into my new apartment at Soongsil University. Out with the old and in with the new. I've celebrated my new apartment by going to E-mart and purchasing new linens and dishes. I put up with sub par and ugly things for the last 2 years because I didn't want to invest in the old place more than I had to. I also didn't want to have to leave my new (better) items which I would replace the old crappy items with when I left.

My new place is at the very top of the campus (up a giant hill) on the 12th floor where the other faculty and PhD students are housed. It's not huge, but it's clean, quiet and has tons of storage space. It's also in a more centrally located part of town and I'm really looking forward to exploring the campus and a new part of Seoul. It feels like I'm starting over from scratch. Except, I get to come at it with all the experience and cultural knowledge that I've aquired over the last two years of working and living in Seoul. In this respect, I'm starting fresh, but with a huge advantage over new teachers to this country.

Here are some images of my new apartment. This week, I'll be doing an orientation and a staff meeting and formal luncheon. Classes begin on september 1st (this Thirsday) which is kind of nice, since I don't have classes on Thursdays, lol. I expect to begin teaching on Friday the 2nd and my job between now and then is to finish unpacking, make sure I have all my materials organized, get in some good hours of sleep and try to focus on leaving the past behind and concentrating on the present, which at this point looks much more optimistic than it has for quite some time.


NO MORE BEAR BED!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually have an adult bed, which I have now furnished with stylish and non-tacky bed sheets and pillows. A total revelation.

This is actually fairly good as far as Korean bathrooms go. As you can see I actually have a shower door as opposed to just a shower head directly over my sink. Yup, brushing your teeth can be hazardous if you forget to change the shower head back to faucet.

Here is a view of my stylish mini kitchen. It's not that fantastic, but I don't think they expect people to actually shop and cook for themselves very much.

Here is my desk, wardrobe and vanity area. It's pretty squishy right now (especially with the ginormous TV attached to the desk (came with the apartment) but with a bit more organizing, it should all come together.

After living in a dungeon with no sunlight for the last year, the brighness is almost overwhelming! But I'm really excited to wake up, open the curtains and have the bringht sunlight greeting me every morning. I think my next project will be to try and grow some plants and herbs. YAY!

That's it for now. Now it's time for bed.

In transition

With the end of summer in sight, I can't help but reflect on the similarities and the differences from last year. First of all, it unfortunately hasn't felt like much of a summer, nor a vacation, but there have still been some good times and good friends along the way. Now I know people say this all the time, but REALLY, this summer has litterally flown by!! It could be that it has been raining fairly non-stop since mid-June, and in that respect it hasn't felt much like summer weather other than the sweat drenching humidity. Or it could also be that the regular teaching term extended until July 18th!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or, it could be that I then immediately followed that teaching schedule by a further 3 weeks of summer camp, which brings us exactly to August 5th. Hmmmmmm, so yeah, not much of a summer. However, all was not lost and I found a way to get out there on the weekends and make use of my reduced work schedule by attending several festivals and getting out to celebrate music and frienships and afterall, the summer is not quite finished yet....

One of the biggest events of the summer in my books is the "Jisan Valley Rock Festival" during the first weekend of August. This year i had my resservations about buying the $200.00 ticket, not onluy because there weren't a ton of bands that I wanted to see, but also because the festival held so many memorries of the last time I was there with James.... yeah, revisiting past relationships is never nice and I wasn't sure if i wanted to put myself back into that situation willingly. However, at the last minute a friend of mine pulled out of the concert and sold me her ticket and after all, I'm not sorry that I went.

The line up, while not stellar, did boast some very good acts including: The Music, The Chemical Brothers, Arctic Monkeys (pictured above), Atari Teenage Riot, Appollo 18, CSS, Amadou & Mariam, Incubus and a number of Korean indie bands that did a respectable if not overwhelming job at entertaining us during the rainy, noisy, steaming hot weekend of madness that was Jisan.
Not having come with a particular group, I spent a good deal of the weekend doing my own thing. This was fueled by two things. First, that I wasn't really drinking (save for water and lots of powerade) and secondly, -bare with me here- I'm one of those odd people who actually goes to music festivals to you know, listen to music.... I know, right?

I stayed fairly far away from the main stages up the mountain in a giant tent city full of disgruntled festival goers. Disgruntled because the first night it poured and everyone got soaked!!! And the second night it didn't rain, but everyone, who had wisely rainproofes their tents found temselves sweating to death in plastiked tents!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who needs sleep though? sleep is for the weak! So is showering, eating properly and finding any respite from the heat or the elements...... frig! being homeless realllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyy sucks!!!!!!!!!!! Just in case you ever felt like getting down on anyone living outside, you should hear it from me, it sucks and is difficult and unpleasant to the extreme!

Mercifully, the homelessness was very temporary and it was also mirrored with the much more positive aspect of being surrounded by good friends and some great music. Who would have thought that I would find some great friends from my hometown of barrie Ontario to hang out with in South Korea??!! And so ends a second year at Jisan. This time I was not heat sick, did not spend a rediculous amount of extra money, and came out relatively unscathed. I might seem less adventurous and rather more self-restricting that most, but in the end, I made it home at a decent time Sunday night, had a good long shower and sleep and woke up fresh and ready for camp the next morning. I was not sick and exhausted for the next week, but rather felt justified in my decision to "take it easy".

Part of taking it easy, is spending more quality time with friends. Part of the probalem with that however, is that a good deal of my friends tend to flee this city at every possible opportunity, for the sandier and warmer climates of SE Asian beaches and resorts. Can you blame them? Naw not really. I wish I was more organized and had less to do this vacation so I could have joined them. MAYBE I'll get my vactioning act together by next winter vacation and spend it sleeping on a beach in Bali? That is the plan anyway. Ah things to look forward to.

As it is though, I've decided that I need to focus my time during August towards packing, studying, moving and getting ready for my new job as a Freshman English prof at Soongsil University in South East Seoul. My life right now is certainly one of transition. From public school teacher to University teacher. From very little effort and job responsibility to tons of effort and responsibility. There has also been the question of yet again packing up my life and moving to a new location. Packing in some ways is both centering and cathartic. It allows you to take stock of what you have, where you are in your life and what is important and meaningful enough for you to keep and what you are willing to let go of and get rid of. In a way it is a sort of cleansing a Spring cleaning without the scubbing being so literal. You get to take stock of where you are, what you have and HAVEN'T accomplished since you set yourself those goals during your last move and also lets you make the necessary changes you need to get your life back on track and into sharper focus. Moving also exposes your greatest weeknesses, and it's hard to ignore them when you have a year of undone paperwork staring you in the face. transition times are difficult, stressful and sometimes almost overwhelming. But they also offer the opportunity for improvement, development and growth both personally, professionally and financially. I look forward to seeing what the next month and months will bring to these areas of my life. For now.... it's time to keep packing.

This summer I decided to run a Harry Potter Summer camp as my last teaching act for my school. Predictably, the school fucked me over at every possible turn, but in the end, i did my best with the materials and help I was given and i had fun with the kids that came, did some great projects and got some really good creative results. In the end, it was a good note to leave on and for that, I'm glad i did all of the hard work to make it happen. It's the end of an era and the beginning of a transition into a new phase of my life. Hurrah! Three cheers for surviving!!!