jobby job

i've been in ilsan for a little over a month now; but the first 3 weeks of my new job were spent commuting to and from seoul or other areas relatively far away from my home for work each day. despite the fact that i spent a large amount of time on the subway every day, it was okay, masturbation trauma and odd vegetable/soju combination smells aside. i sort of miss having a reason to take the subway every day. it made me feel important for no particular reason. i would spend my whole day trying to figure out just what important meeting/appointment/agenda was weighing me down. turns out, it was just my mode of transportation, and i'm not really important. damn.

so my first week in ilsan consisted of lots and lots of consecutive teaching. i believe i actually taught 10 50 minute classes on one of the days. plus i taught 4 two hour classes on saturday. this sort of schedule will only continue for one more week though, as it's summer intensive time right now. my students are actually technically on vacation, which really means no sleeping in or playing in the park it means happy fun english hagwon time! so one more week of this heavy schedule, and then it's back to 6 hours/day teaching in the afternoons/evenings. this is a schedule i actually really like. i'm looking forward to joining a gym and having productive mornings. maybe even getting into the habit of eating breakfast again. weird. i might even get a hobby i've been entertaining the notion of buying an easel and some paint or something to that effect. i wouldn't know exactly how to begin, but whatever. i've seen lots of art that looks like a 4 year old created it. i suppose you have to start somewhere. i'm pretty good at drawing bicycles and trashcans?

but back to my job. a lot of people might think i've got a shitty deal in korea, but most people haven't been so totally fucked over by their first gig in korea (chuncheon), so to me every job is a step up. suncheon was better than chuncheon. and now ilsan's better than suncheon. it's pretty easy to get teaching jobs here where you don't have to do much. and i don't want to sound like a self-righteous asshole, but i actually enjoy working hard, provided my efforts are recognized and adequately compensated. i hate sitting around not doing anything. there's nothing that makes me feel so small or useless. moments you can never get back, wasted on absolutely nothing but sitting and killing (however passively) time.

i guess i have a pretty solid work ethic. that probably comes from my parents. or maybe years of playing basketball. hmm, high school. funny. perhaps all that verbal abuse from coach jones and coach thompson actually did affect me in a long-term sense. i mean, besides my continuing and unfailing 3-pointer prowess and inability to take criticism without crying incontrollably in front of all my cunty teammates. good times. i'm digressing here, but my dad used to come and sit in the bleachers sometimes during practice. so any time coach jones was particularly rough on me, i could see him up there and feel a little better about myself, not die running one more suicide. fuck! high school basketball drama. jamie reed's fried blonde hair and her unjustified vendetta against me and jules. not being able to afford the shoes that the rest of the team was buying. some other cunt knocking the wind out of me at practice and laughing while i laid on the floor choking and crying. of course i cried. that's all i seemed to do at practice.

that whole part of my life feels so foreign to me, probably because it was 12 years ago. and yet it was so integral. i guess only the physical, tangible events of that time seem foggy. but there's definitely a part of me that can recall and revisit, with a sort of comforting clarity, the range of emotions i felt 12 years ago. i think a lot of those unresolved high school issues in my head never left me. i'm oddly grateful for that. i don't know why. i'm still as awkward as i used to be, but now i drink, so somehow that counteracts/diverts any potential devastation. i'm still not exactly a part of the cool crowd. always relegated to the periphery. i still dress as though i'm homeless (in the words of my high school crush. how very high school of me indeed...). the things that hurt me or delighted me in high school--words said, deeds done--still resonate. i don't know if that's good or bad. so many people tend to dwell on the "glory days" (note: college had no glory days for me. that was an uphill battle every fucking day in every fucking aspect--financially, socially, educationally. i fucking hated college.). i'm sort of one of those glory dwellers, i guess. but i've done enough significant things in the 10 years since i graduated that i don't feel like high school was "it" for me. but it was definitely a defining part of my life, and i do like to think about the me of high school. the uncertain, awkard me reading the balcony scene of romeo and juliet in mrs. thompson's 9th grade english class. the awkward me that had no idea what the fuck was going on in my trigonometry class. the really good stuff like geography club, field trips, son volt and chert. hmm. insert nostalgic emoticon.

back to my new rad-tastic job. there are maybe 9 or 10 other korean teachers. i teach all of their students one hour per week while they see them repeatedly. so the traffic in my classroom is pretty constant. that's the only part that sucks. i only see each individual student 50 minutes/week (aside from the special weekend classes) so i don't get to foster any real sort of relationship with them. but the cool thing is that i actually am teaching essay writing and debate. each class has a different book (that all the students actually have! a definite plus and a HUGE step up from suncheon and chuncheon ...). every two weeks there's a new topic. for example, my youngest kids had to discuss why fur coats were good this week. next week they have to discuss/write about why fur coats are bad. other topics this week were corporal punishment, organic foods, and elective classes in high school. i get to teach my students proper essay-writing format. so that's very very cool to me. seems to have been my forte back in the day.

i've also spent a good deal of time interviewing students to decide which class they belonged in. after doing this at one of the other branches of my hagwon, two of the teachers there told me i had a really great talent for understanding kids. then they both asked me to please not leave their school. even more than teaching effectively and the praise that came with that this past week, people saying that i can really relate to kids was the best possible compliment.
i truly feel that for the first time in my life i have a real job, with real responsibilities. not that pizza maker, ice cream scooper, set designer and chauffer to asians weren't all real jobs in themselves, but this is different. i'm an integral cog in a wheel, which is something i've never actually been before. my school actually cannot function without me. it's exhausting, but so validating, which is all i've ever really wanted.

my korean co-teachers adore me and think i'm a great teacher, and i feel really energized and even cocky about the fact that i know i'm doing a good job. i have the utmost confidence in my abilities. and that, too, is a completely foreign feeling to me. for all the korean things i complain about, i do have to remember that as far as my actual person goes, korea has done as many great things for me as it has bad. of course i only tend to dwell/expound [up]on the negative, but i think that's just my nature. maybe not everyone's nature, but definitely mine. i've become more self-sufficient and genuinely confident in my abilities (in the teaching realm, not in any other areas. i've probably actually digressed socially. but the cool thing is that it doesn't bother me as much as it used to).

as for other parts of my life, i don't really do much. i've sort of just sequestered myself, taking a break from a social life and the drinking and the bad decision making. i'm probably the only person in the world who would want to be quarantined with my thoughts, so it's in everyone's best interest. which is not to indicate that they're particularly profound or psychotic thoughts i'm having. they're just mine. but i've read a LOT in the past month and i've not really spent a lot of money. it's good. things are very calm right now. i'm sure at some point i'll crave some more excitement in my life. but right now i thoroughly enjoy shutting myself up in my awesome apartment (or starbucks. yeah, i know, lots of people have problems with starbucks. i don't give a fuck.) and not talking to people for hours, even days. some people might find it hard to believe that a person could enjoy not having any social interactions, but right now i feel incredibly free, good and (gag!) introspective. i don't owe anyone any conversation, i don't have to pretend to be interested in anyone but myself. sounds selfish, but i guess that's just how i roll.

oh, i'm going bungee jumping soon. that should be interesting.