being late and public speaking. those are two things that suck. particularly when the forces of nature conspire against you and they happen at the same time. combined with the fact that i've been feeling sort of vulnerable and shitty in general as of late.
friday i had a meeting scheduled in seoul at the main branch of my hagwon, in daechi dong. we even had homework to take to the meeting! a job description. i guess that wasn't too difficult, but it was still an excuse for ridiculous amounts of stress. anyhoo, when i first started this gig, i was commuting back and forth via subway, bus, or the combination. in my [brief] history of comings and goings to daechi, the longest it's ever taken me to commute is 1.5 hours. seems like no matter how much time i ever allotted for the commute, it always took about 15 minutes more than i had allotted. there's some foreshadowing there.
so on friday morning, amidst the chaos that is rain + old korean women + their umbrellas, i boarded the 9700 bus to yangjae station, at which point i would have to transfer to the subway. it was 9:15 in the morning. at 10:45, i text messaged some higher ups to let them know i was going to be late. there's no worse feeling than sitting on a bus whose whereabouts are unknown, watching the minutes tick by on the digital clock above the dashboard. unless you're jules and you saw a dead man face down in a pool of his own blood on a road in china (read her blog). i guess that's a worse feeling than being late. come to think of it, i can imagine lots of worse things--drowning, catching on fire, being stabbed repeatedly, shark attacks.
i actually got to my meeting that started at 11 at 11:40. usually i feel really really guilty whenever i'm even 5 minutes late somewhere. i also have a propensity towards undue tears, the ol' red face, staring at the floor and generally feeling very small. but shit, 40 fucking minutes is really REALLY late. so i quickly found a place to sit in a room full of 25 or so other foreign teachers, mostly strangers, and waited for the red face and urge to cry to subside. before i was allowed that luxury the head boss called me to the front of the room to give some sort of speech. i honestly don't believe i'll ever get over my fear of public speaking. i really just hate being the center of attention. i'm not even saying that to appear overly humble or self-effacing, it's actually an "issue" i think i have. because apparently all humans have these. issues i mean.
i walked up there, still fighting back tears, and my voice actually changed. but again, it was a room full of relative strangers, so i'd like to believe they couldn't hear the difference. and then the next 30 or so seconds (that's being generous) was group awkward time while i stood there dispensing words that i hope formed coherent sentences. or at least phrases. somehow i doubt it. it was just awful. and everyone in the room knew it. but after the longest 30 seconds of my life i got to sit down and i tried to will myself into invisibility. so showing up late didn't make me look very good, and neither did my rousing speech.
people can say nice things to you like "it wasn't as bad as you thought it was" not just in this situation, but in any mildly unpleasant situation. i fucking hate it when people say that. somehow it diminishes the validity of what i'm feeling, even if i don't like the feeling. the point being, you can't argue emotions or mental state. if i feel shitty and embarrassed, then it doesn't matter whether anyone else feels such feelings are warranted or not. because it's true that that's how i feel.
the next few hours of this "workshop" i just felt really shitty and self-conscious. one of the other teachers asked me if i'd overslept. which made me feel crappy because i knew that every other teacher in that room just assumed i was the irresponsible one. shit, the monikers for me that had to have come out of that meeting--the girl who showed up really fucking late, the girl who looked like she was going to cry, the girl who sucks at public speaking so how the hell can she teach a speaking class. hey, that's a valid point. so i'll explain. there's a big fucking difference between hamming it up in a room full of little korean kids who adore you (and know your name. and you know all of their names) and intentionally making a fool of yourself. in a way it's suspending my own disbelief. i'm just not able to pull that off in front of a group of other foreigners. i know how judgemental i am, i would certainly not want to stand in front of a room full of jamies. perhaps i should have more faith in mankind.
there was a cool part of the day. an old timer korean who used to work for the korean government got up to give a speech. i still don't know exactly what his relation to the big boss is, but i didn't care. his speech was about motivating students to realize they're in control of their lives, their destiny, etc. sure, it's cheesy high school valedictorian speech fodder, but somehow it's different when it's this really endearing and earnest old korean guy. so he talked about how he grew up in the mountains in gangwando: "like a bushman in africa. i had no shoes." that was the running analogy, like a bushman in africa. again, very cute.
so he has 4 brothers and sisters, and none of them ever even went to school beyond elementary school. they just had no desire, as they were resigned to the prescribed life ofcountry/mountain folk. but when he was given the choice, he went to middle school. apparently he had this teacher who basically changed his life (and who, notably, is still alive. making this particular teacher over1000 years old). and after that he spent his whole life in the pursuit of learning. when he moved to seoul, he just had the money for the train ticket. then was a shoe shine for american troops. begged his way into college in seoul. decided he wanted to study abroad, so he wrote a letter to the king of denmark, who granted him a full, open scholarship to study anything he wanted in copenhagen. this was when he was 37 years old. he learned danish in 3 months. then he studied sociology. then he decided he wanted to study in israel. wrote a letter to someone in israel. was granted a full, open scholarship there. learned hebrew in 4 months, got his phd in 4 years and then became a professor at the national university in israel, teaching sociology in hebrew. so yeah, a fucking incredible life story.
rest of the day was sort of pointless and unproductive. seems like having all the foreign teachers of this particular branch in the same room would be a good time to exchange ideas. but when it came down to this part (which i considered the most fundamental), we were only given about 20 minutes for our teams to make and present little speeches on varying topics. so lots of rhetoric, but no real ideas as to how to practically apply anything we were talking about in the classroom. talked a lot about what to do, but not how to do it.
i just realized how incredibly boring everything i've typed up to this point must be. sigh. whatev.
um, i realized today that i have jesus christ superstar in my magical cable box. holy shit it was a happy day! my neighbors have to hate me...or they love my god-fearing soul. singing about jesus at the top of my lungs. also got to see stranger than fiction (watch this movie!).
other than that, lame weekend. friday night was okay enough. played darts, drank beer with people i don't really know. comfortable enough. but when so many of my days are just okay, i really invest a lot of hope in my weekends-- this feeling that maybe something impossible and fantastic is going to happen. and yeah, it rarely does. and then i'm disappointed in people (myself included) for no real reason[s] at all. i guess just because they are (and i am) human.
let me just lighten the mood by repeating: JULES SAW A DEAD MAN IN A POOL OF HIS OWN BLOOD!!!!!
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