here's a fact. i probably need to stop hitting the sauce. and yet, as i type that, all i can think about is how i really really would like to be drinking a shitty beer at precisely this moment, because that would have to mean that i wasn't at work, which is all my life's been reduced to lately. not that it's a bad thing to be "reduced" to the position of english teacher. that's no huge failure. unless of course, you're not a fan of the organization for which you work. been wavering back and forth lately between loving and loathing this place. guess i should restate that "lately" part, as i know that my bloggage for the past year would reflect a pretty consistent "wavering." however, as this precise writing will reflect, i'm of course unhappy with it right now. things are pretty quiet on my end when i'm satisfied and/or content (2 words i hate) with things in my life or when i'm insanely busy. but seriously, folks, what good is writing about things that make me happy? booorrring...
anyhoo, those were yesterday's musings. and yes, i did ultimately end up drinking. combining all the drinking for the week into one weekend evening seems like a pretty smart plan to me. it was a busy night of barfing (not on my part), as the bathroom at one local drinkery was a veritable "who's who" of passed out korean girls and their friends. on two separate ocassions i went into the bathroom and saw crowds of girls and boys huddling in stalls, literally dragging passed out girls out of them by their hands. not to mention the vomit in the sink and clogging up at least 3 of the toilets. silly me, i always find something comforting in all that havoc, because i know that i've never been and will never be that fucking drunk. any women's bathroom in korea is also a nice reminder that it doesn't matter how cute a korean girl's shoes are or how small her waist is, she's not quite as pretty in the context of her piss, shit and blood-smeared toilet paper on display in the trash cans next to all the toilets. i'm not implying that "my shit don't stink," as that most eloquent of sayings suggests, but i think i'm a little better at not dripping menstrual blood all over the seat and/or stall of a public restroom. i guess we've all got our own talents.
moving away from period blood, but staying with the drinking theme...
the other night i saw a man in a snappy business suit weaving down the street. he paused for a few seconds, just long enough to projectile vomit through his sprawled fingers. then he continued his walk, shaking the vomit off his hand. covering your mouth when you barf has always seemed to me the most futile of gestures. if you're in the privacy of a bathroom, there's no need for coverage, so that means the gesture is invariably executed in a public location, in an attempt to hide the inevitable. but you can't really hide barfing, especially not barfing into your own cupped hand. so instead of having the 2-pronged embarassment of "hey, yeah, sorry i just barfed in front of you" coupled with the "hey, yeah, i've now got barf all over at least one of my hands," why not just omit that last part by letting it fly? shreds of dignity are still dignity, and those shreds are precisely what not barfing into your hand earns you.
moving on, teacher's day was on thursday; thus, thursday was a terrible day. i had been "invited" to what had been classified as a "secret" work meeting near the main branch on thursday. apparently it was an honor or some shit to be asked to go--a hand-picked bunch of we foreign teachers, how exciting! but no one ever told me exactly what this event that i would be attending entailed. they did inform me at the last minute on wednesday night that i had to wear black or white formal clothing. uh, define formal. me in jeans that are actually clean is pretty fucking formal in my book.
so after finishing work that night, i headed over to the lotte mart to try to find some korean-sized clothes to fit american-sized me. ended up buying two dresses that were ultimately too sexy to wear while representing my school. i suppose "too sexy" is a phrase that also begs definition, as i'm in the land of teachers who wear midriff-exposing shirts that attract many the guffaw from cleaning ladies on the elevator....if you've got it, flaunt it. particularly in the domain of elementary school children.
needless to say, i was the only chick at the photo shoot wearing a blue dress. i was also a giant as i opted for heels to make myself more presentable. so this was the first annoying part of the day (wait, there was already a 1st annoying part--getting up at 6 was pretty fucking annoying, and damn near painful). i'm sort of morally opposed to looking nice, specially round these parts. perhaps i should rephrase...i'm opposed to adhering to the korean ideal of beauty, which is a very homogenous, stale commodity. and on this day, i looked like a korean girl with my dark hair, my heels and my oversized sack dress, and i felt totally uncomfortable. i heard a lot of "you should dress like this everyday." barf. random interjection: i hate the word "should." anyhoo, the whole day i carried around my version of a security blanket, which was a grocery bag with my "real" clothes in it--jeans, cowboy boots, crappy button down shirt. after all, being a teacher isn't a fashion show. or is it?
when i first got to the coex mall we had a photo shoot for about an hour. a sea of teachers in black and white (and one in blue!) being herded around like cattle (but not american cattle, mind you, because it's all teeming with "crazy beef"--the why-we-hate-lee-myung-bak flavor of the month) by a man who was very cavalier with his uber-expensive camera.
after the photo shoot we all headed to some little convention room where an old korean lady with green hair gesticulated wildly and had the crowd in stitches, i tell you, stitches. we foreigners were forced to sit in the very front row, so there was no opportunity for doodling, snoozing or commiserating. so yeah, 2 hours of her talking about i don't know what, peppered with uproarious laughter in response to jokes that i'm quite certain couldn't be as funny as my dad's. then there was some terrible singing (think of a really bad quartet at state music contest. okay, now throw in a guitar and you've got the talent for that day) and more speeches. ate some grub, then had to immediately head back to ilsan to start teaching at 4:30. it was teachers' day, and i watched my two korean co-teachers get more cookies and flowers and general adulation than i did. had i not been so tired, i wouldn't have minded as much, but it just hurt my feelings. i teach as much as they do (sometimes more) but sometimes it feels as though the foreign teachers at the school are still not viewed with the same respect as the korean teachers. and since i'm never in a bad mood while i'm at work, people don't really know how to act around me when i am upset. which is just annoying. i've worked 6 days a week for the past fucking year. and i'm not a chipper person. also, none of the korean teachers could understand how i could be more tired than they were--after all, we were all at the same meeting--completely oblivious to the fact that sitting and listening to peple talk for at least 2 hours and not understanding a fucking word they say is, actually, quite exhausting. allow me the freedom, just once, to be in a bad mood.
oh yeah, i was also sposed to meet with my school's head honcho sometime on thursday to talk about my salary, should i choose to resign with my school (i know, i know. why the fuck would i do that? obviously, the money is too good to pass up). but that didn't happen, which made me really really fucking pissy, as my current contract is finished in one month, and i still have no idea what the fuck i'm doing after vietnam in august. so fuck yeah, i'm more than a little stressed (note all the "fuck"s). after no meeting on thursday combined with several unanswered text messages, phone calls and emails requesting a meeting with said head honcho, i was on the verge of tears friday night. and honestly, it's been awhile since i felt like i was going to lose my mind at work. probably a good thing, i realize, but also quite interesting considering my history of fragile emotional states. it's just such a sinking feeling when something that's a top priority to you is so utterly insignificant to someone else. completely helpless is how i've felt for the past week. but hey, my meeting's tomorrow, it only took some mild harassment. so i should, in theory, have some clue as to what i'm doing with myself at the end of this summer after 1:30 tomorrow. yikes.
i suppose this is all. i just hate this indecision. it's been very hard to sit still lately, or to focus on anything. i've felt incredibly busy, with nothing tangible, only my own worries, to show for it.
