Adios, Korea

There is a large slab of ice on the sidewalk outside the building where I teach. It used to be a puddle and then winter came and it has been frozen solid for as long as I can remember i.e. about 4 months. It was something I could count on, that mini glacier. It looked pretty much the same day in and day out, maybe growing a little if it snowed/sleeted. Sometimes when I needed a little pick-me-up after a long day with the monsters I would get a running start and slide across it. Yesterday, I noticed the outer edges had gotten all slushy. My pulse quickened. How to explain this strange occurrence? My first instinct was to blame global warming. But then it all came back to me in a rush. Faded memories of flip flops, cargo shorts, and water gun fights in Lake Park. Green trees and pink white cherry blossoms. Yes! I thought, There was a time when life was....not really fucking cold all the time!

Okay...so I typed the above paragraph last week, when the weather seemed to be taking a turn for the springlike, and I started feeling sentimental about leaving. The original title of this post was going to be "the ice is melting." Well, screw all of that. It snowed all day yesterday. It's still really fucking cold. And I am freakin' ecstatic that in one week I will be hundreds of miles away on a hot sandy beach sipping (or gulping) something with tequila in it.

I am leaving Korea in 3 days. Last Thursday, 2/21/2008, was my one year anniversary of arriving here. Mind blowing, ain't it? What a blur. This last month especially has flown past, I've spent a lot of it tying up loose ends here and dealing with future itineraries. I'm not in a very "reflective" mood right now, which is probably for the best, since the writing that comes out of me when I am in one of those moods makes me cringe when I read it later. I am also selling my monitor to a girl in about an hour, so this post is going to be much shorter and snappier than it should be. Korea deserves a better goodbye from me. But right now I'm wiped, hopefully I can dredge up a retrospective somewhere down the long and winding road...

speaking of that....here's a quick look at the future of Adam (in Asia):

• 3/1 Fly to KL (Kuala Lumpur for you Asian rookies), Malaysia. I'll spend my 12 hour layover over night there with an old friend, a British girl named Hannah who is featured on this blog way, way, way back in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where we went on a 4 day trek in the jungle together. She just happens to be in KL the same night as me, so we're going to meet up. This is slightly mind-boggling to me. small world?

• 3/2 Fly to Bali, Indonesia. I'll spend 11 days CHILLING THE @#$%! OUT with Shawna "the Canadian" Manske and friends. and surfing. and possibly getting Dive certified. eat that, snowy korea.

• 3/14 Fly to Delhi, India. For the next 2 months, I will be backpacking around the northern half of The Subcontinent. I am intensely excited and anxious right now just thinking about this trip. Something I have wanted to do for a long, long time. This is my ideal and very generalized plan as of now: I hope to explore all the major sights Rajasthan, then head east to Calcutta via Varanasi, then north to Darjeeling and Sikkim, before ending my trip in the northern tip (Shimla, Amritsar, Ladakh, Leh).
  

• 5/17 Fly to Houston. Attend Radiohead concert that night.

• 5/18-5/30 SLEEP.
  

this summer I'll be bouncing around the States (after a nice long reacquaintance with Austin of course) ((god i can't wait to be home)). Got tix for Bonnaroo (june) and Burning Man (august), hope to crash some couches in NYC at some point. at the end of June ill be working in Idaho for my friend Katie's mom's landscaping company (long story), then up to Calgary for The Stampede(!). never hurts to stay busy, right? now I just have to find out how to pay for it all.

And now for some final thoughts.

Let me start by saying I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever about coming here. The last year has been as rewarding and educational as the 4 years I spent in college, without a doubt. I can't really believe I just typed that out, it sounds crazy...Austin vs. Seoul? not much of a contest (don't get me wrong, Seoul is very kickass at times. it's just that Austin is my people). But it's true. In the past 12 months I've learned an immense amount about myself. Probably one of the most useful things I've learned is that I can live on my own, far far farrr away from everybody and everything I know and love. I've learned that it can be extremely lonely at times, but I've also learned how to cope with that loneliness. I've learned that I still can't cook. Dammit! Next time I'll have to request a real kitchen, instead of a small counter near the bathroom. I've learned that I absolutely love teaching and working with children. Looking back at the posts on this blog over the year, I realize there's little to no information about my job, which is sort of strange since it's the reason I'm here and where I spend most of my waking hours. Maybe I was afraid of being too honest and having coworkers or supervisors reading it. More likely I probably just wanted to think about anything but work once I got home from yet another exhausting day. It's a shame, because I had so many revelations working with these kids. (I'm frustrated right now because all I can think to say is cliche drivel like "they're just so full of wonder and curiousity!" or "they're so pure and innocent, they haven't yet learned to be apathetic and cynical life-haters like the rest of us!") I'm sure this is something all first time teachers experience, and I know there are much better writers out there who have captured it more eloquently. So I'll just say that these kids have completely renewed my faith in humanity. To put it mildly. For a demonstration, just look at this random picture I took a couple days ago:



Seung-ju is telling Soo-Min a secret. A Secret! And he's not just telling it, he's Whispering it! Because Secrets must be Whispered, that's just how it's done. And Lion is sitting over there in the corner just dying to get in on the secret whispering. All the while Rachel is down there on the floor pretending she is a cat, wishing everybody would hurry and wrap up all the drama so they can get back to playing House.

If you don't understand what I'm talking about, or you think I seem a little too attached to my students...spend 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for a year, with 15 seven year olds...no wait, make that 15 incredibly cute Korean seven year olds. Then you'll know where I'm coming from.

Tomorrow I have to watch them graduate from kindergarten and say goodbye, probably forever, although I've explained the concept of e-mail to them. Tomorrow's going to be a tough day.

to change the subject...

I'd also like to think I've gained a lot of insight into the way other people think and act; the endless different ways people live and how they all exist and co-exist. Which is what drew me to travel outside of the States in the first place, so in that sense alone this year has been an enormous success. (although now I am sure I will have all these notions of existence blown to smithereens in India.)

oh and one more thing: i've met some of the most amazing people i could ever hope to meet here.

alright time's up. gotta disconnect my computer. hopefully i'll be blogging from Indonesia/India. but not too often.

안녕히게세요 Korea...it's been a wild ride.