Taking the Week Off

I won't be blogging this week. I need to get my thoughts in order.

Spring

The magnolias are in bloom.
I'm drinking the first iced coffee of the season.
My gorgeous purple coat is in rotation most days.
It might be spring.

Juxtaposition

In a little bit, it was one of the best days of my life.

Isn't it funny, how you can already really know that something is true, and still it stings like crazy when you are reminded of it?

Hard to Blog

My life is hard to blog about right now.

My school is fine. The kids are great, the textbook is awful, my coteachers exist. It's all pretty fine. Other things are pretty awful, but I don't want to write about them on the internet. Other things are pretty damned awesome, but I don't want to write about them on the internet, either. The things I would be willing to write about are pretty mundane: I go to work, I do all my various extra lessons after work, I go to the chiropractor. My friends are lovely, we get together once or twice a week to eat and drink around a loud laughing table. The weather is warming up a bit, and many TV shows are incredible. I need to start waking up early and getting workouts in, but the current chilliness leaves me just under the motivation level. Sometimes I cook yummy dinners.

Mundanity and being busy.

It's important to work that it doesn't feel mundane. I feel a lot of emotions every day, and I enjoy the things that I'm dedicating myself to outside of work. Every weekend is a delightful escape from real-life that I cherish for the entire next week. I feel genuine happiness and acceptance with my friends. My students all seem to like me now. My life feels pretty good, given the unfulfilled-at-work proviso. But I sit down to write about it, and I have nothing. It's boring or it's too damned personal.

Sorry blog. I do still have lots to write about from that great trip I took back in January, though, so there is that.

Success

My new after school lesson, as well as my new Spanish club meetings, started today. I'd say they both went well. It feels good. I miss actually teaching. So if I have to seek it out elsewhere... that's fine, too.

I feel really good about today.

Hitting me Harder than I Expected

My Dexter has passed away. I found out in public and managed to mostly hold it together, but then when I got home I found myself rather unable to cry. Now I feel it lurking behind my eyes, just waiting for someone to hug me or pat me sympathetically, and I'll lose it. As a result, I'm avoiding eye contact with those around me.

I suppose it's pretty silly to cry over an animal that most of the world considers to be a pest, but these little fluffies always manage to worm their way right into my heart.

Once I had the boys out on my bed and accidentally left the door open while I went to fix dinner. I heard a meow and ran to my bedroom, where Mandula was laying on her back while Smokey pulled fluff from her belly. Dexter was nowhere to be found, and I panicked, thinking that maybe he had been eaten. But there was no sign of a struggle, so I started to search for him. He was nowhere to be found. An hour or so later, he came strolling out of my pillow, where he had stretched himself thin between the pillow and the seam of the case, hiding so perfectly I didn't even notice him when I lifted the pillow to look underneath.

He was a survivor, my Dexter. I'll make a proper photo memorial soon. I just can't bear to do it now. Rest in peace, my little friend. I'm glad you're back together with your brother.

Nose to the Grindstone

I'm back teaching full-time, which is great. The time I spend in front of the kids flies by, leaving me happy and satisfied at the end of it. At the end of the day, though, it does wear you out. My throat is a little bit scratched up, a sign that it definitely got out of shape during the weeks I spent barely speaking Monday through Friday. I feel my legs reshifting into their "standing all day in slippers" position.

I'm also doing some exchanges, which eat up a lot of time but have their own rewards. Add in chiropractic once a week to keep my back on the mend.

Next week I'll have my first Spanish Conversation Hour. I've been to these before, but now I am hosting a new one, in a new place on a new day. I'm a little bit nervous: I really hope that people actually show up. But a part of me also sort of hopes they don't: if I try to organize this stuff, and it just doesn't work out, then I'll have a bit more free time, and will still have tried to enrich my life and seek out society and hobbies, right?

My Coursera course is going really well. It's interesting, and my brain is sorting itself into a clever sort of a state. Which was the goal, more than any sort of objective learning. I need to see if this brain of mine can handle a bit of academia, because that is information I need to make better decisions about my future.

So my life is going pretty darn good right now. But, damn it, I am exhausted.

The Final Straw

I've tolerated having to teach my students how to have conversation with sentient fruit, how to organize a pajama party, and countless awkward or even just plain wrong phrases. Today, though, the book went too far.

The story was about "Don Quijote." Except he was an attractive young man and functioning member of society. Sancho Panza was thin and Dulcinea was young and beautiful. All Don Quijote did in this story was buy stuff.

WHAT THE HELL. Don Quijote is a classic story about a man apart from society, who sees the evil in the world and tries to battle it on an epic if delusional quest. He is a tragic character, because the world breaks him and he dies in misery, finally seeing the futility of fighting for justice in this real world. He is a triumphant character,  because just as he loses faith, Sancho gains it through him. He is a fantastic literary character, centuries ahead of the time he was written. What he isn't is a pretty boy spending all his money buying illusory gifts for a beautiful girl.

What really gets me is they could have done this story with any characters, just a random man, his friend, and a woman. There was nothing quixotic about it. So why?

The book finally broke me. And yes, this post is somewhat dramatic license... but really. Come on.

Again?!

My classroom was broken into again. The tv was broken, the books were tossed off the shelves, and a table was disassembled and left in a pile in the middle of the floor. When I reassembled the table, I discovered that half of one table leg was missing. That's the most troubling part, to me. What are they going to do with half of a table leg?

On the plus side, my school has finally agreed to change the locks.

Temples in Taipei

I don't really have that much writing to add to this post, because it's just a visual sort of an experience. Taiwan was just sprinkled with these beautiful temples. They were tucked around corners and down the end of alleys, as well as featured prominently in parks and squares. Each one was unique, but they had this dizzying level of detail in common. The colors are not painted, but rather tiny ceramic tiles laid over each other to form three dimensional creatures and wall mosaics.

The details were so intense: miniscule leaves carved into dozens of tiny columns; a thousand tiny buddhas backlit in a closed-off room; dragons with bits of flesh painted into their teeth, dancing with other dragons on one of a countless number of lanterns. It was sort of hard to wrap my mind around the fact that it was actually real.

Happy Birthday, Little Blog!

Today is your first birthday, Little Blog. Here in Korea, we'd put on hanboks and have a fancy buffet lunch to celebrate the fact that you are now rather unlikely to be struck down by an infantile disease.

Over the past year, I have written 218 blog posts. That averages out to one every 1.67 days. If you take away weekends, though, that's only 260 days, which means I have only missed blogging on 42 days, and have blogged every 1.19 days. Considering that I basically didn't blog for the month of August (20 days right there) while I was at home and at orientation, I'll call the whole thing a success.

I have had 5974 page views. Of those, only about 1000 probably came from me. Actually, my largest audience is in the USA, and South Korea (that's me, right there) is number two. Hungary, naturally, is number three (also probably me). Rounding out the top ten are: Vietnam (Juli?), Russia, Germany, Ukraine, the UK, Serbia, and France. I have to admit that I really have no idea who is reading this blog from most of those places.

If my readers would be willing to give a "hey!" in the comments, I would think it was cool to know who's here. Don't feel compelled, though. I've gotten a total of only 67 comments, the vast majority from my dad, so I usually feel like I'm throwing my words into the wind. I kind of like that, though. It's freeing, to feel anonymous, even when you know that you actually are not. It's also a good feeling to contemplate that I am writing, almost entirely, for myself. It's not great or significant writing, but it's still out there, and it's mine.

Anyway, that's enough statistics. I'm glad I have you, Little Blog. You give me a lot of catharsis, and I know that I will continue to enjoy revisiting the moments in my life through you. Here's to year two!

Vignettes

This weekend was exactly what I needed.

Sometimes I think that I should take up residence on a mountain top or secluded island. As long as I could bring wifi and my electronics. As long as I could bring someone to hold me. And cheese.

I found out this weekend that John thinks cheese, eaten straight, is too much. For the first time, I gaped at him, unable to wrap my mind around his (wrong) point of view.

I'm learning about behavioral economics. I'm not learning Korean. Both are pretty equally useless and simultaneously desperately necessary to my life right now.

Money goes flowing through my fingers. Must stop that.

My Deki

My poor little rattie. Magda sent me the first pictures a week or so ago, and the bottom picture today. What a sweet and beautiful boy. He still seems happy and at peace, but he has gotten that chubby little face over the course of the past week that means that he's not going to be much longer for this earth. And that's all right: he is a very, very old rat that has lived a long, happy, and healthy life. Plus, I'm sure he's getting to be missing his brother by now.

It still makes me really sad that I can't be there to hold him and kiss him, to keep him warm and to help him go quietly and calmly. I trust Magda implicitly, of course, and I know that she will be there and do for him exactly as he needs. I just wish I could help my little boy at the end.

I love you, Dexter. I hope that you can feel that, in whatever capacity you are capable of, despite the distance. I hope that you feel no pain or fear. You have been such a good, good boy.

Street Noodles in Taiwan

These noodle trucks were seen all over Taipei and Hualien. They had some different ingredients, though were generally quite similar: some variety of meat, different vegetables, a selection of noodles to choose from, and little touches like dumplings and such.

You took a little basket and a pair of tongs, and placed "representatives" of what you wanted into the basket. For example, if you wanted wood-ear mushrooms (which I definitely did!), you took one mushroom and put it into the basket. After you handed your basket in, they would add the appropriate weight or number of each item to the set. I got udon noodles, wood-ear mushrooms, other kinds of mushrooms, some sort of waxy green leaf, fish dumplings, broccoli, and cured pork.

They then cooked your goods in a little wire basket. I think this is the main area where different stands varied: they all had their own specialty cooking broth.

After being cooked, the dish was doused with a black sesame-based sauce and some spicy sauce to taste, along with seeds and green onions.

Finally, the noodles were either served up on a plate if you wanted to eat them there, or put into a bag if you wanted to take them home. They were so delicious, and it was so much amazing food for only about 5 USD. Seriously, this bowl was about the size of my head.

Olaf

When I showed up at this school, I was given a set of little laminates for my board that said, in Korean, "Activity 1," "Activity 2," and "Activity 3." I was also given a little laminated rabbit that pointed to the right, which I could move down the board to point at the particular activity I was hoping the class would do at the time. I quickly ditched the activity cards, preferring to make laminated cards for each activity and just stick those up on the board, but I grew to like the little bunny.

Today I discovered that the activity cards and the bunny were gone. I asked my handler about it, and she said that the school had decided to gather them all up. They would issue them back out before open lessons and such. Now, this makes no sense, but I suppose it does make busy work for somebody, who will now be able to run about on those days like a headless chicken doing the very important work of bunny distribution.

I was somewhat put out, myself. I liked that little bunny! Also, with all the recent madness regarding my classroom, why was I not informed that stuff would be being removed from it? So I taught my first three classes today with no pointer. I used a magnet. It was fine.

This afternoon, though, I made my own little pointer. And, let me tell you- they can pry my Olaf from my cold dead fingers.

Hurt Back

I hurt my back. I'm not sure how I did it: it could have been when I was bumped by a car last Wednesday, or when the bus I was riding on had an accident on Saturday and I fell down. Of course, it could also have just been when I helped John move on Saturday morning. Who knows? What I do know is that it is pretty much taking over my life. I spent Sunday in bed, whimpering and suffering, and then went to the doctor Monday and the chiropractor today. I have to go back to the doctor on Thursday. And the thing is: it really, really hurts. A lot. It's making it hard to think about anything else. This is both good, because it's distracting me from things that worry me, and bad, because it's not letting me focus on starting the new school year off on the right foot.

My Half Birthday

As most of you know, my birthday generally sucks. It's often the first day of work/school, and I'm usually in a new place with new friends whom it would still be awkward to ask to celebrate my existence. So it goes mostly unnoticed, with perhaps a coffee from some well-meaning soul. And I know that's normal, but it still makes me a bit sad. I try to make a huge deal out of people's birthdays, because I think they are important, and everyone likes to know that others are glad they exist. I had a birthday cake for my twenty-sixth birthday, because I more or less demanded it of Bill, but before that I hadn't had even a cake in years. Adulthood is super boring.

As a result, I usually celebrate my half-birthday. I make a nice dinner, and invite all my friends out, and we have a party. It's a fun way to break up the monotony of the winter, and I get to feel like I'm celebrating my existence.

This year, though, with all the hubbub of the new school year starting, deskwarming, that freaking door on my classroom, and several of my friends and boyfriend moving away... I forgot about it. I totally forgot about my half birthday, and passed the day with nary a thought to my own mortality and special-snowflakeness. I woke up this morning and realized I should change my calendar to March, and then I noticed.

It sounds self-centered, I know, but it made me really sad. I forgot the made-up holiday I created to replace the real holiday that gets more-or-less forgotten every year. And, right now, I could use a bit of attention. I'm sad and a bit scared. I could use a hug and a bit of acknowledgement that I do exist and matter.