a little more information. i had the thought this morning that starting out here has huge similarities to starting college. the environments are very different, but the shift in environments is proportionally the same--more unknowns than i could ever anticipate. going into college, there were two things on my mind. one, that i felt like i kind of knew who i was but was unsure, and two, that i hoped my time at emu would help me to figure out who i truly was. the four years i spent at emu and the year after in harrisonburg really did show me a lot of who i was/am; when you go to college [even slightly] unsure of who you are, it is inevitable that you will change...i led the stereotypical college student lifestyle to eventually realize that it wasn't for me, explored the world to realize that that was definitely for me, and questioned my faith and beliefs to realize that i didn't have a clue what those were. i never expected all that to happen, but it did. now here i am in korea and i think that my first three months here have given me somewhat the same experience as the past five years. i had quite the same perspective coming to korea as i did going into college, although i didn't realize it at the time--i also came here thinking i knew who i was (to an extent, and more so than when i began at emu) but hoping that being here would show me more of who i truly was. as in college, more than i could have expected has happened. only this time, i don't have any idea when this chapter in my life will end, and that means that a world of learning lies ahead.
now to relate that to my answer of "most days." this goes back to something i mentioned in my last blog, which is the feeling of trying to fit into something that i'm not sure i want to fit into. as i said in that post, the things i learned about myself in college have been both cemented and opened to developing further. that fact has fulfilled (so far) the hope i had in coming that i would understand more of who i truly am. but i have also experienced some moments that have made me feel like being here is changing me, and the troublesome part is that the changes, however small or subtle, are not someone i want to be. one thing is that many people here are dressed up all the time, and that is not me at all. but a few times recently i've bought clothes that are more dressy, more "korean," that i didn't need and really won't wear more than a few times. another thing is going out. i've realized since being here that the bar scene (as it is here--the all-night festivities) really isn't for me. because of that i haven't gone out a lot, and the times i have done so have been fun yet unfulfilling and tiring. i've never been one to buy clothes just because they're what everyone else is wearing, and i definitely prefer hanging out with a small group of friends to painting the town red till all hours. so why did i buy the clothes, and why do i go out?
because i don't know where i fit in here, and i want desperately to find my niche. it has been the same as starting college in that i had no clue what my place was there, so i tried to fit in however i could. there were more bad choices made at that time than here for sure; i've grown a lot in the past five years and my attempts here to fit in when/where i can have just been in the form of a few superficial efforts. but i've been thinking a lot lately about the merits of the expression "when in rome, do as the romans do." being here has made me wonder if just being in an area is a valid reason for acting a certain way or doing certain things. i believe that your environment is a big factor in shaping who you are, but it can also be a cop-out for changes you don't like in yourself. looking back i definitely used that belief as a kind of excuse or justification for decisions i made in college. i think that it is also dependent on how strong you are in who you are--in college i was a lot less sure of who i was than i am now. last night my mom said, "i can't see that you would succumb to changing all that much if you didn't want to," and she's right. i don't want to change who i am in terms of the ways i am different from all the koreans around me, and so i won't change a lot in those ways. conclusion: it's all about knowing yourself, liking what you know, and staying true to that, and about the reasons you do things that don't quite jive with who you are. if it's just for fun or to try something different, that's cool. but if it's to fit into something you're not really a part of, then you should be thinking twice.
in other news...
-i've got summer break coming up and i couldn't be more excited! google "jeju island" to see where i'm going with ellie and one of our korean co-teachers. i'm told the photos are mostly an accurate representation...go ahead and drool a bit :)
-korean lessons are going well, albeit slower than i'd like. only having two 40-minute lessons per week does not make for speedy learning, especially because it's a difficult language to learn. however, i'm making more sentences now! plus most of my classes found out i'm learning korean and try to take up as much of the period as they can with teaching me words (useful or not so much). recently learned words/phrases include: bed, now, i had a good weekend, i'm a little tired, and i'm going to call your mother.
-summer in seoul is hot. ridiculously humid as well. it makes summer in harrisonburg seem pleasant. we saw an ad for a place called ocean world and have big plans to go there (once we find out where it is).
hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying the summer. miss you all lots!
love,
heather
