reflections, realizations, and a few good memories

hello! october has been a crazy/busy/awesome month so far, so please forgive the lack of recent updates. as i have now been in korea for half a year and thus am halfway through my contract, i'm going to use this post to reflect a bit...

the past six months have been a constant struggle to find balance. balance in how much i care about teaching, balance in what i do with my free time, balance in my feelings about being here. i've learned a lot through all of this, and i am not naive enough to think that struggle is over; in fact, some days i feel that it's harder the longer i'm here and the more settled into life here that i get. but then there are the days on which i hit that line perfectly, and those feel so good. lately i've made several new friends (while watching football--bonus!), gone on a temple stay, and had some really good conversations. all of those thing have given me a perspective i've been needing on what this time in korea truly means for me.

a few weeks ago i came across a situation that really threw me and made me question my decisions over the past few years. i realized that i haven't done anything because i truly wanted it, nor have i wanted something so fully that i was willing to risk getting hurt to go after it. going on cross cultural, living in dc, working at park view, and now moving to korea...all of the biggest decisions i've made since i started college have been based on me needing a change from whatever situation i was in--not based on me seeing something i truly wanted and going after it. every one of those things has been great and has made me grow, but the reasons behind them were lacking.

i came here because i needed to get out of where i was and this was a great opportunity on many levels. i've never been drawn to asia, though; in fact, it was pretty far down on my list of places to go. and this country especially--who goes to south korea? it never crossed my mind, that's for sure. yet here i am. and this is exactly where i'm supposed to be.

what i've realized in the past month is that an experience like this is vital to understanding who you are as a person and who you want to become. a lot of people don't give themselves that chance because they're scared, or think it won't work out, or whatever. but here's the great thing--it doesn't have to involve moving halfway around the world. it just takes putting yourself into a situation or an environment in which you are forced to question and define yourself. for me, that environment happened to be southeast asia. crazy, yeah. but perfect.

i've only recently come to understand what the coolest thing is about living the life i do here, and about what makes this experience what it's been for me. it's the complete and utter lack of any outside accountability. the only person i have to answer to here is myself. that's what screws a lot of people over, i think--they don't have to answer to anyone and so they do whatever they want. it's easy to end up a) not caring and/or b) coasting through life here. but the flipside is that you can take it as an opportunity to challenge yourself in every aspect of life. take work, for example: i really don't answer to anyone. okay, there's a director and a manager, but as long as no children get hurt i can pretty much do whatever i want in class. so my motivation at school is that i want to be a good teacher, i want the kids to learn, and i want them to like me. what i do to make those things happen is entirely dependent on what i put into it. now look at my daily life: again, i don't answer to anyone. i'm only at school for five or six hours a day, and the remaining 17 or 18 are mine to do with as i please. i can watch tv, i can read, i can lay on my bed and do nothing. my motivation each day is that i want to be growing and learning, i want to explore new places, and i want to be balanced in how i use my free time.

the point is that being an english teacher in korea, with its ridiculously easy and carefree lifestyle, is the best challenge in learning self-control, discipline, and balance that you could ever ask for. you are the one who chooses how much you want to challenge yourself, and it's so much more fulfilling to be proactive in that. i may have ended up in seoul for lack of anything more appealing (and feasible at this point in my life), but now that i'm here i'm going to get every last drop of living and learning and growing out of it that i can. i had no idea how much i was about to discover when i got off that plane six months ago, over-packed suitcases in hand, mentally freaking out that i had somehow ended up at the wrong airport.


some highlights of the past six months:
-the first times of everything from galbi to noraebang to teaching to dumpling soup and kimchi for breakfast
-finally memorizing the word for "bathroom"
-watching monday night football replayed on tuesday night and still yelling at the screen in hopes that the players could hear us
-running through a huge fountain on a kindergarten field trip
-finding sharp cheddar cheese at costco
-spending summer vacation on jeju-do (and meeting the new zealand olympic triathlon team manager while there)
-staying up all night dancing at the world dj festival
-seeing endless city lights in every direction from a pagoda on a hill
-conversations over soju and fanta in the park
-finally having the nerve to elbow an ajuma on the subway
-wearing monk clothes and experiencing almost 24 hours of life in a buddhist temple
-sleeping in a dvd bang in busan
-stumbling upon a nunchuck practice in olympic park
-rolling down a massive hill (illegally) in olympic park
-renting a bicycle and riding along the han river
-actually finding that hostel in the middle of nowhere in the mountains

there are oh-so-many more but it would take forever to list them all. these are just some of the great memories i've made so far, and i know there are lots still to come! i hope this finds you all well and that you're enjoying fall and the changing leaves :)

love,
heather