I've been really shit at keeping up with this. I keep meaning to write, I always want to but then when I sit down to do it, somehow I just cant. It's not that there isn't anything to say, there's plenty. But working with young kids makes me a totally different kind of exhausted than working in a bar ever did. Busting my ass schlepping tables hurt my knees, my back, my arms, wrists, everything, but I still felt like I could string together a coherent thought at the end of evening the longest shift with my girlfriends over a drink after work. Children are mentally exhausting. Teaching 700 children is especially mentally exhausting. When I come home after a day of singing and dancing to "Old MacDonald", or playing duck duck goose and jump roping, I don't want to think about much of anything.
Don't take that as a complaint. I absolutely love my job, but there's my excuse for being super awful at keeping up with this. Anyway, you can read a million other ex pat blogs. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Har har. I'll try to get better. I probably wont. But really, you can just read other ones if all else fails.
Anyway. The 15th marked four months that I've lived here. That's insane. I can't believe how quickly that time has gone by. And I can't believe how different I feel now than when I first got off the plane. First, I feel physically different. I feel a weird mix of super healthy or really sick. It all depends really...when I first got here I had a really bad cold. A friend who had already lived here for a year told me in orientation about "The Korean Cold" but I thought it was bullshit until I got settled in and every single person including myself had it. Something about changing environments and what not. I rode out an awful cough for about three weeks. And then I got the noro-virus at the beginning of May, causes of which are still unknown. However, I assume that following the time line of when I got sick that it has something to do with the insane weekend in Ulsan I had with Haylie and Justin, and may or may not have come from the bondeggi (silkworm larva. I'm in Korea, I'm gonna eat bugs) or the excessive consumption of communal soju laden beverages being passed around at the Whale Festival. We'll never know. Aside from being ill, I generally feel healthier because I stopped eating most western food. So overall I just feel better because the food here tends to not be full of shit. I almost never eat bread or dairy. Which I thought was going to be hard to do but turns out it isn't in a country where it's not readily available all the time. I haven't had a bagel in four months, which I've been dying for, but everyone says they're shitty here anyway so I'm just going to wait until I go home. Weird, the food you miss. My dad's steak tips would be killer too.
I guess I also feel different because I think moving abroad changes you a bit for sure. I was actually thinking the other day about how it was the hardest but best decision I ever made. The week I left I was a total disaster because I wasn't sure if I could do this and I was pretty terrified, but I'm incredibly happy here, more so than I have been in years.
It took me a while to start to get to know the people in the ex pat community in my city at first, but I also realized that I actually really enjoy having a lot of personal space. It's nice to not feel obligated to go out and socialize every night of the week, but that I can if I want to. I also think living alone in general changes you. I always thought of myself as pretty independent before but definitely do more so now. If something breaks I fix it, and I murder all my own spiders and other insects now (which is huge for me). I don't know if I could live with anyone ever again after this, not just because I actually really like living alone, but doing so does tend to make you a little weird and slightly insane. Totally legitimate reference for such info here. Also, I've learned a lot about myself in the past few months which I won't pour on and on about because:
1. I don't want to.
2. I'm really bad at blogging.
3. You don't want to hear about it anyway, which is conveinant since I don't want to tell you in the first place.
Moving on. I can't believe I get paid to do the things that I do. Mental exhaustion aside, I have a job where my Peter Pan Syndrome can thrive. I get to do arts and crafts, and sing and dance, and play games all day. I love my kids. Sometimes they make me insane but overall they're hilarious and brilliant and make me laugh every day. Then I get to travel in my spare time. I get to spend ten days in Bali this August which is unreal and then a month later I get to go to Tokyo for five. I play the ukelele now (for Becca when she reads this: "Vacation Shay" in full effect), which is also weird. If you had told me a year and a half ago this is where I'd be right now I would have called you crazy.
Anyeong-higyeseyo, al vida zein and what not.
Awesome post :)
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