Schedules and finger pain.

Why is it that i can't sleep through the night unless I have someone staying with me?

When my mom came over, I slept. Every night, one or two in the morning til eleven or twelve. When Alice was here, I did even better! Midnight or one, til eight or nine in the morning.

Now, I can't sleep through six straight hours for the life of me.

Typical night schedule: get home around 11 or so, probably after eating dinner with my coworker(s). Go upstairs, turn on AC, cool down, go online.. accidentally fall asleep around 1 before I've showered.. wake up at 3. Can't fall back asleep.. go online for several hours. Finally go back to sleep in the morning, round 8 or 9.. wake up just in time (sometimes barely) for work, arrive exhausted..

Which is why it is now 7:30 in the morning on Saturday and I'm writing in my blog. I have work in about six hours.

I have no idea how I'm going to switch to a normal schedule once I get home. Maybe the whole jetlag/ time difference thing will help me out.


In other news, I went to the doctor a few days ago for a checkup, and also cause my finger was killing me. It was one of the most frustrating/emotionally exhausting mornings of my life. I went to the doctors office by my place, but it was on holiday for the week. I went to the local hospital, but the sheer amount of people was daunting.. I knew I would be waiting for hours.. then when I get to the receptionist, she tells me I can't meet with a doctor until i do something, and I had no idea what she was talking about.. something about test and go there and do something..

I wanted my mommy. No, really. I was so frustrated, I was in pain. I felt like crap.. I had never been more homesick in my eight months here in Korea than that moment, walking out of the hospital, wondering where to go.

I took a cab, not knowing where to go.. had him drop me off at a nearby subway station.. then suddenly remembered a hospital (a small one, more like a multiple-doctors office) that I usually pass by when I walk home from the station. So, i headed there.

I met with the doctor, all was well, I stopped my baby-ass crying.


Turns out my finger, that I had broken freshman year of college playing flag football, was inflamed at the joint, which was why it was hurting so bad. I got some pills, and started some rounds of physical therapy, which consists of icing my finger, my therapist working the joint a bit to "improve mobility", some electric pulses running through my arm, and a final treatment of laser on my wrist. I've gone twice, at least 3 more to go.


On a side note, I think I met the one Korean in Korea that I would ever consider dating: my physical therapist. (haha..) Main reason, he's NORMAL. He doesn't have crazy hair, and the only thing I see him wearing are medical scrubs, so I don't know if he usually wears super tight skinny jeans and peach colored blazers. Also, he's really nice. And outgoing. We talk about Korea and the States, while he practically re-breaks my finger. However, the mere fact that he's Korean, and lives in Korea, voids him in my book. I'm going HOME, dammit, and unless you're coming with me, no thanks.

Anyway, I've showered, got my ice pack ready to numb my finger, and I"m gonna see how much more sleep I can get before I have to go to work. =]


So adieu, to all of you. nite.

NOOOOO, DON'T GO!!

August 20th. A day which will live in infamy.. in other words, the day that Jamie Chiu will be leaving my life here in Korea.

AAGGGHH!!

Today, I come into work, and in walks Jamie, clicking her high heels with a little more bounce in her step than usual... and it would be mere moments before I find out why.. She found out her official end date with us at CDI Ansan. August 20th.

I don't know what I'm going to do here without her! She was my first friend here in Ansan. She was the one who took me in.. took me out, showed me where to go, how to use the subway.. She took me on my first Myungdong trip, showed me where Homeplus was.. (And if you don't know how much I love Homeplus, you don't know me at all!) Basically, she's very important to me here.

And she's leaving. Along with pretty much everyone else I care about here in Ansan. (i.e. Audrey..) And I'll be here for another three months with only new teachers to play with.

I guess it's about time I introduced you to my closest friends here.

Meet Jamie:

She's Chinese-Australian.. Born in Hong Kong, raised in Ghana, moved to Australia to live with her younger brother. She's got an accent that's a mix of Australian and Chinese, uses words like "heaps" (which i've become quite fond of..) and uses "biscuits" to describe cookies. "Jumpers" to describe jackets. She's part tomboy, part girly-girl, and she's almost constantly painting her nails. She has some of the most beautiful legs I've ever seen, and I've adopted her as my girlfriend in Korea. (hahaha i sound totally lesbo) She'll totally share her pack of digestives with you, even if it's the only thing she's brought with her to eat. Everyone loves her because "she's always down for anything."

Also, she's one of the kindest, most open, and most welcoming people I've ever met.

Meet Audrey:

Typical southern girl from South Carolina. =] Previously hails from Virginia, I believe.. She's got blond-brunette hair, which she dyed blonder a few months ago..(her roots are showing..haha) She plays guitar, writes songs. Listens to bluegrass but has a long list of hiphop and rap on her ipod. She's going to spend the next year leading fellowship/biblestudy/counseling for a campus Christian ... community..club? After she gets back home. She likes to cook. She's the kind of person you wouldn't mind sharing ice cream with. soft serve. And she feels no hesitation about pulling off a piece of cheese with her fingers and sticking it in your mouth. (haha) That's just the kind of person she is.

She's extremely warm hearted and loving, always gives you the benefit of the doubt, always tries to see the best in people.

I consider myself super lucky and truly blessed to have met these two girls.. Girls who will invite me over to watch Grey's Anatomy at two in the morning..They'll cook dinner for me just because they can. Girls who will go out to eat with me even at eleven o clock, after work. Girls who I can have bible study with.. Girls who I can share my feelings/problems with, and I know they'll comfort and pray for me, rather than judge me.

One of my coworkers said to me a few months ago (mike, this is you) that he believes in something like an international friendship barrier. When you meet someone abroad, the factor that seals in whether or not you'll keep in touch for a long long time, even while living in separate countries, is if you visit each other. Now, I think I am going to visit one or both of them.. either on the east coast, or in Hong Kong or Australia.. but I honestly can't imagine not keeping in touch with them, even if we never do get to meet up again.

So these are my girls in Ansan.

So to Jamie and Audrey.. DONT LEAVE ME! YOU CAN LIVE WITH ME! RENT FREE! I'LL EVEN PAY FOR UTILITIES!

::ahem:: i mean.. Girls, I love you lots, let's make the most of our last month together. =] And you guys are always welcome at my place.

I'm Stressed.

Sort of..

I was fine, up until about five hours ago. You see, About a month ago, I was named Head Instructor at my workplace.. (I think it's mostly because I can speak Korean and I probably won't fight the management..I don't really like to ruffle feathers..) But since receiving that post, it's been harder to do my job.

Let me explain.

In my very first week as HI, we received four new instructors. This means four new people who need to be trained, shown around the city.. They need bank accounts, they need cell phones.. internet.. they need to know how to sort their trash.. And if it was just left at that, that's fine. I can help them.. but then, it turns into.. they're having trouble with classroom management. They don't know how to discipline their kids. They don't know how to teach the material. Students are saying the classes are boring.

I don't even know how to fix those problems in my own classes.

Problem solving has never been one of my strong points. I don't think of myself as much of a creative thinker.. thinking outside the box. Coming up with good solutions to problems in my workplace. In the past month and a half, I've heard so many problems our workplace is having. Financial issues. Student Retention. Classroom Management. Ideas for Intensive classes. But I have no idea how to solve these issues, nor am I even sure I want to. Sure, I can spend hours watching CCTV (which is what I'm supposed to be doing..) to figure out what's wrong in someone's class. I can sit in my room and think of ideas to make money for the company and to keep our students enrolled. But partly due to laziness and partly due to my own inadequacy in dealing with these situations, I haven't given much thought to solutions.

I guess, though, that this is just like any other situation I'm bound to have in my career. This is a situation that needs a solution. Whether it's figuring out how to keep the students from quitting or how to get customers into the door, or how to keep a restaurant's food cost percentage low.. It's all problem solving. Using my under-exercised brain for once. Also, it's leadership. It's the leader who figures out how to fix things and helps to implement new plans. It's a trait I've got to learn some time or another.

So back to five hours ago. I was informed that certain teachers are getting more and more complaints that their classes are boring. They are writing in their daily reports that they're finding it very difficult to manage their students, and they don't know what to do. I was also told that starting next week, I would have to read each and every daily report, solve the problems with the individual teachers, then report back to management what action has been taken.

Also, as HI, I'm supposed to be watching videos of my teachers in class, then reviewing it with them, giving pointers and other feedback. I haven't even begun to do this. I guess I should start tomorrow.

I guess the enormity of the number of issues that I have to deal with is making me feel a little overwhelmed. And there's another thing. Past HI's have told me and continue to tell me not to let them take advantage of me. Don't do everything they say, just because they're management. Don't let them push me around. The problem is, how am I supposed to know what's within my duties as HI and what isn't? How am I supposed to know if it's something they're pushing onto me because they can, when so far everything sounds like it could reasonably be included in my job description?

Maybe it's my naivete.. Not being experienced enough.. Never thinking that such nice people could possibly take advantage of me. Maybe it's just a different work culture. Koreans are hard working people, after all. Maybe it's expected of me to put in all these extra hours, fixing these problems. Sometimes when people tell me not to do something, that it's not my responsibility, I can't help but think, "But it's okay. I don't mind helping out a little bit.. Maybe you're just negative."

I'm finding it harder and harder to distinguish between someone being knowledgeable about work or the world and them just being negative. So you say everyone at work is an idiot. They don't think. They're not fit for their jobs.. Is it them, or is it you? I really don't know.

So tomorrow, as I go in to work on a Saturday.. (sigh..) I guess I'll have to start figuring out for myself.

The tone of the first two posts in this blog so far haven't been very cheerful.. Hopefully that's about to change.

I'm not even sure if this post made any sense..

The Very First.

I've held fast to my xanga page for years. I've refused to let it go; it holds memories of my life.. insignificant thoughts, recaps of days spent with friends.. but seeing as how I haven't updated it in months, (and it was months before that last post, too..) I guess it's time to finally let go. Good Bye, Xanga. It's been a good run.

I'm not even sure if I'm going to show this blog to any of my friends. I'm not certain how intimate I'm going to get here.. how many emotions I'm going to let out.. how much I'm going to share. but I realize.. I do need a new outlet for my feelings, thoughts, memories, rants, reviews,... etc.

I've never been much of a writer. I didn't make it to my city's magnet school in junior high because of my writing scores. But I'm convinced that this time.. (This time!) I'll make an effort. I'll put more work, more care into it. It won't be simply a random stream of thoughts.. (Maybe I shouldn't promise that here..so soon..)

I've always tried to keep a diary, but I've never been able to keep it up. For one, I hate writing, physically. It cramps my hand, my script gets messier and uglier, less legible.. and I always seem to give up on my hand before my head is completely empty. So I guess that's where this blog comes in. I want to record my life, before I'm sixty years old and wondering what I did in my twenties.

I just realized that I started the last five paragraphs with "I".

Anyway, an update.

I've been here in Korea for about 7.5 months know. It's insane. I feel like I've been here for years. forever. But at the same time, I can remember how it smelled in the hotel I was staying in my first week here. I remember my first few weeks in my new officetel, eating rice and side dishes my aunt made for me. Time flies and crawls by at the same time. What an enigma.

During month 4 and 5, I had some serious homesickness. I missed my room, my house, my family, my friends.. my church, the mexican restaurant next to my church.. (Nachos special with rice and onions...) I was sick of Korea: the food, the weather. the language barrier, the cultural differences. everything. I just wanted to be home, back in familiar surroundings.. eating food that I missed.. produce that was cheap.. on an on and on.. and now I just sound like I'm ranting.

I've come to grow complacent, I think. I'm pretty content. Sure I have to travel an hour and a half by subway to get some cilantro, but at least it's here. Okay, so limes are a dollar each and avocados, four, but I can get them. I've learned to ignore the men who leer at you at night, the smell of soju on every man in the vicinity, once it's reached eight o'clock.. the vomiting.. the spit.. the smoking..

okay, maybe I haven't.

I need to rant: Korea seriously sometimes bugs me. Everyone, and I mean.. EVERYONE smokes. Men. Women. Grandfathers.. children... (i kid... but only half kidding. I know some of my students smoke. And if they don't, they're on their way) They smoke in restaurants. in bars. on the street. in the hallways. IN THE BATHROOMS. it drives me insane. I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke, especially when it's being blown in your face by the person in the next booth at the bar or restaurant.. so to be in a nation that is united in its smoking habits is a bit frustrating.

Also, the drinking. It seems to be a national past time to eat chicken and drink beer and soju. And not even at night.. at like.. seven, eight o clock. And everyone gets pissed. They're stumbling.. throwing up.. spitting everywhere.. friends are hauling people home.. and I haven't even gotten off work yet. Did I mention I was thrown up on? (On a bus, coming home from a quick weekend trip with my coworkers.. maybe I'll recap it sometime. I'm trying to forget that moment in my life.. ) So yeah. the drinking here bugs me.

Also, I hate how judgmental Koreans are. They judge you on everything. Your clothes. Your food. Your shoes. Your job. Wearing a V-neck top? You must be a slut. (On the other hand, you can wear booty shorts in the dead of winter and be a normal, chaste Korean.) Oh, your bag's not LV? Obviously, you don't care about fashion. (Everything's knockoff anyway..) and they STARE. Koreans have no shame in staring. If they see an anomaly.. (bare shoulders.. a foreigner.. an overweight person..) they will straight up turn their bodies to stare at said anomaly until their eyes are satisfied.

Now, although I am writing and ranting about Korea as a whole, of course that is only one side of the picture. I have met some amazing, kind people. Coworkers, church friends, and others who have made it worthwhile to stay in the country.

And I love other things about this country. If you go a restaurant, 99% of the time, the service will be amazing. They will be attentive, courteous, kind. You almost never have to tip, and if you do, it's ten percent. included in the bill already. You can ride a taxi for a good ten minutes and pay 3-4 bucks. The internet is super fast, and I got a free cell phone with my plan that lets me watch tv, use the internet, and find my route on the subway.

I guess there's a balance to everything. The States. Korea.. they both have their ups and downs.

I guess as a first post to this blog, this introduction to Korea was appropriate. Now, seeing as how it's almost three in the morning and I have dishes to clean, I guess this will have to be it today.