Honestly, now.

Yeah, this isn’t going to be the happiest post ever. It much more of a rant.

It’s bizarre living in a place where most everyone you know will be gone within a year. Possibly two. It’s leads to some interesting reactions. There’s the ever-fun question of how close do you really want to get to others. Friendships (among other things) are an investment. Some are hesitant to get too involved with others because chances are, you will lose them in one way or another.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

It just leads to some amazingly crap situations. Now I wrote earlier about how sometimes I find myself talking to people that, back home, I never would have spoken with. Spending time with people that I may not be thrill to spend time with. A few weeks ago, I decided that I wasn’t going to do that anymore. If I don’t want to talk to someone, I’m not going to. If I don’t want to be somewhere, I’m leaving. I’m the person who puts myself into these situations. I only have myself to blame. So I’m not doing it.

However, not everyone is like this. Which is fine. But I haven’t been here three months and already I’m sick of this aspect of living here.

I’m not going to have disposible friends. I’m not going to be a disposible friend.

I have better ways to waste my time.

Sorry about the poor attitude. For the most part, I’m in a pretty good mood and have been for the past week or so and I’m not going to let this ruin a perfectly lovely fall day. I just had to get this out of my system.

Alright, I just got an email from my sister that really made me feel better as well as see another side of things.  (I have a tendency to only see one side of things until my initial emotions wear down a bit.)

Here’s what she wrote:

Here are a few random thoughts on disposable friends.  Living abroad tends to intensify everything – unusual shared experiences sort of promote quick friendships.  If they work for you, enjoy them while they last.  Once things shift (you move, they move, everyone moves), you may be able to continue them via the internet.  Or not.  What maybe we don’t like to acknowledge is that things shift here, too.  You don’t get to keep everyone. 

She’s right.  I don’t get to keep everyone.  That makes me a bit sad, but it also helps me to resolve things a bit in this head of mine.  Thank you.

Friday nights are probably my favorite nights.  All of the crackers go out to eat after work.  We always go to get galbi and drink beer and bamboo wine (imagine apple cider, just not nearly as sweet).  One of the other Avalon campuses gets off work at eleven, which is the best timing for me.  I finish eating with the Migeum crowd and then get to hang out with the other Avaloners.  So we (Racheal, Drew, Sean, Eric and myself) ended up at Sean’s place.  In that particular apartment complex, each apartment has a safety kit, containing useful things such as a rope, flashlight, and a mask. Eric decided to model the mask for us.  It was pretty funny. 

Saturday night:  My friend Sean once pointed out that you don’t get stuck at the Dublin as much as it falls on you. 

Excellent point. 

You end up trying to catch up with everyone you’ve met.  Now, it’s fun.  To a degree.  Last night Aaron (another Avaloner) had a cook out at his place.  People dressed up in costume.  I, lacking time and money for a really fun costume, went as a French woman.  I wore black and acted bored.  Matt was Harry Potter.  Sean was Indiana Jones.  After eating, everyone wandered over to the Dublin.

Ah, Dublin.  I love you and loath you.  I had my camera and was having a pretty good time snapping away.  I think Eric resents being my muse (I always end up sitting across from him at the table, so he’s my most frequent victim).  But really, is there anything better than a resentful muse?  The night wasn’t amazing or spectacular, but it was spent among friends.  (Sans Kerri, who wasn’t feeling well.  Missed you, lady.)  So I thought I’d post a few pictures.

 Hmmmmmm……..looking at the mask picture. I don’t think this is Eric. 

In fact, this is Sean.  Sorry about that.  I forgot that I uploaded this picture.  Anyways, it’s a strange person in a mask. 

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Yeah, sometimes I have a tendency to wax a bit artistic on these pictures.  I don’t know why, but I love taking pictures at bars.  The lighting is fun and challenging (never, ever use the flash), people are animated and relaxed and completely not paying attention to the girl with the camera.  And if they do notice me, they tend to forget about me rather quickly.

Once again, there’s Eric.

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Next is Drew.  He was a mechanic. 

And now, for my favorite picture of Eric…….

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I’m amazed that Eric’s is my friend with how much I pester him.

Come to that, I have a lot of friends like that.  Most of whom I am unable to pester due to proximity. 

And lastly, a picture of yours truly. 

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I found a great website for the subway system.  You can even see where I live!  You can click on Cyber Seoul Subway Guide and see a map of the system.  I live on the Bundang line, third stop from the end at Migeum

Official Site of Korea Tourism Org. 

Handy for those who are coming to visit me!

Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint.

Nothing terribly exciting today.  Sorry.  The “shiny” has started to wear off this country.  I’m sleeping in later and later.  I’m having fewer of the jaw-dropping moments.  In short, I’m getting comfortable.

I did not come here to be comfortable.

So in one week, I will find a place to learn something.  Anything.  Be it Hangal or Spanish or Tae Kwon Do or ballroom dance.   Heck, I might join in with Kerri and learn some cha-cha.  I’ve noticed that I’m one of those people who prefers to keep moving.  At times, I’ll go under the street via subway entrances just so I don’t have to wait for a light.  I’ll walk up stairs if the elevator is taking too long.  If I’m just wandering, I have to keep wandering.  I don’t know where I get this from.  Perhaps it’s a residual effect of feeling stuck for the past few years.

In a dicussion with Eric, we talked about television and it’s negative effects on motivation.   I realized that TV is useful as a diagnostic tool.  Like I said to Eric, “Hmmm…..I’m watching a lot of television.  What aspect of my life am I unhappy about? What am I trying to avoid?”  I do it without noticing.  It’s easy to fall into when you don’t know that many people well.

I keep thinking how strange it is to stop by someone’s house that I’ve spoken with maybe four times.  But everyone is in the same boat, so I may as well get over it.

Okay, this is getting a bit rambly.  Now to the gifty part.

My students occasionally bring me gifts.  It’s fantastic.  The other day, I got these wafer-thingys that were filled with chocolate.  Today, I got homemade gimbap (rice, veggies, and meat all wrapped together in seaweed).  There has been a time or two when I’ve been at school and get blind-sided by homesickness/general depression/headache.  Both times, it’s been one of my students who has cheered me up.  One little girl ran up to be out of nowhere to give me a HUGE hug.  The other time it was a little boy in class who policed my classroom for me that day (he kept everyone in line better than I do somedays).

Finally, I’m not getting any relief from my workload for a while.  I guess the new teacher isn’t coming for a few weeks yet.  The part of me that loathes grading essays is quite sad.  The part of me that loves all of my kids is secretly happy.  I’d hate to lose any of the little buggers. 

Cheers from Migeum,

Anne Valburg

NaNoWriMo is almost here.  For those of you who don’t know, November is the designated

National Novel Writing Month!

The goal is to complete a novel (50,000 words) in one month.  Thirty days.  About 1,666 words a day.  This year, I’m planning out my writing before hand.  I’ll have the basic storyline before I even start typing.  This year, I’m trying to do a story about a bunch of different characters whose stories all overlap.  Yeah, I know, it’s been done before.  But not by me!

In other news, I was writing in Joe’s Coffee Shop this morning when Chantal stopped by.  She’s the only other person I’ve met here who has ever heard of NaNoWriMo.  She also told me about a website that’s extremely helpful for us writer-wannabes.  I’ve browsed it a bit and I think it’s a pretty darn useful site.  

Toasted-Cheese

They also have quite a few competitions to enter.  I know what I’ll be doing when I’m stuck indoors from the cold.  (I think it’s going to get quite cold here.  I’m glad I brought my coat.)

If what I write is any good, I’ll try to go ahead and post it here.  We shall see, we shall see.

November is just a few days away and the glove has been thrown down.  You know who you are.  The game is on. 

Okay, so I like hobbies that are more do-it-yourself, by yourself (Dancing being a huge exception).  Photography, writing, and reading are the main ways I pass my time.  Today, I felt like drawing.  Unfortuantely, no eraser. 

And the stationary store was already closed for the weekend. 

But Kerri found one for me at the convience store!  Now, I’m spending this evening happily sketching away!

Then, to top it all off, my mom called!  My sister found a place online where you can call Korea for about 10 cents a minutes.  It’s fantastic to get calls from home!  Sometimes it’s nice to forget that I’m 7000 miles away. 

Oh yeah, one more thing.  Funny, when I think about the shows from home I miss, they magically appear on TV.  So here’s a list of shows that are on television here:

Law and Order

Scrubs (hip, hip, hooray!)

Gilmore Girls 

CSI

and coming soon……Gray’s Anatomy!

Alright, to bed I go.  Cheers.

Okay, I just paid my bills today. Ouch. Utilities are more expensive here. On the bright side, paying bills is remarkably easy. You just take them to the bank, feed the bills into a machine, punch some buttons, and there you go. Except everthing is in Korean. So what I did was stand there stupidly until the security guard walked over, grinned (good-naturedly) and took my bills from me. He did everything. All I did was type in my pin number. It was fine by me. I was told about the guard by another teacher here. I guess he’s always helpful. I told Kerri that he’s going on my Christmas list.

The moral of the story: I’m feeling poor for the next ten days. No phone cards for me. Sorry folks. Unless you call me, it’ll be radio silence for a little while.

I took some pictures last night. I’m just getting around to posting them now. Oh yeah, on the way home from work, I ran in to Becca. We saw a Korean business man passed out drunk, which is a fairly common thing here. Becca decided to take a picture.

Don’t worry. The guy was breathing. This picture was taken right outside my building. If I saw this sort of thing in the States, I would be very concern about my safety. I’m still wary, but I have yet to feel unsafe. There’s always ALWAYS someone around and the vast majority of the time, I’m left alone.

It’s a strange, strange world.

The next bunch of photos is from a bar (Dublin’s). Everyone says that they’re not going to stay out late, just going out for a little while. However, with the Dublin this just doesn’t work. As Sean (yet another Avalon teacher, but at a different campus) puts it, “You don’t so much get stuck at the Dublin as much as the Dublin falls on you.” It’s true. You run into so many people that you’ve forgotten that you’ve met.

A lovely composition of guitar and beer. Yep, that’s pretty much the Dublin.

Some of the people who play at the open mic night are quite good. Another odd thing, the weekend starts on Wednesday.

I really like this photo.

This is Becca. She says exactly what’s on her mind. She’s one of the funniest people I’ve met here. Kerri and I have had many a discussions about her eyes. There’s the sort of eyes that make you forget what you were talking about mid-sentence.

Ah, the birthday girl. Sarah birthday was last night. Except that we didn’t really just celebrate the day, we started celebrating last week. (Going out for galbi on Friday, etc.)

She’s one-third of the English-speaking estrogen at Avalon Miguem. She frequently gets into verbal sparring matches with the boys and absolutly relishes knocking the down a peg or five.

Eric (who is nice and I write that because he thinks this picture makes him look evil) is another Avaloner.

Nice thing about Avalon, insta-friends. I’m really glad I wasn’t stuck at a school all by myself.

And now for the pool pictures…..

Guess where Matt work?

That’s right!

Avalon!

And guess where Sean works?

Yep, that’d be Avalon!

Final picture. I eat at this mandu place quite a bit. However, whenever I get the soup I always end up thinking about Becky. We both had dish sets when we were little. I had Mickey Mouse and she had Peter Rabbit (I was always jealous about that. Peter was waaaay cooler than Mickey.) I don’t know if you’ll be able to make it out in this picture, but Peter Rabbit is on the soup spoon. That’s the thing about living here, things will be completely alien on moment and then something comes and smack you upside the head, reminding you so strongly of home that for a moment….just a moment….you’re overwhelmed.

And on that note, I’m goign to bed. Cheers.

(This is vague.  Really vague.  It’s supposed to be that way.  Mostly to save myself from embarassment.)

It comes to this. 

It’s past four in the morning.  I’m exhausted, but I still feel the need to post this.  And as self-absorded as it may sound, I don’t care.  I miss being around people that know me.  People that find my particular sense of humor (typically dark or juvenille) almost endearing.  I miss people who know that there are days that I just need a hug.  I really miss those people that expect me to drag them out of their bed at way-too-early an hour to go and eat breakfast. 

I’ve been known to say, “Go by what I mean and not what I say.”  This actually worked (for the most part).  I tend to be flippant about the things and ideas I care about deeply.  If I’m making an effort to be lighthearted, it’s typically because I’m overcompensating for how serious I feel.  Or maybe I’m just not comfortable being serious.  Either way, it’s just one of those things I do. 

It really, really, really doesn’t work like that here.  With the exception of Kerri (and possibly Sarah), no one really picks up on that particular quirk.  Heck, I didn’t realize it.  It wasn’t until I caught myself in the middle of saying something mildy catty.  I immediately tried to figure out why I was being that way.  (And apologized for what I said, which I don’t think was heard anyways over the noise of the bar, but I was still feeling guilty.) It came down to the fact that I expected my friends here to be like my friends at home.  They should know what I mean.  But they don’t.  It just doesn’t work like that here. 

I need to say exactly what I mean. 

Well, it’s a good idea anyways.  I’m going to bed.

So I’m working on cleaning my apartment.  Or, at least, I was.  I really just don’t want  to.  However, I have a bottle of red wine and a desire to cook so I need to clean up before Friday.  Kerri and I might make pancakes, bacon, and eggs.  Or chicken.  I’m not certain.  All I know is that I miss getting my friends together for a good meal. 

Also, I felt I needed to post this picture.

A friend and coworker of mine loves fried chicken.  (Can you guess his name?) 

Okay, back to cleaning.