What happens when you work too much...
...you start to go crazy and can't stop thinking about things that can be saved for another day, like:
-researching and starting a Roth IRA
-Visas for traveling in January (and it is barely November right now)
-grad school for dance (as I sit here and skip dance class...)
-strangling students (a joke, but...I came pretty close to it earlier today!)
-what I need to learn if Kristofer and I want to open up a business or something like that when we go back
-going back to the states
It's 6:25 pm. I have been here since 8:25 am. I will be here until at 9:20 pm working (my evening class is from 8:30 pm until 9:20 pm). I really should be at dance class right now because it's probably good for my physical and mental health to get away from school, but since I am dissatisfied with my day lesson plan and need to add something to my evening lesson plan for tomorrow, here I am. Also...I have my period and since I ran out of tampons...I really don't feel like moving around in a diaper! For those of you who can't deal with that much information, o well! It's a part of life for almost all women! :)
When I was in high school, daydreaming about the love I would someday meet was refuge from the "hardships" of teenage life (hardships! yeah right...sure it was tough, but now that I think about it, it was fun!). And now, dreaming about my future life with the love I have finally found is refuge from the hair-pulling frustration of teaching, discomforts of living in a house that isn't mine, exasperation of not being able to control what I want to wear, eat, and do. Life could be worse, I know. I have it good here, but like I said, when you work too much, you get consumed..in yourself or what you gotta do or wish you could do if you weren't at work.
Wherever one is in life, it is probably rare that anyone will be doing exactly what they want or that all the factors will be exactly how they would like it to be. Maybe that is one of the lessons I have to learn here. I have to remember the conversation I had with one of my co-teachers earlier today: I am a person who is blessed with the good luck of always meeting amazing people. And...I am missing the amazing people I have at home: my family! She said the reason why I am probably desperately homesick today is because I'm so close with my mother-in-law (haha! ok the wedding hasn't happened yet, but...pretty much...she is my mother..I love her like that!). This is true, but I had many dreams about my own family...my nephews and nieces were in my dreams last night.
It could be because I carved a pumpkin with my host brother on Sunday night. I thought I'd share a little bit of Halloween with him, though it was the second pumpkin I have ever carved in my life (the first was when I was 20 and living with my sister and her family). It was really fun. This week all my classes are a presentation on Halloween. I think I am enjoying it more than them. When I ask them if they have ever worn a costume and they look at me as though I've asked them whether they've ever seen an alien--like I have asked the most random, senseless, boring, and obvious question. And then I think about all the things I have been: a chipmunk from Alvin and the Chipmunks, a clown, a 50s girl with a poodle skirt, a vampire, and a self-made ghoul. And I remember how fun it was to run around and then have candy for days, weeks...even months.
Sharing "culture" and holidays feels a little problematic when you can't really celebrate it, but are just presenting it. The students don't seem to care or are a little bummed because it looks so cool, yet they can't do it...and then they just forget about it when they walk out the classroom at the end of 50 minutes. For me, I realize how much I took for granted, that I have fun with those holidays and excuses to do something a little different or see some family. I am realizing there are many things I miss, and that maybe there is more culture in America than some people give it credit.
For me America has what I miss the most right now:
-family
-books in my first language
-food i'd like to eat like: tortillas, chili, steak, good coffee, salad, rice and beans
-architecture that I love: Central park, gothic churches, old New England homes
-New England foliage
-the freedom to speak my language without having to explain myself all the time, without getting crazy stares,
-the liberty to wear what I want, sit how I'd like without having someone stop me and think they can tell me how I need to dress.
I suppose I sound very selfish...you can say to me, but Jackie lots of people feel like that or these are trivial wants. Well then I'm glad that I am admitting I feel this way....because then I can move on from them better understand someone else's homesickness. I also write these things because I'm realizing how much I do love home, which is America. I love Korea, too...but I know my little piece of America better than anywhere else in the world and seeing it this way makes being critical of my government and wanting to fight for social justice, all that much more urgent and meaningful.
-researching and starting a Roth IRA
-Visas for traveling in January (and it is barely November right now)
-grad school for dance (as I sit here and skip dance class...)
-strangling students (a joke, but...I came pretty close to it earlier today!)
-what I need to learn if Kristofer and I want to open up a business or something like that when we go back
-going back to the states
It's 6:25 pm. I have been here since 8:25 am. I will be here until at 9:20 pm working (my evening class is from 8:30 pm until 9:20 pm). I really should be at dance class right now because it's probably good for my physical and mental health to get away from school, but since I am dissatisfied with my day lesson plan and need to add something to my evening lesson plan for tomorrow, here I am. Also...I have my period and since I ran out of tampons...I really don't feel like moving around in a diaper! For those of you who can't deal with that much information, o well! It's a part of life for almost all women! :)
When I was in high school, daydreaming about the love I would someday meet was refuge from the "hardships" of teenage life (hardships! yeah right...sure it was tough, but now that I think about it, it was fun!). And now, dreaming about my future life with the love I have finally found is refuge from the hair-pulling frustration of teaching, discomforts of living in a house that isn't mine, exasperation of not being able to control what I want to wear, eat, and do. Life could be worse, I know. I have it good here, but like I said, when you work too much, you get consumed..in yourself or what you gotta do or wish you could do if you weren't at work.
Wherever one is in life, it is probably rare that anyone will be doing exactly what they want or that all the factors will be exactly how they would like it to be. Maybe that is one of the lessons I have to learn here. I have to remember the conversation I had with one of my co-teachers earlier today: I am a person who is blessed with the good luck of always meeting amazing people. And...I am missing the amazing people I have at home: my family! She said the reason why I am probably desperately homesick today is because I'm so close with my mother-in-law (haha! ok the wedding hasn't happened yet, but...pretty much...she is my mother..I love her like that!). This is true, but I had many dreams about my own family...my nephews and nieces were in my dreams last night.
It could be because I carved a pumpkin with my host brother on Sunday night. I thought I'd share a little bit of Halloween with him, though it was the second pumpkin I have ever carved in my life (the first was when I was 20 and living with my sister and her family). It was really fun. This week all my classes are a presentation on Halloween. I think I am enjoying it more than them. When I ask them if they have ever worn a costume and they look at me as though I've asked them whether they've ever seen an alien--like I have asked the most random, senseless, boring, and obvious question. And then I think about all the things I have been: a chipmunk from Alvin and the Chipmunks, a clown, a 50s girl with a poodle skirt, a vampire, and a self-made ghoul. And I remember how fun it was to run around and then have candy for days, weeks...even months.
Sharing "culture" and holidays feels a little problematic when you can't really celebrate it, but are just presenting it. The students don't seem to care or are a little bummed because it looks so cool, yet they can't do it...and then they just forget about it when they walk out the classroom at the end of 50 minutes. For me, I realize how much I took for granted, that I have fun with those holidays and excuses to do something a little different or see some family. I am realizing there are many things I miss, and that maybe there is more culture in America than some people give it credit.
For me America has what I miss the most right now:
-family
-books in my first language
-food i'd like to eat like: tortillas, chili, steak, good coffee, salad, rice and beans
-architecture that I love: Central park, gothic churches, old New England homes
-New England foliage
-the freedom to speak my language without having to explain myself all the time, without getting crazy stares,
-the liberty to wear what I want, sit how I'd like without having someone stop me and think they can tell me how I need to dress.
I suppose I sound very selfish...you can say to me, but Jackie lots of people feel like that or these are trivial wants. Well then I'm glad that I am admitting I feel this way....because then I can move on from them better understand someone else's homesickness. I also write these things because I'm realizing how much I do love home, which is America. I love Korea, too...but I know my little piece of America better than anywhere else in the world and seeing it this way makes being critical of my government and wanting to fight for social justice, all that much more urgent and meaningful.
posted by jacquelina at 6:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home