How Am I Doing?

A couple people have recently told me how facty or complainy or detached my blog posts have been of late. So... how am I doing?

Pretty good.

End communication.

But seriously...

It's been just under eleven months now, and I'm in the process of extending my contract until the end of May. I recently sent my passport to a travel agency to get a visa to go to Vietnam for winter break, and was sweating its return. My Korean visa expires on December 20th, and I knew I would have to go to immigration to renew it. When I told Mingyu about needing to get there immediately so I would get it back in time for my trip, he laughed at me. He said it only took two days.

The next day he ate his words. Since I arrived here on the cusp of some major changes to the regulations regarding acquiring teaching visas here, I now have to resubmit a health check and a criminal background check. The health check is no big deal, the the background check has been stressing me out something awful. I found out that the local Los Angeles background check and clearance letter I got wasn't even necessary, and my employers never had to show it to the government. Now I have to get a state-level check, which requires fingerprints, and authentication from the Secretary of State in Sacramento. My brain almost exploded trying to figure out exactly what I have to do. After hours of searching the internet by both me and Heather, calling the US embassy, listening to a recorded message from the Department of Justice, then back to the internet for more specific directions, I think I have a handle on it. It just requires getting fingerprints here, mailing stuff to Sacramento, waiting for it to come back, sending it back to Sacramento to another office, and waiting for it to come back again.

Although I received special permission to leave the country during my vacation, since it falls within my original contract dates, I will not be allowed to leave Korea after January 18, until all my documents are in. Since it will probably take about two months for that to happen, I have to trash my plans to go to Japan during the Lunar New Year at the end of January. I'm pretty upset about that, especially since that will by my last long weekend before I go home. There are no more holidays until May, and that one falls on a Tuesday.

So I've been pretty stressed out lately, what with this, planning my birthday, Thanksgiving, and now Christmas is coming up. I lose more hair in the shower than I'd really like, but that's been happening the whole time. I think it's just the constant stress of being away from home that does it.

Beyond all that, life has been going relatively smoothly, but with some low points. I often find myself extremely irritable at work. I find outlets by pretend-yelling at my students all day. Sometimes I scream "NO!" at them no matter what they say to me for a few minutes. They find that pretty funny. They seem to find anything I say to them funny, as long as it's unrelated to teaching. I often say things like, "I don't like you, go away," or "Get away from me," but they always laugh. I'm glad they can take a joke. I think it has something to do with my being foreign. They don't take anything I say seriously, because I'm considered part of an inferior race.

But I am enjoying myself. My first eight months here I went on trips to national parks, visited the air base up north, vacationed in Thailand, went to the famous Boryeong Mud Festivel, and went on a few field trips with my bosses. I've been taking it easy the last couple months, what with the boyfriend gone now, but I still get to do things I enjoy. I see movies quite often, go out drinking with Leon, go out to restaurants with Heather, and go on the occasional field trip with her or hang out at her house and play Wii and watch movies. Next week she's taking me and Leon to a bathhouse at a hot spring in Gyeongju, which I'm really looking forward to. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole bathhouse thing for a long time, because it's such a naked place, but I think I can forego a little modesty for a real cultural experience.

This is probably the best place I've lived, despite missing American food, not getting any personal space in public, and being generally pissed about the faulty education and work systems in the country. Here I don't need a car, and can get pretty much wherever I want for cheap on the bus or train; I have a nice apartment that's free; people are friendly but they don't bother me (except for those retail workers who follow customers around); it's easy to travel both nationally and internationally; medical care is mostly cheap and easily accessible; and I don't dread going to work every day. And now I finally have a friend I don't have to travel 2-5 hours to see. It's miraculous.

Living abroad has had its ups and downs, but it's mostly decent. In any case, it's interesting, enough to make me willing to stay for an extra five months. Honestly, I'd rather be coming home in January, but because I'm not even close to my original goal of paying off the last $7000 of my private students loans (let alone the federal ones), I feel the need to stay longer and make some more money. I am strongly considering coming back to Korea, even Kate LA, though, after a summer back home visiting friends and family and relaxing a bit (I hope), so I'm definitely not sick of the place. It would just be nice to get a decent burger for once.