The Tiniest Soap Box

Enthusiasm isn’t a sign of a lack of intelligence. I realize it may seem uncool to many people in my generation to openly enjoy life. I was fifteen once, too. No, but seriously. Life does suck, a lot. In the face of overwhelming bullshit, I choose to smile. I choose to laugh. I choose to share my happiness. I don’t like how ennui is treated like intelligence and optimism is treated like a liability. I have been through a lot. I have come out on the other side. And I am proud of the fact that I have learned to be happy.

Stop treating excitement like idiocy. Life is bad enough by itself; it doesn’t need judgment crashing down on the good it has left. Don’t ever mistake smiles for innocence. Chances are, someone in their adult life who can stand in the face of it all and smile has walked a long road to get there. And that is the kind of person you want to keep in your life, not someone you want to crush.

So go out there and do something fun! Be recklessly unaware of the social consequences!

The Blog That Wouldn't Die

HELLO EVERYONE GUESS WHAT.

I am still alive (though barely).

I would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who has been so patient during this emotionally vexing time of mine. For those of you who are not in the know (basically everyone, I'm sorry), two of the foreign teachers at my school had to abruptly return to the States during the last month or so, dwindling our numbers from seven to five, with no one to make up the damage. Except those of us already there. So I have been teaching for literally all day every day, with no daily preparation periods, for about a month straight. I then have to prepare my classes after school, at the time where you normally eat things and do things that aren't being at work.

In a nutshell, I have been spending ten to twelve hours a day on average at work. And I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Woe is Toria.

In point of fact, when I get home at night, I no longer have the energy to exercise. I can't practice martial arts, I can't write, I can't even read anything harder than a children's book. I haven't finished a book in two months. I have become a shallow husk of my former self. On the weekends, in between preparing school work, my friend Ellie has been dragging me away to do fun things, but when I return, I don't even have the energy to blog about them.

I can't even string together four lines of verse. I'm serious. Watch me try.

There was a woman named Victoria
Who was good at poetry, until
Blah blah blah,
The bagels in Korea taste funny.

There is good news, dear friends. (I actually originally typed that as "goo news" and almost left it for the comedic value.) There is a new teacher coming. Two, if everything works out! And then I will have the time to answer your emails and finish my blogs and remember how to do a back spin kick.

The bad news is that tomorrow is Open Class, which is the day when parents come in and watch me teach. What? Stressful? No, that's not stressful! So you can wish me luck in the manner of your personal beliefs and religious views.

Anyway, despite the stress and the sickness and the inability to do much more than stare at my walls, I am holding up. I know that almost everyone I know is fully aware that I have a busy life and my own duties to attend to. I know that most of you know that, in the metaphor wherein you are a house and life is a tornado, you can really only focus on holding your own bricks together until the sky clears. You know that. I have been reminded of that now, thanks to my mother. But it doesn't stop me from feeling a compelling guilt regarding my radio silence towards my family and other assorted loved ones. Thus you get this incredibly rambling and nonsensical post.

You're welcome.

Peace.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Gun.

Phoget About It

I love my weekends in Korea. I don't have to wear make-up, which is the best thing. I can put on a hoodie and not think about looking like a teacher for days. I can read and write and work out and study Korean and go sit somewhere for an extended amount of time without thinking about children. I can investigate the nuances of Korean existence. Mostly I drink a lot of coffee and doodle, but there we are.

My boon companion, Ellen of PandaBackpack.

Yesterday, I accompanied my ally-in-wandering-about, Ellen, to run an errand on the south side of Busan. We had hoped to procure ferry tickets to Japan for Chuseok, which is Korean Thanksgiving as well as one of the few times private schoolteachers have time off. It was a somewhat unproductive venture, but it left us with the rest of the afternoon free. On a rainy, windy day. Did we decide to go to a museum or something?  Yes, we did, but we changed our minds.  No, we didn't! We abruptly decided to wander around and look at things in the rain. Because we are explorers. Intrepid explorers.

Since we were in that part of the city anyway, we decided to go to the Gwangalli Beach. Ellen and I both live in Geumjeong, on the north side of the city. It takes us a long time to get to the sea, so if we're in the area, you better believe we're gonna see some ocean, no matter the weather. Gwangalli is known for its coffeeshops, restaurants, and nightlife. Nice area to visit and take pictures. Not usually what you do before a typhoon rolls in, but I feel I should remind you of the phrase intrepid explorers.

Stormclouds over Gwangalli.

There's Gwangan Bridge, looking beautiful and mysterious.

In Busan, there is always a mountain in the distance.

Seagulls chillin' on some rocks.

A view from the far end of the beach.

After much walking and the partial destruction of three well-meaning umbrellas, we decided to treat ourselves at a local Vietnamese restaurant known as The Pho. It was exquisite. It was filling. It was still moderately priced. And it was not Korean, which makes for a nice change. I don't care how good the food is anywhere I live, apparently I like having access to lots of, uh, food ethnicities? 

Right in your spicy face.

The tea was served cold and was vaguely reminscent of some kind of grain, though we couldn't put our finger on what, exactly, it was. Two kinds of pickled onions were featured.(It turns out that, in leaving the Bloomingfoods deli, I would miss pickled onions a lot. o_O) We ordered pho, which is a kind of warm soup made with spiced broth, rice noodles, bean sprouts, and sliced beef. It is also CRAZY DELICIOUS. Then we got the seafood fried rice, which was stellar. Don't let the innocuous plastic bottles by the side of the table put you off: one was this brownish paste that I knew the flaor of but couldn't name, and the other was a red chili sauce with a flavor that makes me want to laugh in the face of Sriracha.

Ellie may have been dubious about the ambience.

After The Pho, we went to a bunny-themed cafe that looks out over the beach, called Cafe Tokiwa, or something. (Toki means rabbit!) The prices were a smidge high, but the coffee was genuinely very good. The atmosphere left a little to be desired: there was some bunny action, but I could have taken some more bunnyness floating around. In Korea, you gotta really commit to a themed cafe. The stakes are high, in the game of cute.

It was pretty packed when we went, and the people there were studying very intensely, so it was a little uncomfortable. But I can imagine that in the winter, there is a definite dreamy wonder to the place.

My caramel macchiato NEEDS MORE BUNNY.

Ellen's latte. Koreans are uncommonly fond of foam doodling.

Then we took an alternate route back to the subway and got lost in a rainstorm for more than an extra hour. It was a good hike. It was hilarious. It was how every Sunday should be. :)

A bedraggled me. I almost called this post Typhoon Toria,
but then I decided, no. I shan't be starting that.

The Digs

It is raining in Busan - AGAIN - so I'm finishing up these blog posts I have started. Especially the picture ones! The following photos were taken the day I arrived, but I have to be honest, my apartment hasn't changed much. (THIS. IS. SPARTAN.)

Check out that wallpaper. Fantastic.

Quite frankly, I was quite pleasantly surprised by my spacious (har har) living space upon my arrival in Korea. True, the apartment is mind-bogglingly cramped, but I expected worse - and a few of my coworkers HAVE it worse, so I can hardly complain. My shabby digs are my own, at least. I don't have to share space with anyone but my swarms of mosquitoes and my ego.

Korean beds are sort...I don't know. Very hard and simple. My back hurts a lot. Then I have a nightstand and a bureau.Tiny orange garbage bin!

Hello, room of tile and mildew!

That endearing room yonder is my bathroom. The entire room is a shower, which is the norm in basic Korean living. That tiny window is the only ventilation for that room. Go ahead and imagine the mold situation in my apartment, I'll sit here and wait.

Mysterious.

So there are these faucets near the floor with some green tubes attached to them. I presume these are for cleaning the floor and other floor-like things. That is what I have used them for, the total of two times I've turned them on in the two months I've lived here.

To your right is my sink, which has my shower nozzle attached to it. I stand there and take showers. I try not to soak the door and send a puddle into my "living room". The whole showering process is inelegant and hilarious. I am still not really used to it. But at least I don't have to hunch over beneath a too-short shower head!

On a side note, Korean toothpaste tastes weird. Sincerely weird. I never thought toothpaste-taste would be a thing for me, but there you go.

Sometimes I sing to Korean strangers out of that window.

This is my kitchen! There is a sliding door to close it off from the other half of my apartment. This helps me save on air conditioning and heating! Which is cool. There is the other window in my apartment. It is large and I have set up a little homemade compost on the outside. I am so crafty.

I love to cook for myself (as some of my dear readers will know), but the sink and stove are soooooooo low for me. I think the kitchen is actually even short for my landlords, a darling elderly couple who bring me kimchi and heckle me for no reason. <3

True, it's tiny, the counter tops come up to the middle of my thigh, there is seriously tragic yellow wallpaper (YES LIKE THE FEMINIST SHORT STORY BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN), the provided bedspreads are flowery and short and pink, the bed is like a plank of wood, and it still smells faintly of a strange combination of old lady apartment and Asian grocery store, but it's the home I have, until I return to this one:

Indiana as I last saw her. Never thought I'd miss the bothersome bint. But there's more than corn, it would seem.

Part of Your World (Part I)

Hello, dear readers! I do apologize for the lack of posts. In fact, I have quite a few nearly finished, but I lose track of things and the weeks are long and full of hyper children, and such excuses. Thus I bring you a post with a bit of heft to it! With some actual information about what I do and what my life is like. Fun! I am settled in and watching The Little Mermaid, so let the merriment commence!

I'd wager this is a lot less pleasant than she's making it look. 

I work at a private academy known as a hagwon. There is really no Western equivalent of a hagwon - essentially, it's a small, specialized school that parents pay for their children to go to in addition to regular school. There are hagwon for all different kinds of things, from science to music to art. I think there may even be cooking hagwon. This school I teach at only provides English education, though our kindergarten service (from ages 3-5) is a legitimate kindergarten, with crafts and science and games and math.

I am one of seven native English speakers at my school - four men, three ladies. (Interestingly enough, that's an unusually high male percentage for one school!) We sign year-long contracts and typically stay just one, but people have been known to extend, or just find another school and get another experience. Working for a private school is more work and longer hours than public school, but you get to know your students better, and the quality of English spoken by the kids is much, much higher on average. I also tend to need a lot more structure in my life as a rule, so I made my choice thus. :)

My school is great. Along with the native speakers, there are Korean English teachers as well. Unlike many schools, where you have one co-teacher for all your classes, I have a different Korean co-teacher for every one of my classes. So I get to experience a bunch of different approaches to teaching at once! Baller.

Treasure beyond measure.

Children here are unusually susceptible to emotional control via stickers. I'm not even kidding. Bad grades, candy, calling parents, speaking privileges, general advancement: all okay ways to motivate. But throw stickers into the mix and MY STUDENTS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO WEEP OVER THE REPERCUSSIONS. O_o I mean, I won't pretend it's not convenient, but this lasts into middle school! Maybe even high school! Stickers!

And the parents are hilarious, because more often than not, if they can afford to send their children to a private English academy, they are very emotionally invested in how the kid fares. Like, that "Tiger Mom" thing? It's legit. Sometimes I get a little nervous around the parents, I'll be honest. But! Most of them are just happy you're there to help, and a few are really excited to meet you. Of course I have already gotten myself in awkward social interactions because of this.

...but how is it my fault when someone comes up to me and says, "Hello! I am Jane's mother!" and I respond, "Oh, nice to meet you! I'm Victoria-teacher!" And they give me a surprised look and say, "...오, 영어 안합니다." And then my co-teachers laugh at me. Well, maybe you shouldn't come on so strong with the English if you only know the one sentence. :(

I am the queen of not knowing what's going on, though, so it's all par for the course. I don't know if y'all are aware of this, but South Korea is, like, on the other side of the world! With all these different cultural norms and expectations! I was provided with a good deal of warnings and suggestions before I came, but let's face it, you have to experience this kind of thing firsthand.

Won't stop me from trying to share it with all of you, though.

So, in America, tattoos are still seen as somewhat edgy and contentious, but social discourse about it is normal. An ever-growing generous percentage of young people consider or have some ink. It perfectly acceptable to ask someone about their tattoo. It is pretty rude, but perfectly common, to voice your opinion about it, even if it's negative. Everyone with a visible tattoo has heard a little something from someone they don't really know. "I don't like tattoos." "Why would you do that to your body?" "You know that's forever, right?" "What will you look like when you're old?" But the point is that American ink is not just for sailors, bikers, and prison anymore! While many people are surprised by my own (humble) ink, and a few are rude, most people are just polite and curious. People get it.

In South Korea, tattoos are kiiiind of linked to the mafia. Not even joking. Someone Korean who is openly sporting a lot of tats is, uh, questionable. And while no one thinks I'm in the mafia, I still tend to cover up my tattoos. While it wouldn't cost me my job or any friendships, there's a good chance some parents would think it was really unprofessional, and it would ABSOLUTELY be a distraction in class. So I always dress to casually cover them up. I do wear shorts sometimes when I go out, and when people notice my leg tattoo, they have mixed (but always surprised) reactions. Mostly middle-aged men seem to do the disapproving, while old people seem to think everything about my blundering un-Koreanness is endearing.

At this point, I should mention that I am no stranger to being stared at. It happens. I don't exactly answer to your typical expectations of womanhood, in Korea or anywhere else, and I embraced that noise by the time I was twelve. But as you can imagine, it is a lot more intense over here in East Asia, where I'm taller than most men, curvy, inked, and a little sassy.

The best reaction-to-me story happened on the subway a few weeks ago. I stood up to leave and there was this audible gasp from about half of this subway car (because, you guessed it, I'm a lot taller than they were expecting). If that wasn't awkward enough, I then hear an old man's voice right behind me go, "EeeeEEEHH!" I turn and there is this little weathered man gesturing to my leg tattoo and speaking rapid fire Korean. I couldn't really tell if he was angry or curious or joking or what because...well, I have the same problem with the elderly everywhere. But there was this long pause where everyone in the car stared at me expectantly. So in Korean, I just went, "...I'm sorry?" And the ENTIRE CAR BURST OUT LAUGHING, including the old man. There was even some clapping, and these two punk teenagers threw me some thumbs up. And I got off the train.

Well, I had more to say, but this is getting unwieldy. Stories about cultural differences? They're endless. I suppose I shall just have to have continuations of this post. They could all be The Little Mermaid-themed! After all, I do feel a bit like someone tossed me a pair of legs and pushed me onshore and told me to adapt. I haven't brushed my hair with a fork yet, but then again, they prefer chopsticks here.

See you later, blogfans and Toriaphiles!

These used to be merpeople. Gyuh, Disney.

P.S. Ursula is freaking me out a lot more than she did when I was a kid. All those shriveled up souls she keeps around, moaning and staring piteously at her? Duuuuuude. :[

The Darndest Things

On my first day, when I was just sitting in and watching my coworkers do their thing, one of the children in the youngest class (they would correspond to our three-year-olds, but age is determined differently in Korea) was crawling around on the floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm a snake."
"A snake?"
"And a cat. Hhhssshshrrrow."

And then I died from impossible levels of cuteness.

Teaching here often feels like an onslaught of lovable energy, born of frank curiosity and the combination of politeness and affection that you just don't find in American schoolchildren (speaking as a former American schoolchild myself). In the States, for various reasons it's often seen as inappropriate to be overly familiar with your students: to hug them, to tell them your care for them, to ruffle their hair. In South Korea - especially with the kindergartners - you are encouraged to do so. And trust me, it's easy to do here. Because they are precious.

I was forewarned about this, but it is still heartily amusing to me how the students think all of the white teachers look the SAME SAME SAME. I teach in a school with six other native English speakers (6 Americans and 1 Englishman), and I feel I should point out that I bear resemblance to none of them. Still, my students are convinced that one particular coworker and I have the same hair. And we don't at all. I have thick, fluffy rusty-blonde hair, and she has long, shiny brown hair. When we point this out, the younger children just laugh and say things like, "But your hair isn't black, teachers!" And you can't really argue with that.

On a related note, a student stopped me in the hallway with some revelations on my second day at the school.

"Teacher! I have to tell you something important!"
"Oh? What is it?" I asked, expecting some secret or a misdeed on the part of one of her peers.
"Your eyes are almost blue and your hair is a sunset!"

These are important things.

Actually, just last week an entire class of mine started yelling at once because I bent down to do something, and they realized that my hair was not brown, but "gold". This was a ten-minute interruption of children yelling, "Gold! Gold hair!" and "I want your hair, give it to meeeee!" I brought it up again yesterday, asking why this had been such a big deal. In the words of one student, "You get a lot of money with this hair." I am not even kidding. Basically, because a lot of celebrities dye their hair lighter colors, my eight-year-olds were convinced that this is how you make serious money.

No one had informed me, but I'll let you all know once the cash starts flowing in.

No matter how tired, grumpy, achey, or homesick I am, I go to work every day with a bounce in my step, knowing that these kids will be waiting for me to get there, will beam when I walk through the door, will share their candy and stories and more quotes worth hearing and joking about. This is a very blessed life I live.

And just because a quote post wouldn't be complete with the subject that comes up about once an hour, every day of my life here:
"Teacher, you are so tall. You are tall like my house."

<3

Down From the Door Where it Began

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a travel blogger, in waiting too long for a first post must inevitably psych herself out. If there is a hard-and-fast rule of blogging, it is that first posts suck. You can't help it. It's the way things are.

As I sit here, typing one-handed while eating a tasty 500 won (that's $0.44) watermelon popsicle, I can't help but feel that I've been putting off my first post unnecessarily. Sure, time has passed and much has happened in my almost three weeks. Yes, it's hard to know where and how to begin. Of course, I am terrified I won't live up to my own authorial expectations. But first posts suck. There's a sort of comfort in knowing it before you begin. Survey says you get two visits on your first post who aren't you, and one is your mom. (Hey, Mom.)

I could not have been more ready to leave America at the moment when I did, and with all my delays and lowered expectations (more on that later, possibly, maybe), the sentimentality of what I was doing did not really hit me until I was fully on the plane. How Bilbo Baggins of me! I was doing it! Flying over Indiana, flying away from deli work and an emotionally grueling college career!

...and from everything I have ever known. How very Bilbo of me.

And how naive of me to not realize that his share of bittersweet misgivings - which as a child, and even as an adult, I viewed as a prudish lack of adventure of his part - would have to be borne by me for a while as well. I got everything I asked for - and everything that comes with such a change. And that, I suppose, has much to do with the late start of this blog as well.

On a related note, a special shout-out to the Chinese-born professor from Wisconsin who sat on a plane with me for fourteen hours straight. The most relevant advice about moving to Asia I received was from you. And some of the kindest things ever said as well, seeing as I came to them by someone who knew me for less than a day. I wish I could remember your name, but honestly, I couldn't even pronounce it. Thank you. For showing me how to eat the airline food, for getting me my correct order when I was too shy, for watching the Hunger Games with me, for being interested in my opinions on the adult education system in America, for convincing me to sleep. <3

It would be unseemly to go into any more detail for a first post. I have an apartment to show you, a neighborhood to help you explore, the thoughts of a first-time teacher to confess, a lot of crazy quotes from my students, an abundance of pictures, and more food stories than anyone needs. I will do my best to get it all out there quickly, so that we might get to more of a day-to-day updating system. Be expecting some chronologically unsound recounting in the next week or so. It is my summer vacation for the next three days.

Until then, welcome to my blog. My writing is not what it used to be, but thus shall I practice. :D

Victoria

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.
J.R.R. Tolkien