Forever Young

"Let us die young or let us live forever.
So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams are swinging out of the blue
We let them come true "

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/alphaville/#share
What does it mean to be young forever? To me it's the bliss of total freedom and detachment of all the stress and angst that comes with age. It means shutting your eyes and floating on the banks of emotion and hope. Walking as if all your questions are answered and you don't have a care in the world; when really none of them are, but you just can't find the will to care. It's forgetting to hesitate and instead leaping into life and gliding through the course you land upon. It's loving with all the wild passion you can muster and believing it is all you need to get by. It means destroying all restraints and doing what we we were essentially created to do, live.

I can't say I was able to let myself fully live during this year. Like I've said before my biggest flaws are my sentimentality and my imagination. I can never turn them off, therefore I'm always cherishing the memories of the past and fantasizing about the future instead of enjoying the present. Yet, as the time winds down to my last few weeks in Korea, I find myself appreciating the life I had out here. There is so much to be thankful for, I should of never allowed myself to be so miserable. I met some of the most amazing people, and although our time here was so short I'm happy to call them friends. They provided the warmest laughs and fondest memories in my life thus far. They showed me what it truly means to live life, to love and just feel alive.

I used to wreck my brain trying to find the answers that would piece my little life together, when all I needed to do was just live. Everything is in place, everything has always been in place, and now I'm falling into it.

Living in Equilibrium

Running on the treadmill is a lot like my life right now. Running in place, minutes seem like days, and hours like months. I always tell myself not to track my progress, because the minutes will just disappoint me. Sometimes I'll feel like I've been running for 25 minutes but to my own dismay the clock only reads 15. All this time I've been running, but why do I feel like I'm stuck in time? Somedays I feel like Korea is progressive; most people are kind to foreigners, most children are filled with curious and innocent questions, and most places treat foreigners like celebrities. Yet, other days, days like this, I feel like I'm in a different time. The best way I can describe it is by relating it to the movie, Equilibrium. Everyone essential thinks the same, dresses the same, acts the same and views the world the same. There is not room for individualism in a culture that thrives on a communal lifestyle. To explain it all would take hours and hours, the best way to see it is to view it with your own eyes and live it every day, as I have been doing for almost a year now.

In class today, my fifth grade students were learning how to describe someone. To Koreans physical appearance is very important, if not the most important thing. You must be rail thin, with corpse-like pale skin, long straight black hair, and perfect clothes and ALWAYS wearing heels (rain, sleet, or snow). Also, the new trend is having eye surgery to create a crease in each of your eyelids, thus making your eyes bigger. The same effect can be achieved through the less expensive option of circle lens. Basically, they are these lens that are enlarged big black circles, and when you put them on your eyes they make your eyes look wider. In my opinion, they're abnormal, unnatural, and a bit scary.



Anyways, back to my initial point, today students learned how to describe each other. The subject can get a bit sensitive because what is pretty to some may be ugly to others, and as I quickly learned, my Korean teacher has no shame calling a student chubby or funny looking; this made me incredibly uncomfortable, to say the least.I already knew what was coming. She went on to describe what blonde hair means and what red hair means. Then looking at me for confirmation, she told the students a story about how her native english teacher taught her when she was in school that girls with blonde hair are pretty and girls with red hair are not. She asked me if it was true, and I said ofcourse not. She was so shocked and asked me again rephrasing it by saying, "so it is possible for a girl with red hair to be pretty?" I said yes, why not....with my are you seriously asking me that look on my face. If this is what they teach them about hair color, it's not hard for anyone to predict the ignorance they embed in their minds about skin color.


I've experienced ignorance on the subject when I first came here and it's something I'll never get use to. Many of my friends say oh they just don't know any better. But in my opinion, it doesn't matter what you wrap ignorance with, whether it's hate or just not knowing, someone has to challenge and correct it. Just as any Korean would correct a foreigner on their culture and customs, we must do the same. It's nothing to yell at someone about, but it's necessary to get a person to think for themselves instead of blindly following. That's one of the most important things I've learned, my job as a teacher is not restricted to the classroom, in fact it never stops. And even though I'm constantly struggling with my life out here, when it's over I can say that my time in Korea was never wasted.

Sinusitis: Yellow Dust Season

For the past two months I've been battling a terrible cold, that seems to be getting worse as time goes by. I went to my usual doctor with my co-teacher, and he usually takes about a minute to look at me, mumbles something in Korean and sends me to the pharmacy. So, after seeing him for the 3rd visit, I thought it was a useless waste of time and decided to let the cold run it's course. What a course it's running! I don't EVER remember being sick this long and believe me it is no fun. For about a week or two I thought I was getting over it until this week when I felt like absolute death. I went to a new doctor and finally figured out what the heck is wrong with me; sinusitis. Basically, I have a bad sinus infection which is the cause of my constant coughing. Although I'm relieved to know what's finally wrong with me, I am so anxious to have this cold disappear. The weather is finally awesome, not too cold, not too hot, just the was spring should be.




May was quite eventful and filled with holidays; Children's Day and Buddha's Birthday (similar to Christmas). I tried to get out and see things despite my sickness, but now that I look back that is probably the reason why I'm still sick now. Nevertheless, I know it was all worth it. I only have less than three months left in Korea, and even though I was sick I knew it would be awhile before I was back for Buddha's Birthday. I'm enjoying my last months as much as I can, but a big part of me is anxious for August to come around. I signed my contract stating I won't be renewing, and I even bought my plane ticket home! I went back and read the blogs I posted during my first few months in Korea, and it was interesting to see how much I've grown in this year. When I came here I was a mess, literally. I was homesick, depressed, and scared to be independent. For almost all my life, I had someone there to pick me up when I falling, to finish something I couldn't, to comfort me when I was at my loneliest. In Korea I was on my own for the first time. Sure I had Dawn and many other amazing friends to turn to, but I knew that I had to deal with my issues on my own. At the end of the day, when I turn off all the lights it was just me, and I had to learn how to be okay with that. I don't know why being alone scared me the most, maybe because I never let myself be myself. This roller-coaster journey in Korea has taught me that. I learned how to survive and thrive without leaning on the people closest to me. I learned to be satisfied staying in on weekends, and I learned that I don't need anything as long as I believe in myself and have faith in God, everything will work itself out.