Sunday, May 20, 2012

I am sitting in the O'Hare International Terminal waiting for my plane to South Korea to board. The stewardesses have been streaming by in preparation for the flight. I was told by a friend that they only hire cute stewardesses on travels to South Korea. It's true. I'm wondering how to handle the jet lag. Should I sleep right away on the plane or avoid sleep as much as I can until Korea? It will be 1:45pm Saturday Michigan time when we take off and 4:00pm Sunday when we land in Korea.

Korea, it is still a strange thing to think that I will be spending a year in a country on the other side of the globe with a vastly different cultural structure. I am not sure when it first occurred to me that this might be a good idea. I suppose I had a friend that mentioned that she was doing it several years ago, and like many ideas planted long ago, eventually they begin to germinate. After graduating with a secondary education degree in English as well as Biology, I knew that I did not want to sit on my diplomas. Michigan is a hard place for a lot of people right now, let alone teachers. The market is extremely competitive. I have friends that have spent years subbing without finding a steady job. I do not want that. I will lose my willpower, my drive, and I am afraid I will wallow in self-pity. If I know myself, I need something to keep the momentum going. Aside from that, I am young. If I wait a year, who knows what else will happen that will keep me from leaving? The longer I wait, the less likely I will ever be able to make a drastic move like this.

I almost did not go. My interview for the jobs in the Fall did not go well. I was not sure why at the time, other than I thought the interviewer came off as cold and disinterested. By a great stroke of undeserved luck, my case worker Jinny was also looking to fill a few spots in Incheon Province. One was at a college teaching English teachers methods as well as higher level English speaking. The other was at a higher level high school that required a placement test to enter. The first paid more, but the second was far more relevant to my experience. I will be teaching at the high school. The web site really impressed me. They teach English through literature, not just conversational topics. This might just be a perfect fit for me, since it is not the words themselves that I love, but their meaning.

The stewardesses have boarded. A Korean child sits next to me playing Bubble Bobble on an Ipod Touch. It's fifteen minutes until boarding and I am waiting on one last phone call before we leave. I smell cold Korean food opened from tupperware.

(Written on 5/19/2012 at 12pm CST)

3 comments:

  1. Please keep blogging Ben I'd like to keep up on your time in Korea. P.S. Sorry for having to work Friday night or I would have came out to see you.

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  3. Ahhhh!!! I still can't believe you're in Korea!!! I keep on thinking I'm going to run into you at work or something, but alas... Also, I totally get what you mean when you said you needed to keep your momentum going. Being back from Africa makes me feel the same way. I was super on top of things there, and now here I feel like I'm falling into the same slacker routine that I had before I left (huge bummer). So I'm absolutely dying to go abroad once more to get those juices flowing again... Anyways! I hope Korea is serving you well and that you're either enjoying it immensely, or that you've started crashing on the adjustment curve (I know that sounds weird, but let me explain!!). I feel like getting the discomfort of culture shock/homesickness out of the way early on is better than dealing with it later, but that could just be me lol.

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