After over six months of not blogging (or writing, really), it feels like I'm writing in someone else's blog. I've always been one for fits and starts, but it's getting to the point where I no longer feel as though "writer" is a viable career option (as though it ever was).



I feel a commentary, though brief, on life over the past six months is a necessary thing.


First and foremost, it has come to my attention that, after three years of working directly- and with large groups of them- with children, that I do not, in fact, like them. I find myself longing for the academia that I once hated (pattern?). I've officially got my career goals down to two possibilities: translator (the loftier of the two goals) and archivist.


The mid-twenties is a really interesting time. I feel like I'm at once actually able to live my life while simultaneously thinking about my actions (past and present) in a way that I was never capable of before. This could either be wisdom, or the fact that I've slowed down enough to actually take stock of life while it's happening, rather than acting rashly and then looking back later.

Now that I've hit twenty-four, I'm also noticing something else about the mid-twenties. That is, I've finally come to terms with the fact that I will never be famous. I never really believed that I would become famous (I hate the spotlight, so why would I want to be in it all the time?), but there was always that faint possibility- the dream. Now, though, I've realized that I am not a genius, or a brilliant actor, or even a remotely good singer- and, happily, it's all for the better.


I am always lacking in a conclusion to my writing, and this is not an exception. While I feel that there's some really insightful note to finish on, I'm not quite there yet. Maybe I'll figure it out in my late-twenties.

It begins with a book buried for centuries, a heavy volume lost not long after its delicate pages had been inked by the wizened hand of an old monk. The monastery in which he lived was carved into the caves overlooking the grand city of Sahir, which lay so close to the horizon that the sun always hung big and low and the nights were short and warm. The great wars that had enveloped the surrounding regions finally reached the walls of Sahir less than a decade after the affectionate sweepings of the monk’s pen, and all of its magnificent architecture- down to the brilliant blue ceramic tiles adorning the palace- crumbled into the desert wind.



But the tale of the book is of little consequence, for the story it contains is centuries older. It begins in the palace of the sultan, Imadh, on a day when the winds changed direction.



Sebime, one of the sultan’s mistresses, was tiptoeing down the clay stairs of the splendid palace when the winds suddenly shifted, and one of the brilliant scarves she wore around her waist was carried off, its golden threads glistening in the sun as it fluttered away. A deaf old peddler, pulling his cart along just as he had every day for seventy years, paused when the winds picked up. Glancing back at the old wooden cart piled with incense burners and metal charms and wind chimes hanging from the wooden beams, the old man shook his head in disbelief. Was that really the wind- the metal charms and wind chimes clinking against one another in the strong gusts- that he was hearing?



Down in the market square, where most of the peddlers had settled for the morning, the winds were being cursed by both merchants and shoppers as they carried off tents and disturbed the cloth that hung for sale. Young women with children hidden in their billowing skirts held onto the scarves that adorned their hair, and men stooped to gather the rolls of bread that had fallen out of their baskets. The handsome and cunning young Nen, however

Finally, a new post.

In between classes today, I was doing research for my upcoming vacation to Thailand, Cambodia, and Loas. Looking into getting a Sak Yant tattoo- a sacred Buddhist tattoo that is meant to protect devotees- got me to thinking about piety in everyday life.

While I've given up drinking of late (mostly for non-enlightened reasons, like my wheat allergy- drinking isn't the same without beer- and the fact that I wanted to look thin for being on TV), I still have a long way to go on the road to enlightenment. Thinking about the list of things one must do in order to maintain the magic of a Sak Yant tattoo, I imagined what lengths I would be willing to go to. In different areas, monks ask different things of those wanting a tattoo- like, in Thailand, one must go for three days and nights without speaking to anyone else, while in Cambodia the list includes giving up intoxication, inflicting pain on others, and walking under houses (traditionally Cambodian houses are on stilts).

I found myself thinking that I would easily give up all of those things, that my new way of living since I've been in Korea has already become more focused on not doing those things. And so, from now on, I've decided to look for enlightenment in every way that I live my life.

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

Mother Teresa

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think it depends on whose words your counting.


Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

The World's Fucking Mad

And everyone's still hung up on colonialism, postcolonialism and racism no matter what side of the fence they lie on.

The implications of today's attacks in Mumbai are hard to grasp as it's still happening, but the ransacking of the city once called Bombay's most luxurious hotels and the targeting of only American and British hostages is maybe the best modern example of direct postcolonial tension I can think of.

When I start to think too hard about the state of colonialism (and, more importantly nowadays, postcolonialism), though, my mind wanders to the fall of the American economy, the election of a half-black president, the beating Venezuela's president took in their recent election, the state of Nigeria..... and everything becomes a jumble.

Anyways, Amiri Baraka's "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" seems to pick up where my train of thought drifts off.

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=DQdnKuhpcpo

Remember what you seen in your own mirror and didn't for a second recognize

The face, your own face

Straining to get out from behind the glass

Open your mouth like you was gon' say somethin'

Close your eyes and remember what you saw and what it made you feel like

Now, don't you see something else

Something cold and ugly

Not invisible but blended with the shadow criss-crossing the old man

Squatting by the drug store at the corner

With is head resting uneasily on his

folded arms

And the boy that smiled and the girl he went with

And in my eyes too

To be expounded upon later:

I've gone through a sea change of emotions in the past few weeks, and as a result have a lot of ideas that I want to expound upon.

Today, however, I've mostly just been staring at art- especially that of Willem de Kooning- in between teaching classes, daydreaming about museums and missing the slide library at MSU.

*How is it that art becomes a commodity- how do we value it? Is it for better or worse that we put a price on the thoughts of others expressed in paint and plaster? If we consider art in such a way- that the expression of genius is a commodity- could it be said that the work of Einstein on the Atomic Bomb is art? Where do we draw the line between art and other disciplines? Beauty and commodity?

*The idea that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012- while I've entertained this thought many, many times, I realized the other day, staring out my window into the Seoul night, that I don't believe in the end of the world- all energy must go somewhere. After I pondered this, I realized that it would be more likely that, if all this nonsense about the Aztecs or whoever it was is true, that they were foreseeing a change in the notion of time (it's an antiquated one anyhow, you know?) rather than "the end of the world"... That Four Horses bullshit is just that, people take things too literally and sometimes I'm even guilty of that. I think it's more likely that our society will realize that time as we know it does not exist- we'll have a completely different relationship with time and space...

Oh when I was a bard,
My life was hard,
Life was hard.

Sure, in Shakespeare's day,
Thou wouldst be OK.
But with the Industrial Revolution
Came music recording and reproduction.

There ain't no place in rock 'n roll
For a mandolin or lute solo.
So I took my music to the streets-
Layin' down some REAL oldschool beats.

But life is hard, as a bard.

I've been out in space for a while now, on one of those trips that sometimes I think I'll never come back from. The recent rains in Seoul, and the hint of autumn in the humid air, wake me from my dream little by little, as the hellishly scorching summer fades slowly.

I'm not sure what I wanted to say here- if anything at all- but maybe I was just looking for a small way to record my presence, to remind anyone who might read this of my aliveness.

My hands are full of blisters from a hard hour's rock climbing, and my head is full of tasks that I've got to complete, so I'll leave this at that.

Give endlessly, receive selectively and always give thanks.

Today officially marks my fourth month in Seoul, and I feel that the moment requires some massive insight about working as a teacher, or living abroad, or working as a teacher abroad.

Instead, however, all I can say is that I'm still forever toeing the line between quitting my job and couch-surfing my way around Asia and completely throwing myself into the quasi-teaching profession that is EFT. There are still things that I love about Korea, things that I hate, and things that I love to hate (like Korean pop music) and my itinerant spirit is forever tugging at my shirt, pleading with me to quit my job, pack my things, and trek the Himalayas for as many months as my money will sustain me, but I'll hold out for as long as I can...



Either way, life is grand.

How strange it is to step into an airport, listening to the chatter of foreign languages, and feel the sense of relief I always get whenever I land in Detroit.


Staring at the small ajummas and ajushis, watching the high school boys laying their head on each other's shoulder, and smiling at the couples wearing matching outfits, I can't help but think how nice it feels to be home after mad adventures in Thailand.

Sadly I did little writing, even for the amount of time I spent alone with my pen and notebook, but I did do a lot of thinking. What a great experience, even though it was, at times, rather trying. Either way, I'm happy to be home, even if it's still (sometimes) a foreign land.

Today I'm celebrating Korea. I'm eating dried squid and going out to pick up sweet pumpkin porridge for dinner. I bought Jejudo orange juice and sweet aloe vera, and I've been madly drinking my sweet vinegar drinks since I got home. Tonight is off to the jimjilbang for some sauna and a dip, though it means skipping Taekwondo... They say home is where the heart is, and- for today at least- my heart's right here in Seoul.

Boryeong Mud Festival!

Erasing the board after my first advanced-level summer intensive English class, I ran my hand over the words 'liberal', 'conservative,' 'Rupert Murdock', 'Fox,' 'evil,' and 'propaganda'... and I realized that the rule "Never talk politics or religion at the dinner table" should be extended to the classroom (I think, in most cases, it already is... I'm just a bit slow to catch up).

I'll be lucky if any of them show up again on Monday.

The saying "Expect the best, prepare for the worst" is good advice, though I can only say that looking at it from the other side. While I was preparing for the worst in my low-level class, in which some of the students can barely utter the word 'hi' and still regularly say "Hi guys!" as they wave to me, I was too busy expecting the best for the high-levels. As it always seems to go, the low-level class went sparkling- the kids were participating, we were all smiling... it was great. Then the advanced-level boys came in. Quiet as mice, they stared at me like they hadn't been the ones to volunteer for the class, which is a terrible thing for me- whenever I get nervous I jabber on about whatever pops into my brain. And thank goodness! Politics.
What in the hell was I thinking?

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" is one of those questions that I never really wanted to have to ask anyone. Both condescending and pigeonholing, it makes me feel like a grandmother, bending down to ask a pre-schooler whether he wants to be a cowboy or an astronaut. Nevertheless, I ask it, and about three other questions, in the speaking test that I give to all of my students at Bupyeong High School.

The students fidget nervously, and so do I- this is the first exam I've ever given. Tapping my pencil lightly on the list of questions I've prepared, I go through the same motions, over and over- almost one thousand times. "Pronounce your name for me, please..." I say questioningly, my gaze moving back and forth between the student's name tag and the list of names which still, after two months, look like gibberish to my stubborn Western eyes. "Neh?" The student grows more nervous- I realize, eventually, that not one of my students knows what the word 'pronounce' means.

It goes like this for hours, and then days. I smile and try to make each student comfortable, but really I'm being paid to size each one up- decide if their English will earn them an 'excellent,' 'good,' or 'unsatisfactory.' The one-word answers many of them give don't make my job any easier, as I try to keep each sputtering conversation afloat for at least one minute.

If I had my own arch-nemesis, it would likely be a personification of the Korean educational system. With a strong emphasis on rote memorization, I am beginning to believe that it systematically attempts to remove any inklings of personality from each of my students. It is the antithesis of my own liberal idea of what education should be, which is more focused on thinking critically about the how and why of each particle of information taken in. Even as I try to open my students' minds up to looking at education as more than simply what they learn in school, I am faced with row after row of silent students who would rather pour over their textbooks to memorize a new sentence structure than play a speaking game.

Listening to most of my students' answers to the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?", I discovered another latent result of the educational system; out of all of my 1,000 students, about the most creative answer I got was 'funds manager.' While in my youth, my dreams drifted from artist to architect to botanist, pragmatism is pounded into my students' brains- to the point of abandoning their dreams at the age of seventeen. When- during one of my speaking exams- a boy told me that he wanted to be a policeman but his grades weren't good enough and he would probably become a soldier, I nearly dropped my list of questions.

It's not all bad, though. I spent the last two weeks learning about my students individually, who are some of the coolest people I've ever met. I've introduced them to the likes of John Coltrane and Jurassic 5, and discussed soccer with them. I've practiced their names, over and over, and most of all, I've realized that I'm really actually kind of... a teacher.

A Meal of Triumph!!



Officially the first thing I can cross off my list of things to do before I turn 33:

Prepare and cook squid.

"If you want to be great, have big dreams, big ideals, big plans, and big actions."

Offered a handful of printed proverbs, I chose this one from May's hand at TaeKwonDo today.

I've got the dreams part down, but as of today I'm working on the ideals, plans, and actions.

Finally!

As of today, I have successfully completed administering my first exams. Over the past two weeks, I have asked all of my 1,000 students about school, sports, and what they want to be when they grow up.

I have bantered with boys who can barely answer the question 'HOW ARE YOU?' for almost one minute, and I have tried my best to put the shy, nervous students at ease. I have gained a lot of insight from this experience, I think, and would love to share it-- but maybe later. Right now I need a stiff drink.

They lived in the small apartment building, with the entrance in an alleyway behind the old brick church. The building itself was brick too, really- as was everything else in the neighborhood- but the church had taken that nickname long before the family had wandered into the neighborhood. A bold, fluorescent red cross sat on top of the church building and helped to guide the family home every night as they made their way through the narrow city streets.


The Buddhist fortuneteller lived nextdoor- though they knew it only because of the big red symbol painted haphazardly across their doorway. She was quiet, and no one- it seemed- ever came to the old woman to have their fortune told. The desolate little house, another brick building, sat strangely idle in a neighborhood where people were constantly moving, and even the buildings themselves seemed alive at times.

Sometimes the family would hear noises, strange grunting, drifting through their open windows, coming from the direction of the tiny, one-story house with the red symbol painted on the door. It was always a deep, gutteral noise- and the family imagined a six-foot-tall wrestler lifting weights high over his head to the rythm of the grunting, though the only person they'd ever seen coming and going from the house was an old woman- an ajumma- with a hunched back and a tiny cart in tow.
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A thousand starts to stories, and not an end in sight.