Three Week Mark

Blogging is weird. I journal a lot but when I journal, it is as if I am writing a letter to God. Actually writing allows me to just stop, slow down, and talk with God. And naturally I only talk about myself… I can’t approach blogging with the same mindset of journaling because other people (and by that, I mean Mrs. Keys…) will read my blog. So I have to filter myself. And that is difficult. I don’t know how to properly filter myself in conversation. Much less, in an anonymous blog.
Parts of me only want to talk about the positives of leaving the State I’ve now come to represent, walking out on a job/community I reluctantly came to love dearly, and abandoning my spiritually refreshing Camp Peniel (that is “Camp Penis” if you add the lisps…) for a new ‘challenge’ and ‘adventure’ (Practiced responses I repeated when people asked me why I was moving to the other side of the world.) And I partly want to protect those who worry (ie VaLa, my REBA, and Aunt Net) because I don’t want to admit I may have made a mistake in moving here. But honestly, I don’t think I have. So La REBA, it is hard but I’ve waited while you pursued your music career. It’s your turn to wait…
I am now at the three week mark. (So does that mean there are 48 more weeks to go…) And I feel like I have been here longer. As if this has been my life for a while. I am out of the adjustment phase. That by no means, I am ‘well adjusted’ to being here.
Example:
This past Saturday we had to go to work for three hours of classes. We were all a little perturbed about having to work in the middle of the day on our weekend. So after we got off I went into Seoul with my co-foreign teacher creatively nick-named ‘Canada.’ (Guess where she is from?) Anyway, we didn’t have to work on Sunday so ‘Canada’ was going to stay the night in Seoul but I didn’t want to because it was already past 7:30 and I was falling asleep on the subway into Seoul. I ended up going to a English-type bar in Itaewon (the ‘designated foreigner’s section of Seoul). Since I am socially retarded, and I don’t smoke or drink I was a little out of my element. And usually I am uber cool and smooth in any and all social situations but at the bar I felt like the only conversation I could initiate would be about the weather…
Anyway, since I wanted to go home I have to catch the subway before I missed the last train. I live on the last stop of the line 4 train. I managed to transfer and find my subway all by myself and I was feeling a little proud of myself. That was until the train just stopped. And I was about 15 stops from my house. I’ve only managed to fortuitously learn ‘thank you’ in Korean so needless to say my explanation to the train conductor that I needed to go to Oido proves to be fruitless. Unsure of what to do (and still without a cell phone) I figured I would just bit the bullet and get a taxi. Sadly, I didn’t know (and still don’t know) what city I live in. Luckily, I had been carrying some mail that was left at my apartment. Unfortunately I gave that to the people at my work. So I was stuck. All I could tell the taxi driver was, “Oido station?” To make a long, embarrassing story short, 45 minutes and 500,000 WON (about $50) later I was home. The next day when I told the foreigners my helpless story, Rich yelled at ‘Canada’ (Shanna), “You let him go by himself!?!”
So, if you were wondering, I am just as helpless and dependent as I’ve always been. (Shout out to Mrs. Keys, Ms. Croft… the entire staff at Hardin High School…)


In .love.
Jp