Seoul likes filtered water. Everywhere, there are water coolers with as much near-boiling/near-frigid tasty water as you could possibly want.
Ergo: the water cooler for my apartment building is in the hallway on my floor, about 4 meters from my door. I frequently leave my door ajar as I go to fill up my water jug, and I did so last night at about 1 in the morning. Only, last night was a windy night, and a strong gust through the hallway blew my door shut. It's self-locking.
The last time I felt like I was losing myself here, I stayed up all night skyping and writing postcards. This time, I sat outside my door for upwards of 7 hours in nothing but my bathrobe, intermittently filling my water jug with hot water to keep myself warm (it's cold here now, did I tell you? Last night was a quite the windy thunderstorm, and I would have loved it if I had been under my comforter). I didn't have a cell phone with me, so I couldn't call my co-teachers or my building manager, so the only thing to do was to wait until the building manager arrived at about 8:30 this morning. By the time I got back in my room, I had a slew of missed calls from Park Mi-Ran, wondering where I was. I'd been having a rough night before I got locked out, so I'm sure you can imagine that I was on the verge of tears when I described to her why I hadn't arrived at school that day. She was quite concerned, and convinced the vice-principal to give me the day off so that I could rest and warm myself up. (Maybe they're worried I'll get swine flu?) The day off was really nice. I spent it drinking tea and eating boiled eggs and reading and napping and trying not to think about lesson plans. I may or may not be recovering from my 2-3 day slump.
I've been having a rough weekend of it. I couldn't really tell you why. I feel utterly incapable of preparing for my classes. I feel sick-ish. I am panic-stricken and convinced that I am not doing and will never do anything worthwhile. (Did you know that my greatest fear is stagnation?) Then, last night, I got a confirmation of sorts that a friendship which I knew to have ended has been severed more completely than I thought, and I still don't understand what I did to make this person hate me so much.
I am at my worst when unshakably convinced of my own worthlessness, and I was certainly convinced of it over the weekend.
Don't take this post too hard, though. You should know by now that I have these days sometimes, no matter where I am or what I am doing. At the risk of cheapening my own emotions, I might go so far as to say that, quite simply, the honeymoon period of my stay in Seoul is over, and I am now faced with a more realistic picture of how hard it will be to build myself a life here.
On the up-side, I killed 4 mosquitoes while I sat out in the hallway, which is totally a record for me with Korea's mosquitoes from hell.
2 comments:
Paaaaaaaam, I love you. A lot.
That's all.
Kisses,
Jane
Bummer, being stuck in the hallway. Hope you're over being sick and feeling better by now. It's too bad that the honeymoon period is over, but it seems like you can have a more real experience now, good and bad.
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