and then he told me I was a god

6 Feb. 2010

I've been dreading this movement but now I am moving (because it is time to move) and it feels like coming home a little, somewhere along the line airports ceased to be confusing and unknown places and became something like my comfort zone. Once more I am not searched at customs, though I have a shaving razor in my carry-on and I'm carrying several hundred dollars of converted currency that I was really supposed to report. #privatemeat is a cheese "whopper" in the lounge outside customs, I guess I eat cheeseburgers now

if I still have enough ₩ for wine. On the bus from Seoul I teared up briefly - it felt like I was leaving Korea - I am leaving Korea. Passport control asked me if I was coming back to Korea and I said yes - that's true, and I'm positive I projected the vulnerability in her tone. How strange that there is even the option to not come back but outside of my job there is nothing really to hold me here and I don't know why I am cleaving so tightly to Korea when it was so easy to leave Michigan.

15 Feb. 2010

They'll serve my cappuccino after I finish my panqueque 55, they don't drink coffee with food here. Korea doesn't drink any beverages with food, unless it's alcohol (I'm thinking about Korea a lot here). I've only just found out that Argentina is usually considered a third-world country, I'm not even sure what that means. The fact of my American privilege more obvious than it has ever been before (more obvious than in Korea? where I am given a job only for speaking English, where even the oldest person at the table sometimes treats me as the honored guest. I have things these people do not have and have no expectation of ever having. (Not all of the people, I mean, I don't know what I mean.

16 Feb. 2010

("Oh! Girls from Michigan are beautiful!") I imagine that everyone who sees me and Audra together here forms the assumption that all girls in Michigan don't shave their armpit hair. I finally managed to keep my eyes closed the whole time with two of the leaders, maybe I didn't even want to open them

Told me I was so tall and beautiful that if I would only dance my height (instead of trying to fit myself to the height of my leaders) I would have the world at my feet because I am a god ("sos Dios"?)

17 Feb. 2010

"Hola Leo, dame un poco de tu fuego" -Oscar, I don't know what it is about me that makes all the middle-aged porteños think I'll respond to the most saccharine and obvious pickup lines they can muster. "La vida es corta" is another

FUCK TANGO IS THE WORST THING EVER FOR MY SELF-CONFIDENCE IS THIS REALLY WHAT I NEED NOW?

24 Feb. 2010

I wonder if Korea will feel like home when the plane lands. I feel like a raw nerve right now - we're on the highway out of BsAs, I don't know if I'm ready for my sense of reality to shift again so soon. Nelly Furtado "I'm like a bird" just started playing in the taxi, we're at the toll booth. I'll definitely blog about that when I get home.

There's a strong "tow wind" which has "decreased our flight time substantially" - to 8 hours! Originally, flight time was 12 hours between Buenos Aires and Johannesburg, or something like that (though I can't be sure, flight lengths and times have been blending together these days) and I thought: OMG! only 8 hours! what a relief!

Turbulence is a side-effect of the strong tow wind, they've told us. I like the turbulence when it happens, it reminds me that there is a world outside, that we do not exist in isolation in this claustrophobic space. Most of the windows are closed - the window across from me was still open for a while and I could see some sort of horizon through it (though it was dark out, and we've been above cloud-level this whole time - maybe the horizon was the line between our layer of clouds and pure sky?) I liked that horizon, but my window view is gone now. It's light out now, I can see a corner of someone's open window and the real light from it is a relief from the darkness of the cabin, though I'm the asshole who turned on my reading light while most other people are still trying to sleep - I'm sorry! I tried to sleep, really, but I couldn't and the darkness and inactivity was making my head feel too tight, I needed light and OH NO now I can't even write anymore if this pen dies.

[pen didn't die! don't worry <3]

26 Feb. 2010

I've gotten so comfortable in seat 38A, by the window, that I'm dreading leaving it a little, leaving it means I am getting terribly close to Korea, terribly close to having responsibilities again.

메리 크리스마스!

Here is a direct transcription of a text message I received from Mr. Bae, the head computer guy at my office. He has a daughter my age, and sometimes I get the feeling he fancies himself my father figure.

:*:..Merry..:*:
:*Christmas*:
<3(^3^*)<3
....Y...Y....
=(^O^)=
....( ```)~*
HS Bae <3

My co-workers love playing dress-up with me when they take me places. I secretly love succumbing to them.

Wednesday and Thursday this week, we had debates about why Christmas was stupid vs. fun, and I wore a Santa hat all day and gave free cookies to all my students (about 130 cookies, in total, just for my Wednesday and Thursday classes).

The meditation club end-of-year (party? It wasn't really a party, we just meditated like usual) was yesterday, and everyone went around and told the group how this year has been for them. And it was the first time, really, that I've thought about the trajectory of this year; I just haven't grouped events that way before. This year, grouped together, has been really strange. This spring I was still in university, working at HIO, printmaking like my life depended on it. Then graduation happened. Then three months of alternately feeling hopeless and happy: hopeless because I had no job and couldn't find a job despite hundreds of resumes sent out, happy because I had so much free time and could read poetry and bullshit with my friends all the time. Then: suddenly deciding I was going to Korea. One month of working for U-M English Language Institute and feeling crazy and spending hours at the Secretary of State trying to get my documents in order.

Now, Korea. I want to say I've changed a lot since I got here, and I think it would be true to say it, but I don't really know how I've changed. It's just that my sense of reality is so different from what it was in Ann Arbor; maybe the reason this year has been strange is that my sense of reality has changed many times.

I know I've spent a lot of time telling you guys how stressed out I am here, and it's true. I am a consistently anxious person here, which is something that I have never been before. But never think that it means I regret this, because I am so so happy I came here, and so many good things have happened to me here, and I would never take it back.

These days, I am optimistic. These days, I sometimes think I can feel myself turning truly happy here.

Happy Christmas, guys.