sometimes I can't tell if your hands are on my head or if your hands are not on my head,

that's the truth.

1 분 vs. 1 초

Someone put their hands on my head for the first time in over a month today, and then 3 more people did the same thing with varying degrees of firmness.

Then I cried (a little, a lot), the first time I've let anyone see me cry since I got to Korea 7 1/2 months ago.

Here are the reasons I can think of for needing (wanting?) to cry in front of U Young-Hee and I So-Yeon (gg#2) so urgently:

1. after school classes making me feel worthless as a teacher again, how can I manage this new environment?

2. guilt seeping in when you tell me you miss me, sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person for finding it so easy to leave Michigan and the U.S. and you, sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who found it difficult to leave things behind

3. I've been feeling a little fragile lately, as though I've perpetually just eaten tongue (@warmandbarky)

4. it's been a long time since I cried in front of someone, maybe it was time and maybe I knew that U Young-Hee and I So-Yeon were safe people to cry in front of and also that no one would think it strange if I felt many deep emotions while their hands were on my head

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.

thursdays I meditate after school,

and then I climb the mountain behind my school with KoHo.

Remember when I was conflicted about meditation club? My attendance was spotty for maybe a month after I first tried it, but I'm addicted now. The club leader was too busy to hold the meeting last week, and I can't even tell you how much I missed it. I missed it like only a person as awkward as myself could miss it.

It's really soothing. I've gotten used to the sharing of feelings at the beginning and end of each session. At the beginning, I tell them what things are stressing me out lately. At the end, I usually try to find a silly way to describe the sensations that go on in my head during the meditation (for example, at various times I've told them it feels like: "my head is filled with water, and the tide keeps rising and falling," "electricity on my scalp," "there's a crab crawling around in my hair," etc). Today I told them it felt like someone was gently pulling my head upwards, like my head was a balloon and someone was pulling on my string.

The room where the meetings are held is so cozy. The floor is heated, and we sit on blankets/cover our laps with blankets. After the sharing of feelings, we sit in lotus position, close our eyes, and concentrate on our breathing. Then, the meditation leader (U Young-Hee) kneels in front of all of us by turns and puts her hands on the top of our heads for about 1-2 minutes each, ostensibly to share diksha (the energy of the universe) with us.

To be perfectly frank, it's this part of the meditation that I'm addicted to. The meditation itself is soothing, and it does calm me, truly. But I'm not sure that I would be making such a habit of Thursday meditation club if it wasn't for the 1-2 minutes of having someone's hands on my head. I have always loved the feeling of someone's hands on my head. It makes me feel so calm and under control and "everything will be okay." For a few minutes, U Young-Hee is my master/mentor and she will take good care of me, I know she will.

After we have all received diksha, we leave the lotus position for whatever position we find most comfortable (for me, my legs remain in lotus position, but I lay back flat on the floor). And we listen to soothing music and breathe deeply and sometimes briefly fall asleep and dream a little. After a while, we regroup and share what we felt during the meditation session (this is the part where I make up silly things).

And then we leave school, and I hike over the mountain with KoHo to the subway station that is second-nearest my school. It takes about 30 minutes. I get home at 6:30 or 7, make dinner, watch Korean soap operas, try to study Korean or lesson plan. But I am scattered all the time lately; it is hard to make myself do work.

Enough about me. How are your Thursdays?

I am guff, how did this happen.

Guff does not come naturally to me, it never has. I am not an outgoing person, I do not like to hang out with people simply for the sake of hanging out with people. I do not share my thoughts with people who are not close to me. And while it's not terribly unusual for me to go out of my way to help a stranger/acquaintance (I like to be useful), if you don't need any help or if I don't feel close to you, there's a good chance that my time and my energy are inaccessible to you.

All of that, no longer. I am guff in Korea, and I am definitely guff at school. I have been from the beginning, it just took me awhile to figure it out. It's a combination of factors, I think. Part of it is that as a native English speaker, as a foreigner, a lot of people want a piece of me. Normally, I wouldn't necessarily take kindly to this, but another part of it is that I have a huge gaping canyon of want in my torso that urges me to learn everything, to experience everything and everyone that I can. (This is strange to me. I will honestly admit that I censor my own experiences sometimes, I withdraw from people or situations that I find uncomfortable. I'm not censoring, here. I'm not withdrawing.)

And a third factor: my thrice-damned desire to help, to be useful. So many of the people (both teachers and students) at my school want to learn English, want to practice English. I can help them, they want me to help them. I can't say no. There are two exceptions: 1) Kim Yeon, the high-faluting teacher who tries to monopolize my time, and whose supercilious attitude towards both the students and the lower-income teachers I absolutely refuse to respect, and 2) more recently, Kang Eun-Shig, a militant Christian who will not cease in his efforts to convince me to attend his church or to teach me "Hallelujah, Jesus is with me" in Korean. He knows I'm not a Christian, he knows (or he should know, at least) that it's inappropriate to put religious pressure on me. And I don't think I'm being insensitive to cultural differences here. Other teachers have gently let me know that they are Christian (opening the door, I take it, if I want to join them). Park Mi-Ran, for example, told me once that she prayed for me on the first day she met me, the day I was so sick and panicky. I don't mind these gentle hints from teachers who are otherwise very much my friends. In a way, it's actually kind of sweet. But everyone knows now that I am not religious, I have gently let them know that too. One of my good teacher-friends is KoHo, who is Buddhist in a flexible sense. I attend meditation club with him every Thursday, which in turn gives me a slight association with Buddhism. Most of the teachers accept this and don't bother me about it. But Kang Eun-Shig is out of line, and I don't know how to fix the situation.

Anyway, that is not what I meant to write about. The point is that except for Kim Yeon and Kang Eun-Shig, I make myself purposely friendly and effusive with anyone who approaches me with a question or a desire to speak English with me for a few minutes. It never matters if I am busy, or behind schedule on preparing for classes, or if there is something I would rather be doing (like Tweeting, listening to Bad Romance on repeat, etc). They are asking for help; I will give it to them. Especially especially especially my students, I love it when the eager students come in to the teachers' office to interrupt me, sometimes to practice whatever it is I taught them in class that week, sometimes to talk about Michael Jackson or Prison Break (@bird_esque they love Prison Break here, too). Sometimes to stare over my shoulder at my computer screen and comment on whatever it is that I am doing at the moment (which is why, friends, I never go on the fb at work).

Yesterday, one of the most eager students (oh so eager) called Kim Yeon seon-saeng-nim (seon-saeng-nim = "teacher," except more honorific, more like "professor") a "New Yorker" because of all the makeup she puts on, making her skin look very, very pale. Personally, I prefer to think of her as a New Yorker for entirely different reasons (@bird_esque).

In conclusion:

눈 = nun ("noon") = eye

빛 = bit ("beat," with force on the "t") = light

Eye color in Korean = 눈빛 = eye light, the light from one's eyes.

tango, or NOTHING.

NOTHING, you understand?

@bird_esque @warmandbarky @gambolholic I FUCKING FOUND IT.

Starting this week, Monday nights are tango lesson&milonga nights for me. Hold me to that, will you?

My co-workers are all very consistently concerned (part 2): that I don't like spicy food. Which is true, usually. Those of you who have gone with me to Indian restaurants know this well.

But my former habits notwithstanding, I've been eating everything I think I can stomach from the school cafeteria - which means a helluva lot of spicy food. I don't even blink at kimchi anymore. And I'm pretty sure that my spice tolerance has gone up significantly over the course of the past month. (Sidenote: I'VE BEEN HERE A MONTH. WEIRD.) At first, I needed to drink cold water after every meal and my mouth would still burn for 10 minutes or so... but now my mouth doesn't burn at all, and more and more frequently I join my co-teachers for hot rice tea immediately following the meals.

All of that, with one notable exception: Wednesday this week, I took a serving of hard-boiled egg cooked in soy sauce with vegetables that I thought looked like sweet peas. Hey, I love sweet peas! I'll take a big bite of them. But as we all know, they were hot peppers, not sweet peas. My mouth flamed and my eyes watered profusely, and I had a good laugh about it with the other teacher (all of whom had known to avoid the hot peppers, of course). Now, every time they tell me about a Korean food I haven't eaten before, they say: "It's a little spicy, but less spicy than hot peppers." Giggle giggle. It's great.

I taught shy girl again today, and she spoke! Just a little, just for a second, but it made me really happy and relieved.

Thursday after work, I was invited to join the teachers' meditation club, and why not? I've never really tried it before, but now seemed like the perfect time.

It lasted two hours. There was a professional meditation therapist visiting the school this week, so the club took 4 times as long as it usually does. And everyone went around and shared their feelings in Korean - I had no idea sharing feelings was a part of meditation! - and of course, I was the only one who spoke in English (though there were 3-4 people there who could what I was saying). Several of the teachers shared their feelings for extended periods of time, and many of the club members started crying while they were talking. I felt really awk. It probably would have been really emotional if we spoke the same language, but as it was, I just didn't understand.

Parts of it I really enjoyed, and found useful. But I don't know how I feel (hehe) about the sharing of feelings at the beginning and end of the session. I haven't decided if I'll return to the club or not. It meets every Thursday.

Teachers' choir is wonderful. After practice today, they served snacks which tasted like Devil's Food cookies. Only they were chocolate-dipped rice cakes. Dduk dduk dduk. Man, that chocolate really hit the spot.

Tomorrow evening, I'm visiting Park Mi-Ran's house. She's offered to teach me how to make [a dinner dish the name of which I can't remember, which consists of sweet potato noodles, served cold with steamed vegetables and suchlike], and then take me night-time hiking with her husband and her on the mountain next to her house. Lordy-Lou.

The End! Heartz.