Leaving Seattle

Apartment arrangements worked out. My mext post will be from Virginia.

Back to packing...

Picked up by another one

I know I said I wasn’t going to write anything else about going to Korea until I knew for sure I was going (like, when papers are signed and I have my visa), but, I mean, what else am I going to write about?

I’ve been lined up with another school near Seoul. This time a middle school. So, that’s cool. The position doesn’t start ‘til the end of June so I’ll be able to have a nice long visit with my parents before I leave the US.

I’ll be meeting with the guy who’s taking over my lease here in Seattle sometime this week to write up an agreement.

Anyway, yeah. Looks like things are still on track.

Postponement strategy

Well, while I’m waiting on news from more prospective schools in Korea, I’ll be preparing to leave Seattle at the end of the month so the new tenant can move in to my apartment.

Where will I be going? Well, if I get picked up by a school in the next week or so, I’ll go to Korea. If I don’t get placed with a school by the end of the month, I’ll go over to Virginia and stay with my parents while I’m waiting for a school.

Either way, at least I’ll be getting out of my lease.

Unlucky day

Well, Korea has been postponed for me. The school that had hired me apparently lost its funding for a foreign teacher. It’s a little disconcerting that a public school in a good part of Seoul can’t get funding for a foreign teacher.

This is the third school that has fallen through on me. Well, maybe better to say the second. Another school in Ilsan was going to take me, but the present teacher decided to recontract at the last minute.

Meanwhile, I’m still set to have someone move into my apartment at the end of the month...

*sigh*

The recruiter I’m working through in Korea says there are more schools that are hiring. I said go ahead and fire my resumes out to them.

We’ll see what happens. But, man, it was not near this difficult to get into Taiwan (near Taipei, no less). Apples and oranges, I guess.

Well, I don’t think I’ll write anything more about Korea until I know for sure I’m going.

Lucky day

So, like, I went down to see my apartment manager today to look at my options for breaking my lease. When I got to his office, there was someone else already there talking to him who wanted to move in to this complex as soon as possible.

Long story short, it worked out nicely :) Now I won’t have to pay the last seven months of my lease and the new tenant will get himself a partially furnished apartment (since I can’t take all this stuff with me).

*Well, it’s after midnight now, so really, this happened yesterday.*

Qualifications of an epidemic

“The epidemic as we imagine it is marked more subtly by an ambivalence about causes. An epidemic must be attributed to people who are disliked or activities that are disdained.”

“AIDS is the main example of our day, blamed on homosexuality, and, sometimes, sexual license in general. As kidney disease, Alzheimer’s, and other conditions that are increasingly common causes of debilitation and death but are never called “epidemics” remind us, when there is nobody to blame, we do not apply the epidemic label.”

- from Dread (end of Chapter 2), by Philip Alcabes

Resolution

Although, counter to what I said in the last post, I’m not in the same place I was and the cycles aren’t going to get repeated even though I know my tendencies.

Even though going back into the EFL market seems to be repeating a cycle, Korea is going to be different from Japan and Taiwan, not just because it’s a different country, but because I’m not in the same place in my life as I was when I was in Japan or Taiwan. There’s no way for me to get around that.

It would be easier to take a fatalistic view of my prospects in Korea, but I know better than that now. It would be disingenuous to have that perspective now.

And counter to what I’d thought in the past, you don’t get out of fatalism simply by deciding how to look at life. There is a process you have to go through to get an honest perspective.

Repetition

On the other hand, if you know yourself and why your life is going in circles (or cycles) then what difference does time make?

I’d write more, but I’ve already written about this here, here, and here.

*sigh*

Time to shut my brain down.

Circles

A while ago, I got frustrated that I’m no longer moving forward but instead feel like I'm moving in circles. And I thought, if I was just going to end up where I started, then I should have just stayed where I was.

But I got to thinking that if I had stayed where I was, I wouldn’t have seen the rest of the circle. I’d have only seen one point on the circle.

Also, when you graph the path around a circle over time, it looks like this...

So really, thanks to time, I’m really not in the same place I started at all.

Time only moves forward. I can never go back to where I started.

Going to Korea!

Just found out today that the school I interviewed with is taking me. Paperwork and visa are being processed. *Yay*

So, like, In June, I’ll be in Korea, just outside of Seoul.

I’m not sure what else to write other than to say I’m feeling a mix of, um, feelings. Such as:

- relief (considering the economy over here in the US and that I haven’t had steady work in two years)

- excitement (that I’ll get to be in Asia again, near Japan and Taiwan and living in a country I haven’t been to yet)

- anxiety (remembering how difficult teaching is for me as well as living in a country whose language I don’t know)

- and, um, not sure how to name this feeling, but a feeling of “why the hell are you doing this again when you distinctly remember yourself saying after Japan and Taiwan that you were never going to teach English overseas again?” ...*sigh*...I must secretly like doing this.

Anyway...hmm...And I guess I’m feeling a little bit of upsetation (yes, I made that up, but I think “upset” should have that form and depression is too strong a word) that I’ll be leaving my friends here in Seattle.

But, I gotta do what I gotta do. I just don’t see any prospects here. And if living overseas again doing a job that, to date, has been the most enjoyable and rewarding work I’ve done, having my rent paid for, getting health insurance, a pension, severance pay, potentially 5 weeks of vacation (though, probably only 3), and the opportunity to see friends in Japan and Taiwan again, plus experience a country I haven’t been to is what I gotta do...well, that’s not so bad, all things considered.

Well, I’ll write more when I get more details. Definitely looking forward to writing about what I’m doing instead of what I’m thinking. That’ll be nice to add to the mix. And pictures. I’m sure I’ll post pictures again.

Shredding the past

Just spent about the last hour shredding old documents of what-have-you. It would have been more fun to burn, but that’s not very 21st century like.

Mostly, I got rid of old printed out copies of resumes and cover letters and rejection letters (or non-acceptance letters) of the colleges and universities I’d applied to work for. But I also shredded advice on how to write more effective resumes and cover letters and how to be more effective at interviews (blah, blah, blah. Like any of that worked.)

It felt kind of nice to get rid of all that. Like letting go of the past a bit. I know people say that’s good to do sometimes. It does seem more natural to live in the present, but a lot of our technologies allow the past to stay with us. Well, at least documents and photographs.

I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better not to have photographs. Are we really meant to be faced with that kind objective reality? Because, like, when I look at an old photograph, it’s often different than my memory of the event. A memory allows you to perceive things differently and it keeps the past in the past.

I know it’s difficult to be one-sided about photos. Because, it can be nice to be reminded of people that are important to you, especially when you aren’t near them. But on the other hand, some photos I don’t look at anymore because I don’t want to be reminded of the way things were but aren’t anymore.

I suppose I could argue that I have some power over this technology in that I have the choice whether or not to look at old photographs. (Of course, I thought that way about this blog, but it turned out I didn’t have that power...which is why I had to “shred” the first two seasons. Now Seasons 1 and 2 are posted as non-chronological memories.)

The memory is easier to manage than what really happened. And what good is it really to drag the objective past with you if it’s already gone?

The present really is all we have.

Yesterday a good day?

Yes. I’d say it was. I went over to Kirkland to try again to find frames for my glasses. I’d tried a couple times before but couldn’t find frames I was happy with. When I hadn’t been able to find what I wanted, I considered just ordering the same frames I have now...only I discovered the ones I have now have been discontinued.

Anyway, so I was in Kirkland for what would have been a third failed attempt, when serendipitously, a sales rep for a frames company made an overdue routine visit to my optometrist to show new frames that he had. Incidentally, he was familiar with the brand I had and thought he might have some frames that would be a good replacement.

Well, they were perfect. So I was glad I had taken a later bus over there than planned, otherwise I probably would have missed him.

When I got back to Seattle, I found that there was a school in Korea that wanted to interview me as soon as possible. I told my recruiter I’d talk to them today (what was then today) if they were willing. Two hours later the school called and we had our interview.

I wasn’t really sure how it went. I mean, my feeling was that it didn't go well. I was thinking, “Man, these guys want a really good teacher. I hope they talk to other people, too, and are able to find someone better.”

But, I found out later from my recruiter that they liked me. So, my documents (application packet) have been sent to them. I won’t say that I got the position until I hear that they actually signed the papers. But, it’s looking good.

This is an elementary school just outside of Seoul. If all goes well, I’ll be over there in June.

So, yeah. I think it was a good day.