ups and downs?

at the beading store tonight, i was talking to jamie and she asked me whether i would characterize my month so far as having consisted of ups and downs. and it's really sad, and i could attribute it to my poor memory (what else is new) or a grumpy mood or whatever, but i can't think of too many highs. other than the ones that could have happened regardless of whether i was here or not. like buying a teen vogue (vogue girl) or happening upon a street fair where you could make re-usable pads.

which is not to say that i don't have some great teaching moments, or that i don't really like some of the teachers at school. or that the weather on sunday was really nice. but are these really highs? lots of bad things have happened, that's for sure. like my vice principal asking me whether i could spend half of my vacation working. or erasing my ipod memory. or having problems with both my us and korean bank accounts. or breaking up with won. or having to work with someone who has said: "the other english teachers didn't really want a native speaker to be teaching here ... they were irritated that you were coming" and "i thought the students would be able to answer a simple question like 'how are you' after taking your class. but they're still clueless!" and something else, which i don't remember now. and thinking i lost weight, but then realizing that it was just water weight or some time of the month. and having my dry clean only dress put in the laundry. realizing that my host sister is kind of self-centered and spoiled (albeit in a cute and precocious way). being told that my work clothes are inappropriate.

and now that i write these things, they all seem so petty. not like downs but like life. and the life that i was seeking out when i even decided to come here! not the easiest one and full of ridiculous frustrations that are easily overcome by reason or a little initiative. and my impatience and my lack of sensitivity (nunchi) are nowhere near subsiding. and i can't eat rice anymore. and ... who knows. this weekend i'm going to "the hawaii of korea". forced happy interactions :^D

working on myself

that is what won said that i was doin these days and i guess it's true. every day is a real struggle (maybe due to the weakened immune system that my grandfather says is the reason for my 13 month cough) but a rewarding one. lots of things are falling apart in my life but only in the physical sense. like my phone, my haircut, this new shirt i bought.

teaching is really hard for me. being a little bit OCD means that when i give one class more participation points than another because they are better at raising their hands to answer questions, i get really stressed about it. or when the class list they gave me is a little out of date ("Oh, he's dead." "Really?" "No - JOKE, JOKE!"). but, you know, not so OCD that i can do anything but collapse into sleepiness when i come home from school. anything might include mailing any of these letters, answering e-mails, getting my hair cut so i look american again (not korean).

won's poem which needs crafting but which i think is way better than his other work :^P

And I want to spread amoebic
along the roads, even into blackness
where the lamps do not penetrate, and I want to be the aortic fibers
of the roads, hugging the contours
tightly until they reciprocate. I must
be instantly recognized, like currency,
and slip through membranes that look flat
but purr beneath my weight. At night
the layers crease with smiles of a pulsing earth.

And when the words
subside between us, the stars
well with reverence and look benign,
the moon reminding us if only for
the night, that what we slough
is never left behind, that there are no
walls to divide us from them, because the smell
of sages are quick, and the waves of eucalyptus
resemble the always-present curve of water
and the distance implied in what it holds.

A drop is an ocean and every end of it
is close. I hear you breathe
from the other side of this desert sea,
the wind that smolders even in the
dark, piercing us with slumber.

Still is thinking. But then you tucked
me in your soil's heat, and crept
behind my knees until the sun seduced
the day and threw salt over, opening
it like a book to be read in a sweep.

A flame of criticism reaches
for my heart and pins it across a merciless
expanse of white, and the blanching blinds
but sees you still. And the colors sear with glory and look vivacious,
but they are like stalagmites in the stucco.

The labyrinths are the only tendency towards connectedness, because the day is wry
and will slowly take the water out
of you. But the meridian is necessary to lift
the sieve, and fill our hearts with shadows
that burgeon as the sun tilts.

Beached by luminescence, we absorb the patter
of people stepping through us and grin easily
at doom. Darkness is our provenance,
so I knew you would before you came.

tonight i'm attending an opera about a married korean catholic couple ... of martyrs. OPERA!!