Log31: Moved

*An aside: somebody told me I write my blogs in a very Faulknerian, stream-of-consciousness fashion.  Well, so let it be.  Haha.  This is, afterall, one manifestation of those things which occur in my head.  A kind of written puking of my thoughts, if you will. 

Moved. In more ways than one.

1]

Currently in Incheon International Airport, 3 hours prior to departure into SFO.

I have been in transit for many hours now, and will continue to be to arrive at my destination for a month.  I am excited and thrilled to be moving.  To be moved.

2]

Unlike the academic schedule in America, the academic calendar in Korea actually coincides with the solar calendar by which we all abide (i.e. students graduate in December).  This means that yesterday was the last day of 2010 I would teach my current classes of students.  Certainly I will see them again next year. 

That is not to say yesterday was unmoving.  For it was. Quite.

Although only a year separates the two graduating classes, there is an unmistakeable difference between the maturity of my first grade students and that of my second grade students.  That is to say, as energetic and lively as the first grade students have been, I have been able to connect much more strongly with my second grade students who, for all their irrepressible immaturity, still seemed to exhibit a greater semblance of self-awareness, a kind of adulthood.  My ascription of these characteristics may simply be due to the simple fact that they are bigger, but I doubt that such would be wholly justifiable.

To put it another way, it never quite felt like teaching with them.  I forgot that I was a teacher, and that they  students.  In retrospect, class with the second grade students felt more like  fifty minutes of fun, chaos, and a little bit of learning with about forty younger brothers: not the kind of brothers you let sit on your shoulders or play tag with on the playground, but the kind of brothers with whom you can laugh, joke, and share stories.

And maybe I felt that way because there was some level of reciprocation going on.

One would hope, anyway.

It seemed seredipitous, then, that my last day of classes would be on a Wednesday, a day when I teach three second grade classes: my "goofball" class, my "hell" class, and my "heaven" class.

For each of my "final" classes, I simply played games with all my students.  They complete finals, winter break was around the corner, and they were tired of studying.  They wanted to have fun, I wanted to have fun, I wanted them to have fun, so we played games: some mixture of Simon Says, Captain's Coming, Hangman, and 20 Questions.

After about 45-48 minutes of laughter and chaos, I sit them down, wait for silence, then tell them I would leave to America and that such was the final class.  I thank them, tell them honestly that I have learned a lot from them, and that it has been a privilege teaching them. 

It may seem like a negligible event, but to hear the collective "Awww~" or "Oh no~, teacher~," or even, "No teacher, I love you!" when I tell my students that I would be leaving is really touching.  I guess if one is wondering what love enfolded with respect and gratitude may feel like, teaching isn't a bad place to start.  I don't think I ever felt that kind of love before.  It's an immensely gratifying kind of love, loaded with respect, interest, care, and a weird sort of gratitude you often don't get between basic human relationships.  Of course there is the cultural Confuscian hierarchy curveball thrown into this dynamic somewhere, confounding this basic sentiment, but I'm willing to bet that this kind of powerful, moving impression can be generally shared by teachers all around the world.

The way they clap when I thank them, the way they look at me with attention and a kind of sad but grateful longing as I walk out the door, the kind of final "goodbye"s and "Peace!"s that I hear, the way certain favorite students of mine run out after class and chase after me to say a personal final goodbye to me, and thank me...these will last in my memories forever, and will forever be things I will be grateful for.  And it won't be because I enjoyed the attention.  Well, at least, not only because of it. 

It will also be because I really love these students.

I know, who would have thought, right?  Haha.

"July next year is going to be tough," I thought.  Give me another six months with these kids, and...I hope I will keep myself busy enough to not become too sentimental.

I will leave you with a couple of anecdotes:

***


1)


I walk out of my first "final" class of Wednesday (2-5) with the final "goodbye"s still echoing in the hallways.  I begin walking downstairs when one of the smart kids, Yoseb, comes chasing after me.  Trying to catch his breath, he says hurriedly, "Teacher! You go to America today?"


Yes, yes I do.


"No more class?"


No, I'm afraid not.  We continue to walk down the steps as students begin to flood the stairwell for their breaks.  A silence proceeds, and I look at Yoseb.  His face has that inward introspection with a hint of confusion, like a child in the depths of deciding whether a candy he just ate tastes good or bad, like a baby who just fell but is not sure if it warrants crying.  Yoseb is trying to process this.  I look down to make sure I keep my steps, and bow my head to the science teacher walking by.


"Teacher, why, why, why, why?  Why you leave?" 


None of it hit me at first: the pain, the sadness, the genuine disappointment in his voice.  My mind was too busy getting ready to pay off my phone bill, run to the bank, and give gifts to my teachers.  Then like a freight train that came two minutes late, the reality of the moment hit me mercilessly. 


Amidst the flurry of bodies flying past me, amidst the murumurs, shouts, and steps of students echoing in the frigid hallway, I stopped like I found a diamond on the ground.  I stopped, likea man who just saw in his mind's eye the wedding ring on the desk he forgot to bring to his own wedding.  I stopped, as I heard for the first time Yoseb's questions.  I stopped, to think about the reality before me.


I turned, slowly, to the Yoseb next to me who, on any given day would be the nerd who was really smart and would always try really hard.  I looked up at Yoseb, as his words began to register in my cranium after bouncing around in the hallways, then my ear canals, and then through the Eustacian tube.  I looked at Yoseb, and saw the blood rushing to his face, and light twinkle in the glimmer behind his glasses.  His face was torn with confusion, but rigid with all the cultural taboos of not crying instilled in him since he was a child.


My heart warmed, and I smiled.  I hope that manifested itself and helped to comfort Yoseb a bit, but he was still fighting a battle.  I told him the truth, that I would still see him next year.  I asked him to please come by the teachers' room and say hello.  I won't teach third graders, but I will still be able to spend time with them.


He tried to form words, tried to articulate, tried to describe that battle that was within, tried to make me understand something which he couldn't describe.  I saw it, in the head that nodded wordless, but in reluctant acceptance, the quick look down the hallways to see if others saw him in his moment of vulnerability, the quick look back at me for reassurance. 


And all I could do for him was smile.


I remember walking away moved, but not knowing what exactly that was.  When something like that happens, I guess you can't really put into words what happened.  Maybe that's why those moments are so moving, precisely because they transcend words and descriptive languages.


***


2)


I walk out of my last class -- my "heaven" class--trying not to wallow in the strange confluence of gratitude and sorrow of hosting that class for the last time, but instead transition into my travel mode of mind. 


Five steps into the hallway, as I begin to see the students pop out of the classroom doors like hamsters released from their cages, I hear a soft but confident "teacher," from behind me.  Two seconds later, another, but closer, "teacher."


I turn around to see Jinhwan, the smartest student I know.  He has that swagger too, and the confidence to go with it.  Overall a great student, a student you know can change something in this world for the better, and know he is capable of it.  I wish I had been able to take him out to lunch this year.


He takes a couple of steps to slow down from his hurried jog, looks me straight in the eyes--with strenght--, lends out his right hand without hesitation, and says, "I just want to say, thank you. It's been my pleasure."


I smile, still, thinking about that.  As I walk away after shaking hands, I steal a glance, and see him standing there, turned into his own world.  In that moment, he was thinking, reflecting.  In that moment, he was left wanting more.  And as he turned to go back to the classroom, and as I saw the nose and the eyes disappear from my sight overcome by the blackness of the back of his head, I saw his left cheek rise up, and the corner of his lips curl.  Upward.


I turned around to meet the stairs, and smiled.  Broadly.


Gratefully.


***

Log30: Yay

California, California, California...

You have never quite looked so close...and yet so far...

Miss you.

I have some thoughts about being a teacher and my students right now...but currently...I'm at school...and I have to take care of logistics...

Also, I'm going to Nepal from February 2-9.  Katmandu and Pokhara, probably.  I have no travel buddies yet, but I think this will be a great experience for me, even if only to travel on my own. 

Very excited.

Log29: One week

Okay, so I realize I should be revitalized after a half-day on Tuesday and no school on Wednesday. 

But I'm not.

I think I'm ready for the states.

Log28: Revisions to the Drafts of Life

" 'Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.  Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

...

It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.

...

If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important--if you want to operate on your default setting--then you, like me, probably will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying.

But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options.  It will actually within your power to experienced a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars--compassion, love, the subsurface unity of all things.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

That is real freedom."

-excerpts from speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2006.*

*These excerpts by no means do the speech justice.  If you have not read it yet, please do so here.  It seems long, but goes by quickly and is well-worth your time.

The great freedom is that we can choose what we think about each day, we can entertain more than one way to interpret a situation, we can escape our subjective snow-globe kingdoms and become part of the world, and be in it.  If we have little choice over anything else, that which exists within us is that which we can control.

Of course, like DFW says, it's so hard.  And it takes incredible effort.

I have realized that I have taken for granted my default setting, and have been on cruise control becoming so absorbed by the lone reality that has been mine.  This is of course the universe in which I leave, and without myself I would have no such universe.  But to assume it to the extent that I have in some ways been denying myself the chance to make and find the beautiful connections that can be made here is unfortunate.

So I can change.  And it begins with thought.  It begins with what I choose to think about.  And how I choose to think.

If I have agency over nothing else, that I do have.

Log27: Let's Talk.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been giving speaking "tests" in all my classes.  While I could have administered it in a variety of ways, I decided to really make it what it was: a test of conversational English skills.  So, we talked.  


Having a conversation with each of my 500 students in a private one-on-one setting has been, though potentially stressful to some of the students, possibly the best part of being here so far.   Each of the 500 names and numbers come alive with concerns, interests, and dreams.  So far, concerns have included fights with girlfriends, breaking up with girlfriends, stressing about tests, stressing about parents.  Interests have ranged from soccer and Starcraft to design and music composition.  Dreams have included becoming a diplomat, a president, a CEO of a big company, and a doctor, among other professions.


But they have also included something less practical, and more moving.


"Tell me, XOXO, what is your dream?"


"Teacher, my dream is to be a good father."


I sometimes wonder who is the real student.  


In addition, during a couple of these interviews, students actually just thanked me for being a great teacher.  They told me that my classes are a lot of fun and that their favorite class is English because of what I have done so far.


That many of these students have felt comfortable enough to not only share with me their personal matters like girlfriend problems or familial issues, but also tell me that they enjoy my teaching, has made me feel just wonderful, and awfully grateful.  It truly has been a gift.  I get to see the facts, stories, and the human that constitute each of my students, and they in turn have a chance to get to know me a bit more, to see the human behind the teacher.

And we begin to bond.  And love.

I am starting to really care about these students.  I think I'm really beginning to love these students, both individually and collectively.  It's almost like I embrace them like they were my own children.


Who would have thought?  Haha.

Log 26: A Quick Overview

Alright, as my father who was in Seoul a couple of weeks ago on a business trip advised me to do when I visited him, I will do my best to keep people informed with shorter snapshots of my life and goings-on, for your sake, and mine, because sometimes the pressure to complete whatever "magnum opus" I have begun becomes unwieldy and overbearing.  

So.  In a strictly unchronological order.


Thanksgiving weekend: An afternoon Thanksgiving "dinner" at Ambassador Kathleen Stephens' home in Seoul.  As I wrote to a dear friend, America had not tasted so delightful in quite some time.  I decided to perform some music for the event with my fellow ETAs.  The performances included piano, horn, flute (me), violin, voice, and a poem.  My performance went better than I had expected, especially in light of my uninhibited enjoyment of the Riesling they provided.  Sadly, I refrained from enjoying more once I realized that performances would commence after the meal.


Because I'm unreasonably light-weight when it comes to drinking.

A Gratifying Experience (mid-October) : I helped a high school senior named Min-Ho practice his interviewing skills as he prepared for an interview with Asia Pacific University in Japan: his dream school.  I felt confident in my role, as I had not only worked in college admissions but also received training as an interviewer.  We ran three mock-interviews in the week prior to his interview with APU.  He improved with each interview, and seemed to gain more confidence.


On November 5th, Min-Ho called me searching for both words and air.  He managed to get out what mattered; he was accepted to APU.  He will be a freshman beginning April 2011.

Would-You-Rather (mid November lesson):  
"Would you rather verbA A or verbB B?" 
EX: Would you rather swim with snakes or swim with crocodiles? 
EX2: Would you rather play basketball like Michael Jordan or dance like Michael Jackson?

"I would rather verbA A because reason"
EX: I would rather swim with snakes because crocodiles can eat me.
EX2: I would rather play basketball like Michael Jordan because I like basketball.


My question #2:
Would you rather meet Rain [male Korean pop star] or meet Lady Gaga?

Student answer (verbatim):
I would rather meet Lady Gaga because I sex her.

I allowed the students to form their own questions and ask me.
Here are a few, all verbatim:

1) Teacher, would you rather cute girl or sexy girl? [notice the lack of verbs]
2) Would you rather live USA or Korea? [caught me in a bind since they know I'm Korean and they don't like unpatriotic folk]
3) Would you rather marry American girl or Korean girl? [another patriotism thing]
4, and the worst one) Would you rather A-cup girl or C-cup girl? [again, no verb]

These boys need to get out more.

Log25: The Uninvited, Part II

There have also been days when I am not the unexpected guest, but instead a stranger  who would brighten my day through the most peculiar things.

The Taxi Driver

After a long and exhausting day at school, I walk to the university area to catch a cab.  The lessons had been going well, but repeating this particular lesson during which students ran around screaming at each other (as part of the lesson) has been extremely draining.

The gorgeous October sun and autumn leaves help my mood, but do little to alleviate the apathy that has settled within.  I open the cab door and tell the taxi driver where I have to go, and just slump down lazily, happy to have something catch me as I resign to gravity without hope.  I ready both my mind and body to just ooze into the seat as silently as if it would become one with the cab.  I start to open my bag to put on my headphones and get back to the billboard topper Love the Way by Eminem ft. Rihanna when curiosity catches my ear.

I begin to hear a familiar voice seep into me.  As the piano chords, riding cymbal and funky bassline come into form, the image of the voice swaying his head aimlessly in front of the mic, with his moustache and sunglasses meandering to the harmonies he creates jump instantly to my mind.

So boogie on reggae woman, what is wrong with you...

Is this really happening?  I'm in a taxi near the southern exit of Jeonju University, one of three universities in what is known as the bastion of traditional Korean culture, listening to Stevie Wonder's 1974 single 'Boogie On Reggae Woman'?!  Are you serious?!

Granted, Stevie Wonder is very popular in Korea anyway.  But for some reason, it all took me back a bit.  I have this biased view of Korean taxi drivers listening only to very traditional Korean music, or the Korean equivalent of the '60s and '70s classics (which, for those of you who don't know, require an acquired taste...at least for me). 

I felt more comfortable in my surprise when the next song began with a bass drum, high hat, off to a fast marching beat in that classic '70s rock style...the electric coming in four bars later with three pairs of notes, twanging...then a harsh, inspired voice in a pitched yell, "Some folks are born to wave the flag, ooh, they're red white and blue..."


'Fortunate Son' by CCR?  Are you kidding me?

I talked to the taxi driver, and he had downloaded these songs onto his MP3 which was plugged into the car radio.  

Impressive.


Among the countless memories I have already made here in Korea, this remains one of the most unforgettable.  I'm not completely sure why, but here is my guess.

First, the sheer shock value.  
Second, the subversion of expectations.
Third, the comfort I found in the music of old, especially during that time of stress and fatigue.

It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least.  

Sometimes you're not the uninvited.  In any singular moment, your mood and your situation inform the expectations you have about the world.  They form a kind of guest list of things and events you assume will happen in the coming moments, hours, days.  Some of those guests make appearances as expected, and some of them don't but you don't cry over their absence.

And sometimes you have the uninvited, who admittedly can sometimes be the unwelcome inebriated vice, but can also be a delightful and most welcome surprise.