WHOA, HO, HO, JUST LIKE A YOYO

I don’t know what the better analogy for my life is, is it a roller coaster or is it a yoyo? Is there a difference? I mean they both go up but they still end up down at the end. I don’t feel as high as yesterday, but I’m not down. Just a wee bit of slippage but you can’t always be up, can you? I’m getting so sensitive to my mood swings that it’s a little scary just to feel alright after a day when you feel up. That of course makes no sense, but where does logic fit in anyway? It doesn’t.

I was wondering today what percentage of your total happiness should be dependant on your job satisfaction? Another toughy. You shouldn’t live to work, but work to live. A lot of people have lousy jobs and I don’t know but I would guess a bunch of them are still happy. They have other things that bring them joy and happiness so they trump the job. But what if you live in a foreign country where you depend so much on job satisfaction to help keep you content? You have some friends and maybe an activity or two. But you don’t have kids which fill a great deal of your life and bring you more joy than anything. You don’t have a mate for one reason or another. Those are two things more important than a job, and can save you from a job you don’t love, that you don’t have. I’m trying to figure this out.

It seems I’m always trying to figure things out and it seems like I’m not making progress. Tackle one puzzle and another pops up. It’s like that fairground game, “Whack-A-Mole” where a mole pops up out of a hole, you bang it on the head with a mallet and it goes down, and another mole pops up in a different hole. Is that the analogy for my life? Is life really just a game of “Whack-A-Mole”? This is kind of scary. Has anyone ever felt that way about their life, or have I broken new ground? And if I’m going to break new ground, then why not a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s? No, I have to come up with stupid analogy’s.

I realize it can be a bit of a downer reading this and I often ask myself if I really am as unhappy as I must sound. Or is it that the negative things are the things I need to write or talk about in an attempt to get them out of my system and not stay inside of me. And of course, I have no answer.

I was talking to Elana last night and she told me that she doesn’t read my blog daily like she used to. Some of the things she reads bother her and make her angry. I actually understand how she feels. I never had a father who had a tendency to “weird out” so I can’t compare how I am with anything. I don’t think I sit around feeling sorry for myself (at least not so I notice), I just write about how I feel and I don’t radiate happiness. Maybe the trick in dealing with someone like me is you decide how much of me is relevant to your relationship with me and go with that. Just ignore the things that don’t really affect you. I know she’s still mad at me (there, I’m saying it out loud). I can hear it in her voice whenever we talk. And I can’t fix it. If I could, I would. I don’t think one evil deed should erase a lifetime of good deeds, but I can’t say for sure because I’ve never been in her position. I might be the same as her if the positions were reversed. All I know is that it pains me when I talk to her and can hear in her voice that she really doesn’t want to talk to me, she disrespects me, and she has no empathy for whatever I’m going through. I might complain about things here in Korea and my life in general, but Elana and I is the worst thing that has happened to me. They say that time heals all, but I don’t know. I used to believe that but now I’m doubtful. I told someone (I can’t remember who) that there are only 2 people in the world who scare me. One is my mother and the other is Elana. It’s kind of weird, the mother and the oldest daughter. I don’t do things to seek their approval, but I sure feel it and worry about if I’ll get it. I guess the only thing I know for sure is that my day to day outlook on life begins each day with two strikes against me. One is my father’s Alzheimer’s disease and the other is what’s happened between Elana and I.

I had a phone call last night from my new potential girlfriend Ooh-Ri. She called to thank me for my “memo” (her word) telling her about the Metallica concert. She told me that she knew about it and wanted to go, but the cost of $80 U.S. was way too much money for her. It was nice of her to call and thank me and we spoke for a few minutes but it felt awkward and forced. Phone calls with Koreans aren’t nearly as easy as face to face conversation. I remember one phone call with Mee Kyung with a lot of silences since I have to carry the conversation on the phone. In person it’s a give and take but speaking English on the phone is very unnatural for them. Mee Kyung was waiting for me to say something after I had run out of things to say. She asked me if I had anything else to say (or something like that) and I said no. So she said goodbye and hung up. If was cute and funny and abrupt. It’s only been about 4 weeks since I’ve seen her, but I miss our outings. I hope she’s having a good time with her husband but I do look forward to her return and us “girls” going out.

I jumped the gun on my evaluation of this week’s camp group. I made a list of all the new words we discussed yesterday that they told me they didn’t know and I had explained. I then made up 29 sentences with a blank in each one to fill in and they had to take the right word from the list and put it in the correct sentence. What a disaster. Except for one girl I think the most blanks filled in on anyone’s page was 3 of 29, and they looked wrong to me. What a downer. I thought if they asked the question yesterday of what something meant then they would remember a few of them. No go.

There is one girl who knew most of them. She’s the only “good” student out of the 16 I have. There may be two good ones, but the other one I think might be good was absent today. I didn’t get upset but I was very disappointed. My hope for a good and enjoyable week faded and I just felt like each day would be 4 more hours to endure.

I then brought up the topic of the movie we would be doing. I told them we needed to discuss ideas and to remember to keep it simple because they were responsible for everything like dialogue, props, and costumes. The ideas were not coming fast and furious. The first week of camp I had only 1st year students, and this week the majority are 3rd year students, but the 1st year students were far better at grasping the reality of what can be done and produced more ideas. I got very few original ideas. I got “Sleeping Beauty”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Cinderella”, and a few others. I would keep saying, “where are you going to get the clothes from?” I gave up asking for ideas and just let them chatter away for ½ an hour in Korean. My heart wasn’t in it. I know I wasn’t asking anything too difficult if the 1st year kids got it. I am aware that maybe I expect too much. But to be perfectly honest I need the conversation between the students and I to keep me interested. I can blabber on and entertain for a great deal of time, but I want my entertainment and that’s a reasonable discussion with students.

After the 30 minutes and the class nearly being over, I went and sat down across from the girl who’s the good student. She had moved her seat during the Korean conversation and had moved to a seat in front of the rest of the class. She had taken charge. So I asked her what they were going to do and she said they were doing “Sleeping Beauty”. I’m not overly thrilled because I think it’s too much but I didn’t say anything. I asked her what about the costumes and she told me what the people would be wearing. She drew me caps the dwarfs would be wearing and I said who is going to make them. She said she was. She had the cast written out and told me she was the director. She then (using pictures and broken English) asked how we would edit the movie. I was quite impressed because she was thinking and it was a perfect question. I told her it was called “editing” in English and told her I’d do that. She was pleased I said that.

So, maybe they can do it. Maybe I underestimate them and I hope I do. I like the way she took charge and I liked the answers she had to my questions. If it works it will be through her and I will be so pleased and impressed. I’m pulling for her.

I was talking to the computer teacher today as he is on duty at the school this week. He speaks English at least as good Min Kyung. He worked for Sun Microsystems before changing to teaching. He’s a pleasant fellow but I wish he’d call me something other than “Mr. Martin”. I think it might just be that my name is written as “Martin King” and Koreans write their names with the last name first. “Kim Mee Kyung” for example.

He was telling me that his wife and him were traveling last week within Korea and I asked him if he had any suggestions where I should go. He gave me a couple of names and I asked him to write them down for me in English so I could look them up. He said he would and would give it to me before I left. After camp was finished I went into the teacher’s room to get my bag and he called me over to his desk. He showed me some pictures from a place he recommends and he had printed out one of those Korean roadmaps that never work for me. The place is in an area of mountains and beach and he gave me directions to the “sheep pasture”. That’s what he liked and I saw pictures of sheep and him and his wife feeding farm animals. I of course smiled and thanked him, but I don’t think a sheep pasture is in my vacation plans.

I came home and it was so strange. The electricity was working and the lights in the living room were working, but none of the other lights in the apartment would come on. So I had to go back out to the office to tell them. It’s hot. It’s humid. I walk there and go upstairs and the sign on the door tells me they’re closed from 12 to 1. It was 1:15 but who am I to complain that they can’t keep time. About 1:20 one woman comes back and I guess I’m known to everyone as the crazy foreigner or something because as soon as she sees me she gets on the phone and when she gets off she tells me to please wait for 10 minutes. I figured she called the man who usually helps me because he can speak English.

I’m sweating buckets and won’t stop. I was so uncomfortable. After about 12 minutes (when you’re sweating profusely you notice every second) she gets a call and tells me another five minutes. What can I do? I can’t call them and explain the problem. Then this other woman who works there runs in and apologizes to me. She goes through her drawer and takes out my apartment key which they had when the cleaning lady returned it. I started to do a flip out but I caught myself right away and didn’t make a fool of myself. I was proud that I didn’t go loco. I try to explain to them that my lights don’t work and then this other woman comes over to listen. She then gets on the phone and hands it to me. It was someone who spoke some English and I’m supposed to tell her the problem. I try to and I could tell she didn’t understand me. I said to her nicely, “you don’t understand me, do you?” and she asked me to say it again, but very slowly. I repeated myself slowly and I could hear the lights in her head clicking on. She got it. I gave the phone back to the office woman who was informed of my problem. They told me to go back to my apartment and someone would be there.

I behaved quite well (as I haven’t always done) and a few minutes after my return a man came. It seems there is this switch by my front door that controls the lights and it was off. I had never touched it. I had never even noticed it. The problem was easily solved which was good and I tried to tell him that I never touched it. His response was one of two things, but I can’t be sure what it was. It was either I’m a stupid and crazy foreigner, or it’s so hot the switch turns off itself. I thanked him and he was on his way. I do like that when I have to go to the office for help, and they say that they’ll be here shortly, they do come shortly. You really don’t get that kind of service in North America when someone is supposed to come to your house to do some work or deliver something.

I did something last night that I have never done before. I know this will amaze some of you and disgust others that it was my first time, but I bought a pineapple yesterday and cut it myself. And I did a fine job, wasting next to nothing. What a clever lad I am, and was it tasty. I also splurged yesterday and bought a cantaloupe for about $5. I know that’s ridiculous but sometimes I have to pamper myself with fruit. And it’s a lot cheaper than buying colored water for some girl in a bar.