White Girl Issues

My day started with me pouring salt on my blistered white girl tongue due to my annoying inability to withstand any sort of spice/fermentation combo.  Thank you Kimchi, you shall be fun for me this year. 

"I'M NOT FUNNY!"

Only one day into teaching and I'm already won over by these incredibly cute faces.  Unfortunately, along with loving my class, I was nice to them, which means they apparently think I'm a door mat.  So lesson number one: be stern to small children or they'll eat you alive.

Lesson number two: Korean children CANNOT say Suzannah.  It comes out something along the lines of Sujiannah.  Which is adorable, and I've been called worse, so I feel like I'm alright with it.

Lesson number three: Bless their hearts, I forgot how impossible it is for children to hide their emotions.  And since these ones don't speak English well, when they are made mad by another laughing in their expense, they angrily yell "I'M NOT FUNNY!" and it's true.  They do lack a sense of comedic intuition.  They also like to yell "I'M ANGRY!" funny enough, they have yet to learn to yell positive emotions.  I think I will teach them to yell "FUCK, I"M HAPPY!"

Asian Grocery Goodies

Well Toto, we're not in Whole Foods anymore.  Here is what my grocery shopping experience looks like these days. Enjoy. I know I do.

Dehydrated fish 'chips'

Dehydrated fish on a stick

Fish Cicles.  Rows and rows of frozen fish attached by a yellow thread.  No packaging.

Seoul Searching

An idea has been growing in the back of my mind like a little plant to go try my hand at teaching pretty much from the time I tried my hand at giving a tour on the history of Paris to a group of my former co workers. Ok fine, I only got to give a historical run down of one monument, but I'd like to say it was a damn good run down.  Working in the environment of giving tours, is definitely very similar to being a teacher, only instead of giving tests and making a curriculum for a year's worth of studies, you're the four hour cliff note edition, condensing all of the important historical event spanning a few hundred years into four hours.

It wasn't until I was put in charge of the development of an artisan food store in Greenwich village NYC that I decided to make the commitment to pursue an adventure abroad in teaching.  Not that I'm knocking developing a little business into something that could actually be profitable one day, but for me, continuing that life had about as much soul nutritional substance as the products I was pushing.  (Just to clarify, that would be no nutrition, devoid of, lacking..)

I have loved every second I have spend in New York City, this place is a metropolitan sprawl just bursting at the seems with creativity and ingenuity, but I'm coming up blank when I try to picture a solid future in this city.  It's so transient that I get the feeling a lot of people don't even think it a worthy attempt to actually invest, further than superficially, in actual human relations.  I am constantly hungry in the city.  Metaphorically and literally.  It seems like no matter how much I consume I am still hungry for more: more of a purpose, more of a sense of self, more of a sense of belonging or community, and quite frankly, it's kind of exhausting.
And maybe it is just that I am addicted to travel.  Maybe, I am just energized by moving and exhausted from staying still.  Anyone who has ever traveled extensively knows what I am talking about.  It's a drug that we inject in ourselves.  It's a hit that starts skin deep and then seeps gradually into our veins and is carried deep into the recesses of our bodily cavities to our hearts, our minds and our souls.

With that commences the obligatory "this is what I'm doing and how cool I am" blog.  Seoul Searching is really more of a way for me to remember what I do, and hopefully to entertain and inspire you in some way. Hopefully it achieves its purpose.