Happy Thanksgiving

It's a cool crisp day here in Korea.  The sun's a shinin' and the wind is softly blowing.  Today is the day of my church Thanksgiving Day meal.  I have so much to be excited about and so much that I am just amazed about.  This has been one of the most crazy months of my life.  I've been told that I have five different skin conditions.  One of them was a very serious one.  I've visited one of the biggest hospitals in the country three times along with the biggest one in my city.  We are talking about an area with about 25 million people.  So, these hospitals are supposed to be the best that they have.  I was given 8 pills a day and cream to put on my skin.  I became a pill junkster.  I went in there and told them that I ain't taking them pills no more unless they give me some proof of what it is and why.  I refused to continue.  I was thankful when I stopped.  What a relief.  I am thankful that 90% of my skin issues are gone.  Really thankful!

One month ago I went to an interview for a dream job.  This is the kind of job that you don't even really even dream of.  It is just right crazy.  I traveled for 2 hours by bus with a friend to the interview in a suit with my name inside of it.  I arrived a bit early.  I was going to give it my all and that is what I done.  I practiced with a friend a week earlier and I give the best answers that I could figure out.  They was 4 English teachers and they was one Korean dean or something. She never did crack a smile for the whole 30 minutes.  It was only 5 questions with a few follow up ones.  They wadn't even one weird question.  I answered them all and got up to shake their hands.  It was so awkward leaning over a U-shaped table.  I was suddenly nervous at the end. I walked out of the room and make a sharp right turn.  I had went the wrong way.  I instantly felt so dumb.  I didn't even know how to leave that office.

The next weekend was filled with waiting and wondering.  They had another full day of interviews to do for that job.  I felt as if their was a chance in hell that I'd get the job.  This job is like getting a job at Harvard back home.  The people who graduate from this university goes on to make lots of money and have top jobs all over the world.  It is nuts!!  So, I just kept waitin'.  I waited for one more week and I got an e-mail from them at 4pm the same day that they promised a response.  I opened it and it said, thank you for your interest in the position... bla bla bla.  I was not surprised.  I was just so happy to have got the interview.  It was awesome.  I was content with it.  How cool!

I asked my school to renew me.  I had hopes of moving on to university, but at that point I knew that I wasn't gonna get it.  They said yes after some talking among theirselves.  I wasn't excited about it, but it was a job. Then a few days ago I got a call.  I looked down at my phone in the office and answered.  It was an unknown    
Korean number.  Usually they call and insist that I speak Korean and call back 2 or 3 times thinking it is a joke that a foreigner answered the phone in Korea.   It was the dean of the highest ranking school in the country.  She asked in the most formal way possible if I was who answered the phone.  I thought she was going to suggest that I apply somewhere else.  She offered me the job.  I run into the other room so the others around me wouldn't have a idea what was going on.  I liketa fell on the ground.  No joke.  I hung up and went and sit on my chair in my office.  I wanted so bad to tell somebody, but they wadn't nobody there I could share it with.  I was stuck for four hours caught in a kind of shell wanting to explode.

I give it a day or two and I found out that my official renewal papers had come to my school.  I had to drop the bomb.  So, I tried my best to make it early.  I overslept that morning, so I had to run to school.  I got there and run down and told one of my co-teachers.  She was shocked and happy beyond belief.  It is just unheard of for a random dude from another country to waltz in there for one year and land a job at that university.  I told my main co-teacher and there was a hint of anger or annoyance or everwhat it was.  I ain't sure.  I don't care.  I was excited so I called two of my most coolest friends and told them that I wanted to buy them dinner to celebrate.  My friend showed up with a funny cake with 5 candles and we eat some Indian food and then some cake.  Life is just crazy.  You can't predict it and that is what I am thankful for.  Just thankful.  I will eat some turkey today and just be thankful.

Just Want to Sleep

Today I wanted to sleep more than anyone could imagine.  I worked all day at a job that is far from hard in most ways, but it drains your soul in other ways.  I don't never know what is going on, even when I try.  I've give up having that under my belt.  I just sit there and wait for information that I know ain't never going to come.  I do what needs done and don't do what don't need done.  In this land, making it look as if you got tons to do is so important.  But..., they ain't nothing to do.  They's nothing I can do about that.  I've planned most all of what needs planned for the rest of the entire year.  No joke.

I was tired, so I went to a restaurant that serves Indian food.  The owner is from Nepal.  This is very strange in Korea.  I was too tired to cook today, so I spent 10 bucks on some chicken and rice.   I could have come home and cooked, but today was my late day at work.  I was just tired.  I wanted to sleep like nobody knows.  Just as I was finishing my food, my phone rung.  It was one of the golden 10 who came to Korea with me.  He works with my former coworker who I used to know way back when.

He let me know that my friend who was pregnant and sick 5 years ago when I was in Korea is again in the same boat.  He works with her this time.  How crazy is that?  She is one of those people who know from the first time you meet them, that it is almost impossible to not keep in contact with them for the rest of your life.  It is just way out of control.  My friend who works with her now said that to me about 2 weeks after he met her for the first time.  So, we drug ourselves to a hospital on the other side of town to see our friend.  Her 6 year old kid was waiting for us there.  He gets so excited because he has 'foreign' friends. It is quite funny to see.  So, after being so tired, I forced myself to go and see my friend.  It was well worth it.  The family was funny and our mutual friend made it all the more crazy funny.  Living here is just so random and many times it makes you so so so tired.  Despite being tired, it was all worth it.

Knowing the Future

I've always wanted to be able to know the future.  I like to plan and I like to try to do this and that.  I have right close to every day planned out for a week in advance.  Most of the time, I end up doing most of the things that I have planned.  However, I think I've passed into being anxious about the future at times.  I know that they ain't nothing that I can do to change the future.  Many of the times, there is almost nothing that I can do to even control my life in even the smallest way.  The lucky thing is that I am finally getting to the point again that I realize that I ain't in control of my path.  I walk the path, but my steps are on the ground ahead of me as I walk.  I just put my foot right in the print.  Sometimes, I ain't smart enough to realize that I have misstepped.  Who knows? I don't... that's for sure.

I come to Korea with 300 teachers.  We done orientation together and went off to our schools all over the 'Land of the Morning Calm'.  All of the areas have told their teachers if they gonna stay for next year.  I mean, most of the people have signed the contracts and done the blood tests.  We have to get AIDS tests cuz the are a-scared that we foreigners might could have the bug.  So, there I sit in my school just thinking about how my city was the last of the cities to send out the renewal papers.  I emailed the main office and they give me the news that the papers would be sent out by the end of this month.  Despite all of this, I asked my co-teacher if she knew what would happen.  I figure that they must know if they gonna keep me after 2/3 of the year.  They talked it over and finally told me that I am gonna stay.  Well, that's the word now.  Let's see what next month brings.

I'd like to go home for the holiday, but I get 4 weeks vacation in summer, so I plan on doing that.  That means that I'll be here and I won't be a doin' much over the Christmas break.  I hope that the holiday is not so bad.  I 'member that the last time I was here during that time  

Sex Slave

So, my church had a screening of a film called Nefarious.  It documented how girls get picked up off of the streets or sold to the sex trade industry in many places.   I guess South Koreans are the most frequent people who are sold into the sex industry in the US.  I saw how people in Cambodia often sell their girls.  How does people treat their kids as property?  I just don't get it.

I guess these girls just get used to feeling as if they are worthless and without hope.  So, if someone offers them another option, they rarely accept it.  If they do accept the new option, 90% or more return to the industry within a year.  The whole thing was just creepy to me.  It give me chills.  Either seeing no other option or wanting to go back to beatings and rapes rather than confront the cold hard facts.  This ain't cool.  Wow..  It just made me sick to watch.

Where there is legal activity going on, you can be sure that there is illegal activity going on as well.  Why does a legal industry publish safety ideas for their workers if it has truly made their work any more safer? I just feel that we need to be more vocal for human rights about this. Sweden has almost got rid of the industry because they decided that they have to do it to provide equal rights for men and women.  How much more do believers have responsibility to tackle this evil industry.

F-hole

I used to go to this cafe about 5 times a week named 'F-hole'.  Don't get no nasty thoughts in your mind.  The owner didn't speak English, but he was a music major in university.  He had a dream to open a cafe and he did just that.  He named it after the pattern on a violin.  He had no idea until we foreigners started to frequent his awesome little shop.  Well, them days are gone.  The little cafe with real ham sandwiches is long gone.  One of my favorite things is gone.  I loved it because he'd play exactly the kind of music that I like and I could call him and place my order then show up and it would be all ready.

They's this new place that my friends have started going to.  It's called 'Beyond'.  It ain't no F-hole.  The drinks are terrible and the prices are high.  We had singings there and some people used to read poetry.  Most of the people would read some serious funny things that they had wrote, but others just sit there and listened.  It was so chill.  Wednesday nights ain't the same no more.  The F-hole sort of moved on to 'Beyond', but it is beyond lame at 'Beyond'.

So, they's sort of a bit of a hole in my schedule.  I've filled it with Korean lessons with a friend, but I kind of miss getting out of the Korean feeling and meeting up with some of my international friends.  It's people from just about every English speaking country that you can think of and many of them are pretty funny.  I miss it.

What is it?

I've growed angry at this point.  They ain't a doctor in the world that can explain what is going on.  Well, let me rephrase that.  Every one of the 5 that I've went to has told me what I have.  The problem is that each and every one has told me something different.  I've followed what they've said, and it ain't made a bit of difference.  What's up with that??

I've decided that they's worse things in the world to have other than spots here and there all over my body that comes and goes.  I feel great, and I go to the gym and do whatever I want there.  I don't feel sick.  I need to be be thankful for that and not pay no mind to the doctors on some level.  If they's been 5 doctors and 5 ideas, either 4 or 5 have been wrong.  I can't focus on any of that.  I just keep thinking of all the good things rather than the annoying bad!

Korea is a place of conforming.  You must conform or else.  I sometimes have a few spots on my hands.  The people here on the subways looks at you like you have some serious disease on public transportation.  What is a good man gonna do?  LOL