Almost three months in Korea!

What a fun process... I'm still just beginning to get a sense of the culture around here in all its nuances. And I've re-negotiated my contract such that I'll be getting a lot more free time in the new year, not a mention a month's vacation in January, albeit not paid. But that's ok, I'm not just here to save money or pay off loans, as it turns out thousands of other western recent university graduates are.

The language barrier - and it is a big one - is invigorating in the sense that I feel less and less obliged to bother with the thoughts of others, because even if I knew what they were thinking, I'm unable to ask, or understand any answer. Not that I'm not polite, in fact quite the opposite. If anything I've become more polite in a culture that, while containing the same rowdy drunks and idiot teenagers as any other, is on the whole very value-driven and respectful.

It sounds odd, but I enjoy the isolation provided by not speaking the language. Though, slowly and surely, I am learning. I've picked up the written/phonetic alphabet, such that I can pronounce words, read signs, and spell out things people say. It's all quite useless, however, without a great deal of noun-memorization, to say nothing of grammar, which I'm told is very much unlike English grammar. So far, the best way I've found to get a beginning sense of Korean grammar is to listen to my low-level students who are terrible at English, and who, when constructing sentences, always arrange the various parts in a way that is correct in the Korean grammar system, but completely wrong under English rules. It occurred to me simply to reverse-engineer and 'learn' their mistakes. Their bad English may just be the key to my good Korean.

And I'll never lose the sense of isolation here, because Koreans just assume I don't speak any of the language (so few westerners do), and I'm more than happy to allow them the thought as I pass them by.

In spite of being too busy with the two jobs, I've lately been feeling somewhat inspired, and more confident than usual. For example, there's a girl who I'd been crushing on in a small way since she (a nurse) took my blood donation in september, and finally I got the courage to take her out. She speaks enough english to get by in a conversation, but not much more. Anyway, after a couple of what I thought were decent dates, she tells me she's got a Korean boyfriend abroad, but that she likes me too, and she doesn't know what to do. Ugh... one of these situations again... I was thinking.

"Come on Lucy, can't you just be single? He's all the way in California, and I'm right here!" It sounded like a good argument at the time. ("Lucy" is her English nickname, which most Koreans have because many Korean names can't really be spelled or pronounced with English letters. Her Korean name sounds something like 'Cho Long')

So a hopeful day or two go by, and finally she meets me one evening outside of my work and breaks the bad news... "I can't see you anymore, I want to stay with my boyfriend. I'm sorry." She looked hard-off for the decision, and the atmosphere was distractingly busy outside on the hurried and bright nighttime sidewalk.

Set aback for a moment, I descended into introspection... why feel so constrained by what people say to me? So often my intuition, my sense of the situation and the body language, tells me the opposite of what the words do. I don't say no to people nearly often enough. I'm too willing to listen, too willing to pander. At the moment, I found myself not the slightest bit convinced by her words.

And besides, it was then or never. The moment was there for the taking. I shook my head at Lucy refusingly, and then planted a big wet one on her with absolutely no warning. Why not, right? And my effort seems to have been a success, as we've been out twice since, and the California boyfriend is no more.

I plan to take some photos this weekend and put them up.