Alone, depressed; With People, Happy

Today was one of those days that started out difficult but ended well. Because of the way I have been feeling, I didn’t wake up with much motivation. I called a friend whom I try to talk with on a weekly basis after I called my parents and they weren’t home. So I went on with my plans to study about Korean culture to prepare for the presentation I will most likely be making in September. While I got some things done I didn’t get as much done as I anticipated. I also was not able to meet with the family I usually have dinner with on Monday evenings before I teach a class at city hall.

Today we had a special meeting to discuss changes with the way the university deals with foreign professors. There was a lot of disconcertion regarding this, especially for those who have been placed in departments where the professors can’t speak fluently in English. According to these changes, the foreign professors are no longer under the wings of a Korean professor who tends to our questions and concerns. This seems to be part of a bigger plan to have all of the classes in English. For this to happen, the professors will have to improve their English skills and the students will also have to improve. This seems like a marketing strategy to make the university more appealing. But it doesn’t seem to take into account the English level of the students. Even for the best English speakers, it would be difficult for Korean students to take all there classes in English. Not even all the prestigious universities in Seoul do this.

After this meeting, I went to have dinner at a restaurant. Since I had to teach a class at city hall I wasn’t all that interested in going back home. So I went to Kimbap Nara (김밥 나라). Kimbap is basically rice, vegetables and meat wrapped in seaweed. I didn’t have this, but instead I had curry which was good. I went by myself so I had to order it myself in Korean, of course. It always makes me feel good when I do this rather than hiding behind a Korean who usually orders for me when I go with a Korean. This type of restaurant is also very reasonable. It probably cost me about 1.5 USD for a whole meal. It’s probably not the most healthy Korean meal but it is better than McDonald’s by a long shot in my opinion.

By this time, I was feeling much better than I felt most of the day. This is the mystery of my emotional disposition. When I am alone I feel depressed but when I am with people I feel much better about myself. It makes me wonder if I am hiding out in my apartment. I also wonder if my own feelings keep me from doing everything I could do. When I talked to my dad about this he suggested that I not let my feelings rule me. I took this to mean he was saying that I should ignore my feelings. I didn’t like this advice because I feel like that is what I have done for much of my life.

But when I thought about what changed in my own mind from the morning and afternoon time to the evening time, it did seem to me that I did “ignore” my feelings in some sense. If I didn’t, I would probably never have done anything today because I didn’t feel like I was adequate for the task. So I sucked it up and did what I had to do. That totally changed my disposition and I also had an enjoyable time with the staff I taught at city hall tonight. We talked about a lot of things from one university student referring to another student as one’s senior to making a list for one of the people who wants to get married in the future. This led to an interesting discussion about whether it is necessary for a man to have a car in order for a woman to fall in love with him.

After that one of the staff people took me home and my day was officially over. Well, not quite over since I had some things I wanted to work on. I decided to do the dishes, something I have been putting off for longer than I can say publicly. This made me feel better. Then I also studied Korean and learned how to link sentences together to make one longer sentence. By the way, my Korean journal is up to 273 sentences. Now if I could just remember everything that I wrote. So now I guess it is about time to get some shuteye for a while. I have to start my day at 7am with an early-morning Bible study. So tomorrow will be a long day with that, a faculty/staff chapel in 100% English even though there are people who won’t be able to understand the whole thing (I’d be mad if I were a Korean), a mid-term, lunch with a pastor, free-talking, teaching a class at a church and hopefully meeting my Korean teacher at the store to practice some things with Korean and to buy some groceries. I think I’m going to buy enough for breakfast but also try to eat out more and see if that changes my disposition. I just have to figure out how to manage that in terms of my budget.