Today was a long day. I guess I said that yesterday. But today was filled with responsibilities with no play time in between. I started my day at 7am and got home a little before 9pm. After that I drank some water and started working on an evaluation sheet for a test I am giving tomorrow. Evaluating the class I had on Tuesday was very difficult so I made a rubric of sorts tonight. After that I added some Korean vocabulary words. I’m not sure if it is completely helpful but I don’t think it is helping me to fly through the textbook without learning these words. Now that I think about it, I should probably separate the nouns from the verbs and try to write sentences using those words. This is a long process but I think a lack of Korean ability is contributing to my feelings of inadequacy. I said contributing, not that it is the main reason or cause of these feelings.
Today was a fairly routine day of free-talking after meeting with my early morning Bible study crew. The topic of today was Jesus casting the demon out of the man in the cemetary in Mark’s gospel. This led to a brief discussion of whether demons really exist. I tapped into my experience in an urban church in Kansas City where we sang, “Victory is Mine.” This song makes no explicit reference to God but it does refer to Satan. I suggested to those who question the existence of demons that we think of demons as those things that lead us to believe things that are not true, such as thinking we have to get drunk one more time or get one more fix on the street or being lured away from studying by chatting online or playing video games or whatever. This is an interesting experience because most of the people in the group seem to be Christians to some extent while two people are not Christians. I try to be affirming of those who trust Christ as their savior while also trying to be sensitive to those who are not Christians.
The victory came for me today when I went to lunch with a colleague. I thought this was a routine “go to lunch with a collegue” day. I realized differently when he knocked on the window of the building where we met and a mother and her daughter came inside the building. I realized then that it was an attempt to have me help her or her daughter with her English. Knowing what was ahead, even though I didn’t have any warning about this beforehand, I decided before anybody asked me that I would say no because my plate is already fuller than it needs to be. I think this surprised my colleague since I have developed the reputation on campus of always saying yes when people ask me for favors. I tried to gently explain that I am already doing to much and that my plate is full (without the idiom I hope). This didn’t seem to make much sense so he kept pushing. Finally I expressed my frustration over feeling like a commodity whose obligation it is to help people learn English. My ultimate bluntness came when I said that many people want me to help them but not too many people were interested in helping me when I had food poisoning or when my emotions are out of sort. I guess I looked like a bum who had lost his enthusiasm since I was enthusiastic when I came. Interestingly enough, he mentioned something to her about Vietnam which I said nothing about. I have expressed interest to him in moving to Vietnam and I suspected that he told her about this as if I had lost my love for Korea in hopes of moving to Vietnam.
I felt good about this in a way and bad about this in another way. I have met many people by helping them with their English. This has also given me opportunity to practice Korean since people sometimes struggle to listen or speak in English. But sometimes this is a realization that what seems like a friendship is only that on the surface and that the “friendship” only succeeds as long as I do people favors. I hope that is not true in this case but I guess time will tell.
After lunch I was exhausted. I don’t know if it was the emotional drain of saying no and wondering if I did the right thing or if it was a lack of sleep or just the exhaustion of my emotional disposition. After some free-talking students left, I had no energy to do anything. But then I was revived when a colleague knocked on my door to offer me coffee and a quote about letting people know they are not alone. After this, I had energy to do the things I was needing to do and my disposition changed. I was finally able to overcome my emotions and get ready for doing other things.
I wasn’t sure if the students I usually go to dinner with were going to come so I started to contemplate going to a restaurant alone which would also give me practice speaking in Korean. I’m glad I waited though since they came after all. They were not late, it just seemed to me that they were because my free-talking students before them left early to prepare for a major test tonight.
Having dinner with the students was a bit strange due to a combination of issues. We went a little ways from the campus where a student suggested. But when we got there they said it was too expensive. So we went to another restaurant that was about the same price. I told them I didn’t have time to keep walking around to the different restaurants since I had another class to teach after dinner. One of the students who is in one of my classes expressed interest, through one of the other students, in having me help him with his grammar. His English communication skills are quite low and I have not seen him put forth much effort in the class. In the end I said we’d see if he shows up whenever we decide is a good time to meet. One of the frustrating things that happened shortly after we got to the second restaurant was when two of the three guys said they needed to go to the toilet. The truth was that they “needed” to smoke. I didn’t realize this until they came back to the table and I could smell the cigarette smoke. This frustrated me because the other student and I had been waiting for them to order. In the end, I was ten minutes late to the class at city hall as a result of this situation.
Oddly enough, the most rewarding part of the day came at the end of the day. This is one of those things that I said yes to that does wear me out in a certain way but is rather fulfilling. The people who go to that class are more motivated than university students and their English level is high enough that we can have intelligent conversation. This gives me the ability to ask a lot of interesting questions. Tonight we talked about driving and who we’d be the most comfortable riding with. It ended up being a philosophical conversation to some extent and the people seemed to respond well to it though sometimes it was difficult for them to respond to my questions. Even though I am a difficult person to put up with in general because of the difficult questions, I feel like I can be myself in that type of setting. Of course I worry that I am not doing good enough or that I am giving those with the highest English level the most opportunities to speak. I’ve been trying to go around and ask different people questions.
After that I came home without a depressed feeling, finished writing up an evaluation sheet, added some Korean words to a spreadsheet I started over winter vacation and after I post this, I will be ready to brush my teeth and go to bed after a few moments of reflection. This is difficult for me since I am not good at sitting still and doing nothing more than being quiet.
But I can’t forget the highlight of my day. That was talking to my Korean cousin about a traditional dress she would like me to buy for her and take it to her in the US. You all know I am not much of a clothing shopper so this should be an interesting experience.
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