Thoughts on the First Half-Year

On May 30 of this year I arrived in South Korea, the first time I'd ever set foot outside North America in my 29 years. The last six months have been exciting, challenging, frustrating and rewarding all at the same time.

I've learned many things in this half-year, among them:

1. Adapting to a new country isn't as hard as I thought it would be. Once I learned my way around the neighborhood and got used to the fact that my conversations with others would be minimal, it wasn't so bad. I still remember how strange everything felt the day I arrived. It was like being in a whole new world. Would I be able to handle this country?

Six months later it already feels like home. My daily life has all kinds of oddities that I never dealt with in the U.S., and I'm accustomed to them. Every so often it dawns on me when I'm walking around town that...hey! I'm in a country I'd never so much as visited before May! Yes, I'm aware that I'm an outsider, but it doesn't bother me too much. I'm comfortable with it.

2. Teaching is a hard job. Contrary to what one of my co-workers told me the night I got here, this job requires a lot of commitment for maximum effectiveness. At least, it does for me. Perhaps I'm just not a natural-born teacher, and therefore have to expend more effort. Whatever the case may be, I'm certainly going to work hard to be the best I can be.

3. Becoming bilingual is no walk in the park, even for someone with pretty good language abilities. Yes, my Korean has been progressing slowly. A big reason is that I'm often tired out from work and don't commit as much time to it as I could, and I think another part of it has been laziness. I'm trying to buckle down and study more, because discovering this language on my own is actually fun when I do take the time to learn it. After being commended for my language abilities most of my life, I think I should be able to speak at least two of them fluently. I am able to understand more than I did before I got here, so that has to count for something.

4. Apparently I look German. Multiple people (I'm talking two here!) have made that observation, one of them a Korean guy who grew up in Germany. I've always identified most with my Scottish part, since it's the source of my name, but otherwise thought of myself as a general Euro-American. I didn't realize my German part was the dominant look I carried around on my face. Speaking of faces...

5. I apparently have a face or head that's disproportionately small compared to my body. Students frequently make that observation, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to it. I guess it means Koreans generally aren't as bulky as I am. It's hard to be aware of how you compare to others visually when you see everything from your own perspective.

6. Taking classes at ComedySportz was a good move. 2010 will probably go down in my personal history as the year of ComedySportz, and I was disappointed that I couldn't afford to take Level 4. I honestly believe the three classes I took there prepared me for this job though. They helped me become more confident in my decision-making and public speaking, and in small ways perhaps enhanced my funniness. If you want to take it even further, my CSz experience may have given me the gumption to attempt this overseas adventure. There's something truly satisfying about being able to look back at a decision and know it was a good one.

7. It's possible for me to have a job I like and make good money at. For a long time I thought I was destined to be miserable in whatever line I found myself, because I was constantly dissatisfied with my sources of income. This job has proven me wrong. I'm not saying I wake up every morning looking forward to teaching, only that I find what I do worthwhile and even fun at times. I've waited my whole life to to have a job I could be proud of, and now that I finally have one, I certainly don't take it for granted.

Like just about everyone, I want contentment in life. I want to know that I belong somewhere, that I'm making a difference in some way and that my situation is a stable one. Have I found that? It's way too early to say, because I don't know where my head will be in the future. It's possible I could get burned out on this job, as I did with every other one I had for a significant amount of time. I hope that won't be the case, but you never know.

Of course, this job being different than the others, perhaps it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. Perhaps the reason I don't feel so bad about going the extra mile for this job is because it means more to me. When I stay late preparing for the next day's classes, I know it's a character-building experience as well as an investment in the future of children whose minds have been entrusted to me, not some transitory service that'll be forgotten the next day. Again, not that I enjoy it, per se, only that the drudgery feels like it's for the greater good.

I don't know how stable my situation is either. It seems like many teachers in Korea change schools frequently, and I'm not sure why that is. Do many schools not like keeping their foreign teachers for too long? Do many people simply get tired of their schools and search for new challenges? Are there many shady schools that drive away employees and offset the average? I don't have enough knowledge to make a definitive statement. I do know, however, that the teacher I replaced was here for two years, and one of my co-workers recently extended her contract for a second year. That tells me at least one more year is within the realm of possibility, and after all the horror stories about shady hagwons I read on the internet, I'd prefer not to risk ending up at one of them instead of the good school I teach at now.

It's amazing how quickly things can change. At the beginning of 2011 I didn't expect to be doing what I'm doing. In fact, the thought hadn't even entered my mind until a friend suggested it as part of a birthday wish on Facebook. Within three months I'd gotten all the necessary paperwork processed and found my way to East Asia. It was a wild ride, but I don't regret it for a second. If there's anything to be learned from this experience, it's that taking risks can be incredibly rewarding.