My Days Here Are Numbered

My coffee is a little more bitter than usual this morning.

This is going to be my last semester in Korea, for the foreseeable future at least. I signed a contract to teach English (not the ESL kind) in Saipan next year. "Where is that?" you may be asking. Well, you're already on the internet, so you can Google it and get a better description than I can give you. The point is, I'm moving on in a few months. It's not that I don't like it here, quite the opposite, but...deep down I know it's time to move on. I could go into more detail about the reasons, but that's a lot more writing than I care to do at the moment.

Saipan though! I love the heat, I love the beach, and I love the ocean; it looks like all three will be in good supply, and I am excited. Also a bit nervous. When I think back to how I felt the summer before I came to Korea, I was worrying about basically the same things I am now. Will I like it there? Am I going to take to the new job well? I'm not going in with a wing man this time either; how am I going to fit in? Everything panned out well enough the first time around though, and that is comforting. I'm looking forward to getting out of this cold, to having a change of scenery, and for the challenge of a new job.

So now I've got five months left in the Land of the Morning Calm. That's a sad thought. Sooner or later someone is going to ask me what I want to do before I leave. Right now it's a long list of food I want to eat and who I want to eat it with.That might be what I love most about living here. I should probably eat some more Gamjatang (spicy pork and potato stew). I want to finally eat the live Octopus tentacles I said I was going to have since before I came here. I want to go to the Jimjilbang (a Korean spa) a few more times. And I'd be remiss if I didn't hit the town at least once more with the fellas. When I do all those things, and a few more, I think I can make my peace with leaving.

Last night I had a dream that I went to a fair, a small one, like the festival my grade school would put on every year. My favorite, or one of my favorite bands, The Gaslight Anthem was playing on the grassy field in the afternoon, next to some tea-cup-esque ride. There weren't a lot of people there, it wasn't really their scene. They got tired of only playing for 6 people, so after a while they took a break and just sat down on the edge of the stage. I went and sat down next to Brian Fallon, the lead singer, and we started talking. I knew I sounded like a fan boy, but eventually we started talking about his neck tattoo. I think I might have asked him what people thought about it, and he said people were too afraid to say anything about it so they pretended not to notice, or something along those lines. By the end of the conversation, we were friends. It was a happy dream.

That's enough rambling for today.

Now Listening To:
"She Is Beautiful"
Andrew W.K.