Whiny, whiny, whiny

Don't read this post. Seriously, just don't. Go right back to facebook and keep surfing. Or watch this video and make that song your ringtone.

I warned you. Go. Back.

I hate teaching fives. Hate it. The kids are so adorable, but only in a "I'd look at a picture of that kid" kind of way. I don't want to be in charge of their education. This is just like when I taught at the preschool, except at least then I signed up for it. This time, I was told I was teaching kindergarten, and three-year-olds are not kindergarten.

Thus far today, June has sneezed six times. Why do I know that number exactly? Because every time he sneezes, he blows snot all over his face. Seriously, I wiped snot off his ear. His freaking ear. The disgustingness of this is only rivaled by the fact that every time he sneezes, he stares at me with a look that clearly conveys that I am the only person in the world who could possibly be responsible for what has happened. He doesn't even attempt to get a tissue himself; that's my job, and my job alone. I've never wanted so badly to tell a three-year-old that he's a pretentious asshole.

On top of that, the kids don't listen to me. At all. My other kids spoke really good English, and they used their English all day long. The rule at GATE is "No Korean in the classroom," but that apparently doesn't fly in my class. They speak Korean all day. They talk to each other in Korean, they talk to my co-teacher in Korean, they talk to me in Korean. When I tell them to speak English, they just repeat back "English, English, English" in a high-pitched voice, then go on babbling in Korean. Basically, they spend the whole day mocking me.

Additionally, I'm expected to do activities that are significantly outside these kids' ability levels. We had to fill out a time capsule book today, and the kids had to write their names on the first page. I wrote my own name on the board and said a DOZEN times that they needed to write their names in the blank on their paper. What name did they write? I don't think I need to tell you. As we went through the rest of the book, my morale steadily fell through the floor, until I finally just collected their books and sang the Days of the Week song until lunch.

Speaking of songs, I have to sing a song for everything we do. A song for sitting down, a song for lining up, a song for cleaning toys, a song for eating snack, a song for eating lunch, a song for the days of the week, a song for the months of the year, a song for everything. Do you remember at the top when I said the kids don't listen to me? Okay, well that still applies. So I feel like a giant tool while I stand at the front of the room singing songs to a bunch of kids who think the only reason I was born was to wipe the snot off their ears.

I'm gonna go hang out with Brian.

I think I just miss Brian

I've been horrifically un-fun these past few days. This morning when I went into my vice-principal's office to ask her a question, she immediately asked if I had been crying. I actually hadn't been, but the fact that my expression permanently looks like someone who has been recently sobbing certainly isn't good.

I think it's because I miss Brian.

No really.

I know my last post was a delightful mess of "woe-is-me" for other reasons, but today it occurred to me that my life simply isn't as good without Brian. Thus, I created excuses to see him, um, all day. The thing I like most about that little bugger is that every time he sees me, he sprints across the room and climbs up me like a little Asian monkey, then he clutches onto me like his life depends on it. He whispers to me about how I'm his favorite teacher and how he wishes he could come be in my new class, and he shouts "MISS NIKKI!" down the hall whenever he catches a glimpse of me walking away. When the busses were loading this afternoon, he grabbed the hands of two of my new students who happen to be on his shuttle, and he guided them around the gym because "they are Miss Nikki's girls, so they are my girls." (He could just be a little ladies' man in training, but I prefer to think he does it because he adores me.) As he and his two girlfriends headed out to the bus, I heard him scream my name down the hall. Our new principal's name is Nicky, so she assumed he was saying goodbye to her. Oh, no. "Not you! Where is my Miss Nikki?! Goodbyeeeeeeeee, Miss Nikki!" I.love.him.

In all seriousness though, I've been particularly whiny these past few days, and I just can't seem to quiet all the hateful sounds in my head. You don't have to worry about sending me to therapy; they're not audible voices. Just your average, run-of-the-mill self-deprecating thoughts. I know I'm not the only one who can't control the onslaught once the floodgates are open, and suddenly I'm convinced I'm a failure at absolutely everything.

You weren't good enough for him, and you'll never be good enough for anyone.
You're an awful kindergarten teacher.
Those pants fit just fine two weeks ago, fatty.
The kids wouldn't be falling asleep if you knew what you were doing.
No one cares if you're sad. Stop whining.
You're a hypocrite. No one's fooled.


Then, of course, I get the one that is the worst kick in the stomach when you're already down:

You really couldn't be any more self-centered. Look at you, only thinking of your own pathetic life.


Fun, right? The thing is, I know all these things are lies. I'm actually a really good kindergarten teacher, I haven't gained any weight, and one guy not wanting to date me doesn't mean I should go out and buy a few dozen cats. Compared to almost every inanimate object, I'm hilarious and charming, and my karaoke skills are probably going to get me a spot on next season's American Idol. There are tons of good things about me (I can think of at least two - no, three! - off the top of my head), but I feel ridiculously vain writing them out.

On a related note, the next article I'm working on for Relevant is about how hating yourself doesn't make you humble, and that it's okay to think you're likable. It's going to basically be a letter to myself, but I'd venture I'm not the only one in the world who struggles with this.

On an unrelated note, my new littles are rough around the edges. I thought the other teachers were exaggerating when they said my babies wouldn't be able to hold pencils or pull their own pants up in the bathroom, but it's all gloriously true. Today while I was reading my kids a story, Rachel burst into tears. She's cried a few times, so I fought rolling my eyes as I jumped out of my chair to console her. I asked what happened, and she showed me her hand. There were tiny teeth prints in it, so I asked who bit her. She pointed to herself. She - bit - herself. Read that again, slowly. She - bit - herself, then sobbed uncontrollably. Uh, what?

Oh and here's a good story: yesterday afternoon, one of the parents brought me a present. This happens a lot; the parents here think you'll like their kids more if they bring you expensive, jewel-filled pens. When the mom handed me the present, though, I realized it said "from Nikki Teacher" on it, instead of "for." I made the politest confused face I could, and she explained that I was to give it to her son as a welcome to the class. Therefore, I had to make a huge scene to present this little boy with some kind of game I couldn't read, which he promptly tossed aside, telepathically telling me to try harder next time. I wonder if there's just no word for "spoiled" in Korean?

There's a baby laughing at the end

I heard once that vulnerability is beautiful. If that's the case, then look out. This is about to be the prettiest blog post you've ever seen.

Saturday morning, I attended a friend's housewarming party. There were tons of people crammed in the living room, and the tables were overflowing with food. Someone brought out Catch Phrase, which is (in my opinion) the devil's favorite game. I mean, come on. Whose disgusting idea was it to put words in a beeping piece of plastic then make a room full of people pass it in a circle like it's about to explode while everyone else in the room shouts words and phrases like a Tourette's support group? That thing is a frickin' anxiety attack with batteries.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Partially to avoid the incessant beeping, I headed to the back patio. A tiny cluster of my friends huddled together under blankets while two or three strummed guitars. Esther and Anne's patio has a really great view of part of the city, and there's not much in the world that's better than singing along to Ke$ha played on the ukelele. There was nowhere else I wanted to be at that moment, and I remember thinking that sometimes, life is so beautiful that it's almost unfair. (Actually, I said that out loud, and promptly got mocked for sounding desperately like a Hallmark card.)

I overstayed my welcome at the housewarming party, and by the time I got home, Tiffany was ready to make dinner. There's this little restaurant near my old church that serves my favorite meal in all of Korea, and I've been begging Tiffany to figure out how to make it so I don't have to fly all the way back to Korea when I'm craving it in the States. We ran to the mart for ingredients and wine, and returned to her apartment to experiment. We had a lovely dinner (not quite the same as Cafe Comeon, but still delicious), followed by singing along to youtube videos because we were too lazy to walk to a noraebang. A few glasses of wine later, I headed back upstairs to my apartment, where I should have gone directly to bed.

I've been debating back and forth whether I should actually write this part of the story. For some reason, I feel like if I skip over it, I'll lose faith in my own blog. I started this blog to record who I am while I'm in Korea, and yet I still want to hide behind the facade of "silly storyteller" instead of showing any significant emotion. On top of that, I process the world around me by writing about it, and I know that it'll take me a lot longer to move past this if I ignore how much it hurts. I suppose I could write the post then never actually post it... but I'd really only be doing that because I'm afraid of people knowing I kind of suck. Alright, here it goes.

Without going into, well, any detail, I ended a friendship on Saturday night. In all fairness, I had been clinging to it for all the wrong reasons, and I'm certain my life will be healthier without it. In the vaguest terms I can muster, I finally acknowledged that a specific relationship was not what I had taken it to be, and I was crushed. He doesn't read my blog, so I could probably whine and complain about how much I think he wronged me, but that wouldn't really do any good. Making someone else appear small only ever accomplishes diminishing people's opinion of you.

I guess the reason I want to write about it, then, is because I'm heartbroken. I've never entrusted one person with so many of my hopes before, and being rejected hurts. If you've known me for longer than ten minutes, you likely know that I don't date (and if you don't know me, then this post is probably really awkward for you). I have no idea why I refuse to trust anyone but myself, but I tend to push away anyone who seems even remotely interested in dating me. This guy was different, though, and I fell ridiculously fast. It turns out I need to be a little more careful that someone's ready to catch me before I jump.

I feel like since it wasn't actually a relationship that I don't deserve to hurt. How can you miss something you never actually had? But there's a strange part of me that appreciates the pain. Hurting means that I cared deeply for him, no matter what labels our relationship had. The fact that my heart is broken means that it loved well in the first place, and I can't find it in me to regret that. Perhaps my trust and hope were severely misplaced; but at least I tried. I cared more about someone else than I did about myself, and I think that's pretty good.

The one good thing about not dating is that you never have to go through a break-up. I know this isn't the same thing, but isn't a break-up really just when a relationship that mattered suddenly ends? Unless you count when I was fourteen, I've never gone through a break-up before, and it's honestly quite strange. I feel overwhelmingly disappointed and a little empty, like I set down a part of me and forgot to pick it back up. I can't help but wonder what I could have done differently to change it, but I guess you simply can't make someone love you by sheer willpower.

The crappiest part is that it's making me unbearably homesick. I cried today at CostCo, just because I was in a CostCo. I had to walk away from a bag frozen hamburgers because they reminded me of my Cincinnati friends and all the barbecues I'll be missing once it gets warm. I miss the people I'm used to hugging when life gets hard, and honestly, I miss how much more life made sense before I moved to Korea. I'm hurt and confused and hurt some more, and I don't know what to do to make it go away.

Wow, so um, that was pretty heavy. Here's a video of a baby laughing to lighten the mood:

Anyone still out there?

So it's been a week and a half since I last posted. I'm really not in the mood to post now, but I'm kind of afraid people will stop caring about my blog (read: people will stop caring about me) if I don't post things. I still have fun and hilarious stories from Japan (my airplane sounded more like a rocket ship on the way home and I sincerely thought I was going to die), but I'm really not in the mood to tell fun and hilarious stories. I'm whiny and sad and homesick... so those are the kinds of stories you're going to get.

On Wednesday, I fell in the bathroom at school and hit my head. Although I'm sure you're imagining a cartoon-like fall where my feet flew into the air and I crashed onto the floor, I assure you it wasn't that amusing. I slipped on the way out the door, and the side of my face slammed against the door frame. I kind of laughed it off, but when I still had a headache on Thursday afternoon, I diagnosed myself with a concussion and a slow bleed that would surely kill me in my sleep. I spent all of Thursday night watching the second season of Modern Family until Tiffany came upstairs to make sure I was still alive and sent me to bed.

Then Friday might have been the worst day I've had in Korea. When I came into the school, the principal commented on how my classroom was not as plastered with Christmas decorations as the others. She asked me what I thought of it - to which there is no correct answer. If I said it looked fine, she'd have freaked out, saying that I didn't care about the decorations and thus didn't care for my students' well-being. If I said there should be more, she'd have gone straight to Hana and told her that I demanded more decorations and that she wasn't doing her job. So, as nicely as I possibly could, I asked her if it was my job to decorate the classroom. I knew that my comment could be viewed as sarcastic, so I said it as genuinely as I could, but she took it as a direct insult to the entire Korean education system. As soon as Hana arrived, she pulled her into her office and told her that we do nothing and we are terrible teachers. She told Hana that she'd have to make an extra backdrop for the Christmas musical and eleven choir robes (out of felt and glue). Hana said that she didn't think there would be time to make all of that, so the principal told her that she would just have to stay late and come in on the weekends. Keep in mind that the Korean teachers are paid about half as much as the foreign teachers and make no overtime. Hana came back to the classroom nearly in tears and said that she'd be staying until midnight every night next week to finish the backdrop and that the principal had told her I should be helping. The next time I saw the principal, I asked her if I would get overtime if I stayed late to work on the backdrop, and she exploded. She pulled Hana out of the room and yelled at both of us in the hall for pretty much our whole lunch. When we went back in the classroom, Hana curled up in a ball in the corner, and I told her that she needed to quit. Hana's wanted to leave since September, but she stayed because we're really good friends and I told her I'd miss her. She packed up her things, and when the shuttle left in the afternoon, she took everything with her. As soon as the kids were gone, I set my head down on my desk and cried... until the vice-principal came in and told me that the principal wanted to talk to me again. I spent an hour in her office. During that hour, she told me that Hana was crazy and that I should never listen to her, that I don't have a brain and don't know how to think, that I don't care about my students, and that she's never had a problem with a foreign teacher before, which must mean I'm a racist. She also stamped her feet like a child and threw a pillow at me. I ended up walking out of her office.

Tomorrow morning I have to go back into that terrible school and face that horrible woman. I'm not as much worried about that, though; I should be able to avoid contact with her as long as I stay in my room. But I have to explain to all the kids that Miss Hana's not coming back, and I'm not really even ready to deal with her being gone. Work has been so much fun these last three months because I spent forty hours a week with one of my best friends, and now she just won't be there. Of course, I still have all the other foreign teachers (who have all been treated the same way I was by our hateful principal), but it won't be the same. I'm glad she finally quit; the principal treated her so terribly and she was absolutely miserable working there. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm going to miss her like crazy.

So that's where I am right now. Not even the tiniest part of me wants to go into that school in the morning; not only do I not really want to work without Hana, but why on earth would I want to work for a woman who called me racist and said I had no brain? The other foreign teachers keep telling me that she does this; she'll pick a person she hates and make their life a living hell for a few weeks until she moves on to someone else. Basically I just have to let my eyes glaze over when she starts shouting at me and not take anything personally until she picks her next target. I'm probably the most sensitive girl on the planet, so this is going to be a miserable couple of weeks. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though: two weeks from right now, I'll be landing in Bali, and I won't have to think about GATE school for a whole week. Or maybe I'll cancel my return flight and just live on the beach for the rest of my life. We'll see.

Aluminum foil and cold spaghetti

How long does "Korea is so amazing and I loooooove it!!!" last?

Turns out seventeen days, two hours.

Last night, I went back to my current favorite coffee shop to write the "things that make me smile" post. I knew it was going to be funny, and I had a blast writing it. But about halfway through, I looked out the window, the Pandora's Box in my mind flew open, and a million little thoughts flooded through my head.

"Seoul looks an awful lot like downtown Cincinnati! I HATE downtown Cincinnati!"
"That guy is staring at me! I bet he's going to follow me home!"
"Why are there so many couples here yet I'm so lonely? Am I that unlovable?"
"I hate grapefruit juice. Why did I buy this? I'm wasting all my money!"
"Everyone around me is Asian!"
"What if I can't find my way home?"
And, most prominently, "WTF AM I DOING IN SOUTH KOREA?!"

I should have known it would catch up with me sometime; the transition was just too smooth. I made friends so easily and I've kept myself super-busy, so I never really gave myself time to process anything. Even my journal is full of "this place is magical and beautiful and lovely and charming and blah blah blah" - I never really let myself acknowledge that I'm scared. Truth is, though, I'm pretty terrified.

After I freaked out in the coffee shop, I wandered back to my apartment and watched American tv until I fell asleep, thinking perhaps I could suppress my misery and trick myself into being happy again (because that always works, right?). I woke up this morning, ate my Frosted Flakes, and walked to work with my friends. Then all hell broke loose.

Today shouldn't have been difficult, really. We had "International Costume Day", which means the parents spend insane amounts of money dressing their kids up to match arbitrarily chosen countries and we parade around the school, making crafts and snacks in each "country". A bit like Halloween on steroids. But as soon as I came in today, Robin threw a hunk of wood at me. Asa. I totally exploded and punished the whole class (why? because I'm a fabulous teacher, that's why), and I tried to calm back down. Then I found out that my craft was "too simple" for the six-year-olds who would be completing it, so the administration made it more complicated. They decided to attach aluminum foil to cardboard using sheer willpower as an adhesive agent. I tried every glue and tape in my classroom, but nothing worked. The principal came in and told me I was doing it wrong. Doing WHAT wrong, exactly? FOIL DOESN'T STICK! Not even Korean foil! So I took a deep breath and promised to try harder.

The other six-year-old classes came into my room to do my "craft." My class has five kids, and that's plenty, but each of the other classes has fourteen. Imagine trying to convince fourteen six-year-olds that if they try hard enough, they can make foil stick to cardboard. Now imagine doing that in a language they don't entirely understand. Now imagine storming out of your room and crying on the bathroom floor.

By lunchtime I had calmed down a little bit. I walked into the cafeteria and was delighted - nay, overjoyed - to find that today was spaghetti! This is the first non-Korean school lunch I've had, and I was giddy with relief. I loaded my plate up and pranced back into my room where I made a painful discovery.

Spaghetti is served cold here. Dammit, South Korea. Why you gotta kick me when I'm down?

I successfully completed the rest of the day, if you can call hiding in the bathroom and sobbing a success. I know that it doesn't look like much really happened, and I know most of the people reading this are thinking "wow, Nikki totally needs to chill"... but I don't think you can really understand unless you've lived in another country. Sure, it's not a big deal that I can't read any of the functions on the computer, but when I'm being told that I need thirty copies of something and the printer isn't responding, I kind of need the error messages in English to be able to fix the problem. Today's disasters wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't woken up this morning already feeling like I would give my right arm in exchange for a ticket home. Looking out the window at the coffee shop last night had me literally shaking; the city that felt so welcoming and exciting last week had morphed into downtown Detroit. I felt like the city itself had fooled me, tricked me into believing that I belonged here then ripping off my rose-colored glasses to reveal a ferocious death trap. Yep, I'm exaggerating a lot. It's not that bad. But in the moment, it felt that bad. It felt like everything was closing in on me and I was abandoned in a city that scorned my very existence. Tucking those feelings away overnight only made them doubly horrible when they exploded out of me this morning, and that's how I ended up a weepy mess on the bathroom floor.

Thank God for the other teachers. On my way back to my room, I stopped in Jeanne's doorway and just stared at her like my favorite teddy bear had been shredded to make toilet paper. She walked over, and in her comforting southern accent, said, "What's the matter, buddy?" With tears in my eyes, I told her that I hated Korea and wanted to go home. She replied, "We all do. But we're stuck. Want a hug?" Looking back, I know that's not true. She doesn't hate Korea any more than I do, but in that moment, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I talked with my friend Meghan a little while later, and she gave me a hug and told me it's all a mess, but we deal with it because we're all in it together. I can't even begin to articulate how much it helped me that her eyes held empathy instead of sympathy. It's such a slight distinction, but knowing that she knew how much cold spaghetti can throw you right over the edge made me feel normal again. I guess I had decided that if I cried, it meant I was too weak to handle this, and I hate the thought of being weak. But it turns out that everyone cries, everyone freaks out over nothing, and everyone helps each other get through it. The rest of the day, teachers kept stopping in my room to check on me. They all had the same look on their face, the one that says, "I get it. You're not the only one." I haven't been here long enough to see anyone else break down, so I still feel a little silly about it, but they all assured me that we'll each take our turn. But no one gives up and goes home because we all help each other get past it.

We've decided that Fridays are for Mexican food, so after school, Hana, Jeanne, and I headed back to Dos Tacos. We laughed and talked and stuffed ourselves with decently authentic Mexican before heading our separate ways for the evening. On the way home, I stopped at a market (and by "market", I mean a man selling fruit on the back of a truck) and decided to get some ridiculously expensive grapes. The man smiled at me and tossed an extra bunch in my bag for free. In a weird way, it's like Korea was apologizing. I imagined it saying, "I'm sorry if I came on too fast. You don't have to fall in love with me quite yet. Let's just be friends for a while and get to know each other better." Okay, Korea. I'll give you another chance.