on the roof

Today I sit on the roof. I am hoping some worthwhile thoughts come to me. Something to rid myself of the hidden discontent which I am sure is lurking below. I was up here only a week ago, but already the view has changed drastically. I look out to the South and see a moderately barren hill, out of what was recently a mountain in full foliage. I look out all around to a dusty cloud cover, where I am unable to make the distinction of strata and toxin. The roof has also gotten more trashy since I left it, I wonder if it was a party I missed out on, or just a collection of lonely beers at dusk. It is 4:30 and already the sun is beginning to set. I guess there is no day light savings switch here, so I will get less and less daylight. Kind of a sad thing, because day is so nice; and dusk is best when I can enjoy it sitting with a coffee and not looking out my classroom window.

Today I was thinking about fear. It seems to me that I don’t have much cause for fear. I have lived such a protected and fair life. No one has robbed me, no one snuck into my window while I was sleeping, no one has purposely neglected to pay me or help me find my way home. And yet I fear these things on a regular basis. Being in Korea, I have enjoyed this blissful concept of a crime-free society. Now, I am quite sure that it is not entirely crime-free, but, for my own psychological wellness, I have chosen to embrace this theory without qualm. I decided that maybe I could even have a psychological revolution of sorts, where I dismiss unhelpful fear entirely. But, this is not to be the case.

The other day I watched the film, Boy A. It was really well done, and left the distinctions and convictions for the viewer alone to make. However, it showed such a ghastly side of humankind, and I don’t want to believe it. I want to dismiss the possibility of that corruption existing in North America, and even more decidedly, in South Korea.

In continuation of my new thought to dismiss fear, I decided that not only could I embrace South Korea as entirely safe, I could also stretch this plexi-glass over the whole of Asia.

I talked to this girl about traveling alone the other day. She said she loved it, and then prefaced it with the fact that traveling in Thailand alone is like waving a money bag in the face of a pirate. That was not so supportive of my plexi-glass.

I was also thinking about comfort levels. How when I got here I had so much new flying at me in a segment of waking hours that it was all I could do to not crawl into my bed every evening. Today I found myself relatively comfortable exchanging with people in my free time. It is like I no longer hold my free time as a extremely needed psychological stabilizer, I am able to give it up for some comaroderie or chatter. I still find the opening lines quite borderline monotonous, but if I make it through those I usually find the time well spent. Okay, let me explain more what I am referring to. You know the meet and greet stuff;
I walk into the staff office and greet another teacher: Hello, how are you today? Well, it’s _________ today eh? (insert day of the week). I guess the countdown is on. What do you get up to last night? (The British rendition of “So, what did you do last night?”) Cool, yeah, me nothing much. I made supper and relaxed a bit.
Man, I feel like I just exposed my soul. I feel naked, now you all know that I follow a script every morning. And, let me be honest there is little adjustment made. Haha. But, occasionally the conversation gets past this intro script and interesting, even cognitively stimulating conversation takes place. This is what I hold on for. This is why I attempt the painful script day in and day out. I go out for supper every now and again with the people around here. Those outings are getting better. Slowly, the intros are shorter and shorter and the interesting stuff gets longer. I am hoping that I can actually go beyond interesting eventually and get to the captivating. I used to have those so often. I feel like community and relationship have lost their glimmer at times.

I have never really sat down to evaluation transitions. I transitioned to college three years ago and although little transition was required every year, I stayed pretty much intact. However, the process of a major uprooting such as South Korea takes a lot out of a person like me. I say person like me, because it has become my theory that the nomadic extrovert not only is good at, but thrives on the meet and greet exposition. They do not see it as the ticket to meaningful interchange, but as the show itself, a winding course of networking and faces all culminating in a rotating light show! I myself do not consider this a show, but rather comparative to 12 weeks of social marathon-ing.

I also think that there is an alternative route for me. Now, I am treading on pretty thin theory surface here, so ignore me, but I think that people can also decidedly commit to the label of weird and live a life without these introduction steps. Or, perhaps this is the illusioned moral highroad for the nonconformist; a thing to be avoided.