Winding, Winding, Winding down

Yes, my time here in Korea is rapidly dwindling. But I'll save all the sentimental silliness and reflection for my final posts and just focus today's on some basic updates about what's going on.

Yes, we have now drifted in the year 2011, meaning that I have a mere 2 months remaining in the Hermit Kingdom. To be exact, as today is January 9th and I leave on February 19th, I have 40 days remaining. That is if my math is right (and it seldom is). Regardless the preciseness of my calculation, it is very apparent that my time is short. With time now of the essence, I've had to begin the terribly fun task of moving out/packing up/prepping for my exit. So far the fun has consisted of such activities as: buying new suitcases, buying flight tickets, throwing away unwanted stuff, and selling off other stuff. YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!! Yes, its terribly fun. The ticket stuff went off surprisingly well. Within 30 minutes of having been given the go-ahead to leave early (February 19th instead of February 28th), I had my ticket purchased and paid for. Too bad Delta has been dragging their feet or are simply clueless, as at this present moment, I have yet to have the plane ticket bill show up on my credit card statement. While it would be awesome to get the ticket for free through some silly computer error, the more likely outcome is that the bill is just gonna plop down like a big steaming load at any moment on my credit card statement. Which would normally be fine, as I use the card so little and am never at risk of overcharging. However, when you are trying to book additional plane tickets for one's vacation and are worried about going over one's limit were the plane ticket home to suddenly appear, you have a problem. But more on that later.

The other odds and ends work? Relatively without incident. Sure it took me some searching before realizing the best option for a new suitcase was at Costco, but now I'm the proud owner of a new, not broken down suitcase. I'm only asking that it make it home in one piece, so it doesn't have to do much to wow me. But what about the old, trusty suitcase thats seen me through one international move and way too many moves within Korea? I contemplated a viking funeral for a bit (as its earned it), but substantial waterways in which to cast our pyre/suitcase off in are in short supply, and given the horror stories I hear about the cleanliness of the Seoul rivers, I can't be certain that the pyre's flames wouldn't set the whole damn river ablaze. While that would be incredibly cool, I imagine the legal consequences would not be so cool. So I settled for throwing it away. Only the garbage disposal at my apt only allows for garbage placed in special garbage bags. Do I chop up the suitcase in tiny little pieces to fit in the special garbage bags or just find a dump to take it to? The dump, obviously, but now I have to find one of those.

As for the remaining stuff, its either sell, give away, pitch, or send home. Now, I thought I had kept my purchases to a minimum over my time here, specifically for this purpose (that is, so I could move out easily). As per usual, I was very, very wrong. When trying to pack all my stuff into the suitcases, I didn't even come close to getting it all. Crap. As I only have 3 suitcases (and a backpack) in which to transport stuff home, and every extra bag beyond the first 2 costs $150.....I really needed to get rid of some of this stuff. I'll already be paying $150 just to transport the berimbau home in its case and I can't fit anything else in there except, well the berimbau. Which really, really hurts. So I've got to mail the stuff home. Only shipping it that way isn't cheap either. 2 boxes with 10kg of stuff each? About $160 bucks. Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. But damn did they make it home fast. The first one was mailed on a Wednesday afternoon by me (Wednesday early morning back home) and reached my house in Oshkosh on Friday afternoon. How the fuck???? I've never had packages travel that fast just within the continental US. Guess Korea and America's postal services deserve a lot more credit then I normally give them.

But now what to do with the stuff I have no intention of sending home, as its either not important enough or I have a better version of that same thing back home? Sorry, guitar, soccer ball, volleyball and rice cooker I never used. We've had a good run but I gotta let you go. Shouldn't be too hard to find takers for that stuff. As for the cleaning supplies, laundry hamper, clothes drying rack and other items of that ilk, I don't have to do anything!!! Hooray!! My school just told me to leave them in the apt and they'll collect them and move them once I'm gone. Awesome.

Now the money issues. And they are tricky. Mainly it revolves around how exactly the school is going to get the cash to me. The problem: I'll be back in America when several large chunks of cash finally find their way to me. Do I empty the Korean bank account before I leave, close it down and have the school wire the money to my American account? Do I leave the account open, allow the school to deposit money in the account, then try and wire the money home and close the account from America? Either way, I'm relying quite heavily on other people and that always makes me uneasy. Cuz other people fuck up alot. Trust me on this one. Korea taught me that right away. I look to be leaning towards keeping the account open and somehow wiring the money home. I just know that as hard as it is to communicate with the bank folks here in person, on the phone is gonna be that much harder. Hopefully I can just talk to my co-teacher on the phone and work it that way. Hopefully. And its not like this is some small chump change. It will include 2 full paychecks, for February (I get paid on the 25th and I leave on the 19th) and for an additional month as severance, my pension refund, and my housing security deposit refund. All in all that should come out to about 10 million won or around 8,500 dollars. Yeah. It's some cash. Thus the worry.

As for goings on that don't have to do with moving back to America, well there really aren't too many. Korean class has been over for almost 2 months now, so that leaves several nights a week just home in the apt. Nothing exciting happening there. Capoeira has been much the same: cold, cold studio and almost no students. Hell, one class we ran out of oil to run the heater and trained in a 4 degree Celcius room. That's about 40 degrees. Hard to play well when your feet are numb. Ohhh, and we got a new cute female student that joined this week. But we seem to have lost the other cute female student who started a month ago. Like I said, drama filled.

It's been even slower than usual the last few weeks, as I've had half days at school and numerous capoeira cancellations due to the holidays. Plus, a bunch of people went home for the holidays, meaning nobody to hang around with. New Year's Eve? Man was it dull. Sat around, watched tv, watched them ring the big bell at the Buddhist temple in Seoul on TV, then talked to the parents on Skype. Crrrrraaaazzzzyyyyyyy. I did get to celebrate New Year's in Wisconsin as friends called me via Skype. That was wonderful, but it left me rather down for the rest of the weekend, as it once again clearly showed that for all the wonderful people here and wonderful things here, the people and things that I really want to be around....are all back home. I really want to enjoy these last few weeks and not simply phone it in and start counting down the days, minutes, seconds until I leave but mopefests brought on by the New Year's events certainly don't help.

Life at school has been pretty run of the mill too, which isn't helping things. Some of the days of camp have gone well, but spending way too much time in cold rooms or cold gyms really makes it hard for be to be anything but grumpy. We spent 2 of the days playing softball in the gym, which is for the most part unheated, which means cold and grumpy Eric. And we had a day of cooking waffles where the heaters didn't work for the first 1.5 hours, so again, cold and grumpy Eric. Plus, breaking eggs and other tasks that require some hand dexterity are really, really hard to pull off in thick gloves. Then there's all the grumpiness and grumbling about how I'm not actually really teaching much, if any English, just simply serving as a babysitter or day care supervisor. It feels like we spend more time on getting and serving and eating snacks than anything else and we just watch movies every Friday, so perhaps Im not so crazy to think this way. The kids do their part to cheer me up, so its all good. One strange reoccurring theme throughout the camp has been the students (and not just one kid) insistence that I fight the other foreign teacher. I don't know where it came from, nor do I know why it came. All I know is that students recently just started coming up to either Collin (the other foreign teacher) or myself and saying stuff like "Eric, fight Collin. Go fight him." or "Eric, who would win fight? You? Collin?" When asked why I should fight the other teacher, I usually get a shrug and am told to "just fight." I really don't understand it. Was there some schoolyard bet on which teacher could beat up which teacher? Or is it really as I've always feared: that we foreign teachers really are just animals in a petting zoo, trotted out for the spectators enjoyment, to be poked and prodded to make silly, strange noises (aka English)? Can't say, but it certainly doesn't instill much confidence in the seriousness of the job we do.

Because I'm often bored and have too much time, I've allowed my mind to wander onto another possible answer to the foreign teacher fighting confusion. Could the students think that we foreign instructors function and survive like Highlanders? You know, how there can only be one and we are immortal and we become more powerful by killing another Highlander and absorbing their power. That would be interesting. And if you are curious....I'd win. No worries. Collin is a nice guy, but he's not terribly athletic or in shape and he's a big germaphobe. So I, being the incredibly dirty and germ-riddled bum that I am, have a major advantage.

And that's it. Not a huge amount to talk about, but these upcoming last weeks should be plenty busy. My last week of camp is followed by 9 days on vacation in Malaysia/Singapore, then one uneventful week back at school to end January, so look for tales of my adventures in Southeast Asia in 2 weeks. As for February, the first week is only a 2 day work week (Monday and Tuesday) thanks to the lunar New Year/Chinese New Year holiday. I had wanted to travel somewhere new for those 5 days, but it seemed like everybody else had the same idea as all the flights were booked. Cambodia? booked. Taiwan again? booked. I didn't even try anywhere else, as I gave up hope. Will have to do some sort of trip within Korea. Then the last 2 weeks are back at school, but I can't imagine anything much will get done. For my last weekend in Korea, to make up for being unable to travel during Lunar New Year, I'm heading with some of the capoeira group to a workshop in Tokyo. Should be fun. So that's one trip to Southeast Asia, the lunar New Year holiday, and a trip to Tokyo all in my last month. Busy, busy, busy.