jrkorea's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chuseok hmm, the anniversary of sept 11 is going almost unnoticed here. today is chuseok, the autumn moon festival (what a cool name for a festival). it's a really big celebration here in korea and this year we get a 5 day holiday to celebrate it. during chuseok, all koreans go to visit their grandparents, at least this is what i figure from talking to my students. apparantly no grandparents live in seoul, or so it appears from the phenomenal amount of traffic heading out of there yesterday afternoon. i headed in to see jon around 4pm and the traffic on the other side of the freeway was at a standstill. i mean people were getting out of their cars and having little picnics on the grass. seoul itself was really quiet, especially today. it was kind of nice without the crowds 10:14 p.m. - Thursday, Sept. 11, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sad hmm so what can i say. jon and i aren't getting back together. he summed it up like this, he said that we are basically too different because when i plan things i plan them for us and when he plans things, he plans them for him, so things are not going to work out. well i agree but i think it's more likely that things aren't going to work out because i want to meet my soulmate and he doesn't even want a girlfriend (duh)! it's ok, i guess, it was as amicable as a break up will get, i cried (a lot) he cried (some) and then we went and grabbed a meal and watched a movie and that was pretty much it except i left my phone at his place so now noone can contact me and we're on this 5 day holiday and i'm all alone. screw it, i plan to make myself really busy so i don't have time to feel hurt. 10:02 p.m. - Thursday, Sept. 11, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- single? The weekend went so much better than expected. In fact I had a blast. All week I was in this weird mood because Jon and I'd split up last weekend. Actually, maybe I told him I never want to see him ever again. Whatever. So it was a very intraspective week where I did a lot of thinking and felt strange like I wasn't sure how to feel. Then this weekend came along and cheered me up. I got to live the life of a single gal again and hang out with friends, without arguing over dumb things. Friday night was drinks at Nick and Catherine's house (teachers at my school). Just fun to have drinks, relax, unwind, chat, download music, there's a vague recollection of losing badly at some video game. Saturday, no hangover at all, I'd slept really well, went into Seoul (Itaewon) to meet the girls at a nice pub called 3 Alleys. Everyone was sleepy 'cept me so d'oh, we didn't stay long. Saturday night went drinking with a guy from my school. Now that was a good night. Sushi dinner, lemon soju and then 50 different types of drinks at a bar in town. And I never mix! I think I passed out, completely unable to be revived until the next morning. It was pretty funny but probably not for him. Well that was my whole weekend, yesterday I was a little hungover and queasy so I didn't venture out of the house much and it was raining a lot besides. I felt in quite a good mood. I do miss the single life of just doing what you want but at the same time I was on such a natural high all weekend that I just wanted to share my good mood with Jon. I did try to call him all weekend but either his phone is broken or he was having a great time somewhere. The former is my preferred version, I like to imagine him sitting at home moping. (Not likely). So anyway, I emailed him and hopefully, if he calls, things will get back together again. But yeh, good mood on the weekend for the first time in ages. Am I making the right decision? 1:44 p.m. - Monday, Sep. 08, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Korean bars Met up last night with a few guys who live around my neighbourhood. We went to a quiet bar called the Western Bar or something like that. I think it's meant to look wild west, can't remember, it's a bit hazy now. It was really fun and just what I need to lift my sour mood. At some point we switched from beer to whiskey but there was plenty of conversation and I learnt some new things. For example, I think I'm really lucky I'm at the school I am and I learned a little more about my neighbourhood. Both these guys have been in Korea for maybe 3 years or so and had plenty of experiences to share. I am starting to miss Lisbon a little and I definitely miss my friends there. I loved how it was so easy to find cheap little places to drink, usually in my case this meant sitting in a closed doorway in the Bairro Alto and watching peeps out on the street. Here everything happens inside and you have to go up (or down). Bars here are usually on the 4th or 5th floors of large buildings and they are usually quite big and open, not crowded and cosy. Also, there is not that much vibe on the streets of Bundang at night, in Kangnam in Seoul (30 minutes by bus) it is usually a lot more busy but it is a big street, heavy traffic, neon lights vibe not anything like in Lisbon. I'm kind of glad Korea is so different from anywhere I've lived before. It keeps things interesting. Also in a bar you can try out your Korean and they won't try and answer you in English, even if they're fluent. In general it is pretty easy to communicate here, even when noone understands each other. 10:33 p.m. - Wednesday, Sept. 03, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- journal philosophy I used to keep a journal when I moved to England, full of my deepest and darkest thoughts. I had my own apartment for 6 months and it was like a way of talking things through with someone because I was on the other side of the world from home and I didn't know a soul. There were only a couple of people I could really talk to about stuff and I didn't see them all the time. Then when I moved into Mark's household I got an instant best bud. We used to sit on the couch or in his room for hours on end and talk and talk and talk. We'd talk shit basically and it was better than therapy, seriously. We would talk and talk more and laugh and laugh more and drink and smoke. And I stopped keeping a journal after a only a few weeks there. This time round, I started a journal for different reasons. I'm so bad at emailing updates home even though I think constantly of my friends and how I miss them. It's a way to touch bases with people at home and it's so wonderful to get emails in response, I've really appreciated it. But it's very different keeping a public journal of your day than a private diary of your thoughts. I've always been a private person but at the same time it's hard to keep some of my private emotions and moments out of here. Basically, I write a lot in here but there is so much more that gets left unsaid it's amazing. And I don't know how to quite find the balance between keeping a light hearted representation of my time in Korea for folks at home and also having this as a record for myself to remember these days and look back on. For example, I don't write much about school because I just don't want this to be all about work even though amusing things happen nearly every day in the classroom. They're the kinds of things that are more amusing if you're actually there, most of it would bore people reading thousands of miles away. But work is a big part of my day, I'm there till 10pm every night. I don't write about my moods or my thoughts or very personal reflections. Sometimes I suffer from anxiety and I don't write about that or how it affects me. I never write how I feel about Jon. He's been mentioned only as someone I spend a lot of time with and occasionally get annoyed at. this is really unfair to him in a way as it's kind of a misrepresentation since he has done so many wonderful things for me as a person and got me through things and is such an amazing guy in so many ways. But he does frustrate me and there have been things I can't deal with right now and I don't write about. Well I guess I am trying to say there is a lot going on in my life and a lot of thoughts running through my head but I don't want to write them down but because they are so consuming right now, it's difficult to switch my brain over to find something light and funny to write about instead. Sorry to the peeps who don't like or understand overly intraspective entries (Kris, that's you babe). Instead of trying to write every day, I'm just going to write occasionally when I have a funny anecote or reflection to relate. And keep the emails coming. Love and kisses to you all. 10:14 p.m. - Monday, Sept. 01, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- dvd bang Woke up feeling reasonably ok after the beers from the night before. We had Italian pasta for lunch and then finally checked out a DVD bang (we meant to a few entries ago but didn't get around to it). It was such a rainy day that we had to postpone our plans to go hiking and it was just nice to get in out of the rain. (Getting so sick of the rain, honestly) We saw Donnie Darko which actually quite impressed me as a film, it was a good choice. You watch the film in your own little room with a huge couchy beddy thing which you can snuggle on and a large screen which fills one wall. It's like having your own private cinema where you can eat and talk and smoke and drink if you wanted to. Also it was fairly cheap, cheaper than two cinema tickets so all in all I really enjoyed it. In the evening we went out in Sinchon and bought a Husker Du CD which is some 80s punk band I never heard of but pretty good if you like 80s punk. 3:10 p.m. - Saturday, Aug. 30, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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