Christmas Tree Tetris

Another year, another Christmas away from home. With so much bad going on in the world, it's hard to get that spirit up, but that is also exactly why Christmas spirit is so important. Or holiday spirit. Solstice. Whatever you call it, we just passed the longest night, and I truly hope this means a new beginning, a path toward things getting better.

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

I finally put my Christmas decorations up last night! I love seasonal decor. When I was growing up, my mom always had amazing collections for each holiday season. We'd pull out the boxes and bins, unwrap each item and find a perfect place for it. Christmas was always the best, though, because my mom has the biggest collection of ornaments I have ever seen, and we would buy a new one each year. Each one was wrapped carefully in tissue paper, and each box was like a precious archaeological dig, documenting our years as a family. There was the first ornament my mom bought after she moved up to the NW from California. There were ornaments I made in preschool and kindergarten. I always looked for my favorites, like the white sparkly angel who gleamed rainbow in the colored lights, the little hand-made reindeer, the clear ball that looked like a floating soap bubble.

It's a bit small, but it will do.

Every ornament had to be placed just right. It was a puzzle to solve. Larger ornaments were tricky, and spacing was every important. In the end one of us would teeter at the top of a step-ladder to perch the angel at the top as the house filled with the smell of pine. These will always be some of my most treasured childhood memories.

Honestly, it's pretty tough to spend Christmas abroad, divorced from all the traditions I grew up in. For me, this time of year is all about family, and that's one thing I really don't have over here. I always do my best to stay upbeat but decorating cookies alone with my tiny tree just isn't the same.

At least I have my own small bit of Christmas to enjoy. Tonight is all about sugar cookies and very late Christmas cards, and if that can't get me in the mood for Christmas, I don't know what will.

This Dustpan Gives Me +1 Artillery

I was attacked.

Improvised weaponry.

Okay let me explain. As you may be able to tell from the above photo, it snowed! We've had a couple brief flurries but this was the first, real, proper, Norman Rockwell white Christmas snow.

Gotta keep warm.

I let my 3rd period class out a bit early to enjoy the snow, because it's almost the end of the year and kids deserve a bit of time to run around like the maniacs they are. Mostly that seemed to involve a lot of snow-throwing, from the standard ball form to the full dust-pan AoE attack. Mostly I kept to the side, under cover as I was in my school shoes and was in possession of neither a hat nor a pair of gloves. Severely underprepared.

As I turned to go back into my blissfully warm classroom, I saw him-- a favorite student, a frenemy, but most of all-- a 16 year old boy in possession of a gigantic armful of snow. I was frozen in place. Our eyes locked. There was nothing I could do.

He sprinted toward me and before I had a chance to run away, dumped the LARGEST pile of snow I have ever seen a single person carry DIRECTLY on my head. For a moment I was too shocked to react, and as the snow started to drip off my nose, I saw him with the clearest "oh shit I just threw a snowdrift on a teacher I am so screwed" look. I thought about messing with him, but couldn't help but burst into joyful laughter and attempt to retaliate.

My biggest mistake was in forgetting that Han Gil is ON THE BASEBALL TEAM and I can't throw worth a damn. Well, I can throw HARD I just lack in accuracy. I did manage to get a decent bit of snow down the back of his coat by using stealth mode, but all in all he was the victor.

However, I can't honestly complain. Sure, my coat is still a bit damp and my hair looks a mess, but there's something so uncontrollably joyful about running around in the snow like a kid. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much. If I've learned nothing else in my 27 years on this planet, I've learned to take pleasure in the smallest things, or in this case, the biggest pile of snow that has ever been thrown in my face.

Happy Holidays everyone~

Not a Moment But a Movement

I've been trying to write this post for a while, trying to put my thoughts into some sort of order rather than funneling my rage, disappointment, fear, and sadness into a incoherent jumble of sound of fury. If I'm going to scream, I want it to signify something. I can't promise that it will, but I think I'm ready to try.

Now, I've never been the most patriotic of people. I grew up in a hippie stronghold in the middle of a consistently Democratic state, and while my parents are about as American as they come, we were never the sort of people to chant USA! USA! well...ever. When my family asks if I'll ever move back to the states, my stock reasons against it usually boil down to "but my country hates me". However, despite all that, there have always been so many things to love about the USA. While it could be better, the diversity and opportunity are real, especially compared to a homogeneous place like South Korea.

As so many have said, fuck 2016. For a while I even had to delete the Facebook app from my phone, because the constant bombardment of depressing news was just too much for me. It all came to a head two last month. Watching the election was not unlike that tumblr meme, which goes like this.

me (to america): hoe don't do it.
america: *does it*
me: omg

While 99% of me was sure there was no way the American people could be stupid enough to elect that cheeto man to office, there was a small part of me that was entirely unsurprised when it happened. A resigned, hopeless, almost nihilistic part of me even thought...good. You get what you asked for, people. You wished on the monkey's paw, don't be surprised when everything falls apart. Let's just scrap the country and start over. We're only 200 years in, that's barely past the tutorial! Or maybe...did you have autosave turned on? A backup? No?

But this isn't a game. This is real life, real people. This is my queer sister and her trans partner. This is the lives of my friends and family. This is a country that has abandoned so many of its own people. If I feel hated as a cis, white, bisexual woman, how must immigrants, people of color, and all those people who have it even worse than me, feel right now? If I am disappointed and hurting, how must they feel?

More than ever, I feel my privilege, and it leaves me torn. There's an entire ocean between me and Tronald Dump (I hope to keep it that was as much as possible) and it would be so, so easy to just ignore it all. My friends and most of my family back the US live in very liberal areas and are comparatively safe. A treacherous part of me wants to keep my head down, focus on the day to day of my job, and leave the fighting to someone else. But I hate that part.

The bigger, better part of me wants to fight, and simultaneously makes me feel incredibly guilty for being an ocean away, unable to be on the front lines. It takes more than a blog post, a tweet, a donation. I tell myself that teaching kids to be better people in any country adds to the global non-shittiness quotient, but it's hard to believe when the shit has so dramatically hit the fan in my own country. Sure, it feels as if my country hates me, but have I already abandoned my country? Is it my responsibility as a teacher to go home?

Admittedly, a big part of this is that ongoing existential crisis I've been grappling with for the past few months. What am I doing with my life? Am I really accomplishing anything? What will my legacy be? I blame Lin-Manuel Miranda for that last one. His quotes are haunting me.

On the one hand, being an American abroad gives me a better perspective on the global impact of American politics. It's often surreal to live in a country that has such a generally positive opinion of the US. Just like the US, Korea's political system is rife with corruption and nepotism, college graduates are unable to find jobs, and women are still fighting for many rights that they should have without question. However, many of the people I talk to seem genuinely surprised to find out that America isn't the shining city on the hill it claims to be. They believe in the American dream as much as I wish I could.

I'm doing the best I can. I may not be strong, or loud; my voice can reach only a few. I want to believe in an America that is everything we like to say it is. So I'm going to keep fighting, in the small things I can do. I'm going to teach my students. I'm going to call out racism and inequality and shittiness when I see it. I'm not going to keep my head down, even when I want to.

“You're gonna miss each and every shot you can't be bothered to take. That's not living life--that's just being a tourist. Take every shot, Kate. If it's worth caring about, no matter how impossible you think it is--you take the shot.”

-Hawkeye, Matt Fraction 

 

I Write Poems Not Posts (forgive me)

Quarter Life Crisis (in iambic pentameter)

Now leave behind a life that's closing in
a thought I'll always have until I die.
If maybe somewhere far beyond, within
another world, my heart could learn to fly
To swoop and soar above the land below
Far from the twisted reach of fears that creep.
Like Icarus, I saw that indigo
Of sky and fell- from high, in love, asleep.
Yet who am I to blame and point away
forever, I'm the master of my fate
A life unspent leaves nothing to repay
So must I find the sky, to elevate
Remember- not one day is given free
And even if you fall, aim for the sea.

Maybe I Worry Too Much

I love making connections with my students, which is actually decently easy, at least when it comes to shared interests. It's a bit scary how many interests I share with the average middle school student. Marvel? Check. KPOP? Check. YA novels? Double check. I manage to keep a pretty good awareness of what the Youth is into these days, but there are always a few kids with whom I'm able to have what feels like a real friendship. I think I caught a new one.

He's one of my first years but he's one of those 14 year olds who is already starting to act like the adult he'll become (only 19 but my mind is older). He's considerate and helpful. At the same time, though, he is as 14 as a human can be. His pop culture obsessions are all-consuming, his dreams are sky-high, and he's constantly trying to shock me with the sentences he comes up with in class.

Which brings me to another reason why I love this kid. He loves Captain America. No I mean. A lot. As in, has on multiple occasions informed me that he wants to marry the guy. I can't blame him, let's be real. I first discovered this when we played MASH and he was thrilled to get the future of living on a yacht in Hawaii with his husband Steve Rogers and their golden retriever. I then informed him to watch out or I'd kill him and steal his life. Because seriously. A yacht? Hawaii? Chris Evans AND a dog? And thus, a friendship was born.

I started keeping an eye on him, thinking the Captain America thing was probably just a joke or a fluke. But bits and bobs kept adding up. On a dreams and goals project, some of his dreams for the future included "have a GF" and "have a BF". Interesting, I thought. Verrrrrrrry interesting. When he jokingly referred to Civil War as a romance movie, I agreed and added that to my list of clues.

A couple weeks later, I showed him my Captain America and Iron Man socks (yes I bought a pair of each and mismatched them so they are couple socks fight me) and he informed me, in no uncertain terms, that while he "ships Stony" he ships "himself with Cap more". Sorry Bucky, guess he's not a fan.

So there's that. Gotta love the confidence.

Long story longer, do I have a queer kid in my class?? He's lived abroad for quite a few years, and his English is impeccable. From our conversations, he seems very open-minded and worldly. He was trying to get me to use the word "steamy" in a madlib, and since then I had to explain to the rest of the class what steamy meant...I will never forgive him.

Part of me wants to ask him outright, but I don't want to scare him off. Another part of me worries about him. Korea is not the most...accepting of countries? It's getting better but it's still not exactly a haven for anyone that's "different" in any way. I always try to be inclusive in my lessons, and obviously I never freak out when they accuse each other of being gay, but I'm not sure what else I should be doing to connect with this kid. I just want him to be safe and happy, but I also don't want to assume anything.

Being a teacher is hard, guys. At least they give me candy sometimes.

I Can't Think Straight

Oh, the irony.

The year goes round and round and here we are again, just past National Coming Out Day. As a friend recently said on twitter, "It's National Coming Out Day, the day I angst about my label every year and shuffle off into the depths to try and find something that works."

Too real, man. Too real. I can recall, but I've probably had stress dreams about people asking me to define my sexuality. Somehow, the more labels I have to choose from, the harder it is to find one that applies. I've defaulted to an awkward "Well, I'm not straight...?" but that seems like such a lame copout. What's a girl to do?

In my life, I've mostly dated men, but my first kiss was with a girl. I was a tomboy in high school, but now I prefer dresses and winged eyeliner. At a glance, I appear as straight as a Roman road, but my heart could never travel that same path. 

There are so many politics in the world of orientation. Do I count as bi if I've only ever had sex with men, despite making out with girls? Why do straight people get to count even before they've had sex? Is all of this just in my head? Am I inventing problems that don't exist? Probably.

I was lucky enough to end up with an incredibly non-straight group of friends in high school and university, to the point that for a while, I actually thought I might be straight, just because I wasn't nearly as gay as the average person sitting next to me. I guess it's a bit like thinking you're a terrible dancer because all your friends are ballerinas, only to go to a wedding in Oklahoma and watch someone else's dad try to dance to Frank Sinatra. Ah, you think. So that's the other end of things.

It's weird living in Korea, as well. This country is so backwards, socially. Someone once told me it's like 2050 technologically and 1950 socially. Maybe it's better in the big city, but out here in the country? I can't imagine what it must be like for the young people trying to define themselves. I've had to field quite a few questions from my students, about everything from how many lesbians there are in the US (many??) to whether I know (and I quote) "any transgenders"? Let me tell you, trying to explain, in simple English, very briefly, why someone would want to transition is not something I would wish upon anyone. At the same time, that's one thing I love about being a teacher.

So yeah. Here are my scattered and disorganized musings on my sexuality in light of National Coming Out Day. While it's a lovely thought to imagine a world where there are no assumptions made and anyone could be anything without having to explain themselves, it's not a world I see coming soon. Besides, labels can be fun, and even positive, so long as you get to choose the ones that feel right. I just wish I knew which ones those were, for me, as a confused non-straight weirdo.

Big Fall Blowout!

So last week, I had one of those days. You know the kind. It starts simple. Maybe you wake up 10 minutes late and run out the door without your breakfast. Then you spill looseleaf tea all over your office, which leads to you leaving your photocopied worksheets in said office, causing you to be late to class. When it rains, as they say, it pours annoying minor misfortunes on your head.

Therefore, I wasn't even a LITTLE bit surprised to walk out after work and find that, lo and behold, the battery in my car had died. Why? Who knows. Even the repairman who came out to give me a jump seemed perplexed, and that's never a good sign. But hey, it's a 12 year old car. It's seen a lot. I call him Clint for a reason. He's doing his best.

Now, more than anything I'd been looking forward to getting home, taking a nap, and having a nice relaxing evening. No worries, I thought, I'll just take a nice little drive out to the countryside and back in order to charge my battery. Got a nice book on tape and a granola bar, life is good.

I should have known. I should have effing known that my bad luck couldn't end there. About 20 minutes out of town, my right front tire blew up.

F**k this shit I'm out!

See that tiny tire waaay in the background? Yeah. That used to be on my car. Pretty cool, right? This is how it happened: I was driving along, happy as you please, when suddenly my car jerked like a Great Dane that's just seen her best friend on the other side of the street and has conveniently forgotten that her owner is on the other end of the leash. I slowed from about 50 km/hr in a matter of seconds and tried to keep my car from shuddering off the road.

As I told a friend soon after the incident, at first I thought the road was messed up, then quickly realized that it was my own car that was messed up. Luckily there was space to pull over soon, and the second I stopped moving and the reek of burnt rubber wafted in through my windows, I could guess what had happened.

fuck

It was worse than I'd even expected. The best part was, the car hadn't been running long enough to charge the battery, so as I climbed out of my car to survey the damage, I had to leave the engine on as a bonus backdrop to my onrushing panic attack. Each frantic breath just brought in more of the acrid reek of rubber. I wasn't entirely sure where I was. I was hungry and cold, not entirely dressed for the weather.

I breathed.

Luckily, my insurance comes with an app that will contact local repair shops and send people out to fix you up. So I punch in my info and wait for the call, only to realize that once they called, I would have to know where the hell I was. I knew the name of the small town that was nearby, but I was pretty sure that and my rudimentary Korean skill was not going to be enough.

Luck! Across the road, an older lady was waiting at the bus stop. As the mechanic spoke to me like a child after I asked him to slow down, I sprinted across the 2 lane highway and desperately pushed my phone into her hands with a plea to "explain this location." All was well. The mechanic was on his way. She gave me her phone number and told me to text her when I made it back into town.

Eventually, the mechanic showed up, and to my embarrassment, it was the same man who had fixed my battery not one hour before. He asked a few questions and I fumbled my way through answers, and in the end it was decided that we'd have to call a tow truck, and I'd need to buy two new tires. Apparently they come in packs of two. Learning!

Instead of waiting on the side of the road, we left my keys hidden on the ruined rim of what used to be a tire and drove back to the repair shop together. We sat in silence for a while, each of my muscles tensed from anxiety barely held in check.

"How many times have we met?"

It took me a second to realize what he asked and understand the question, but finally I hazarded "Twice?"

Turns out it was actually our third time meeting; he'd replaced my battery a few months ago, and he assured me that my car wasn't garbage, it was just old. These things are natural.

"This is a great day. Do you know why?"

I hesitated to answer, worrying that I was now stuck in a car with a mechanic trying to hit on me.

"No one was hurt! Your car could have flipped over! It could have been serious. But it wasn't. So, today is an amazing day. Right?"

I supposed it was. As I sat in the office waiting for my new tires, watching the pet channel and sipping bad instant coffee, waiting for my muscles to unknot themselves, I couldn't stop thinking about that. Today is a great day because all the things that could have happened didn't happen, which was pretty much in perfect opposition to what I'd been thinking all day.

All this to say I made it home safe and my little trashwagon is puttering along smoothly once again. I'm grateful that there are kind mechanics and women at bus stops to help me when I feel like the world is giving me a tough break.