Memory is sometimes a touchy issue. How much of what we remember about our lives is a product of what we desire to recall, how much complete and utter fabrication? There's an old expression I've always been rather curious about: Something about how the body remembers what the mind forgets…Is the implication here then that the two are separate parts of individual wholes? If the mind forgets something and the body innately stores the experience in its skin, its shell, hasn't the mind maybe just sort of stored it away for awhile…for safekeeping…or protection? Isn't the mind the body's control center? Can one really function without the other? Is the body really able to handle change better than the mind?
I realize that this issue as long been much discussed, especially in metaphysical circles (or rather, the soul vs. body debate—but for the sake of argument, mind and soul are one and part of the same enigma)…I can indeed understand how consideration of all the moral implications could drive a person (body and mind) to madness. If people think often about doing terrible things, but never act on them, are they just as bad as people who act impulsively, never considering their actions?
Or maybe it's all just skin receptors, really. Like, the way someone can touch you to make you remember a whole bunch of distant, unrelated stuff. Like, how an unshaved face brushed up against the skin can send you back, make you remember vividly, the awkward hugging rituals of youth…And how the fact that you consider it left behind, part of that old, childhood life, makes you contemplate your age and you marvel at how many hours have been wasted, how much you have already forgotten, how much more you will forget. How, in relative terms, being as young as I am, with experiences limited to certain things, mostly cerebral, how much can my body already have forgotten?
Lots of people know I am frozen. Some construe this as unfeeling, unemotional. Others try, often on vain, to warm me up. Descartes once wrote, famously, "I think therefore I am," suggesting that a functioning mind was all you really needed to will yourself into existence. I think in old Creation stories, East Indian ones in particular, the creator came into being because he willed himself to exist (don't ask me how…). By Descartes'
theory therefore, the physical self holds very little sway.
Yes, I used to really like this theory, an expression I hardly understood…I used to want to be the girl who'd shatter if touched, made of crooked icicles maybe…A girl supported by her own very questionable thoughts—not a weak mind, to be sure, though some would say slightly off balance…The lightest graze of another's fingers would surely break my concentration and make me no longer able to 'be.' I used to hate the idea of being trapped in a hideous, cumbersome, freezing shell, a shell I had to take into consideration: feed it, was it, allow others to sometimes see and touch it. Thinking that this body of mine would sometimes be examined by others, I became overcome with the desire to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. This meant, the less time spent in the company of others, the better. The smaller, paler and less remarkable I became, the more at ease I would be.
This tactic might have worked if my thoughts were more disciplined, actually able to assume some form of direction. But being of a highly dual mindset most times, some days I needed to be disruptive, whether out of a very justifiable sense of rage (which they wished to repress) or the very simple need t be noticed for once, for someone to offer real help, love, before I sought it out…which will never happen. The shinier the better, the more outspoken, the more hostile, the more relief I felt. I'd yell louder because I knew that's what they expected. They'd instigate until I'd crack. I'd become sullen and antisocial because I knew that's also what they anticipated of me…And they'd always have someone to blame for making everyone miserable, but no one really questioned my motives…And now, this trend of mind, of assuming characters, makes me wonder how much of my current confusion is a result of not knowing quite what is a result of truth (regardless of my honesty and/or bluntness) and what is construction—Think: "the Lego blocks of mind."
I guess my problem is I don't quite know what there is to think anymore and sometimes in that blank state of dreamless sleep, I'm sure I'll disappear if I didn't have someone to assure me otherwise, that I convulse in my sleep or mumble confusedly…
Yesterday, I was sure I was feverish. I went to bed as soon as I got home from my new, miserable 12 hour a day schedule (today, my boss tried to add an extra hour and I nearly started to cry I was so exhausted. He's promised to cut one…He admitted he was being greedy and trying to cut costs by having as few teachers as possible…I also confronted him about the fact that he unprofessionally keeps changing my hours and not telling me, making me look like a moron, when I am late…I raised my voice…I still have to be there all day tomorrow though…) I thought I just might die…One minute I felt just so cold, the next like I might suffocate. I went to the little convenience store off my building to buy some water and I've never felt so nauseous, warm and generally strangled in my entire life…I paid as quickly as possible because I can generally feel a pass-out coming and wanted to avoid more embarrassment (than I feel on a daily basis) than necessary. I tend to recognize oncoming fainting spells by those miserable little red and yellow dots I get inside the corners of my eyes. I ran to the steps, sat down with my head between my knees (the 2 L water bottle was so heavy) and felt this awful surge of blood rush to my face. I'm sure I was red as hell. I pulled my scarf and hood off, opened my coat and tried not to hyperventilate. If Descartes' mind/body theory has any validity at all, maybe it means I am overwhelmed generally, with my life or that, back to old habits and feeling too warm, I am trying desperately to cool myself down.
Back upstairs, I gulped down the cold Jeju Island water like I'd never drink again along with my pill (I think I should take it again—perhaps the general shittiness and light-headedness I've been feeling lately is some form of withdrawal—or daily manic/panic attacks), and smothered myself in blankets, though I barely slept. I got up at 6:30 AM. It has been such a long, long day. It'll be like this until the end of February, unless it gets worse. The students are on winter break now and so I am currently teaching 19 and 20 year olds, which is a bit awkward, considering I'm about their age.
I am, however glad to report that the holidays were actually survivable—good in fact—for the first time in my life…It was very cold out though…I will never get over my cold, or spend thousands (of won) in tissue a week. A lot of our Christmas plans fell through, but we saw a really strange, surreal take on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland play called Shocking Alice. Though it was entirely in Korean (the dormouse occasionally interjected with some terribly sarcastic Konglish—"America Number One", etc), I loved it. Especially the sheep...hehe… I might have simply eaten the oddity of this play up if I hadn't begun to drowse off in the last half hour (We'd done a lot of walking in the Insa Dong area). We stayed at relatively decent, cheap motels, some of which were difficult to secure because of our having not taken the holiday tourism rush into consideration beforehand.
In our seemingly never-ending search for a place to stay one night, I noticed a "Hotel" sign in an alley (which just so happened to be filled with messed up, soju drinking homeless guys). We checked it out very briefly, but for W4500 (about $4), and a dirty looking blanket (most likely on a floor that was far from sanitary), surprise-surprise, we never made our way entirely up the staircase (I feared they might collapse, as held together with dirt as they were)…On our beeline out of what I'll guess I'll refer to as a local crashpad for squatters unable to brave the cold (or economically-strapped desperate men too drunk to go home), we nearly stepped on a scurrying, disgusting rat…Needless to say, we gladly paid the advance Xmas rate of W60000 for a decent place, a very wise move…
As for New Years, it was much more planned out, though scheduling delays and yet more crap with my boss never allow me to start my weekend quite as early as I'd like to—or stay away as long. We returned yet again to Insa Dong, a place I'm sure I'll never lose interest in, though which I am sure we may begin to know a little too well (When we start frequenting regular, unremarkable little teashops and restaurants, it could be a problem…J)
Christmas weekend I guess, I was a little more into shopping…I bought a present for Sacha, a picture of a traditional Korean classroom, a really very amazingly cool (and heavy!) brass statue of an old Korean man laying on a raft with a stick in his hand, as well as a reproduction (made in China…lol) of a long opium/tobacco pipe based off a folktale of a smoking tiger (in Art Galleries, especially around the more traditional areas, we see this image everywhere).
We returned to the gallery celebrating Warhol and Pop Art, though the crowd was maddening. We painted our own designs on some mugs—I spilled paint-water on my jeans because I had no elbow room and I'm sure mine turned out terribly, though I'm hoping by some miracle, the glaze and the kiln makes it some sort of gorgeous piece of art which I won't have to plant a flower in and hide under a curtain…We get to pick them up on the 13th of January I think.
This holiday season, the streets were so packed…The littlest restaurants had wait times. We tried Mokkoli along with dinner one night (which is strong rice wine that comes in a massive bowl (a small size)—we barely dented it). The movement everywhere made me dizzy and rather claustrophobic a lot. We drank at various places throughout the weekend, including some cool rock/metal bars in Hong Dae (notably, one called JUDAS OR SABBATH and another called
On New Years, we went to a lot of different places, including the old belfry at Jogyesa, which was packed with people from all over the world, traditional dancers, going madly around in circles (an pulling me in ) to the beat of echoing drums. I held a roman candle for the first time, which was cool, although in my case, a nice safe sparkler may have been smarter…People were also selling balloon animals and golden piggy banks (2007 is the year of the pig—another reason for excess consumption of pork, I guess)…It felt like a real carnival…A reason to actually care about New Years for once.
The only shitty part of the night is that we'd 'sort of' been pressured into soju and I ended up dropping my wallet and spending the night freaking out about it until we backtracked the next day and found it behind the bench I had been sitting at (clearly they don't sweep…). Nothing was missing—Koreans are remarkably honest… Otherwise, most of the night I'd been feeling pretty good for once, sociable, and fancied meeting people, so I struck up a conversation with some cool older Irish school teachers. We ended up tagging along with them to Hong Dae where we went to a cool place with a really sort of psychedelic atmosphere, cushions on the floor, etc…Very chill. It reminded me slightly of India Style Café (though not as cool, admittedly), a place we'd been the day before where we smoked a hookah, drank long Island Ice teas, and relaxed on gilt coloured cushions in a venue lit entirely by candles beside a fountain with floating wax lotus flowers. Interpretation was a bit hard (as it usually is, despite the phrasebooks which all seem to have different interpretations of the Korean language), but we met a cool guy named 'Charles, 'whose English was pretty good.
Anyway, we're planning to go out with my new Irish friends next weekend in celebration of a 41st (!) birthday…I'm sure it may be another potentially action packed weekend. I'll try to write everything down sooner this time around, instead of waiting a whole two weeks, not that I've got the time—I'm about to go to bed—so tired!....I'll try to dream vividly and so remind myself that I still exist, though I remember little, and most days blur like street signs in a foreign language…
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