Now

Tuesday, I finished work at 8:00PM and decided to walk around the city for an hour or so. I stopped into a cheap, little variety store, and like all stores of this type, the junk was compelling in all its useless glory. A lot of stuff at dollar stores in Korea have English print on them for whatever reason. I purchased an insanely grammatically incorrect folder with psychotic babbling about vitamins and best friends or some other such cutesy drek. The rabbit on the folder had big westernized eyes and the electric nature of the sugar-fiend who designed it was clearly palpable in the "artwork."

Anyway, I came across some seashells that were kind of nice and decorative, so I bought them as I am forever in search of objects to spruce up my rather sedate-looking apartment. Upon examination, most of these seashells have little concentric lines and bumps running through them. It's easy to forget sometimes that something used to live inside, and that my recent dollar-store purchase used to be something's home. I guess that's just like the irony of most true-life situations: People value things for the wrong reasons. We live in a society that worships the tasteless, tacky and innate…we admire objects for their aesthetic appeal rather than their actual purpose, if in fact there even is one to find. But, I guess I shouldn't criticize, since I can barely find a use for most individuals, myself included.

Lately, as far as the issue of purpose is concerned, I've been considering my own quite a lot. It is amazing to me that someone as shiftless as me has managed to successfully become an adult, if not an adult who is entirely successful. It's annoying that I still suffer from teenage existential angst and dissatisfaction at my age. This makes me neglectful, I think, not only of my ever-growing responsibilities, but of finding means to my ends that I actually support unwaveringly. ..As far as reaching this realization and actually getting the thoughts down in print, I am generally uncertain. Furthermore, were it not for my life-long habit of procrastination, I may have made said discovery a decade earlier and now be a very self-aware person. Unfortunately, no.

I have always had trouble approaching the ends of things. I am terrible about putting things off and very few of my projects reach their end-stages. Maybe it has to do with the fact that much of what I would like to do ideally, is too lofty, ambitious (I am a girl with big plans, though I've learned throughout my time on Earth that disappointment affects me too dramatically, that the regular pitfalls of life may floor me, demoralized, inward, hopes crushed like a paper-cup in a zealous hand.

I am sure I come off this way to people also, like a girl who looks a little unsure, unprofessional, unfocused. I have to concentrate really hard to blink away the cloudiness ever-present in my eyes, but often I don't bother…My face always looks exhausted and my shaking coffee-cup hand gives away the truth. I am also a terrible liar, though I often find myself wishing I were more gullible.

I am getting used to my job, if 'used' is an expression I can actually be justified in using given that a steady routine, a schedule, and the acceptance of said schedule tend to play a requisite part in being 'used' to anything, situational or otherwise. In any case, I have entered a sort of groove at work— the days just sort of bleed together. My boss no longer criticizes my teaching style, my students attend class regularly, I correct journal entries, and I drone on about how to write proper thesis statements. My life has reached this weird state of pseudo normalcy, of expectation, which I'm not entirely sure I'm fond of, but can definitely get 'used' to. ..Though it's exhausting me and potentially using me (and my remaining resources) up.

Sometimes I am hard pressed with the feeling that there's only so much time in life and that one ought to (as they say) "make the most of it." I know I am young, (though I am approaching yet another birthday), but as I often say, some days I just feel incredibly, decrepitly old. It makes me reluctant and terrified to think of what 30 will feel like and I am certain I will not see 40. I'll have just become too accustomed to life, or rather, too 'used' to life by then, or maybe, in some weird cosmic megalomania-driven twist; life will have become too used to me and all my melodramatic whining. And finally, desperate for some fresh air, I will be thrown upon the scrap heap with all the other empty shells. And maybe some will think of me, the absent person, as valuable and worthwhile (for their own reasons), while others will consider the things I leave behind, my paper-trail, messy like cut up bits of confetti paper, as representative of my legacy, proof of my significance.

So, I've decided that if the world ever deems me a worthwhile person, I'd rather it not be a posthumous realization. I'm just going to live (if that's the correct term to use) for each day and discover that I've yet again managed to somehow wake up for another day of work or school, or whatever the case may be. And when I am all used up, I hope I can just vanish from all memory, my paper-trail burning up behind me like a lit fuse.

I haven't had much time to write these last few weeks, but I suppose time is still moving very quickly. So quickly in fact, that days and memories get confused in my mind. It makes me think of Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory, that all too famous, verging upon the cliché painting of clocks hung out on a mindscape, lingering, gradually dripping like slices of melting cheese. It makes me hope that most minds are in as disarranged a state as my own, that different moments are hung out to dry all at once and are slowly becoming less solid as time progresses. With all this lack of clarity, of certainty existent within most human minds, or at least within minds that consider such matters, who can even account for what they did earlier that day? Is it not reasonable to assume that quite likely if one wished to remember morning, they'd have countless near identical memories from which to draw.

Maybe the "Now" moment, which so many people claim is of the utmost importance, is not actually "now," but just some celestial trick on the (mind's) eye; smoke and mirrors; a parlour game…It would certainly account for the many creepy déjà vu experiences, or those strange times in cities on the other side of the world when you see someone you've never met, who despite their race, looks identical to someone you know at home. Maybe it can all be traced back to the elusive melting clocks…or that great mystery of the divide between time and space…

So, yeah. Purpose. Maybe the point is to see how much a human can actually remember in life. If that's the case, the school system would make sense I guess (history class was worth it, maybe?), and perhaps then, we'd have very fulfilling, purpose-driven societies. On the other hand, it could instead be that the point is to remember to forget, or to forget to remember, whichever makes the most sense. If one were truly to "live in the moment," memory would serve no purpose, it would in fact, be entirely against the theory of 'now.'

Someone, somewhere (I can't recall, ironically enough) once told me that goldfish have a memory of only 10 seconds. So, they are literally forced to just live when they are alive and nothing more. As they swim around their little domes, the last 10 seconds of swimming is all they remember. I suppose this is why they never appear to be bored out of their tiny little minds—they've only been trapped in this dull little enclosure for 10 seconds. When they die though, the only thought they'll have left is of the previous 10 seconds, which is unfortunate since this means that their only memory of life will be those final 10 potentially unpleasant seconds while expiring. I suppose it cuts the messiness of life into more palatable bits, but it does seem just as pointless as the alternative—producing a million or so new thoughts a day, which many humans suffer to keep in check.

Sometimes these thoughts melt right away, like how we often only remember dreams for a moment, then can never recall them again as they soak into our individual subconscious realms (what a scary place mine must be!). Others stay, hauntingly, stubbornly with you for always, like a stubborn birthmark…on the surface, an item of disdain and reluctant acceptance, something we try to hide. Make-up helps to mask these types of blemishes only slightly. Some tell me that the goal of life is to interact with people, to make connections. If they're right, I am in trouble. In my next life, I'll be back as a goldfish.

I have been getting better in the area of human connections, I guess, but sometimes I just feel so hollow, vacant. Other times I find myself missing the company of particular individuals. And while this sentiment makes me smile, the memory of select moments, the very notion that I, girl that I am, could possibly desire, perhaps even need someone I don't know entirely (how could anyone ever succeed here, at a rate of a million or so new thoughts a day?), terrifies the hell out of me. Perhaps it has to do with the previously discussed issue of control. If I can control nothing else, at least I should be able to control my body and its actions. Being involved with another individual, there is sometimes that fear of a loss of self, somehow. Even if one is particularly fond of said individual…I don't know, but upon letting a new person into one's life (for me, this is not often), there is always this strange sense of self-division in an attempt to sort out the reality of one's self and how to best present it to another person. Maybe we're all just show-pieces. That would explain a lot about modern culture, I suppose.

Essentially, given that I fear the uncertainty and spontaneity of my own thoughts so often, when I am with another person, and can't remember to forget to remember that I shouldn't be thinking of such things, I am terrified…There beside me, so physically close, is a body (warmer than mine), with a mind I won't ever be entirely aware of. It is distressing, but the fact that I am currently willing to accept it gives me an odd sense of peace and has made me contemplative, which is a distraction for less pleasant pastimes, I suppose.

Anyway, in recent weeks, I've been to Coex Aquarium in an area that is rather far from the now familiar Insa Dong. This Coex Mall is extremely crowded and though it wasn't a lot of walking, we were exhausted from the tiresome shuffling of moving at a snail's pace and manoeuvring through throngs of people, mostly squealing, hyperactive, smelly children. Fish sort of freak me out, but I must admit that some were pretty beautiful, hypnotic even, to watch. I thought the jellyfish (the ones in the aquarium lit with a purplish sort of light) were gorgeous. We watched them for about 5 minutes. They were translucent and had a way of moving that seemed to me to be very precise, leisurely almost. They reminded me of ballet-dancers, bobbing up and down in ultra-slow-motion, their appendages (?) like gorgeous skirts blessed with kinetic energy.

I was induced to pick up a starfish. I was a little wary about it, but it was incredible, if a little slimy, to feel its breathing on the palm of my hand. It's wonderful that something so…decorative (?)…could have life. The axolotls (essentially fish with the beginnings of tiny legs) were really amazing to see. They must be a link in that evolutionary chain Darwin dreamed up over a century and a half ago—one of those creatures who pulled itself up out of the swamp waters (how, um, inspiring!) and learned how to move around on land too.

The seahorses (or sea-dragons, as they are called here) were so brilliant. I'd only ever seen fossils before, so I was very intrigued. They have these amazing tails that coil around each other and plants, and they just float in the water, heads bobbing up and down, tails ever coiling, always graceful. They look like they don't belong on this world, but would be better found in a fairy tale or off some hidden isle veiled in fog and mist, the inspiration for fantasy stories, the offspring of a more magic and more ancient time.

Essentially, even if it was an ordeal to walk, and the aquarium was sorely lacking in big fish like whales and dolphins, I'm glad to have gone. I'm sure that if it is ever quiet there, it would be a beautiful thing to silently walk around, listening to your footsteps and surrounded by water and the movement of so many other strange creatures…There was of course, a tacky gift shop (nothing is complete without one). I bought a keychain flashlight sort of thing that lights up in (red, blue, orange, yellow, green) the shape of different sea creatures. It's kind of a pretty, if a bit tacky sort of souvenir, but sometimes those are the best kind.

We also managed to get to Seoul Tower, which is on Mount Namsan ('Nam' means 'North,' apparently. There's also a mountain on the southern edge of Seoul, so the city is essentially enclosed, or so I've been told). We caught the cable car up and this experience was thankfully, briefer than I'd anticipated, as the volume of people along for the ride made me feel much like a canned sardine, a feeling I've experienced often since landing in Korea… Unfortunately, the most vivid memory I have of this place is of being freezing. Upon consideration, it probably wasn't the wisest choice to visit the top of the mountain on one of Korea's colder winter days. It was nearly 5pm by the time we got there and nothing was really open except for restaurants, ice cream shops and the observatory. I wanted to go to the zoo (I haven't been to one in so long!) and the botanical garden (apparently there's one somewhere, as well as some sort of art museum housing ancient Korean artifacts), but according to the woman at the info booth, who put up her arms to form an X, nothing was open. The only thing of actual interest was the old towers where they used to light signal fires to alert the next post that danger was near. We took a picture. Overall though, it was kind of disappointing. I wondered why so many people had come to visit the tower on this day and why it was an important enough outing to wait awhile in line for the opportunity to do so.

The weekend before was spent going out to a myriad of bars and clubs, including one in Hong Dae called "S" bar, which I've decided I don't really like very much. It was a typical club, awful hip hop music and eager young people using social lubrication as an excuse for their behaviour. It wasn't our first choice, particularly, but Pam, the Irishwoman, who we met on New Year's, was out and we thought we'd say hello.

These sorts of clubs have always irritated me. No one acts this way in real life, the way they would act in a club, I mean. But I guess the table-dancing, ass-shaking, essentially unreal personality of this kind of place is what gives its appeal to so many people. Maybe people don't want to think about anything but the "now" either. It makes me doubt my convictions when I consent to go to these places…But yeah, like my Coex souvenir, bars like these are basically tasteless little distractions one can hardly help but be compelled toward (ooh…shiny). And "Now," ironically (and slightly hypocritically), I am writing this blog about past weekends, writing now, but on subjects entirely divorced from the current time, proving that being who I am, it is with difficulty that I remember to forget even the foggiest of experiences.

Blur

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 13^th 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 52^ND STREET, where I got some good pictures of a very memorable performance…). We also went to City Hall on Christmas Eve and would have tried to go ice skating if the line for the rink didn't look about 5 hours long…

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 41^st (!) 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…

Ice

Despite the seeming monotony of existence, life is never stationary. Time keeps moving forward along with our hopes, dreams and relationships with people. What is ironic, perhaps, is that disintegration is also a form of forward movement.

Someone once showed me a series of photos documenting a bird that had died in his yard. Everyday at 5pm when he got home from work, he would take a picture of it, which is either morbid as hell and slightly degrading to the memory (or lack thereof) of this blameless creature, or complementary—proof that something compelling can most certainly come of death and rot, that even in death, there is purpose—a sort of reluctant martyrdom.

This weekend was good. I had a lot of happy moments and I didn't feel entirely alone for the first time in awhile. Sometimes I think it is better for me to be independent, that I don't need anyone, that becoming close to someone else will lead to more sadness, which these days, I no longer believe I can handle. I am not a clingy person. In fact, I am the opposite. I am sure people often become annoyed with having to pursue me, attract my attention. Hope for the clouds to leave my eyes and make me focus on theirs. I wish I were more accepting of affection, but I think I sometimes fear losing the beautiful numbness to which I've become so accustomed.

I am always cold. Frozen, in fact. This weekend, for a moment, I became so warm I thought I might suffocate. But perhaps asphyxiation isn't really such a terrible way to melt the ice lodged in my eyes.

One of my favourite fairy tales is an old, Norwegian story about a magic mirror made of ice. The images one saw in this mirror caused everything, despite its goodness, to appear ugly, repellent. This pessimistic mirror existed in a realm unknown to humans, in a time well before mankind's characteristic bitterness and cynicism. It was owned by a terrible little goblin who in a fit of rage cast the mirror from his home in the sky. The looking-glass shattered into billions of tiny, icy slivers, invisible to the naked eye, but terribly affecting.

Down below on Earth in a small village, a little boy and a little girl—beautiful, simplistic children, who despite their poverty, enjoyed every aspect of life and had been best friends since birth—were playing. The little boy, looking upwards to catch sight of the birds in the sky, did not feel it when the shard of ice pierced his eye and by extension, his very soul…(we all know the old adage…don't make me get cliché..). He finished watching the birds until they flew out of view, then continued his game rather robotically.

Though he'd always been a very joyful, sensitive boy, he now felt very little, if anything at all. But, because of the shard's magic properties, he was unaware that anything had changed at all. His blue eyes, once the color of the sky on the balmiest of sunny summer days, eyes flecked with radiant, warm light, were now the color of a frozen over pond in the bitterest of January cold. When he closed his eyes partway, his blonde eyelashes resembled icicles, unmoved by the temperate wind that blew through the countryside where he had lived his entire life.

Gradually, as the weeks and months passed and he grew, he became cruel, uncaring for the feelings of others, unable to show remorse for the bitterness he now unjustly felt towards those closest to them.

If memory recalls, the story goes on about all of the boy's many misdeeds, how he finally leaves home and breaks his best friend's heart in so doing. Though he had been unkind to her, she had always believed in his innate goodness and had sought to melt the ice enveloping his soul, though in vain. As the tale continues onward, the little village girl decides to go in search of her lost friend and travels throughout Norway's most northern, frozen land, suffering many hardships and nearly losing her life to the frost and the cruel creatures who thrive off it. She finally finds the boy within the palace of the Ice Queen, where the mirror's magic was strongest (it had been created within) and the boy had lost all memory of sunlight and happiness. He was hopelessly devoted to his new queen as a slave would be to his master, and blinked dumbly at the sight of the wretched, ragged, shivering creature that stood before him, imploring him to come home.

I don't remember how the story ends, but I expect in the children's version, the boy is able to recognize the girl, sheds tears of shame and repentance (his first in a decade) and in so doing, melts the terrible ice which had gripped his life in a stranglehold for so very long. If there is an original, un-bowdlerized version of the story somewhere still in existence, I expect that it ended badly for the girl, most likely in her tragic, hopeless demise after realizing the scourge the mirror had released upon the world, the irreversible plague which had affected so many. Still in possession of a delicate heart, she is overcome by the extremity of the cold and perishes. I simply cannot recall.

Perhaps, though I am not so hopeful, the ice has begun to thaw for me too. I must be one of the mirror's unhappy recipients. I got an email from my mother this weekend. It seemed final, like actual effort was applied in its writing. She is tired of me. She is bored of my self-indulgence and lies and unwillingness to be a different person for her. Strange, because I don't know why she thinks the situation with us is any different now, or that it's all my fault. I wrote her back. Twice. She probably hates me more, though she will never admit it.

I had spent Friday night in Seoul after an evening in Hong Dae. I was sitting in a PC room reading her cutting words when I felt the unfamiliar welling up of tears in my eyes. Silently, I typed while a friend watched and brought me tissue. The PC room was cheap. A mere 1000 won for five minutes of misery and empathy. I've never experienced anything quite like it. It was almost surreal. I tried to disregard it, but we walked to the subway in utter silence. The rest of the weekend had a sad tone to it, but I decided to stay in Seoul, keeping busy.

Saturday, I returned to Hong Dae. I wandered around alleys with piercing parlours, bought something for my sister in an Indian man's store, and ate Vietnamese food, which was really quite good. We went to several bars, though we didn't drink too much this time. One bar, I think it was called 'Jamiroquai' (after the singer) was pretty laid back, though the stools were literally falling apart and the menus were written on the backs of cut-up Heineken boxes. Upon attempting to use the washroom, my friend broke the key in the lock. We decided it would be wise to leave shortly after…

We also went to a tiny place called 'Las Vegas Western Bar', which I really wasn't too fond of. It was really eclectically decorated with odd bits of this and that from around the world—oddly enough, the collection, trapped under the bar's glass and strewn around the window panes had nothing to do with Western culture or Las Vegas at all…African statues with erections, filthy old coins from Vietnam, random playing cards, a stuffed bear with a pair of children's panties on its head…the usual. (ha…) The waitresses were a little too chatty and wouldn't leave us alone. It was the first time I've seen a white girl (a tall blonde Russian) working anywhere other than as a teacher or in the military…Just a girl with a regular job…They gave me a free shot of a much too sweet Vodka mudslide (basically chocolate milk with a tiny bit of instant coffee flavouring and a drop of alcohol), which was nice, but I was feeling a little claustrophobic with the attention.

When we emerged outside, it was snowing heavily. I was amused at the overall fascination with snow. I was just trying not to get hypothermia…Instead, I have no voice currently (I haven't smoked a damn cigarette since Friday), have been coughing heavily, and been doing my trademark sniffing (I, of the deviated septum, yes). I promised a real snowball fight when I felt better and had mittens on…

We ended the evening in a very empty little bar where really terrible music was playing. Luckily, there was an Ipod with decent music on hand and the waitress was willing to take requests…We ended up chatting to a man who came in later, who taught us a bit about Korea and invited us to come to Daegu, which I am very interested in doing. The rest of the evening was a blur of neon and swirling snow and taxis.

Sunday was much of the same. I bought a good friend a beautiful mother of pearl mirror in Insa Dong. We ate sundubu and drank soju, despite some major ordering problems—we had no desire for soju, but were actually in search of juice or tea or some (very needed) coffee. I tried Jujube tea and listened to music that made me think of childhood—screechy Indian music with potentially obscene words in them (though who could ever really be sure)—at a tea shop called Little India Café. Bollywood stars just may be worse than their American counterparts (I learned much while flipping through some culturally appropriate magazines…), though not by much, admittedly…

I've been so sick and so cold all week at school. I have a new class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for gifted students who want to learn how to write essays. It seems like it could have potential, but now I have to stay at work until 10:30PM. Monday was unpleasant and I was so exhausted. I kept my coat on all day and sat so close to the little space heater in my classroom. My boss is giving me his humidifier, as I've been sick on and off since getting here.

Perhaps it is ironic that Korea's first real snow occurred on a weekend when I felt I was beginning to thaw.

Escape

In high school, I once stood before a panel of judges in what is perhaps the most damaging activity a person could ever choose to do—I was a member of my school's "Intellectual Olympic" team as the official expert in the areas of literature and art. The point of this blog is not to reminisce about a not so distant past. Neither is it to tell of the social Hell of high school—that's a given and anyone who tells you otherwise obviously didn't go to Galt...Rather, my point (and I do have one, although perhaps it is not so much as a point as a catalyst into a different thought) is that last night I was thinking about how one of the judges asked me to tell him what Pop Art was. Standing there, in front of hundreds of people I didn't know (we were competing at a school in Montreal, not that it would have made a difference as I knew no one at Galt either), I babbled on for a bit to give myself a chance to think (the sound of my monotone voice can actually be quite meditative), and then, finally, I launched into a rant about how a lot of art can be intimidating, lofty, pretentious. We recognize that it's art because we stand in awe of the sheer genius of the sculptor's work, how the slightest quiver of a brush can damage an expression, change the meaning forever.

We go to museums to see 'art' because it is so precious that the protection of velvet ropes (soft as they are, they do have a certain authority about them…) becomes necessary. People love this 'art' because they know they would never be capable of such genius—an impossible endeavour. We may call this art 'popular' for a small, somewhat elitist portion of society, but in truth, sometimes images bleed into one another. One landscape becomes barely more memorable than the next. One dead aristocrat, battle-scene or biblical moment becomes not more striking, chilling or more sentimental than the next...We love it all, but this 'art' has nothing to do with our lives (upon reflection, perhaps that is why we enjoy it so much). It is an ancient part of someone else's history.

Pop Art, on the other hand, is for the people: the popular mass society; the strange; the angry; the addicted; the passionate. Pop Art is messy, imperfect, and often cheaply mass produced so as many people as possible will get a chance to see it. Its point does not follow Pater's Victorian idea of 'art for art's sake,' but instead elicits a reaction, be it joy, fear, disgust, anger, sadness or nausea. Pop Art wants to make you squirm. It wants you to question the artist's motivation and to realize that though it is undeniably art, perhaps it really wouldn't be so impossible to create something just as good, just as provocative. Pop Art essentially gives anyone the green light to call themselves an artist (whatever that is—it's highly open to interpretation…), just so long as the work they produce is seen, be it in a loft somewhere, a garage, or a freezing warehouse. To be seen is all that matters.

Late on Saturday afternoon, after I'd taken care of some business, I went again to Insa Dong, the traditional marketplace area, a space that simply (and so endearingly so) vibrates with life, color and artistry. Wandering around, we came upon a tribute to Andy Warhol, he of the multi-hued silkscreen Monroes and Campbell's Soup notoriety. Apparently there are many galleries in Insa Dong, and we did stop in a few traditional ones with beautiful pencil portraits for sale, but this awe-inspiring, many layered space just might be my favourite, as its strangeness had a very sublime, dreamlike quality to it, literal and nonsensical and plastic all at once.

Upon entering this open-air, freezing cold building/warehouse, the first noticeable thing is part of the large ceiling, covered in little shimmering yellow Christmas-tree lights and open blue umbrellas. The lights looked like stars, I thought, and I imagined that had it been warm enough, I would have liked to lie down and get a better view upwards. Maybe, I thought, I would pretend like the sky was falling and that I needed to catch an umbrella (a la Wile E. Coyote) to protect myself from the dangerous stars catapulting to Earth.

In true Pop Art tradition, there was also a place where one might purchase a mug or a plate and paint whatever they pleased: Art for the masses. We were going to try it—and I'd still like to at some point—but we would have had to wait a week or two to return to retrieve it from the kiln's finishing touches. Everything is uncertain—who knows if I'd even be able to find this place again—or if I wasn't just imagining it in some feverish moment of delusion (I've been known to have them)—a fairy palace where time doesn't exist and that will disappear and change locations if ever exited.

There was a staircase to another level as well, decked out with weird little space cadets with rather android like qualities—their arms and legs kind of petered out into rounded-off points and their expressions made me laugh, as even with the long water/opium/hookah (?) pipes jammed into their O-shaped mouths, they gave off the sense of looking very constipated, yet blissful, like whatever they were smoking had prevented any movement, the utter inability to walk, and formed these bulbous little bodies which the skinny, feetless legs could never support. I loved it. The sign said "don't touch."

We also saw giant plastic flowers of all varieties and colors. The sunflower was cool and I recall leaning down to have my photo taken with a pretty purple, somewhat faded African violet (?), not realizing that these things weren't nailed down, were very lightweight and could just roll around at the slightest touch. I very nearly ended up on my ass. I was amused and thought of Alice in Wonderland after she'd grown to a "very respectable 4 inches" and had to deal with rather bitchy flowers.

Additionally, though less striking, were 'shoetrees,'—not in the sense of the word we know, of course, but rather, actual trees, the branches of which housed trees of all colors and styles, sealed hygienically in plastic baggies. I wondered if any of them matched, though on second thought, to wear matching shoes is of probably very little concern to the artist. There were also these kind of gross, white, rather phallic objects with brown splotches on them, not dissimilar to nipples. I think the point of art like this is that the artist wants you to feel as though it's a piece that's open to interpretation, but everyone automatically associates it with something perverse. The artists wants us to go away thinking that we have dirty minds, are sexual deviants and contemplating the possibility that the person next to you may have seen something purely innocent in it. We came to the conclusion that it looked like a structure one might encounter in Whoville, or anywhere else on Dr. Seuss' fertile mindscape. I could go on, the warehouse was richly packed with things both sacred and profane—all subversive as hell, all thought-provoking—but I won't, because this is not meant to be a book, but a humble little blog with but a few loyal subscribers…(:

Later, we explored many booths and stores—I bought a fan and a little green stone that I had hoped to make into a necklace, but I fear I may have lost it…I have come to the conclusion that many Korean artisans tend to have wonderful and strange ideas about the things they make. There were all these little wooden key chains and statues that really reminded me of Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy…I thought fondly of the "girl with nails in her eyes," "Stain Boy, et al, and became very nostalgic for some of the cool comic book shops in Ottawa…Oh, Silver Snail, how I miss your dollar bin….ha.. Anyway, these little statuette/ key chain things are basically little men decked out with spikes (or other unpleasantly sharp objects) through their foreheads….Little zombie Frankensteins. I thought they were adorable. My heart melts at the strangest things…

We tried to get our picture taken with these two people dressed as teddy bears, but there were just too many children who wanted it more, so I wasn't very assertive about it. A weird guy who loved that we were North American started rattling off all the Americana he could remember. He had no point at all: Batman, Spideman, Superman, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Hulk, etc. We nodded fiercely, encouraging this little bout of insanity, and as he rubbed his hands with glee (I don't often get to use this word, but it's the only appropriate choice in this case), we made our escape. Maybe he thought we were bonding….hah..

I know North Americans are often objects of interest here in Korea, but sometimes it gets a little tiring. Maybe sometimes I'd like to be invisible and not worry about scrutiny. It is then that I wrap my scarf tighter, pull my hat lower and narrow my shoulders inside my warm winter coat. But really, they are going to stare regardless. On the subway, lots of Korean guys in their 20s like to practice their English with me and will just start saying "Hi" a lot. On Saturday, a slightly drunk older businessman type kind of leaned in a little too close to my face for comfort, pulled a crumpled paper plane out of his pocket, zoomed it around my eyes, and finally deposited it in my had as he was getting off the train….Lovely, guy, I'll cherish it forever and ever…

We went to a Vegetarian Buddhist restaurant for supper and it was great, just a nice, chill atmosphere with a lot of variety to choose from. It's the first exclusively vegetarian place I've encountered since coming here and I was grateful to eat something I recognized for once. I like everything, except the green bean dish, which tasted bitter to me, like sucking on an aspirin.

We went to Hong Dae, somehow ended up at Tin Pan (after a few relaxing drinks at a much quieter, more awesome bar) and drank shots, apparently. We decided to pull an all-nighter, stay up and catch an early morning train. I was really tired, but not very intoxicated. We met some 'interesting' (it's a very all-encompassing sort of word) people at Tin Pan who invited us to tag along to a Norebang. I'm not into singing, as I am tone-deaf, but I enjoy watching others do it, even strangers. It was pretty great. I finally got home about 9am after a really great day that I seriously needed—I'd had a rather depressing, unhealthy week, which I still feel very sad about, as the events leading up to it seemed somehow special and impacting.

I was not angry this week. I was just confused and resigned and desired some form of escape. But, as I've said so many times to so many people, how much farther can I really go? I've spent many years, my whole life, in fact, hiding out in my bedroom, turning off my phone, blending into walls, closing the light. No one here but us ghosts… And yet, upon reflection, I want so badly to be a part of something more important than myself. Maybe it is vanity that I rarely let that happen, or maybe it is fear. I hope people remember my rare moments when I really try to expose myself for the human I happen to be. I still find it difficult to come off that way. Humans, myself included, tend to make me physically ill.

I've met many people in my life. I tend to know them for short amounts of time. Never a repeat performance. I've never argued with any of them, really, except for family, but somehow they all just vanish into the night. Maybe that is why I feel strange and sad whenever I've told a secret. It's like I'm just passing on information. I am someone to remember, not to know. Or maybe people think that a couple of intense days is all they need to know a person. I'm sure that this may sometimes be true. One day, I'll fade, become translucent. I'll be a passing thought, that kind of makes you smile or maybe it will make you sad, or sentimental. I never really know how people see me. I never will. But, then, because of how I am, sometimes I think I like this—There is something mildly Romantic about it all—Rather like The Lady of Shallot a woman trapped in a tower, her only means of looking out into the world, a magic mirror. Her descent means alienation, banishment, misery, unhappiness. I know it's not the same thing. I do go out more often these days, I do speak to people, but I often feel very disconnected. It's rare that I feel comfortable. It hasn't happened for awhile that I do feel okay with others, and so I am confused, like I don't know who I am and perhaps I never will.

I am concerned about change. Even though I hated life as a child, I figured that if anything changed, it would be for the worse, because what good could possibly happen to us, to me. I honestly believe that we live in a culture of shame and guilt. These two are the only tangible sentiments people really instil on their children. Everything everywhere is constantly criticized. If it's not being criticized outwardly by someone else, you're doing it to yourself, making awfully sure to self-edit and censor your actual feelings because you know nothing in this life can be kept secret for more than a few moments. I treasure those moments while they're happening, because later, after the jubilation has passed, when we're in a public place and parting ways and I have been removed from the heady happiness of a warm place and a nice person to myself, the self-criticism comes to torment me and I experience an enormous, unbearable urge to leave where I am and run home to proceed to dwell on every sentence uttered, every possibly obnoxious look, strange posture or uncomfortable silence. I hate that I am this way and I know I 'm not alone in mental mind fucking, but I think I may be a more extreme case.

Before I decided to drop everything and come to Korea, I'd seriously considered seeking some sort of "help" (although I have my doubts about whether it would improve anything at all--it may just be the only thing that hasn't been tried, a convenient solution to my messy mind) but I can't actually foresee improvement in my current state. Everything culminates. Everything in my whole goddamned life has culminated to this moment, now, where I feel kind of nauseated, with my cramped fingers and my heavy eyelids, and where I am writing this blog as a means to avoid doing other, unhealthier things. I forget nothing. I repress nothing. It's all on the surface and I've become so ashamed of it, so guilty for seeing it in myself when I wake up, that I can't leave the house until it's been conveniently tucked away in some back pocket or other. Someone once called me a "delicate child of life" and I laughed at his reference to Thomas Mann. I felt it was out of context.

And so here I am with all my wisdom and headaches and weight and loneliness and guilt and denial and memories and disgust and moments of wanting to act on impulse so, so badly. Perhaps I am even nostalgic for 2 weeks ago. Should I feel stupid for thinking this? Maybe, but I can escape everything but my thoughts.

I have turned on my telephone. Sometimes I answer and sometimes I don't.

Oblivion

This weekend I let someone take pictures of me. Having been told my entire life to 'not look so miserable,' most pictures of me and other people result in my face being stretched into a ridiculous Chesire Cat sort of smile. Everyone knows it's fake, but most people keep their own mouths shut about it, as they realize the fabrication is more a result of effort on my part, than deception. This weekend, I was told to "be myself," to not smile if it wasn't in the cards. That was some mighty ironic foreshadowing, because I feel smiling is beyond my current capabilities.

My name, "Aletha" means 'truth.' In Dante's Inferno, Aligeri's character travels to Hell where he comes upon seven rivers. The final and most elusive river is called "Lethe," a river which to drink from means everything and nothing at the same time. Drinking from this river, every personal truth is revealed. One single drop upon one's tongue means to know oneself, and blissful or otherwise, the truth will make you complacent since Man's ultimate desire has always been the quest for knowledge or happiness—but maybe these two are more closely connected than we—the collective, naïve, isolated mass of beating hearts and throbbing minds—think.

So, for one terrifying and beautiful moment, like a nifty magic trick, all is revealed. The smoke dissipates. The mirrors are cracked and crumble away. They fall to the dirt in tiny piles of finely ground dust. And for a whole minute, there is no need to be paranoid or suspicious. The burden of having to wonder is lifted, and maybe for the first time ever you can accept your sadness or your happiness as genuine and not just as a part of a series of convenient escapes. Sixty seconds go by…And then, just as easily as it came, everything is lost, for Lethe is the river of Oblivion. Lethe is beautiful and fascinating but highly forgettable. No one ever regrets forgetting Lethe or having taken that first little sip because they will never think of it again. As for Lethe, it remains in the Underworld, stationary, willing to share the little it can offer, but ancient and oh so tired with the life-burdens of countless bright-light seekers who have visited and rested by its shores, searched for meaning in its reflective surfaces, and then, having drunk their fill, calmly wandered off to Death, unaware of the second chance their new lives will offer them. They are without memory, veritable tableau rasos (blank slates).

Can Lethe really reflect? I don't know. It may have its more lucid moments…I imagine that like a pair of wide, dead eyes, a traveler of the depths might search steadfastly for that entire minute, trying to see inside, to find a source for the new feelings of overwhelming captivation and confusion. But, only able to catch a mirror image, the traveler gives up after that moment and decides to concentrate on himself…Just looking out for number one, Doll, and ain't I fine? … Narcissus did the same thing to Echo and I'm sure it's happening to some forgettable soul as we speak, as it will for time immemorium.

So, click flash, I stopped smiling my silly cattish smile. I gazed into the lens. I made eye contact. I let him search my face for traces of life. I told him that my only philosophy to existence (or otherwise) is that everything rots and revives. I wanted to tell him the story of Lethe. ..Instead, I drank some gin and muttered something about how I wanted a tattoo of the words "Entropy" and "Optimism" because they're the only things that make sense to me.

I cannot—should not—connect with people. Once I do, it's all over—and when I don't for this same reason (I learn from experience), it's generally over anyways—I guess I must have very few purposes. I have never had anything genuine in my life and have never expected to (as I don't feel I have ever particularly deserved it), but hardened to disappointment or not, my feelings are constantly being very hurt. The waters at Lethe always maintain the same depths despite innumerable visitors. Likewise, I have no desire to shed tears for strangers as appealing as they might have been. I have never wanted anything from anyone, so I am disgusted with myself for being so trusting. It won't happen again. I really ought to know by now that like me, other people are pretenders too. Sometimes it is the only way to even be in the same room as another person. When I don't lie, I am too revealing—which is the worst, most scary thing of all for one such as myself. Peel away the layers, guy, you'll find onions don't make me cry…

One of the worst feelings is that I may have caused unhappiness to someone else. That is something I may only reserve for yours truly. I sincerely hope it works out for those directly involved in this situation which I shouldn't even be a part of. At the subway station in Seoul I started to feel very depressed. I lied and said I was hungover. I cursed myself for having spoken at all about myself, for having stepped beyond the looking glass for a moment, when it's undeniably so much safer and warmer in my own fucking head. I hope I manage to find my way back soon. It's far too harsh out here. I shouldn't have stopped taking my pills this week. It was a stupid idea. I just wanted to not need to rely on what feels like pretence. But I guess if that's what the world needs to spin, why should I be special? I've been having some more than unpleasant thoughts the last few days. My old counsellor from university emailed me to check on how things are going here in Korea, I forwarded her this blog. I wonder if she is concerned…

I went to Dongdaemoon this weekend and bought some praying hands on a hinge that open up to reveal beautiful and intricately hand carved Buddha statuettes. It's lovely and I'm going to stare at it tonight while I damage my lugs and heart and should the taste prove too foul, perhaps my arms, with my Raison Blues, my current raison d'etre.

I need some sensory deprivation. I wish I had a bathtub so I could sit in the dark in body temperature water and simulate the womb or something. The 'mother' would be shocked at my desire to have any wish to retreat into her, but it's really more the hiding that I find so appealing because no one will come looking—why would they?

This weekend was frigid. With one exception, cabs wouldn't pick us up. We called the driver 'Joe' and his seats were leopard print. His English was decent and he wore a flamboyantly yellow shirt and a black vest. We taught him to swear in English and I don't think I've ever been so elated to hear someone use the word 'fuck' in my life. There was something just really cool about this guy and for 6000won and a 20 minute cab ride, the price was right. There are apparently no bars in Dongdaemoon or Jung-no 5. There were no tours going on at the Buddhist temple either, but it was beautiful nonetheless. I took pictures, of course, but who knows if I'll want to keep them once they're developed. No regret, just more sadness. Eyes a little less bright.

Antidote or Poison

I woke up this morning feeling rather strange. I keep my bed in a small area of my apartment with sliding glass doors and normally I keep them closed because otherwise I get to listen to traffic all night long. In my last apartment in Ottawa, when I lived in the basement of a really old house, I was terrified to sleep most nights for reasons I have yet to figure out, and woke up constantly, sure that my sleep was too heavy and unnatural, that my heart was giving way and that like all the useless words I've spoken to equally unempathetic people--words that have long sinced drowned in extra large cardboard coffee cups with recycled paper sleeves--my breath would sputter out and I would vanish into obscurity.
In any case, I would catch myself before falling entirely asleep, and sure that my sleep was actually death, I would jump out of bed and try to listen to my heart to make sure it wasn't beating too slowly or too quickly. Sometimes my paranoia lasted all night, everynight for days on end. I kept a full-length mirror on my apartment door, which I could see from bed, and sometimes I would glimpse a flash of light (a car's headlights reflecting from my window, no doubt) and become certain that some person had entered my apartment. The light just seemed too like movement and last year, in my advanced state of antisocial behaviour, the idea that something could be moving around in my room while I was trying to sleep (and not die) terrified me beyond belief. I bought a new doorknob with a better lock shortly after--but it really didn't make me feel better. I began sleeping with my face under the covers--and maybe that's why I felt like I couldn't breathe.
Finally, in utter exhaustion, I would convince myself that this wave of sleep coming up was safe, that it was only mild and that I wouldn't die, and if I did, well, why was I so afraid--that I had had the same thoughts the night before and managed alright. And then, everything would come together so perfectly and I could tuck my mind safely under my pillow (for quick retrieval in case of emergency), and the outsides of my eyes woud close so entirely that is felt like they had turned inwards. My floor would be left flooded with this memory of an ideal second--this blissful shutting off of my damn thoughts--that maybe I didn't appreciate as much as I should have, especially given it's fleetingness and the time and energy it generally takes me to mop (metaphysically or otherwise).
Anyway, this morning I woke up feeling paranoid as hell, this feeling that my space had been invaded and that I was surrounded by fog--that maybe the apartment was on fire or that I had left the gas on--of course everything was fine--but for nearly 7AM, I guess it just seemed far too dark outside--I'd have figured it would have been much lighter.

I dreamt last night--many fragments:

I'm sleeping in a very strange room on a very strange bed. It's a huge room with no floor. There are about 10 beds in this room with 9 other undisclosed people sleeping in them. The beds are set up like a sort of puzzle, as they are elevated at different heights and attached to strange metal rods that look like corridors--Kind of like K'Nex or an amusement park ride. I have this overwhelming feeling of not being able to move at all. I am absolutely paralyzed. I have a white sheet over me. Everything looks very clean. I see a mouse crawl up my corridor. I look down and finally see a floor that is covered with mice of all different colors. I am grateful that my bed isn't closer to the floor, though I am beginning to feel some motion sickness, like I'm moving around mid air. The mouse comes closer--I wish it wouldn't. I hate mice. It decides to crawl up my body and despite my efforts to prevent it happening, it crawls into my mouth and down my throat. Another one does likewise several moments later as Mouse #1 begins to eat my stomach from the inside (don't ask me how I know this). Mouse #2 has gone North, however and I'm sure it is eating my brain. Mild discomfort. Some anxiety.
I wake up and take some tylenol. Headache. I take the Prozac (2) for the first time in 3 days....Went back to sleep.

In then next dream, Maya and some guy are about to travel somewhere together. We're all sitting in mom's living room. I am by the fire, feeling annoyed at having to listen to voices when all I want is some quiet. Maya and the guy keep leaving and going together into the bathroom and for whatever reason, they start throwing all the contents of Maya's backpack down the toilet. Sitting in the living room, I realize I have to pee. I finally convince Maya to let me have the bathroom, which I am ever grateful to use. I flush. The toilet backs up books, jewelry, clothes, and of course, some lovely sewage. I panic, certain that it's all my fault. I can hear them all talking in the livingroom--Mom is saying something about a funeral and how "they took her urn out into the yard on sunny days, not realizing that in life, she was known for her aversion to bright light." There is laughter. I search madly for a plunger. I start plunging it all down. It's an awful mess and I feel so sick. Finally, it recedes and I am relieved. No mess on the floor. The last thing that comes up and just won't go down again is a library book. What seems like a long time passes. I just can't return the book, obviously because of where it's been. I write the librarian an anonymous letter and the librarian tells me to send him a Barbie and Ken doll wrapped in yellow paper and labeled B & K in black marker.

I wake up having to use the bathroom and with a really sore neck. It's 7am at this point (the same 7am mentioned earlier) and I have a really strange feeling of loneliness and complacency. It's an odd mix.

It's 2:16am..Taking a sleeping pill soon.

Focal Points

As ever, I remain faithful to my promise to write a weekly blog. I'm not sure how many people even read blogs anyway (all those damn words…) but I do think it's a good idea to have a sort of chronicle to look back upon.

This has been an eventful week, and work was admittedly pretty stressful mostly because of some scheduling changes and the fact that perhaps playing Scrabble all last week (when my voice was dead) set a precedent in class—one where quite a few of my students feel that it is perfectly acceptable for their parents to be paying major won for 3 days of board-games lessons per week…In any case, the children were not on their best behaviour and the little ones get really rude, even, blatantly ignoring me and carrying on their own conversations in Korean until I agreed to play Bingo. I get very little respect with these younger ones and it's strange how much a difference a few years can make—my other elementary school class—9 to 12 year olds are so well-behaved and only ever speak in Korean to translate for whoever else doesn't understand. I tried a sort of Round Robin fairytale storytelling thing with them to try and get them not only speaking in English—but thinking creatively as well—a concept that often gets them looking at me in a very confused way. I'm not saying that they have little creativity, but so far, it just seems that they become very confused when I try to do something outside of the book. I think Koreans must have a very prescribed sort of approach to education—The boss just does word for word translation with them in his classes .I looked at some of the sentences—just random phrases taken from books and the newspaper it would appear, often written in ways that no living English person actually speaks, unless of course said person was stuffy, pretentious, and spoke in the most flowery language used since the such Romantic poets like Byron….it's all a little much, I think. They really don't seem all that applicable to me, but whatever. Apart from that, the weeks are going by very quickly. The work week is very long—that I won't deny—but it seems that Friday rears its glorious head so very frequently...

Korea is the last place I imagined I'd get a chance to practice my French. The new Korean English teacher, Miss Kim, who oddly enough doesn't really seem to speak much English at all, came up to me on Tuesday and asked me whether I understood French. I was a little taken aback. Apparently she studied in France for 4 years, so she's extremely good. I am out of practice—my accent sucks—but at least I can communicate with her now and we're not just uncomfortably sitting in our office area, back to back, without ever uttering a syllable to each other. The boss took everyone in the school—me, Miss Kim and the receptionist out to lunch on Wednesday and at least this time he was considerate enough to ask me what I wanted to eat instead of just ordering some awful mountain of pork. The receptionist doesn't eat meat—only fish and beef and chicken, she says, to which I had to bite my tongue (I am worried about what she considers 'meat'). We ate tofu, kimchi and lots of vegetables and cooked rice. It was alright, but my boss keeps telling me that he's worried about my eating. Again, because I am North American and not heavy, he imagines that I never cook, never eat and never go grocery shopping. But my eating is a subject I do not wish to discuss with him. It's none of his business.

I went out for a drink one night this week with another English teacher in my building—A nice British guy who's self-conscious about his apparently advanced age (31). It was a good opportunity to actually check out some nice little chill bars in my city. We went to a couple of places and had a drink in each. I didn't really care for the first place—a very industrial looking place with lots of red lights and drunken Koreans. I felt like other than the bargirls, I was the only female there. It was kind of awkward. I drank beer (priced at a very un-worthwhile 8000W), which I found disgusting, as I am not a beer-drinking girl, but the only alcohol they had in the place was purchasable at ludicrous prices by the bottle. My British friend started chatting up a Korean guy sitting beside him at the bar—in front of him were about 20 empty bottles (I don't know how these people manage to function—this was at 11pm in the middle of the week). The Korean and his friend were planning on going to a nightclub—it was explained to me later that they were going to see some Russians dance around in g-strings.

Everyone is married in Korea—if you're 30 and single, there is something wrong with you. Most successful men are "businessmen"—whatever that means—no one ever tells me what area of business any of these businessmen are actually in. The wives of successful Korean businessmen are homemakers, like the spoiled women in my 'mother' classes, who have told me that they've (none of them!) never worked outside the home. I think infidelity must go on a lot in this country-- Prostitutes from Russia are a big thing here, strangely enough. I haven't seen any, exactly, but then it's not as though I go around looking. I have seen little vans where hookers are apparently driven around (spreading the love and the disease, I'm sure) like cattle at a fair. It was also explained to me that barber poles with double lines are essentially code for "get laid here—hookers somewhere in the vicinity"). It's all pretty sad. There are also little photographs of girls –advertisements—that I always see in the gutter and on the filthy, polluted sidewalks early in the morning before the city cleaners with their awful orange cowboy hat-uniforms have had a chance to throw them away. I find it all a little depressing. Interestingly enough, I never really see any public displays of affection—except for those repulsive "couples t-shirts" I sometimes see some lame people wearing, to advertise their affection). I wonder if people are really that modest or what? Today I was watching a couple in their late 20s standing in front of me on an escalator and the man was kind of trying to discreetly touch his girlfriend's ass…or put his arm around her. The woman kind of shuffled her feet a bit and the man put his arm around her neck, just an innocent little embrace. She squirmed away and gave him a rather not nice look that snarled "what the fuck, man? There are people on this escalator." But then again, maybe she just doesn't like him very much. I know very little about couples and relationships, as I don't really feel that I've ever particularly been in one where I had to see the other person more that once a week—so I could be way off…but whatever, it passes the time, making up stories about other people's lives for my own entertainment.

On Saturday, I had plans to meet a person I met on the internet at Seoul Station. I realized once I got there that though I'd written down his friend's cell-phone number, I'd forgotten it on my table all the way back in Bucheon. Of course, though I keep promising people that I will get one, I still do not own a cell-phone (I wonder if that makes me eccentric, as even 8 year olds seem to carry them around). I had no idea how massive Seoul station really is—unlike other smaller stations, it is virtually impossible to find anyone, anywhere. With several floors, a few waiting rooms, and about 10 separate exits, I was starting to feel a little hopeless about ever finding this person who I'd never actually met before…I kind of wandered around for half an hour and then went to the second floor and just stared at the influx of people from above. It's almost hypnotic, actually. They just kept coming. So much movement and so constant. I nearly got vertigo. I kept my eyes peeled for westerners and after awhile, figured I'd just go home and call him to apologize and explain about my un-preparedness. I was on my way to where I was going to catch the train and decided to walk outside (they keep buildings far too warm a lot of the time—not my school though—although the boss-man finally cracked and bought me a space heater for my icebox of a classroom) and it was actually really mild yesterday---too warm for my scarf and winter coat. So I'm walking (if you can call it that—I decided to buy a pair of heels yesterday, although I have the worst feet in the world and zero practice wearing anything but flats and sneakers for more than a couple hours at a time), sure that under my socks my feet were raw and bloody, and this guy comes walking right at me. I got a little freaked out (haha), but it was okay—the person I was trying to find found me, which is pretty impressive.

Anyway, in a bid to actually appreciate Korea culturally, we walked around Namdaemun Market, which I found really great. We also stopped and looked at this massive and ancient gate (built in the 1300s) which I found incredibly intricate and gorgeous. There is really nothing comparable in western architecture to old Asian palaces. The ceilings even had paintings on them and I think the whole structure must have been hand carved out of a million logs. I took a picture, not that it will do any justice to how beautiful this place is. What strikes me most profoundly is how old Korea really is and how young North America is. It is intriguing, I think, to have such a real sense of history and to actually mean something as a people. But it does bother me that American influence is so apparent in younger generations. I'm really getting sick of seeing people in hip-hop clothing (fupu?—they mix up their Bs and Ps sometimes and so most of their cheap knockoff clothing is ridiculous and in dire need of a good editor), or girls carrying around their Louis Vuitton bags and balancing on tiny stiletto boot heels (because everyone else has them…). There are many beggars in the Namdaemun area. It's pretty awful. I saw a guy with no legs pulling himself on a wooden plank with wheels, and lots of guys passed out on the grass or in one instance, on a staircase—either he was really really drunk, or mildly, um, dead, because a cement staircase is no place to sleep.

The market is incredibly vibrant, crowded as hell, and just generally a really exciting place to be. Like I said, a lot of knock-off name-brand clothing is sold, as well as t-shirts with really bad English (Konglish) on them. Really bad, like in some cases, the translation is so direct that together, they're just a string of nonsense words. I plan to buy a lot at some point. Souvenirs. I did buy some magnets of little Korean girls in traditional dresses—they're pretty nice and I'll probably send them to my mother. At the moment, they are on my metal door in my apartment, as my fridge is not that kind of fridge (more plastic—fake wood plastic, to be precise--on the outside than metal). I also bought a cheap pair of sneakers like the kind I used to wear all the time as a kid. It was necessary, because I was beginning to feel like I might just cripple myself…An afternoon of feet torture was sufficient. All sorts of food are for sale in the Market. I don't think I'd eat most of it though. There's something about squirming insects in wicker baskets that just doesn't whet my appetite. And the repulsive little silkworm pupa reminds me of nightmare insects…How anyone could actually put one in their mouth and proceed to chew is beyond me…Also available were chickens, just sitting out in the sun, doing their thing. I don't know how long they were there, but it looked like poison waiting to happen. The worst were the cow heads just sitting there in a pile, covered in either a thick brown red liquid (or maybe that was blood or muscle—I really don't know—up until yesterday, I'd never seen underneath a cow's skin before—don't ask me why, it's just never piqued my interest. Anyway, I took lots of pictures and I'm definitely going to need to get a photo album (as well as a digital camera soon). I tried getting a shot of this crazy guy dressed in really awful women's clothing trying to sell some equally awful clothing and he yelled at me to get in the shot with him. I have great expectations for the shot where he's placing my hand on his oversized tits.

After the market, we found a couple of decent places to drink and I consumed quite a lot of gin and tonic. We found a place that played really rock cool music with Hedwig and the Angry Inch posters and fantastic paintings of Rock Icons. There was even a guy with a guitar sitting at the bar that was pretty obliging with requests. I am jealous of musicians. I wish I could play some lovely Smashing pumpkins tune whenever I wished. I want to go back there again. It just might be my favourite place so far. Anyway, I think that I had some pretty interesting conversations last night and did a lot of really cool things and it was a pretty fun--albeit tiring—to go out drinking with someone I'd only just met. But I guess everything is pretty random and spontaneous here, as everyone keeps telling me. I was pretty hung-over and exhausted this morning. I bought some coffee at the subway station and took one sip. I really needed it. But then, the muscles in my hand decided to atrophy and I dropped the whole thing on the escalator. It was pretty embarrassing.

On the subway, I got momentarily lost because I took the express train and didn't realize I had to get out a Guro Station. I somehow ended up on the green line and looked around for someone to ask for directions. I ended up talking to this guy from Bangladesh (another innocuous "businessman) because I thought there would be a chance of his speaking English—which he did…He was going the same direction as me, so luckily, it worked out. I still felt drunk though and he kept asking me all these questions and talking about religion (he is Muslim) and how he is going to send me a copy of the Koran in English and be like my "elder brother" if I ever needed anything—"because a person can end up in Heaven or Hell," etc. I wonder if everyone realized I was still plastered. I was really not in a talking mood and was not really up for questions about my family and whether I had a boyfriend or not? Everyone was being really nice to me. Everyone who understood English pretty much piped in on the conversation. It was really bad. Why do I always pick the religious to ask questions to?

Anyway, it's nearly 3am and I'm getting a bit tired and feel I've written quite enough. In any case, I had a great time Saturday and am thinking of going to Insa Dong next weekend and maybe some sort of cool museum—like the kimchi museum (gotta love that old cabbage) or the Robo Park (who doesn't like robots?). I still want to go to a Buddhist temple, though. There're too many things I want to do…