This month I signed a contract for another year here at the school. It will take me through February of 2011.
And I dropped the bomb on MyeongHee.
February 2011 is when her son, DongHyun, will graduate from highschool and either go to college or off to the military. He must go sometime before he’s 28, although most boys do a year or so of university before signing up.
Either way, I decided it would be a good time for a change. I’ll have been teaching at this school for four years straight and another in 2004-05. Five years is about my limit, it seems. But the bigger bomb I dropped is that I want to go back to America. Probably not forever, but longer than the week or so I’ve been able to come back in the previous three years. Who the hell knows what forever is anyway? But the longest I’ve ever held a job is seven years and five seems close enough.
Lately, I’ve been feeling like I want to be able to experience America again – nothing so dramatic as the old Simon and Garfunkel song. Just the feeling of going outside and speaking English to a neighbor or chatting with the salesclerk in a store. Not that either of those happened very frequently in America, but when I see a Korean just having casual conversation it makes me miss that. One of the TV shows that really gets me is America’s Funniest Home Videos – just goofy stuff - but seeing the homes, the yards, the kids, the sports… I miss my country and my culture. I’m probably idealizing to a great extent, but the fact remains that I miss my home country and despite my ever increasing Korean-language ability I am still an outsider here.
Of course, the bigger question is what would I do when I got there? It’s hard to imagine what job I would qualify for after doing nothing more than speaking English for four years. And that’s if there are jobs to be had – given the economy that’s a big-ass what-if.
Other questions involve MyeongHee – she’s not interested in coming to America. She didn’t enjoy it much. She’d rather stay. And leaving her hairshop would entail a great expense upon reopening should she come back. She’s happy doing one or two weeks visits but no more.
If I do come home, it looks like it might be just an extended month or two rather than years. All of that is still a year away and a lot can happen between now and then. We’ll have to see how things go here and in the US. Stay tuned. More will be written as it becomes clear to me.
One puppy went to a new home last night. A couple of English ladies took the biggest male, the one we’d been calling Gulum. They are calling him Davie. He’ll be fine. They’ve been very excited for weeks since they decided they wanted a pup.
MyeongHee cried a little when the puppy left last night. Just for a few minutes. She’s fine today. But the dog that went was her least favorite. We’ll see how it goes with the others she likes much more.
Three more should go this week. The mostly brownish male will go to MyeongHee’s nephew’s girlfriend. And two others will go to one of her hairshop friends. That’ll leave us with just one pup, GaMyeon (mask) the smallest of the puppies. She’ll take her to the hairshop with her and then home every night.
The mother, SaTang, on the other hand has turned into quite a problem. She seems to be having control problems. For 3 years she’s done well about going outside for her potty business. Lately, she’s been scratching at our bedroom door early in the morning to be taken out. But as soon as the bedroom door is opened, she’ll pee. A lot. Last week, it was poo, and I hurried her out to the back veranda rather than downstairs and across the street to the park. She left some poo, but seemed rather upset about it all day.
Today, she scratched at the door and I immediately got up to take her out. She made it outside to the veranda without peeing and I left her there for about 3-4 minutes. When I went to check on her, as soon as I opened the door she came into the hallway. THEN she pee’d – a lot – in the hallway in front of our door. Why she couldn’t have done it when she was outside and she waited until she was semi-inside? Beats me. I’m trying not to beat her.
There’s some dog psychology at work here and I’m not sure what’s going on. Talking to the vet here will not be possible unless I get MyeongHee to do the talking. I still suspect that even a conversation in Korean won’t help – Koreans have a different take on pets than Americans do. They have a different take on psychology, too. It’s subtle, but psychology isn’t among the issues that comes up with pets. No surprise, as psychology isn’t an issue they’ll discuss about people, either. Going to a psychologist is still considered an admission of weakness, or worse, craziness.
Any insight any American readers have on what my dog is dealing with would be appreciated.
NASA has an eye on you. Maybe not you personally, but an eye. I get a weekly email with their Image of the Day. Sometimes, they’re very interesting, sometimes not. Last week was Dallas, TX.
I liked their photos, although it highlighted the part of Dallas I didn’t like, indeed hated: sprawl.The two images are from 1984 and 2009. The change in Dallas over those 25 years was amazing, although no surprise to one who has lived through it.
When I moved there in 1975 it was even smaller. The city had undergone tremendous growth prior even to my arrival as a teenager and continued through the 70s and into these photos. It seemed that no matter what time of day I’d drive I’d run into traffic congestion. No matter how much the construction went on, it never ended. There was always something, particularly roads, under construction. I wondered if it would ever end. It still hasn’t ended, despite the economic woes of the nation.
Anyway, I liked it. I thought I’d share since not everyone gets a weekly email from space.
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