How's it gonna be?

You know what I love? When you've listened to an old song a hundred times, sang along with it a hundred times, and then one day, you hear it one particular time, and it's like hearing it for the first time, and though you've always liked it, this is the first time you've related.
It happened tonight, I was walking through Bucheon's central park, the ground still marbled in snow and ice, and very strangely, not a soul around, and I was singing along with my ipod, when the lyrics to a familiar song which I had never really thought about before, made sense. I dig that feeling.


Break ups are interesting. The whole getting to un-know someone part, I mean. Someone who, in many cases, was your best friend. Who you spoke to everyday, told personal things about yourself, who you had lots of little private jokes with, who you cared about. Watching all that unravel, or disappear. I guess it depends a lot on the hows and the whys of the break-up.
For the most part, I get along well with my exes, we broke up on good terms and most are still my friends. In these cases, the un-knowing process is usually gradual, slow. We might still hang out occasionally, keep in touch, have short online conversations every few weeks, have long, deep drunken online conversations once a year.
Or sometimes you have to stop talking, for yourself, or for the other person, or for their new girlfriend. That can hurt, but you know you're still friends really.

With some exes, it's a little more sudden. Sometimes the un-knowing process happens in one swift flash, with one stomach-churning pang of "you are not who I thought you were" right before the break-up even occurs. And so you end things, and the un-knowing process begins. And it's one of those rare cases where you never want anything to do with them again, which makes it easier. But you still know things about them. You still know their weekly schedule. You still know their upcoming vacation plans, which drawer they keep their socks in, the scents and the scars of their body. And you don't care, you don't think about them (this is the one thing dishonest/disrespectful guys have going for them -you get over them quickly and easily) but you can't help knowing it. I suppose that must fade too, after a while.

holidayyy

I am glad I am on staycation because it's  6:45am and I still haven't slept because I am too excited! I just booked a trip to Thailand for two weeks before I go home in March!
THAILAND!
Two weeks of sunshine and white sand and turquoise water and coconut milk based curries and boat trips and cheap massages and jungles and elephants..... shiiiiit!

For the record, I don't do this. I don't go on vacations as such, I don't spend hundreds of bucks on a flight when the stay is only a couple of weeks. I don't go somewhere with the plan of just travelling around, or laying on a beach.
I save up all my money, and I apply for work or study visas, and then I go to a big city (until korea, a big north american city) and I get a job and an apartment and settle down for a year. I'm not knocking it, because I love it. But it's very, very different to this.

But here I am, in Asia, nearing the end of my contract, and I didn't travel anywhere during my summer or winter breaks, so I'm finally going to go on a trip. An amazing trip!

I am flying in and out of Bangkok, so I'll check out some palaces and markets and all that. After a day or so I am going to head north to Chiang Mai. I'm already looking forward to the train journey, a window seat to admire the scenery and a good book and I'm golden. Chiang Mai has been highly recommended by a good few friends. I want to do a jungle trek, and I hear there is an elephant sanctuary there too. After a few days I might go west to Pai, near the Myanmar border. About half way through, I want to make my way down to the islands. I'm not sure if I should fly, or get a train, or instead of going there directly go back to Bangkok for a day and split the journey in two.
I want to visit Koh Phangan for sure, probably go to the full moon party, but a good friend has told me about some unreal and much more secluded areas as well that I have GOT to go to. I might check out another island too... I've really only become remotely familiar with Thailands geography in the past couple of hours, so this plan could change. And it probably will once I get there and meet some people in hostels and stuff.


So excited, yo!!

Don't be afraid, you're already dead.

the end of the year is nigh.

I dig new years eve.
I think it's because I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I like the whole self-reflection aspect, thinking back over the past year, the great times and the shitty times, the lessons learned, the changes you made and want to make. All that noise.
I get that it's just another day, it's just the turning of a calendar page, that the whole idea of a "new year" is abstract and contrived, but that's not important. It's a time when a lot of people feel they get a new start, and there's a real optimism there that I'm just into.

2012 has been real.
I moved to Korea, by myself. Some people think that's "brave", but it's not because it wasn't scary for me. I've always been quite independent. I'm good at upping to a new, faraway city, it's one thing I feel comfortable doing.

What was scary was accepting a job as a teacher, not knowing what age my students would be, or how many classes I would have, or whether I'd physically be able to stand up in front of a room full of adolescents and speak with some kind of authority. And so at the beginning, I was just acting. Pretending to be a teacher until one day I realised I was one. I have loved it.  I didn't think I liked kids before I came here -how ridiculous is that? That's almost like not liking people! (Wait...). These kids are awesome. Teaching has been awesome, getting to know my students has been awesome and those few students who started the year afraid to open their mouths but who now hang back after the bell rings to come up and say "enjoy your lunch, teacher!" are awesome!

What was scary was approaching a table of strangers, after psyching myself up for twenty minutes while sipping on a beer alone, introducing myself and asking if I could join them. This was three days after arriving, roaming around Bucheon on a mission to find the foreigner bar I had read about online. It might not sound like much, but that really took guts for me! And of course, they were all great people, and took me and and showed me a good time, and I met more new people, and they're all still my friends today. It's sweet when you do something scary and it pays off.

But by and large, coming to Korea hasn't been scary. I came with a job all secured, with accomodation sorted, with a sister who had been here before preparing me for some things and internet forums preparing me for the rest, with knowledge of cool music venues and decent restaurants from blogs and knowing there was a community of foreigners to meet. Next year, on the other hand? Next year is kind of terrifying!

I finish up my contract at the end of February. Then I have a few weeks to travel, and then I'm home. Home will be great for the first couple weeks and then I will go stir crazy, but realistically, it will probably be about two months before I take off again. This time on a one year US visa. Whereabouts? I have no idea. Maybe Portland, maybe San Francisco, maybe New York or Philly or anywhere else. Wherever I can find a job related to my masters. That's going to be the scary part for me. Applying for a real job, a job I'm qualified for but totally inexperienced in. Ugh.  I'm scared that I won't find one, and scared that I will! But I'm huge excited for moving and being back in the US and making more new friends and hopefully seeing some old ones too.

New years resolutions? Don't be afraid, you're already dead. And be more punctual. Yeah.

tabula rasa

I'm glad I'm not in your moleskins, not on your blog.

I don't belong there.

I'm not one of those girls.

I mean, those girls seem fine. In fact, I'd love to grab a beer with your ex. Talk shop. 

But I was never your girlfriend the way they were your girlfriends. I was never an exercise in how you presented yourself to the world, and I'm thankful for that.

sick

I have a kidney infection. Apart from the whole pee thing, I've also got an intense pain in my side  and was in agony yesterday until I made it to the pharmacy, walking doubled over the whole way, to get some painkillers.

So, I mentioned it to my co-teacher, saying I must go to a doctor after work. However, she says in Korea I have to go to a urologist or a women's clinic, not just any old doctor. No problem, I say. Oh but there is a problem. And she tells me in a hushed voice, that actually urologists and women's clinics also treat.. "sexual diseases" (by which I assume she means chamydia, HPV, pregnancy etc.)and it would be very "shameful" if a student or parent spied me entering such a premises  and therefore insists on driving me to one on the other side of town.

Who knew kidneys could be so scandalous?

(On the awesome side, FOUR DOLLARS for a consultation and prescription of antibiotics? Unreal!)

Heel, boy.

Reasons I want a dog:
1. They're super cute!
2. I like having a thing to love. I'm actually really good at it.
3. I like being loved back! And licked!!
4. Winter is coming and we can snuggle up on rainy nights.
5.  I'm finally at a place where I'm totally ready for one. I think.


Reasons I don't want a dog.
1. I'm leaving Korea in six months -what then? I'll miss it if I leave it here, but it'd be a hassle to take it home and I kind of planned on going travelling alone.
2. I'm super selfish. I like being able to go out with my friends all weekend without feeling guilty that it's waiting for me at home.
3. Having a dog can be expensive.
4. They make your apartment super messy and smelly and you find their hair EVERYWHERE.
5. I can't even commit to a brand of fabric softener.



Huh. I guess I feel pretty much the exact same way about dogs as I do about boyfriends.

Let's talk about sexts, baby

Okay so I'm late to this party, or at least to posting about it. I'm listening to a re-run of a talk radio show from this afternoon and they are talking about the current teenage phenomenon of "sexting". It frustrates me to hear these same arguments played out. Although at least this is one thing that actually does happen as opposed to the outcry over mythical "rainbow parties" and the jelly bracelets that depict a girl's sexual reportoire. Because of course the only teen sex scandals the media is interested in are the ones that involve girls behaving badly. Circle-jerking rarely gets airtime.

So what? Girls and young women take photos of themselves partially or fully naked and send them to boys, as a means of flirting. And in some cases, the images end up getting circulated around the whole school/town/internet. Now I'm not saying this whole things is no big deal. Yes, sexting is problematic, especially when you are talking about underage girls and the distribution of what then becomes child pornography. [Though the case of charging underrage girls for taking pictures of themselves is ridiculous... talk about not granting them ownership of their own bodies!]. The images can also be used manipulatively to threaten and bully those in them. And while these issues may be taken seriously at the legislative and schoolboard levels, in the domain of popular media -television, radio shows, magazine articles, it seems that the danger of the sexting craze is the potential shame that is bound to occur if other people see your body, and the very idea that girls would want to send pictures of themselves to boys at all is made out to be horrifying.

The warning seems to be that naked photographs are extremely personal, that they should kept private and that because of the easily shared nature of digital media, should not even be sent to partners/boyfriends and the like in case things turn sour/a phone is lost and suddenly the whole basketball team/boardroom has seen your tits.

It's not bad advice really, but sometimes you want to live a little. And if a saucy text ends up in the wrong hands, so what?

They are just breasts. Most women have them. We are bombarded everyday with images of breasts, or at least an airbrushed, silicone-pumped [per]version of them, on television, bilboards, online. They are nothing new.

Are women's breasts de-valued everytime they are seen?

Are women de-valued everytime their breasts are seen?

Yes, it can be embarrassing when something we expect to be kept private is made public, be it a photograph, email, or old diary. But the idea that our very bodies are something to be humiliated by is wrong and damaging. That something so mundane as taking your clothes off may affect your reputation, impede your chances at employment or promotion, and simply de-value you, is awful and instead of flat out warning girls not to photograph themselves we should also be pointing out that your life does not end once people have seen you in [or out of] your undies.

And of course, through all of the discussion, nobody talks about boys sending naked images of themselves to girls. And yes they do. Maybe not as much, maybe just as much, but oh yes they do. And nobody cares. Because once he's doing it of his own will, a shirtless picture of a young man, even with his pants down is not considered as damaging to his reputation, or as humiliating, or as wrong. Unlike young women,his worth is not based on his sexual purity. His naked body is not even considered as sexual as a naked girl's body. Boys who send overtly sexual messages are not wearing down the moral fibre of society, it's not cause for concern.

No, instead, the media's account of this problem is that girls are going wild, that their sexuality is dangerous, and that they will end up as the victims in this. The fear is that sexting is only symptomatic of what the girls are actually DOING with boys, even though this is not usually the case. How about we start having some real conversations with girls and young women, and hell, older women too for that matter. Coversations about their sexuality and how there is nothing wrong with expressing it, and even maybe better, more authentic ways of expressing it? What kind of models do young women have for this? There is such a narrow range of idols provided to girls in mainstream media, and most of them eventually strip off for Maxim anyway. Or Playboy -an empire that markets fashion and jewellery lines to preteen girls. And then we act surprised when they start to take their clothes off and pose? Maybe they feel that such behaviour is the only way they can compete for male attention because they are quite aware of the images of women boys are used to seeing every day. Why don't we talk to girls about more meaningful and less risky ways of relating to boys, and how they don't need to depend on their bodies? How about we discuss what to do if sexting does result in your picture all over Facebook and how, while it's natural to be embarrassed, ultimately other people's reactions to your body say more about them than you?

We all know the conflicting messages this culture sends to girls, it's nothing new. They are told that being beautiful, sexy and desirable is so important, while simultaneously being told to be innocent and chaste and not act on any desires they have themselves. No wonder many girls equate their sexuality with looking sexual. You can look without touching, you can be sexualised without being sexual. Until we start having conversations about this, girls are going to continue to think think healthy sexual expression is about looking sexy, wanting to be wanted, and getting kicks out of turning on the boys without actually owning their own sexual wants.

Maybe some people are just worried that in this case, for once, nobody is actually making any money from the sexualisation of girls and women?

Overly cynical? Perhaps. But pornography is an obscenely lucrative industry. And just as record companies argue that file sharing could destroy the music industry, those in the porn business may feel they are losing a buck for every naked picture a girl sends out for free.