100th Post; Organizing Highs; Excitement; Confusion

This is my 100th post. I've been in Korea for a long time! That's pretty cool though. It's like a 100th-chapter in a book or something. Yikes.

Lots has been happening this past week. I've been sick, which hugely stanks, but I have to be grateful that it happened before China, and that I will have one week before leaving of health so I can rest properly. In addition to sickness caused by immune function weakness, Mother Nature also decided to so lovingly bestow upon me one of her most wretched reminders that I am, in fact, a woman. The one lucky thing about this awesome situation is that Mama N can use her own discretion as to the timing of these reminders if she deems appropriate, and so she did, thus saving me lots of trouble (hopefully!) in China. So, I just need to get through another few days of dizzyness and exhaustion and extra water poundage and waking up in the middle of the night from dreams (half dream half reality) of extreme thirst and teeth clenching and hopefully I will be worry free (essentially) as I head off to the land of beautiful scenery and fellow Ironmen.

Speaking of Haikou, I just got my passport back yesterday with my oh-so-beautiful Chinese Visa. This is really cool.

I've been busy buying everything needed for my journey, and thus making lots of lists as to not forget anything. I think after starting to make all the lists for China, I started to realize that in Korea, in the absense of a lot of things that I can control, making lists can be and is a huge help for relaxation aids, so I went out and bought lots of notebooks and folders and pens, etc, to better compartmentalize my life. I had bought two notebooks yesterday, one for helping me figure out what I want to do with my life (Career Journal / Research) and one for GRE studying. While these two were very helpful, I realized I need much more, so today I went to get three more for War and Peace Vocabulary / Study Aid, Olympic Preparation / Motivation / Inspiration, and Daily Accomplishments. I also bought folders (which are pretty hard to find here, at least ones with pockets) because just sticking loose leaf sheets in notebooks doesn't really cut it for me (I sound so insane right now but whatever) and lots of pens. This purchase was so exciting to unwrap and start labeling - I'm not exactly sure why...but I know it's partially because I am a little crazy and OCD but at least I am getting things accomplished.

The Career Journal is way overdue though - I need to start figuring out what I want to do with my life, and fast. I have 'narrowed' it down to 5 career paths, and have decided to set aside a minimum of 10 minutes each day to write down thoughts, hopes, research, etc, in hopes of figuring out what I want to do before my contract is up. A few paths could be strengthened by staying Korea another year (although recently this option has not been extremely favorable, for a few reasons, but that makes me sad because I really really like it here...), whereas others basically require a whole other education in which case I need to get on track as soon as possible so I am not entering the work force (without a PhD) at the age of 30. This decision, or just thinking about all of this, is kind of stressing me out, but making the journal has already served as stress alleviation. And the GRE notebook is helping to relieve the stress too because, if nothing else, I will be less of an idiot after studying hard, and also hopefully will be able to get a decent score when I take them again.

And speaking of stress...that is one reason why I'm not too sure about staying here another year. I used to function off of high levels of "stress" (I never liked to use the word) and would always be over anxious when not exercising in enormous amounts. However, I have learned to somewhat control that neverending stress that seemed to always accompany me, and realize that a) I don't want to be at a job where I am always feeling over-the-top stress from people above me (I can be plenty productive without feeling miserable with stress), b) I am able to demand a lot from myself without going psycho crazy, and thus I do not want an employer who demands more from me than I do of myself, and c) I do not want to be working directly with people who have do deal with that kind of stress at their job even if I am for some reason exempt from it. I am coming to realize that at my job now, c) is basically a reality, and I sometimes feel that a) might be becoming a reality as a result of c) being true. The thing is, the Korean school systems (at least elementary schools) are so incredibly intense about kids' progress, and this fact meshed with some of the methods or lack of methods by which they adhere to educate the children and control their behavior does not, in my opinion, create a working environment in which I can feel good about my performance and about the results of my performance. This might have somewhat to do with the fact that I am from a poorer school district and the government's expectations are the same from children in poorer areas, despite the fact that less of the children go to academies after school and thus are deprived of an extra education that many of the more wealthy children get in order to help them pass the required tests. I don't know - I mean, I talk with my co teacher about this sometimes, and I completely understand where she is coming from with her concerns about getting all of the students up to certain levels and trying to show people that watch our classes that we are "able to teach the students in ways which the results are deemed acceptable by the government" (I put that in quotes to mean that the "show" we put on when people watch our classes will give this impression), but also I have all these objections in my mind about the fact that there is no possible way for one or two teachers who have each kid in a class with 24-28 other kids, twice a week for 40 minutes each, to ensure that each child will be able to pass what the government requires. No way. That I see possible, at least. If someone thinking it is possible, then I applaud you, and ask you to show me the way, and if you can do it I assure you that I can do it as well. But it is just not possible. Not unless all of the children WANT to learn, which is not the case. We are in charge of not only teaching English, but of getting students to pay attention, and disciplining the students as well. Sometimes the co teachers even have to spend 10 minutes of the class disciplining. Ugh this frustrates me just talking about it. I'm going to move on...

Also, lately I have noticed that my self esteem is dropping, and it is making me say things sometimes that make me feel embarrassed when I realize that I am saying them. I feel like sometimes I say things out loud that are only meant for me to think when the common-sense filter is not working in my brain and thus I get stuck with these moronish-comments which probably serve just to bump up my self esteem. And while I'm sure it's not arrogant what I am saying, I still feel embarrassed to feel that my mind feels the need to let out these words to other people, even if I make a comment after the utterance of how I might not have meant the words as they sounded. So I am going to try to start thinking more before I speak - to let more time passso I can decide if I really want to say what is about to come out of my mouth. Maybe a week where no speaking, other than brief, simple answers to questions, and no offering up of information.

Anyway, I'm gonna watch an episode of Friends (which I happily rediscovered recently) before riding for a bit. Yay for the trainer! :)