Reading "The Courage to Be Yourself"

People read books to understand themselves, their future, their society, and the people around them. People read books through their need of searching. I read books because I want to escape from the thoughts that often plague me. The common thoughts shared by all people- adequacy, expectations, and should statements adapted through present and past circumstances. The reality is that I read to run away and yet try to understand what I run away from. I am a person.

Currently, I am reading a book that, if you asked my earlier 20 self, she would be aghast at. It is a self-help book. It is a self-help book that requires one to either truly consider the complexities of herself or lets the woman just read without too much forethought. (Yes, it is a book for women.) Having picked up this book is what has really surprised me. It felt just the same as when someone addicted admits their addiction- yes, I have a problem. In my case, it is self-admonishment, unrealistic expectations, and self-delivered consequences through headaches and self-imposed cruelty. I have admitted I have a problem, and in many ways, it is like a drug; an almost 20 year habit that one depends on to keep "improving."

This book mainly asks something simple- to reflect and be honest. Easy to do but hard to apply. This skill is not foreign to someone who has taught in various circumstances to variously aged students for the last nine years. It is a common tool used in effective teaching. The difference lies in that as a teacher, we reflect on lesson plans, relationships, circumstances, and essentially how to adapt and modify a lesson to better help students. When it comes to actively applying it to one's self, it becomes infinitely more difficult. Compare it to a guard policing ones thoughts constantly. Freedom becomes limited through trying to change a reinforced habit that use to exist quietly repeating itself. That constraint makes one feel uncomfortable and more accurately, semi-trapt. Thus, the goal's crux is application.

Reading this book is a test of character and determination. To work through it, exercising its golden informative nuggets, and continue reading will be a feat that should be written about. This is not just applicable to myself, an almost-turned-30 internationally traveling teacher and artist, but to anyone who truly sits down with their demons with resolution to, in blunt terms, slay the dragon. Good luck, courage, and strength to women who are undertaking the same task. I know I will need it.

Music: Sweet Nothing

Preface- I am not a writer or a poet. I use to be, but not anymore. What I can do, though, is put words to music..so here we go.

The Song: Sweet Nothing
Artist: Calvin Harris ft. Florence Welch

The text:

Steps are moving through me. I feel the beat of each pouncing step. The emptiness follows me as I walk along the pavement. It does not quiet. It does not slow. A I continue walking, the beats get stronger. The steps become louder. I feel sweat break on my brow. Something is there. Is it following me or inside me? Where is it coming from? Why am I here?

 I break into a run. Out running my own throughts, fears, dreams. not knowing if any are real. Not knowing if any of them make any sense.

The steps behind me slow. I was sure it was me, but maybe it wasn't. I feel a bit more lost as the beats continue. Pat-pat-pat. The steps are speeding up again. The running beat starts. I am unsure if it is me or not. Where are these fear coming from? My dreams are pushing me forward, telling me to run, to try, and to fight.

I keep moving. To stop would be insanity. One must keep moving. Slow or fast, we move. The fear pushes us. Dankness tries to swallow people when it comes, but we move onwards. If those footsteps, inside or out, do not push us, what will? We must move. Walk. Run. Sprint. Tackle. Move. We must keep going, a the dreams only push us through our fears.

Meeting Practice

I am told that to write, one has to practice.Here is Practice:

 "Hello, Practice. How are you?" How is the sky today? Did you know it was the transit of Venus, and both in Auckland, New Zealand and California, USA the cloud cover decided it was more important than a once in every 105/120 year occurrence?"

"Oh," says Practice, "but it comes in pairs...surely you would have heard about the first transit of Venus? They do occur in pairs. It would have been back in 2004."

As I, the lone, superfluous blogger quietly ruminates over what Practice has said, a reality strikes my mind as in a slow, sinuous method..--"It is 2012."

Practice smiles, as only a cold, well-known foe could. He/she knows that I missed the first transit of Venus for some odd reason, primarily a combination of ignorance and university-related depression. He/she knows that I would have done almost anything to have seen that first transit of Venus if someone has shared that information with me then. He/she knows, by stating this fact, they leading my mind down the dark, fermented path of unknown and confusing past tidings.

"Practice," I commence with the same quietly serenity of a chainsaw, "do you love aggrieving me so? Is it a past time that you believe with sharpen your fine canines so that you may enjoy a semi-cannibalistic feat over the next session?"

Once again, Practice smiles, this time his/her canines showing. "Why, how could I else wise teach you the meaningless mistakes of your way? How could I humble you so that you understand these mistakes are meaningless, and the only true meaning is the repeated visiting to myself?"

I quietly stare at Practice, down-trodden, and disheartened. If Practice does enjoy these sessions of failed attempts and limited hyperboles (if any at all), to what direction can I work towards from here? What positive attempts will gain me any satisfaction and clarification over my own means and ends?

Here lies the victim of Practice. One who tried, met her demise, and will be joining the great genderless enigma at her next semi-cannibalistic feast.

New Post (Outside to the In)

This is the first time I have posted to this blog in a three years. When it began, I was still a early 20-something that hoped others would read it and see my possibly linguistically "illuminating" experiences teaching ESOL and learning Korean in Bucheon, South Korea. Now, I would be stoked if some people will find it interesting and learn something- oh, how the wise are correct, and often the old are wise.

So, an introduction: I am Laura. I am 28. I have taught in four different countries, India, South Korea, the USA, and New Zealand, in that order. I have taught Arts, ESOL, EFL, Science, Chemistry, but mostly, Mathematics (Math or Maths depending where you originate). I have been demur, head covered, naive, and whatever else a culture required of me. I am now outspoken and honest, a bad mixture in with being young, female, and foreign in the school I work at, but again, I do not really care.

I have learnt that no matter where I am, I will always be judged by my appearance. In extremely cultural differences, such as South Korea and India, I did not mind and expected the change. In less apparently extreme cultural differences, like New Zealand, it bothers me to no end. (Just because I look 25 does not MEAN I am 25- I have six years of teaching behind me, not just two, thank you very much.)

I have learnt that not having a set of balls in education is just as difficult in advancing in ones job as not having a set in business. Combined with begin young and foreign, I have signed my own stagnant status sentence.

So, what is the solution for three years of trying where I am have been shoulder-tapped but not given the position?(I know, a long time to stay in one place, call me wanting to believe in a hope.) To leave. Move again. I have learnt and taught by wandering, and now, it is time to wander again.

Many Years...Many worlds..Many Languages Later.....( Part 1)

Now, as time has passed and I have rediscovered this blog, I decided I may might as well try to continue the semi-intellectual musings of an inner poet gone rampant, or silent, as you would prefer.

For just a quick update, I left South Korea in July '07, toured Europe for a bit (about a month), and then returned to my "home" in the US. Now, please keep in mind, my home in the US was not a place I have ever been, visited, or desired to go to before. The reason for my sudden new travel to a grass-forbidden part of the country was as follows: my parents retired there. Not having seen then for longer than a month in over 6 years, it was time for me to visit, even if it was in a desert that made me wish to fly into the sky so I could touch the damp moisture in the clouds.

Once upon arrival, I promptly and successfully fell into re-aligning culture shock. To wash out this term a little more, for lack of better words, re-aligning culture shock is equivalent of moving out of a country for about two years, and then returning to the same country but in a part that you have never seen or experiences before, and that is as different as could be possible from where you lived previously in that country. That was Santa Fe, New Mexico. In that little world, I had to "re-align" with a set of values and systems that were reminiscent of ones I knew prior, but completely different in form and function. Thus, the culture shock part.

Anyways, my flatmates just got home, so more later....

갚은 생각이....

deep thoughts....

when i was a child, i used to think language never mattered because it was only what people used to communicate, and because I could pick-up any language i wanted quickly and relatively easily....it never hit me that i was relatively gifted in this, adn was bale to see things beyond others in a foreign country because of this ability....but now....

this blog was meant to be a semi-iintellecutal analysis of my surrounds and lessons..instead it is changing to my normal inner, deep-ish ramblings....

guess not much changes when everything else does....

anyways, back to the point, i thinks this ability had given me a skewed vision of the world-- i thought that language would not set0up serious barriers, or that it would really change a persons mind, but what i am learning is, even in a country with the "race=centered" identity as much as SK (which, granted is needed after what these people have been though, and is changing as the society-culture needs to now...) learning another or new language really does change a persons' mind, even the ones who dont want it. whats more, even these peopls emotional beings are changed in a manner that the emoitons change based on the language spoken (the emotions either fititng the langauge spoken, or more adaptive(healthy?) style, the person merges between the two cultures....now here is the question: WHAT IF IT IS THREE? What happens to the person's brain, emotions, inner being/ what happens??? I have learnt three languages (a little more outside of the countries) well, and now all i find is my semi self-hurting inability to speak the latest one...or belief that i cant keep all three in my head fluently as I use to do...interesting, eh?

i have a feeling that i could be a pshychologist faovrite study sometimes....

too many experiences, too little time,,,,too many changing headaches, perhaps?

cares and peace and true wish for love between all beings...

아마! AMA!

After having lived in SK (South Korean) for about you, I feel like I am in a culture-shock boot camp. It was at the end of the ngiht tonight that I realized this living-culture similie. This is how you could enter a culture-shock boot camp.:

1. realize a year after working here, that the social-work situation is the EXACT OPPOSITE of a typical American, and in another way, Northern Indian (another place I lived and worked), work situation. Most South Korean people seem dedicated to "bal-li (빨리) concept." This is when a person, or group of people, will move as fast as they can to get to work, but, once at work, socialize almost as much as they work. This unique occurence, at least as I know so far, is specifically Korean: Most Koreans spend very little time eating, not talking much and eating as fast as possible when they have work to do. In addition to this fact, many SK sarams (한국사람들이, or SK people, do not sleep enough due to their work loads. Yet, ironically, or most interesting, most of this occurence happens partially because of the agricultural social hsitory of Korea. Since most people were farmers working with their families for most of Korea's history, the families would focus more on working, and the talking/enjoying style working while plowing the fields, than focused socializing time. As a consequence, a current Korean work place has a very social atmosphere while the food table does not. (Next blog will connect the drinking culture within this premise.)

--- Please keep in mind, all this information will come from conversations with Korean friends, articles I have read, or my own musings. Please understand that none of it is a fully verified and researched opinion...It is just me figuring things out by the end. Please, now enjoy!^^----

Number two in next blog: Couple break-up, make-up(?), break-up, re-make-up(?) lessons: A cross cultural affair....

Good night. I apologize if this rambling was a little bit hard to understand. It is currently 4:20 AM here. (Any pot-loving person will find this time humourous^^) Night!좋은 밤 보내세요