Saturday, June 5, 2010

Spite

Bernard’s back in Canada now after two years of teaching ESL in Korea. For the past two weeks he’s been playing golf and watching sports on TV; his gf is travelling, I imagine. It’s almost two years since I’ve been back. I have a lot of “I should haves” and “shouldn’ts…” I imagine Bernard is starting to miss hard, those days in Korea. It’s difficult to describe the feeling of being there, working less than forty hours a week but feeling you have more than enough time to live and travel. You do. I should be sitting on the roof of my Gok-Pan apt right now, drinking and watching the sun set. Hearing kid’s excited voices echoing up the alley ways after their piano lessons or late night ESL classes. I could be catching up on emails at PC Ban, drinking that sweet apple soda and feeling rebellious by smoking cigarettes indoors. Feeling that I’m living the good life rather than now, just living a life. I don’t regret coming back; I regret leaving. The things you do for love will multiply somewhere, down the road, and eventually your detour panned out correctly in spite of the shitty directions you got in your life.

Bernard is golfing with his dad a couple of times a week. My own dad is somewhere in the south figuring out prostate tests and his next move. Bernard comes back to an economy recovering and his girl friend is still figuring out if beauty school is what she wants. He’s applied to grad school and the acceptantce letters are slow coming.

Although Gok-Pan’s apartment had its faults, I still think it was home and my “running away” (in quotation marks for now) was a brilliant idea in 2008 and what I needed. In three years (2013), I’ll run away again with a Masters degree and will feel like I’m the “master” of my destiny or at least, can choose a path that’s not lined with so much disappointment.

In Fall 2010 I should start my Masters in ESL. I second guess. “Should” because I still need to send in my letters of recommendation before July. And the school doesn’t have to accept me though I’m qualified. They can always find something legitimate to deny you. I always think about contingencies when it comes to school and work. With love, however, I don’t. I’m not in love anymore. I don’t speak with confidence and it shouldn’t matter. The school will make a decision in spite of my good grades and letters. In spite of my classroom visits and a dozen emails with one of the program professors. Life will spite me.

The car I’ll borrow from my mom to drive to class, will fail and waiting for her to make a choice about anything, no reasonable person should wait that long. The linguistics class I took two quarters ago and hated will be needed in the classroom. The knowledge I gleamed and those ugly nights I studied and suffered and got a tutor that saved me, will come alive like the resentment and anger I felt then because the course was a pre-requisite. I hope it won't be a premonition with the master's program. With those events my career path will be called into question again. I need something in my career to jettison me out of my career rut. If there is a thread in my life, it’s working in and around education. And, will a Master's help? We'll see.

Bernard and Charlene will meet later this year after three months of separation. Will their two year Korean relationship continue in the North American continent? Will all those things I told him he’ll miss about Korea shake him of his couch back home in Canada? Do LA Koreans who haven’t been back in twenty years, be so Americanized that they forget the real Korea? The feeling of walking down Gok-Pan’s streets, after a night of drinking and eating, when the world is calm and ajumas are throwing water over their restaurant sidewalks, will they long for this too? Is America’s life so much better and unique? Maybe Seoul made you feel claustrophobic but do you really believe that living in Los Angeles is better?