A Letter for October

Seoul, Korea

October 21, 2012

Dear Kith and Kin,

The month wanes and I continue to lack any topical focus on which to launch a blog post.  Hence, I shall resort to the letter format and actually post it instead of emailing it to selected  individuals . . . as I did with my last letter-formatted post back in February—the one in which I confessed  my surrender to a $50 Botox injection from a doctor here in Seoul!  (After all the subsequent confessions, hilarious anecdotes, and interested queries of friends and family members, I have concluded there is no shame!)

Since my return to Seoul in August, a lot has not unfolded as anticipated—or even hoped for.  Still, all is really quite good, and maybe that is one of the truths about living a life. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, this school year I teach eighth grade English Language Arts all day every day, and, while in the classroom with my students, I regularly have these “Oh, how I’ve missed you!” moments.  I smile, for I am content and often just down-right excited!

Averaging three runs per week, I advance my distance in seriously small but ever steady increments and tell myself, “See, you just ran farther than you’ve ever run before in Seoul!”  A week ago Saturday, though, I missed the post-sponsored 5K because of a “cold” (that’s how my mom always explained these symptoms to me) in my back shoulder muscle that somewhat crippled my upper body movement for about six days.  The garrison events calendar for November lists another 5K, so perhaps I will run that one instead.

This fall I’ve also accepted that my allegiance has shifted regarding the preferred delivery system of one of my premier beverages of choice—Diet Coke:  I no longer belong with the fountain drink contingent and have joined my nephew Justin in believing that the optimal way to imbibe soft drinks would be via a bottle!  In fact, I’ve become enormously picky about my soft drink of choice and frequently choose water over a Diet Coke that cannot be “delivered” in a preferred manner.  The bottle format reigns supreme now although I do indulge occasionally in the fountain styles despite their often lackluster calibrations of flavor to fizz.  Generally the canned versions enter my gullet only when I travel and arrive at that juncture of “great need” that cannot otherwise be assuaged.  But truly, despite this delivery system discussion at hand, COLD—and the icier the COLD, the better—remains the prevailing requirement for any Diet Coke.

Recently I have read a few books which have left an impression:  (1) Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale, (2) Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son,  (3) Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and (3) Tony Wagner’s The Global Achievement Gap.  By impression, I mean I find myself replaying in my mind lines or ideas or some combination of both that lie within these works.  Two books I would recommend to my readers at large:  The Global Achievement Gap, which speaks to much of my own concern and frustration with the current state of public education, and The Orphan Master’s Son—a novel set in North Korea—which just bent my mind and may haunt me for weeks to come.

And when I’m not teaching school or running or reading books, I’ve been watching entire seasons of TV shows, courtesy of Netflix:  season three of Glee—a show with which I’ve developed quite a conflicted relationship here in season three—and the final season of House.  I have a few more episodes to view before the House finale, and I’m beginning to be afraid I might cry.  Will I cry?  Okay, don’t tell me; I really don’t want any spoilers.

On Sundays I conduct a regular perusal of two Seoul neighborhoods—my own and the one where my church is located.  In between the jaunt through each neighborhood is a subway ride.  I peruse on the subway, too, of course, because how can one not be fascinated by people on a subway?!  Apparently, many are not so fascinated, though, because most are totally engrossed with their phones (music, video, games, or social networking)—even when the true love is seated right beside—or else they nod off.  (On multiple occasions I have had someone lean onto my shoulder before jerking awake!)  Still, I do catch people staring at me at some point in every subway journey, but fair’s fair because I’m definitely looking, too, . . . in a polite way, I hope!  Now, I do own a smart phone with its own array of apps and an ever increasing library of music, but I don’t care to be lost inside its realms while walking or riding the subway.  In fact, I’ve even forsaken the playlists while running.  I don’t want to miss the sounds of the world around me—birds, voices, engines, footsteps, breaths, even my heartbeat.  My favorite smart phone app while traipsing the neighborhoods is the camera, and I will conclude this letter with a few shots rendered via my iPhone camera!

Until November,

E

Here is the neighborhood near the church.

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 This is my neighborhood after leaving Seoul Station and heading toward home.