Guess what?
It’s already been three months since I’ve moved here. WOWZA!! Time flies when you’re having fun!! Well, fun for the most part anyhow. It has been a while since my last blog and the reason for this was because I was kind of in a downer. I guess CULTURE SHOCK finally hit and I found myself getting really frustrated with EVERYTHING. Top frustrations:
Mannerisms...Learning the language...Technology...Having to rely on my co-teacher for EVERYTHING!!
When I first arrived here, I had so much...tolerance I guess. I was just so excited and overjoyed to be working and living overseas that NOTHING bothered me. About mid October, things started to change. I noticed that slowly, I was starting to get really frustrated with many things. I was annoyed with the shoving, disgusted with the spitting, queasy over the smells. I was frustrated with learning Korean language and annoyed with seeing English used in the most useless ways. I was aggravated when using any type of technology at school because of the language barrier, and then feeling absolutely enraged with having to bother my co-teacher with every little thing such as banking, ordering internet, getting a cell phone, finding out about medical, how to use the heat and hot water, what’s my address, and etc…etc!! I guess the frustration stemmed from the loss of independence I started to feel. When you move to a new country, you really rely on the people around you…people you really don’t know at all. I guess I was beginning to find this bothersome.
Sad news from home also caused me to question if I had made the right decision to come here. There are just some things you don’t think about when you hop on a plane excited to begin a new career and life….and that something is death. Unfortunately, death also helps to put things into perspective. It made me realize that the above so called “problems” aren’t so awful after all…
The good news?
This slump was short lived! I had been warned previous to coming that these feelings would arise and that it’s completely normal. I’m happy to say that I’m feeling lovely and less annoyed about this whole experience. What else was helpful? Talking to my friends who live here about it. Turns out, many of them had been feeling the exact same way J
Phew!!
