One semester to go

I finished my last two final exams for the semester today, and now I just have to write ~20 pages for a history of medicine class by Friday. If you were wondering why I haven't posted for months, school is the main reason. Also, I am not in Korea, so I have seen and talked to my friends and family a lot more; and, America is not as interesting to me as Korea is.

This semester has been by far the most complicated one. I suppose I couldn't expect less considering I signed up for five classes and planned to support myself and my fiance for three months while trying to spend as much time together as possible before he had to return to Korea. Visa laws are evil.

In case you're curious about the kinds of classes I take for my International Studies major and Psychology cognate, I'll tell you what I took this semester: cultural anthropology, introduction to international relations, history of international relations, history of medicine, and biology and psychology of sex and sexuality. This was the first semester since middle school when I respected most of my teachers. I tend to have a disdain for the educational system, and am a strong believer in "those who can't do, teach." Also "those who can't do or teach, manage." That is why I don't bother applying for part-time jobs anymore. So where does my income come from? Private English as a second language tutoring. I've been doing it for three years and have an ESL (TESOL) teaching certification. Considering the fact that I have personally studied 3 foreign languages, I can relate to ESL students and understand what they are trying to say because I'm usually familiar with the grammar of their language. So for me, it's basically talking to friends whom other people can't understand, and trying to help them improve so other people can understand them.

While my fiance was here I had five students: two from South Korea and three from Saudi Arabia. I met them an average of 3 hours per week per student, not including travel time, so I was working about 15 hours a week. That doesn't sound like much now that I think about it, but it felt like a lot.

Kyu Won couldn't go to school or work in America (visa laws are evil), so he and my brother's cat, Polly, hung around the house all day while I went to school and work. Sometimes he went out and explored. Every Tuesday and Thursday I had an hour and a half between the end of classes and meeting my first student, so Kyu Won spent those days cooking at home (he's a chef) and brought dinner to me on campus. We ate together and talked, then he studied cooking and/or English while I tutored, and then we went home together. On Mondays and Wednesdays he would cook dinner at home around 9 or 10 so it would be ready when I got home, and we would eat together and talk or watch TV. I really miss that. My apartment is about a 10 minute walk from the nearest bus stop, and it's in a residential neighborhood , so it gets really dark and creepy at night. It was always nice to have him there with me or knowing that he was waiting for me at home. Fridays I didn't have class, so he came with me to campus and studied or explored while I tutored, and then we had time to ourselves.

It was very stressful for both of us living under those circumstances. For Kyu Won, he wanted to work and support me while I went to school, but all he could do was be the equivalent of a housewife. Psychological studies have shown that men whose wives earn more than they do have higher levels of stress, and that the higher the ratio of woman:man household income, the shorter the man lives. Those studies may or may not be complete bogus, but I think there's truth in those results. Also, the language barrier was very stressful in daily life for him. In Korea, when I speak a little Korean, people are amazed and think I'm a genius. In America, if a foreigner speaks a little English, Americans think he or she is an idiot and not worth talking to. All of my students dread the typical American "what????" and this was especially difficult with my friends. Most of my friends are really kind, understanding, and patient. But not all of them. It's very humiliating to need someone to translate from your broken English to American English. On top of all that, there was culture shock. Kyu Won had never been on an airplane before, and the only country he'd ever visited was Japan. I kind of know that feeling.....

For me, having him here was extremely stressful, but having him gone is equally stressful. While he was here, I felt guilty because I couldn't take him traveling or buy him all the American things I wanted to buy him or help him make friends or even spend enough time with him. He was so lonely waiting for me at home all day, and then when I finally got home I was exhausted and only half there. I felt like I dragged him to this country just to imprison him for 90 days. It was a paradox: I felt like I needed to earn more money, and I felt like I needed to spend more time with him. I couldn't have both. Another paradox: he had all the time in the world and couldn't earn money, and I didn't have enough time in the day to earn enough money. I took out some $5000 in student loans just to get through this semester, and needed every penny even though I worked and earned money, too.

The stress of not having enough time or money was intense, but I didn't have to do laundry or wash the dishes or cook or anything. No matter how hard the day was, I had a loving pair of arms to come home to. Another psychological study shows that married people are happier than single people. This could be for a variety of reasons, both emotional and physical (I mean like chemicals in the brain and bloodstream, for those of you with dirty minds). When I was sick, he took care of me. When I was sad, he hugged me and did sweet little things to make me happy. When I was happy, he made me happier. When I was hungry, he fed me.

Now I only have to support myself, but I have a negative balance on my credit card that is slowly creeping back to zero. But, there's nobody at home. Just me. And the cat, who sometimes drives me crazy and requires more attention that I care to giver her. I'm depressed and empty, like a shark bit a hole out of my abdomen and nobody came to the hospital to condole me. I have friends and family, but it's not the same. It's been over a month since he left. He got on a plane early in the morning on my 22nd birthday, March 25th. Ironic... last year I got on a plane to Korea on the 26th. I haven't had a birthday party for two years. All of the feelings I had that drove me to sell everything and run away to Korea are still here in East Lansing, but now there's the added one of being lonelier than a single person. I know he's out there, I know I love him, but I can't remember him clearly and he can't be here to remind me. I finally quit tutoring about two weeks ago. I asked my mom to support me until I graduate in July. For the first time since I was 16, I admitted that I can't take care of myself.

Every day I have to tell myself that I only have to be here a little longer. Now it's just two months more. I'll be living in a single room in a dormitory on campus. I don't want a roommate unless it's him or my best friend, and they will both be in Korea (my best friend is Korean, and she goes home during the summers). Also, I won't have to worry about housework, and there is a piano so I can compose songs and work on a Korean pop song I want to play and sing for my fiance when I return to Korea.

I apologize for the depressing nature of this and the last post. I was thinking of telling a cheerful story, but that would be mostly a lie. I didn't enjoy my life here before I went to Korea, and I especially don't enjoy it now that I was forced to come back because my adviser didn't take my situation seriously and advise me not to go because I couldn't graduate in Korea. No, he said I could graduate without returning to America before I bought the plane ticket. I'm bitter about that. Anyway I decided to keep in the spirit of honestly blogging my life and my thoughts about it. I'll start blogging more now that the semester is over, so there will be ups and downs again, and the quirky insights you all tell me you love. Stay tuned!

Languages and the languages within them

Rather than give a play-by-play of my life for the last 5 months, I'll try to jot down some of my observations both of how I've changed and how my fiance dealt with the entirely new experience of living in a country he'd never been to and couldn't really speak the language of very well.

For me, it felt like I had been gone a million years and come back a different person to a totally different world, but at the same time it felt as though I had left only a day before and nothing had really changed. Upon arriving in America, suddenly my 9 months in Korea seemed like a dream that had passed in the blink of an eye but contained so many experiences. The fast-slow time paradox still hasn't faded, as I realize that this semester I had dreaded so much is almost over. As I write, I should be studying or writing one of my numerous papers due this week, final exam week at Michigan State University. This is my last full semester here; I will finish my studies on July 1st. That day can't come soon enough. But where did the time go? Was I ever in Korea? Was I ever here before, searching for a way out? Will the day I leave again ever come? Time is anything but exact. It's a subjective measure applied objectively to an abstract phenomenon. I hate time. It's never on my side. I guess that's because I only notice it when it doesn't work in my favor.

It takes about 2 weeks to get over jet lag when you fly between Asia and America. This is a generally accepted reality, and it was no different for Kyu Won and I. Amidst a dream-like state, we celebrated Christmas with my mother and brother, and then again with my brother, father, and stepbrother. Everything in my family happens in twos. If you include the extended families and stepfamily, things sometimes happen in fives. This could be part of the reason I'm good at adapting. I'm always changing anyway, why not be a chameleon? Anyway, both American Christmases were just like I remembered them, plus a feeling of awkwardness and a sense that I didn't belong. I've always had that sense that I don't belong in my family. I also had the sense that I didn't belong in my friend groups in elementary, middle, and high school. I always have a sense that I don't belong anywhere, except when I'm alone with my fiance. That's a good sign for our relationship.

After coming back to America, that sense of being an included outcast became even greater. I had two roles in conversation: telling everyone else about Korea, or listening to everyone else talk about things I didn't know about. I still think in Korean often, and at the beginning, I inserted Korean words into English conversations. I was always trying to bring up Korea because I had nothing else to talk about; it was like the "word vomit" Lindsay Lohan's character has issues with in Mean Girls. At some point it became evident that nobody cared, but I couldn't stop. I needed to be admired so that I could stand out of the group in a positive way rather than in an awkward way.

I know Kyu Won felt even more awkward, because he couldn't understand the fast speech, slang, and complicated words and phrases in American conversation. He had only heard me speak to one American in Korea, and to my best friend, who is Korean but has studied in America for like 6 years and is fluent in English. With my best friend, Jenny, we could also speak in Korean, and she could translate anything one of us couldn't understand, so it wasn't really an American conversation. My family is sarcastic and witty, and tends to talk about technical things, as both my parents and my brother are or were engineers. My mother is a lawyer now but has worked as an engineer for companies like GM and NASA. My father is an automotive engineering sales manager after working his way up the ladder. You may remember I saw him on a business trip in Korea. My brother majored in electrical engineering and is basically a wonder boy. He programs and builds things for computers, guitars, motorcycles, and more, and he once built a high-tech motorcycle with touch screen rear-view mirrors and Windows XP installed. I almost failed statistics in high school and college, and my major is International Studies and Psychology. I can't keep up with my family. I always feel like the dumb one in my family, although I know I excel in other things, like languages and music composition. The other problem with the huge difference between the rest of my family and I is that I always feel alienated, like I love them but I don't know how to talk to them. This got a hundred times worse. Hopefully I also excel in acting and nobody noticed that I was more awkward than usual. Kyu Won must have felt like my pet, calmly sitting or standing by me, listening only to me, and not understanding what anyone was saying. I remember how that felt in Korea, and I still feel that way sometimes although I've improved a lot. Everyday conversations in Korean give me confidence because I can follow them, but as soon as things get technical I feel like a moron again. It doesn't matter whether it's my family talking about microcontrollers or my fiance's family reminiscing. Both are foreign languages to me, and it was strange to come back to America and make that connection.

I realized that language is not just English, Korean, French, or Japanese. Each language has its own sub-languages that only certain sub-cultures can understand. Take generation gaps in slang, for instance. Try telling you grandparents that you lol'd when your bff friended your bf's homie on Facebook coz he's smokin' hot. Technical terms and concepts create a huge language barrier between my family and I. Instead of thinking of language as purely a country- or ethnicity- based construct, I've begun to think of it in more multilateral terms. What I mean by that, for those of you who don't speak my language, is that languages aren't just alphabets and vocabulary. Language is made up of so many different factors. For instance, I have a English conversation student from Korea who is studying for her master's degree in statistics. If she were to explain what she's studying in depth (thankfully she doesn't torture me like that), I would probably have no idea what she was talking about. Although she is the foreigner and I am the American, I would not be able to understand her speaking prefect English. What a concept! I think languages like English and Korean are just the modes of expression, and that people who speak different languages could actually be speaking the same one but not understand each other. I'll explain that with the same student. If she talked to a Chinese student studying for a master's degree in statistics in Germany, they could talk about the same thing in four different languages and never understand each other, just like a doctor, a lawyer, a fisherman, and a chef could talk about their fields in the same language and never understand each other. To fully understand a conversation, you need to be fluent in two languages: the topic and the linguistic means of talking about that topic. You could expand on that and say that culture is a language. I've always thought that music is a language, but I never saw this big jumbled picture before. All of this because I don't understand my family any better now that I went to another country for 9 months than I did before I left.

This redefines compatibility for relationships. I realize why I love Kyu Won. We speak the same language, even though he speaks Korean and I speak English. We think in similar ways, and the ideas trying to get out are similar enough that we can break through the language barrier on the surface and reach a greater understanding of each other than I can with any of my friends or family members. We can't have witty reparte, and we can't chit chat for hours about nothing without difficulty. But we often don't realize that our conversations are strange and incomprehensible to others, or that we are from different countries and ancestries. To me, he's not Korean first, and to him I'm not American first. Those things are way down the list of things we think of when we think of each other, but they're the first things we use to describe each other to others.

So how do you talk to someone who doesn't speak your language? Speak another language you both know. Although most of our early conversations were about 60% body language and 40% a grammatically incorrect, unclear mix of jumbled words in Korean and English, I remember the ideas Kyu Won expressed to me as if they were expressed fluently in English. I merely translated those conversations into a format easier to file in my memory. Try it. Talk to someone from another country. Find a language you can share with someone you can't understand. It's amazing.