"So, how was Korea?"

"What's it like to be home?"

Those are two questions I get asked often (from people on both sides of the planet) and really, most of the time I have no idea how to go about answering them.

How do I go about summing up two years of my life? How do I explain how both foreign and comfortable being back here really is? I really don't have an answer. It almost seems like there are two very different worlds - North American and South Korea - and when I'm in one place, the other seems like it doesn't totally exist. So the transition is a little easier, I guess, because "here" and "there" are such different experiences, but I don't really have the words to talk about it in a way that makes sense to someone who hasn't been through it.

I'm peeling like crazy from the sunburn I got on Waedaldo before I left. I almost want to make some sort of "shedding of skin" analogy, but that is a little overly dramatic, even for me. For so long I've been in transition, and I find that I'm still there, for the most part. Maybe once I have a job, my own apartment, and have settled into life more firmly I'll have some sort of reaction. But right now, it is all about what task needs to be attacked next - alway something.

Right now I'm staying in a house my parents have in Indy (they usually spend the week in TH), and I'll be here until I have a job, as I need to know where I'll be working before I decide where I'll be living. I basically need to keep setting things up and knocking them down for the next few weeks, and I'm so lucky that I have my family to help while still having the alone time to process all of this. From being able to stay here, to offers of furniture from the basement, all of this would be much more overwhelming without them.

So being home is... different. It is nice, in that I understand EVERYTHING, can read signs, can drive, can shop and have choice. I like being here, and it feels like, overall, Indianapolis is the right place for me. But there is still so much that I miss, and sometimes everything is just sort of overwhelming right now.

breathe

I'm not even sure how to begin processing the leaving of this place. So this is not what this blog post is about. This blog post is about the clusterfuck of getting paid out when you leave Korea.

Today was basically a perfect storm of absences and miscommunication which lead to me trying to get paid my pro-rated severance and get it sent to the US for 7 hours. It involved crying in public more than once (oh, Korea, how circular. I had to cry to get my ID card in a reasonable amount of time my first week here) and about five-million cellphone coversations/text messages, three taxi rides, and a lot of sitting around fretting.

Yesterday morning, I went into my school to try to prevent this. The secretary told me that my money would be transfered that evening.

Error #1 - I didn't ask HOW MUCH money was going to be transfered.

When I checked my account, I was more than $2000 shy of what should have been deposited. I called my co-teacher to have her get in touch with the school the next morning.

I had an amazing night out with my friends, and if I write about it now I'll start crying all over again, so I'll save that for later. Besides, the pictures rock.

This morning, I call my co-teacher (who is a substitute, and probably not getting paid to deal with any of this mess) to remind her to call the school. She couldn't get in touch with them until 10, there was fumbling around with who needed to talk to whom about what. There were lots and lots of phone calls made, not a lot of getting things done.

Error #2 - I should have gone to the Mokpo Office of Education at this point. In my defense, my co-teacher recommended against going.

I waited, they were talking, looking at contracts, blahablahblah. Getting nowhere except worried. I finally went to the Office of Ed at about 1. There was a very nice lady there who told me they would get me the money. YAY! But because it was so late, she wasn't sure it could be done today. BOO! More tears, being told it would all be fine, and the nice lady at the office of ed called my school to tell them to get it done today, that it was important.

I went to my school, and waited for what seemed to be a million years for forms to be filled out, people called, people yelled over the phone, a few more tears, and finally, FINALLY for the money to be transfered. I took a taxi to the bank and got it all sent to the States about 30 minutes before the bank closed.

After, I sort of freaked out on Alex (Alex, I'm sorry I freaked out on you), got my cell turned off, got the last of the boxes shipped, and am waiting for a friend to come to grab dinner and to take the rest of the good stuff in my house away. I found out that they have changed this into a "couple's job" with a nearby school, and the other school will provide the apartment (SO SO GOOD. They would probably try to put two people in this shoebox of an apartment) so I'm getting rid of some of the stuff I was going to leave for my replacement.

People come and go often enough that getting paid the right amount on time without running around and begging for it shouldn't be an issue. But it is. Though in some ways, it sort of helps because you are focused on getting things done and money rather than the fact that you are leaving some really amazing friends.

Okay, so that was a really long way to say I thought I wasn't going to get paid but I did and that is good and I'm ready to leave.

Accidental vegetarian. Maybe.

I think I have accidentally become a vegetarian. Or am at least in the process thereof.

Some back story: It is officially Summer in Korea. There are two "special" summer foods in Korea - samgaetang - a soup that is made with chicken and ginseng, and which is very good (link is to a recipe) - and bosintang (link is to Wikipedia) - dog soup.

I understand that there are cultural differences related to food, and there are things that we eat that other cultures think is unappetizing. Also, when you have people who are really poor, they will eat just about anything and will sometimes turn something I think of as gross into a delicacy (haggis, anyone?), which can get continued once the culture moves out of poverty. And, as always, I don't have to eat it.

But what bothers me is the way the animals are treated, and the way they are killed. There are dog farms all over the rural parts of Korea, and in most cases, the dogs are beaten before they are killed. I've heard two reasons - one is that it makes the meat more tender, and the second is that since the dog meat increases "male stamina" (yes, really, this is what they say) the adrenaline released from the fear and the pain increases that property.

A friend's house is on school grounds above the school's custodian. The custodian has a small dog farm. (THE LINKS ARE VERY GRAPHIC AND VERYVERY UPSETTING. You have been warned) and one night, I was talking about the whole dog meat thing right after a conversation about the American beef protest hoopla. A friend pointed out that the way we treat most animals raised for food in the US is pretty horrific, too, and perhaps I was being a bit hypocritical, judging one as ok and the other as wrong.

The point was more of a challenge of our "our way is right/their's is wrong" conversation, which is really good to raise when a group of (mostly) foreigners is talking about the country in which we choose to live. Also, she had a good point, and while I thought it over, I found myself getting more and more grossed out by meat, telling myself to just not think about how they were raised/killed, how it HAD to be much better than what offended me so much about the dogs here, just so I could eat. But when it comes down to it, if I have to make myself not think about what I'm eating, that is a huge problem.

Maybe if I had the option of "happy dead animals" I'd feel different - animals raised and killed ethically. But right now, that isn't an option and in the States, that is an expensive option. So for the time being, I'm sticking mostly to fish. I just don't even want beef or pork, and while I'm not ruling out poultry, I have no desire to cook it AT ALL.

I really have no idea where this is coming from, where it will go, or how long it will last, but seeing the dog farms, or the walk along what turned into a row of butcher shops with pig parts in buckets on the streets, or any of the other horrors of where meat really comes from (hey, did you know it wasn't from a styrofoam tray!?) while living here has turned me off meat, at least for the time being.