First of all, I want to make it clear that I love it here and would not trade this experience for anything in the world. This country is beautiful, the people are well dressed and friendly, and I'm already trying to figure out how I can spend more time here in the future.
Which brings me to my first stress factor of the day. I have a meeting with the commanding officer of the Army Corps of Engineers here in Korea. He's a colonel who is responsible for a multi-million dollar budget here on the peninsula and I'm going on base to talk to him about working with them in the future. I'm 19 and own one pair of ill-fitting khakis. I have a thoroughly average GPA and a high school diploma. I'm really nervous that I'm under dressed, going to say something stupid, or am going to come off as uninformed and looking for a job based solely off of connections. I'm not even eligible to work this summer. I think it's pretty far in advance right now, but any connection is smart, right? I just don't want to come off as an asshole. It's been in the back of my head for a few weeks and this is kind of my first job interview. Also, I'm pretty sure my family isn't too excited that I'm interested in military work. And they're reading this. At least my dad and I made a ton of Stripes jokes last night when I told him about it. If you haven't seen Stripes, you're either a communist or a girl.
I'm also finding academics here extremely difficult. I miss having friends to do homework with. I also miss being able to communicate with TAs during regular office hours. All office hours are by appointment and I usually can't even attend because they can't speak English. I can deal with that, I'm in their country and I'm one white kid in a 65 person lecture. Statistically, I'm unimportant. On a personal and mental level, this is fucking torture. I can't even see why I lost the points (Which were EXTREMELY numerous) I did on the test. I tried for my thermo exam and I discovered that the leniency for partial credit is draconian. A whole lot of zeros for pages of work. So that's stressful. It's like math with Lynn Potter all over again (Scarsdale High people will get that). Pop quizzes are academic terrorism. It's forced studying under the penalty of a shitty grade. It's really unfair to quiz us on something we haven't had a homework assignment on, let alone extort us into studying. At least I don't negotiate with terrorists. And by that I mean I don't have time to study for the potential quizzes because I'm too busy doing other homework and projects. The professors are good at English, but they tend to be much more distant from their students. Contacting professors isn't a normal occurrence, and some of them frown upon it. I miss Pedro Silva's nudge in the right direction on a Statics problem. I miss Dave's weekend story after explaining Greene's Theorem. I don't have that here, and my grades are taking a huge hit.
"But Tony, you're abroad! You only need to pass!!!"
I need to get above a C to pass. I struggled to do that in a few of my American classes last year. That was some maximum effort shit on my home turf. I'm kinda making due with what I've got over here, which ain't much. I don't know what computer labs I can code in, I don't know what buildings are 24 hour, the library closes at 11 and I have to teach myself all the material for one class. So telling me to chill out kinda pisses me off. Not every class is Marketing 1001 where a set of flashcards for bolded textbook terms will guarantee me a 100% on the midterm. Also, equation sheets are nonexistent. That's just like the real world, where I'll be alone in an unlit cave calculating mutual inductance with my abacus and using coal to show my work. This is the 21st century. Yeah, I want to work with the military, but I don't think I'm gonna need to know how to derive a power graph for an inductor in a fucking foxhole. But hey, if I am, someone PLEASE humble me. I'm not trying to make excuses for poor performance, I'm just saying it's not only difficult to work hardest, it's also a severely kneecapped maximum effort.
There's also an immense pressure and compulsion to see more of Korea than I already have. Then again, there's always a test or midterm or some project ready to kick me square in the teeth on any given Monday or Friday. So it's pretty hard to plan trips. I want to see the UN cemetery in Busan, but that's gonna be one hell of a hard trip to fit in. With teachers bringing up tests a week in advance, usually on Friday nights, it's kind of hard to plan ahead. On top of that, I need to study and do homework for OTHER classes who have quizzes and tests. Unfortunately, I've had to cancel some trips I was hoping to do here. Also, the reality of leaving Korea has begun to set in. Finals are in about a month and a half. That's only about 5 weekends left. With tests, that's only about three left free. I'm not ready to leave, but there's nothing I can do about it. If leaving a city is this depressing, death is gonna fucking SUCK.
Back to doing homework with friends. Not only do I miss them, I miss sitting in Funger or Duques or Rome and doing problems on a whiteboard so we can all learn what the fuck is going on with these 22 integrals and sigmas. Here I'm at a computer in the library hitting my face against the desk because I have no idea what's going on. I can't really talk to people in my class because well, I can't speak Korean. Also, many students are commuters so they work alone as well. I really don't know how they do it. I also tend to get pretty morbid and pessimistic when it comes to grades. Have I calculated my overall GPA if I fail all my engineering classes this semester? Yup. It's ugly. REAL ugly. Have I evaluated my career options with a full semester of Fs on my transcript? Yeah, even uglier. But it's not gonna happen. I just perpetually stress myself out. Becoming fully caffeine dependent isn't helping anything either. I either function normally without it, or am miserable without it. This is gonna be one shitty habit to break when I get back to America.
There are also some general frustrations with Korea that I've encountered. I can recognize when people are talking about me in front of me, but I have no idea what they're saying. I know the words for "Foreigner" and "American," so that tips me off when people are talking about me. But what they're saying is a different story. Being the self-conscious bastard that I am, I always assume it's something shitty. Being different kinda blows. I miss regular sized napkins and I wish people would flush their toilet paper instead of putting it in the garbage can.
Dating's also kinda stressful and annoying. I've been invited to dinner/asked a few girls out. They all say yes, but it's pretty annoying when they apologize for having to respond to a text from their boyfriend. Yeah, that was unexpected the first time it happened. By the most recent time, it just became one of those classic examples of my shitty luck. I can still appreciate the irony that is me starting to talk to girls when there's a huge language barrier. It just blows when they mention that they enjoy Terminator, Star Wars and Back to the Future. Oh well. Can't win 'em all. It would just be nice to win once.
On a more positive note, I've lost about 10 pounds since I've been here, so I'm really happy about that. I think this is the lightest I've been since 8th grade. I'm down to 210 lbs right now. I've lost 80 lbs since senior year of high school which feels great. I just need to get back in the gym this summer and keep working hard to reduce my body fat percentage. It's nice knowing I can work hard at something and have concrete results. Having my fate in my own hands will be a nice change from Kirchoff Loop problems not even Kirchoff himself could solve.
Friends and family, this post may have worried you. Do not be alarmed. I just needed to vent. A lot. This post was really helpful and I feel substantially better right now.Shoot me an email, FB message, or Kakao message and I'd be happy to catch up if you're so inclined. GW people, good luck with finals. My sisters, good luck with your upcoming surgery, comedy shows and wedding (which I will be home for). Pop, good luck with getting your clients to plead guilty when it's in their best interests and good luck on trials when the state's case is weak. Mom, good luck with keeping the Civ-Ed group in check when they come to the food bank. I know nobody makes boxes like I can. Gram, Korean lunches are a different experience, but they don't have anything on your tuna sandwiches. Remember one thing, I'm extremely thankful for each and every one of you in America, Korea, and apparently Russia and Germany according to the IP location of some of my blog hits. I'll see you all in July and I know my family will still love me, my friends will still care about me, and my enemies will still be starving their asses off north of the DMZ no matter what happens this semester.
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