Reading novels in Chinese

I have had some realizations in the last month about who I let myself be, and some about who I actually am and what I want.

I have been telling myself that it is too hard, too lonely, too far away to keep living on this side of the world. And I have been feeling maybe not guilty but goaded by some peoples' voices in my mind who ask what's wrong with America?, or my own voices in my mind that whisper I may just be trying to run away from relationships before they get too complicated. That I may not be running towards anything.

But I am. And I have realized that I simply don't want to move back to the US. I want to let my whole being move to this side of the world, and not be standing a mental step back towards Iowa because I know I'm moving 'home' before too long. I want to stay here.

I do miss 'home.' I miss my friends and my family and have dreams about the skies in Iowa. To drive on a highway with radio blasting and see a thunderhead rolling towards me across the plains. Ah.

I have got to stop telling myself that I am afraid, though. I have got to stop being afraid of challenging myself. I have got to stop being afraid to belong. (I know that last sentence is angsty, but it's an honest and dominant fear of mine, I think. So there you have it: I'm angsty.)

One excellent thing I learned last year in China was just to go. Just to read, just to talk. I have been reading novels in Chinese, though I don't understand anything close to everything. I am just reading and getting from it what I can.

Beginnings and Endings, right?

The end of my two-and-a-half-year relationship last Saturday was not out of the blue or in anger, and though I have had some pretty low emotional points about it in the last week, overall I'm feeling very positive that it was the right decision and I am moving in the right direction.

This week has been an explosion of options. I realized that boyfriend-man was a major, though not the only, thing pulling me back to the US. I think I am not moving back this year, and I am re-exploring options for the next few years. Here are some of the options on my mind:

For the rest of this year and the beginning of next:
1) Stay in Korea and keep earning my Native English Speaker dollars and paying off my student loans
2) find a job in the Midwest to be close to family and friends, and keep paying off student loans

For the year after next:
1) Move back to the US and pursue grad school/teaching certification. This has been the plan I've been building most of this year, though I've been having trouble deciding whether to pursue Montessori or a state teaching certificate, or both.
2) Move back to the US and pursue grad school in Environmental Science or Engineering. I could still make tutoring a regular part of my life, and perhaps have the more individual affect on their lives that I would not be able to have if I only saw students in classes of 30.
3) Move to China under a Chinese Government Scholarship and pursue Environmental Science or Engineering at a Chinese University. This would put me in China with some long-term stability, and I could make/continue solid friendships and start a life as an international science liaison.
4) Move to China and get Montessori certification at the teaching center in Hangzhou. Teach in China and return to the US when/if the job market increases with enough teaching experience to be competitive
5) Other things yet unthought of that will give me opportunities to teach, travel, and keep involved (even vicariously) in scientific studies.

I posed a couple of these on facebook the other day and got a lot of excellent feedback, much of which supported my feeling that I don't want to teach in the US right now. I really, really would like the right answer to bring me closer to home, but I also don't want to move home and feel stuck. So, right now I am leaning towards things that will keep me on this side of the globe for a while longer.

"The brain is a very big place in a very small space"

Hello, all!

I'd just like to share some of the music that has been filling my mind since I didn't manage to write a new post last weekend. Very short, but I hope you enjoy it!

Take a Minute by K'naan-- this is a grounding and grateful song.

The Puzzle by Brother Ali, and Good Lord by Brother Ali as well-- I am continually impressed by the humility and wisdom in his lyrics (and by his life story).

Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammar-- a sweet, hopeful song. (If you're not really into rap/hiphop, start here on this list)

Dig by Incubus and Earth to Bella by Incubus. I have shared these before, I think. They fit well with my introspection.

and last, Ode to the Brain by Symphony of Science ! This dude cuts together and autotunes pieces of scientific lectures (from the greats!) and the results are often really moving.

I bet that you can figure out which one my title came from.

how do we show each other who we are

I have always disliked labels. I owe this largely to having been raised and homeschooled by an anthropologist, as well as the Baha'i community. I learned early that they are often a deception; they whittle down complex identities to one or two words. Labels are generally static in the minds of those defining them, while the identity of anyone being defined is a dynamic thing, daily growing and being pruned. They are often assigned or inherited, and can be a constant hindrance to a person’s being seen by others or even understanding themselves.

One the other hand, they can be powerful and beautiful tools when they are self-chosen and self-defined. A dear friend has recently begun demanding that the people in her life let her define her Chinese-Americanness for herself and be willing to learn (as we so desperately need to) about how our behavior and attitudes might be racist without intending or often even realizing it.  You can find her words on this here in her blog. She has been a strong inspiring force for me to keep examining myself, and to see positive and negative aspects of my mind with confidence to best become who I want to be.

Knowing these things has made my feelings towards labels complicated. I am sometimes too wary of  the judgments I will receive from others for identifying myself with an idea or group, and sometimes wary of the problems that I might be allowing myself to sweep under a rug and ignore by placing a label over the areas of my identity involved.

I am lucky that in the Midwestern US the notable elements of my identity are chosen, invisible, or both. I do not wear my minority religion in my skin; I do not wear my parents’ divorce in my face. One cannot tell by looking or even talking to me that I was homeschooled, however much of the stigma against homeschooling they may buy into. I blend very easily into the white middle class majority. I cannot escape from being labeled female (my boobs have seen to that since seventh grade, and my love of dangly earrings rather reinforces it). I spent a lot of time in middle and high school experimenting with how 'female' I dressed and how people reacted to me. I hate how big of a difference there often is in how well people treat a feminine-ly dressed woman verses a more androgynous-ly dressed one, but I nevertheless am usually in the well-treated category.

The Baha’i Faith has often been central in my thoughts about chosen and denied identities. When my parents separated and my family identity shifted radically, and I began public school and lost the present tense in my alternative-schooler identity, I took a big step away from my identity in the Baha'i community as well. Partially this was confusion; I didn't understand the change in my other identities and thus didn't understand how this one could stay the same. I could also feel a strong desire in myself for stability, for something that I could rest my identity on and stop thinking about it, and it frightened me to think about how much I would stop thinking about if I gave in to that desire.

I did not identify with religion at all during middle and high school. I investigated quite a few philosophies and religions and learned a lot about myself, largely through counselors and support groups. The removal of my primary identities gave me an excellent and rare opportunity to look underneath my labels and clean out my definitions of myself, and the help that I received allowed me to take advantage of it. 

During my freshmen year of university I decided that I was far enough from my former identity as Baha'i to investigate it again. I started looking through the books I still had and eventually decided to try praying and see if it made a difference in my life if I didn't tell anyone else about it. I did and it did, and after a while I decided to call myself Baha'i. I think this was one of the best decisions of my life. I affirmed my ability to define myself and was able to grow all over my mind and spirit with the ideas and discipline of Baha'i teachings.

Lately, however, I have been realizing that my Baha'i identity has been becoming more negative than positive. This is partially because I have been far away from my home Baha'i communities and thus haven't had as much input available on how to keep myself moving in positive and intentional directions, religion-wise. And mostly because it has begun to get tied up with my insecurities and other mental and emotional shortcomings. I have been feeling this label pulling me away from other people, making it hard for me to understand them rather than respect them for who they are. I do not think that this is inevitable with religious identity, but I don't think I'm the only one who has these struggles. There is a Truth in the Baha'i writings that I experienced pulling me up to a place above labels, where I could see more clearly what people around me were offering and the burdens they were carrying and how beautiful they were. But more recently I have been feeling myself holding this label up as proof that I don't have to look (and simultaneously being frustrated for lack of beauty in my life), that obviously if I am Baha'i I am seeing what's important.

Because of this I have decided that I need to take off my Baha'i label for a while. I am looking at my other identities and trying to figure out what I should do with them. I don't know if I am taking off my religious label forever. I don't think so, but I think to be honest in the self-investigation I need right now I cannot make any promises. 

I am so grateful for all of the sincere people in my life who constantly inspire me to look at myself and what I am giving to the world carefully, and for all the love in my life.

The Hamdeok View: pictures from my new place!

The view out my window/over my balcony rail

This and the next couple were taken along the sea wall right in front of my building

Did I later eat these dried radishes at a local restaurant?! It's very likely, but let's move on.

These last three were taken from the top of my building today when I got my laundry

Gratitude list

I've been focusing on problems (and fixing them, thankfully) in myself, my relationships, and in the rest of the world lately, and need to refocus on things that are good in my life. So, in no planned order, here are some things I am grateful for.

• my mother, my daily encourager and ever-ready cuss-outer of things that trouble me
• people who call me 'dude'
• chocolate in all of its (but especially milk-free) forms
• the ocean outside my window
• my students' sense of humor
• my electronic reader-- thank you dad!
• all the people who share music with me
• ondol heating. genius.
• for-the-rest-of-my-life friends/guardians of my identity
• languages, and the freedom to study them and understand my mind better
• books! everywhere, books!
• the peach juice in my fridge
• having made progress in my what-do-I-actually-want-to-do-with-my-life decision making this year
• being paid enough to live and pay my loans and save a little money for working 15 hours a week (I know, people, it's crazy)
• the fact that every korean student everywhere seems to know the word "crazy"
• boyfriend-man, and all that we have been learning recently
• indoor plumbing!!

Safe!

Hello all!

I had a few emails from concerned friends and family members, and just wanted to update here as well so everyone knows I am fine. Jeju island is quite close to Japan but the tsunami didn't do any damage here that I am aware of.

Love!