One Sleep Until Marriage

Tomorrow, I get married. That is something that I have been waiting to say ever since I proposed to Kris months ago. And yet, now that the time is nigh, I almost can’t perceive the experience as real. In the few days since our arrival in South Africa, I have felt every emotion from exhaustion to frustration to boredom to happiness to excitement, all the way around to exhaustion again. In a few hours, I will be standing at the altar of my old school church, bonding myself to the woman that I love for the rest of my life. And I can’t wait.

Since we landed back in the country that used to be our home a little more than two weeks ago, we have been running around with little conception of the outside world, all in the aid of organizing the wedding. We have had appointments with jewelers, photographers, decor ladies, flower ladies, priests, lawyers, and post offices. We spent almost an entire afternoon buying ties, shoes, and shirts for the day. I have even put a bow tie on my Dachshund, Basil. He looks quite dashing, actually.

We knew that our first few weeks of holiday would mostly be spent finalizing the details of the ceremony and reception. We knew that we wouldn’t have much time for anything else. What we didn’t realize was just how draining the whole ordeal would be. We have both flopped into bed in near-death states at the end of each day of pulling all of the metaphorical strings together.

What little time we have had to see our South African friends has been relished. From our respective bachelor and bachelorette parties to a couple of convenient lunch dates, we have made the most of the down time that we have had. We look forward to more of this after the wedding.

But here I sit, one night and a few hours away from being a married man. How do I feel? Honestly? Exhausted. It’s probably just because today was another day of frantic runaround, but at this moment, I am the most keen I’ve been for bed that I have been in a long time. Maybe it’s my subconscious trying to shorten the sensation of the passing of time, all to make the wedding come faster. Maybe.

Am I nervous? A little. I have to give a speech, and I hate those things. Am I nervous that I’m marrying the wrong person? Not in the slightest. The first time the gravity of the situation truly hit me was today during the rehearsal. We were practicing our vows, staring deep into each others eyes. I was gazing into the soul of the woman that I love, pretending to promise myself to her for the rest of my life. Tomorrow, I do it for real. I can’t wait.

Old Habits, New Bliss

When we search for ways to make our current lives better, we often look to the latest new trend. The Internet is constantly bombarding us with the hottest new thing, as of this very second. Whether this is a new fitness regime, the latest and greatest development in fun technology, or maybe even just a friend suggestion on Facebook, the Internet tends to try and push us into new things.

Most of the time, this is perfectly fine. Without discovering new hobbies or music or social circles, we don’t grow or challenge ourselves. The past few days, however, I have greatly enjoyed doing the complete opposite. I’ve been sinking into hobbies and music that I loved at high school and university, but just haven’t engaged with in Korea or even in South Africa just before I left. In the last few years, my life has changed so drastically that I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if I still found joy in the things that I delighted in only a few years ago.

Image from Pinterest

My first foray into past revelry was music. As the school year has wound down, I’ve had more time to play Overwatch and Dota. I usually don’t play music other than the in-game music, as it distracts me, but I was playing more casually than normal and felt like a change. So, I put on a YouTube playlist of Linkin Park, one of my absolute favourite bands of my teens and early university years. The first song I played was my personal favourite song, Numb. From there, I let YouTube’s algorithm take me where it wanted. Right from the first note, I had a smile on my face. Each passing song brought with it memories of high school study sessions or hanging out with friends in WARP (the geek club of my alma mater). Flashes of faces I hadn’t seen in years (to my shame) ran across my mind faster than the changes in the games. I had less success with System of a Down, a band I was particularly fond of in my mid-late teen years, but I was surprised by how connected my experience of life was to Linkin Park.

I am a firm advocate in the power of music to influence your day-to-day existence.Perhaps it is the raw emotional nature of Linkin Park’s music that causes such a strong reaction. Maybe I just stopped listening to them out of snobbery. Maybe they released a bad album or two and I lost faith. In any case, time-travelling through music is something I look forward to doing again soon. I am definitely going to see if the Linkin Park effect can be repeated by other past musical obsessions like Muse.

Beyond music, I have also been engaging in two hobbies that I have lost touch with in recent times – reading and model painting.

Image from Amazon

While I regularly read comics, I have only read two actual novels this entire year. A few weeks ago, I picked up a small collection of books from a fellow teacher. This past Saturday, I decided to crack open the treasure trove of stories for the first time. I elected to start Andy Weir’s The Martian, and I have been devouring it ever since. I have almost finished the story, and I cannot wait to see how it ends.

One catalyst to my high reading time has been an unintended plus of my LASEK surgery. In years past, I have been incredibly prone to motion sickness while in a car. I could not read or use a cellphone for more than fifteen minutes before I would feel queasy. Since my surgery, this time has grown exponentially, to the point where I found that I could read for the entire 90 minute bus trip to Seoul without feeling sick in the slightest. Combine this with trips to Seoul and Daejeon between Saturday and Monday, and I relished more than seven hours of reading time that I used to plow through Mark Watney’s exploits on the Red Planet.

Image from Pinterest

The other hobby that I found pathos in recently is model painting. At the wonderful Seoul Board Games Flea Market, I picked up a copy of the masterpiece that is Shadows Over Camelot. In the game, there are small plastic models for many different aspects in the game, including Arthurian knights, catapults, and even Excalibur and the Holy Grail. At university, I was a devout player of Warhammer 40 000 (Orks and Tyranids 4 lyf). I had spent dozens of hours bringing my Warbosses, Trukks, and other boiz to life. In the Shadows models, I saw an opportunity to test my skills and see if I could even paint. So, after my LASEK checkup yesterday (my eyes are still improving, yay!), I went to a popular hobby shop to kit myself out for bringing the Arthurian universe into full colour.

The dream! Image from Pinterest

I decided to start with the simpler models to warm my painting skills up. Once those were complete, I would move to the intricate Knights of the Round Table. I spent almost two hours walking between two shelves of paint, planning out my colour schemes. Which shade of green did I want for my Pict battle garments? (Lime Green) Did I really need Dried Blood and Fresh Blood? (Yes). I was in a zone that I hadn’t been in in years, and I left the store 90 000 won (R900ish for my South African audience, $85ish for Americans) poorer but with a deep sense of inner peace. I have already hit most of the models with a coat of white primer, and I will probably start painting the catapults today. We’ll see if they turn out like brown blobby triangles or beautiful examples of medieval siege weaponry.

So, if you’re tired of trying to look for the newest thing to add to your life, try looking back. For many hobbies or musical styles, you might have left them in the past for a reason. But you might just stumble upon something that you find moments of true joy or peace in, and you’ll be left wondering why you left it behind. Even if that heightened emotion is only temporary, it will be worth your time.

The Bicycle Difference

Recently, Kris and I made the decision to invest in a pair of bicycles. I was highly skeptical of the idea at first. I never thought that having a bike was necessary, and I didn’t think that it would make that much of a difference in travel time and the accessibility of the whole of Wonju. I thought it didn’t make financial sense. I thought it would be unsafe. I am happy to say that I was utterly wrong on all of those fronts, and our bikes are two of the best purchases we’ve made in our brief time in Wonju.

I was no stranger to using a bike as a form of transport. I had done so at university, to save money on petrol and car maintenance. I remember biking to university being a stressful experience, always worried about whether I would get hit by a car, or miss my first class because of bad robot (traffic light for non-South Africans) timings. These slightly negative experiences seem to have put me against getting a bike in Korea, simply because I didn’t want to add mild unpleasantness to my pre-work time, as there would be mild unpleasantness in excess once I got there.

On top of this, a bike was most definitely not necessary in Dongtan, the town that Kris and I lived in last year. It was the perfect size and distance from major cities to not need a bike. Dongtan itself was small enough that you could walk almost everywhere within half an hour, so faster transportation was unnecessary. Dongtan was also, I reckoned, too far from the closest major city to plausibly bike there. As such, we never truly considered getting a bike in Dongtan.

Wonju, however, is a moderately bigger city. While it is possible to walk everywhere in a day, it is far less of a practical option. One of my contracts that I was due to start shortly after we bought our bikes required me to be at an office 7 kilometers away from my house by 07h45. Sure, I could get up early and jog there. But I would rather not. Even the school I work for most often is a 40-minute walk from my house. I spent the first three months of our time in Wonju catching up on the superb Freakonomics Radio podcast, with the distance floating by.

I also felt that a bike was an unnecessary expense. Spending the equivalent of R2000 (US$160ish) on a mode of transportation that I seemingly didn’t need was, in my mind, wasteful. It was only once we purchased the bikes and started using them regularly did I see how wrong this perception was.

Despite my misgivings, Kris convinced me that bikes would be useful in Wonju. So, I caved and we bought them. From the next day, my eyes were opened as to how foolish I had been in not buying a bike earlier. My travel time to work went from 40 minutes to 15. The office trip turned from a R190 (US$15) round-trip taxi into a 30-minute bike commute. Best of all, Wonju is designed with bikes in mind. There are wide bike lanes on almost every road, so there is no need to risk your life by cycling on the actual street. The most dangerous obstacles are children that stop suddenly to pick up leaves, and old ladies who somehow take up the entire sidewalk.

Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying riding through Wonju. It is a safe, quick, relatively cheap form of transport that is perfect for a city of Wonju’s size. We have explored more of the city on our bikes than we would have if we had continued to take taxis everywhere. The rides are good exercise for our lazy bodies. Finally, it is a way for Kris and I to spend more time together, laughing at the things we see on our rides. Let us just hope that we don’t get stranded by a flat tyre any time soon.

How Did a Year Go By So Fast?

Today marks the anniversary of my and Kris’ arrival in South Korea. When we first touched down in South Korea, were led into an unmarked black van, and sped on our way to Dongtan for the very first time, we still had little idea what we were in for. There are many things that I thought would be different. There are many things that are as I had expected them. As I begin to wrap up my first year-long contract, I have caught myself reflecting on the children I teach, who I was then compared to who I am now, and what I plan to do from now.

The first place of obvious change has been in the kindergarten children I teach. I began the year with three bright-eyed, ill-disciplined young rapscallions. Throughout the course of the year, the class has grown to five. Sadly this was not done by mitosis or any other interesting manner. I simply picked up two more children along the way. Whilst they may be more well-versed in English, it is more debatable whether they are actually prepared for their elementary classes. They may be able to speak the language that is used throughout a large portion of the world, but that will not help them in their entirely Korean instruction. Let’s just hope that they can sit still long enough that their Korean teachers do not seek to make an example of them. I have grown fond of them, and I wish them the best in life.

From the outer world, to the inner one. I have grown so much as a person in this year, I find it quite remarkable. I left home a 24-year-old who had never lived in anywhere other than their parent’s house for longer than a month. Now, I have lived on the other side of the world. I have helped support a household that is larger than myself. I have held a full-time job for a year. I’ve even managed to find time to write nearly one hundred pieces into this blog. I am quite proud of who I am today. I look forward to see who I will become in another year of life experience in Korea.

This coming year is shaping up to be another adventure, filled with Ultimate, Kristen, travelling, and self-exploration. I will be beginning the school year seeking part-time employment. This will allow me to focus on my writing and Dota 2 casting and content creation. A few months of more dedicated effort into these areas will hopefully bring new opportunities in these facets of my life that I hope to grow. Finally, I aim to spend more time keeping in touch with friends. Kris and I have only had time to Skype with a handful of people outside our families. Every time we managed to find time to do so, we always regretted not doing so more. This is not a mistake that we shall make again.

Kristen and I have become a little better at adulting in our year in Korea, and there has been much change in our life as a result. Whether we see this growth in our students, ourselves, or our opportunities, we are both eager to see what the next year brings. The next step along our road is the graduation of our kindergarten class tomorrow. We are both very nervous for the proceedings, but not nearly as nervous as we are for what lies beyond. Here’s hoping that our nerves are unfounded, and our best hopes and dreams are exceeded. To another year of success, adulting, and this blog!