Stagnation and Preparation

Some days, I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything in my months in Wonju. I feel like taking a part-time job was a poor decision. I could be making more money! These past few weeks have most certainly been one of those times. Luckily, in the last week or so, things have started to take an upturn that might begin to justify the monetary sacrifices that have been made thus far.

For a while, I have been feeling utterly lackluster professionally. What little elementary school teaching I do has been unfulfilling. I have been writing less than I did even last year, when I held a full-time job. I haven’t been keeping to any sort of streaming schedule. I have been neglecting this blog. The only aspect of my professional endeavours that I have been proud of is my adult classes, which I have actively striven to make as engaging and relevant to the students as possible, with moderate success. So I have been looking forward to those classes most of all.

As far as my writing has been going, what little I was doing in that area was not giving me any sort of emotional or monetary payoff. I may have written an article or two for GosuGamers.net, but they weren’t articles that are going to get to the front pages of subreddits. The majority of the dripping tap of story pitches I sent to potential employers returned no sound once I had dropped them into the bucket that is the Internet. All that were honoured with responses were nothing more than polite declines. Until an acceptance came back.

Greater than that, an acceptance of an Esports-related pitch. My first actual paid Esports commission. Sure, it may not be much money, but it is the first time someone will actually be paying for my views and research in Esports. I was overjoyed at the news.

I would like to say that I have been toiling endlessly on the piece, researching and refining it until it shines brighter than the red faces of Brexit voters when results were announced. Sadly, that would be a lie. But, I have been preparing and crafting the piece every day since I was chosen for the job, and I do feel that I will hand in a piece that I will be proud to put my digital signature on and claim as my first dip into the world of professional Esports writing.

The other major preparation I have been doing is for travel. First, I will shortly be visiting my mother in Dubai, a reunion that I am excited for, because I haven’t seen my mother in a few months and it will be good to catch up. More significantly (sorry mom), Kris and I are headed to Seattle in the first weekend of August to attend The International (essentially the Dota 2 World Series). We are elated to be going, and neither of us can quite process the fact that the moment of departure is almost upon us.

So, while feelings of mediocrity will always feature in my internal monologue no matter how forcefully I try to eject them, they are currently being tempered by one minor success. Here’s hoping that I can chain a couple more onto it.

A Good Few Days

I have neglected you, dear readers, and for that I apologize. I bring much news! The time between my last post and this has been filled with positive events for Kris and I. I have covered my first Esports event, successfully applied for a Dota 2 magazine, played some Ultimate, and taken another step towards that opaque concept known as adulthood.

The news of which I am arguably most proud is my coverage of the recent HearthStone Seoul Cup World Invitational. The tournament hosted 8 of the top HearthStone players from around the world in two days of single-elimination competition. A few days before the tournament, an expansion was released for HearthStone, resulting in some crazy, fresh strategies to be showcased at the tournament.

While I did enjoy watching the games immensely, my most significant moments lay just outside of the arena. I managed to secure interviews with StrifeCro and Reynad, two prominent personalities in the HearthStone scene. Reynad is a name that I have known for a while, but never explored deeply enough to have a personal opinion on. He deeply impressed me with his knowledge of the game, and love for both HearthStone and Esports in general. I gained immense respect for him in our short conversation. I have long been a fan of StrifeCro, and he lived up to my every expectation as a kind, soft-spoken gentleman. I even managed to get his signature and a picture with him. My inner fanboy was bursting with glee.

I transcribed these interviews and turned them into features for GosuGamers. The StrifeCro interview even managed to reach the front page of the HearthStone subreddit! I was happy that my hard work and overcoming my shy nature paid off. I believe that my interview with Reynad will be even more popular, but it has yet to be released.

My other major Esports-related success came from the Dota 2 sphere. A few weeks ago, I responded to a post on reddit calling for Dota 2 writers to put together a magazine about Dota 2. There were apparently over 240 applicants. I was one of the 6% who were judged as worthy. I am working on my first piece for the first issue, and I hope to live up to the faith that has been placed in me.

After a busy few days of writing and teaching, I was happy to enjoy a long weekend. Kris and I spent most of Thursday and Friday relaxing, catching up with friends, and doing some Ultimate practice. It felt good to throw a disc again, and the practice would prove necessary. On Saturday, we had a chilled picnic for a friend’s birthday. Nothing went too out of hand, because we all had Ultimate the next day.

Sunday came around, and with it our first games of Ultimate for several weeks. We played three games, and had played some of the best Ultimate that we have all season. However, our team’s play was let down by small mistakes being punished by the opponents, and we lost all three of the games. Our team was a little downhearted, but we all enjoyed the day despite the losses.

This morning, I received word that I have been accepted for a credit card. Whilst this might not seem like that big of a deal, I was genuinely worried that I would be rejected due to the part-time nature of my job. I am glad Korea thinks me responsible enough for a credit card. I’m not sure I would trust me. When the card arrives, I will be finally be able to book plane tickets to Seattle for the holiday that Kris and I plan to take in August. As August is drawing ever closer, every day that we can have to complete the American visa application process may prove to be necessary.

So, all told, a good few days indeed. I am making my way in Esports slowly but surely, I am making sure I don’t turn into a pudgey doughball, and things are coming together for the big trip in August. I will strive to blog more regularly, and let you all know how things are going as they happen, and not all in one go like this. Here’s hoping that the majority of my updates are as positive as this one!

 

One Month in Wonju: Achievements and Goals

Kris and I have now spent one entire month living in the lovely, pokey town of Wonju. In our time here, we’ve done a bunch of stuff that I am proud of. On the other side of the coin, there are a whole lot of things that I would like to get done in the remainder of our time here, however long or short that may be. Here are five goals that I feel are most necessary to aim for in the coming months, and five achievements that Kris and I have made, in no particular order.

Goals

1.) I need to be far more pro-active in the mornings. Now that I have a more flexible job (see the achievements below), I need to make more effective use of my time. Whilst playing games is great and all, I need to start doing it on stream and creating content.

2.) I want to be able to play one more point of Ultimate Frisbee between each rest point. Currently I feel that my fitness levels are limiting my play, and I am sick and tired of feeling this way.

.3.) I should probably wear pants more around the house in the mornings.

4.) I want to find at least one paying Esports writing job, be it a once-off article or a recurring contract, in the next 4 months. Gotta start somewhere.

5.) I want to keep enjoying life as much as I have in the last month!

Achievements

1.) Kris and I (almost entirely Kris) organised an Ultimate Frisbee team in Wonju, and successfully got most of the team to our first week of games.

2.) Kris and I both managed to renew our ARCs, so we can legally stay in Korea for another year. The details may be written in permanent marker, but apparently they’re legit!

3.) I managed to secure myself a great, flexible part-time job. It gives me time to write, and lessens my time with kindergarten children. My sanity is closer to normal levels than it was last year.

4.) Kris and I have extensively cut down on the amount of cold drink (soda for my American readers) that we drink. It was largely an unconscious decision, as buying soda just never settled into our Wonju shopping routine. However, when we noticed this, we decided that this is a good thing and haven’t bought cold drink for our house since. We might have a can or two when out and about though, but nowhere near the three 1.5-litre bottles that we were drinking every week.

5.) I have begun writing for GosuGamers.net with regularity again. During the move, I wasn’t able to write a piece for them for weeks. Now, I’ve done two this week already. I want to write more in order to get more exposure, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Overall, it’s been a stellar month. Whether it’s because we’re not nearly as overwhelmed by the newness that governed our teaching experiences last year, whether we’re part of a better community, or maybe because we’re honestly just enjoying ourselves more readily, Kris and I have had a good time of it in our first month in Wonju. Here’s to many more!

New Home, New Challenges

So, Kris and I successfully moved to Wonju. I sit now in our new house, mooching off of our lovely neighbours’ Internet, trying my best not to procrastinate writing this. The moving process was more onerous than we expected, but we got here in the end! Our time in Dongtan is officially over. But, with being in a new place comes new obstacles to overcome. I have to find a job. We  have to make the largely empty space that is our house into a home. We have to try and still save money. We even have to run the local Ultimate team. However, we knew that these challenges would come with the territory. Tackling them will be more than worth it, because we are now in a place where we have a friend base, and Kris and I both think that we will be even happier here than we were in Dongtan.

Moving here was a special kind of mission. Sure, we didn’t exactly have to rent a truck to haul all of our stuff over, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t require logistial planning. We chose instead to pack all of our things into every available bag in our house and bring them with us on the bus to Wonju. As it turned out, we have accumulated so many things in the past year (or we are simply so bad at packing) that this required two separate trips in order for us to physically be able to move all of our things.

What made the move even harder was the need to move Catsby, our one remaining foster cat. We were incredibly worried that he would be like his foster brother Kichu and yell his little furry head off throughout the trip. Luckily, he was superbly behaved, only loosing a mew when the bus ride was particularly bumpy. So, after attempts at shifting luggage, we got our stuff all moved into our new place.

The most pressing issue on my mind currently is my need for a part-time job. I have elected to forgo full-time employment in order to have more time to write and create Dota 2 content such as YouTube videos, streams, and articles. In order to stay in Korea, I still need to maintain a visa. The easiest way to do this is to procure a visa through employment. Sadly, the pool of part-time jobs in Wonju that are willing to sponsor an E-2 visa is not a very deep pool. It resembles an incipient puddle left in a pothole after a short rain. I do have a couple of promising leads though, and I hope to have successfully chased one of these down in the next week or so.

While we may have brought a fair number of belongings with us, our apartment is still rather barren. The only furniture that has been provided to us by Kristen’s employers is a single bed, complete with base. Compared to our last apartment, where we received a table, some chairs, a couch, and a bed, this is slightly underwhelming. What amplifies the sense of emptiness is the sheer size of our apartment. It is easily double the size of our place in Dongtan. There are three bedrooms, a living area, a bathroom, and a small laundry area. We do have plans to outfit each room to fulfill a specific purpose, but for now, they are mostly empty.

Something that will make the transformation from house to home harder is our desire to save money. This was a simple task in Dongtan. We were both earning full-time employment money. Our cost of living was low. We only rarely ate out or left our home to see friends. All of these factors have been altered by our move to Wonju. We will have more expenses because of the bigger house. I’m not likely to earn as much as I was. We have a bigger friend base, so we will undoubtedly go out more often than we did in Dongtan. This all adds up.

Despite all of this, Kris and I are both happy in Wonju. I will get to pursue my dreams. Kris gets a nicer job. We have a bigger house. We are closer to our friends. These are things that we wanted last year, and we’ve managed to get them. Sure, there are things we need to take care of to make sure that we can make a living, and not simply exist. But it will definitely be worth the effort. I think we’re going to love it here.

7 Weeks, 7 Lessons

On the 29th of February, Kris and I will finish our first year-long teaching contract in Korea. I cannot believe that time has flown by so fast. It seems like only a few weeks ago when we stepped off of the plane and were swept into an ominous black taxicab. We feel like we’ve known some of our friends here for many years already. And yet, it still feels like we are incredibly new to both teaching and Korea in general. With only seven weeks remaining until we leave Dongtan and start the next chapter of our adventure, here are seven things I have learned in my time in Korea so far.

1.) No matter how far away from each other you are, family and friends stay together. Whether we have brief discussions and catch-up sessions via Skype, post meaningless links to each other on Facebook, or get together on grand trips to Australia, it is very easy to keep in touch with one’s family and friends.

2.) Moving away teaches you who your true friends are. It is very easy to maintain friendships when those who you feel are close to you are within close proximity. When you are on the other side of the world, with a time difference of seven hours, and plans need to be made to communicate, it reveals who is willing to take the effort to do so. Some people you chat to on a constant basis. Others you don’t even need to do that much.

3.) Non-verbal communication is extremely powerful. You are trying to buy an incredibly necessary item. The shopkeeper and yourself do not share a common language. You awkwardly flail your hands in what you hope is close enough to an accurate depiction of your necessity. The shopkeeper smiles eagerly. They take you to something completely opposite to what you intended. You wince, smile nervously, and try again until you get it correct. Moments like that help you observe that communication goes so much further than words.

4.) Cleaning cat litter on a daily basis is far cleaner and easier than doing so on a weekly basis. Not to mention cleaner, quicker, and far less smelly.

5.) Coming home and trying to write (or otherwise pursue ones hobbies) is tiring, but rewarding. After nine hours of herding small children in the general direction of education, the idea of performing actions that require further effort is not a pleasant one in the slightest. However, I have produced some of my best work (including the majority of these blog posts) in the evenings after teaching. Sometimes, you just have to do what has to be done. It is worth it in the end.

6.) Cats like nothing more than destroying things. In the time that we have played housekeeper to our two lovely furry babies, our apartment has taken a bit of a beating. They have clawed much of the upholstery. They have removed a panel from underneath the sink. They have scratched the side of our wooden cupboard in their constant jumping atop of it. And they have looked adorable throughout all of it. Annoyingly so.

7.) Things that would be impossible alone are within your reach if you have good support. Neither Kristen nor myself would be here without each other. I would never have gathered the motivation to complete all of the admin necessary to reach Korea. Kristen would have left within the first month without my moral support. I would not have had the courage to move to part-time employment (to focus on my writing and Dota-related endeavours) without Kristen’s reassurances. Together, we are far stronger than we are alone.

I have grown more in this year than I have in a long while. It has not been easy, but with Kristen’s help, I have managed to try and follow my dreams. In the coming months, my pursuit of Internet notoriety will intensify. For now, I am trying to savour the last few days with my current children. They aren’t making it easy – they’re being particularly rowdy and disruptive – but time is passing faster than ever. I can’t wait to see what the future will hold.

Stretched Thin

This week was another week of upturns in the outlook of our school. Several new children began class in the kindergarten section, two of which landed in my class. While this may be good for the school, it will remain to be seen whether it is good for my sanity and the dynamic within the class. On Friday I felt more tired than I had been in a long while. Having to get up and do writing yesterday felt like more of a chore than it had ever been. I have even neglected this blog for longer than I have ever done. Here’s hoping that this is not a sign for the weeks to come – I don’t want to feel completely drained of any will to do things outside of teaching.

The first new student in my class arrived on Thursday. At first, he was remarkably shy, but after a few lessons he perked up, and proved himself to be intelligent and good at almost all aspects of schooling. His writing is neat, he works well, and his phonics and grammar are up amongst the best in the class. I can see some problems coming in the future, as he is a very high-energy child who is quickly bored and does not handle boredom well. I will have to up my game when it comes to providing activities in the classroom.

The second new child arrived on Friday morning. A girl this time, she was, like the first new boy, quite shy at first. After the first lesson, she had not said anything apart from her name. The other children were even asking if she could speak. As the day wore on, she perked up a little. Her level of English is not as good as the new boy’s, but it is within the realm of possibility for their age and level of exposure to English. She tends to use Korean a fair amount and seems to require a lot of attention from me. Perhaps this will change when she bonds with the rest of the class.

Managing five children is far more tiring than managing three. Whereas I previously could trust at least one student to be able to complete the tasks that I give to them by themselves and bounce between the other two children, this will no longer be sufficient. I will have to adapt my style of teaching to better deal with the challenges of having a bigger class. Doing so is exhausting.

I woke up at 09h30 yesterday and 10h00 today, far later than I normally do, even on the weekend. Following this, I elected to laze in bed rather than do things such as writing (this blog and freelance writing) or casting. I feel a little disappointed in myself that I neglected these responsibilities. While teaching is my job for now, these activities are my avenues for the future, and I must be careful not to let the road become dusty from lack of travel. I have far to go in all of these, and not taking a few steps now may prove to be a big stumbling point in the future.

I did end up writing three articles yesterday and this post today, so it is not all doom and gloom. Apart from that, I played Dota and BioShock, watched Downton Abbey and Rick and Morty, and generally had a relaxing weekend. It was made less enjoyable by the clouds of not having done things and school on Monday hanging over it all, but it has been an enjoyable weekend nonetheless.

Now please excuse me while I enjoy the last few hours of it. How will I spend it? Hopefully with a combination of productivity and merriment. Most importantly, it will be spent with Kristen, and that is more than enough cause for me to keep smiling for the rest of the day.

All in Time

I have a good ear for timing in music. This arose largely because I hardly ever practiced the tuba, my main instrument, outside of official rehearsals. This meant I had to be able to precisely time when I came in. If I messed up my timing, the entire song would be ruined by a single loud FWARP. I used to adopt a similar approach in life, waiting for the precisely correct moment to complete a particular task. This usually meant doing things at the last minute.

I procrastinate. It used to be one of the defining characteristics of who I was. At university, I would leave assignments until the point at which no normal human should be able to churn out whatever word count was necessary. Teaching and managing my activities outside of teaching has helped me reign in the desire to just do it tomorrow. Now, most of the time, I’m just doing it.

Insert obligatory meme here

I am teaching for 9 hours of my day. Last week, we had open class to prepare for and deliver, two major tests to administer, and submission deadlines for material for next month’s classes. When I get home, I often make dinner. Most days, I write a freelance writing piece and/or a piece for GosuGamers. This past week was particularly intense in terms of this. I submitted one large piece of freelance writing (2000 words is large, okay), stayed up until at least 3am on Friday and Saturday to cover the past Dota Major for Gosu and spend 3 hours casting my first competitive Dota series in a long while.

After I managed to get all of these things done, not missing a single deadline, I spent the majority of Sunday…procrastinating. I had one last deadline for Sunday, and I spent it watching Downton Abbey, playing Dota, and Skyping an old friend. You know what they say about old habits. I still didn’t miss the deadline, though.

While some of these projects yield more immediate rewards, like being paid money to write as a freelancer, others are more long-term investments. Writing for GosuGamers builds up my network within the Dota community. I hope to one day use some of these connections to fast-track my casting career. Either that, or be offered a paid job for the site. To be honest, I could think of little better than sitting and writing about the game that I love and actually getting paid for it.

All of these endeavours make me realize that I have become far less lackadaisical about what I want to do with life. I want to write. I want to have the game that is my passion, Dota, involved. I don’t want to be wrangling small children for 9 hours a day. It’s not bad work, don’t get me wrong. I just know it’s not really for me. Maybe next year I will work with older children, and I will find that far more stimulating.

For now, I will continue to fill my after-work hours with a fine balance between work, Dota-related endeavours, and procrastination. And I could think of nothing better. I hope that you all find your time signature. I can’t say I’ve found mine yet. All I’ve done is started to listen to my own song a little closer.

 

Movers, Lean, and Allergies: Day 1 as a Freelance Writer

After weeks of trying to bid on several different contracts, ranging from writing blog posts to editing academic work to simply entering data into an Excel spreadsheet, I managed to net my first contract via Freelancer.com yesterday. The pay is insignificant. The material I’m writing about has been vastly out of my interests and comfort zone. It is the definition of a job that would not support a human life. And yet, I am enjoying it so far.

Despite all of my bidding on Freelancer, the contracts I was interested in were always being given to other freelancers – those with online reputation, a portfolio expanding years, and several hundred reviews on their profile from jobs that they had completed in the past. Strangely enough, my first contract came not from something that I had bid on, but simply from someone looking at my profile, liking what they saw, and contacting me directly.

I am now a member of the freelance writing caste. I am currently at the bottom rung, below even people who write obituaries in the newspaper. I am unsure where I rank compared to several hundred monkeys chained to typewriters. But I am here, and I am proud that I have my first paying gig. I may have written three articles and still only effectively paid for a meal at McDonald’s, but I can only go upward from this point. Some day I might write for a big audience at a major-name publishing house or firm or brand or whatever. Today I wrote about the dangers of low-cost moving, lean manufacturing principles before ending my productive day with a content pushing email designed for doctors. I may not have written literary masterworks, but I wrote something and got paid money for it.

Well, I will, when I have completed 10 articles. The current model for my payment is that I complete ten articles before my wonderful German employer will pay me. That may give you an idea as to how insignificant the money that I am earning my pecking frantically at my keyboard, trying to dig out the words that I need to get out into the digital world. I am genuinely worried that I will produce 10 articles, the employer will not pay me, and then I will promptly curse loudly into the night, before trying once more to find a job. However, the employer does have a well-reviewed profile on Freelancer, so this is hopefully unlikely. There is still fear lurking in the back of my mind though, like a cat scratching at the crack of a cupboard it wants to get into and ransack.

All of this writing was made possible by the glorious fact that today is a public holiday in Korea: Hangul Day. I find it quite fitting that I spend the day that Korea spends celebrating inventing its own form of writing putting my own digital pen to digital paper, honing my craft and hopefully getting paid at some point in the near future. I even had some extra time on the side to write some more, both for GosuGamers and this post. While I wouldn’t say I’m gaining writing momentum, it’s certainly getting easier to sit down in front of a screen most commonly used for delving into imaginary worlds of light, sound, and sensation and simply type away.

The rest of the coming weekend is filled with activities away from our humble home, so I am glad that today I managed to produce what I have. I have learned things about industries I had not cared to think much about before today. I am sure that I will learn a whole lot more in the coming months. And I can’t wait for every less-than-minimum-wage moment of it.

Spreading the Ink

For most of my life, writing has been something that has just happened, that has always been there with me. From my first, one-syllable pieces when I could barely hold a pen, to fledgling short stories and poems in high school, to this blog post right now, putting words onto paper in a mostly logical and flowing manner has always been something I did for enjoyment, for myself. Today, that changed. I wrote my first article for GosuGamers.net.

It wasn’t delivering major, world-shattering news that needed to be put to the masses or society would collapse. It was just a little piece telling the lovely patrons to the site that an exciting tournament of DotA2 would soon be starting. Nevertheless, I felt an immense sense of pride and accomplishment when my current mentor from GosuGamers pressed the button, and my article, something that I had written, popped up on the front page of the site. I had contributed to something larger than myself.

This is the first step in a new direction that I am taking for myself. Next year, I hope to teach only part-time, and supplement my income through freelance writing or editing jobs. Having recently been told about Freelancer.com, a most intriguing platform that helps freelancers of all trades meet up with potential projects where their talent can be utilized, I am testing the waters to see whether this could be a viable option for me for the future. I am trying to net a few small jobs, build up my reputation on the site and my skills in the writing field at the same time.

While the GosuGamers article may not be the first time my work has been published online (with a short story I wrote forming part of a digital anthology called The Collective, available here), it does mark a step in the direction of more lucrative writing, and possibly even supporting myself by doing so. This causes me to stop and wonder: could I write for a living?

My heart says that I could. Hell, there are a host of people that put pen (or the digital equivalent) to paper (or the digital equivalent) and money happens to end up in their bank account because people like their work. My mind then reminds me of the much larger host of other people desperately flogging their creative wares to no avail or profit, and I feel more reserved and conflicted at the idea, but no less keen to walk the path, even if it is only for a little while.

So, I flex my fingers and carefully tread the next brick on the yellow road of writing. Will I walk long enough to reach the Emerald City of self-sufficiency and self-actualisation? Is that even where this road goes? I know not. But I am going to enjoy the view along the way.