Korea, Challenges, and God

Ok so I'm trying to be more consistent. Writing and sharing my feelings, while incredibly therapeutic for me is not something that comes easily.

So I would just like to clarify a few things from my last post. I made some blanket statements and that was wrong of me. I can't just say things without supporting why I said them. I don't hate Korea...hating an entire country is a little drastic and something I would warn anyone against doing. What do you mean when you say you hate a country, an entire country? Do you hate the people in the country? Do you hate the government of the country? Do you hate the culture or the practices of the country? There has to be something specific you hate about the country, you can't hate an entire country based on a few things you know or a few things you have experienced without that country. Which is just one of the many reasons I don't hate Korea.

Korea has just turned out to be a...disappointment. Not that I had huge expectations to begin with. I mean when I told people I was going to Korea the typical response was "Why?" And I can't blame them, I asked myself that very question a dozen times before coming here and a few dozens since being here. Korea lacks a certain allure that other countries possess. It doesn't have the technology and innovation that Japan has. It lacks the culture of China. And it's too advanced economically to be exciting and challenging like Thailand. Not that Korea has nothing to offer, it has it's own culture and history and innovation, it's just on a lesser scale.

I guess at the end of the day Korea simply lacks originality. The thing that is most frustrating for me about Korea is that it's too similar to home. I went half way around the world for adventure and challenge and something new and exciting. Korea is not the challenge I was looking for. It's comfortable, it's easy, it's normal. And maybe that's just the way life is once you've lived in a place to a certain length of time. It becomes mundane...no matter where you are. And I'm not saying Korea doesn't have it's difficulties and that I don't have a ton more to learn. But at this point it seems like I came half way around the world looking for adventure and what I got was the mundane, except in this chapter of my story the mundane lacks the people I love the most, which the mundane, the boring, the everyday, the feeling like you're not making any difference, a lot more difficult to bear.

So that's what I'm most frustrated about in Korea. The fact that I'm ten thousand miles away from everyone and I'm doing something that I could have done at home. And I know I'm being challenged...but there comes a point where you have enough of being alone. I have friends here and I have people i can talk to, but it's not the same. There are people back home who know me, who understand me. But I do hope and pray that the decision to come to Korea was not the wrong one. I think God is trying to get me to rely more on Him, but I'm too stubborn or stupid to just do it. First I'm going to bang my head against the wall numerous times and if that doesn't work I'm going to try things my way and maybe if that doesn't work I'll ask God for His help. Or maybe I'll save myself the pain and ask for His help now, because clearly I am doing something wrong and I desperately need a change. So maybe God is the answer to my loneliness. He's our everything right? So if that's true than he can be my best friend and my mentor and my father and my mother when those things are an ocean away. There's a reason for everything and maybe my reason for coming to Korea was to renew my relationship with Him and figure out how much I'm willing to fight to sustain that relationship. I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Fighting Discontentment

Ok so I officially suck at this. My aspirations to be consistent are once again thwarted. Such is life.
Well since I only write about once a month it means I have a lot to write about.

So I went home for Christmas. While it was an amazing time and a much needed reprieve from Korea, it was also incredibly difficult. It was and is difficult to the point that I think it may have been a mistake. I went home thinking it would be just the kind of refresher I would need to get through the next eight months, but it reality it seemed to just remind me of all the things that have changed and all the things I have missed since being away. I'm beginning to realize how much I miss the USA (something my parents are thrilled about). It's just the little things like going to Target and ordering a Starbucks just the way I like it. It's stupid, shallow things like that are a constant reminder that things are so incredibly different now then they were six months ago, or even a month ago, because now I'm discontent with the change whereas before it was a change that was exciting and new and challenging. It's things like that that cause me to question if this year abroad is worth all the things I'm missing out on.

I know I'm being melodramatic. It's only a year. It's not like I'm in war torn Iraq or Afghanistan. Everything and everyone will be there when I return, but after being home for a week with my friends and family and coming back to my empty studio apartment, to a job that is more or less "bearable" in a country that has lost it's excitement and has turned out to be rather...boring (no offense intended) seems a little too much to bear. So I've decided that the best thing for me to do to get out of this slump is to count my blessings. I know it's totally cliche and maybe even a little lame, but frankly I don't really know what else to do. I'm a bitter emotional wreck and I'm hoping looking at the positive things in my life will hopefully give me a little much needed perspective.

Blessings:
A God that sees me every move and knows my struggles
Family and friends back home who love and are praying for me and who haven't forgotten about me
An apt that's paid for
A relatively well-paid job that will look good on a resume
A new church where I can get involved
A challenging experience, both professionally and personally that will hopefully cause me to grow
New friends
The internet, so I can stay connected to people all over the world
TVshack.net, so I can escape this world with a few episodes of greys anatomy if I need to
Having sheets on my bed after four months without them

Okay so there are a ton of other things I am thankful for and I am so blessed in so many ways, but those are the ones that stick out to me currently. These are the ones that are keeping me grounded in this time of "crisis, fear, and uncertainty." I put quotes because terms like crisis do not seem appropriate to my situation when people who are starving or dying or in the middle of war and disease are the ones in real crisis. People who like with injustices and lack of basic human rights are the ones in real crisis. So I am very aware that I have no right to use that term to describe my situation as I sit in my comfortable apartment. But when things go wrong, or just differently than you planned, in your own life it's hard to see beyond that. But I know this is a phase and things will turn out the way they are supposed to. So thanks for listening to my ramblings.

I promise my next blog will be more upbeat, hopefully it won't take another month to write it.