Going Home

Easter Sunday has come and gone and Spring is officially here in South Korea. It's warmer than some parts of the United States mainly Washington State & Alaska. I love Spring with life re-inserting itself on the Earth. I love the life it awakens in humanity. We swarm to parks and places we normally stray away from during the colder months. The warmth brings out the adventure in our souls. I feel awakened from my winters slumber.

This feeling of morning sun shining on me for the day to come prefaces my journey home in June. There is just a little over 7 weeks left before my contract with the Kindergarten is complete. It's exciting to accomplish another year of teaching. The bonus pay for completing the contract is also a great incentive to complete what I began 10 months earlier.

I've had my struggles working with my present employer. It isn't always easy for westerners to work in a Eastern cultural work environment. The lasting impression that I did leave is the children are important to me. This is probably not the reasons for their request for me to return but must have something to add to whatever problems the kindergarten faces at the moment.

Not to get to much into details about the Kindergarten's difficulty with hiring a replacement teacher, I will keep it simple. The present economic state of the world does not allow the present pay scale offered in Korea to be worth the hardships of work and transition unless... that is your goal and purpose in life. Travel and cultural experience is always a great reason for teaching in a foreign country.

The past 10 months have been an interesting experience for me. I haven't taught children this young before. It opened my world to a whole new experience. Kindergarten students are like the Muppet Babies. They literally live in a miniature world imagined right before their eyes. Your voice is sometimes a voice of a world entering their created world. It's exciting and fun with a little bit of adventure always around the bend.

The end of Spring will bring one chapter of life to an end. With the beginning of Summer so too a new chapter in the life of... B. Luis Grey. Until then the story builds up for what can be the perfect cliff hanger for a chapter to end.

North Korean Scare Tactics

About this time of year, every year, the North Korean Government initiates threats to the world and South Korea concerning their stance on war. They reiterate their military preparedness for war.

This time of year, every year for the past several years the R.O.K. [Republic of Korea/South Korea] Armed Forces and the U.S. Armed Forces come together for a joint operation. The purpose of the joint operation is the prepare for a possible war scenario and or to stay prepared for such an incident.

My friends back home have been leaving some interesting comments on my Facebook social network concerning possible war. Just today, my friend from Washington State wondered why I love South Korea in response to my status update [Loves Korea]. Here in Seoul, a hour away from the DMZ [demilitarized zone] life moves on as if the threat did not exist. Seoul, has lived with the threat of the North and the Pyong-yang government for half a century.

For all you lovely readers who may wonder about the peninsula of Korea. Be rest assured, until there are bullets flying in the streets of Seoul, only threats from a desperate and isolated government.

Winter in Korea

It's cold again here in Korea. The temperature barely breaks freezing point. It's been below zero for the majority of the week. It sucks.

A few more weeks and maybe the real groundhog will make it's presence felt with the beginning of Spring. I want to see the sprouting of new life. The green emerging from the dead. The colors of the cherry blossoms.

A few hundred years ago society was in a much different world. We all know and take so much of it for granted. Anthropologically speaking... we as humans are not made for 12 months of work. The early humans migrated with the animals. Eventually, early society learned to farm the land. Farming is not a year long occupation.

Animals have a cycle through the year and in some ways the human species should learn from our closest example of a bio-rhythm. Creation or the Earth as we know it... okay on this side or the Southern side of the hemisphere there is most definitely a cycle of rebirth... life and the eventual death. The seasons capture this so well and every Spring we are blessed with the reincarnation of that life again.

Where was my hibernation? Capitalism has stripped us of our natural human cycle and has made us slaves of the corporate machine. AH!

You can't live without it and you hate it when it crushes the joy of life into a compressed can of properly timed enjoyment.

On another note. The weekend previous to this the guys and I went out to the slopes to snowboard. It was definitely one of those canned enjoyments. Wish I could do it all winter without being burdened with work.

The Meaning of Groundhogs Day

The year was 2003, February 1st. It was the last time that Grey talked to her before engaging her 15 months later with a journal of writings. It wasn't by choice that their relationship ended abruptly eventually fading into a distant memory. The first three years after that day were the darkest years of his life. There were a million questions about everything and there were no answers that satisfied him. The world appeared to be conspiring to bring failure to his life.

K.C. had her reasons for disengaging in social interactions with Grey. The insidious part of their social separation is that Grey didn't have a clue to the question of why. There were no explanations and the relationship ended.

The three Groundhogs Day that followed were a reminder of a previous life without closure. A song of sorrowful blues rang continually in the heart of Grey. The somber life that unfolded was impossible to hide with illusions of smiles. Any happiness Grey sought out to fill the hole left by K.C. was an attempt to cure a critical condition with a band-aid.

Depression is a funny thing. It isn't just chemical not that body chemistry doesn't have a significant part in depression. The thing that we fail to take into consideration is that it isn't just any of one thing or explanation. It isn't just cognitive thought. It isn't just pre-social conditions. It isn't just chemistry. It isn't just lifestyle. It isn't just genetic disposition. The point being that all the mentioned above are part of the reasons for Grey's demise.

K.C. is not to blame. K.C. was the pinpoint expression of a more serious condition that surrounded Grey's world. The focus point of a cosmos gone haywire gravitating to a milieu by the name of K.C.

It has been six years since that cold day in February. It is significant to point out that in no way would Grey trade any of those dark days through the valley of demise. The sun shines again pouring down kisses of exquisite rays of ecstasy for life. It's in death that we realize the power of life. Today, Grey is more alive than he's ever been since the valley of demise.

The biggest change propelling Grey into a life fully owned with no remorse is the environment change. Grey literally had to transplant himself from his comfortable social environment and begin again. This took the form or an actual exodus from the land of America to the a small country in Asia. The soul of Asia, Korea.