For a while I lost interest in blogging and left this website in a corner of my mind, barely aware of its existence. Since I am moving to another country and there is a whole new life waiting for me there, I've decided to put this to good use and chronicle the decline of my sanity. Or my English proficiency.
I've done a similar thing four years ago when I moved to England, only that time I was surrounded by young, ambitious students eager to please professors. Now I will be confined to a well-AC'd office with people who are siginficantly older than me and perceive me as an expendable resource.
The truth is that I am just glad to have found something to ground myself upon. (As an English major this sentence irks me so much, a dangling modifier and all, but screw it.) I expect I will suffer for a good long while but at this point I am willing to take any form of employment, save illegal ones, even if the position is offered in hell. (I imagine, however, that Satan will never be short of staff. Just my guess.)
I confess that Seoul has always been, for me, the embodiment of hell. I was born there, spent more than half of my life there, and have relatives there (the ones that I actually like). Going to Korea to work was the worst case scenario for me for a couple of reasons. First I feared the natural (and inevitable) deterioration of my English skills. That, I won't be able to avoid no matter how hard I try. And then there was the matter of sexism. Despite the incredible progress that the Korean society has made in the last decade it is still under the control of tyrannical patriarchy. Sexist remarks are considered quite common and --I use this term with extreme caution-- normal. I spent a week in Seoul quite recently and though certain things defied my prejudice against the country, sexism was right within my estimate. As the marginalized of the marginalized --an average-looking single woman in her twenties with little work experience-- I am sure I will have many tales to tell. This blog will be the primary method of communication for bitching about those things.
I also admit that I am scared. But I am also very excited. Thank goodness I still have some sense of adventure left in my body.
