Week(ish) In Review: The One Where I’m Still Alive

Hello! Yes, I am alive. Yes, everything is fine. Several lovely people reached out to me over the weekend asking if I was okay, if everything was okay and I realized I never even said, “I’m gonna take a little break,” cuz, frankly, there was not even time/energy for THAT.  I haven’t even TikTokked, and usually I NEVER miss that for more than a day or two…and it’s been like 10 days. But it feels nice to know people notice my absence, so thanks for asking 🙂

SO. It’s been a WEEK(ish)! I guess the main points were:

-> Finishing TEFL: I’m DONE, everything has been submitted, I’m just waiting on the results of one I had to re-do. What a WEIGHT OFF MY SHOULDERS it was yesterday morning when I sent off the re-do! They get back to you within 48 hours, but until then, there is NOTHING MORE I CAN DO FOR THAT. I had the LOVELIEST afternoon, I actually went up to the park with my chair and a coffee and a book and just sat in the shade by the water for like 2 hours. I don’t think I’ve done that since LAST OCTOBER, which is crazy…but envisioning The Timeline of My Life, that was RIGHT before all the Korea You Know What Hit The Fan and I really started applying every brain cell and bit of energy I had towards THAT. So I GET it, I know that I was spending my time in a worthwhile manner, but MAN am I glad to have that One Giant Chunk of Things to Do off my plate (hopefully. I’ll know for sure by tomorrow afternoon).

-> Spending a Day w Katie in the City: I REALLY meant to blog about this right after…but then everything else started falling on me and I just couldn’t. But she had a 9-hour layover in NY on her way to Europe, where she was going for 10 days as a friend’s Plus One at a wedding in Italy. So I picked her up from JFK at 10am in Queens, and dropped her at Newark Airport in New Jersey at 7pm…and in between we went to Vanderbilt Summit, which is a cool experience thing…hung out in the shade at Bryant Park while she had a work thing on the phone and I just sat and people watched in the shade (<- Top Ten Favorite Activity)…then we headed to Jersey City for dinner on the water overlooking the downtown Manhattan skyline, then I dropped her at the airport. One minorly flat tire, bagels, 3+ miles of walking, and a LOOONNNGGG drive home for me after dropping her at the airport, but…so nice to spend the day with her.

-> Two New People in My Office: I will lead with they’re both very nice, very pleasant personalities, etc. So, it’s not THEM, it’s ME, but…a little side story…just a few days before they started I had been talking with someone in the lobby, and after we parted, I thought, wow, who WAS that cheerful, pleasant, helpful person?? ME. That cheerful, pleasant, helpful person was ME! Wait, what?? You remember that old commercial with the egg frying and sizzling in the pan and the announcer says “that’s your brain on drugs”?? Well, CPH Me is Me with MY OWN OFFICE. Nothing against anyone I’ve worked with but…I am just BETTER when I can be alone more. I KNOW that. Covid year with quarantine was like…life changing for me. Almost two months in the office by myself – same. So now that is over…and I have to be with TWO new people…two new personalities…so…that’s a lot for me. Plus, training two people at the same time…it’s kind of a lot. Making the work that one person has been doing for two months, be enough for three people?? The days are PAINFUL. I feel bad when they’re sitting there with nothing to do so I spend my days trying to make stuff for them to do. And this coming week the school is closed so there will be even LESS to do, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. But anyway, by the time I got home I was just DRAINED. Introvert Drained. Again, THEY ARE LOVELY. This has ZERO to do with them and EVERYTHING to do with me. But yeah.

-> I had a photo shoot. I don’t really do that anymore, but it’s someone I know and her son is comfortable with me, so…there was THAT time and stress. Yes, even after all this time, “people” shoots are still stressful for me. Interacting PERIOD always brings SOME level of stress…and add to that the “what if I screw up” factor…and that is ALWAYS a factor.

-> My ex-father-in-law passed away. I mean, it’s been a long time since he was really IN my life, though I would see him sometimes at holidays at the ex’es house. Still, a sad occasion, a wake, a funeral…the funeral was on New People’s second day…so there was the stress of asking for half a day off when I REALLY should have been at work with New People…and I REALLY wanted to take the whole day so I could have joined them all for the “after funeral lunch,” spent a little more time with Katie (she cut her Europe trip a little short to come home for this), and driven her back to the airport. But…I just couldn’t do it. But so those were two very long days.

-> Trying to wrap up two of my three current Korean classes so that I can take a little summer “break” (relatively speaking), meaning I’ll only have ONE Korean class (and the one-off workshops, etc that I can’t keep myself away from). I had a little epiphany recently (and maybe I’ve talked about this here before) about studying vs learning…and how for the past 6 months (with TEFL) especially, but even the 6 months before that when I was doing the online class and there was SO much homework…I’ve only had enough time to complete assignments. Which is like studying for a test. In school I got decent grades cuz I was good at studying and preparing for and taking tests…but the following day, all that information was already slipping away…and within a very short time it was as if I’d never even known it at all. I was STUDYING material, not LEARNING material. And in school that was fine with me. I didn’t CARE about geometry or American history or The Red Badge of Courage, I just wanted to PASS. So I could get OUT. But now I actually want to LEARN. And that’s Not The Same Thing. But while I’ve been So Busy, I haven’t had time to learn…only to complete assignments. So I made a conscious decision to only have ONE CLASS for the summer so I could really focus and LEARN. So I was really pushing to get two of the classes either finished (one) or at a good place to pause (the other) before summer started.

-> There was a REAL flat tire day, not just low tire, but literally driving around on the rim looking for a place with air. I missed several hours of work that day as well. It’s difficult to not be there when you’re the only one doing THOSE THINGS. Because then they have to get someone from another department to Do Those Things til I can get there…and…uhhh…it’s just awkward. No one likes having to do someone else’s job…so that was stressful for me.

-> There were a couple hard rainy days when by the time I got home looking like a drowned rat the last thing I wanted to do was go on camera or take pictures of myself. And in an unfortunate coincidence, ONE of the rainy days was also a FLAT TIRE day…which was ALSO funeral day…so at the end of that long day I found myself kneeling on the pavement in my dress in the pouring rain, putting air into my tire. I think I got home THAT day and literally walked straight to my bed and laid down, wet dress and all, and slept for like an hour-and-a-half.

SO. THAT is where I have been and what I’ve been doing. Nothing was WRONG, it was just a LOT OF STUFF all at the same time. But hopefully now, with TEFL behind me (yes, I’m counting my crossed fingers before they hatch), and 2/3 of my Korean studying set aside for the summer…I hope to enjoy a little slower, easier pace. And then I’ll pick it back up in the fall – more Korean classes, returning to ebay, and I’m going to look for a volunteer opportunity with an ESL class somewhere, like at a library or continuing education class. I don’t want to be the TEACHER, but I’d like to be there and participate in some way, just to experience it in Real Life, not just through an online course. But that’s 2 months away. And not THIS week, but NEXT week I’ll be on vacation, so that will be a nice start to the summer ease.

Here are just some pictures all mixed together from the past couple weeks…

How have y’all been??