Keep Moving Forward

My tie draped across the desk as I knelt beside one of the students, trying the explain why foot becomes feet while man becomes men in plural. "Just is," was the best I could manage. "Write it down. She pulled the tie I was wearing, nearly choking me in the process and snatched the red pen out of my hand. She drew a heart on the back of my hand with the word 사랑, which means "Love".

 
"My god," I thought. "What am I doing here?" It all seems so strange some days, and I feel like a lost puppy even still. If I've learned anything in my time in Korea thus far is no matter how different the culture, or how backwards a place may seem, the people are still the same. We are afflicted with the insipid traits--jealousy, greed, and languish. But we also share a common goal of loving, and to be loved. There is good and evil in all of us. I enjoy watching the innocence of the kindergartners--they have n't been touched by the heartache that life can bring, and it sorrows me to think their purity can't last. I would like to meet them again in 20 years, to see what became of them. 

   This week has been rather nondescript--but I came to the realization that I have been sleeping far too much. I went from 9 hours a night, to 8 hours, and now to 7 hours in order to fit two more hours of work into the day. I have been trying to become more serious as a writer, and an in the process of polishing off five short stories which I hope to start sending to literary magazines in November. I'm prepared for rejection--lots and lots of rejection--in fact, if I got published on my first try it would feel too easy. 

   Between query letters, working on new material, editing, reediting, networking, reading, studying I feel that working 8-10 hours a day is imperative to really "Break into the market." It's been tough to find three hours a day to write/edit/pursue magazine listing. Maybe someday I'll be able to make this dream come a reality. Everyone wants to be famous, but nobody wants to put in the work. For now I'm satisfied where I am, working the old 9:30am-7:00pm and being the most unlikely kinder
garten teacher there ever was.