Friday, May 11, 2007

Annoyed

I should really try to write something positive someday. I guess people don't carry their good days around like they do their bad ones. I've just been really frustrated and annoyed the past few days. Not a whole lot has happened to make me feel this way. I do know what some of it relates to but I should be less annoyed or not feel as bad as I do.

I was in the hospital last week for some minor procedure. Even though, I'd read the procedure was supposed to be relatively minor and quick healing, it hasn't been what I'd thought it would be. It was nothing life-threatening so no one needs to be worried not that anyone reads this thing on a regular basis anymore (or ever did). There's just been this consistent uncomfort from it for the past few week and it's been worse since Tuesday. I mean it's not like I'm in constant pain and even a day of it would be fine but it's just always there and doesn't feel right and I'm worried it's not going to feel right again. I don't know if this is the main cause of it all but it's definitely aggravating everything else.

Then there are issues with my job (not that there haven't always been issues). I quit my job 6 weeks ago today. I owed them 8 weeks notice and will be giving them about 9 to just end the month. The problem is that my replacement who was scheduled to come on June 1st, has suddenly decided she won't be coming until June 17th or something. So my school is pressuring me to stay until at least the 15th. I've considered it and the idea just sickens me. I don't think I should've had to give 11+ weeks notice for some crappy hagwon job. I thought 8 weeks was absurd enough. The only nice thing is that I had my departure date all lined up in advance. May 12th, I think it was. It was somehow pushed back (since I was procrastinating about it, plus I wanted them to fulfill their obligations to me before I told them I would be leaving in 8 weeks).

It's just all such fucking crap. The school is trying to convince me that it's my obligation to stay on until a replacement comes. My plans are still all up in the air so I don't actually know what I will do. It may come as a great surprise to some but I'm considering staying in Korea and signing yet another contract. There are a few reasons for it but I'll get to them later. Anyways, if I take one job they'd need me to start training on May 28th (they've actually delayed it by one week just for me) so I definitely couldn't stay until June 15th with that job. Another job, I'd told them I would start in July but I wanted to have a whole month off before I were to go there. So this would fuck that plan up. I'm just worried about what my boss will do if I continue to say no.

In order to get another job, I'd need a letter of release which I guess he isn't actually obligated to give me. So he could threaten to withhold that. His representative (he has a tenuous grasp of English at best) told me that since I won't be paid until the 10th anyways, I should just stay until the 15th to make sure I get it. I don't know if she was just unclear on things or whether that's what my boss actually told her. Anyways, there's probably a high likelihood that my replacement is going to flake out entirely. I don't know what it would be exactly but I wouldn't be at all surprised if she just delayed and delayed and then finally decided against it all. So should I agree to stay on until the replacement or a replacement finally got there, I may be waiting a long long time.

Probably most upsetting of all though is my impending birthday. It's not that I mind getting older. I've already begun thinking of myself as being 25 and have to remind myself that I am 24. It's more the fact that it's looking to be another crap birthday. I haven't really celebrated my birthday since 1992. I mean I've gone out for dinner with my parents or whatever but it was never an event and I never wanted it to be. I've also always kind of been in a transitory state. My birthday is 3 weeks away I guess and this time I don't know where I'll be the next day or what I will do the next month or week. If I leave Swaton when I want to leave, I'm probably not going to have a place to live (which is always fun). Most the other times, I've usually just arrived somewhere and am on that side of the transition.

It seems certain that I will spend a 3rd birthday in Daegu, a city where I was certain I'd only spend one. The first one, with less than 2 months here, with a visit from my parents and that was pretty much it. I don't remember if they even knew it was birthday at work. I would say probably not since I don't remember anything being done for me but had they known they probably wouldn't have done anything anyways.

The second one I spent with some friends who I thought knew me well enough to know when my birthday was. Luckily it came up somehow the night before so I knew better than to expect much from the next day. I'd also just returned to Korea maybe 5 days before. I wasn't really upset by it, I mean I was, but it was mostly just disappointment.

This year, all the people that I know, I've basically known for 5 months at the most. One guy I met over a year ago now but was basically just an IM buddy for most of that time. The person who's probably been there for me the most since I've come back to Korea will not be there. She's leaving the country for a year and she's leaving right on my birthday. So in all likelihood, I'm probably going to be sad on my birthday and if I have to go into work that day on top on that I just don't know what I'm going to do.

Then of course, the hot sticky summer is looming and the only heat relief my apartment has is to open the windows. They promised me an air conditioner but of course never delivered on it. Opening the windows however seems to just be an invitation for hundreds of gnats to come flying in. I could continue to ramble but don't have the energy for it. I don't really know how to end this so I guess I just will.