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Published: August 7th 2007
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Korean moving truck
How did I get so much stuff? I moved last week.
There are times in my life when I think I'll never be satisfied with anything and that I might as well put up with life as it is. Of course, this is total B.S. in the worst form and a good way to waste a life. I had become bored and dissatisfied in Austin, so I moved to Korea to shake things up a bit. In other words, I dragged my butt here to get out of a rut.
Then I arrived in Pyeongchon, Korea and life wasn't exactly wonderful there either. It's a polluted satellite city outside Seoul with not much to do. The job sucked and I worked lots of hours (51 hours a week by contract) with a bunch of unfriendly people. There were a few things that were good like the fantastic jimjilbang (Korean sauna) and yoga classes (in Korean)... but for the most part, I was having no fun. I said to myself, "Well, it's only a year..." Then they cut my hours and put me on night shift. That would have been ok but they also cut my pay by 400,000 Won ($430) a month.
So I said I wanted to look for another job. Luckily, they didn't just fire me for saying that and gave me a good recommendation letter. I put my resume up on the web and within a couple of days my phone was ringing off the hook. I went on two job interviews and found a GREAT job in Seoul within 6 days of saying I wanted a new job. The difference is like night and day. Better working hours, with a good administration staff, coworkers who are friendly, older, happier, and more serious than in my last job, and nice working facilities. I have a bigger apartment in Gangnam (a great area of Seoul) within walking distance of 3 subway lines. My neighbor, who is also a co-worker, is vegetarian and he told me that there is a vegetarian group that meets a few times a month to go out to restaurants and picnics. There's a vegetarian restaurant within a 15-minute walk from my house. There's a movie theater around the corner from my house. It just keeps going.
How I managed to gather so much stuff in 2 1/2 months I don't know, but I had to get a mover to come get it all. The mover was a crazy old man who kept trying to pack my trash and my compost from the freezer. When we got into Seoul, he unloaded all my stuff at the wrong address (I had never seen my new apartment) and we had to load it all back on the moving truck to get to my real apartment.
I got my stuff in and had to rush back to Pyeongchon for my last day of work. Fortunately, I had the apartment manager write my address in Korean, because when I came back to sleep here the first night, I couldn't find the apartment. I wandered around at midnight with the address in hand asking shopkeepers to point me in the correct direction. At one store, the guy yelled out to some man in the street to show me the way. I got here in one piece. One should never try this at home, but here in Korea, I think it's ok. I'm finally here and happy.
Sometimes you just have to ask and everything falls into place. I have to remember that my life is too short to put up with a bad situation when a good one is probably waiting for me around the corner.
This weekend I'll be going to the Buddha's Birthday lantern parade and then I'm off to the States where I get to see a bunch of you for the wedding/visa run. I'm very excited about it all, but it's all coming up so fast. I guess that means more blogs coming soon.
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