I am starting this entry ensconced in my dorm room (the palatial accommodations I showed off yesterday), with the lights from the soccer field (or football pitch, as half my classmates insist it’s called, for reasons unknown to science) streaming in through the window. I’m told they go off at 10:30, but I haven’t yet managed to stay up that late, so I’ll have to take their word for it.
I had intended to go for a walk around Chengju and then show off some of the city, and I DID go for the walk – but then other things came up.
I have always been a somewhat uncertain person. My confidence and my nervousness are constantly waxing and waning inside me, the one growing as the other weakens. One moment, I’m brimming with excitement, certain that I’m going to be the best frickin’ English teacher this peninsulas ever seen. The next, I quiver, and wonder what the hell I was thinking coming over here. Now, I have no illusions that I’m unique in this regard – I’ve always believed that 90% of humans share 90% of their internal experiences. Everyone feels like this at some point or another, including probably a great deal of my classmates at this very moment (obviously they’re wrong about being the best, ‘coz dat’s me).
But, over all of it was a growing sense of loneliness. I am…not particularly adept at making friends. I tend to be blunt and sarcastic towards people in order to mask my fuzzy and romantic core, which is probably a bit off-putting. In the three days, lots of people have quickly formed up into groups. I see the same groups or even just pairs constantly together, chattering back and forth, traveling around. Lots of people seem like they already belong. But I was feeling, well, a bit out of place. I had made attempts, and certainly many people were friendly towards me. But no one especially felt like a friend. Any group I joined, I felt largely surplus to requirements. A perpetual fifth wheel.
Now, again, obviously, I’m only seeing the surface – no doubt there are other singletons here, people feeling out of place, homesick, lonely, in over their head, what-have-you. No doubt many of those groups of people are clinging to each other in something like desperation, so far from home, while each member privately worries that they don’t truly belong there.
Nevertheless, I was somewhat glum as I made my way into town to explore. I couldn’t even think of who to ask to come with me. I resolved to focus on discovering the city in front of me, and then work out the loneliness thing once I arrived at Gwangju next week.
But, as I was making my way back to the dorm, I was reminded that things always get better. See, there’s only one main entrance to the good old billiard academy (which the dorm moonlights as, remember). Outside, there’s a series of picnic tables lining the main approach, three on each side. As I trudged up through the gathering gloom, I noticed a gathering of people at one, whose nametags all proclaimed their ultimate destination of Gwangju. I wandered over to investigate, and found out that everyone going to my city – about 12 of us – wanted to gather so we could meet and bond.
And so we did.
Two hours later, I know Lily (who is from California, loves theater and hiking, and wants to teach poly-sci), Thomas (Nebraska, wants to publish a novel based on his Americorps experiences), Emma (Wales, bounced around England and New Zealand before landing in Korea), Nadine (London, once hitchhiked from Spain to Dover), Seorse (Irish, once sang with the winner of The Voice France), Erica (Ottawa, once a theater producer), and others. They were determined that we in Gwangju would be there to support each other in the year to come, and there was no question at all about whether or not I belonged there.
Gwangju Dreaming 