People Skills/Boa Educação

For most of my life, I have never been the kind of person who makes friends easily. Wherever I went, I usually had a small collection of close friends that I would spend time with individually, but I never really had a social circle per se because I never fit in anywhere. There are some people (like Joel, or my friend who lives in Beijing, or our friend Austin back home) who are naturally gifted at making friends and getting people to like them. I have always been envious of that kind of gift - I'll be the first to admit that I have an overwhelming tendency to come across as abrasive and straightforward. On top of that, a lingering social awkwardness from being made fun of my rich kids during my childhood years makes it impossible for me to strike up conversations with strangers.

Throughout my high school and college years, I put on a façade of being proud of my abrasiveness. This is who I am, I figured, and anyone who doesn't like it doesn't deserve to be my friend and can go f*** themselves. It was a useful defense mechanism until I grew out of it...unfortunately, by then my old habits were so ingrained that I couldn't shake them. I eventually got better and meeting new people, but there were some old friends from college that I was just bitchy to all the time. Even when I wanted to stop, I found myself falling back into familiar patterns of aggressive banter.

As intimidating as it was to be thrust in with a group of complete strangers here in Korea, I was grateful for the opportunity to remake myself. Here was a chance to prove that I could be polite, caring, cheerful, supportive. Helpful. My co-teachers were a clean slate, the chance to prove to the world - or maybe just myself - that I could more than the girl who always finds something to give you a hard time about. Not to be fake, but just to be a more positive version of myself. Or something. By and large it has worked out well so far (I think) - if my co-workers don't like me, they do a damn good job of pretending they do.

Alas, you cannot please everybody all the time unless you are a puppy or a kitten that never throws up on the rug. Some days we are just off...and some days I am still a social idiot.

I upset one of my friends during a conversation at work today. It wasn't anything serious - I jumped into a conversation too quickly because I was trying to be helpful and probably just came across as a know-it-all. People get over that sort of thing. But it spoiled our plans for the evening and left me with a bad taste in my mouth, particularly after spending a whole hour this morning trying (unsuccessfully) to order an effing Halloween costume from G-market. (Different story for a different entry.)

It seems that what I have done more than anything since I have come here has been to think - to think about people and how they tick, how they fit together and get along with each other, how they cope as immigrants or students or teachers or when they are in desperate situations. So tonight, after Joel cooked dinner and took off to play darts, I cleaned the apartment and set off on a nighttime hike to think.

Side note: Cheseok-san (the ridge that runs behind our neighborhood) is quiet and well-lit at night. It was a lovely walk.

I thought about why I had jumped into the conversation in the first place, why it had bothered my friend, and why the fact that I had butted heads with my friend in such a small way affected me so much. Before we came here, while it still would have bothered me, I would have more or less shrugged it off after appropriate apologies were made, but that was then - when I still thought of myself as a lone wolf of sorts. I realized that since coming here, one of the things I have wanted most is for people to like me.

Turns out that when you actually care what people think, sticking your foot in your mouth stings a lot more.

The point of this isn't to fish for compliments, or solicit support, or anything like that. I apologized, and things are fine - relationship speedbumps are a fact of life. It is simply one of many reflections that I have had since coming here.

Travels, Visitors, and My New Smartphone Addiction/Viagens, Visitantes e Meu Novo Vício

Joel and I concluded our Kyoto trip on October 3. The day after my last blog post, we went to Nanzen-ji and Eikan-do temples, walked the Path of Philosophy (which, curiously, had about as many stray cats as it did tourists), and then finished the day at Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion), which was absolutely gorgeous and probably my favorite place that we visited. We spent our last day in Arashiyama (the western part of the city) and visited Tenryu-ji (Temple of the Sky Dragon), the Okouchi-sansou villa, and Gio-ji temple. We also walked through the bamboo grove and Sagano, which is a really pretty district with cobblestone streets and a lot of souvenir shops and tea shops. Eventually I will harass Joel to post all of the pictures on Facebook, so look for them there.

We came back from vacation and stumbled through Thursday and Friday at work. We will definitely have to take advantage of our weekends now, since we will not have any more long vacations until the calendar new year. As much as I have enjoyed traveling, I think it will be nice to settle down a little bit and try to save a little more money.

Meanwhile, Joel's parents are in town to visit us for about a week. They arrived last week on Friday night, so we have been showing them around town and taking them to our favorite restaurants. It has been a nice even mix of things: yesterday, we took them hiking on the trail behind our neighborhood (which I'm pretty sure is on a mountain called Jeseoksan, if I'm reading the signs right), and today Joel took them to the Kimchi Festival, which is happening in Gwangju right now. I was pretty bummed that I could go, too, but I had the world's worst headache. Literally. Anyway, tomorrow Joel is planning to take them to the 5.18 Memorial Park, and then we will go hiking on Mudeung mountain on Wednesday morning before they head out on Thursday.

The major event this week was my serendipitous receipt of a second-hand smartphone and subsequent addiction. Allow me to explain.

Joel and I have been attending a Catholic church just down the street from our apartment complex (on the way to the outdoor market) since we first arrived, but for whatever reason, the priests did not notice me until I went to Mass last Sunday. After the service, they visited with me briefly on my way out and introduced themselves as Fr. Bernard and Fr. Thomas. When I went back for daily Mass on Wednesday, however, the younger of the two priests (Fr. Thomas) flagged me down on my way out and gave me a booklet with the Order of the Mass in ten different languages.
Fr. Thomas: Jessica! I think you need this! *as he hands me the booklet*
me: Oh, thank you very much! This is wonderful.
Fr. T: Are you busy?
me: Not especially.
Fr. T: Do you like...espresso?
me: Yes.
Fr. T: Ah, please come.

So we go into his office, where he has an espresso machine, and he makes us each a cup as we sit down to chat. This guy is pretty interesting: not only does he speak some Japanese and have a hobby of drawing anime cartoons, he is also in a band (and he gave me two of their CDs).

Fr. T: Do you have MP3 player?
me: No, I don't. I had a little iPod, but I didn't bring it with me.
Fr. T: Ah, but maybe you can use phone for music.
me: Actually, I don't have a smartphone. My husband and I share a cell phone, but it is an old little 2G phone. We have never owned smartphones.

Now, it is important to understand that South Koreans are super-connected; you can see everyone from high school students to construction workers glued to their phones as you pass them on the sidewalk. My only explanation for what happened next is that this wonderful priest saw my lack of a smartphone as a very obvious poverty, and that he was determined to remedy it.

Fr. T: Actually, I have extra phone.
me: What?
Fr. T: Yes! *he pulls an older Galaxy phone out of his bottom desk drawer* Someone leave this phone here in church! I find this one and I call him and say, 'I found your phone! Please come and take it,' and he say, 'Okay, I will come,' but he did not come. It is six month ago. So...if you don't mind, you can have this one.
me: I can have it?!
Fr. T: Ah...borrow!
me: ...Really?
Fr. T: Yes!
me: ...Okay.

At first I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but after some of my students showed me a few tricks, I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that now means I am completely addicted to my new device. I have installed Laudate (which is the absolute greatest app ever for the practicing Catholic), two different messenger apps (one for everyone here in SK, and one for m friend in China), Facebook, Skype, Google Translate, and Google Reader. I have to resist the temptation to ask if everywhere we are going has Wifi. I am always checking the phone for new messages and new updates. And now I have a new challenge: I have to figure out how to enable USB storage on the thing so I can put music and pictures from the computer onto it.

Ah, first world problems.