Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road / Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
The senior-most couple at our hagwon finally said goodbye today. The last of our cohort - the couple that showed us the ropes when we arrived nervous and bright-eyed last May - threw their parties for their students, said goodbye to the staff, and left. Our friends, our rivals, our supervisors, our peers...sixteen months of working together, partying together, fighting together, suffering together, exploring and discovering and navigating and stumbling and fumbling through Korea are over. Our Korean head teacher was so sad that she was in hysterics when she said goodbye, startling my sixth graders during their end-of-session exam. Tomorrow is a holiday, so as of Friday Joel and I will be the senior-most foreign teachers and the proverbial kings of the mountain.
It feels excessively weird.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why / It's not a question but a lesson learned in time
Living and making friends here is so unlike anywhere else. It's such a relief to find someone you can relate to when you're a stranger in a strange land that you tend to get attached to people very quickly. We were no exception. They showed us the ropes at work and around town, kept us laughing when things at work got tense, and reassured us when we were still learning what was worth worrying about and what wasn't. She was more resourceful with the internet than anyone I know and always seemed to have an answer to the questions I was asking, whether it was about food or travel or shopping around town.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
She and I shared a lot. She was the first person I summited Mudeung with. She vented her frustrations over her student loans to me; I unburdened my marriage and life stage anxieties onto her. We found common ground in very different childhoods and even more different choices. We bounced off of each other's ideas, disappointments, dreams. She helped me to see what I have and don't have, and how to be grateful for both.
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind / Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
No friendship can remain unchanged over the years, and it would seem that some must end. How can a person know if one ends well, or if it ends right? Or if it should end at all? Is it okay if it fizzles out over late-night hookah and kimbap, or should it just go up in a blaze of glory?
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial / For what it's worth, it was worth all the while
Perhaps these months will always be a gray area for me, but I loved it nonetheless. Safe travels, nigs, wherever they take you.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right / I hope you had the time of your life
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