On Memory

Greetings,

I have been living in Korea on an off for several years now. I am currently employed in a middle school in Ansan, Gyeonggi-do. Although I have many remarkable experiences, experiences that one should not forget, I have discovered that recently I can not seem to remember key experiences. My lovely Korean girlfriend has adequately diagnosed my problem: it seems that I am an insensitive male.

Last Sunday as we were travelling in the remote fog stained mountains of the Southern part of the country, my girlfriend looked at me and said, "Do you remember our first travelling". I hastily replied yes, and recounted much to her chagrin our 2nd or 3rd travelling adventure in the winter of 2008. It was either due to her lack of sleep or my soju degenerated memory, but I was soon in store for a long diatribe about how "I just didn't care". The truth is that I do care. My memory is amazing for facts and figures. I can still quote with next to perfect accuracy all of the lines of Shakespeare that I had to memorize in high school. However, my memory is not only limited to recent events in the past few years with her, but it seems that whole sections of my childhood have been erased, and replaced with innumerable years of university book learnin'.

After listening to her concerns for a considerable amount of time I suggested that I undertake a project of documenting my memories and thoughts about my time in Korea. She acquiesced to my suggestion as I sometimes have made grand proclamations concerning what I will do to remedy my situation, yet never seem to carry through with them. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh? This time, I will fight my natural inclination towards "lip service" as my dear significant other would say and try to accurately reflect my little world of weekend getaways, work life, and adapting to a culture that I will probably never understand 100 percent. In the end this is all part of the lost weekend that is my life; that if not recorded by me will be lost within the corridors of my ever confused mind. I chose the title "lost weekend" to refer to John Lennon. John spent over a year separated from Yoko, which was one of his most artistically prolific times, that he later referred to as his lost weekend. In contrast, all of my weekends will be lost if I do not actively try to maintain them in a more concrete form.

I have recently become a fan of reading blogs from fellow teachers in Korea. Some blogs are informative, some are entertaining, some reflect hardship and discrimination, and some are downright angry. I will try to remain balanced in my opinion, but ultimately my situation and perspective will be my own and shaped by my experiences which are routinely fairly positive. Let's start remembering my lost weekend together.