200

This is the 200th post I've made on this blog. It's hard to believe it's been that many, or maybe I should say it's hard to believe I've been here long enough to write that many.


It's been a year and a day since I arrived back in Korea, for what I then thought would be my last year. This is my last week at my job. The past two times I was finishing a contract I felt bittersweet about it, knowing that I'd miss my students who I'd grown to love. Not this time, though. This time I'm leaving and I couldn't be happier about it, and it's not just because pretty much all of the kids have left before me this time. This job has just been a drag. From my coworkers, to the curriculum, to the kids, it's all been miserable for the most part. The fact that I've been the only foreign teacher hasn't helped either. In the past I never realized how valuable another foreigner coworker is, just having someone to talk to really makes a difference. I didn't have that luxury this year, and I know it affected my attitude toward the job and teaching in general. So like I said, I'm leaving and I'm not looking back.

What I am looking at is beginning a new contract at a new school, without going home in between. I had an interview yesterday, and had the position offered to me today, to begin teaching next Monday at a new school. "Interview" is kinda misleading, since I didn't get the feeling I was being interviewed, but rather that they just wanted to get a look at me before they hired me to make sure I wasn't a nutjob or anything.

As a result, although I've been here a year and a day, I'm only about halfway home. I'm disappointed not to be going home anytime soon, but I think it's for the best. My new contract will finish a few days before my 30th birthday, meaning that I will have essentially spent the back half of my 20s teaching English as a second language in South Korea. That seems like a good place to stop.

And by the way, this new job I'm starting is in the same area of Daejeon where I lived and worked my first year. The school is one building over from the first place I worked. That seems like a nice bookend to my time here, to finish where I started.