The Hiatus

***NEW BLOG COMING SOON***


I took a break from writing this blog to explore important possible life directions. I wasn’t happy with my progress both on the financial front or the creative side.


This blog began as a one year diary to document my new adventures into traveling and living outside of Canada. From the postings made in my first months of living in Asia back in 2009 to the ones of late, anyone can clearly see how much my life has changed. I vowed to close this diary up when I left Korea at the end of my second term. But even though my ticket home was booked on an Air Canada flight with a window seat and a space under my chair reserved for Keiko (the cat would come later), I didn’t board that flight three months ago.

I was offered a last minute opportunity that I simply couldn’t turn down.


Three months later and an eternity it seems that I have last written anything, I am still here. Although I can’t actually say that honestly as I am not anywhere near the same place I was when I first arrived here both geographically and emotionally. I am not working in a conventional nine to five public school job and living in paid for accommodation. I don’t think I ever will again. Nothing did more to destroy my optimism than being stuck in one place from nine to five. I found myself unable to make time for anything. Waking up at seven was just enough time to shower, walk the dog, and go to school. When I got home at four in the afternoon I was famished and exhausted in a way that didn’t make sense. I didn’t do any hard laboring. I barely taught five classes a day. I would spend half the hours idling away in a cozy public school office refreshing the Facebook homepage, depleting stories on news websites, and YouTube videos. I decided then that I would much prefer to work/teach class after class until my legs quivered from exhaustion and my voice withered away than to sit for three hours and do absolutely nothing. And I don’t think any pay raise would have made that feeling change.



So by four in the afternoon, I would have just enough in me to take the dog to the park, make dinner, and then watch a movie or do another brain numbing activity. I gave up drinking on weekdays so my social life went away with it. When I met up with the locals on the weekend or days I could be bothered to go out, they annoyed me with their silly life stories and general attitude of acceptance with the same life I was living. When my second year was coming to an end, I didn’t want to go back to Canada with a student debt etched to me like some ill gotten tattoo in my youth. Worst, I couldn’t go back and tell my father that except for memories backpacking to tropical countries once so alluring, I had nothing to show for two years of absence in his life.

A week before I left Icheon, I got a job offer that could provide for me financially. I had a chance to really pay off my student loans by the time I was 25. And the kicker was I only worked from noon to three. I finally had a job that didn’t center on bartending into the middle of the night or “teaching” at a public school that took up the best part of the day. I now exist in a world I didn’t understand before, the noon world where I had mornings to make pancakes for breakfast if I wanted to or go jogging with Keiko if I wanted to. I make appointments to get my hair cut in the mornings, I visit coffee shops to sit and pretend to write, or I watch TV. I am out when the sun is out. I have more love for my teaching and freedom to independently make lesson plans. By three in the afternoon I am wired with energy and glowing with positivity. I think of elaborate dinners I can make from scratch, tasting flavors new to me, or finding hobbies.
I have a clear goal in mind and am taking huge efforts to attain it. I have given myself to my 25th birthday to accomplish this. As this idea buried itself into my head and I worked effortlessly to put it in spin, I noticed I haven’t written a single thing for months. Perhaps the longest I have gone wordless.

I realized it was because I had nothing more to contribute to Away We Go. With a new work schedule, new short term goals, and new city to live in (downtown Seoul), I am ready to start a new story.

So this is my thanks to all of you back home, here in Korea, or those I met travelling who have followed me on my journey in the last two and a half years with Away We Go. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for tuning in.