Mr. Pink and South Korea

Mr. Pink and South Korea? No this is not a Reservoir Dogs reference!

It's 7:30 am and I've had about approximately 2 hours sleep. These past few days have been rancid for me as I have been sick, bed ridden and isolated. I was recently diagnosed with tonsillitis, which is not a surprise, not bad, but not good either. I mean come on! Who really wants to spend their weekend in bed sick or almost half a day at a hospital emergency room? None the less it's fine and over with. I am on a 10 day regiment where I will consume 15 000 mg of the medical miracle drug: Amoxicillin. 

You're probably reading thinking? Wait what is the title referring to? This overtired goon is just speaking about his rotten weekend and his current ailments, but it's actually ironic as the sickness, and free time to think that really led me to what I want to discuss: Teaching English abroad, specifically South Korea. 

I have spent the past 2 hours reading blogs and gaining insight to the world of teaching on the other side of the globe and it fascinates me. The opportunity to teach students my language while taking in a whole new culture, seeing a new world and experiencing basically a new life in my eyes. I think it's best as I come from a very clouded past. I am currently a full-time student enrolled in university just finishing up my first year of my English major undergrad and the path I intend to take is professional studies to pursue an education degree down the road. I gave thought into the idea of just doing the undergrad and even as I'm finishing in that year of April to jump right back into school for the education degree the following month, but I realize there are certain things in life that remain important and unanswered. Experiencing life in another perspective to better understand myself and others in regards to culture, tradition in addition to building teaching experience. It's overall a win-win for me in my eyes, but I can see how it's not for everyone and for the sake of an extremely broad discussion I'll leave that to the imagination and comments section below.

Currently I am enrolled in an sociology course with an even more lovely professor who engages my train of thought in everyday life in our current society. It's as if I have been opened into a whole new realm of how to look at life, culture, tradition, functions and just a large assortment of things we deal with in our everyday life that we manifest and might not give a moment to critically analyse. I think alongside this study of English and a larger portion of my electives being from the disciplines of sociology and folklore has brought new eyes to my daily life. Having said all of this what I am really getting at is that this plan of mine to teach abroad in the near future is going to be rewarding to me in not just terms of travelling, but also keeping in mind these fundamental ideas and thoughts I have learned from both disciplines. I think it's giving me a more broad range of what to expect in this idea cultural shock and be able to turn something that some might think is a negative(ethnocentrism, and I'm not saying anyone is guilty of this, just stating it's not harsh to assume some think our way of life is the only way of life), into something very rich and meaningful. 

As I sit writing in my early morning chills and robe I honestly am just envisioning the actual prospective future of mine and where I've come from these past years. It's astonishing what we are capable of and how we take things for granted each and everyday and how through life experiences one slowly can start seeing themselves building into where they belong. That difficult sense of clarity we all strive for in our daily lives. It's out there, just look closer...