Some Things Never Change

I was already two drinks in when I broke the news to my girlfriends.

"I'm moving to Korea!" I blurted out.

Looks of shock and confusion filled my friends' faces. Then came the questions.

"When are you leaving?"

"Why Korea?"

"How long will you be gone?"

"What the hell are you going to do there?"

I took a deep breath. "Next month; Korea pays the most money of any foreign country; one year; I'll be teaching children English."

My friends bursted into laughter.

"Seriously, Jen?" said my friend Rita. "You're going to teach children? Do you even like children?"

I ordered another martini. What the hell am I getting myself into?

***

Seven months later, I'm happy to report that I'm doing just fine. Turns out, I actually like children. (And they like me too!)

I take my camera to work so I can post class photos on facebook. Colorful construction paper cards hang on my walls. I'm constantly telling stories about the funny things my kids say and do.

"Jen, I feel like I don't even know you anymore!" joked my friend April during a gchat conversation.

"Girl, I feel like I don't even know myself!" I joked back.

Then she asked if my biological clock was ticking.

"Fuck no!" I typed in bold letters.

"Now there's the Jen Stevens I know an love, LOL! So, any guys you wanna tell me about?"

Happy Easter!

Thinking back to the days before I left for my one-year contract, I was riddled with anxiety. I worried about the loneliness I would experience, the homesickness. I thought about the depression I suffered the last time I moved away from home--Thanksgiving spent crying on my bathroom floor; Easter in front of the fan, cooling down from a panic attack. Holidays were always the hardest.

But not here.

I spent Christmas with my roommate and a bunch of strangers in the Shenyang (China) airport, waiting for a plane that "got lost in bad weather" to arrive. Thanksgiving was spent with some fellow Americans, eating Turkey with chopsticks. I celebrated New Years in a reggae bar in Beijing with some friends I met in a hostel. And Easter was just another day on the couch.

Actually, I had no idea Sunday was even a holiday until I opened my mom's e-card. But, I guess living in Asia will do that to you.

Some Perspective

Five months after publication, I finally got my hands on the fall issue of blu, the luxury lifestyle magazine I used to work for in Tampa. Never one to do only one thing at a time, I was surfing the Internet while thumbing through the magazine's thick, glossy pages.

I had just come across a great ESL posting on how to teach unruly Korean kindergartners "Old MacDonald had a Farm" when I looked back at the magazine. I was at the society pages.

Pictures of Tampa Bay socialites in evening gowns, NFL players in swim trunks and DJs spinning records on rooftop terraces--a visual reminder of the life I used to lead.

I would complain about having to get dressed up on a Tuesday night to meet my

photographer at some gala. I got annoyed at the stream of emails from PR reps telling me about upcoming events I just had to attend. "I should really get paid for all this extra work I'm putting in," I'd complain to my editor. "This is not in my job description."

Yet, here I am, at 11 o'clock at night, printing out lyrics and trying to find images of donkeys and pigs.

To think I considered taking names while drinking champagne overtime.