On Suspended Animation and the Point of No Return

After receiving my contract to teach in South Korea, I was anticipating, and expected, to leave the states by February 17, arriving in Korea roughly two weeks before classes started. That changed when some complications with my paperwork arose, which delayed my stay for quite a bit longer. I received the issuance number for my visa on the day I had originally planned to be leaving Illinois. It would take another week for the consulate to process my visa before I could pick it up. On February 25, a Tuesday, I picked up my visa. My flight was confirmed that night for noon on the 28^th.  I had two days till my flight; four days till my first class.

            It is a nerve wrecking experience to leave the fate of your future in someone else’s hands, especially if your modus operandi is in personal autonomy; especially if the hands you place your fate into are creased with the lines of bureaucratic coldness. After the second week waiting for my number to come through (the allotted time, I was told, that is given to processing such requests), I was informed that Korea was celebrating its Lunar New Year, and so it would take a little more time “if I would just please be patient”. It took another two weeks.

            I knew if I let myself be frustrated, it would only serve to exacerbate my stress, which had been redlining for quite some time. Instead I decided to keep my mind off it, so I read…a lot. The first couple of days went by and I imagined that any day now they’ll email me and I’ll be off and everything will be fine if only they’d just email me by now why is it taking so goddamn long. By the end of the first week a ghost entered my head: a phantom really. It would whisper something that I couldn’t quite make out until halfway through the second week when repetition had stained the phantom’s message in my mind like a smoking does to one’s teeth over time: your visa issuance number request has been declined, you’re not going anywhere.

            And lo, salvation came in the form of a cookie-cutter email with my issuance number sprinkled on top. And yet it didn’t feel like salvation, I think partly because I still didn’t believe it was happening, that in a week I would be gone. I had grown accustomed to sitting around all day watching TV and reading books, substitutes for something I didn’t actually want to be doing: waiting. Apparently, two weeks is enough time to resort back to a simpler, sedentary form of life. I look back on this period and I can’t help thinking it would be much different than spending time in a cryogenic freezer, waiting to resume life anew. For those few weeks I felt I was merely taking up space, while everyone was going about their own lives. I had become that thing in the corner of your living room that you’re sure served a purpose at one point, but you’re not sure what that purpose might have been or when it had functioned, and so you keep it around anyways because it gives you something to talk about…

            The departure at the airport was melancholic and teary-eyed. My parents and girlfriend were in attendance. I’m not sure I had thawed out quite yet to say that I was wholly present. We parted ways and eventually, after grabbing some food and spending some time picking up gifts for my coworkers, I made my way onto the Boeing 777 to take my seat, 34E. There were only four rows behind mine, and the seats were grouped into three columns of threes. I was seated in the middle seat of the middle column. I would not describe the feeling as ‘trapped’, but there was a sense of helplessness associated with being in the specific position on the plane that I was in. There was also to beginnings of the helplessness associated with irrevocable decisions. I had just boarded a plane that was to fly just under 7000 miles to a country of whose language and culture I have a very limited knowledge. The realization of my limited knowledge would start to form more fully when the wheels left the tarmac, and would increase over the next 14 hours in flight.

            Amazing as it may seem (it was to me at least), customs and baggage claim were surprisingly quick and easy. However, what little relief they provided for me immediately faded when I made my way to arrivals, where I had anticipated meeting a representative from the school, who I couldn’t find. This was the point at which my limited knowledge and understanding had coincided with the truth that I would be living and working here despite my knowledge and understanding: my point of no return.

            Fortunately, the representative was able to find me, and put me on a bus that would take me to the city I would be teaching in. The ride was four hours. Sometime between landing and meeting the first representative, an exhausted defeatism clouded my soul, and when I took my seat on the bus I felt indifferent to my entire situation. I didn’t care to be an employed teacher. I didn’t care to be living in a new country. I didn’t care to have my own apartment. Simply put, nothing mattered to me. I just wanted to lie down in a bed, any bed, as long as I could lie down and sleep, not just nod in and out of a half-dazed exhaustion.

            When I arrived in Taegu it was 11:39pm local time. It had been 25 hours since I woke up to get ready for my flight, and something around 20 of those hours were spent sitting. I never envied the individual that works at a desk all day, and now I have a new appreciation for that conviction. After a call to a prearranged phone number, I was picked up by the school director’s aunt and uncle, who drove me to my apartment, which just so happens to be on the fourth floor of the school. They showed me to my room, which I quickly surveyed and then unpacked a few things before greedily wrapping myself in my new sheets to lay down, hopeful to thaw out completely upon waking, hopeful to feel animated with a new sense of purpose, hopeful to feel joy and satisfaction in the work, hopeful to find a sense of belonging and camaraderie with my coworkers. Let’s hope.