It's hard to believe that I've been back from Korea for a year and a half. Hard to believe that I'm already running short on things to say. Hard to believe that it's taken me so long to stabilize myself again, only to find myself questioning that stability. I have a problem. I struggle with two sides of myself. My lovely astrologist friends tell me I have only the stars to thank. I was born at the end of August, a Virgo. This makes people think I should be practical, responsible, reliable and organized. In other words, boring. Part of me would love to be these things, but I'm far too unorganized, spacey and forgetful to measure up. My astrologist friends blame my Gemini rising for screwing everything up. They're probably right. How else could I explain the BFA that I spent four years working towards, without even once thinking realistically about how this BFA would help me pay for food?

The school year is nearly done and my year of two day work weeks is coming to a swift end. I hate the school I work at. The children can be monstrous, like children everywhere, but it's really the staff that make me feel like a 'maudite tête carrée' (damn square head- a slang term used by French Quebeckers for us anglos, it apparently suggests that our heads should be square to prevent us from drinking from the toilet). Just five more classes at the school and I'm free! I can't wait to be done and looking forward to the healthier environment of a new school.

I accepted a position in Seoul for the summer, since my plans of traveling in Cambodia and Vietnam were smashed by the discovery that my summer would be unpaid. So June 18th, I'm boarding the plane once again for a painfully long flight to Seoul. I start work at The Princeton Review the following day and am looking forward to teaching children who aren't six years old. The summer is likely going to be a whirlwind of seeing things I regret missing the first time around (how is a year not long enough?) and then I'll finally be back in Montreal in the evening on August 24th. The morning of August 25, I'll wake up realizing that I'm 28 years old (ouch!) and I have to go to work like a big girl. I have been hired to teach the English immersion program (or bain linguistique - language bath) at a private elementary school in Ville St-Laurent. I'm a little worried. I've never built a curriculum before and should probably begin working IMMEDIATELY, but am not too sure where to start. But don't tell anyone. I'll figure it out. The problem is I can't remember when I decided to go the responsible route and get a real job. Was it last summer when I accepted work at a call center because I was desperate for work? Was it when I realized Fred really was having a transplant and I should organize myself to support us? Part of me- the long dormant practical part of me, is happy that I won't be eating dog food for the rest of my life. The rest of me is concerned that this is the first step to seeing artistic dreams slip away. My goals have not disappeared or even changed really. I just need to figure out how to make them more practical. Perhaps teaching can help me support my artistic addictions?

Changes

My apologies for not having posted anything particularly interesting in the last few weeks. I've been crazy busy. I've had only one day off since August, so I haven't really felt like doing much but sleeping. In September, I started subbing at a school for learning disabled kids (did I post about this already, maybe I did...). I've been there at least once a week for the past couple months. Not wanting to ditch Brother just yet, I was switching shifts with people and coming in on Sundays. Saturdays I'm still working at the yoga studio. So things have been hectic. I completely unintentionally ended up with three jobs. The last couple weeks, my phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from a various schools looking for English or Drama teachers and I've been ditching shifts at Brother left, right and center to go to interviews. So I decided it may be time to pack it in at Brother, and my last day is tomorrow. I've accepted a part time teaching contract at a school in the east end, where I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm going to spend this week circulating my resume to various other schools, hoping to pick up more substitution work for the next little while and completing my applications for the school board. I thought I had already finished with this, but then I received a notice in the mail that they were in fact serious about wanting my official transcripts from high school and my diploma. Silly me, I didn't think these things would matter after University...

Amidst all this insanity, I came to the realization that it was time for me to go back to school. So I've applied to do my Bachelor of Social Work online through the University of Victoria starting in January and hopefully should heard back from them soon. I discovered while ordering my high school transcripts from Alberta Education, that I never paid the fee for my diploma exams, which I had rewritten purely out of pride. I was shocked and disgusted when I received my mark back on my English exam and I had been given 77% on my essay- probably the lowest mark I've ever gotten in English. I rewrote that same exam six months later, agreeing to pay the forty something dollars to do so-- only to receive the exact same mark in the mail. For the last ten years, I have successfully quashed the desire to retake that same exam, concluding instead that Alberta Education doesn't know its ass from its elbow. This makes me feel better.

Seriously?

I have had a slow introduction to the Quebec Education system. I had a temporary contract at a private school for three months last winter and have done some substitution work at a private school for learning disabled kids. At the special needs school, I noticed my first day that the classrooms were pretty old looking, the books, having been used for twenty-some years were falling apart and that for a class of ADD children, there was an alarming amount of reading in the curriculum, with very little hands on learning. The school is 75% French and 25% English, and my first experiences there were on the English side. Then I worked on the French side. With new books, new desks and even blinds for the windows! Coincidence? I've been in Montreal too long to believe in that.

So finally after a lot of running about, I finally got all the appropriate papers to the smaller school boards to apply for teaching. I'm still missing the mandatory exam, but I'm hoping I may have found a way around it. At least for now. A few days later, the Commission Scolaire de la Pointe de l'Ile (Tip of the island school board) called me and proposed two positions. They were both teaching drama, one at an elementary school and one at a high school. I told her I would prefer the high school and set up an interview for the following day, Friday. I made my way up to Montreal North and approached the address I had been given. I reached an enormous building on Henri Bourassa East and the sign on the building confirmed that I was at the right place. I made my way to the front doors, just as a student leaned out the window and yelled "Hey Sexy!". I began to question whether high school was the place for me. How hard would I have to work to get respect from the kids and the staff if I was mistaken for a student at my interview? I walked into the building and began to feel slightly overwhelmed. A group of security guards were huddled around the reception desk dealing with four awkward looking boys. I tried to get their attention and eventually asked one of the guards for directions to human resources. Up the escalators to the third floor.

The human resources lady greeted me excitedly and informed me that they had been looking for a drama teacher for awhile. She directed me to the principal's office for my interview. He seemed immediately unimpressed. For the next forty minutes, I was grilled about my pedagogical vision. I struggled to find a way to explain that it was difficult question, given that drama isn't like science or math, where students are coming in with a particular set of skills. I gave examples of exercises and activities, long term goals and tossed out the idea of each semester culminating in a final performance for the school. He seemed unimpressed. How would I go about preparing a lesson plan? According to my goals for that class. Here are some examples. I was getting flustered and frustrated that his questions seemed to be coming out of a standard interview guide, without room for understanding that the arts cannot necessarily be taught in the same way. I struggled between helping him to understand how important the dramatic arts are in the school curriculum and sounding too artsy. I soon discovered the reason for his hesitation, his barrage of questions and his insistence that my plans need to be more concrete. I was being interviewed to teach nineteen classes of thirty students each. I suddenly understood and became quite uneasy. With six hundred students, how likely is it that I would even learn all of their names by the end of the year? How effectively would I be able to help them reach the goals that I had set for them, if I only see them for seventy-five minutes every nine days? Most importantly, with nearly six hundred students to keep track of, how quickly would I lose my mind?

And so continues the quest for the perfect job- or at least a tolerable one. ..

Tantrums

I'm afraid I may be allergic to corporate life. My eyes are again swollen for no apparent reason and I blame sitting in front of a computer all day under florescent lights. Years ago I used to pride myself on being able to effectively handle any type of customer, however difficult. Talk them down from their high horse and get them to realize how ridiculous they sounded carrying on about this or that. A year and a half out of customer service and I've lost not only my patience, but also my words in such cases. I sit there, valid arguments forming in my head, but they just won't roll off my tongue. I just can't get past the fact that these people are calling me for help, but yell at me when they don't like the answer I give, the questions I ask or the speed at which my computer operates. I just don't care. I find it baffling that some people have nothing better to do then call up customer service and yell and scream and carry on. All I can think is how spoiled we are. I feel like screaming, "Don't you think there are more serious problems in the world worth yelling about than whether or not your fax machine is working?" Maybe if these people would yell just as loud about things that really matter our world would be a better place. I listen to the other agents, swearing and making a stink with the customer on hold, about how stupid the caller is and I think it's not the stupid questions that bug me. The very fact that technical support exists, at least on the level at which I work, is not because people are not smart enough to understand what they've bought, it's because they're too lazy to try. Too lazy to open the book and follow the basic instructions. Dependant on other people to solve their problems for them, rather than taking a moment to think about the situation. Did I check to see if it were plugged in? Did I turn it on? Is there paper in it? Instead they pick up the phone, dial the 1-800 number on the box and yell about the poor quality of the product, scream about the stupidity of all the companies employees and carry on like a two year old having a tantrum over a side of brussel sprouts. I've become much more adept at dealing with children having tantrums, I realize. Often times all it takes is a cocking of the head, a glance in their direction or a certain tone when calling their name. Their outbursts are also more acceptable, understandable and rarely show the same disrespect as you get from adults. I've intensified my search for a teaching job and will hopefully find something permanent for September. I just haven't the energy to commute to the West Island five days a week, leaving the house at 7am and if I head to yoga after, arriving home only at 9pm. I haven't the energy for the job because it isn't even in the direction of where I'm headed and I hate that this is all I have on my mind on a beautiful Saturday morning. Other than my work and the subsequent swollen eye, I feel fantastic. I feel super healthy thanks to my yoga classes this week and I am happy to see that the hole in Fred's belly is very close to closing. Last Sunday marked our five year anniversary, which is pretty amazing given all that we've gone through together. And the fact that previously I wouldn't have last four months before running away screaming, terrified that I was teetering on the edge of a committed relationship. I have friends in town for the next couple weeks, preparing for Thelma's wedding in Ottawa. I haven't seen Thelma in two year, so it'll be great to hang out and get some Bloody Caesars in us. Hopefully we have the good sense to stop before a Caesar induced hang-over!

The Tender Bar: J.R. Moehringer

Once upon a time, I read everything I could lay my hands on. I'd devour books, even bad ones, simply because they were there. But as time goes on, I realize that life is too short to read bad books. Why waste my time when there are countless classics that I may never get to? Over the last couple years, I've started so many books that I've never finished, and part of me felt guilty for letting them go. But there is a time and a place fo every book you read, and if it doesn't hold my interest now, maybe it will down the road. Or maybe not. Maybe that book will never speak to me. Or maybe it is awaiting my more focused self to come back to it.

Fred and I were en route to the clinic last week-end, him for his daily wound cleaning (gross, isn't it?) and I wanted to have a doctor investigate the cause of my swollen eye. It was itchy as hell and driving me nuts, not to mention the fact that I had spent a whole week looking as though I was about to burst into tears. As we prepared to leave the house, I ducked into our office to find a good book to read during my long wait at the clinic. Fred passed me The Tender Bar and we were off.

Since J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, the book has long been regarded as the perfect coming of age story. It's one of the only books I've ever re-read, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. But in The Tender Bar I discovered something different. A book that was able to capture the pull between two opposing sides of myself; my drive to succeed and my contentment to sit all at once, my artistic impulses that strive to find every possible medium (even when I'm not conscious of it), and my secret wish that I could find a more direct, obvious path through life. Every now and then, I convince myself that I am deeply interested in law and should attend law school. Not because I care about law at all, but because I want to prove to myself that I'm capable of law school. Because I think about all the travelling I could do if I were a lawyer and had the money to go where I want. Eventually the thought occurs to me that law is often an exercise in semantics and a struggle to find a loophole, neither of which appeal to me in any way. If this weren't enough to disway my application to McGill, I start thinking about how much work law involves, and how little vacation time. All the money in the world but no time to enjoy it. I can relate to the book's author. I understand how excitement to attend university can quickly fade away and your focus can shift, attention can be lost and you begin to question why you decided to be there in the first place. When I was younger, I looked forward to being in my thirties- when all my hard work at school would pay off and I would be well settled in my career. Now that I'm nearly there, I doubt that I will ever reach a point where I feel settled. I can't imagine being able to sit back and say that I had done all I set out, seen everything I wanted to, learned all that I hungered for. I've always been in a rush, but I've never stopped to figure out why. It's not as though I'm running out of time, although I suppose we all are in a way. More than anything, the book helped me to realize that things take time. I've felt frustrated lately, felt like I'm taking a step backwards in doing customer service, particularly since I swore I would never do it again. It's easy to forget that I've acquired a university degree, a year of teaching experience and begun my journey to see the world. I am headed in the right direction, and I need to remember that. I haven't chosen the most obvious career path, but I need to relax and realize that everything about life is a journey and no experience is wasted. I have all the pieces to begin my professional life, I just need to put them together.

All that said, I loved the book. Read it. Time for bed. I just got home from yoga and experienced what 70% humidity feels like. It feels a lot like bedtime.

Tragically Nameless

These posts are getting fewer and farther between as my teaching job eats up more and more of my day. I'm really not sure why people do this. I understand that some people are passionate about it, and it baffles me. I can't imagine dedicating my life to chasing kids around in an effort to help them learn and grow, and receive so little appreciation from the kids, their parents and society. I simply wouldn't be able to justify six years of school to make 35 000$ a year. Not even summers off could convince me to pursue this as a career. Three weeks into my teaching job and the unthinkable has happened; I've turned into my Uncle. My Uncle Bob has been an English teacher in Quebec since the beginning of time (or at least my time). The summers that I spent out in Montreal with him and his family meant being subject to his comments about hating children and being fed up with babysitting. Even worse seemed to be the student teachers who weren't, in his books, sufficiently well read to be doing a stag as an English teacher. Only years later upon meeting Julien did I discover that my Uncle may hate children, but he clearly loved his job. He was one of those teachers that changed lives, but didn't want anyone to know and now I've gone and publicly ruined his reputation.

Work is going alright. I don't hate it, I just don't like it. It's difficult to see any sort of improvement and garner any satisfaction from teaching a second language as it is, pair with that the large class size and it's nearly impossible to leave feeling you're making a difference. I'm not passionate about teaching English. Maybe if I could have real discussions with them- push them to see a piece in another light, or provoke and challenge new thoughts. Unfortunately the nature of the work is that you spend most of the day trying to suppress the urge to finish sentences for your students just because it would be faster. You try not to scream as you listen to the hundreds of different excuses for homework not having been finished and actually try to make that student believe that you just listened to whatever gibberish spewed forth from their mouth. You try in vain to avoid the flashbacks to your own Elementary school days, especially when you hear yourself yelling, "Stéphanie. Assis-toi. Comme il faut. Avec les quatre pattes de la chaise à terre et tes deux pieds sur le plancher." (Stephanie. Sit down. Properly. With the four feet of the chair on the ground and your two feet on the floor.) I nearly collapsed when I heard the words explode from my mouth- shocked that it took me so far back. My tone, my pacing -it was all so familiar! I suddenly felt like Mme. Nicole Jolicoeur, my grade three teacher. It was eery. My frustrations are heightened by the disrespect of the students, their indifference to learning and their ability to complain about absolutely everything. I had slotted to spend today's class reviewing vocabulary with my grade five class today, which promised to be painfully boring for all parties involved. So rather than have me talk at them about how these words were important, I put the students in groups of four and explained they would be playing charades. The only requirement was that they preface their physicalization with the phrase, "I like (don't like) to ______," and then they would proceed with their animation. The amount of students who bothered to approach me to inform me the activity was stupid absolutely stunned me. I finally replied if they didn't like it, they were welcome to take their seat back at their desk and read the key words to themselves over and over again. They shut up.

School has changed, kids have changed and I'm glad that this path is just for the moment. Swearing is fairly common in the classroom now, the students refer to their teachers by their first names (Mme. Stephanie, Mme. Julie- although often the madame is dropped) and address them with the more familiar tu, as opposed to vous. In the past three weeks, I realized beyound a shadow of a doubt, that I don't want children. As our society seems to move further and further from values that I still hold precious, I cringe to think of how little respect and hard work will be valued in ten, twenty years. The Western materialism has reached its peak when every student in my grade six class describes shopping as a favourite activity and believes they are entitled to a Playstation3 and an iPod. I can't help but think we have gone so, so wrong.

While it is far from what I want, I know that teaching will bring me closer to what I want to do. Hopefully I can manipulate the desperation of the Commision Scolaire de Montréal into a contract that will only amount to part time hours, leaving me open to do other things. In the meantime, it is providing an eye opening experience with this next generation. This post has perhaps seemed negative, and I don't mean it that way. I'm feeling fairly indifferent about my situation at the moment- apart from having to wake up at 6am. I hate 6am.

As I settle into a routine, I'm struggling to balance my life. I don't know how people work a job this demanding and actually have a life... which explains why these posts are becoming fewer and farther between. I started Bykram Yoga last week, in a room heated to 42 degrees celsius to prompt you to sweat out all your toxins and protect your muscles from injury. I felt amazing all last week and have developed quite an addiction to it. Unfortunately, difficult as I am, I had to choose the most ridiculously expensive type of Yoga to fall for and am currenly arguing with myself about whether or not its worth the 150$ per month. My cheap intro pass expired on Monday and now I've decided to bounce around from studio to studio for awhile until I make a choice. I wonder how many cheap intro weeks one can enjoy at Yoga studios in downtown Montreal... I'll let you know.

Face to Face With My Quarter-Life Crisis

I assume there's a time in everyone's life when they come to the realization that they are getting old. I came to realize recently that most of my long-time friends are exactly where I would have pictured them to be at this age. Maybe not geographically- but in terms of relationships, careers, education. But every once in awhile someone surprises me. A couple that I always thought were perfect suddenly split up, someone's career takes an unexpected turn, someone has a baby. Fred and I left our friends Michael and Christine on Friday night after dinner. The four of us were exhausted. We had talked about going for drinks but none of us were motivated enough to move beyond the couch, so there we stayed until we decided, half asleep- it was time to head home. A symptom of early-onset old age, as I understand. But there is no greater indication that 'time is marching on' then when your crazy old roommate, 'Spacey Caycee' announces her engagement.

Caycee and I worked at IMAX together. We didn't really know each other all that well until word got around that I was looking for a roommate and had gone to such desperate lengths as to call up an ex-boyfriend to move in. I thought Caycee was crazy- but determined that it would be best if I weren't living with Jon alone. I'd like to say that once we moved in together, I realized that Caycee was not infact crazy, but just misunderstood. But I'd be lying. She's nuts. Barbie dolls with shaved heads and facial piercings left out as cat toys proved that Caycee and I had been very different little girls. I never owned a Barbie doll- soccer balls were so much more versatile. Our lives may have been simple had Caycee and I lived together with Jon. But somewhere along the line, we picked up another couple of roommates, Greg and Gerald. They snapped and moved out a month later. Apparently believing that Caycee's requests that they keep it quiet in chatting to each other on their computers till all hours were completely unreasonable. Exit Gred and Gerald, enter Rageful Scott. Caycee and I thought he was cute. Turned out he was a complete lunatic. Caycee was one of the closest witnesses to the ridiculousless of my flings that year- and has largely remained silent about the extent to which I embarrased myself. Thankfully. But if there was one person that I considered less likely than myself to settle down in a real relationship, it was Caycee. Not entirely surprising- she has been with Kent over five years now, but that in itself is pretty nuts. That's when you know you're getting old. When the person you consider the least likely to settle down, announces that they are. Damn it- we should start a pool. I'd be losing miserably- I also would have bet Diana to be a long-time single girl, and her and Jerod have been married over a year now.


Some people think too much. Others think too little. I believe I'm the former. Just as I think I've made some choices about my life, I talk myself out of it by examining other options. Or taking a step back and considering whether the choice I'm about to make will bring me closer to or further from my goals. Whatever they may be at that particular moment. Now that it looks like stability is just around the corner and my anxious nerves can calm themselves, I began to ponder exactly why I was looking for a teaching job to begin with. It's not what I want to do. I suppose it's closer than serving over-priced food at crappy restaurants though. I know full well that I'll need to return to school- part of me loves the idea of returning to the security of thick books and quantifying my personal development with As & Bs. Part of me dreads the student lifestyle. The instability, lack of funds. For awhile, I've contemplated returning to school in Psychology and pursuing a Master's. I've long thought about pairing the self-exploration of the arts with therapy. Not in the drippy Master of Fine Arts in Drama Therapy kinda way, but in the less obvious- Master's in Psychology - I have intelligence, an imagination and a BFA kinda way. So I begin the phone calls. McGill University pointedly informed me that I could not speak to an academic advisor until they had my 80$ in application fees firmly in their pockets. The woman refused to answer any questions, even regarding scheduling and the possibility of doing the program part-time. I crossed McGill off the list of school possibilities. If that's the snobbery I'm greeted with in making inquiries, they can take their pretentious reputation and shove it. I knew there was a reason I went to Concordia. They were happy to make arrangements for me to speak to someone. The University of Waterloo promptly responded to emails concerning their online Psychology program. As long as I never have to live in Waterloo, it looks like a good option. My mind was made up. This was going to be my course of action. And then I thought, hmm... maybe I'll go to law school instead.

Some article I read said that if you're having trouble deciding on a path, examine the books on your night table and extrapolate from them. So I looked at my night table. The Montreal Gazette, The Bell Jar, A Brief History of Everything, Laughing Wild, Guns, Germs & Steel. Okay.... hmm- current events, literature, philosophy, drama and anthropology. So I've learned I'm ADD. Apparently most artists are, not to worry. After spending so much time focused on returning to school, I suddenly began to wonder if these fields would lead me to the lifestyle that I wanted. I think I've established this year that I need to be mobile. I need to travel. I want to take off for months at a time, and bounce about here and there and everywhere. The idea of being one of those office people that crams their life into their two weeks of vacation every year is absolutely painful. It's just not for me.

Observations of a Young Mind

My father tells me that the first sentence I ever spoke was "Get me out of this prison!" And it seems that it was screamed from the confines of my crib, rather than mumbled quietly to myself. It makes me wonder... at what age do our personalities begin to take shape? Do observations we have as children impact who we become as adults? I've never taken well to authority figures, of any form. The bars of a crib could definetely represent authority and instill a feeling of being trapped. Some people fail to recognize that they're trapped, others are hyper-aware of it. I fit into the latter category. As soon as I begin to feel that I don't have options, I feel emotionally suffocated. I've encountered this feeling again and again, but for some reason, it keeps coming back. Were these cries from the crib an early sign of where my values would lie? An indication of how I would view the world?

My family had some rough years. In fact, many of the years were rough. I'll spare you the details, but here's the basics. My parents separated when I was fourteen. As the oldest child, I was cast in the role of official go-between. To complicate the situation, I was also placed in the precarious role of third parent to Tyler and Travis. Circumstances being what they were, I fought alot. With everyone. I was without an ally, it seemed. Tyler and Travis has each other, but I was the odd man out. I wasn't a parent and wasn't a kid. At any rate, fighting insued with Mom, then with Dad. During high school, I bounced back and forth between their houses, depending on who I was less angry with. And I felt trapped. I felt I had outgrown some of the roles I was being asked to play, but was too young for others. How can you impose a curfew on the third parent? In many ways, I felt I had outgrown high school after grade ten. My preoccupations were different than the people who surrounded me. I wanted to move out on my own. I had grown up, but my age was holding me back. I still had to put in three years in high school, despite the fact that I felt ready to move on. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't- it's hard to say. My memories of my high school years are hazy... as are most of my memories. Grade twelve ended, and I moved out. I felt free, casting away the invisible bars that had kept me at home longer than I cared to stay. But then I began to see them in other places. Calgary began to feel too small, too clausterphobic. It seemed there wasn't enough space, not enough variety. I felt trapped by my options. I was studying theatre, but felt uninspired by my surroundings. Calgary and I differed in values. Calgary is a good fit for business people, but is still a stretch for artists. At least for young, idealistic artists. I thought theatre had powerful potential and should be used to change and challenge. But before changing the world, I needed to know what to challenge. I wasn't sure what about Calgary no longer fit, but I was feeling trapped. Then one day I was on the train coming back from school, and there were two young men, only a couple years older than me, dressed in suits and talking about their life insurance policies. And it occured to me that this was why Calgary no longer fit. I didn't ever want to talk about life insurance. My apologies to anyone who feels passionately about the insurance industry, but I can't imagine anything more boring. I didn't want to live in a sprawling urban city where people commuted downtown only to work, and then returned immediately to their castles in the suburbs. I didn't want to shop at the Gap or eat at Red Lobster, but it seemed other options were few and far between. What were my options? It suddenly hit me- I needed to leave. Just as I had done after graduating high school, I packed up my things and moved.

I arrived in Montreal and felt refreshed, excited. But my first year in Montreal was painfully difficult and I remember returning to Calgary for Christmas, not wanting to leave. But soon things began to change. The things that had trapped me in Calgary were absent in Montreal. When I arrived, the only Starbucks there was in Chapters. Many big chain restaurants didn't want to bother with the complications of Bill 101 (law restricting the use of the English language), so they never came to Montreal. Montreal is proudly free of Red Lobster, Olive Garden, 7-11 and other such American chains. It was exactly what I needed. Second only to New York for restaurants per capita, Montreal has an overwhelming number of choices, and most are family-owned. In fact, Red Lobster closed down in Quebec years ago because they were unable to compete with family-owned restaurants that offered better food at lower prices. Far from the apathy of the University of Calgary, Concordia students protested everything. There were posters in the hallways encouraging people to vote against a 60 cent raise per credit in fees. Coming from a school that was steadily increasing their tuition by a couple hundred dollars a year and no one complained, I loved the activity. Until one day I skipped class because there were snipers on the roof of my school. Sometimes political activity goes too far, which is something I never would have admitted in my pre-Concordia days. But I was feeling trapped here too. When I'd gone to school in Alberta, the government had handed me a big cheque in September and told me not to bother them until the following year. In Quebec, they sent tiny cheque after tiny cheque- consistently late and never quite enough. I finally found a job at a restaurant in the Old Port and lasted there for a year and a half. But when you're paying Quebec tax, a minimum wage restaurant job plus tips will leave you with enough to buy a coffee, if you're lucky. I was tired of making choices out of necessity. I didn't want to turn down auditions because I couldn't afford to miss a day of work at my bad job. So I moved to Korea.

Land of the Morning Calm. And so it is- morning is just about the only time things are calm here. My new life in Korea promised stability- paid accomodations, cheap bills and a good paying job. With money in the bank, I suddenly have options. I can save it, spend it on new toys, travel or pay back my student loans (but that's as boring as life insurance). There are so many options! Here I am, immersed in a different culture and learning more and more about myself and the world. I am living by myself for the first time. Over the last seven months, I've begun feeling like I'm coming up to decision time. At some point soon, I'll have to decide what I want to do with my life. Maybe that was the real reason I felt out of place in Calgary- everyone seemed to know what they were doing. I still haven't quite figured it out. The very thought of returning to a customer service job makes me ill. I'm experiencing a quarter life crisis here. I understand why people move to Korea and never go home. What are we going home to? Proud as we are of what we have in Canada, I think much of it comes about in media manipulation. Our health care system is not as good as we think it is. Who cares if it's free? It's just not good. Korean health care costs 25$ a month and includes cheap trips to the dentist. My friend had her wisdom teeth pulled for 7$. Once a month when it's time for me to pay my cell phone bill, I walk into the LG store and slap 10$ on the table- and I have to admit that I'm always slightly annoyed that I have to pay it at all. Going home will a rude awakening for me. But as the weather heats up- and the air- hot, humid and heavy with pollution becomes thicker and thicker I reach for my summer clothes. Then I remember that wearing a tank top will find me in the prostitute category for all those Korean men not accustomed to seeing exposed shoulders. And I already draw enough attention and unwanted conversation, so instead I put on T-Shirts and dream of cool days in Montreal. My co-workers question me as to why I'm not married, as though there's something wrong with me. Their goal is to find a man and they look at me with pity because I'm living alone. They can't understand why I would leave Canada without my boyfriend- and probably secretly suspect he doesn't exist. After all, no Korean woman would leave her boyfriend behind. And so here I also feel trapped. Trapped by customs and beliefs that go back centuries. I feel trapped in my job- many of the elements guaranteed me in my contract, have been ignored. In Canada, I wouldn't hesitate to throw a tantrum and storm out the door. But here, my employer pays my apartment. Storming out the door means I lose my 2500$ contract bonus, my plane ticket home, and my damage deposit. En plus, I need written permission from my boss to get another job in Korea. I'm stuck. But I've made it almost eight months, and only have another four ahead of me. I just happened to land myself a bad job and didn't act fast enough. I should have quit in December, but I was pacing my demands and now I don't have a choice. And it drives me nuts. I'm counting down to the end of my contract, even though it's going to be hard to leave Korea- I can't wait to be finished with my boss. I have never before felt so trapped, because in this case, there really are no choices. Turning him into immigration also means the loss of all my bonuses, so I'm forced to keep my mouth shut and count down the days. I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut... here's hoping I can do it for just another four and a half months.
The experiences I've had in Calgary, Montreal and now in Seoul have all taught me something about myself. All signs seem to be pointing towards working for myself. I can't handle authority, therefore I can't handle a boss. I'm beginning to think that what I do to make money is less important to me than the lifestyle that I enjoy. I think I would be perfectly happy doing almost anything- so long as I made my own schedule and don't have to abide by someone else's rules. As long as I never have to put on another uniform, or sit near a cubicle wall. Because the uniform and the cubicle walls are just like the bars that held me in my crib. Designed to keep you in- to keep you looking and behaving in a certain way. The uniform, the cubicles- they're dehumanizing, generic and fighting to keep you looking and acting in a way that the company has deemed appropriate. They encourage you to feel as though you're part of a team, but insist that you keep your workspace and your uniform free of personal items- anything that gives a hint of an existence outside the confines of the work environment. After all, we wouldn't want you feeling too comfortable here.