A Good Day

 As a mother to two little ones (O. - two and a half years and C - ten months) I often find myself reflecting on how I react and respond to the kids. I have worked hard to maintain a calm demeanor, to be a relaxing and reassuring influence rather than a stressed and anxious one, and despite my best efforts I sometimes feel that I have failed.

I often find myself thinking: I need to be better, to do better.

I wonder if it's postpartum anxiety or just my personality in play. 

I decide it doesn't matter because I'm not going to fail my little ones by blindly barrelling through life without asking myself if I'm doing the best that I can for them, for myself, for my family. 

On Swiss Dental Adventures and the Ominious Taxpunktwert

I recently had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. It was a necessary operation - I've been having troubles with my teeth for a while. Overcrowded they have become difficult to keep clean and a few weeks ago I had an untimely, painful infection in one of the wisdom teeth. I had hoped to have the operation done earlier this summer but, because my chosen dentist had a low Taxpunktwert, I didn't have that much flexibility. So instead of taking advantage of my summer vacation to have the procedure I had to cancel my classes this week, have the procedure done on Monday night, and have spent an entire week recovering.

But let's talk a bit about that Taxpunktwert...

Discovering the Taxpunktwert system in Switzerland was an eye-opening experience. About 18 months ago I had the inconvenient experience of an emergency root canal. I was new to Switzerland, didn't have much confidence in my German skills, and, of course, I was in pain. A lot of it. So there I was, googling the English-speaking dentists that were close to the Hauptbahnhof. I methodically contacted each one until I found one that would see me the next day. The painful experience required multiple visits and multiple sets of fancy x-rays with fancy equipment. Clean, easy, perfectly located, efficient. Dentistry at its finest.

Also, it was expensive as fuck. I assumed that was par for the course. Compared to the work I had done in South Korea a few years ago it seemed natural that this Swiss efficiency would be more expensive.

But this time around, for my wisdom teeth, I didn't want to have to commute to the Hauptbahnhof. The idea of spending 15 minutes on the train with a bruised, swollen face trying not to cry, with ice packs on each of my cheeks didn't appeal to me. So I began looking for dentists near my flat. I found one, set up an appointment, and began discussing specifics. They would need x-rays, and fortunately I had an unnecessarily full set of them done for my tooth at the previous dentist. I would save money if I could get a copy of the old ones.So there I was, rifling through my paperwork, trying to understand why the previous dentist didn't have my name in their system when I saw this mysterious number, this Taxpunkt, at the bottom of the Rechnung. Everything had been multiplied by 3.50. Each individual Rechnung was the same, an itemized list of the procedures followed by this mysterious 3.50 number and a much larger total listed at the bottom. What was that all about?

A few hours, and one or two visits to the Leo Deutsch-English website, later I had discovered the Taxpunktwert system. Let me explain. In Switzerland dental operations and procedures are standardized and assigned Tariff points. Regardless of who the dentist is, the Tariff point is the same for a tooth removal, a root canal, or any other procedure (they also have Tariff points for dental hygiene procedures). At some point in the past a council of dentists (probably led by the magical Swiss Tooth Fairy) went through each procedure, labelled it, and assigned Tariff points.

But wait. If I'm a dentist in the middle of Zürich with a large, spacious office with all the modern amenities and a large multi-lingual staff, paying exorbitant Zürich-level rent, why should I pay the same as the small, family-run practice in L'Isle working out a large, renovated family-style home with only two staff members? Or even worse, what if my dental practice staffs multiple specialists in every field of dentistry that are available every day of the week and his practice only has one surgeon who comes in once a month? Why do we get the same money from our patients?

Thus, the Taxpunktwert system was born.

The Taxpunktwert is a number that a dental practice can assign to itself in order to offset the costs of running the business. The practice asks itself, what am I worth, and then sets that worth in the form of a Taxpunkt. If the dentist is a member of the Swiss dental association then he/she must stay under 5.80. A dental X-ray can cost CHF 15.40 (TPW 2.8) with one dentist, when another dentist charges CHF 27.20 (TPW 4.95) for the same.

As you can see, the Taxpunktwert for your dentist can have a profound impact on the costs of your procedure.

So here I was, sitting on the floor of my apartment surrounded by paperwork, shaking my head in annoyance. How had I not bothered to check that before? I frantically opened a new tab and checked the dentist I had agreed to meet for my wisdom tooth removal. I scrolled and scanned, getting more and more nervous, only to discover, to my shock, a Taxpunktwert of... 1.05.

1.05 compared to the 3.50 of my previous dentist. 1.05 compared to the maximum of 5.80.

I heaved a huge sigh of relief. The reason I was going through this paperwork, to understand why the first dentist couldn't find my previous x-rays, ended up being useless - I figured out that they had my maiden name on record, instead of my new name, but the copy of the x-rays they eventually gave me was a shitty quality JPEG uploaded to a CD and was useless for my new dentist. But ultimately I was content. I had a better understanding of the dental system in my new home. As someone who considers herself more of an immigrant than an expat (meaning I don't plan to go back to the states in a few years, like a typical Expat) this information is essential.

1.05 meant that if my Tariff point was 1,000 I would pay CHF 1,050 instead of the CHF 3,500 at my previous dentist (and the hypothetical CHF 5,800 at the most expensive dental practice in Switzerland). It turns out that the estimated Tariff points for my procedure is 1,858.83. Multiplied by a Taxpunktwert of 1.05, and with a few additional expenses for take-home medicine, I will have to pay a little less than CHF 2,000 to have all four of my wisdom teeth removed.

Feeling happy about my new dental practice, at some point I optimistically began looking through my Health Insurance information and discovered that the supplemental plan I had opted for included a benefit for wisdom teeth: the insurance will pay 50% of the cost of Wisdom tooth removal, with a limit of CHF 2,000. Everything worked out perfectly and, at the end of it all, I will be paying around CHF 1,000. To remove all four of my wisdom teeth.

Here I am today, recovering from the procedure. Everything went well, it took less than an hour to remove all four teeth - they, quite literally, just popped out. My pain has been manageable, the bruising has been minimal, and I haven't needed to constantly drug myself to get through the recovery (so far). Of course, when I grow confident to leave my flat - navigating the 5 flights of stairs in and out - to run errands, or confident enough to organize and clean, or crazy enough to even think about running or doing yoga or playing my flute, I end up with throbbing pain and have to relax with some ice packs on my face. But today is only day 4. I have the weekend to recover before I'm back to work on Monday morning.

All in all it has been a good experience so far. The Swiss bureaucracy is a little bit less confusing. My troublesome teeth are gone. And hopefully things will continue to heal without complications. Knock on wood. Ich drücke die Daumen.

The process

Moving abroad a lot means a lot of paperwork. Lots of forms, visas, licenses, and anything in between. Many of these things require long, redundant checklists of documents from passport photos to copies of IDs and the inescapable processing fees.

One of the many direct benefits of life abroad for me? Organisation, better handwriting, thinking and working in advance, communication with bureaucrats, offices, and crabby people in many different languages. My tendency to procrastinate has been dissipating as well - because procrastination can mean late fees, missed opportunities, employment rejections, and denied visas.

So yeah - if you've talked to me lately I've been a mess, a bit of a stressed wreck to be honest, but I've also been processing, applying, and preparing all of the documents I need to complete my huge to-do list spanning from exiting Germany (replacing my stolen Führerschein, cancelling my health insurance, and vacating my old flat), returning to America (replacing my MN drivers license, getting new credit cards and debit cards, organising my possessions into neat little boxes, applying for my substitute teacher license, preparing for the paperwork involved in changing my name), and finally to entering Switzerland (filing my marriage preparation paperwork, filing my Family Reunion National Type D visa paperwork, researching health insurance, finding a flat, getting in touch with employers who had sent out job offers for when I get the visa, wedding prep!). 

Everyday the stress and anxiety gets a bit lighter as one more thing gets checked off my to-do list, soon it'll all be filed and all of the forms will be sent. I will be working as a sub in Brainerd and making money. And I can begin to relax and enjoy the dwindling number of days that I have left in America. 

Learning to live in the moment is a lifelong struggle for me. I'm still not sure how I will feel once I land in Zürich around the beginning of December. But all I can say is this - there's no better person in the world to be going along for this ride with than my fiancé, there's no better family to be supporting me in this crazy adventure that is my life than is mine, and there's no better time than today to jump in headfirst into this one-act that is life. 

We only get one shot, might as well make the most of it.

transcribed from my new journal

23.08

Zürich, Switzerland.

The last few weeks has been a whirlwind. The lowest lows mixed with the highest highs and everything in-between. Most recently has been the theft of my purse and with it my journal. I bought that journal in India and chronicled an amazing year in between its covers. In it I wrote of the complicated emotions in my head and heart, I captured snapshot glimpses of moments of my life from around the world. I found peace when I looked back on where I was, who I had been, and what compelled me to sit down and write on each day. I was drafting ideas for short stories, writing the first drafts of blogposts, and exploring myself and my life one line at at time.

I don't care about the inconvenience of losing my wallet (with it all of my credit cards, my debit card, Deutsches führerschein, Versicherungskarte, everything really). I can replace the bag, the coffee thermos, the books, the headphones. But I can't replace that journal. A year of my life has been taken from me by some con artists looking for a quick dollar - a free meal - I don't know what else. Well the joke is on them, because I had almost no money. At that moment in time all of the money to my name was in that wallet and comprised of a pathetic 50 franc bill and some loose change.

To the two guys that did it - I have no sympathy for you. I'm not going to lie and say here that I'm sorry you're in a position in your life that drove you to do this. I'm not going to create some fake aura of empathy and understanding.

That's not how this works.

If you read that journal in that bag with the pathetic amount of money in it, you would see that I , too, have fallen on some hard times. I hit what I thought was rock bottom last year only to be surprised on a few more occasions that there was a lower place in which I could sink.

I've been desperate, unemployed, and without a home. I've wondered what will happen in the next days, hours, moments in time in a future I could hardly fathom.

But you, you took the easy way out. I'm sure we were an easy target. A young couple fresh from announcing our engagement to half of my new family. our guards lowered as we sat there - huddled close together, laughing at private jokes, and playing a game on one cell phone pass back and forth with giggles and happiness.

I've been making myself sick considering all of the things I did on that train differently than I usually do:

• putting my wallet into a purse, instead of keeping it in my pack
• grabbing a handful of the most important things from a suitcase and putting them all in one place
• putting that purse above my head, in the overhead compartment, slightly behind my head and out of my peripheral vision
• consciously moving my journal from my pack into this new purse, despite having already packed it away

I've found myself dwelling on what I consider to be my mistakes when the fact of the matter is this was not my fault. 

V is right - you can't anticipate everything all of the time. You can't blame yourself for the actions of others, especially when the mere concept of those actions are so hard for you to fathom and understand. 

So now I need only to resist the urge to blame myself. Stop thinking the twisted thought that this is somehow karma stepping in and slapping me across the face for letting myself be so happy. I was depressed and scared for so long that to be struck with the happiness and joy that is the idea of marrying and living with V that maybe it was not fair. Maybe I needed to be torn down in order for everything to be evened out - for equilibrium to be reached. 

But no, these are the thoughts that I need to avoid. I deserve to be happy just as much as the next person. I've worked hard and dedicated myself to a future here, in Switzerland, with the man I love. I'm not fated to have something bad happen to me every time I celebrate something good. No. 

That's just not how this works. 

The Painful Truth - on fear and anxiety

It's been hard to share a blogpost for the last few months for a variety of different reasons. The most honest, heart-wrenching, and painful reason is this:

My german visa has been denied. Again. For the second time. For the same reason. Despite the arguments by my language school that their requirements are not true, that I'm not required to be held to the standards that they are holding me to because I'm an english teacher in the free market, not a government subsidised german teacher for integration courses for the refugees. I have two job offers, I've been paying into the german insurance system since March, and I have a flat sorted out that is definitely large enough, in a good part of the city, and with two roommates who are both stable and chill.

But despite my efforts the visa continues to be denied. I keep getting told no and now, well, now I need to leave the Schengen zone. The reason for that is pretty simple. I was in Germany on a tourist visa, which lasts for 90 days. I was lucky enough to get an extension on that visa since my work visa was being processed, but when I left Germany to go to my job in Switzerland I officially terminated that visa extension. On June 25th my tourist visa officially expired and my Swiss work visa began. As an American I'm allowed to be in the Schengen zone with no problems for 90 out of every 180 days. That math is clear - 3 months in, 3 months out. When I leave Switzerland on August 24th I still have one month left of my 3 month sentence.

Fortunately I'm able to come home. I found a dirt cheap flight out of the UK into Chicago, which is pretty much close enough to home, I'll be able to manage from there. My credit card has enough room, barely, for the flight, and hopefully I'll be able to find some work with friends cleaning and babysitting (or teaching flute lessons, what, a girl can dream) in order to pay for the flight back.

To be honest though, that's not the heart-wrenching and painful reason. I don't mind that things are complicated. I don't mind that my visa is being denied. I don't mind that I'm spending all of my money, spending all of my time waiting in a nausea-inducing sense of fear.

No, this is all okay as long as there is actually a chance that I'll get the visa! I can be patient if I know that X, Y, or Z is happening and that eventually I'll get to start working.

But right now I don't have that stability. I don't have anything. Germany was my best chance and it's falling apart. So now here I am, sitting at a Universität in Zürich, frantically applying for jobs (any job) in the hopes that something will work out. Here I am, willing to do anything to get a visa to be able to stay here. I'm not living the dream anymore, this is definitely a living nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that my friends and family have seen me posting pictures of when I got to go flying, of hiking Le Dents du Midi, of sitting at the Cabane du Susanfe with my feet up against the wall. But let me tell you a truth about all of this: in Switzerland it's free to hike. The money that I pay to travel to these places to hike or fly or climb is less than I would pay to stay in the city. My fabulous boyfriend has the gear I need when we climb, I own my own pack, my hiking shoes. My body is healthy and I take every chance I can to get out into these mountains because it's beautiful, I don't know how much time I have left here, and I legally can not do any sort of work. At all. No, I'm not just being lazy. No, it's not that I just haven't applied for the jobs. Maybe I just don't want to work at all... NO that's not it either. The problem is one of bureaucracy, paperwork, and a reliance on people who are just as susceptible to having a bad day, a crabby day, or a lazy day at the office, as anyone else. The only difference is my life is in their hands, not just my coffee or meal.

This has been the most enlightening experience for me because I never understood what it meant to try to assimilate into a new country. I've never learned firsthand about the trials that you have to go through just to get a job. I had no idea. Even when I went to Korea. Sure there was a lot of paperwork, a lot of unnecessary hoops to jump through, but in the end it was always clear. Do this, do that, finish your checklist and boom you're done.

It's not like that here. Everyday I live with the constant uneasy sense of dread that I'm going to either run out of money or run out of time or both. Let me tell you, that's not a good feeling when your boyfriend lives in this country. When the friends you've been cultivating here, the home you have established for yourself here, is all about to be pulled away. I've finished my checklist, on paper I have all of the things that anyone ever said I would need for the job - and the end result is the same: X.

I think the worst thing for me is knowing that I have a Master's degree, that I have an internationally recognized teaching certification, that I have the experience, the willingness, and the drive. That even with all of my hard-work, everything that I have worked to make for myself, I'm scrambling and willing to take even the most demeaning of jobs. I don't even care anymore, I was a janitor for one summer and I would absolutely do it again if it meant that I could have a stable home, that I could begin playing my flute with regularity again, if I could begin to pursue that which I have trained my entire life for: flute teaching and performance.

With every denied visa is a feeling that you are worthless. With every passive aggressive demand for you to get a job already is a feeling that the world thinks you're lazy and undeserving. With every day passed of an interview being stopped short because you don't have a work visa already, or being told not to even bother to come in if you aren't from country X, Y, or Z, or no response at all. Well, it's hard not to start to internalize that negativity.

This is the post I've been avoiding. Not because I want the world to believe that my life is rainbows and butterflies, but because I don't want to admit that I'm floundering. I don't want to have to vocalize my fear that I really might not be good enough. My fingers are flying over this keyboard because I've needed to just say it, tell these thoughts, these worries, for a long time, but my mind is hesitant when it comes to hitting that big orange Publish button.

Everything that I have is invested in this. The last few years of my life have been leading me here. I have opportunities lined up, schools that I can begin to work with, friends to turn to for advice. I'm so happy here and that makes me feel so sad. For each day that I feel like I'm finally in the right place comes a day where I'm terrified that that place is about to be torn away.

I know that someday I'll look back at this time and it won't seem like such a big deal. Someday I can look back on this and smile, knowing that if I can get through feeling like I hit rock bottom (and having the government constantly reaffirming that sensation) that I can really do anything. But damn, it's going to be hard getting out of this one.

There, that's what I've been feeling the last few weeks. That's why I haven't been posting about all of the good stuff going on - my mind has been so absorbed with these fears that I can't allow myself to enjoy the thoughts of the good things I've been doing whenever I sit down at the computer. Maybe now I'll be able to enjoy the good things. Maybe now after getting rid of the negative thoughts things will work my way.

But who knows. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other.

One step at a time.

On the Wearing of Many Different Hats

So far my German adventure hasn't quite gone as planned. To cut a long story short I've basically gotten everything lined up for a successful life here but I'm being held back by some bureaucratic nonsense. But once they figure out what type of visa I'm actually applying for and realize that all of the boxes are already checked, then they'll green light me to start working. Fortunately I have a summer position already lined up (starting next week!) in Leysin, Switzerland. I've also applied for a position in the public schools of Switzerland starting in the fall and I've been in a bit of contact with the director of the program for that so I'm optimistic there as well.

Which leads me to the purpose of this post. On hats, the different types of hats in my closet and how I'm learning to sew them all together.

I don't remember when I first heard someone use this expression - it seems a bit odd in retrospect. What does a hat have to do with anything? Well, the idea is that for each hat that you have, it's another skill set. So when I'm wearing my music hat I'm teaching the flute, my english hat has me in front of a language classroom, my pool hat is more of a beanie and belongs in the pool hall. You get the drift.

The thing that I have ben consciously recognizing and focusing on lately is this: I have many hats and I wear them all with ease. I have a lot to offer a future employer and, thanks to the way my parents raised me, I have the work ethic and dedication to really make an impact on the work environment that I find myself in. I'm comfortable in a wide range of atmospheres - from the bar and pool hall to the concert stage, from America to South Korea, teaching children to teaching adults. Somewhere along the way I've picked up the flexibility, empathy, and compassion that are necessary for the type of worldly travel and living that I've immersed myself in.

The problem is not that I'm lazy, unqualified, and unmotivated. The problem is that my unique skill sets does not fit neatly into one specific box. Going hand in hand with that is my general unwillingness to settle for a lifestyle that I don't find myself content with.

That is not to say I have some sort of irrational concept of the perfect life that is holding me back from settling down in one place or another. I'm more than happy to compromise and focus my talents and skills into one specific area. The end goal, of course, is always a life of music alone - education, performance, etc. Yet along the way I'm more than happy to pursue something else for a while.

The thing is, if I'm going to settle in one area of my life I need to have something really positive going on in another area. As I get older and meet new people, learn about new cultures, and struggle with the day to day demands of living (not travelling) abroad, I'm starting to fine tune what those important things are. I need to take one part of each hat, the size and shape directly proportionate to the influence of that pursuit on my life, and sew them together. The end result will be an ugly mess of a thing (especially considering I am grossly incompetent when it comes to sewing) and to many people will not be desired at all. But it will make me happy, it will be my life not theirs, and how I feel about it is the important thing.

This post is simply a public reminder to myself that having a closet full of different hats isn't a bad thing. Even if general society and cultural norms likes to make you believe that it is. There's nothing wrong with having a large range of interests, skills, and purposes in your life. It's all about finding the balance, being honest with (and eventually true to) yourself, and letting yourself experiment along the way.

Who knows where you will end up, the journey is the important part.

Escape Strategy

Everyone needs an escape strategy. Whether it's something you have consciously constructed or your natural impulse, you should have one. How do you shed the rain cloud of loneliness? What do you do when you begin to feel blue? When you know that you have so much going for you, that you are in the place of your dreams and that you should enjoy it with its ups and downs equally. How do you remind yourself of your truth, of your reality, of your happiness?

We all just need to experiment and find an exit strategy out of that rain cloud. Maybe yours is to simply be sad, soak up all of the implications and complications of that feeling for a day, and then wring your body clean of the emotion like a damp rag. But dwelling in it doesn't work for me. Instead here are some of the strategies I've come up with to help get my mindset back on track.

1.)  Do you throw yourself deeper into your work? 

- Try this once. When your focus begins to get a bit foggy, when you are so distracted by the negatives that you enter a tunnel where your happiness is blurred in a circle around the tunnel vision, throw yourself into your passion. Your work.  Remind yourself why you do what you do, not just for the paycheck. Or perhaps your work is just for the paycheck. There's nothing wrong with that either. But throw yourself into whatever it is in your life that you look forward to doing. For me that's the music. When I hit that tunnel vision I eventually encounter a sign reminding me to follow the music. I refresh my practice schedule, remind myself why it is that I'm in this place. Why am I here, pursuing this elusive dream? Whatever that dream is, whatever your reasons are, renew your passion for it and see where that leads. 

2.) How about food. What do you eat? 

- This is key for me as well. As someone who can no longer deny the food sensitivities in her life, I can attest to the power of what we put in our bodies. Have you been living off of the same pasta dish? Oatmeal? Or are you mindlessly overindulging in the easily obtained snacks, salty treats, and sugary confections that lay in the discount aisle of the grocery store? Maybe you are eating healthy - but you eat the same hard boiled egg for breakfast each morning, the same chicken and vegetable lunch, followed by an identical pasta dish each night. Day after day. Sure, your wallet might be happy but are you? Try to reassess what you are putting into your body, ask yourself if this makes you happy (truly happy, not just in the moment pleased with the deliciousness of that cake but in the next moment feeling bloated and bogged down by the sugar). Don't mindlessly eat, think about why you want to put that food item in your belly. 

3.) You're feeling stressed or down? Let's have a girls night!

- It's the freaking weekend, I'll drink to that! Have you been letting your negative feelings manifest into late nights out drowning your worries in drinks? Maybe you're not getting black out drunk each night, maybe you're not what 'they' would call an alcoholic. But are you letting yourself focus on frivolous outings with friends and alcoholic beverages distract you from some truth that you are feeling? Be honest with yourself. Sometimes you do just need to lighten up and go out with friends, and sometimes you need to realize that you're not lightening up, rather that you are throwing on your rose tinted glasses and becoming numb to the truth for a little while. Honesty is always the policy. If you can't be honest with yourself about why you are drinking (or doing anything, for that matter) than how can you expect yourself to get out of this hard place? 

4.) It seems that 'they' say to exercise more... let's hit the gym!

- This is a biggie for me as well. Have you been ignoring your body? Please don't give me any of that Cartesian nonsense. I honestly believe that Descartes' mind-body dualism has radically changed the Western mindset in a negative and unhealthy way. You want to believe that the mind and the body are truly separate? Okay, tell me that next time you have a migraine so bad you are throwing up every few minutes and your vision is blurring and fading to black. Tell me how clear and concise your thoughts are then. No, instead of blindly following the man your intro to philosophy class heralded (I think therefore I am!) remind yourself that your body carries your mind. Maybe your negativity and pessimism is resulting from inactivity and decay. I'm 26 years old, am I done growing and starting to die already? Didn't I read that somewhere?! What am I going to do? Snap out of it. Go for a run, perfect a new yoga asana, hit a new PR in the gym, or maybe get into doing the aerial acrobatics that you've always secretly wanted to try. Why wait?

5.) Be honest with yourself. Have you started that journal yet? 

- One of the best habits I've made since moving abroad was beginning a journal. Journal - the adult word for diary. You can make it however you want. Maybe each morning you'll wake up and write one word, the first thought in your head. Or maybe you'll write exhaustively what happened to you each day. For me I like to write on the page when the thoughts in my head are so convoluted that I'm confused and uncertain about how I even feel. Just start writing, don't tell me you don't know what you want to say, trust me, you will. Sometimes we vent to our friends about a problem and then, before our friends can even respond, we realize that we have already discovered the solution. Give your friend a break once in a while and try to just hash it out on the page. Maybe you'll learn something new about yourself, your relationships, and your feelings. 

Feeling down, stressed, lonely, and unhappy is a natural and unavoidable aspect of being human. We are social creatures and sometimes we long for some sort of external approval or sign that we are on the right track. But I don't think we need to rely on others, I think we can find a way to remind ourselves every day that we are doing what is best for us. These are just some of the things that I like to focus on when I start to feel blue. Blue, my favorite color and also one of my favorite songs (check our Regina Spektor's Blue if you don't know it yet), and yet one of my least favorite emotional states. What metaphorical umbrella do you use to keep out of the rain?  

An honest reflection

I've nearly reached the three month point of my stay here in Europe. 3 months will be exactly on June 4th. I know that because that's the date I've been fixated on, stressing about, and getting myself all worked up over.

You see, I'm currently here on a Schengen tourist visa. I have already obtained my work visa for Switzerland this summer, but that does not begin until June 25th. The tourist visa lasts for *only* 90 days, and June 4th is my last official day of that visa. I have already submitted all of the necessary paperwork, obtained the jobs, and found a place to live. But unfortunately for me the Arbeit Agentur (work agency) is taking forever to respond to my request. Until they give the thumbs up on me being able to take an English teaching position in this country, there's nothing I (or the visa office here in Leinfelden) can do.

For the first few weeks that wasn't a problem - I was taking a German class that was sucking up all of my time and energy. But a few weeks ago that course ended. I was able to fly home for an unexpected mother's day / birthday / parent's anniversary celebration and also go to Switzerland for a long weekend. But even with these positive things happening, even though I'm in a place that I'm excited to be in, living in a great flat with good roommates, and able to visit my boyfriend more often than ever before (other than when we lived in the Laramie together, which seems like ages ago) I've been slipping into a depressed lull.

No work visa means no job. No job means no new money coming in. No new money coming in means living off of my savings. And living off of my savings means that they will eventually (read: NOW) be depleted. So rather than enjoy myself, I've been dwelling on the eventual lack of money and resources that is coming.

I've been fixated on my student loans, my ridiculously high insurance premium, my rent and food. And as everyone knows, focusing entirely on financial things (especially when, well, you know, you don't have much money to begin with) can become a black hole of despair and depression.

So rather than feeling proud of myself for making it to where I am, I have been focusing on the few things that I can't control.

I'm proud, and at the same time a little ashamed that it took this long, to say that as of today enough is enough. I've decided to start training for a 10k next spring, I want to do the race in under 56 minutes. I've decided to take advantage of this time of unemployment with a much more intense and serious flute practice schedule. This is basically the time that I've been dreaming of since I finished my Master's - essentially free time that I can devote to all of the things I want to work on with my flute. That means an extremely in depth study of the traditional excerpts for audition lists, a focus on Telemann Fantasies and the tonal and articulation issues that I have with music in that register. Here is my chance to explore and grow without feeling bad for taking time away from something else.

I literally have nothing else!

It's time to finish my website, write up my studio and parent contracts for future students, and reach out to my contact who is going to introduce me to some of the conductors in the area.

Rather than fearing how I'm going to make my money in the immediate future I'm going to pursue the future that I really want - an orchestra career and a thriving flute studio. That all starts with a return to the basics. Long tones, scales, articulation. Everything that I know and love.

It is a bit frustrating how often I swing back and forth from serious study to distraction. I'm sure my old teachers, some family members, and friends are probably tired of hearing this. But I think that I just need to embrace that this is the way I get sometimes.

So now the things that I can control - my physical fitness, the food I eat, what I do with all of this spare time - these are the things that I'm going to focus on. No more depressed focus on the fact that my work visa hasn't arrived. In a few weeks I'll be working in Switzerland and getting a consistent pay check for the summer. I'm not going to end up homeless. Not yet, anyways.

Now with the beautiful weather of early summer arriving, so too will my refreshed perspective. And with that perhaps I can expect more success in the arena that is of utmost importance to me: music.

On Germany - progress and happiness

A lot of breath was wasted telling me that I couldn't do what I'm trying to do. That one doesn't move to the European Union with the hopes of landing a work visa as a freelancing English teacher. That one shouldn't travel and try to make a life that they can be truly happy with when they have the burden of student loans. That, in that regard, one should take the time to make a living before attempting to make a life.

Many of the loudest voices have come from those I met in my travels abroad. The English teacher in Busan would loudly exclaim that it's not possible to teach English in Europe - that everyone there already knows it and besides, with the refugee crisis in Germany there's no chance that I'll be able to get a visa. The comfort of a salaried position in an Asian country where everything was already organized, where the pay-check was predictable, relatively timely, and comfortable enough to allow for some wild trips (with only a mild amount of credit card debt to show for it) was absolutely hard for me to leave behind. I can see the allure of staying there in lieu of running off to the uncertain, freelancing nature of a European adventure. I'm not saying that outspoken expat was wrong, I'm just saying that he definitely was not right.

I've been here for a month. I came here because of one guaranteed interview in advance with a company that, unfortunately, I won't be pursuing for work purposes. Instead I opened my doors to some other schools and had two bites immediately. The process was the same for both: one phone call, a dropped off resume, one job interview, and one instantaneous job offer. Both interviewers started in my postition, English teachers infatuated with the European lifestyle and the German language. Both had to build a full schedule from scratch at their respective schools. Both are now in managerial positions, hiring and organizing, leading teaching seminars, and jumping in when their teachers are sick or on vacation. They have been insanely helpful and I haven't had any doubts that if I have a random question about the visa process, or come across and glitch or hurdle, they would respond quickly and with the knowledgable advice that can only come from one who has not only been their themselves, but who has helped countless others through the process over the years. They are unwittingly serving as examples of the sort of stable and reliable life I could come to enjoy on this continent.

In terms of my visa process things are going well. I have everything prepared except for one. My health insurance is in the process of being finalized. It will bleed me dry until I can prove that my income is vastly lower than they are anticipating (2,200 euro a month? There's no way I'll be making that much for at least a year, if ever!) but at the end of the year I'll be reimbursed for anything that I should not have had to pay. So here's looking to a fat check at the end of the year and for a speedy process now.

I've signed a lease (subletting, if you want to be technical, until January) for an apartment in a beautiful part of the city. The view from my window is enough to make my heart sing as I begin to immerse myself in a more fully German environment. The neighborhood is quite far, by Stuttgart standards, from the city center. A full 24 minute public transit ride! But that exclamation mark should be taken with a grain of salt, 24 minutes is nothing, and besides... in Busan it was much, much worse. The distance from the city center makes me happy because perhaps here the level of English will be lower. Perhaps here I will be able to use, fine tune, and progress with my German. Perhaps here I can experience Germany (as truly as one can when surrounded by hotels and situated so closely to the airport).

Right now this is where I belong. I love the food that I have access to here. I love that I get to see my wonderful, fabulous boyfriend more often while here. I love that I'm catching on to the language, that my intense courses are paying off, and that I can potentially reach B1 level by next year (if not sooner). I'm happy to be pursuing the things that are important to me physically - my climbing course has been amazing and I've made some outstanding friends from it, my yoga mat has been calling my name and I'm looking forward to finding outdoor opportunities to practice either in a group or on my own as summer comes around the bend, and I've even been able to try skate skiing, take a 3 day vacation to beautiful Switzerland, and push my body to limits that I haven't done in far too long. The lifestyle that I'm living here is the one that I've been craving. The irony is that this city is the most polluted by the standards of the locals and all I can do whenever I step outside is breathe deeply and fully through my nose - the haze and pollution of my factory surrounded neighborhood of Korea is noticeably absent. My lungs are pleased.

All in all, I'm happy. I can't wait to share my new corner of the globe with my friends and family as time goes on. It's time to being to plan a trip for my family to come visit. It's time to convince my friends that they can save up for a plane ticket to come explore my part of the world. It's time to prove to myself and everyone else that maybe this wandering musician can be established in one part of the world for longer than a year.

After all this time it's time to go for it.

My German Adventure

On Friday afternoon I flew out of Korea, told the immigration office that I was never to return, handed in my Alien Registration Card, and began the 30 hour travel journey away. Included in that time was a 13 hour and 50 minute flight, my longest so far, and hopefully the last flight of that length that I will ever take.

Cut ahead to Saturday afternoon and you will find me in Stuttgart alive and well, with my luggage happily arriving at the same time, and my lovely boyfriend waiting at the gate for me. Stuttgart could not have started better. I spent two days getting to know my new city with my boyfriend, enjoying the fact that we now live on the same continent, going out for coffee, eating dinner together, and wondering aloud about the dramatic political protest and heavy handed Polizei presence throughout.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. With the arrival of Sunday evening I had to allow for the departure of Valentin. Waving goodbye from a train, although significantly easier than from separate sides of the security line at an airport, was still a harsh reminder of what is truly happening in my life right now. I have just moved to a new continent, to a new country and city in which I know no one. Even Valentin lives in a different country, three hours away by bus. I really am starting an entirely new life here.

Let me be the first to say that I love it here. I don't think this feeling is the manifestation of round one of culture shock: the honeymoon period. I think that I am aware of the difficulties, stress, and differences between this home, my last home, and my true home back in the states, and how this will profoundly impact me in the months to come. But I can say with honesty that this type of city, this type of country, this type of lifestyle? This is what I've been craving. Even for a city considered to be not nearly as beautiful as the other options in Germany, Stuttgart is lovely. Even with the weather bordering on foggy clouds, rain and sleet, and snow in the night, Stuttgart is welcoming.

I have no concerns about my family visiting here. I know they will love it. I can't wait for my friends to come see me, I know that we will have much to do. Centrally located between Germany, France, Switzerland, and even Italy to the south, Stuttgart is in the ideal location to jump around from country to country.

My first interview went well and I hope that this time next month I will be chronicling about my first few days of work. I'm meeting some people for coffee tomorrow morning who share similar interests and job titles, so maybe they will come to be friends. But I'm most excited about my bouldering technique course that begins on Thursday. Although it's quite expensive I've decided to commit to a 10 week women's only bouldering class. 5-6 women, 90 minutes a week, and one personal trainer. I can't wait to learn more about how to do the movements that are necessary for climbing. I can't wait to immerse myself in an athletic, adventurous, and encouraging world. I can't wait to push myself physically in a way that's reflective of how I am pushing myself emotionally and socially with this move.

There are so many things I'm realising that I want to do with my life. This happens to everyone, I'm sure. But there's something about moving to a new country that really helps you start over. Or so I'm told. All I know is that I'm feeling more optimistic than ever.

So begins my German adventure.

Being: When Becoming is too much work

In less than a month I will be moving to Stuttgart. I will once again be packing up my things and heading out on a one-way ticket to a new country. However, unlike when I came to Korea 12 months ago, this time I will not be arriving to an organized orientation, established job, and furnished apartment. This time I will be landing without pomp and circumstance. I will be venturing through the airport alone, taking public transit alone, finding my storage site, checking in to my hostel, and finding a cell phone store alone. I will be on my own as I focus on who I want to become, on where I want to live in the city, and on finding a job.

But right now I'm thrilled. I'm getting excited in a way that I didn't really get when I came to Korea. I'm considering Germany as more of a solid place to land, not a temporary pit stop on the way to something else. Sure I'm having troubles visualizing myself being there forever, but I absolutely see myself trying to get established and locked down in the area. I'm researching and enrolling in intensive German courses, ones that last from 08:00-12:45 Monday through Fridays. I am planning which schools to visit and drop resumes off at first. I am going to commit to a health insurance plan before arriving. I have all the citizenship paperwork figured out. I'm doing everything I can possibly think of, anything that can be done from abroad, in order to feel as comfortable as possible when I arrive. I'm doing this all knowing that you can't prepare for everything, it's going to be hard and awkward and lonely, I understand that I might not even find a job. Maybe I'll have to run home with my tail between my legs, find some temporary work, and then head back to Switzerland in June.

Who knows.

But today that's the enticing part of this whole moment. Nobody knows what will happen. I don't know what will happen. I can try to predict, prepare for, and internalize how to respond to the things that happen, but preparation can only go so far.

So today I will simply let myself sink into the butterflies, ease into the energy and excitement of the moment. Today I will let myself be happy and bubbling with the possiblities of what might be, what can be, what will.

Today I will be satisfied with being. That's enough.

meandering thoughts on a friday afternoon

I've already passed the quarter of a century mark and yet since I've left home I've never lived in one place for more than 2 years. I've been running back and forth between college and home, graduate school and bartending, and now Korea and Europe. As I've set my eyes on the next path I've never considered that destination as anything more than a year or two stopover on my way to the next thing.

It's weird to think that many of my friends are becoming married, having children, moving in with their significant others, planting roots. Not weird in any sort of a judgmental sense, just different from what I've been doing. What I am doing. What I will be doing.

There's nothing novel about this. I'm not trying to romanticize the feeling either. It's not some sort of dramatic, adventurous, and enticing life style. I'm not privileged enough to never have concerns about finances, or to be able to go literally anywhere I want. I don't subscribe to the sickening philosophy of wanderlust, romantic solo treks for the sole purpose of self-fulfillment, or some sort of skewed perception of what it actually means to live abroad for a long period of time. I don't cast shade on my friends who have stability, who have bought homes, new cars, and Haustieren. I wish I had a dog. I had just purchased a brand new car before I impulsively decided to leave the country a year and a half ago. There are nights where I want to be home, near my family, with my old friends.

But that's not what I do. Or rather, that's not what I've been doing and what my life has become. This is why even now, as I book a ticket to Europe, I am doing mental acrobatics as I try to wrap my mind around the idea that I will be staying there for a while. For the foreseeable future. For an extended period of time. This is why these thoughts are borderline incomprehensible to me. At my undergrad I lived in the dorms for two years, two different rooms, at the house of a friend's uncle, in a worn down old house with three friends that was condemned and torn down the year after I graduated. After this I went to graduate school where I lived in the same apartment for two years, the longest time in one place since high school. I'm finishing a year in Korea about to run away to Stuttgart. I set up countdowns, set my sights on the future, and have internalized the most efficient method of counting down my time while simultaneously enjoying myself and making it fly by extraordinarily fast.

Even 12+ hour flights have lost their dreary drag and lengthy exhaustion. Now I get on the plane and have internalized the process: take off, ten minutes to seatbelt sign off, ten minutes to water or snacks, naptime, movie time, naptime, writing, a meal, naptime, writing, another drink (maybe wine this time), a movie or two, another meal, another movie, seatbelt sign on, landing. I don't look at my watch, I just wait for the flight attendants to signal what stage of the trip we are on - are they giving out drinks or food? have they passed out landing cards, arrival cards, customs declarations? are they waking people up to set their seats at 90 degrees to prepare for the decent? - and I resign myself to a weary half-asleep slumber mixed in with brief moments of clarity, writing, observation.

The skill of making time fly by seems to be coming with age, which makes sense. When you're 8 you've only seen 8 summers come and go, so that three month period between May and September feels like the greatest extended vacation. As we get older we try to grasp onto these brief spans of time that are feeling shorter and shorter in comparison to the months that we have lived. This may be why I could look you in the eye and say that one year isn't a long time to be on different continents from my boyfriend. This might explain my shameless desire to just run away to another side of the world for a little while. 12 months is nothing. 365 days is brief in comparison to the 9,371 that I've lived.

But here I am, landing seasonal positions in a country that I want to call my home. Booking tickets to an area where the language barrier will be more than a temporary annoyance, where I want and need to immerse myself and become fluent because I will be there for more than a year. Here I am trying to find a way to create stability in my life. Here I am, trying to move forward by planting roots somewhere.

And yet here I am, wondering if the moment I get where I want to be going I can't spend more than a year or two in that place before feeling the itch to move on. How do you find a place and stay there, how do you avoid wondering what it would be like somewhere else? Without the finances to travel the world on lengthy vacations?

I suppose it all depends on who I'm with, how I feel, and whether the place that I'm going is indeed where I want to be.

It all depends on my future definition of "me."

On the Feeling of Futility

How do you do it, my fellow Americans? How do you hold yourself back, bite your tongue, stay in your lane? I know you’re out there. I know that these gun crimes which have been increasing with such regularity that the tactless anonymous person on the internet joking that December’s massacre happened early and that maybe there will be another one squeezed in before Christmas holidays begin leads you not to rage at his cruelty but rather to sadly hoping that’s not true. But not doubting that it might be.

You see it so often you don’t know what to do. The politicians continue to pray away and react to the problem and save face by showing support and remorse for those involved. You watch them offer their well wishes, hoping the victims will stay strong, the police will do their job, and that they can continue to pretend that they will be an effective president.

How do you do it? How do you keep from divisive political rants? The gun violence, rampant racism, pervasive sexism, and ignorant classism (just to name a few) – how do you keep it off your newsfeed? Off your wall? Out of your conversations?

When one of the few speaks up on your newsfeed they are attacked – they are called extremists, crazy left wing liberals, surely there is something wrong with them, they want to take away our rights, and anyways, why should we punish Honest Hard-working Harry who simply wants to take his gun out and kill some helpless animals?

How do you ignore it? You’re passionate, you’re educated, you’ve anticipated the typical responses and addressed them. You've drafted a lengthy response, you've bared your true feelings, you are prepared to hit “share” “send” or “post.” But then you take a deep breath, delete it, and continue to scroll through your newsfeed.

It's obvious, you see. You don’t want to cause an argument, you don’t want to be pulled into a mindless feud with someone who refuses to see the other side of the argument, someone who refuses to be inconvenienced in anyway, and who is incapable of questioning the necessity of a hobby that perhaps their parents had passed on to them.

How do you hide your truth, your perspective, your beliefs? When did you become a passive observer, when did the futility of change become so embedded in you that you can’t even attempt to sway the opinions of close friends and family?

It happened gradually. Your youthful vigor has been deadened. Your eyes are dulled. You've learned that it’s too easy to avoid confrontation and a messy argument. There’s so much anger and darkness in the world, you rationalize, why bother bringing a heavy cloud over the skies of my friends, my family, my world?

You scroll on through, lurking in the background watching the events that will define your life, your country, and the lives of your children.

Because clearly, there’s nothing else you can do.

On Anxiety - Overcoming Uncertainty

I feel nauseous and have to fight back the tears threatening to burst. The butterflies in my stomach are making me sick and I can’t breathe. My hands are shaking as my eyes dart wildly around the room.

The edges of my consciousness frantically scramble; clawing and tearing at the last sliver of control that is rapidly being blown beyond my reach. My fingertips feel bloody and raw when I am suddenly overwhelmed by the futility of my effort and the grasping becomes half hearted, eventually stopping altogether.

I shudder and fold over, fold inwards, hiding inside of myself.

With no control and half blind with fear I hold my breath as the strange wind continues to rage. It tears around me, propelling me forward, farther into the unknown. But where is it taking me?

A single tear slips out, immediately torn off my face.

There’s no turning back now.

Gritting my teeth I widen my eyes and take a step forward. 

Suddenly the wind stops. 

I can breathe again. 

One step at a time.

one foot in front of the other

When I flew home for my brother’s wedding in September I took the opportunity to replace some of my things. I brought a bunch of clothes from Busan that I never wore and in return I grabbed a huge stack of flute music, some pans and tea balls from my kitchen, some books, a pillow, and a few other miscellaneous items.

I also chose to bring some posters to put up in my new home, even though I knew I would only be here for a few more months. One is a replica of Van Gogh’s starry night – a beautiful blue poster featuring bold brush strokes and an unidentified couple near the river with a city landscape and starry sky on the horizon. It’s a poster I bought at a tumultuous personal time and it has always had a soothing effect on me. Continuing with this blue theme I brought back a piece of spray paint art that I bought on my first trip to New York. It is old and battered and may soon be thrown away, but it reminds me of the sense of excitement and energy I had for traveling, for being somewhere new and different. It reminds me of the first time I forsook a grim practicality with finances and chose to go out on a limb and buy a ticket for the experience, rather than pass it up for the financial stability.

The third poster is the most important one for me, as of late.

It's an image of an androgynous shadowy figure running through the woods at twilight with a quote from Carlos Castaneda stating: "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

I put it on the wall next to my music stand near the door. Every morning I walk by it as I prepare for the day. Every night I glance at it as I begin a practice session. It’s in front of me as I do yoga each day.

It’s my reminder that everyday should be a step forward. It doesn't have to be a huge leap, you can inch forward by choosing to do some small thing with a positive impact on your daily life, or you can charge forward with abandon and redefine who you are. But know that if you choose to do nothing, if you choose to dwell in some sense of stasis and lethargy, you are actively making yourself miserable. Even if it feels to you as if you are simply not actively bettering yourself, you are choosing to be in a way that does not resonate with who you are.

That’s not to say that you can’t take personal days, even from yourself. Sometimes we need time to recharge.

But each day we make a choice, strength or misery, forward or backward, yes or no.

For me, today was a small step. I drafted, edited, and submitted an application to a music school in Zurich. It was only one application. It was for a position that isn’t hiring and might not even look over my information and I had to sacrifice my flute time to do it.

But I can rest easy tonight knowing that there is one more chance for employment, one more opportunity for the future, thanks to that one hour of focused work.

I can approach my yoga mat feeling calm and ready to embrace this strength – a mental fortitude or optimism and effort that will easily transfer into the physical strength required for my yoga practice.

I can sleep with a sense of accomplishment rather than a pervasive sense of unease. For the little things are what make you feel that you have control. I am not a wait-er, I am a do-er and I attribute this fact to any success I’ve had up to this point. When I begin to feel stressed butterflies soaring in my stomach before going to sleep at night I know that something needs to happen.

Even if it’s a little thing. 

A Sober October

I’ve challenged myself to quit drinking, possibly for the foreseeable future but definitely for the month of October. This challenge has been added to my previous decision to incorporate daily some form of physical exercise, flute study, French and German practice, and personal meditation. Combined with my renewed focus on proper nutrition and sleep habits and I can honestly say I've never felt better. 

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This body of mine was not intended for a desk job. I am not built to sit in one position all day long, hunched over a screen, trying to work ahead on the computer.

I can no longer spend my weekends wallowing in bed all day before leaping up to go sit on a barstool all night. My body does not appreciate those long mornings and afternoons wasted from the night before. They say drinking borrows happiness from the following days and this has never been more true. I can't continue to treat my body, the only one I will ever have, this way.

When I returned from my trek in India I had never felt better. The food I was eating was unprocessed, simplistic, and whole. I was extremely well hydrated thanks to countless cups of tea and bottles of water, and my body was being used to the peak of its physical potential. I hadn’t had a headache in two weeks and I was ecstatic.

I thought it was the food, water, and exercise. Don’t get me wrong, it was all of those things. But perhaps it was also the lack of alcohol. This next month I've decided to test that. Although I am not an alcoholic, I only drink socially on weekends and over long breaks, I am interested to see how completely eliminating alcohol from my diet will effect me. 

So far, so good. This morning I ran 8km. I did not plan it, I just woke up and felt the need to run today. So after drinking some preparatory water and having a small bowl of cereal I laced up my tennis shoes and ran out the door. I stretched myself. I opened up my stride and just let myself go. My hips, back, legs, and neck felt better and better with each step. I did some sprints for fun, to see just how long and even each pace could be, to remind myself of what my body is capable of. I listened to my body and responded by walking when my knee started to hurt. I enjoyed the morning for what it was: a pain free moment in which I could revel in the sheer physicality of my body. It was a positive, healthy, and active start to my day; a moment to breathe in the semi-fresh (read: polluted) air; a symbolic transition into a new phase of my life as I embrace health, conscious dietary choices, and a wholehearted pursuit of my career as a musician.

I feel more optimistic about my potential and my future than ever before, which is ironic considering the fact that these next few months are some of the most unstable, uncertain, and unreliable ones of my life so far.

I want to let the terrible migraines that wipe me out for days on end be the reminder to enjoy the days where I am completely healthy. I want to prove to myself that I can continue to progress and become a more accomplished musician. I want to see what happens to my body as I listen to it more fully, following what it wants and not what I do. I want to be happy.

So it's time to be selfish and do what I want for me. That time came long ago, but I didn't listen. Now I can no longer ignore it. I'm 25 years old, a quarter of a century, and my life is mine. It's time to start living my own life, rather than letting life happen to me.

You should do the same. 

because nobody is perfect

It is kind of fascinating taking a step back and analyzing your mindset and reactions towards the world around you. These last two months have been so undeniably wonderful and satisfying that it is only natural for me to be falling into a bit of a slump now that I am back to work.

But this morning I allowed myself to dwell in a negative and unhappy attitude for much longer than I normally would let happen. Everything was bothering me. The people staring at their cell phones while walking and swerving into me all over the sidewalk, the businesses with irregular hours, the elderly women slamming into me as I wait for a bus, the guys on the bus taking up three quarters of the seat and pushing me into the window. The sun. The air. The traffic.

Everything. Grated. On. Me.

I wanted to leave. If I didn’t have this bit of credit card debt I might have. Book a one way ticket, end up somewhere you want to be, propel your career forward rather than staying in this slump. These were my thoughts. As if transporting myself from here to there would magically fix my attitude. As if Korea was the problem instead of my mindset.

As if I had no control over myself, my attitude, or my future while I was in this country.

Fortunately I was able to dislodge my head from the deep crevices of my body before I ruined my entire day.

The beauty of my life is that I am living abroad, I’m surrounded by a new culture, I’m working with awesome, strange, and sometimes overwhelming schools, teachers, and students. I’m doing something that, although I don’t intend to do forever, I am able to find happiness and joy in. And I am also able to look forward to the future and move myself in a direction I can be proud of.

Sometimes all I want is to let myself dwell in negativity and unhappiness. Wishing I were somewhere else, wishing I was doing something else, wishing for something other than I have, regardless of what it is. But this is such a wasted energy and ambition because when I am in that magical “other place” I am going to have the same bad days, the same mornings waking up on the wrong side of the bed and slamming my head against the wall, the same unhappiness. What matters is how I turn those days around.

If my experiences here were really terrible, if nothing made me happy and I had no reason to stay - I would not hesitate to hop on a plane. If I found something else that I wanted to do, something that was more focused on me and my dreams and passions I would take less than two hours to pack all of my things and be out of this country. If there was no reason for me to stay then I would be gone.

But there are so many reasons for me to be where I am. Even if sometimes that reason is simply to remind myself that I don’t need to live an ideal, utopian life in order to be happy, or to tell myself that I can keep my focus and passion moving forward regardless of personal circumstances. There are so many reasons for me to be where I am.

Sometimes I just need to tell myself to be happy and yes, it’s as simple as that.

But it helps when some of your classes are cancelled and your students are all taking a giant ballet lesson in the auditorium. Really, Korea? Sometimes you know exactly how to make my day.

Living Unapologetically

I'm not the first expatriate, immigrant, or tourist to find myself treading carefully in a new culture. The last thing I want to do is offend the people that are my neighbors, no matter how long I intend to stay in a certain place. Whether a week in India, a year in Busan, or a lifetime in the states, I have always tried to live my life in a way that is harmonious to the lives of others around me. Courtesy. Empathy. Compassion. I don't want to make someone feel uncomfortable because of something I have said or done.

This mindset has never before bubbled so close to the surface with such consistency as it has the last six months here in Korea. I've been careful about how I eat, what I eat, what I wear, where I put my chopsticks after my meal, how I greet people. Almost every element of daily life that I take for granted when home I have been hypersensitive to as I find myself in such a drastically different place.

I'm not saying that is not a bad thing. That is how I have learned to live in the Korean way (or as close to it as a non-Korean speaking foreigner can).

However, at some point I have let this sensitivity to these cultural differences stop me from living my life. I have let my new city stop me from doing the things I want to do to live forward and work ahead in my career.

As this page is titled, I am a wandering musician. I play the flute. I am a classically trained orchestral musician. With this title comes a huge responsibility: practicing. Practicing daily. Practicing when you don't want to. Practicing the things that sound terrible. Running drills, scales, arpeggios. Technical work that I love. Long tones that are low. Long tones that are high. Long tones that seem like they will never end. Breathing exercises. Yoga. Meditation.

The first six months in Korea I barely touched my flute. I felt a bit lost. I was caught up trying to figure out my future career because I was ignoring the one that I truly loved. I was trying to change who I am into something I'm not.

This is not Koreas fault. I am not blaming my location.

Instead it was a complex culmination of countless different factors that have been building since before I finished my Masters degree. But therein lies a different blogpost.

Right now I'm looking forward. I've stopped being afraid of offending my neighbors and have picked up my instrument again. I'm applying for festivals, masterclasses, and orchestral auditions. I'm practicing (within decent hours), I'm exercising (outside of those decent hours), and I'm living my life in the truest form that I can.

You see I'm still being sensitive to my neighbors. I don't play my flute before 8 am or after 9 pm. I refrain from high piccolo work in my apartment (because really, nobody deserves that torture). I'm still conscious of cultural difference and carry myself in a way that resonates with these new cultural norms. But I am no longer changing all of who I am to make sure that others are happy. This was never my intention, but it was essentially what was happening.

It's time for me to do me. It's time for me to live shamelessly because that is who I am.

It's time to live unapologetically.

On Perspective: Waking Up in the Middle of the Bed

I often get terrible migraines. The type of headache that make you feel like you're going to vomit, that make your eyes throb and your teeth hurt. These headaches can last for days at a time and leave you in fear that they might recur at a moments notice.

My migraines are triggered by many things: what I eat, how much I drink, what I drink, how much sleep I've gotten, whether or not my neck is out of alignment, and sometimes they strike for what seems like no reason at all. It starts out harmlessly enough - a slight tension in the neck and head, a flicker of light, an inexplicable feeling of dread. But soon my eyes begin to feel sore and heavy, my temples start to throb, my forehead (just above the sinuses) begins to feel thick and tight. The migraine has begun.

The problem is that I get headaches frequently - it's even become a bit of a joke with my friends. "Oh, sorry, I can't have that. Red food dye gives me migraines," I'll say as they roll their eyes. There's always a bit of a headache hidden behind my thick skull, so it's easy for me to mistake these regular headaches for an incoming migraine.

After so many years you would think I would know better. Unfortunately my body is constantly changing, what was once a trigger is no longer, and what is a trigger now may never have been a problem before. This causes a host of new problems when I find myself, say, in Korea experiencing a new culture and environment - a new climate, new diet, new physical demands on my body, new everything - each of these exciting new experiences have the potential to be a new trigger.

But this is where the durability of the human body and mind reasserts itself.

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I woke up in the middle of the bed. You know, there's a wrong side and a right side. The crab-ass in line at Starbucks woke up on the wrong side; the whistling jolly woman woke up on the right. But here I was, in the middle and not sure which way I would turn.

On one hand I had just awaken from an eleven hour migraine-induced slumber. My neck was tight, my head felt raw, and I was more than a little afraid to move. On the other hand, I was awake. I no longer felt tears running down my face from the pressure in my skull. It was a new day.

I stood up. This is always the first test. Does standing make the blood rush through your body re-establishing the throbbing, pounding pain? Today it didn't. Bathroom break. Back to the bed. Sit down. There. I had just stood up twice and sat down twice and the headache hadn't returned. Success.

The right side it is.

 A big breakfast followed by a delicious homemade latte left me the smiling fool walking to the bus. The world was clear, lacking the migraine haze, I was happy. 

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It's amazing to me how such pain can leave me feeling so happy the next day. It's as if my body attacks itself as a way of reminding me how fortunate I am. By crippling me and leaving me craving the merest of essentials (water, adequate food, sleep) it allows me to appreciate the rest of my experiences.

The migraine that I loathe, the pain that I hate, and the experiences that I could do without never cease to remind me of the beauty in the world. It sounds cliched and it probably is, but without those negative and awful experiences I wouldn't be as ready to marvel in the mundane.

I hate to say it, but sometimes I'm grateful for my migraines. They force me to remind myself to take care of my body, to release the tension and stress from my perspective, and to appreciate the world for what it is - a hard and relentless place where one can find beauty and pain. Happiness and stress.

We have the choice. We all have different problems, whether physical or mental, and we all struggle with them at times. But I've learned that I have two options: I can dwell on the negative and wish things were different, or I can allow for the bad things to happen and let them remind me of all of the good things. I can do my best to make sure that the migraines don't return, but at some point I will slip-up, something will happen that I don't expect, or my body will change again and I"ll have a host of new triggers to look out for. But I can be happy, even with all of that.

It all depends on which side of the bed I decide to roll onto when I wake up in the morning.

Growing Pains

There's something about this city that fascinates me. Perhaps it's the sheer size and magnitude of the sprawling metropolis. Or maybe it's the densely packed population, the reality that there  is always someone on the streets, no matter when you find yourself there. But no, it's something else. For me, an expat situated on the outskirts of Busan, the most intriguing element of this city can be found in what I refer to as its growing pains.

It's easy to be drawn to the two most obvious elements of the city: the new and the old. The countless identical Lotte Apartment complexes, Lotte Department stores, Centum City, skyscrapers, and technology, sharply juxtaposed against the temples, traditional markets, and Buddhist sensibility of the culture. The old character weaves its way through the mind of the older generation, seeping into portions of the younger generations psyche, leaving strong indications that it might be lost within a few generations.

However, these two sides are not where you find the growing pains. Instead you can see these pains when you look up at the complex cobweb of countless electrical wires hanging low over the street - placed there from the necessity of supplying electricity and power to the surrounding buildings but ignoring the foresight of future growth and demands. What was once a clean set of two or three electrical lines has now become a heavy, unwieldy web of electrical power that is slowly succumbing to gravity and descending lower and lower to the streets.

The growing pains are seen in the perpendicular bend of the elderly ajummas spine from years spent toiling in the field as she hauls huge carts of recycling,picking up the trash thrown onto streets, moving the refuse from one spot to another.

You can see it in the strip malls where construction overstepped demand and left behind the tattered remains of closed storefronts. This reflection of an obstinate focus on growth, the demand for more - more buildings, more shops, more, more, more - makes you wonder when this aesthetic of utility and quantity will be replaced by the aesthetic of art and quality.

These are the growing pains of an ancient civilization that has suffered immensely but has managed to raise itself up from abject poverty and colonial rule to a force of capitalism, consumerism, and productivity in a very brief span of time.

The more time I spend immersed in this complex and captivating culture, the more that this complexity seems to be a reflection of my own inner struggles. The responsible consumer obsessed with repaying her student loans is synonymous with the new face of Korea. Consumerism, capitalism, utilitarianism - this is contrasted with a wholly different side of my personality. The lingering light of culture, art, and beauty within Busan captures my dream of living life for the sake of living - not dwelling on financial demands and hardships; enjoying my life for what it could be rather than paying for what it has been.

Busan is reaching a turning point. Soon its citizens will have to make a conscious choice between aesthetic purpose and capitalist progress. The massive construction of identical buildings, apartments, stores, and businesses is not sustainable. It seems to me that this city has lifted itself up and created a bustling landscape but that it now needs to focus on the future and what it wants to define itself as. An identity crisis is coming, what will it choose?

It seems that I too am being compelled to make a choice of this kind. How will I live my life? What kind of life will that be? The more time I spend away from that which is familiar is helpful, but I can only run for so long before I need to make a decision of my own.

All those who wander are not lost, but some of us are.