Moments

And we'll collect the moments one by one
I guess that's how the future's done
-Leslie Feist

As I navigate my way through the hedge maze that is Seoul, Korea, in my last few days I have started to relish the little moments that I will take with me.

Throughout the last year plus, I have held on to little moments from my past before I arrived in Asia that always make me smile. They are those little pieces of memories that when explained outloud mean nothing to the listener, but to the rememberer they mean everything. I have thoughts of certain nights or certain smells or certain sounds and certain feelings that have affected me. These memories always whisk me away to a different time and place and have the power to change my emotions in an instant.

I think I have a lot of these little moments from Korea that I will take with me. Many of them mean nothing to you without the context of every other moment from the last 18 months of my life, but I think some of them have universal appeal:

1.
Standing in the teacher's lounge, an English co-worker marches in with an unpleasant look on his face. He approaches a Korean co-worker. She listens attentively, armed with a fluency in Korean and a good understanding of the English language.

"You will never believe what happened in class," says the Englishman. "Little Jimmy did not do his homework for the fifth straight class."

Using the English vernacular that she has picked up from the Englishmen around the office, but also speaking with a Korean accent, she responds, "That is utter bollocks. Don't worry. I will have a talk with him and I promise he will stop being such a lazy cunt."

2.
I am in a hurry, late for school and walking at a brisk tempo through the subway station.

As I quickly walk down the corridor, an older woman awkwardly jogs past me, dressed to the nines and wearing high heels. I get to the escalator only to pass her as she stands still on the moving stairs frantically tapping her foot and checking her watch.

She again runs past me after I have reached the bottom of the escalator and continued through the station. Smiling, I pass her again as she stands on the moving sidewalk that moves at a slow pace. She now looks more worried, but there is no way in hell she will be using her legs like a sucker if there is a moving sidewalk.

I get to the end of the hallway containing the moving sidewalk and walk fifty yards forward. For a final time she passes me, running and looking quite stressed that she may miss her train.

I approach the platform to find myself standing next to the same woman. We get on the same train and both arrive at our destination at the same time, only my heart rate is about 30 beats per minute less than hers.

3.
The sound of the crazy drunk on the street by my school that, literally everytime he sees me, raises both of his arms, smiles and yells, "Calipornia!"

4.
I hand back a test on a Wednesday that I gave on Monday. I tell the seven-year-old kids that I expect them to take the tests home and have their parents sign them and bring them back on Friday.

As I hand them out, I hear an excited, "Asah!" Then I pass a test to a girl that regularly scores well, but she has failed this one. She does her best impersonation of me impersonating Borat and says with a tinge of sadness, "Wawaweewah."

5.
The sounds of a hundred Korean children yelling ununderstandable things in the hallway of my school.

6.
The feeling of getting on a plane in Kansas City 18 months ago and asking myself, "What the hell am I doing?"

7.
(this one hasn't happened yet, but I already think it will be a big memory I will take with me)
The feeling of getting on a plane in Seoul and telling myself, "What the hell did I just do?"


I've got a lot more to share y'all, but let's wait until we are creating moments of our own...

Much love from Seoul