Skip to main content

Green Light Go


So, Kim Jong Il called (okay, not really).

But we are in.

The official word is that I am going to the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea for three months to teach English to adults. Two of my good friends are also coming.

Departure is mid-April. Internet access (the other key piece of information) is unknown.

This may affect my blogging routine. Although I would love to keep writing from there. Is this possible? I don't even know.

There is a lot I don't know.

What I do know is that, as crazy as these last two months have been, I feel like I am right where I'm supposed to be, doing things that make no sense on one level, and yet seem perfectly obvious on another.

It is a good place to be - mildly frightening and yet, not actually.

Comments

  1. Mindy7:19 PM

    Hurray for adventures! I'm excited for you, Beth :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amelia11:07 PM

    WOOOOO!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. afro-chick8:24 AM

    this is exciting and scary at the same time. hah! and i'm not even going.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Aimee6:21 PM

    Ogoshogoshogoshogosh!!! Can't wait to hear more! YAY Beth!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jess Versteeg10:37 PM

    that's so exciting!! I'm surprised you're able to be so open about it online. Aren't there some security issues with that?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beth11:35 AM

    jess - it's straight up teaching. we're invited in by the government, so there's no nothing to hide from them. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st...
Post a Comment
Read more