Busan: Joshua becomes Joshua Teacher

I arrived in South Korea almost exactly one month ago now to begin my new life here as an English teacher. It was only June 26 that I landed sometime in the evening and in haggard shape. I was so tired, yet totally wired to be in this new and mysterious place. The night before was full of teary-eyed goodbyes as well as kind and heartfelt embraces as I finished my last shift at Wicked Weed, the brewery I had been at in Asheville since October of 2016. A few last beers with my friends before waking up into the next aspect of my life, a sobering dip into the waters of change.

I think I slept for two and a half hours that night. I worked, I drank and I went home and packed, more and more until finally I got everything in my bags. Once weighed, they came in at 38 and 48 pounds, just two pounds under the limit. My bike box was stuffed full of cycling jerseys, bibs, hiking shoes, bike tires and my helmet--45 pounds. My new bike was unbuilt and carefully packed inside, waiting to be built and ridden through the jagged mountains jutting up, and all around, the city of Busan, my new home. Three checked items: two pieces of luggage and a cardboard bike box; my camera bag and courier bag as carry-ons ready to go, loaded into the van, and by 6:00 a.m., my brother and I were on our sleep-deprived way to Charlotte International Airport. Saying ‘goodbye’ to my brother at the airport felt hard. It’s difficult being so far from one of my best friends.

Having bade my final farewells, all that was left was TSA, and so I strode towards the airport with great hesitance. With no baggage issues and a short flight to Boston, I was getting ready for the longest leg of my travels: Boston to Narita, Japan. 13 hours and 30 minutes of movie watching on Japan Airlines. This was my first time on an international flight being older than 21; it was then that I realized how amazing inflight beer is. Japan’s beer is light, but it was really enjoyable, especially with a bento box! I was able to make some small talk in what little Japanese I speak. That felt really nice, especially before landing in Korea where I understand so little.

After transferring onto my flight to Gimhae International Airport from Narita, it was only about two and a half hours to Busan. Immigration forms were set in the seats in front of us and I spent my time filling that out, one character of hangeul at a time as I attempted to accurately portray my employer’s address. The rest of the short journey I spent falling in and out of sleep as I tried to balance being exhausted with the excitement of arriving into a new country. The plane was hot, I was wearing a long sleeve dress shirt with pants, sweating my ass off, and then, finally, we landed--23 hours and 30 minutes of flights and layover time later.

We disembarked onto the runway. Humidity. Hot air. Grayed out overcast skies. Welcome to early summer in Busan, the rainy season. After the bus dropped us off at immigration I got into a line across from another guy who looked like an American, big build, probably military, and young. I fought my inner voice cautioning me not to say anything and asked him what he was here for. The Navy, he said. It turned out this was his first time out of the U.S. He was under 20 and from Texas. He hadn’t been outside of Texas except for the time he moved from New Jersey, and hadn’t really seen any of the U.S. Having just come from Durango, Colorado a week earlier, I felt that was tragic. He didn’t seem to have his immigration forms filled out from the plane and didn’t know he had to have them. After pointing him towards the forms, I entered Korea; we saw each other again at baggage claim and then we parted ways after he helped me move one of my three checked pieces of luggage. I was carrying my body weight in luggage as I stumbled backwards toward the reception area where my friend, Mike met me. I hadn’t seen my friend in about six years and it was great to finally see him again after such a long time of facebook video calls where I hounded him with questions concerning Korea.

That night we dropped my bike box off at MikeBike, Mike’s bike shop, met one of my future co-workers at the school and my school’s director who was confused as to why I was there. After a few phone calls things were cleared up and I was on my way to my new apartment in Gaegeum, Busan, about ten minutes from school. It turns out confusion was something I needed to get used to; no one at my work informs any of us foreigners with regard to any changes (I walked into my class [August] today and suddenly had a new Korean co-teacher. Thanks for the heads up, Korea). One of my most immediate perceptions of Busan was its smell, like salty sea breeze colliding with humidity-induced pungent garbage. It’s not the most offensive of smells, but it is distinctive.

Five flights of stairs later with 60 pounds on my back and 48 pounds of luggage in my clutches, and we had made it to my room. From there, Mike, my new co-worker and I, went off to Seomyeon for a beer or two. Seomyeon is a major center for shopping, entertainment and good food.

I crashed onto my bed that night, sleeping on a mattress on the floor with only a comforter between me and the mattress. I had a white undershirt over my pillow as a pillow case and the AC working hard to combat the heat and humidity. No sheets and no mattress protector. I was told I would have them, but I wouldn’t get those for another few days from my employer as though they were an afterthought.

The next day was about exchanging Benjamins into bills featuring Shin Saim-dang, the newest Korean bill issued due to Korea’s increasingly strong economy which spurred some controversy due to a famous Korean woman being on the front. The bills are worth 50,000 won, the Korean equivalent of what might be around $46 in the U.S. I had a lot of them and it felt good. It was the first time I had ever held two million of any kind of currency. You could call me a millionaire. Mike’s wife was good enough to make this exchange for me and also secured Mike and I some American flag luggage tags. We joked that she should have gotten us the Canadian ones.

Next, we had lunch. The best noodles I have ever had in a white bean sauce which felt a little underwhelming because of its modest flavor. I was excited to try the bold flavors that make up so much of Korea’s cuisine, but the cold thick noodle soup we had was a great dish to have on such a hot day. Mike and I went back to his shop and unboxed my new steed. Black with more black, glossy on a matte finish, easily lost in darkness and infinitely sexy; yes, I’m referring to my bicycle. It’s my first carbon-frame road bike and it feels great to ride! Mike meticulously built it for me and tuned it to greatness. I first met Mike at a bicycle shop in Asheville and he was a big part of me falling in love with cycling as much as I have. He was the one who introduced me to cyclocross and he provided a lot of information on teaching in Korea. That was my last free day until the weekend because classroom observation began the next day.

That Wednesday I met David, the teacher I was replacing. All of our students thought we were brothers. We do look somewhat similar; we were two slender, roughly similar in height white people with blue eyes and brown hair living in a country of Koreans. We were essentially the same person.

So, over three days I observed... Loud voices, screaming, “what is the weather like?”, droning answers to rote questions, constant repetition and an inordinate amount of playing hangman. It was exhausting, just listening to it. That’s when my anxiety began to build. The third day I watched classes was David’s last day and we went out for drinks and food in Gwangalli with Lydia and Kristi, two of our co-teachers. Drinking and eating seem like they are almost synonymous in Korea. This was my first time being by the beach and I hadn’t seen so many foreigners in one place in Korea before. It was nice to know there were more of us. We all said goodbye to David that night and he was gone the next day… Sad losing a friend at a point when I was so lacking them.

My decision to leave the U.S. to go teach in Korea was not an easy decision to make and maybe it was half way made in impulse because sometimes life needs to be allowed to happen and not be hampered by the uncertainty and insecurity of our minds. This is a lesson I’m still trying to embrace fully in the way I live my life. I’m still apprehensive about jumping off of heights, diving into cold water and fearing that maybe I won’t float back up to the surface. But for me, somehow, moving to a new country is an easier thing to do. It’s ridiculous.

I’m glad for all of my experiences abroad. I think in so many ways they have strongly shaped who I am, and even though Korea has so far been a challenge, it’s one I’m excited to overcome. I look forward excitedly for a future in which I understand what the clerk at the cash register is saying, even when he is only asking whether I need a bag or not and for the time in my dreams when I’m having philosophical discourse with another Korean while speaking in Korean because at that point, I know I will have rid myself of the fears which sometimes visit my mind.

Of the various challenges I face living here, being in a city feels almost more foreign than being in another country. So much of my life I have always felt close to the people in my lives, and I have never been in want of friends, but living in a city, surrounded by so many people, I haven’t ever felt as lonely. That is a feeling which has been compounded by the fact that I cannot even express my feelings to 99.9% of the people I’m surrounded by because of language differences. It’s so easy to feel impatient with oneself. Learning Korean while I’m here is a huge goal of mine and one that feels at times is slow-going. I realize I have only been here a few weeks, but when you are surrounded by a language you cannot understand all of the time, it makes you want to understand. It’s not a reasonable thing to ask of oneself even after months of living here, but I hope to move forward making steady progress.

I’ll try to continue posting my thoughts and experiences in Korea, but life does move fast and I try to spend my free time engaging with people in real life or destressing from a long day of teaching kids a language they aren’t convinced they should learn. I miss so many of my friends back home and, to all of you reading this, thanks for taking an interest in my life and I look forward to the time we can hang out together again. Thanks for your support!

Tubulars!

The last few days have been very busy and eventful. I had to go to sleep early Friday night so that I could wake up the next morning to get ready for my first sanctioned cyclocross race (a race that counts towards upgrading to a higher race category). I woke up early, drove with my friend to Kingsport, TN and spent the next three hours riding the course, watching races and waiting enthusiastically for my race to start. Lining up for a cyclocross race is a stressful nerve wrecking thing. Being in the front row is what everyone wants but only about 8-10 people can fit. When the official moves out of the way, everyone looks towards him/her, looking for any hint of movement or speech that could indicate the beginning of, "Riders ready? Race safe. Goooo!" From this point it's chaos, everyone attempting to clip into their pedal and then sprint as hard as possible to get an immediate advantage flying into the first turn. Crashing is a common, expected occurrence in cyclocross and so being in the lead is beneficial seeing as no one can crash in front of you and no one can hinder your ability to ride the course the way that best fits you. I've only successfully gotten the "holeshot" and held it for longer than one turn one time, I also ended up winning that race ("holeshot" coming into the first turn after the start while in 1st place). Unfortunately trying to get the holeshot is an extremely good way to send your heart rate soaring into zones you don't want to spend much more than a few seconds in. Often times this leads to a place of no return where you end up losing more places than the holeshots advantage would hopefully provide. That's just a little background to a CX (cyclocross) race.

My race went pretty ok until my chain bounced off the chainring and down in-between the object that was created to prevent that (a chain watcher) and the chainring itself. This happened again in the exact same way two laps later. Each time I had to come to a complete stop while the guys I was racing against kept going, each stop took about 20-30 seconds to fix and the gap between myself and my opponents who I had just been with increased. I was able to make up the difference each time but it left me severely tired and unfortunately for me, the next gap was about 45 seconds, too much for me to close. I finished 8th on Saturday and did not finish on Sunday due to the same issues with my chain bouncing off.There were just too many guys who passed me after the incident on Sunday. I hate not finishing a race but I was so emotionally and physically frustrated with the situation. "Fuck it!" I walked off the course, feeling disappointed in myself for the rest of the day. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Next week... Hopefully then I can redeem myself. I'm not as fit as I hoped to be as this point which is frustrating now but it might be a blessing in disguise later into the season.

If this sort of stuff is interesting or not, I'd like to know. I want to write more but it definitely doesn't have to be about racing or cycling and I feel like it might be more compelling if it weren't but it's difficult for me to tell because I'm partial to it.

The noise in my head

I seem to have trouble posting consistently multiple days in a row... Work definitely has some affect on what I want to write about or whether I want to write at all after work, often times I don't. It sucks to just feel too tired to do anything creative after getting home.

Recently, I've been contemplating the affect music has on my own attitude or psyche, especially related to sports. I love to get jazzed up on some electro/house? I'm terrible at genres so don't hate. While we're talking about getting jazzed up, last year, for the first time ever in history the US had cyclocross worlds in the States rather than in Europe which is the birthplace of the sport. I went to Louisville, KY to watch and was completely blown away by the experience and totally fired up afterwards. It was 30 degrees or below, muddy/frozen ground and tons of spectators drinking beer and being merry. There were hordes of people chanting Belgian drinking songs, mainly just the Belgians but the Americans brought their A game and made me proud! Never before have I heard such loud, humbling cheering, not just for the American riders but for all nationalities! Even New Zealand pulling up the rear. Someone created a beautifully epic video to record the momentous occasion http://vimeo.com/59003307. When I warm-up for a race or in the early morning as I'm getting ready to head out to the races in some distant land I like to listen to something like this, https://soundcloud.com/yellowclaw/yellow-claw-amsterdam-twerk. Soundcloud is an awesome resource to find some cool music, specifically user created mixes.

In direct contrast to electro/house I really enjoy listening to Sigur Ros. Really beautiful and nostalgic in some way. I remember listening to them last year while riding back to Asheville, NC from Unicoi, TN after a cyclocrss race. You pass through some beautiful areas especially in the Fall during cross season. The mist lies above the bright reds and yellows of the trees like a thin blanket while traveling in the morning. Coming back, the sun casts beautiful golden rays onto the tree tops and creates such amazing contrast between the various lights and darks of the soft mountains and changing trees. It sets me into a place of amazement and awe. We often times slip right past such beautiful works of nature everyday whether it's the beauty of a fallen leaf or the architecture of a new spiders web adorned with glistening dew in the cool of the morning. It's a shame our lives don't move at a slower tempo sometimes. I just began listening to Sigur Ros' new album and it's another very impressive work, different than their past music but I appreciate the fact that they are moving along, slightly if nothing else, from their older work.

Sometimes, or maybe I should say often times, I don't actually listen to the music. I hear it of course but I don't analyze or look at music critically and sometimes I don't even appreciate it while hearing it especially if I already have decided that I like it. It's possible to see a song or album in a completely different light though when we actually sit down to focus, and to listen to music. Younger generations I fear will probably continue to lose the ability to think critically, not just because most schools don't teach it but also because music is such a compelling form of media for my generation and all the rest to come. Music is so readily available. A person can't go nearly an hour without listening to something whether in the car, at home, at work. Our society or culture, is completely engulfed by this all encompassing media.

Our journey

I'm completely exhausted from waking up too early (7:10 am) after going to bed at 1:10 am so that I could go ride bikes 60 miles with my teammates the following day (today). I was reassured by the team email that the pace would be talking pace with the purpose of meeting prospective members of next years team. Recently I've had some fit issues with my knees. Knee problems have been a plague to my athletic endeavors previously but most noticeably for cycling. My knee felt ok for yesterdays cyclocross race and so I figured an easy pace recovery ride would also be ok. Unfortunately after the first 30 miles they picked up the pace to quite a bit and I was forced from the pain in my knees to pull back and take it easy. Cycling is all about wind and using other people as wind-shields so not being around my team actually took more energy than if I was with them; about 30% more, it's quite significant. Today was not a particularly enjoyable day but the weather was outstanding! Slightly chilly this morning and no higher than 70 degrees throughout the day. Last night I spoke to a professional cyclist about getting a fit from him so that my position on the bike wouldn't cause me injuries in the future. Tomorrow I'm going to bring both my bikes to his house so that he can hopefully help rid me of these issues. He's been really helpful and he's eager to help out young guys progress in the sport which is really nice because this can be a very expensive sport with tight knit groups so having a hook-up on the inside is a great aid. 

My friend and I are hoping to make the long journey by bicycle from the East coast to the West coast while filming our adventure. My friend has his bachelors in cinematography and he's been trying to break into the movie-making scene with little monetary success. I thought that this idea might be great both as an experience for us to have together and to help him develop his own film in hopes of it helping him get noticed. I'm hoping that if this all comes together as we hope it will that we could get this potential film into a film festival and possibly shown around the country. We have to come up with some way for us to stand out from other people who have made this journey because it's definitely been done before. I would like to involve some sort of non-profit organization that maybe helps kids get on bikes or something similar. We also think it's important for us to not have any sort of agenda though, no cause like, cycling awareness, because it would take away from the headline which is the physical and mental journey. I completely support cycling awareness, better bike lanes, etc but it's also alienating to those who might be against it or not sure. This whole idea is just that, an idea, but with a little bit more discussion, brainstorming, etc it could definitely come to fruition.

Mud, snot, and beers.

As I said in my last posting, discipline has not been one of my stronger suits, which is largely the reason why I haven't updated my blog any sooner. The past few days have been somewhat consequential; I finished my gluing my tubular race wheelset with the help of my teammate, Dave. He has both more muscle and more experience than I do in terms of getting a glued tire rolled onto a glued rim which was greatly appreciated.

Today (9/21) I had the opportunity to race that tubular wheelset in some pretty extreme cyclocross conditions. It began to rain ever since the morning and never ceased throughout the day. By 6:30, when my race was scheduled to begin, the race course was a figurative battlefield of those who hadn't the heart to continue. This mud was watery but thick like oily peanut butter. The mud continually built up upon everyone's bikes until I'm sure each of us had gained 2-4 lbs of extra weight from pieces of the course. One long straight section of the course was particularly devastating, offering a literal lake of water that was probably up to 4 inches tall in some parts; this made pedaling in even the easiest of gears a challenge in the most positive of terms and made you want to give up on life in the most negative. After sloshing through the water-fun-park, our chains were near sparkling, which was great after getting so much sand from the sand-pit lodged into our drive-train which made noises not dissimilar to scratching ones fingers on a chalkboard. It makes me cringe just to think about how much damage a sandpit can inflict upon a bicycle and it's sensitive parts. The entirety of this one mile-ish course, which we rode upon for upwards of fifty minutes, was either very heavy grass or slow mud so finding a fast line through the thick was difficult and quite rewarding when discovered. I almost ate it multiple times which made things interesting. Luckily I recovered well enough to retain my position in the field of the other twenty (?) riders. I was disappointed to find that I couldn't sustain the necessary heart rate to stay with the leaders. This was my first time racing with the A's which is like an uncategorized (is this not a word?) version of a semi pro and pro race, meaning anyone can race it no matter what official category you are licensed to race in sanctioned races. It was a good experience. I got a great start and even after the first few turns and the u-shaped sand-pit I was within striking distance of the top 5 leaders. It was only for the first quarter lap that I was able to keep them within close proximity and after that they proved why they are pros or semi-pro. I fell back until my heart beat became more normalized, my peak HR tends to be around 195 beats per second whereas an average racing HR might be 170 or 175. I don't know exactly where I finished but I can only hope it might have been mid-field. Once the race was over and the mud was begin to cake onto my body I broke out a New Belgium Pump-kick beer which is quite delicious and maybe one of my new favorite Fall seasonal beers though to be fair that category is not very large. This beer is made with pumpkin, cranberry and lemon juice which makes it just slightly sour in a beer sort of way and not so much like lemonade. I would most liken the taste to that of a snazzy wheat beer. It has good flavor but is still easy to drink which I really like after a bicycle race. A good beer really hits the spot unless it is heavy like an IPA or a more delicious malty beverage such as a porter or stout when consumed after crushing the souls of your opponents. Now I'm really tired from this racing stuff and staying up too late last night. Tomorrow I'll be riding a metric century which in American means 62 miles give or take a little accuracy. There are actually some big cycling plans in the works which involve myself and my oldest friend embarking on an adventure of seemingly preposterous epicness.

Possibly somewhat incoherent...

It's always weird for me when I make the transition from student life to school life and my life goes from somewhat disciplined (which takes a lot of focus to achieve) while in school to pretty much anything goes when I'm not having to be at math class five days a week at 10am. I'm psyched to be done with school. I think I can finally say that for the very first time on my blog, I'm done with my Associates! Man, it was a long-ass time to get to where I am now.
I really appreciated that school gave me some direction, it wasn't usually the direction I wanted at the time but I wouldn't change things in hind-sight. I learned a lot about writing and math, most of which I've since forgotten... The writing part is something I've realized I need to keep fresh cause when you stop using a skill it tends to die an inglorious death somewhere in some neuron which might never receive another electric signal again. I'm trying to read more as well but computer games and the internet sure do their best to distract me from picking up a book. I really want to read more Haruki Murakami. I never would have known who he was if it wasn't for my brilliant Turkish English teacher, Yesho. I was forced early on to pick and author from a list of authors whose names, I'm ashamed to say I recognized few of, so naturally I picked the Japanese author. I chose well, quite well indeed. I really enjoyed reading his book, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. There were a lot of WWII historical references I really liked from the Japanese perspective relative to their invasion of Manchuria. Murakami's style is usually fictional but often-times based off of fact as well, as in this case.
I've been going back and forth trying to decide what I want out of a four year university and so far all I can honestly say from my heart is to race bikes. I've been invited to race at Mars Hill University (They just dropped their title of "college" for the upgraded "university" status) and I would be very excited to race for them. They have one of the best division two collegiate teams in the whole United States! That would be a great honor to be part of that. Of course along with attending Mars Hill comes the huge costs of tuition. I would technically only have two years left to foot money for but it would cost me somewhere between twelve and eight thousand dollars a year to go there which is the cost after FAFSA. It's a lot of money and I'm not sure what I want to study. I've always enjoyed history and I'm almost to the point of just saying, "Fuck it, it's a bachelors, and that's what's most important to me now" but I'm not usually one to make rash decisions and this definitely falls into that category. I guess my goals are still to teach English in Japan though that goal has become blurry due to my new ambitions with cycling.
I really want to race at the highest level of the sport of cyclocross, I'd be ok with being at the bottom of that prestigious barrel, I guess maybe I just want to say I was there, I don't know. It's such a beautiful sport, so many cool people having fun, not taking things too seriously yet still laying everything out on the line. Fall is by far my favorite season with the crisp cool air and that's another reason why I appreciate cyclocross since it is a Fall and Winter sport.
I suppose the conclusion to everything I've said so far is that I have no idea what I want... I need to pursue cycling more aggressively if that's really what I say I want and I need to pursue school more aggressively, pick my grades out of the figurative horse shit and take things more seriously or at least come to a decision.

Recently I've been racing my bike a lot, working a lot and thinking a lot cause I'm not in school so I actually have time to think... One subject I had been considering the most was what makes a person happy, what defines happiness and what influences it most greatly. I started thinking about this in part because I have raced Cyclo-Cross (CX) all throughout the fall with good results which made me happy but made me think whether I'd still be happy if I didn't receive praise from my peers. This is something I've considered before in art as well; do I make my art for me or for others to see? I've always arrived back to the conclusion that peers are an important part of why I do what I do, it's important to me for people to recognize what I do, to recognize me to some extent I suppose. I don't mean any of this in a narcissistic manner, I feel it's normal for people to feel this way, maybe I'm wrong but it's rare to meet someone who doesn't appreciate praise. Anyways, I've noticed that happiness seems to be a fleeting emotion that can change as quickly as the wind does. Happiness also seems more superficial when it is reaped from achievements such as successful race results or people appreciating art. What I have seen that makes me think otherwise about these things in particular is that they often represent improvement within a person's life; It's quite gratifying to see physically how a person can improvement in terms of oxygen capacity, seeing your lactate threshold increase from one year to another, seeing how you've improved at painting or photography. These things are not as shallow a joy as temporary things like wins or gallery showings because they offer you improvement that you've worked for over a sustained amount of time.
I just recently got my first win in a CX race. The feeling was fantastic, what I have always wanted. The start was a mass sprint as it always is in CX and I was the first to hit the first turn, a term known as getting the "holeshot". I usually feel so completely destroyed after the first few turns after a strong start that I feel the need to back-off to avoid losing spots from going too hard. This race was different, I decided to push through this pain I felt, to push through while my lungs were struggling to increase the amount of oxygen that was entering my body, I wanted to see how much damage I could dish out to the guys behind me. This was the first race I had done where this thought even occurred to me, to attack the rest of the field, it's risky cause it's easy to blow-up. I'm usually the one who has to react to other people's attacks and to chase after them without losing positions. Racing is like a dance and you have to feel out the rhythm of the race, you have to read the riders who are around you. "Does he look like he's hurting?" If the answer is "no" then it's probably time to attack and pick-up the pace so he is hurting which means it's gonna hurt a lot for the person attacking as well. Racing is so mental; who will break first? After a lap I secured my position leading the race and now all I had to do was keep the heat on for the next few laps. As the race progressed my lead increased to the point where I could see the person in 2nd just now entering the turn I passed through 20-30 second prior. It was a feeling I hadn't experienced before but one that I wanted to keep. This was my day, my race to win, avoiding mistakes was my biggest priority. I ended up winning that race and placing in 2nd as the overall Cat. 4 racer of the 8 race series.