It gets old and fast

you wanna know what one of the most frequently asked questions I'm getting these days, after I let people know that I'm moving half way around the world to a country I've never been, which has a language that I've never studied, to do a job that I've never done, and which is completely unrelated to what I've focused roughly 7 years of my higher education upon?

1) how is this going to help you?

oh wait, there's one more, slightly related question that is a close second.

2) what are you going to do when you get back?

I've struggled with these inevitable questions--detailed on Mirth--ever since I dropped out of school, but let's just say that I ended up going to Korea based on a few things: luck, my Peter Pan complex, an obsession, and an extreme reaction against finding myself suddenly and rather violently thrust into this "grown up" world that I had be actively resisting for at least 3 years.

My whole life, I've hated answering to people...or even feeling like I had to answer to them. Besides my parents, my friends, and a few of my teachers, I like to keep a lot of things a secret from the world, which is rather odd, considering how much I do wear my emotions on my sleeve.

So you can imagine how much I loathe telling people who are only marginally attached to me, that I am going to Korea. And I hate telling people who I went to school with. Because I know what they are thinking. They don't understand why I needed to work my ass off in school, get my masters, go to an ivy-league post bacc....all just to teach english in korea.

And if they aren't people I've gone to school with, it's the same thing. They don't understand the benefit of doing something so childish, when what I should be doing is joining the US work force like a good citizen. Why put off my responsibilities just to teach english in korea.

Look. I don't have to explain myself to you. Even if I owed you that, which I don't, I don't have anything to tell you. Nothing to make you feel better about me moving to Korea. I have no words of comfort to reassure you that I have my life all planned out. Nothing to take away your unease about someone doing something so irresponsible. I'm sorry, I just don't.

But don't worry, I won't blame you for my life either, so just relax.

I mean, I'm still in the midst of "pre-korea" as indicated with my post tags, and yet, here you are, asking me about post-korea. While I know that the proper grown up thing to do is to settle down somewhere... and that I ought to be thinking about my future and just what am I going to do with all this education that I've got... but I think we may be overlooking something rather significant here:

In between "pre-korea" and "post-korea" there's just that: Korea.

Let me have this.

Just, let me have this.

And when it's all said and done, I'll answer all the questions you want of me about "post-korea," I promise.