Seven Days

I’ll be gone in seven days.

It’s starting to sink in. For a while, I was in “EPIK limbo” – anyone who has applied for a teaching position in Korea through EPIK knows what I’m talking about. The restless nights. The constant e-mail refreshing. The formulaic responses from your recruiter telling you to calm down. All that craziness is over.

I’ll be gone in seven days.

I’ll be sitting in Terminal 1 of JFK airport in New York City. There will be a giant cerulean blue airplane sitting outside the window. Korean Air employees will start calling passengers for boarding. Two other teachers will be with me. There may be more, but I don’t know them. Once I step on that plane, stow my backpack in the overhead bin, and the engines roar and jam us to 200 miles per hour, everything will be different. The bit of the world I know – New York, America, Suzie’s Chinese Food – all of that will be part of a past life. For the time being anyway.

Strange to think about. Probably better to experience. But all things that will definitely be missed.

With seven days left, I still haven’t started packing. I’ve got a packing list going, and it isn’t helpful at all. There are so many things I have to accomplish. Sending out tax forms, getting my banking stuff in order, canceling my cellphone, putting my mom through a computer crash course so she can talk to me from thousands of miles away. This is what happens when the group that is hiring you lets you know at the last possible minute that they’re hiring you.

I’ll miss food the most. Pizza, falafels, Indian curries, greasy Chinese food, sandwiches, burgers, Pomme Frites, burritos. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. And friends of course. What if something big happens, like a marriage or a death? I won’t be around for those big moments. I’ve tried to put those thoughts in the back of my mind. It could get too depressing to think about.

So that’s seven days to gobble down as much food as possible, get as many addresses and contact info as I can, see friends that I probably won’t see for a long time. I’ll have seven days to reconsider doing this. Seven days to ponder what ifs. I would like to think I’m making the right decision, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

But in eight days, when I step off that plane, fumble my way through immigration and customs, load my suitcases onto the bus, and check into orientation, I’ll be in a different part of the world. And hopefully everything will be alright.

Phil

P.S. – If you would still like a postcard from Korea, let me know. This is part of a larger project that I’m doing, so if you’re stumbling across this blog after looking up “Louis F Cosentino, or Chaminade” (oddly these are the top search terms), feel free to leave a mailing address. You can either send it to philsinkorea@gmail.com or Facebook message me your contact info. All your information will remain confidential, and I won’t send you anything weird, unless you want something weird.

Graduation (Again)

White dinner jackets. Crimson cummerbunds. Suspenders.

A Chaminade High School graduation.

Five years ago, I wore the same get-up. The heat was blistering at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, and the crowds of shouting parents and relatives dressed to the nines didn’t make it any easier to bear. Parents were happy to see their sons (and their monetary investments) walk away with diplomas. Graduates were happy for four years of no-girl, academic suffering to be over. All I could remember from that day was how bored I was up on stage, and how there was nothing I could do about it – I sat in the third row, right in front of video cameras taping graduates receiving their diplomas.

Now it was my brother’s turn.

It is a strange feeling being on the other side of a graduation ceremony. Students stand in the spotlight while their achievements are rattled off. “Plaque for four years on the honor roll, certificate for achievement in Spanish, honor character certificate, academic high school diploma, Joe Schmo.” Different for every kid, but after a while it all sounded the same. Watching them stand there I wondered if I looked that awkward in front of the 2,000 or so people that filled the auditorium. Probably.

A parent sitting next to me asked if I would do it all over again if I had the chance. I said no. Frankly, there are very few things that I’ve done that I would repeat, and toiling for another four years to end up in a crimson cummerbund isn’t one of them. Not to say my high school experience was bad. It wasn’t. But it was a hell of a lot of work, and I don’t plan on memorizing geometric theorems again.

On a side note, we definitely should have listened to Bro. George when he recommended the name “4L-Evators” for our homeroom. Then we could give people the shaft. Get it? “L-Niños” wasn’t bad though.

Mike and Mom.

Bro. John McGrory, S.M.

Mr. Louis Cosentino, aka, "Brownies, no Nuts!"