I awoke at 2:55 AM from a strange dream. I was trying to explain to some Korean coworkers that I bought and owned books of poetry. This seemed crucially important, somehow, yet I was unable to clearly communicate the idea. And looking into the dream from the moment of awaking, it seemed mostly an absurd undertaking.
My mother was there in the dream, too, although she said nothing. More oddly, my Minnesota friend Mark was there, and "playing a Korean" – at least, for the dream – and thus not understanding my linguistic efforts anymore than any of the others. The Koreans kept trying to change the subject of conversation to my age, my mysterious marital status, my teaching skills or my utterly inexplicable (to them) disinterest in consuming free food simply because it was free.
I felt a lot of anxiety after waking up. We had yet another hweh-shik last night, and things have been getting tense at my school: yet another, new crisis in the foreign-teacher-housing. This time, anyway, it's more linked to my new fellow-foreign-teacher than to me, but it's nevertheless unpleasant to be around and it's a constant reminder of the ways in which I, too, have felt so mistreated by my school's administration in matters of housing. I guess I could say that, lately, not a day goes by, these days, when the validity of my decision not to renew isn't constantly reaffirmed.
I'm worried that my school could probably easily find a way to throw some kind of obstacle up to my smooth transition to my new hagwon job that I've committed to for May. I don't want that to happen, but I can't help but attempt comment to my coworkers, when they ask, about my perception of the unfairness of things with respect to the housing issues (the details of which I'd rather not go into).
Somehow, these rather frustrating and vaguely fruitless conversations with coworkers, over concepts of fairness and ethical business practices, etc., of which I've been having quite a lot, lately, got translated in my dream into an effort to tell them about my habit of buying books of poetry. Both ultimately may boil down to something absurd.
A rooster is crowing. I don't mind that. Darkness before dawn. Cold apartment.