I've been going through a difficult time. Feeling like I'm doing inadequately as a teacher. Struggling to tolerate the constant edge-of-utterly-failed-communication, at work. Stressed and on edge about what might or might not work out or fall through with respect to my upcoming job change (it always feels contingent until the visa paperwork is processed, and that's proving complicated and fraught with, yes, more miscommunication).
I have to go to Seoul this weekend, again. I've been feeling burned out on any kind of travel, since my Australia/NZ trip two months ago, and so I'm not looking forward to it at all. I look forward to getting back to living in the city, but I have zero interest at this point in whirlwind weekend trips.
I'm feeling unhealthy and woke up with terrible insomnia this morning after only about 5 hours of sleep. I kept running through what I'm doing wrong at work. I kept speculating on what I would do if, for whatever arbitrary and random bureaucratic reason, my visa problem prevented me from starting my new job in May. I kept thinking about the way that life in Korea is a constant almost unbearable coping with arbitrary and random bureaucratic events.
The reason Korea is spelled with a K and not a C (as in the old spelling, Corea), is because of Kafka. Kafka's protagonists are generally known as "K." Imagine a whole country as a protagonist in a Kafka tale. Sigh.