The beginning of the end.
First day of school in a new semester.
I wake up early, hop timidly over the half- packed piles of clothes, books and gifts to make my way to the small stretch of counter I call a kitchen and put some water on the burner. Hit the button on the water heater, hop in the shower, make a stiff pot of french press, dig out a pair of black pants from a tangled pile of clothes, throw on a blouse, pack up my bag for the day.
On the walk to school, I pass a huge pile of window panes and screens in the parking lot, the workers crouched on their haunches, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths as they point at the windows and argue. A minute later, I look up to the building to find that half the windows in the school are gone, the full walls of the classrooms gaping, open to the outdoors. It is eerily quiet on the grounds. I don’t encounter a single person on the steep walk to the front door, not a soul in the hallways, the stop at the shoe locker to change into my school slippers is silent, silent in the staircase, the quiet rustle of my feet as they click the linoleum steps the only sound. I walk to the teacher’s office and abruptly find a class of students, who smile and wave at me. I pause, suspended in an awkward moment where there are no words, and duck away from the doorway to stand aimlessly in the hallway, lost. I turn to walk a couple steps and pause, unsure. A teacher sees me and points to the far end of the hallway, previously home to the second grade classrooms, where I find a bustling teacher’s office.
I walk in. My old desk buddy sees me and jumps up to warmly greet me with a handshake and a cheerful face. I stand, alone, confused, before I’m told, from across the office, that my desk has been moved, the words accompanied with a vague motion of the hand to the air across the courtyard. I’m given a box of things from my old desk, which are placed on a chair near me, and I continue to stand. I’m asked if I have the key to my old desk locker, which seems to be located beneath my co-teacher’s desk. After a frantic, fruitless search through my backpack, I’m left alone in another moment of standing aimlessly, completely lost, completely clueless, without a desk, emotionally void. Mickey rushes up to me to tell me that I haven’t paid my apartment bill since I moved in, and I need to give my tax papers to the office. I’m informed with an apologetic look that my computer has been adopted by my co-teacher and will not be given back. Two letters are handed to me, one of which is a phone bill. I continue to stand and wait, letters in one hand, morning coffee in the other, box at my knees, backpack on my back.
After a few minutes, my old desk buddy feels sympathetic for me and walks over, picks up the box and walks with me to my new office, three floors up in a different building. As he drops the box at my new desk, he gives me a confident, companionable handshake and puts his hand on his heart, drops his head with a sad shake and walks out. Another co-teacher talks on the phone, his voice booming through the small four- desk office that is now my new professional home, and the voice of the principal booms through the loudspeaker across the courtyard, distant. I wait. After a moment, the phone call is finished and a schedule is handed to me. I’m informed I teach first period, which starts in three minutes. The key to my classroom is locked in the desk underneath my co-teacher’s desk on the second floor in the first building across the courtyard.
My classroom is exploding in mold spores, the room reeks of mildew and water damage, I direct students to open all the windows, I turn on the air. I gather my students in a circle in the front of the room where we painstakingly discuss questions like, “How was your vacation?”, to answers such as, “Boring, so- so, just study, school every day, play computer game, eat,” before playing a timid game of catch phrase, more Korean spoken than English.
So here I sit, my stomach rumbling, the office is cold, boxes of papers to my left and right, the hum of a trimmer through the windows to my right, the sound of Italian opera screeching loudly above me.
Eight more days at school, sixteen more days in Korea. Mama mia, mitchen.
