Pros and cons.

Truth be told, I am kind of torn about leaving here. I am really homesick and miss my life. I really had a great life. Friends, boyfriend, a nice apartment and always something to do. Now I am alone a lot and always in my head. So maybe if you read my lists, you can give me some insight on your opinions. Right now I am trying to make it to November. I want to do a lot of traveling, but  monetarily it is hard. I make next to nothing here. I didn't do this for the money, but for the experience. Over the past couple years from freelancing graphic work and restaurant work I was making between $45,000 and $60,000 a year. Now I am down to $18,000 with even more bills (I hate school loans). I defiantly want to go to Japan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Thailand before I leave, though. However though I really, really want to go to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, while I am here. The only way I can feasibly do that is to stay longer, but I don't want to be depressed and miserable either. When the other English teacher leaves in July, I am worried I am going to be really alone.

First list are reasons I want to leave:

1. My bosses are liars and have cheated me out of money and do not honor everything in my contract (I got screwed out of vacation days).

2. My gas bill is split between all the tenants on the floor I am on (it is a Korean thing). I really don't use it, but it is always a high bill.

3. Korean clean (everything is wiped, but not really disinfected).

4. Mean Korean teachers.

5. Stupid expats (American guys on the search for Korean women, religious losers and dorks that now think they are amazing because they are in the land of misfits).

6. Korean whores all over ever foreigners.

7. No confrontation (sounds like a good thing until you are being avoided by your boss at all cost, so he doesn't have to tell you where your money is).

8. friends (and everything that encompasses: drinking, dinner, talking coffee, pictures, etc.)

9.  food (restaurants, specific available foods, coffee, etc.) also I am getting tired of the food options here

10. Mike (and everything we do that I won't list like pho, squeezes, sleeping, going out to eat, ritz milkshakes, etc.)

11. going out to eat 

12. Olive and the other dogs

13. beach

14. the feeling of summer

15. casual American style

16. family

17. working in a restaurant (language, energy and cash)

18. not being able to interview for graphic jobs)

19. the amount of time I am alone here and in my head

20. can't really be myself (I can't talk about things or do things that I do in America with my Korean friends, they just wouldn't get it cause of cultural differences)

21. North Korea

22. generally missing my life (my friends keep telling me I am not missing anything, but I am)

23. homesickness

24. the American movies they show in Korea are Harry Potter, anything with Mel Gibson, Will Smith, Steven Segal, Jean Claude Van Dam or Milla Jovovich)

25. American TV (Gossip Girls, Grey's Anatomy, all the CSI's and the Hills) I really only watch House, Sex & the City and the Simpsons (but if course they are all on at odd times or really late)

26. I figured out a lot of things I want to get done, when I get home and I am just waiting to start them

27. I just generally feel like I am waiting to go home 

28. the schools food

29. I have no real breaks anymore at school and talk for hours straight

30. I get stared at, when I jog

31. the school is completely unorganized

32. not really talking to anyone for days

33. not being able to make my full student loan payment (I had to reduce the amount I pay)

34. the ever fluctuating won (Korean currency)

35. the only people I really like here are leaving soon

36. being paid late and never the correct amount

37. the shower/ bathroom combo

38. small apartment/ jail cell

39. smelly refrigerator I can't get clean

40. there are no bars, just restaurants and clubs

41. feeling like I am always under dressed

42. gma

Reasons to stay:

1. traveling

2. being alone and able to do all the stuff I never had time for (reading, working on my portfolio, drawing, etc)

3. teaching (I like the kids)

4. a guaranteed job

5. the local food

6. seeing new things all the time

7. meeting a few cool people here and there

8. being outside my element

9. the experience as a whole

10. being even more independent

11. learning to live simply

12. learning to live on a budget

13. inexpensive to live here (food, traveling, site seeing)

14. hair removal

15. packaging, art and design

16. going to clubs (something I never wanted to do again)

17. can really do whatever 

18. can talk about anything, anywhere in English cause no one really understands you

19. Korean teenagers calling you beautiful American

20. Korean pop music

21. Korean style (everyone dresses up here, people really wear jeans because they take so much pride in their appearance)

22. Korean friends

23. blogging

24. talking to people I haven't talk to in forever

25. stories

26. people keep telling me they are so proud of me for being here, which I kind of find ridiculous, but I think people

are kind of vicariously living through me for this experience