"fuck, like i was just standing there, bagful of all my little electronic words weighing down on my left shoulder and my feet weighing down on my tired jesus sandals - in the space between the subway cars two middle school boys were playing chicken or marco polo or some other game that would be more mobile elsewhere but probably rocked out by being played so darkly and jarringly. meanwhile the people sitting in the car proper looked ahead with shiny dead eyes or slept folded into a neat heron position - i was just waiting and looking a little dead too, thinking about money and headphones, when the subway cars began to really speed ahead, i mean nothing short of drag race hyperdrive and the walls started blurring past, we passed a crowded platform at sadang station and i could feel the entire subway car inching off the tracks with this new speed, but no one seemed to notice and when huge crunching demolition sounds came echoing back to our car from ahead i grabbed the pole next to the door. no one moved. and when i saw sunlight streaming in illuminating everyone's face i saw in one big moment the subway car windows rising up and out above a giant pit the train had made, while we hurtled over cars' heads and the roads of seoul. we must've been rising at like a 40 degree angle off the ground into the clouds. still no one seemed to be moving or screaming or much surprised, some turning their necks slightly to avert their eyes from the sun and others happily waving through windows to friends in the other trains that i could see now, also soaring above the city. what is this, i wondered, heart limping and breath coming jaggedly. while those sleeping still slept and one woman adjusted the heel strap of her pink shoes, looking left and right with big eye[lashes]. what is this, i thought - i'm not supposed to be here with you people, and turned my warm cheek to the subway windowpane, waiting."

i think i got a job! like i will start tomorrow kind of thing. 25,000 won/hour which is soo not extortion, maybe? and three times a week for two hours at a time for four or five weeks. i am not a wastrel! but ok a grand total of like $500 for the summer, ouch. if nothing else comes floating by. i think i always learn something (the same thing) when i teach kids and i hope i don't have to relearn it. it is probably "you don't need another best friend" or "smile you know you have to". and maybe...