I’m feeling quite morose. I’m not saying this in order to freak anyone out or to make anyone think I hate it over here. But lately it seems like a lot of the world that I took for granted and the hope that I’d been feeling about possible positive changes have disappeared.

Our school is facing some tough times ahead due to the creation of a new military school in our area. We’ve known about this school for some time now and because of it’s creation, we stand to lose about 35% of our student population. This in turn has forced the school to lay-off about 5-6 teachers and cut our budget for next year. However, just when we though all hope was lost, we saw two lights in this dark tunnel.

The first was that some of the parents of the military kids decided to make their voices heard. Now, it’s not that the military is forcing the parents to send their kids to the military’s school, it’s just that the government will only pay tuition for those schools. The parents can send their kids anywhere… but Uncle Sam won’t be paying if they send their kids to our school. The thing that has many parents upset is that the move to the new school would also mean some kids would have to ride the subway for 2-hours a day to get to and from school, while they have a 5-minute walk to school right now. The parents were hoping the military would allow students currently enrolled in our school to make a choice and to grandfather in the students that wished to stay with us. This would at least slow down the loss of students.

The second was the possibility of getting a new school building. I can’t really say much about this because I don’t know how much has been “declassified”. The Korean government is building a new school in a pretty up-and-coming part of town and is looking for an international school to give it to. It would be a new, state-of-the-art facility and give us the opportunity to grow. We submitted a proposal along with about ten other schools and waited to see what would happen. Needless to say, this could have been a way to keep our students and get new ones since our location would change a little.

While there are pros and cons to both things, our hope was that one or both of these things would work out. However, 2 weeks ago we found out we were not in the final four schools selected for the new building and on Friday we were informed that the military’s “unofficial official” decision would be that current students would NOT be grandfathered in and that they would only pay for students to go to their school.

On top of this, DJ (my roommate) and I are starting to get along better and trying to work things out, but he was one of the teachers that won’t be back next year. As we are here on this last day of February, June seems to be coming quickly. Plus, I found out that (I know you’re not supposed to say this, but…) two of my favorite students are heading to the States next year for school. Pile being sick, stress and dealing with other crap in my life and I’m one big ball of moroseness.

I’ve been told the “saying goodbye” part will get easier in time, but it just seems like one bad thing after another is hitting me and it won’t stop.

I just want to breathe.

I just want it to seem like something is working out right for a change.

I just want it to be okay for a little while.

I want to smile without faking it.

I wish I could turn my brain off so I didn’t have to think about it anymore.