Looking back and forward

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This is the last day of the year, 31 December 2009, and a friend asked, what do you hope for, rather than, what are your New Year Resolutions?  I hope to see at least 5 different places next year, thinking specifically of Japan, the Great Wall of China, Russia, Taiwan and Australia, but let's not push it.  I only have one year.  

Nonetheless, after watching "Avatar" which I loved, I realised how important it is not to reveal your whole identity from the beginning.  You need to learn their identity before you reveal your own.  You need to consider getting to know them first, before expecting them to be interested in you.  I am, after all, a foreigner, and there is a sense of unfamiliarity, and an innate threat of having an agenda, and in suspicious minds, an evil one.  

Looking back at the year, I can say it has been one of my best, especially after meeting a French girl from Normandy, the place of my dreams, and building a friendship with her that widened both our social networks and allowed me to see more of Joburg, things and places I have not seen despite my growing up here.  It has been superb to go to the Westcliff and watch the sun set.  It has been good to go to different restaurants with a group of friends instead of walking past wishing, or going on my own, wishing.  

I am deeply content right now, and fearful of leaving this place of joy, fearful of what Korea holds.  After all, all will be foreign to me, and I will be foreign to them.  And after all, the main reason for going is to have a change of scenery, to travel for traveling's sake, and to earn more money teaching English than I earn here.  

"I am in a place that the eye can't see" was one of the quotes from "Avatar" which was profound.  The movie was deeply touching to my soul, due to 3D, the parallelisms to the story of Jesus Christ, and the script itself.  I highly recommend it, and that is a first for me, considering its science fiction genre, which I usually berate.  But this one left me hopeful of our human race, and the propensity for goodness.  



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