some shit gonna change

I'm very, very inspired by those recent scientific studies showing that the simple addition of a treadmill to one's office routine is enough to get one losing weight. Given the job I now do, a job that is the quintessence of sedentary existence, I've got to be doing more. Since I'm going to be moving soon, one of my initial investments, post-move, will be a decent treadmill. I'll most likely have to jury-rig a desk around the exercise equipment, but the setup doesn't need to be either complicated or pretty, so this doesn't trouble me. With treadmills running(!) anywhere from $500 to over $2000, I have no intention of buying anything like a TrekDesk. Way too expensive.

I know: treadmills represent drudgery, and the job I now do is itself a form of drudgery. Why compound one form of drudgery with another? Well, I guess I'm hoping that a negative times a negative will equal a positive. If I have to spend eight hours a day sitting on my ass, I guarantee my ass is going to get even bigger. But with the treadmill in place, those same eight hours will be spent on my feet, with ass-shrinkage as a major side effect. I say that's a good thing. A very good thing.

That's not the only big change coming. Once I'm in place and have earned a bit of cash, I'm hoping to concentrate on learning more about web design, then creating a page for my very own school (still no idea what to call it). One thing working for ETS has brought home to me is that I despise working for other people. In Korea, it wasn't such a big deal; I was enjoying myself, and like any academically-minded individual, I felt good being part of a respectable institution. I belonged, like a monk in a monastery. But now, with ETS, every single move I make on the computer is monitored by a supervisor who can see my online activity. Not that I'm against the concept of being seen to be on task throughout the work day, but I am against the idea of someone constantly looking over my shoulder. That's gonna change. Right now, the privatization of learning-- especially multimedia, videoconference-style learning-- is a growing trend in America, and for once I'd like to be in the avant-garde. So I'll work with ETS a few months while I build my website up, then unleash myself on the world.

It's going to mean hard work, but I'm thinking that the payoff may make the project worthwhile: I get to dictate my own schedule; I get to decide what I'm teaching and how; I call the shots. With Skype and one of those synched-up Ko-Am bank accounts, I could teach Korean students in the morning (it'd be evening in Korea) and American students in the afternoon and early evening.

What subjects? you ask. Quite a few, I'd say: basic English composition, ESL, SAT prep, TOEFL prep, Korean 1 (certainly not anything higher than that), math up to Algebra 2, all levels of French, basic drawing/painting, basic cooking, basic theater arts, and of course-- religious studies: philosophy of religion, an introduction to religious studies, religious diversity, world religions, comparative scripture, East Asian spirituality, religion and film, etc. I'd be treating religious studies a bit differently from the other courses: it wouldn't be private tutoring so much as a formal, academic class, as if students were auditing a real college course, with all that that implies: actual research papers, actual tests, actual intensive readings and discussions and independent research.

I'd like to live in a world where I determine my own vacation time, take classes of my own thanks to the money I've earned for myself, then turn around and pass those class-acquired skills along in my own classes. It may seem as if I'm crowning myself king, but that's what becoming one's own boss means: it's a self-blessing, like that river scene in Robert Duvall's amazing labor of love, "The Apostle." I don't look forward to all the paperwork and nitty-gritty details-- website maintenance, accounting, marketing, etc.-- but I'm old enough, now, to understand that details matter, and that it's better to try to take pleasure in them than to be eternally frustrated by them.

If I don't have a viable business up and running in two years... I'll go back to Korea, hat in hand, and pick up where I left off. That wasn't a bad life, and I'd be happy to return to it. In the meantime, this new project, this new vision of the future, excites me.


_