sad news

As I make financial projections, I don't think I'm going to have the means to go to France, so I've canceled my ticket and written an "I'm sorry" to Dominique (he just replied). Maybe I'll make it over to France at the end of this year, when I'm once again flush with cash (assuming I get university work... there've been no further ads for days). 

I also had my credit-card company cancel my over-$300 purchase of tee shirts from Spring (whose links I need to take down from my sidebar as the company seems to be on its way over a cliff)—a purchase made way back in March. So my credit card, at least, will feel some financial relief. I'm still hoping to get university work that'll start in the fall.

Otherwise, if worse comes to worst, my last desperation move—if no uni wants me—will be to go back to hagweon work as an old man. A shameful return to my roots, to how I started in Korea. There's one particular hagweon that I'm looking at right now: I'd be teaching adults one-to-one from the hagweon's own curriculum. If I worked at this business full time, it'd be a split shift with one or two Saturdays a month. Recipe for burnout at my age. If I do visit this place later in the summer, I'll see about working either a block shift or just part-time (i.e., only one of the two halves of the split shift). It'll be back to slacks and button-down shirts and neckties and ruthless clock culture for me. Yay. So much yay. But as I said—a place like this is a last resort. Fortunately, it's basically down the street, only a few subway stops away.

I'm spending the rest of today trying to figure out how to get tutoring ads onto Soomgo and used-item ads onto Carrot Market (단근마켓). Neither seems as straightforward as all that.