A Journey Into, and Out of One's Self

When faced with a class that will have a floating number of students, and no set level I asked my boss for some solutions on how to manage the situation. She said she has taught this kind of class and the solution is to plan more than one lesson plan for each two-hour class and to make it fun and light. "You are a teacher. This is easy for you, so just do it. Just be flexible." When I asked for some example activities that could accommodate such a wide range of potentially different classroom dynamics she had no answer. She said different ages, and different levels don't affect the classroom dynamics that much. This made me think she was lying when she said she had taught in this kind of situation. She also told me not to discuss this kind of problem with HR even though that is what HR told me to do. HR tells me to do what makes my branch angry with me, and my branch tells me to do what makes HR's job harder. If I didn't care about doing a good job I wou...

Still being in the process of attempting to get some self discovered and prescribed closure on the end of my relationship I decided to start take advantage of a simple thing called the Google search. If you have psychological problems, there happens to be a lot of advice, and clear answers to issues. For me, understanding my emotions, and motivations is difficult but thanks to the few incisive points of some (now unfortunately former) friends, and their reiteration through resources I have found online I have come to some rather definitive conclusions about the dysfunction of my past relationship. On my side of the dysfunction I found I had a rescue complex. This article describes my inability to let go, and clearly explains what I now see as my motives for entering and ultimately staying in the relationship to dangerous results. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-white-knight-syndrome/201002/rescuing-yourself-rescuing-relationships-2-letting-go https://www.psychology...

After causing hurt and damaging some relationships within my church community I am faced with a few courses of action. So far my attempts to reconcile and show I am repentant, let alone communicate with the people I have hurt have ultimately failed. In light of the status of our broken relationship and the apparent unwillingness to try to work through what is going on feel I have two good options: 1. Keep trying to communicate and arrange a time to meet one on one or privately in a group with the people I have alienated, trusting that I have missed something about the lack of communication.  2. Give up attempts to communicate and simply pray and fast hoping that God will do something.  3. Trust God that he will do what he needs to do in my life and theirs and seek to grow closer to God without being distracted by my felt need to have all relationships in my life without conflict or problems.  My other options don't seem good: 1. Publicly confront the peo...

Recently after trying to mend some broken relationships with the women in my life, as well as develop other relationships I have had to elucidate what some of my issues and struggles are with this part of my relationship landscape. Part of my real difficulty comes from four traumas in my past that make dealing with women more difficult for me: 1. a specific time in my life as a child where I felt abandoned by a woman 2. a specific time as a child when I felt publically shamed by a woman 3. a specific time as a child when I felt ignored/devalued in my understanding of the world by a woman (which ultimately lead to being publicly shamed by a woman). 4. a specific time as a child when I felt betrayed by a broken promise made by a woman Whenever I feel one of these things has happened to me now it is very difficult to not get upset. I'm not sure how to resolve these traumas but recognizing their significance is undoubtedly a first step. Recognizing that my patterns of be...

After about one month since breaking up with a woman who truly tried to love me and get close to me, in the midst of my inner conflict and the sexual direction our relationship had taken I find myself in many ways worse off relationally than I was before. During the time I was dating my ex-girlfriend I had alienated so many of my friends, because I was trying to care for my girlfriend and give her an important space in my life. Now in the aftermath of this break up, dealing with the psychological, spiritual, and relational consequences I wonder what if any good will come from both the fact that I started this relationship and that I ended it. It was from the outset a broken relationship with various opportunities to end it before it went too far. It consumed a lot of time and money (not that I regret using my time and money to show love to my ex-girlfriend), and I now must wonder what of that God can use despite all the sin, and brokenness. I have neglected my friends, and then...

Recently I've been posting on a Facebook group to help foreigners get used to living in Korea. One or two nights ago I noticed that many foreigners are a bit baffled (including me) by the number of functions and range of prices that rice cookers in Korea have, so I spent some time investigating at the Homeplus rice cooker aisle reviewing some of the functions, and I also try to called to mind what I learned from my landlady, and from using my own rice cooker. Basic Functions This particular rice cooker has most of the modern conveniences of a basic pressure type rice cooker. Warming: You can see on the top left it has a warming function. This keeps the rice from going bad, and lets you have warm rice whenever it's meal time. I've kept rice in my cooker (which happens to be a non pressure one) for days on this setting although the manufacturers don't recommend this, and it tends to dry out, and turn yellow. One day is probably the safest for taste. Reheat...

    A few weeks ago I found out that the pastor the church in Korea I used to attend had been asked to leave the church. The reason for his dismissal was a few likely influential members of the Korean side of the ministry did not like his management of certain ministries including social justice and the children's ministry. According to what the pastor said there was no discussion, or personal attempt to resolve the issue. There was no attempt at genuine resolution of conflict from their side. The relationship was broken and seemingly distant.      Initially my reaction to this was how could this have happened? I thought it was rather unbiblical and unfair to the pastor to be dismissed because of the opposition of a powerful few, based on preference. Now looking back though I had to consider something else. Biblical conflict resolution is only part of the story. Biblical conflict preemption is the other half. I'm not sure if the pastor had much in the way of...