Big surprise: I’m not teaching English.  Hordes of screaming children would have overrun me and my feeble attempts to order them around or herd them with my crutches.  So I had to find a new job that didn’t involve jeopardizing my knee.

A couple weeks ago, a strange opportunity popped up in the classifieds section: an editing job helping rewrite translated text for an MMORPG (like World of Warcraft) being imported to the US from Korea.  Flexing my nerd muscles, I threw together a creative cover letter that landed me an interview.  I got the job on Monday and started Monday evening. 

One of my first tasks was learning the game, so I spent some time playing the Korean version alongside my new boss.  Much less exciting than it sounds – it really just amounted to a lot, “oh what’s this say?” “where should we go now?” “what is that we’re buying?”  But it’s definitely a gaming environment.  On my first day, my officemates challenged me to a Starcraft match over lunch to see who would go buy ice-cream (unfortunately, we had a deadline, so I had to postpone the inevitable ass-kicking that would ensue).  Also, when I left the office on Friday at 7pm, 2 guys were questing together on another MMORPG.  It felt like a caricature of a Korea, in office format.  It should make for an interesting 7 weeks…

Let’s not confuse ourselves.  I would change the soiled underwear of every kindergartner at Brian’s and Rob’s school if it would give me my knee back.  If anything would undo the financial damage, physical pain, and the instability my knee will have for the rest of my life, I would do it.  This job is a small luxury amidst disaster, maybe like winning a poker game during a shipwreck.

And actually, one unacknowledged tragedy of my knee dislocation is that I don’t get to teach alongside Brian and Rob.  I mean, I’m not shedding tears here, given Brian’s horror stories, BUT if there was anyone among us who had a prayer of enjoying that job, it was me.  I LOVE kids, and anyone who has seen me around them would quickly conclude I simply never grew up.  I love to play with them, I love making them laugh, and when they don’t listen, I can just pick 2 or 3 of them up and relocate them, which usually gets all the children’s attention.  Unfortunately, I never even got to try.  So instead of playing roller coaster with kindergarteners, I’m leveling my Korean character…

Note: If you’re in Seoul and have a free bed or couch, let me know.  One of these days, the wrath of Rob or Brian might just spill over…