Jumping in with Two Feet... Sunday, February 10

This week marks the last week of me in year eight of life here in Korea and the start of year nine.  Eight years ago -- four days after my dad’s birthday, two days after Valentines and one day after breaking the news to my parents that I had just got engaged the day prior (on Valentine’s Day… I know, such a cliché thing to do)-- I boarded a plane and arrived in Korea.  February 16th will always be such a key day to me.

There’s always a series of reminiscing and a lot of sentimental thinking around the coming of another year mark for me in Korea but the anticipation of the start of year nine has been weighing heavily on me.  I think it really got to me the other day, when I was at Granny Kim’s and Snickers’ uncle introduced me as “Amy Teacher”.  I hated being introduced like that and hated that title being attached to my name.  I am not an ESL teacher.  Teaching is what got me to Korea but it evolved into just a steady paycheck once my passion of boxing really took over.  I’m proud to be a boxer and coach, these two labels bring me a lot of pride because they’re what I do, what I am and what I love.  

In thinking about how I’m going to make year nine different, I’ve decided that I’m going to jump into it with both feet.  I’m going to quit my teaching job in Suwon.  It’s a big risk I’m taking and I’m really not sure of the penalties or reprocusions of this jump but I feel it’s only the right thing to do. I looked over my contract and the only part in it that talks about an employee breaking their contract is the following sentence:  If the employee breaks the contract without any special reasons, he/she should be prepared to accept any measures against his/her interests by the College.

Sure the steady paycheck is a nice fallback but when I consider the pay, minus the transportation costs connected, and the time and effort consumed by it, the paycheck really doesn’t balance the situation out.  Moreover, I can’t really expect Snickers to give it 100% if I’m only working at 50% -- juggling two full-time jobs.  More importantly, regardless of whether or not I can juggle both jobs is irrelevant in my mind, the fact of the matter is this boxing club is our baby and I really don’t want to have half a$$ it and miss out on it because I’m running off to do some job I don’t like for a paycheck I don’t even think is worth it. 

I don’t want to half a$$ my dream.

They say that huge risks reap huge rewards, well, let’s see just how true this is. 

The plan is to notify the school on Tuesday and, honestly, I have no idea on what to even say to them.  I feel terrible for not giving them due notice and I know it’s not cool of me to be bailing on them with the new school year just weeks away but I have to do this for me.  

The plan is officially register our company name on Tuesday. Once we legalize our club’s name, we can then print off our business cards, clothing, club towels, advertising flyers, launch both our Facebook group and company pages, and start our Naver site. 

My plan is to leave the ESL teacher label in the eighth year and enter into my nineth year here in Korea sporting the titles "owner" and "coach".  It’s taken me eight full years to get to this point but I’m almost there and I'm super excited about it.  There’s no looking back, only forward thinking.