Coat Rack as Metaphor

So it's Sunday. That means after cleaning and tidying my flat I made my weekly trip to E-Mart-uh for a Whopper with cheese. Not that I'm in a rut, you understand, oh no--it's that the rest of my week is such a whirlwind of activity that I need the touchstone of Sunday afternoon to have a burger and write my lesson plan.

(Hang on a mo', my Sunday evening load of clothes has just finished washing and I need to hang them up. Not that I'm in a rut or anything.) My lesson plan is finished: I've mixed up a bunch of Archie comic strips by shuffling panels around in MS Paint; students will put them in order, then act them out with each other.

And then I went down to Cooper Hof for smoked chicken and some beer. So far, nothing out of the ordinary--indeed, kind of rut-ish. I mean, if I were in a rut.

Now for the rut-buster, at least in the theory I am in a rut: I went back to E-Mart-uh (it's just across the street, after all) and got a coat rack. Given the size of the apartment and the lack of storage and hanging-up space, it was definitely helpful. A fact I realized when the weather turned last month.


This is the largest, least transportable thing I've purchased since I've been in Korea--even if you disassemble it. Though it wasn't too expensive (W34,900), it still represents some kind of permanence I am hesitant to embrace.

Do I love it here? Yeah. Do I anticipate staying a while? Yeah. Do I wanna make three trips when I move? No. So, okay, I bought some plates, bowls and silverware, a few pots and pans (three total), a small lamp, ashtrays, recycling (NOT trash) bins, laundry rack and so on. How is this coat rack different? It's not a necessity. It's a convenience, an implicit admission that I am here and might as well get comfortable.