excitement! well, not really...

this past week could arguably have been the most boring week of my entire life. i guess that's easy to say now, since i'm still in the thick of it. anyhoo, this all due to some minor problems at my school which it's probably best that i don't disclose in detail at this point.

that said, it was really strange to go from working 6 days a week to having an unforseen amount of free time, not knowing when i'd be cleared to work again. i really didn't know what to do with myself to occupy my time. i've found that if one is going to have an impromptu vacation, it's best to have large reserves of money (oh, and having friends who just happen to have an impromptu vacation fall into their laps at the same time is also good). but, given the very nature of this vacation and its unpredictability, i happened to have absolutely no money. for some reason, maybe to doom this here vacation, i sent more scratch home than usual this month. so here i've been, totally broke, with more free time than i've had since i went to tibet last year for christmas. and i won't get another significant chunk of time off until sometime after the new year. and there's this shitty feeling that i've totally squandered my free time. i guess i don't really have a lot to show for myself besides prison break, basketball, some light (very light) reading and a couple of lame friendship bracelets. now i just need to find some "friends" to give them to. easier said than done...

i was motivated to actually pick up the basketball for the first time in ilsan after going to the outback steakhouse and watching some korean women's teams battling it out on the tv. it was really really strange to observe professional athletes shooting a basketball with two hands. they also just seemed to run a lot, set no picks, run no plays and breathe triumphantly for no apparent reason. also lots of missed free throws. the next day i was out on the court, smiling smugly at my very nice arch and the fact that i could still shoot nothing but net, despite the fact that there was no net to begin with and i hadn't touched a basketball in damn near 7 months. the court is charmingly "sparse", if that's the appropriate qualifier. thin pieces of plywood splintering at the edges, trembling with each gust of wind. not the best of facilities, but i'll take what i can get. it's also fun to try to dodge the little kids simultaneously playing soccer, their flat ball constantly threatening to twist one or both of my ankles, thus ruining my lucky i-haven't-broken-a-bone-or sprained-anything-in-my-entire-life streak (excluding, of course, my janky back. but that shit's hereditary).

lucky me, i had to go to the immigration office earlier in the week. to kill time before i met my "escort" i tried to find the closest kimbap joint. no kimbap, but i did find an uber-zealous ajuma eager to practice her english skills and push her kimchi jjigae on me. fair enough. she was so damn happy to see me in her modest little restaurant. we both practiced our very limited knowledge of each other's native language, both botching it, but managing to tell each other that we were very smart and beautiful and that we could both speak said botched languages very well. before i left she asked me to write down how to ask someone if they wanted more food in english. so i wrote down "do you want some more?" but she couldn't read it in english, so i wrote it in hangeul. the whole situation was very comic, but also endearingly earnest. it's those small, innocuous encounters that make me exceedingly happy these days. a noticeable shortage of them as of late.

in other news, my own stupidity was revealed to me last week when i finally realized, after about 4 months, that my fan death proof fan doesn't have to shut off every 2 hours. there's a function on it where it actually stays on all night. so the triumph of that discovery was countered, ever so soberingly, by the fact that it took me, a full-grown adult with all her wits and faculties about her, 4 months to think to switch the fan to that mode. i'm an idiot.

last weekend i went to some german-esque brew house here in ilsan. there was a filipino band. they were amazing. i went onstage to dance with them (their request). i got my moment of fame, but then security came and told me to leave the stage. i guess "my science was just too tight", as young folks nowhere say.

so that's all. pretty ho hum these days. i need to go hike a mountain or something. gain some perspective and get my ass (and lungs) kicked by nature. seems like that was something i should have done with all my free time. it's official: i'm lazy.