more vacation bloggage. super exciting!

some notes from while i was home, with sprinklings of the present day thrown in for even more self-examining happy fun time!

v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n, we're gonna have a ball! if any place can be simultaneously depressing and uber-mega-clarifying, it would be missouri. i think i'll always have this sense of nostalgia for this place (see the sentimental end of this blog), but vacation was really great in that it sort of helped to quell this lingering and arguably misguided mystique i've let hover over the columbia, mo of my mind (only sort of. while i was home it seemed definitive, but now i'm reviewing these words from my korean perspective. one week back and i've already hit a wall. i'm nothing if not predictable.). there is/was something sterile and depressing about this oft revered/reviled pseudo-utopia that i had built up in my mind. nothing changes. sure, building facades, college students and hipster fashions change, but there was also this familiar feeling of stasis. it was honestly as comforting as it was tragic. but a lot of the same people leading their same lives and existing far below their potential. reminds me again of a hesse quote:

"a newly formulated, but strong resolve to place his actions and his life under the aegis of transcedence, to make of it a serenely resolute moving on, filling and then leaving behind him every stage along the way....let no sentiments of home detain us."

i really like that idea. life as a progression. i'd like to think i view my own life this way, despite how slow-going the progress tends to feel sometimes. i sort of interpret this "resolute moving on" as a fear of settling. which i don't think is exactly what hesse meant. he certainly wasn't suggesting "fear" as motivation, but rather the pursuit of "empowerment/enlightenment." i guess that could be a contrition vs. attrition argument. the end result could be the same, but how honest is the motivation. anyhoo, i feel shitty being so judgemental of others (or at least i'm willing to recognize that i SHOULD feel guilty), but i should emphasize that this judgement isn't unique to my korean/abroad perspective. i was one of those peeps who felt trapped in my own life (still do, funny how that sort of looming issue follows you around the globe). this is also not to imply that i see all people who live in missouri as pathetic or without overriding desires and motivations that color their lives however vibrantly or dull-ly. in fact, there's nothing i would like more than to be in columbia, mo and to be HAPPY to be there, like so many others genuinely are. isn't that what everyone wants (substitute your own city)? a good friend told me a long time ago that "happiness isn't a place." true dat. unless it's the name of a restaurant or bar or something. i guess it's just fascinating to me when people AREN'T torn up inside over a palpable lack (yes, i've argued this in my brain--"nothing" can actually be felt) of any life pursuits, any "transcendence." i was listening to some sort of horrible half-formed semantic argument (in english!) in a coffee shop in my home state. and it was nice to be annoyed by this supposed comfort. so if i must come to a point, both related and unrelated to all this other bullshit i'm spewing, i guess it's this: so many people seek validation from outside sources (hey, i'm guilty too!) instead of taking it upon themselves to enact positive changes in their lives. and yeah, this is a microcosm of my life in missouri in general. the familiarity of even the most dismal of prospects is still comforting.

moving from that rambling to other rambling...let's do a recap of vacation events, shall we?

day one: mikey picked me up from the airport, and i was convinced at this point that sitting in a car with him for 2 hours made my entire trip home worth it. he listens to me but doesn't judge, like so many other people close to me do. sounds like a simple enough idea, but it's rarer than most would expect. so he delivered me to columbia, mo and shakespeare's and my parents. my vacation was a big surprise for my mom. tried to keep it quiet, as i've never been big on undue (or due, for that matter) fanfare. dad had concocted some huge lie 2 months in the making just to get mom to come out to shakespeare's for the surprise "reveal." it was pretty great to be able to give her that gift. when i first told dad i was coming home, i thought it would be cool to surprise mom. so dad ultimately told mom they had to go to a friend's intervention, at shakespeare's of all places. but because dad's not half-assed he started planting the seeds for the impending fake intervention months ago. he even involved other friends in the whole deal. which probably made the surprise all that more, well, surprising. so yes, we ate, drank, made merry, and took pictures in a korean hooters shirt.

day two: met mom's co-workers for lunch and got insanely sick after eating taco bell. the good news is, a grilled stuffed burrito still tastes good coming up, half digested. it was slightly embarassing though. everyone was very nice and insisted it was okay if i needed to yak in the office bathroom. i made it home though. korean food's boring, but it's sure healthy. pretty much abandoned any plans and slept all day. news flash: jet lag is real, folks.

day three: ate an amazing sandwich at uprise bakery and had really good conversations with relative strangers and people i'd known for a long time but never really talked to. god bless these sporadic, innocuous conversations that made me feel warm and fuzzy. went to the asian affairs center (where i used to work, place that motivated me to come to korea in the first place) to meet up with scott and lesley. gotta be honest, being in an office full of korean students in columbia, missouri while on my vacation from korea didn't really sit well with me. it just made me very tense. went to booche's and got beers. met another friend, then we all went to addison's for more beers and appetizers. their nachos fucking own. then it was off to flat branch where i couldn't keep my eyes open. sort of passed out at the table, much to everyone's thinly-veiled disappointment. slept at lesley's. her house was amazing, filled with all sorts of tokens of her world travels. i like this chick a lot. regret that i didn't get to know her better while i was still in missouri. i'm sort of lacking in the girl friends arena, so when i do meet a girl that i don't want to punch, it stands out as a significant event.

day four: woke up and had a really good conversation with lesley. yeah yeah, again with the "conversation." people converse everyday and take their ease of communication for granted. but for the first 7 months i worked in ilsan, "conversations" were things that didn't really occur on a regular basis. met a friend for breakfast at ernie's. scrambled eggs, french toast, sausage, buttery coffee (perhaps only i notice this). hallelujah. it's relatively easy in korea to find "western" food, but breakfast food is where i most feel the void. anyhoo...after breakfast went and ran errands, then went home to jc. took the huey dog for a long walk. we threw the stick around. or i threw the stick and he fetched it, as dogs tend to do.

day five: went out. drank at klik's, where jen brouk is the bartendress. fucking great to see her. slept on kelsey's couch. drank with scott. or, i drank and he watched.

day six: hung out in jeff city after driving home at 7 am in a car that has no heat. my knuckles were very cold. spent all day watching deliciously terrible cable tv (ahh, channel surfing). if anyone would have predicted how much "rock of love" i would watch during my vacation, i certainly wouldn't have believed them. but yes, i consider my life enriched by brett michaels' dating show. went back to como with the folks later that day to meet erica and scott for dinner at murray's. drank beers at flat branch first. i really miss erica. she's one of my favorite humans. she and scott were two of my partners in crime in suncheon. after murray's we went to do more drinking: mcnally's, lame 80s night at the blue note, blue moon with orange wedge at teller's. crashed on scott's floor. i remember drifting in and out of consciousness while they tried to entice me awake with domino's pizza. side note: domino's pizza is the most expensive pizza in korea.

day 7: lunch with lesley, scott, erica. then met mom to get new ink. it rules. german rilke quote. she got a shel silverstein picture on her ass. jon bush and kath are amazing humans. unfailingly nice to undeserving me.

day 8: dinner with chris at the korean restaurant in columbia, which i found to be eerily spot on. even the little dishes were the same. introduced chris to soju. they seemed to get along. went to a disappointing show at mojo's--call me lightning. live music was a big goal of the vacation, and when i'd seen these guys before at eastside, they were fucking crazy good. but this time there were only about 10 peeps there. bummer, yo. crashed on jen's couch.

day 9: dinner with mr. kim. he wanted to go to the korean restaurant again, which i was a little bitch about all day. actually dreading going there again (not that the food was bad. it wasn't. but the thought of going to a korean restaurant with my korean friend sounded like exactly what i didn't want to do). he called at the last minute and changed it to flat branch. thank you, pub burger. then i called a friend and proceeded to get retardedly drunk.

other notes about being home...i sort of stopped specifically cataloguing events after day nine, just seemed a little tedious.

being home wasn't as much of a shock as i thought it would be. there were some shocking things that came out of the mundane (woefully taken for granted) minutiae of missouri life: the first taste of boulevard weet after years of enduring the equivalent of mgd here in the korea; at the airport in seattle trying to comprehend a sea of different sized/shaped/colored people. sure, some americans are fat, but at least it's something different. it was also quite shocking to see normal people. it was clear to me that only in korea is everyone rushing to a fashion show.

hmmm, what else? wide open spaces, rolling hills, a visible horizon, cows. cemetaries. driving was also an incredible experience--i had a vague recollection of that giddy day a long time ago when i first drove alone. to wal-mart in a shitty white car with failing power steering. but this time i was headed to a bar and the tunes were vintage neil young. blissfully happy. i've turned into quite the sentamentalist round these parts, as inspiration and beauty are two things i rarely find. so when i stumble upon them these days, it really is a laudatory, revelatory experience, worthy of all the emotion i can conceivably heap upon it. missouri was a lot of those little, surprising nuggets of beauty. and then there were larger things of beauty, much more tangible and unexpected, but equally fleeting. ho hum. but i'll save those things for myself. which will be what gets me through these next 3 months until my current contract ends.

so yes, i've already hit a wall after a week back in this country, but i somehow view it as a less depressing wall than the so many that have preceeded today. sigh. there are still notions of my uncertain future to address--always a self-deprecating mess of a topic. THE FUTURE!!!!!!!! gross. i guess i would potentially find it as depressing to have it all figured out, much as i hate plans and concrete courses of action--or maybe i just claim to hate those things because they conveniently support my mindset. my contract ends in 3 months. so i have to do a lot of thinking about what comes next. here's what i'm entertaining:

-stay in korea for another year and clear my student loans/credit card debt. never been too keen on carrying those things around with me for years into the future. whether this means to stay with my current school or not remains to be seen. would require some serious negotiating on my part to put myself in a work situation that doesn't make me dread 6 out of the 7 days of the week.

-vietnam. take a month-long course there this summer and stay on for a year after completion of the course. this idea based on having yet to enroll for the course (meant to do that today, but instead i did nothing) and having never been to vietnam. woo hoo!

-china? hmmm....

-columbia? ha! bigger hmmm....this won’t happen. but i would be lying if i said i hadn’t considered it.

other vacation nugglets:

-house party replete with kegs o' beer and bands.

-through the deluge in springfield, mo, i spied a white trash man navigating the wet streets with a huge dead white bird slung over his shoulder. for reals. was it a swan? was it an albino turkey? was it a hallucination? i dunno.

-soup. casseroles. miracle whip. sour cream. grape gatorade. samuel smith oatmeal stout. velveeta shells and cheese (in case there was ever any doubt, it is indeed both the creamiest AND the dreamiest). chicken fried steak. foccacia.

-watching my older sister teach middle school choir and being fucking floored by how great she was at her job. i was both proud of and humbled by her. that was a fucking cool sensation.

back to work

first day back at work yesterday and i scored a harmonica solo from a 4th grader named angella.

she played 2 harmonicas simultaneously.

so that was unexpected.

one more thing (for now)...

i uploaded all my pictures from my wild and crazy missouri vacation to my flickr page. in case the few peeps who look at the blog are unawares of said page, the link's in my "links" section. fitting, eh?

home again home again jiggity jig

where "home" equals ilsan, south korea. sigh. not sure whether that’s a good sigh or a bad sigh; it’s a nonpartisan sigh for now. with good reason. i slept for approximately 12 hours today after making my way from jeff city, mo to the rok in over 24 hours. and yet here i am, wide awake at 4 in the am, drinking a hite tall boy and eating a nutty bar. 1 nutty bar down, 11 to go. then i get to move on to the peanut butter log thingys. oh, little debbie, how i do love you!

before the ensuing chronicling of my vacation, i should probably apologize in general to the many people i wanted to see (either again or for the first time upon my return) but didn’t get to. i am an asshole. i know this. since we all know it, there’s no use dwelling on it. the truth is, i’ve always hated making plans (or being proactive, for that matter), and as soon as i make a plan, i’m immediately anxious about the fact that it might fall through. perhaps this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, i dunno. an ultimate and overriding fear of rejection/disappointment. this dismal fact is only compounded by my fear/hatred of the telephone. anyhoo, the fact is that when a plan does fall through, i do actually feel shitty. there were lots of folks i was sposed to meet during my days in columbia who i didn’t. a lot of this was due to some schedule changes, the commuting to/from columbia, jeff city and springfield, as well as my general mood during the last week and also to a bonafide illness the day before (and of) my departure. as it turned out, there were very few people who i even saw on more than one occassion. and that’s a bummer. especially since i have no idea when i’ll be stateside again.

anyhoo, i suppose i’m done with excuses, at least for now. but i’m sorry if i didn’t get to see peeps as often as we both would have liked. if you didn’t get to see me (and i didn’t get to see you), find comfort in the fact that i’m really not that cool or entertaining anymore. you know, not like i USED to be.

shucks. not really sure where to start here with the recap. i guess the flights back to korea are a good place to start. for now reverse chronological order, or something like that, seems like a good idea. and i’m going to try to save waxing philosophical/overly-analytical (by my low standards) for any later blogs. of course it’s tempting to tackle notions of home and uncertainty and transience and my future and relationships (friendly or otherwise) here, but i’m going to fight the urge, as there is plenty of future blog space, not to mention vacation digestion, that support my postponement of such themes. soul-searching is one of my favorite pastimes...

back to logistics...headed up to stl on saturday around 2:30 with the parentals. drank some beers/cokes at an airport bar with good quesadillas and bad stevie wonder covers. i guess it’s worth noting that in my opinion any cover of stevie wonder is going to be bad. so there.

had to do the all-to-familiar reorganizing of luggage at check-in in order to get both bags to their santioned weights. and i still had to pay $25. i sure returned to korea with more shit, and not just little debbies. bought lots o’ shoes and clothes, reading materials, items for my co-teachers, items for my students, fetched items for the twin sister, fetched items for friends here, and at least one other fun item that i don’t need to mention in detail, lest i make anyone reading this blush, namely myself (i think we all know that’s not possible...whatev). but hey, it glows in the dark, so that’s pretty fucking cool.

flight to lax was fine. 3.5 hours (more, actually, because we were late). then i had to navigate an airport under renovation with the nastiest bathrooms i’ve seen stateside. there also appeared to be claw marks on all the doors...inexplicable, mysterious, everything a public restroom should be. i thought it was standard at airports to have those plastic-wrapped toilets that sound like they’re from the future, or at the very least to have locks on doors. alas, no. if i’ve ever felt like i’ve been in an appropriate place to get shanked, this bathroom was that place in my mind. no shanking occured. so that’s a good thing.

drank a beer in an airport bar where the workers seemed genuinely shocked and dismayed by my request for an amber bock at 11 pm on a saturday night in their bar. now that’s just plain unamerican. tried to change my seat after deciding that the window seat was probably not the best position for someone with long legs on a 14 hour flight. but that chick was a bitch too. seems like peeps in airports are required to be disgruntled, even if for no apparent reason. so those events set my mood. i sat and waited for my flight, stewing the whole time. i wasn’t quite prepared to be in a sea of meandering koreans again. and yet there i was, on vacation from korea, surrounded by the all-too-familiar hordes of people milling about with no particular sense of direction, oblivious to the fact that there might be people trying to make their way through the crowd en route to some other gate taking them somewhere other than korea. but once i got on the plane everything was cool. was seated next to a chinese woman and her 6 year old son, who would eventually become my best friend for about 5 hours. they were headed to chengdu and had 2 flights to go after the long-ass flight to incheon. anyhoo, as soon as i hit the seat i passed out. was in and out of sleep for a long time, all the while a small child elsewhere on the plane was screaming. and i guess there’s no way to quietly scream.

when i woke up for good, the 6-year-old chinese kid was next to me. and he wanted to play. so we raced each other stacking the 12 drink cups he had acquired during the flight. then we took turns trying to catch cups with other cups. that game didn’t work so well, and seemed to annoy the people behind us when a cup flew in their direction. one man actually returned the wayward cup to us, but it was full of his trash. asshole. i never got this kid’s name, but he was so fucking awesome. his english was great, as he’d been living in o’fallon/st. louis for 2 years (his dad worked for pfizer). although he did have the same problem saying his r’s that i had when i was little. i suppose that endeared me to him. we also spent a good half hour talking on the phone/tv handsets in each of our chairs. his remote was a "magical" remote that could turn aliens into people (me) and turn headphones into money or pizza. we decided to have a macaroni pizza party in the sky, where i lived. but it was only a set-up for him to turn all my alien friends into bugs. i negotiated them into butterflies instead. after that it was the assembly of a mini thomas the train and about an hour of dora the explorer. he noticed every time i switched the channel. after that the plane started to descend and his ears hurt, so fun time turned into crying-in-mom’s-lap time.

landed in incheon, and it was smooth sailing. although it’s very hard to lift a ginormo bag o’ luggage onto a bus when the handles have broken off. i managed. again with the sea of koreans not getting the fuck out of the way. it was very obvious that i had 2 giant bags of luggage following me, and yet all the students in their uniforms just stood there, blocking the entire sidewalk. some chick got testy when i ran over her foot. to which i responded "get the fuck out of the way." i’m sure the only word she understood was "fuck."

wheeled my shit from the bus stop to my apartment. where everything was just as i had forgotten. unpacked and passed out.

guess this is all for now. sleep doesn’t beckon, but i’m forcing it. work later this week. yuck.

i'll be brief

in missouri for a much needed vacation from korea and work. got some new ink yesterday. it rules. and it itches a little bit. been drinking lots of good beer, eating things that don't taste like korea and catching up with friends and family. it's been pretty chill and awesome.

that's all for now.