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.