Yuppie Chain Mail 2013

I hope this finds you all happy and healthy. 

I have had an amazing year of both excitement and challenges. My two years of study at teacher's college came to an end in March. I then moved for the seventh time in the last seven years, back to Everett from Bellingham. 

I drove across the country in March from Michigan back home to Washington with my then girlfriend. I will never forget the migrating birds at sunset over Nebraska. I was sad to see that relationship come to an end shortly after her arrival. 

I put myself into my work a lot this summer as it was the only thing I had. I created both a kindergarten and adult ESL curriculum and helped my company expand into markets in China and Indonesia. My Adult seminary students in Indonesia ended our last day of the fall semester recently by sharing a praise song to the lord. The students there called me Brother Matthew.

This summer was sunnier and more beautiful than any summer in memory. The days were warm and dry from May all the way until September. I enjoyed the summer walks down Grand Ave. here in Everett and seeing the gardens grow. 

I read the Lord of the Rings for the twelfth year in a row, mostly under shade trees in the afternoon by beach. One of Elrond's quotes stuck out to me: "You will meet many foes, some open and some disguised; and you may find friends along the your way when you least look for it." 

I met an unexpected companion along the road who shares my love for Tolkien, Lewis and magic. Our first date was to Disneyland with my family back in August. I am so thankful for God's promises and blessings in my life. She is one of them. 

Next year I will be 34. Life just seems to be getting richer and better each year and this too is unexpected. I really like being in my 30's in ways I could have never understood in my 20's. Life is an adventure, maybe not the kind of adventure you see on TV, with extreme sports and backpacking trips to Thailand...but there is magic right under our noses, there is adventure in the smallest details of our everyday lives. This year I had to surrender and let God take the reins of my life and he has taken me to places I truly never expected. 

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! 

Matt 

A Wall

I live in a little one bedroom apartment. I painted it before I moved in last year. Hung on the walls are some traditional Korean prints I picked up in Iteawan before I moved back home. My bookshelf is over flowing with books, though unlike 10 years ago, today, all the books on my shelf are books that I have actually read. My grandfather's recliner sits in the living room. My grandmother gave it to me last year after he died. I don't sit in it much probably because I feel like it is still his. Most of my time is spent in front of my computer. That is where I do all of my work. I have 3 computers for work. The wires are everywhere. Seeing those cables and wires makes me anxious and I day dream about a time when I can get rid of it all and never have to deal with tangled wires again.

My apartment is pressed up against the freeway--I-5. The noise of it is ever present. Sometimes, while on my front porch, I think about all the people whizzing by and where they are going and where they are coming from. The freeway has energy: a blend of people and machines. If you walk just one street over the noise disappears. But I live in the energy of the freeway. It has a voice like the ocean. I am so used to it that I sometimes forget about it. Then on nights like tonight, after teaching my online class, I go outside and there is a lull in the traffic. For just a few moments it is silent. I wish the silence would last but just then another car speeds by and breaks the silence.

The state has built a sound barrier, a tall cement wall to block the sound--to contain the energy. When I stand on my porch I see the wall. And there is a door in the wall. I am not sure who has the key, but sometimes I think about opening that door. I day-dream that the door in the wall is a doorway to some other secret land. A place just beneath and to the side of this land.

Very few people walk or drive down this street. It is the boundary between the city and the highway. Though I live in the middle of the city, this street feels like a frontier. The wall is the border between the real world and the sideways world.

I can't explain the wall very well or what it feels like to live near it but I wonder if the wires that are all tangled under my desk are connected to the feeling of the wall in someway.

Update

Has it really been seven years since I started this blog? It's the future 2011! I'm old now!

I arrived home from a 2 and half year stay in Korea, hopeful about the future with big plans to go back to school and earn a teaching certificate and settle down. What ended up happening was a year of working in my apartment 10-12 hours a day. In the past, the jobs I've had were in my own community. I would wake up in the morning to an alarm, make a pot of coffee, fill up the thermos and commute to work. The people in the lanes beside me on the highway had that same morning look that I had: slightly damp hair and muscles in their face that hadn't quite warmed up. And seeing those people made me feel connected,like a citizen. On weekends, driving around town, I could point to a job that I had done in my own community. I painted that building over there. I cleaned that office. I hedged that bush and so on.

But working with Koreans from my home office has changed that feeling. All the seeds I plant, the people I touch, the work I do is an ocean away. I have to trust that I am making a difference and deep down I know I do.

I am going back to school and that to me is very exciting. I moved back to Bellingham. I have come full circle. Once upon a time I despised the ideology of this liberal arts college town. But that doesn't much matter to me anymore. What matters is that I now have a vision for what I want to do with my life.

So I am back in Bellingham. I'm 31 rather than 21. I will be the old guy on campus and that is scary but I am excited to learn and commute and be part of a community again.

A Revolution

I woke up a little bit late today. Even though I work most nights until 2AM teaching students in Korea from my home office, I try to wake up early. I've always liked mornings best. The first thing I do when I get up is shower and get ready for the day. I iron my shirt and vacuum lines in the carpet. Then I make a pot of coffee and check the news. An ironed shirt and a good shave are essential to survival when you work at home, otherwise you can turn into a shite bag real quick.

So after my morning routine was finished I decided I needed a good mid morning meal. I drove to the store and got a whole bunch of groceries: so much I couldn't carry them in on one trip when I got home. When I was driving home, I remembered something I needed but had forgotten to pick up at the market. I saw a drug store and cut across two lanes of traffic and made a frantic left turn into the driveway. I went in the store and picked up a new plastic garbage can, the kind that if you press a lever with your foot the lid opens up. I figured that would make life easier and cleaner than ever. But while I was in the store I realized something I have not noticed before because I have so rarely shopped in the middle of a weekday--the only people shopping in middle of the day are older women. There were a few young moms pushing kids in strollers. But most of the women were middle aged. Their kids were either in school or grown. And they were picking through things I'd always wondered about, like crystal wind chimes and hair dye. So these are the people that buy that stuff. I would never know because when I go to the store at 8pm people are buying different things. They live different lives.

I was digging all these women and I could tell they were digging me. Not every day they see a 30 year old man strolling down the kitchenware aisle in a pressed shirt before lunch.

I guess that is all back ground information, a precursor to the real story. A little more background information: 1. I have spent the last two years living in Korea. I admire Koreans work ethic. That's it. No stories of bongo circles on the beach or an awakening to the evils of capitalism or a Buddhist enlightenment. I just admire the way Koreans work and study. And 2. That damn health care bill passed yesterday. It isn't the bill itself that worries me, it is that it reflects what I perceive to be an ever growing attitude in this country, my country, that we don't have to work hard for what we want, that it will be provided for free...it is owed to us, and slowly, I see men acting less free.

So this is where my head was when I was walking out of the drug store with my combed hair, my pressed shirt--holding a brand new white trash can that smelled like a new car. The woman walking a few paces ahead of me out to the parking lot, held her crystal wind chime. I felt connected to her some how because we had stood in line together--and that for me, recently anyway, constitutes a relationship of sorts. If for no other reason, she is American and I have wanted to be around Americans so often in Korea when there were none around.

A young man approached her. He was about 25, maybe younger. He wasn't a bad looking guy. He had a beard. Not a Charles Manson beard but a scraggly one. I knew what he was going to do. I started talking to him in my head, "Don't do it, man. Not to this woman. She is my mom's age. She wants to go hang up this wind chime on her porch. Let her be." I said this to the guy in my head but he didn't listen. He steped in front her and asked for some spare change for a bus ride. I sighed. She looked frightened and walked briskly away, wiggling her head back and forth.

Then he asked me but I said, "No, sorry. I really don't have any money." As I walked away though the situation started to get me going about everything: my country, kids today, my own complacency. I started to think about a society where youth beg money from elders and men need the support of women. I started thinking about the beggars I saw in Korea, who laid face down in complete humiliation--too disgraced to show their face in public--many of whom were missing limbs or were crippled with age. And then here, in my own city, a man healthier than I, in the prime of his life, asking for spare change for a bus. Who knows if there was really a bus. But as I unlocked my car I wanted a revolution to happen. Not a tea party where people hold signs but a revolution against all evil. The final retribution--Thy Kingdom Come!

I got in my car and watched as the young man asked more women for money. They ignored him but I could tell what they were thinking. It was the same thing I was thinking. Who will speak?... Who will speak?... I have to speak. My heart was admittedly beating faster than usual. I pulled out of the parking stall and cruised slowly over to where the guy was. I rolled down my window and asked him, "Hey, how much do you need for the bus?" He said, "Well to Seattle....at least a dollar seventy five."

"Come here, man." And I waved him over. I pulled out 5 dimes from my ash tray, "This is really all I have. But hey, don't beg money from these old women. Be a man. Get a job. Be a man. Okay?" I really meant it. "Be a man!" Are there any good men left today? To my surprise he looked ashamed. He hung his head a bit and said, okay man, You're right. Thanks for the money, I won't let you down. Who knows if he was just saying that or not. But I drove away feeling better. I had spoke and stood up for what was right. Why don't more people do this? Or do they? It was for me at least the start of a revolution, if only in my heart. "Be a man."

2009

There's only a couple minutes left in 2009. The fire works will go off at the beach just a few blocks away and I have a front row seat from my high rise apartment in Pohang, South Korea.

Reflecting on this year, I have to admit it has been one of the hardest of my life but as it comes to a close, I am so happy about my future. A year ago, I was preparing to come back to Korea and writing from home for students I had never met. Almost all of that work was based on theory--how Korean education worked in my imagination. This year I have learned a lot and for the first time in my life, I feel like I know a little bit about something.

At one point this summer I had 5 roommates sharing a small three bedroom apartment.

One day I was so frustrated, I stormed out of the office proclaiming, "I quit!"

I lost 15 pounds and then gained it back plus 20 more.

I met new and interesting people, learned how to cook Korean food and read the Korean language.

I read the Lord of the Rings for the 8th time.

I went back to college. I wrote 6 books.

All in all I did a lot this year. But I am most excited to come home and hopefully meet interesting people and become more stable.

I want to get healthy and become a better son, brother, friend, and hopefully boyfriend.

I didn't think the world would last past 1999. The 21st century was not real, it was just science fiction and Y2K would send us back to the stone age. This past decade, I lived my 20's. This coming decade I'll live my thirties.

My one hope for the next decade is that people would become more optimistic about the future and work hard to make our world better. I think Christians need to stop being political and start being loving. People are ignorant about the Christian faith and so it has become popular in recent years to reject religion. I hope that doesn't continue.

2009 has put hair on my chest and I am excited for 2010.

Confessions of an English Teacher in Korea

Hey brother,

Went on a trip this weekend to Jinju--that is about three hours south west of here. Went with my boss and a coworker. The highlight of the trip was visiting an ancient castle and learning the history of a Japanese invasion. This was a pretty great story man. So this Korean hooker is a national hero. A long time ago like in the 1400's this Japanese general came and occupied Jinju, a former city of great importance. This guy was the brains behind the whole operation, planning strategy and having the balls and guts to drive his men to glory. Well one night this hooker gal. She started rubbing on the General and dancing with him. Then when they got near the edge of the castle, where it drops off a great wall on to the rocks beneath, she clung to his ass and dragged him down to their deaths. Dude this broad sacrificed her self for the Country. I guess the Japs tucked tail and booked out of there without their mighty general. It is amazing to think that people like that effect the flow of history. I visited her shrine and saw the place where she jumped to her death with her claws around the general. Pretty cool to see ancient history.

However, history aside, Korea looks the same no matter where you go. Every damn street in this country is indistinguishable from the next. I guess diversity in it's true sense, (not the PC commie Barrack Obama propaganda sense) is really beautiful. Our country even though it is new has so much more cool things to look at.

Anyway, it was another weekend trip of feeling out of place as I ate dinner and lived with my work mate's family for three days. We couldn't communicate a damn word to each other. Just bowing our heads off and smiling like there was no tomorrow. It was a blessing really. But it gets old man. Everyday not being able to say simple things like, "I appreciate your hospitality" or "I just want to be loved".

On Friday I flipped out. I have been so composed and put together here. Just smiling and bowing like a maniac. But man working around computers (full of bugs and tech problems) combined with a major language barrier, paired with the prospect of spending a weekend living on a Korean family's floor for the weekend was too much. When my computer broke down in the middle of class I started yelling and said, "that's it! I've had enough! I QUIT!" and stormed out of the office. I think all my Korean work mates were in amazement and half scared out of their wits. My manager came running after me and pulled me back and was forcefully blocking the door, saying you must teach, you must teach. F it man, we are lucky in America, someday a brother needs a sick day or personal day. I have been teaching my butt off for two and a half years without a break. Even working on Christmas and Thanksgiving. I feel like a prisoner here.

I guess I needed to get that off my chest. I keep telling myself that few foreigners ever come to Korea and experience this life. I count my blessings everyday and have learned to appreciate my home, my country, and begin to realize what is really important in life and how much we take for granted back home. I can't wait to come home. So have a great December, enjoy the weather, the snow in the mountains, Christmas lights and slay bells with your family. Peace Brother,

Matt

Far from Home

I click out of the program. Class is over. It's remarkable how when teaching at home from your lap top computer, the transition from work to home life is as fast as the click of a button. With the buzz of the classroom gone--I'm left alone. The refrigerator dully hums. I've got slippers on--I'm wearing a dress shirt and athletic shorts. I'm like an anchor man in my own home; But really, this isn't my home so it's not exactly like that. More like: I'm an online English teacher living and working in Korea. That is strange enough.

It's 8pm. The apartment is too quiet. I decide to go for a walk--to the beach. It's cold now and I take a sweater out of my suitcase. I've lived out of a suit case for two years. The beach is nice. It is clean and I feel cleaner as the wind blows over me.

I walk miles. Just keep walking into the night. I end up on a pier far from home, staring out to sea. The red light blinks above me in the light house. The world is dimly illuminated in red and the disappears into black then reappears. It's pulsating. The waves come in and out. I'm staring out to sea. When I've seen enough, I walk miles back home, go up the elevator. My reflection in the elevator mirrors looks older than it should. The elevator doors hiss open. I unlock my apartment door--back where I started. The refrigerator is humming.

Drab Text books

I wrote the first little story for the first lesson in the seventh grade text book yesterday. There wasn't much too it. Though I long to write deep thematic, fantastic epics, I've come to grips with writing watered down stories for ESL students. And even though my editors don't have a lick of imagination, I try to drop subtle pictures in that I hope the students will pick up on and perhaps, peek their interest in dreaming.

The story I wrote and sent away yesterday was less than three hundred words. A girl goes on a field trip with her class to the Natural History Museum and goes floor to floor visiting the different exhibits. The top floor, the fifth floor, was the MAN EXHIBIT. The girl sees displays of people playing chess, writing symphonies, constructing skyscrapers, and in the last exhibit, traveling to space.

I got the notes back from the editor today. She suggested changing that exhibit to show the history of man. "Maybe you could write about cavemen building fires and hunting with spears" she wrote.

No. No. No. Why should I change that? Why do educated people scoff at romantic portrayals of Man, replacing them with brutish cartoon characters?

I am seeing now that almost every shred of imagination is ringed out of educational material. They bore me to tears. I know that children respond when you ask them to open their minds. I have schools requesting that I teach their students. You think someone would ask me why my students don't fall asleep. Why my classes are fun. Why kids open up to me...

I am just tired of people unwilling to believe in magic--the nobility of Man. Children do, that is why we get along so well.

Two Breakfasts

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is check my email. Both accounts, then Facebook. I want to get email. I crave it. I love it when I do.

This morning, after checking my email and finding my inbox empty, I decided to clean and cook. It is the weekend. That is what I do on the weekend. While I'm doing it, I imagine how great it would be if I had someone else to do it for me. To sweep and mop the linoleum floors--to put my dirty laundry in the machine and then take it out again and hang it on the clothes rack to dry--to iron my work shirts--to cook my meals. I'm not sure if I need a wife or a maid. I might even settle for a robot.

The kitchen table was damp and spotless and the dishes drip dried in the dish rack when I sat down with a cup of coffee. I was full from the eggs and ham breakfast I had cooked for myself for breakfast. I put my feet up and tried to relax. I want to relax more than anything but I want it so bad I start to stress about it and in the end I can't. So relaxing has become mythical, like a promised land or better yet, a fairy land. I think just a little more cleaning, just a little more work, just one more week of thirteen hour days at the office, then I'll relax. Yeah. But the next day always brings more work. I wonder if that is what people really want when they talk about heaven, if some just give up on peace here on earth and look for it in the next life. In the next life we will relax.

My roommate woke up. I felt a bit bad about cleaning and cooking in the morning but it is eleven o'clock. Eleven o'clock! The phone rang. It was 11:03. "Hello Mah-tyew. I am Hae-seoung." That's right he was going to cook breakfast for us this morning at eleven o'clock. I wanted to stay home and relax with my coffee and the view out my window but he sounded so happy.

My roommate took off, right out the door, looking like he just woke up: his hair disheveled and a greasy glean to his skin. I tell him I'll catch up. I throw on some jeans and a button up dress shirt and roll up the sleeves, then ride the elevator down eleven floors. I step out into the day. The sun is shinning and the east wind feels like fall. There are children everywhere! They all giggle and say "Hello! How are you today!?" in English and then run away laughing when I say hello back.

Hae-seoung lives right across the street in a tall apartment building like mine. I can look right into his window at night when his lights are on. But with the elevators and walls and gates, it takes me about ten minutes to walk to his apartment building.

"Mah-tyew! Hello!"

I look up and Hae-seoung is hanging out of the twelfth story window waving.

I'm coming, I tell him.

I ride the elevator up. There are three big mirrors in the elevator-one on each wall. They are at eye level for Koreans but I can only see my reflection from the chest down--an infinite loop of my ever growing belly reflected back at me. I turn away and look up at the numbers change on the display as I go up and up. When the door opens, Hae-seoung jumps out and says, "Boo!" He is happy. He loves to eat.

We walk down the hall to his apartment and take off our shoes. His apartment is simple and clean: wooden floors, a sponge on the aluminum counter top, a low table in the corner with a ten year old TV on it, his laptop computer on the floor playing the best of classical music, and in the middle of the room--the breakfast table was set. Mushroom spaghetti took it's place of honor as the main course in the middle of the table and around it were three empty bowls for the spaghetti and three bowls, one for each of us, filled only half full of vegetable cream soup. There was also a board with nine fresh French rolls laid out in three rows of three. For silverware, he had put out two plastic forks for Paul and I, the Americans. How thoughtful!

He dished out our spaghetti and we ate and talked well past lunch time with the window open and the ocean sparkling not two blocks away. The sea breeze, mixed with the Mozart and the smell of mushrooms, was almost too much. Eating breakfast with those guys, even if we do speak in broken Korean and English--was relaxing.

Airport Lounge

I'm waiting at the airport. It's a small rinky-dink airport. Looks more like a bowling alley than an airport. I decide to kill some time so I go to this greasy spoon cafe-bar type place. The bar tender is a real cute girl, maybe a little older than me. Kind of hippie like. Everyone is sweating a bit cause it is hot in the bar. I ask for change to play the arcade game they have there. I also order a coffee. She tells me the coffee is nine dollars. I ask who in their right mind would pay 9 dollars. She tells me she'll give it to me black for $8.50. I pass. This couple next to me is eating french toast. He has on glasses. Looks a bit like a cars salesman or lawyer from the 80's. His wife I can't make out. She is probably younger but she doesn't make much of an impression on me. We strike up a conversation about coffee. How expensive it is.

I am hungry. I really want some french toast. She tells me a joke but I don't get it. She tells me I wouldn't understand. I tell her she can't tell me a joke and then not explain it if I don't get it. The bar tender tells me I'd have to dance to understand. She tells me to stand up. She puts a quarter in the jukebox. We start dancing. It's kind of a fast dance. I still don't get the joke but the dancing is fun. A black girl cuts in and I dance this fast hot dance with a black girl. I thank her when it is over. She has a big white toothed smile. When it is over I go back to the bar and drink water while waiting for my plane to arrive.

Adjusting

What a busy summer I have had. I took a college course. I wrote three children books. I created a summer program for our school. I traveled home to Seattle and then back to Korea again. Part of me loves the work. It makes me feel useful. After all what would I be doing if I wasn't working. But part of me is getting lost each day--the part of me that longs for coffee on the porch with friends; who writes silly poems about the woods in my journal; that introspective piece of me that feels connected to God and nature--so, this is what being an adult is all about. I feel a bit thin, almost like a wraith sometimes and that can't be good. But then something small reminds me again how wonderful life is and that I am connected to all of it. I ran into two old students today at different times. They both said the same thing--"Oooh! Hello Maht-yu." That made my day.

It is nearly impossible to explain my life in Korea to people back home. Living in Asia, teaching, living with Korean room mates is after all something I never dreamt I would do and even while I do it, it feels both familiar and strange at the same time.

I was just up on the roof having a cigarette before bed. I opened the door to the roof and it was pitch black. I stumbled over a vent as I walked out to the edge to look down on the city at night. After my smoke I looked around at the roof top and realized my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, that walking back to the door I was able to see the vent and go around it. My eyes readjusted to the light of my apartment when I came inside. Living in Korea for two years is kind of like that. I am adjusted to it. What seemed so alien at first is becoming common place. Now it is home that is strange.

Thing is I am always going back and fourth between light and dark, city to city, friends to friends. I guess that is life. But something in me is really longing to settle down. To stop moving, to be part of a more lasting community.

I am proud of my books I made this summer. Proud of graduating university, of coming to Korea by myself and being completely independent. I am amazed at how much I have been able to do by just saying yes and plugging along. But--I am looking forward to the next adventure to come my way. Settling down after all is probably the biggest adventure of all!

Five Years Blogging

Five years ago I started a blog. Feels like hundreds of years have gone by since that day.

Today I am flying back to South Korea after a week long vacation at home in Washington State. I can't really describe this longing I have for home. I think we all have something like it. But living in South Korea is strange a lot of the times and I always imagine my home as this special thing. A strong place, a fortress...but homey, like a warm oil painting of the shire. It is familiar. It is where I belong. It needs me. I need it. I need a conversation in English about simple things--like tomato plants.

Starving

I woke up hungry today. My stomach felt as if it was a an empty pit. But I wasn't hungry for food. I wanted to eat a forest in fall, or a love story, or Leavenworth at Christmas time with the hobo barrel fires and fudge smells.

Back in School

Today I started my first day at the University of Maryland! I am taking an ESL certification course online. It was a good first day.

American Women

I went to the cinema to see a movie. I walked into the theater with nachos in one hand and a coke in the other. I saw three American girls! I found my seat and thought about going up and introducing myself but I held back and watched. They were so loud and big! and they were sprawled out with their feet hanging over the seats in front of them. I actually became frightened. I looked around at the tiny little Korean girls nestled into their boyfriends shoulders and I sighed.

Is it ridiculous to stereotype all women in America as big and loud or is there some truth in this? I wonder if a whole generation of women in America have turned into teenage boys, and I wonder, do they know how very unattractive it is!

Shirt

My boss bought me a shirt in America and gave it to me today. I was happy because I need a new summer polo shirt.

I opened the package. The shirt looked big. I unfurled the tag and read the three letters with a smile: XXL

I wear large.

Daily Life In Korea

I have lost all perspective of what I should or should not expect in life. Part of me says work hard and be thankful that I have a job in a down turned economy but another part of me says that my daily routine is absurd.

Monday-Friday

Wake up at 6am in a pool of my own sweat.
Walk to work at 7:30. Arrive at work with a red face and sweat dripping from every pore in my body. Fantasize about having talcum powder.
Teach my first class at 8 AM from a tiny TV studio in a 4 ft. by 5ft closet. (Door shut)
Walk home again at 9 AM and eat breakfast and use the restroom. 10 AM to 12:30 PM Teach in said closet.
12:30 to 1 PM eat good, but admittedly, strange food consisting mostly of fish and garlic for lunch. My workmates speaking Korean and me not participating in the conversation.
1PM to 2:30 PM. Get caught up on emails and class prep.
2:30-4:00 Teach in the closet.
4:00 to 7 PM teach at onsite center. 90 percent of that is just getting the kids to settle down and show me an ounce of respect.
8PM Finally get to go home, unless there is a meeting.
10PM: G chat with American Staff. Today I was guilted into signing up for an on line college course for an ESL certification that all our workers are participating in.
11PM Check face book every second hoping that I have a friend.
1 AM sleep.

Saturday and Sunday

Head to the office around 10 write text books until 8PM.

Miscellaneous

Learn today that I need to design a summer intensive course by next week.
Participate in meetings where there is a major major language barrier.
Get stared at constantly for being sweaty and red, not to mention a towering giant freak.
With less than one minute notice get called to an online presentation to show our product to people wearing ties.
Have students draw pictures of me as a bald man.
Worrying about a possible nuclear war.

I can't tell you how good I feel when I finish a task. I think, If I can survive this then I am the strongest person alive. And after locking myself in a tiny room at the office on the weekends and finishing my stories for our books, I feel so proud of myself. I enjoy being in the fantasy worlds I am creating for students, and I'm so proud also to have the opportunity to publish my work that will be read by thousands of people. That is a good feeling. But I just pray that there is a reward at the end. I know that is selfish but I hope there is a reward. I am tired of being alone, and tired of sweating, and tired of not being able to communicate...I am tired. I don't know if I am whinnying or doing something that few people ever do. I just am not sure.

Lunch

"Matthew, do you like ja-jen-myuen?"

"Is that the black noodle stuff? Yeah, why?"

"Ji-hyun is not here today, so we order food for lunch-a."

"Uh, so, no woman means no food?"

"Ha ha, that's right, we order today."

Hypothetically Speaking

During lunch my workmates talk about a possible conflict with the North. I can't understand the language they are speaking but there is no mistaking their concern.

Today waking up to more bad news about the north I asked my American roommate, "Hypothetically speaking, what would we do if war broke out? How would we get out of here?" "I guess we'd have to wait it out on the military base and be evacuated from there."

Top Ten Signs That You Are a Zombie

I am amazed at the major rise in media hype recently, from something small like hyping a piece of garbage movie like The Watchman to the hysteria of the swine flu. But what really gets me is how these ideas, opinions, and doctrines, that first appear on the Internet, soon become the mantra of the public.


Here is a list of topics that I think people have lost their minds over, they don't think about them anymore, it is just cultural fact and to question it is a grounds for being called "small minded", "backwards thinking", "neo-con" or the ultimate insult-- "Fox News watching Bush lover":

1. Gay marriage--If you so much as utter that marriage is a union of man and woman, well forget about it, you should die.

2. Global warming--Science said, Science said. You're not coming to the BBQ on saturday.

3. How Did Everything Come to Be?--A once important scientific question is now settled. Dude, it was The Fly Spaghetti Monster.


4. Anything to Do With the Middle East--Go watch the video blog posted up on Democracy Now, then we can talk.


5. Teenage Vampires, Goths, and Other Trendbots-- Memo to Teachers: When talking to a student in a black cape wearing vampire fangs, pretend that it is normal, we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Failure to comply carries a sentence of one week of sensitivity training during your lunch break.

6. Hollywood Movies-- It's so subversive. And oh, go see Slumdog. It's a movie from a different country.

8. Organic Food and Bottled Water--Don't I look cute with this hemp shopping bag.

9. Wanting To Start a Revolution of Responsibility--You're using the word wrong man. Revolution means sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I don't know "t-e-a-p-a-r-t-y". You must mean tea-bag.

10. The Simple, Happy Life--What a naive ignorant person you are. Let me direct you to hand full of literature, most of which is online which points out everything bad about the world, like how the world is going to end in 2012 because of solar storms.