Back in the Game

I'm back! For those of you who follow me religiously, I'm sure I made you question your resolve. My apologies for not writing for so long. Normally, I would write my blogs on a Sunday night, but those have recently been spent doing other things. I then just didn't really think about writing this for a while. I don't promise to write every week, but I will occasionally update you as things happen here.

As time passes, things start to lose their "wow factor." I see the same things every day, and so it doesn't really seem like anything special is happening, when in reality, I am still living in an awesome place surrounded by awesome and interesting people. And with the right perspective, there is humor and awe to be found in the most simple of things. I will try to elaborate on a few of those things that have happened since my last posting... for your reading entertainment.

As many of you already know from facebook, I am dating now and couldn't be happier. She is really a wonderful girlfriend, and I thank God every day for bringing her into my life. I've finished school, moved into a new house that I can actually stretch in, and even better than that, I have a TV! All of that and more to say that my life has basically gotten much better since the last post.

Since moving, I have taken up learning basic guitar. Looking around, I saw that basically everyone can play guitar. It seems to be the thing to do, and you know that I can't be left out of the "in" crowd. I've realized that playing basic songs is much easier than I thought, but actually playing well is going to take a lot of time. I will probably end up somewhere in the area of "tolerable to listen to" and "hey, that actually sounds like a song." Either way, I'll enjoy having time to pick up hobbies and do things.

Now for some of the comedy. I accidentally stayed out a bit too late and missed public transportation back to my house which left me with 2 options: take an hour and a half cab ride back or pay 8 dollars and stay at a Korean sauna for the night. Surprising as it may be, I chose the sauna. It seems that something interesting always happens to me when I stay at these saunas by myself. Last time, I had a crazed old Korean man jumping around the different hot tubs - keep in mind that everyone is naked - splashing water around. He later settled down directly across from me and picked up the ever common hobby of "stare at Joe."

This time also involved an elderly Korean man. Mental stability unknown. Creepy factor off the charts.

Normally, when I go to these places, I don't sleep much for two reasons. First, it's my only chance to sit in a bath in Korea, so I usually just enjoy switching between the hot and cold tubs. Second, there is only one giant huge bed that everyone shares: the floor.

So, I did what I normally do and stayed in the tubs till about 4 in the morning and decided to catch a few hours of sleep before I caught the bus back to my house. For some reason, the normal sleeping room was closed off, and the men's only sleeping room was filled with a bunch of old, hung-over Koreans. I decided that my best option was to take an open bench in the locker room and doze off there. I put in my headphones so as not to be woken up by people walking by and slowly dozed off... I remember feeling this strange feeling in my dream. A sixth sense telling me that something was wrong. I opened my eyes to find an old Korean man staring at me. He had taken the very little space left on the bench and decided to sit there cross-legged and look down at me. If I could somehow capture that feeling and put it into an alarm clock form, I would be a millionaire. Nothing wakes you up fast than the thought that a stranger has just been staring at you for an indefinite period of time.

Needless to say I wasn't getting any sleep after that. Certainly not on that bench. I looked at my clock and realized with relief that public transportation was back up and running, so I quickly took a bus home. I have a feeling that my dreams will be haunted with images of what happened that night for years to come. "Emotionally scarred" only scratches the surface of how this experience has affected me.

I'm not putting any pictures up on this blog cause I'm just lazy and haven't organized anything yet. If you want to see pictures of what's been going on recently, check facebook.