Odds & Ends

What’s going on with me – in list format because it’s too late to try to write all of this any other way.

Thinking about:

1. Sad thoughts: How my mom is on oxygen 24/7 now, prescribed by the doctor but I’m glad that today I sent her (and my dad) a nice letter with photos to further illustrate my life in Seoul.
2. Developing thoughts: How I may be staying in Seoul for longer than a year, for a whole drawer full of reasons. At this point details are still in the works…
3. Motivating thoughts: I have a workout buddy. Not the kind where we plan to workout together side-by-side on treadmills or spotting one another with bench presses, but the kind where we’ve decided to financially obligate each other to get our lazy butts out of bed in the morning and get to the gym no later than 9:45 am 3 days per week. Yes, you read that right for those of you who wake up and get to your job before or well before 9:00 am. Working from 2:30 pm-8:30 pm has subsequently created a phenomenon amongst most of the people I work with in which getting up before 10:00 am = earning a gold medal. As it stands now, for every time I’m late to the gym those specified 3 days each week, I’ll basically lose 10,000 won to my workout buddy. I believe that sometimes some friendly financial pressure can make me put more effort into doing something.

Watching:

1. Slum Dog Millionaire: I saw it won a lot of Oscars including “Best Picture.” I haven’t seen it yet, but hope to this week.
   
2. Boys Before Flowers. Through the grapevine, including both my students and co-workers, it seems that “Boys Before Flowers” is the K-drama to see right now. Strangely enough, I haven’t really watched any Korean dramas since living here. I tried to get into a few of them when I first got here, but haven’t successfully finished one since living here. Maybe because being here is a K-drama in itself in some ways? Anyway, when more than 3 people in the span of a week mentioned the same drama AND I found out it was with English subtitles on My Soju, I decided to begin watching it. So far, so good!
   
3. Sex and the City: I’ve seen all the episodes at least a dozen times, but I admit I am still enjoying this show. Getting other SATC virgins hooked on it makes it fun to watch since they don’t know what’s going to happen next.
   

Eating:

1. I am constantly craving vegan ice cream, pancakes 전, bin dae duk 빈대떡, waffles or pretzels these days and oddly enough, while satisfying these cravings that I would not classify as the most healthy, I have been consistently losing weight since Christmas time. Hmmm…could walking up and down all those stairs in the subway system really be adding up finally?
   
2. Intelligent Nutrients: Am so glad I purchased some goods from this place while in Minneapolis, owned by Horst Rechelbacher who started Aveda. The Intellimune Oil and Intellimune Tablets are great!
   

Listening to:

1. Big Bang (빅뱅): I was influenced by my middle-school aged students to check out this group. Not being a well-informed K-Pop listener, I was ignorant to the fact that this is the group in which their music is heard blaring from stores all over Seoul, all the time. I like some of their tunes enough that I bought the CD “REMEMBER” last week. I love how the CDs here are decked out with stickers and awesome photos.
   
2. A lot of jazz lately. Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane…

Congratulations to:

1. My dear sweet friends H & G for having their baby finally! They waited until delivery to find out the gender and it’s a girl! I’m so happy for them and thinking about how so many more dear friends will be having babies this year. Seriously, in my world of friendships, 2009 is the YEAR OF THE BABY. It’s exciting to think that great people are bringing life to this planet.

In her eyes

Today on the subway as I was listening to mellow, sappy-sounding music (from a Korean drama soundtrack), a woman got on the train and sat down.  She had the exact same eyes as an adoptee I’m friends with.  It made me wonder, “Wow, could that be her mother?”  I find myself remembering where I am, in this country of untold stories, including my own, and I wonder how often the mothers and fathers of all of my adopted friends think about us.  I wonder if I pass by any of my friends’ relatives – or my own for that matter.  I know it’s a long shot, but then again, is it?  My friend recently found her Korean mother and then met her half brother and sister.  Turns out her half brother lives in the same general area as us.  Did we ever pass one another on the street?  When I met my Korean father in 2005, he said his daughter (my half sister) lived in Seoul.  Could she and I have ever sat side by side on the subway and didn’t know it?  I have yet to see one Korean woman here who resembles me in a striking way.  I really wonder what that would feel like.  I wonder what it has felt like to be a woman who had children and gave them up or somehow lost them along the way, due to circumstances, likely complicated, leaving a hole in their heart.  Decades have passed by now…sometimes in some women I can see it in their eyes, I can see the pain is still alive in them.  I don’t know how I know.  I just sense it.

I’m a famous actress in my dream world, so…

Here are the ten questions (compiled by Bernard Pivot) that James Lipton asks every guest on Inside the Actors Studio, along with my own responses.  I stole this off of my friend Aimee’s Facebook Note.  Thanks, Aimee!

1. What is your favorite word? Serendipity

2. What is your least favorite word? Pretty much any word used in a context that objectifies and dehumanizes people.

3. What turns you on?  Dolphins dancing through the water, dark chocolate, genuine people, waterfalls, my boyfriend (I’m just sayin’!), Apple products, certain opera songs, coffee, soul to soul conversations…

4. What turns you off? People who are overly image-conscious and insensitive.

5. What is your favorite curse word? Beeyotch.

6. What sound or noise do you love? Waterfalls and the voices of cute children just learning how to speak out loud.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?  Gun shots.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?  Broadway actress, talk-show host, film maker, musician, college professor, therapist, graphic designer…just to name a few.

9. What profession would you not like to attempt? Nursing

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?  Welcome to where what you look like truly doesn’t matter anymore and everyone you ever loved is waiting for you and those still alive on Earth will soon join you…forever…

Romantic Realities

So the city of couples (Seoul) was just full of arm in arm couples walking about and the place I spotted the most in a few blocks radius was Sam-chung-dong. Wow! I counted over 77 couples while walking around there on Saturday night as I went to a nice Italian dinner with J. We really had a great time together this weekend. On Friday night we went with a few other friends to see “He’s Just Not That Into You” at the theatre. I liked the movie overall. I was still somewhat recovering from a 24 hour stomach bug that left me sick on Thursday night. I don’t know if it was food poisoning or not, but let’s just say it was not pretty Thursday going into Friday. Fortunately by Friday night I felt a little better. I didn’t eat too much all day to be safe. By Saturday morning though I was ok. J and I went to see an art exhibit with Baroque paintings. It was nice. We had some coffee, good conversation and then our Italian dinner out and about.

I called my dad late Saturday night and found out this past week my mom has been on an oxygen tank. Not good. She can’t pee like a normal person or breathe easily anymore. I know rushing home isn’t going to solve or change anything, but it still feels really shitty to hang up knowing that this is all going on back home. I can’t control life fully, but I know that ideally I hope she holds on until I move back to the USA. I really hope…

So it was a wonderful and difficult weekend. But it brought about conversation with J again about the real possibility of where we might be at in a year. Maybe some skeptics or cynics would say it’s too early to talk about a year from now with someone you’ve only been with for a little over a month, but hey, if you’re in love and happy, why not talk about the future? So we have, we did and I am happy to know that we both want each other to be in each other’s future. I’m very happy that he’s understanding regarding my family situation in MN…and would be willing to live there sooner than later since I clearly have a lot to sort through there. I really don’t want to be a MN resident for life, but with my parents current health and owning some property, residence in the TC may be upon me again sooner than I think.

I called my Dad again today and my mom was on her nebulizer but she was able to say hello very briefly. I can only hope, as I soon fall asleep tonight that she is ok, that this is another hard glitch in her health condition, but that she can hold on. I feel like as my life opens up in amazing ways she should be alive and healthy enough to witness it. I know that’s selfish, but that is my hope…

February Happiness

On my Facebook page I put as a status that I haven’t been this happy in a long time.  A part of me considered writing that I hadn’t been this happy ever, but then I realized it’s not a competition.  I have had a lot of happiness in this lifetime.  Sharing this air and land with the billions of others out there for the past 30ish years has been filled with vibrant joy, and of course major doses of upsets, challenges and heartbreaks.  I am sure I will continue to meet challenges in this lifetime, but I hope as I continue to create who I am, I find that the happiness overrules the upsets.

So, despite being continents away from some of my most treasured friends and from the parents who raised me, I am finding happiness for the following reasons:

• My job is back to the afternoon/evening schedule and so far, 95% of students are good and easy to work with.  I like this schedule because I can work out before heading in to teach, and get any errands done during the day.
• I am dating a wonderful person here.  He’s sincere, able to talk about anything, loyal to his windy city (sometimes I try to one-up him with something Minnesota has over his hometown, but usually it’s a lost cause…), loves the fine arts, a true foody like me, and shares a lot of the most important values and morals as me.  Oh, did I mention his Korean is leaps and bounds more fluent than mine?  No more deer in headlights!  He’s already helped to translate my frustration regarding my broken washing machine to the apartment staff where I live.  
• I have a great core group of friends here that bring out many different sides of who I am, but most importantly I feel I can be real and be myself around them.  We’ve done everything from gorge ourselves on pancakes, gotten facials, gone hiking, cooked together, thrown back some soju, and rated guys in the subway.  
• The weather has been surprisingly warm for the middle of winter.  20s at night and sometimes in the 50s during the day.  Crazy!  I love not wearing a hat.  Hats crush my precious bangs making me regret getting bangs.  I know.   It’s all about vanity, right?

So February is off to a good start!  Sometimes I feel a tiny bit of panic when things are going well…like “Oh my gosh when will things start to fall apart again!?”  But I try really hard to whip my mind into shape and keep on being positive and believe it really can be this good.