Post-Its and Paperclips.....

My life right now is living for the weekend....I like my job and all, no real complaints, but I look forward to Friday more than ever. Right now I'm lying in bed at 8pm on a Saturday letting my body and my wallet recover from usual Friday night shennigans.....that word is too "kiddy"...let's just call my weekends what they have been for the past month: regular "shit shows"......honestly, being here in Korea is like the college experience I never had.....except this time I have a paycheck : )  (is that a good thing or a bad thing??)

Today's word of the day is "gadabout"....I discovered this one right after my trip to Busan. It fits my life quite well at the moment:

gadabout (ˈɡædəˌbaʊt)

—n

informal a person who restlessly seeks amusement

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979

 Need I say more????

OH  BUT I WILL SAY MORE!!

Last night I went to dinner with some people I met in Youngcheon (I need to tell you about that whole story later) who live here in Daegu, we've effectively formed a core group of friends that meets for dinner every weekend to try new restaurants! I look forward to every weekend with them. Its three couples and then me and my girl-friend Camille. Nope, not "gf" just "friend that is a girl"....still workin on that. Me and Camille, being single and crazy, were not ready to call it a night when all of the other couples were "too tired to go out" so we took a cab downtown after dinner at a cool little restaurant near Kyungpook Univ named "AVEC"....gotta love the French charm that sells Italian food....

We stayed out till the club closed at 6AM and then went to eat fried food in the double-decker bus where the Russian friends and I ate months earlier with a thugged out Korean stranger....the sun came up, and because we're insatiable, we went to Holly's 24hr Coffee and passed out in a chair until 9 am after a chat and a coffee.....hope you're keeping up with this story!

Me and Camille have been running into this guy who has GREAT ENGLISH and dresses well (I mean I kinda want his Korean wardrobe). He goes by the name "TIGER"....basically because he can....I mean who's gonna stop you if you want to name your kid "apple" right?? Funny guy, except for the fact that he got in a bar fight last night and I learned a whole new slew of Korean curse words. He lost his $120 watch....and his un-Korean-ly fat opponent smiled at me later and laughed saying "he bumped into me and didn't say sorry...simple" ANYWAY......Im sure I'll see him again. 

At the bar last night I also met a South African who teaches music-English at a univ here in Daegu. He told me to go back to grad school next year. He said "I don't see you here for more than a year. Are you willing to 'make a life here'? Why did you stop singing? Your voice will peak in 4 years and where will you be? Did you practice today?"..............SLAP IN THE FACE.....needless to say he bought me a drink after that reality check.

I either find a program to pay me to get my CELTA english teaching cert

Or I finish my Temple Univ grad app.

Or both?

And I need to get my month of travel in there somewhere.....I dont realize how young I am and how many things I can only do when Im young! I want to enjoy traveling while my young body can still move around easily. People got it backwards.....travel when you retire? What? So you can get a bad sock tan while juggling your pill-taking regimen between time-zones?....that's a big no thanks.....

Sadly, the Russian/Ukrainian/Uzbek friends that I keep mentioning left Korea and spread to the wind. They left on the first day of the month. I was supposed to meet up with them to say goodbye but it never worked out. I remember the first time we met at our soon-to-be favorite hole in the wall vinyl cocktail joint called "Vinaroo". They gave me money from their countries as a token of friendship after talking for around an hour about the crazy world we all still live in. I wish I had something to give them in return. Good times. Sad to see them go. It's like staying at school while your friends graduate...bittersweet. I will always remember being sneaked into Woobang Land Amusement park by Stan who kept telling me with his broken English "nothing is happening right now...head down" just to see their dance show and then hangin' out with them in their apt. eating mayo and cheese microwave sandwiches and listening to the Uzbek couple literally duke it out next door...I have more pics of them to post when I get a chord for my phone to the comp.

I keep their foreign money on my bookshelf as a daily reminder that we all have to leave this playground at some point........

Ok, smile Seth.

Im starting the MAX part of my INSANITY workout on Monday. I ordered the "Rev Abs" program from Beachbody to start after this month. Im going on a shopping spree with Camille at the end of the month to celebrate....I need to start investing money in my appearance and myself.....to put it bluntly....Im tired of looking like shit. These Korean guys have got something right.

Karl is ordering me some whey protein. Oh! Who's Karl? He's a friend I met on the street months ago when I was stumbling around with the Russian Uzbek Ukrainians (RUUs). The first night I met him, he was stumbling around with some Polish people and we literally ran into each other and the RUUs and his Polish friends started talking. Then Karl bumped into a BIG ASS black soldier from the States and knocked the bottle of  Soju out of his hand, shattering it on the ground. ..........I immediately turned on my "ebonics" switch and I like to think I diffused a potentially bloody situation with a few "we goods?"  and "aights"

........................and that's how I met Karl

Later that night, when I put the drunk RUUs in a cab home, I called Karl and he came and picked me up at 4AM.....wow....I spent the night on his floor. He offered. He even took the day off work the next day and cooked me breakfast in the morning like this:

Me: "Im not really hungry, I think I'll just walk to the subway"

Karl: "You can't walk. It's too far. I will drive you. You're not hungry?"

Me: "No I'll be fine. Thanks though"

Karl walked to the kitchen and pulled out a frying pan........did I not say I wasn't hungry? He did understand English right? Karl didn't care what I said
.

He said, "I'm Korean, I can't just let you leave without feeding you first"

.................and that was the start of a bromance........................