and when i'm not at school

clubbing in seoul

at naked

winter conversations class

we cooked a lot in my winter conversation class! this class....pancakes!

face of a teacher

my body aches from exhaustion.

i hate when people tell me i look tired. several people did today. first, they are stating the obvious. second, why don't they just tell me that i look like shit? i'm equally entertained and annoyed when they try to guess why, like the front desk manager at my gym. he saw me leaving after a two and a half hour workout, told me i looked tired, and then asked if i drank too much soju over the weekend.

no, michael, it wasn't the drinking. it was your trainer who tried to break me this morning. and it wasn't soju; it was the free vodka drinks.

i'm tired but putting off going to sleep. my mind is so busy, so frenetic right now that i just can't seem to calm it down. i know i don't have to decide the rest of my life in the next few moments or even in the next few months, but i just keep thinking about life after korea--boy, grad school, life...

add to that the approaching february. since boarding school, i have feared february. boarding school february is a psychological event to me, continued through college and halfway escaped last year. speaking of last year, i am really going to miss the princess this february, especially on valentine's day. that changes my thoughts of the month too. it will have been a year, but she's still on my mind everyday. of course, there are some things that are better; i no longer have to deal with a stressful academic workload nor am i dealing with the stress of and training for state swimming championships. life is so much easier than it was when i was a student, but i can't help but dread it. even though it's pretty confusing at the moment, there are so many good things in my life. how many people can say that they really love their lives?

...and a little more than a month until i'm 24. what crazy things should i do before then?

winter in korea!

2009, i'm a lucky duck.

hello, 2010

so much happens in a year, and yet it passes so quickly. one year can change a life, and 2009 certainly changed me more than i could have ever expected. i spent only a handful of weeks at home this year, but it is the thousands of miles and dozens of passport stamps that mark the inward change.

in one year, i have lived in thailand, bali, and south korea. in my mind, i have lived in a place when i have been there long enough to need a haircut (a strange indicator, i know). i have traveled through laos, cambodia, and malaysia as well. i took a special trip with a best friend through my homeland in the south while at home. i have left pieces of myself in all of those places, but it is the things i still carry--physical or not--that stand out the most.

how am i so lucky to have met the people i have this year? then there are the ones i have kept up with all this time...for one special girl it's been over a year and a half since i bailed on camp for a day and jumped in the van in my climbing gear to take her to the airport when she was leaving oahu. how fitting it is that the last time we were together i was in a harness and a helmet. that's what we need in our very parallel lives. she's the friend who is always mysteriously there. lines will intersect eventually. i know they will.

where will we all be in one more year? the island princesses, slashies, the boxfish, and the woo-girls? maybe slashy and i had the best answer to my mantra, "what am i ever doing?"

at the end of the day, i am always having fun.