the way we were

ray lamontagne always puts me in the mood to write, which i haven't been doing much of lately. the fingers of winter just cannot seem to let go of korea, and it's nearly april. i hope they will release their death grips and let us ease into spring. the days are getting warmer, but i come home from school in the cold every night. i'm so glad there are two soup places downstairs where i can stop for a steaming bowl of sundubu jiggae instead of cooking. sundubu jiggae is a simple spicy soup with clams, tofu, egg, and zucchini, and it's probably my favorite dish here. no other food warms me up quite so quickly.

while eating my soup and reading joan didion's "slouching towards bethelem," i thought about vassar. the epigraph to and namesake of her collection is one of my favorite yeats poems, and i still hear paul kane, my favorite poetry professor, in my head when i read it. cashmere-clad and playing with my new nose piercing, i couldn't help think...you can take the girl out of vassar, but you can't take the vassar out of the girl. someone recently told me it was "scandalous" that i went there. how so, i still can't decipher. although i have mixed feelings about some of my time there (ahem, the return from italia and hawai'i when my own 70-page thesis on fairy tales slapped me in the face), i will always love being a vassar girl.

the same person who was shocked by my past makes me think of a line from the same yeats poem: "things fall apart; the center cannot hold." although i had no feelings for him, he made me realize that i am no longer the phi phi island princess. i am not fawned over or adored by all in korea. no one has made me a crown. am i falling apart? better yet, wasn't i at my hottest mess status on that island? can i ever be that island girl again, or is life pushing me towards something else, something more serious and "grown-up"? only six more months in korea will tell. there are so many things to think about--where to go next, law school in 2011, what to make of my so-called relationship across the continents.

one thing makes me very happy though: brandy is coming to visit in two days!! she's one of my very favorite people in the world. so much has happened since we said goodbye in hawaii. if only we had known that last time we had all (me, her, jp, james, gabby, and teri) been together just how much would change in 18 months.