3 weeks no see

Light fellowship is gonna kill me; not really. I just haven't found the time these last three weeks to sit down and blog. I find myself in Thailand. It is great, although I find myself getting stressed when I am not able to do anything productive. I am a freak of nature. I won't talk about Thailand; I will talk about the last couple weeks that lead up to Thailand.

School:

Finals were pretty decent. I am quite sure I will be moving right on up to level five this coming term. My last term in the land of Han (Korea's word that means something vague between regret and sorrow, and a bunch else). My favorite teachers were definitely those in level two, oh how long ago that was. Not much more to say really. This term may be my worst mark, given the amount of school I missed this term given illness brought about by the extreme cold, etc.

Korean ability wise, all is more than well. I have finally hit that "oh I get it phase" in Korean, where less and less do I have to put things together in Korean before I speak, and I can just express myself naturally. It really did happen from one day to the next, and it has been noticed by all those around me. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to finally feel like I have a level of Korean that will indelibly stay with me, just like knowing how to ride a bike. It is becmoing intuitive rather than just rehearsed and memorized.

Other:

The whole documentary ordeal has finished, and it has simply sparked a new, and final, era of my Korean sojourn. Candy, the lady who directed the documentary, has become something close to an adoptive mother to me here in Korea. The funny thing is that I always manage to find one, or they manage to find me, everywhere I go.

So she took me to Everland, Korea's Disneyland-esque locale, and I spent some tiem with her son, and have spent some time at her home. It makes me realize how much I wish I had a host family. If Beijing works out for me next year, I am very glad that I will have a Chinese roommate; I also hope we get along. My track record with roommates, though short, is not stellar. I also got to go to the concert of this Korean indie tock group that was the subject of another documentary. It was really great, because it took place at this underground club, where all the good music in Korea happens. Lord knows that what is on the radio is 20 years behind and not very insightful.

Another great thing about Candy is that she believes in all of my crazy aspirations like 10 times more than I do. Which brings me to the next wild development. Candy one day asks me if I wanted to meet a producer friend of hers, saying that there was a possibility I could meet some of my favorite directors before I went back to the states, guys I wrote papers about last year!! I said of course.

The day of the meeting, in what stated as a somewhat akward conversation, Cansy said she wanted to be my manager. She said we'd go 20/80 on everything. I naturally got giddy. I really don't know if anything will come of this, but I am open to anything, especially if it means making my experience here in Korea more interesting.

The producer who we met and I hit it off immediately; she is a wonderful lady and has the virtue of understanding my eccentric nature a little better than most. So this meeting led to a very intense week leading up to Thailand and gave me a taste of what it will be like through May.

On Thursday, I went to a Valentines day party at Korea's nicest hotel, ran into Bjork, whom I saw in concert later that week, and enjoyed a great performance by a former Broadway star turned Universal records signee, Sojeong Lee. She played Miss Saigon on Broadway for several years. I didn't bother Bjork, because she was with her family, and I know that she is not to keen on fans messing with her privacy;plus, I have aggravated a number of other celebrities in my day.

Later in the week, I had the privelege of having dinner with my new producer friend and Miss Saigon and got a lot of great advice. I am not doing the week justice, but it was definitely one of those defining weeks, especially the fact that it totally made me feel like I was supposed to be in Korea this year. My existence in Korea will continue this way through May, I presume, going from socialite party to socialite party and meeting important people ni Korea. Regardless of whether it leads anywhere, it is great experience. The day before Thailand, I went to an opening of some new offices of some bank, and a bunch of famous people, which I obviously don't are famous were around, and I got to meet many of them; I was more amused by the Picasso posters that lined the room. In other words, the last couple months of Korea are going to be a number of things, and boring is not one of them. And no worries, school is still, and always will be a priority.

I know it's jumbled, filled with gramatical and spelling mistakes, slightly stream-of-consciousness, etc. But if you did take the time to read it, I greatly appreciate it. Brief on Thailand coming up, and smoe impressions of Korean lifestly that I have been cooking up. Sawadee!

The Deserted City of Seoul

This is the first time I have opted to stay in Seoul during a break. As many of you may now, we are currently in the midst of the Chinese New Year. I am glad that none of my plans panned. Reason being, that experiencing the same city that is usually bustling be nothing more than a ghost town is something I definitely wanted to experiencing before this sojourn came to an end.

It has been hard at times, even, to find places to eat. Another predicament, although I view as a sweet turn of fate, is the fact that my cell phone has run out of credit, and it is even impossible to recharge cell phone minutes while Korea welcomes the year of the rat. It has been quite refreshing to be cut off, while at the same time feeling relatively alone in one of the cities with the densest populations. It has also shed some light, although very meager, to a project I hope to undertake this summer. Recently, I have been reading a lot of wilderness literature, everything from Gurdjief's final work to Thoreau's Walden to Into the Wild by Krakauer. All of these have sparked a keen interesting, in precisely that, the wild. I have been hiking on the weekends and doing calisthenics to get in shape for the wild. Korea has some wonderful mountains. I am also very excited for Thailand in a couple of weeks. There will be a lot of nature and climbing. The superficiality and hopeless consumer society of Korea is beginning to grow very very old for me. The mountains are sufficiently redeeming though.

Need to get to sleep, going to Everland tomorrow, Korea's largest amusement park. Time permitting, I will title my next entry: The four types of people at Sogang, should be pretty hilarious, until then.