A Wedding and a Preview

School has slowed down a little, at least till finals, at the end of February. We also have a short break coming up next week for the lunar new year. We'll get about 5 days off.

I had a great weekend, and have been having very good weekends as of late. I think it's because I have finally become more accustomed to all of it, and most of it has become second nature, but fortunately, new experiences are not in short supply.

This weekend after my usual weekly dose of nightlife on Fridays, R&R on Saturdays, and church on Sundays, I decided to crash a wedding of one of the members of the church. Crashing makes it sound so uncouth. I just happened to go without being invited. I simply love weddings. I had also yet to have gone to a Korean wedding. This was an interesting wedding though. It was a Mexican-American G.I. getting married to a half Korean woman. The service was beautiful, with music, and dual narration, Korean and English, on behalf of the bilingual pastor. There were also two receptions. One Korea, and one more American/Slightly Latino in nature. It was a pretty typical wedding, but they get me every time.

Of more note, however, is where the second reception was held. Yongsan garrison, a massive U.S. military base in the middle of Seoul, you come in through the gates, and you fell like you are in small town America with everything to your local Baskin Robbins to American style parks. I had never been, but it surely exceeded any sort of expectations I had had. Getting in was a bit of a a problem though, for me at least. It is more than understandable, particularly after seeing a film like The Kingdom last year. It was a only a problem, though, because I had not RSVPed to the wedding, and therefore was not on the clearance list. I mean, how could I right, I wasn't even invited. I was trying to pull an Owen Wilson ala Wedding Crashers, but I'm sure they never tried to get in to a military wedding. Well, I lacked the appropriate identification, e.g. a passport, or alien registration card, so I simply went home and came back with my passport, and I even made it back in time for the slide show. Something that really boosted my confidence is the fact that on my way back to the base, I struck up a non-stop, fairly interesting conversation with the taxi driver, and when he asked how long I had been in Korea, he couldn't believe it; these little instances really are the extra little logs that keep the engine going sometimes. It is also quite interesting, but I have become a lot more confident in class this week, speaking my mind more openly, and to my pleasant surprise it is coming out very satisfactorily. Regardless of the frustration that plagues the learning a foreign language most of the time, one just needs to be receptive to the small hints that signal to progress, and thank goodness, lately they have been plentiful.

Another thing I really give thanks for right now is that I chose to do and academic year in Korea, for a reason that I stated as far back as my personal statement for the fellowship; that I wanted to experience all four seasons in Korea, and oh boy, do they have four seasons, almost as finely delineated as a picture book, split relatively evenly, except for an exceptionally short Fall. I say this, because, now that I am in to my third or second and a half season, depending on how you look at it, season, the experience has completely evolved, owed partially to my own personal growth, but also on the change in my environment, something that directly derives itself from the changing seasons. Trivially speaking, Winter will bring along some skiing for next week, the same way that fall brought me plenty of pleasurable hikes among the flaming foliage, and summer made me wish I had an air conditioner in my room. However, there are also countless subtler changes as well. All I really want to say with this longwinded paragraph is that I feel it is imperative to spend an entire year in any country anyone tries to understand at a deeper level.

Speaking of understanding at a deeper level, I have recently caught wind of an underground youth movement that is going on in Seoul's more bohemian areas, a movement called: Korealism. It is quite playful, but in my opinion, very relevant as to the current evolution of this country with a new generation coming up. I have read some of the literature, a weekly publication with poetry and prose, and spoken to some of the zealots, briefly though. I can't say much about it, yet, but it was very refreshing to find this sort of cultural and intellectual curiousness in a youth that is at best extremely confused, and at worst, completely oblivious and completely entangled in consumer society, driven completely but what they see on television. So I will continue to delve into this movement, this so called Korealism, when I get some more time, I may even upload some of the poetry. Some of it is written by expats, in English of course, and give a fair amount of decent insight of what Korea is actually like in a relatively terse fashion. Some of the works in the weekly really hit the nail on the head in my view. So hopefully more on Korealism later. One of the people they mention in their manifesto is Ko-leopatra, someone's alter-ego within the movement. Like I stated before, they are very playful, and have a great sense of humor about it, but I have been impressed by the quality of both the material in the publication and the overall ideas of what these revolutionary youngsters are talking about.

Lastly, after the long and arduous ordeal that was my documentary, it has finally come to completion and thus broadcast fruition. The premiere/preview event is this coming Friday, the 31st, the people form the network, crew, people, my friends will be there, and I am actually a bit nervous about it. The channel that ultimately bought it was Korea's Success Channel, a cable network dedicated to documentaries and anything and everything inspirational. They actually cut me out of the original documentary and gave me my own 30 minute spot on the channel, that is just how weird I am I guess. The documentary's name translated into English is: Designing Life, Adam Young, a bit corny, but it is Korea, after all. So that is all that is new in life. Coming up is, finals next month, a trip to Thailand, I cancelled Japan, I am seriously falling in love with South East Asia, any who, some possible shows coming up. I spent that past couple months writing more material, and by the end of this month I should have at least 10 viable originals. If you'd like to check them out, check on the "My Music" link, and it will take you to my myspace music page. Thanks for reading, and if you happen to listen to my tunes thanks for that as well.