"Distance is to love what wind is to fire -- it extinguishes the small and enkindles the great."

Almost 3 months left on this current contract. I can't wait for it to end. The job has steadily gotten more annoying and ridiculous. I'm currently looking forward to the 3 week to month long vacation I'll be taking at the end of this contract. My money has been saving up pretty nicely this whole year (though I could've saved more).

My girlfriend will be going on her own trip for 20 days in October, so I'll miss her (though 20 days is short), but I'm excited for her to be doing this as it's her first time going abroad.

It seems this year has been a year of change and really finding out who I am this year. I'm a radically different person than I was just at the beginning of this year, and many things have transpired. I look forward to what these next 3 months hold as I finish out this contract.

This blog has really fallen by the wayside....I suck for this. Sorry Auntie and grandma. I try to write more on real paper nowadays though.

Anyways, good weekend coming up hopefully. I've been struggling with insomnia lately so I hope I can finally get some rest tonight.

So it's been 7 months now. Time flies. Despite my many gripes about my job this year, time has really flown by.

And things with the job have not gotten worse to the point where I think I need to leave, but I was really considering it there for a minute. I figure I can definitely stick it out the last 5 months, and then look for something more up my alley....after a nice vacation ^^

So how has summer been? Well for starters, I'm no longer single^^ Things have been going well so far and I'll just leave it at that :)

I took a trip out to Gapyeong about 3 weeks ago with a language group I'm apart of. It was an awesome trip. Clean fresh air, swimming, drinking games haha, and cool people.

This week has been a nice break weather wise. Since Monday, it has been nothing but sunshine after nothing but rain for weeks. It's hot, but I don't care. I was tired of grey skies and forgetting what the sun looked like.

Vacation for me is in one week. I get one week of vacay and I'll be going to Sokcho with you know who. I've been wanting to go there for awhile, so it should be a nice trip.

Anyways, that's all for tonight. Just posting a brief update. I've pretty much given up trying to keep this thing updated lol. Be back soon!

So as we approach the summer season, thought I'd throw a few updates out here.

First things first, I'm a little concerned about my hagwon. Pay was late this month, and most teachers still haven't been paid. The school has been losing students and classes are combining. Aigoooo...

Next...I know I need to do some more traveling around this country. There are still some places I haven't seen.

On my list:

Jeju
Busan (again)
Seokcho
Daejeon
Jeonju
Daecheon
DMZ
Jinhae

I don't know if I can get all of those covered this summer, but it's worth a try.

Anyways I feel myself not writing as much simply because everything is not as new as it was my first time around. I'm used to everything, and my weekends are pretty much spent meeting with friends. Although I have made new friends the past few months, I seriously need to get out of Seoul for a weekend. Well actually I don't live in Seoul, but I go there every weekend.

And while I'm on that, it actually was refreshing to not go to Seoul for one day this past weekend. I ended up going to the beach with my new friend. As it turns out, the island where Incheon airport is located has a nice beach area along with tons of seafood restaurants. For the first time I had some 칼국수 with clams. It was delicious and it was a great way to finish off the day.

So I'm looking forward to more great days during the summer and chillin out with old and new friends along the way. Here are some pics of recent activities:

So I'm sitting here chillin in my apartment. I've got the old school music on with Law and Order in the background. Friday is here and I'm in the writing mood.

I'm almost at the halfway point of my second contract here in Korea. Things have been going pretty good and the time is flying as usual. I'm glad it's warming up, but I can already feel the humidity driven summers of Korea are right around the corner.

Work has been up and down. My schedule changes every month and I'm hoping one of these days I can finish consistently around 9pm. That would be EARLY for me. It really sucks having your whole day gone. Something to think about if I decide to stay another year (I think I will)

This past weekend, I enjoyed being the groomsmen at a friend's wedding in Daegu. It was a great wedding and although I'm gonna miss my friend (she's moving to NYC), you can't help but be happy on a day like that. Congrats again!

I've also gotta hit up Daegu again. It seemed like a nice city. Much cleaner than Seoul.

My goal for saving money for travel is going pretty well so far. I got a raise (not much) at my job because I basically have to come in earlier than everyone else for 4 out of 5 days of the week. It's helping a lot. I'm running TWO websites now. I still have my Detroit site which is coming along nicely and I also started a weather one last July.

This whole year has been a year of change and I plan to keep on growing. That's it for tonight. Peace.

Can't believe the 3 month mark is almost here already. I have no idea why time goes by so fast here.

Anyways, first....work. Things are still pretty good...in some ways. Our director recently changed our schedules this week having me basically come in and do straight classes from 3/4 to 10. Not gonna happen. I had to point out to him the EFL law that states that there must be a 30 minute break for every 4 hours of work. To his credit, he changed it and said "I value your opinion and you are apart of this family".

Whatever you say man as long as I get a break in there sometime.

I've also been slightly worried about the school's future as it has been losing students over the past few years. We will see what happens with that.

Birthday....was awesome. My friend's sister came to visit, and since her bday is the same as mine, we decided to do a joint party. Started off with some Thai food in Itaewon, and then headed to a club afterwards.

Now...I NEVER dance. I call myself a black man with no rhythm. But I was dancing like a madman. Yes some alcohol played a part in that.

The next day, some friends hosted us for dinner which was an awesome end to a great birthday weekend. I can't believe I'm 26 years old. I was thinking about how 10 years ago I was in high school and could've never predicted I would end up teaching in Korea.

March has started off pretty well and it's finally starting to stay above freezing for consecutive days at a time. Spring is near.

I've been slacking with the writing here. Will try to post more.

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope everyone enjoyed it.

I didn't do much on New Year's Eve. I got off work at 10, and didn't feel like traveling into Seoul, so I just stayed in Incheon and hit up the Bupyeong area for a little while.

On New Year's Day, I had planned to go hiking, but I must have been out of my mind thinking I was going to feel like getting up at 8 to go hiking in 10 degree weather.

Fail.

So since I had no other plans, I decided to see if a few friends wanted to meetup for dinner. We set it up and it was a great way to spend the 1st day of the new year. We headed to Hongdae and went to this Indian restaurant I found out about last year. Then we found some random sake place. But seriously, it was refreshing to talk with some other art savvy people. Probably the best convo I've had in awhile.

Sunday, I met up with a friend in Insadong to discuss a graphic deisgn project I'm gonna be working on for a play. Had some Korean food afterwards, then we found this chocolate place which charged us out the wazoo for a chocolate the size of a lego. It was good but cmon now.

It seems 2010 went by fast. A lot happened in my life during 2010. I grew a lot, and I expect the same to happen in 2011.

I'm ready to get the first week of the new year going.

Random:

I use to love these snacks called "Koala Yummies" when I was little. My dad would bring them for me every week from the import store.

When I came to Korea, I expected to find them since Lotte seemed to be pretty prominent here (Lotte is the company that makes them)

I didn't have any luck last year, but this year, I found them ^^.

I think part of the...well THE problem was that I looked in Homeplus last year instead of LOTTEMart...duh. They're actually Japanese instead of Korean too.



Alright then I've got work in a few so I'm out.