Korea Eleison

Thanksgiving in Korea

2010-09-12T21:47:00.001-07:00

This is a dude whose thankfulness cannot be fully expressed. But let me show you something.

Last spring around Children's Day, I remember riding the bus back from the orphanage in Masan past the big Shinsegae Department Store. I saw the moms carrying, pushing and towing their kids in and out of the store's huge glass doors. The store is just a few blocks from AeYukWon, and I imagine the kids there see similar scenes just about every day. I wondered then how it felt to them, seeing something that to the rest of the world is mundane and expected -- shopping with Mom -- that they would never experience. To have that part of their lives missing. And I felt thankful for my family, who have given more than any family should have to, to put up with me.

Now it's September and the "Korean Thanksgiving Day" -- Chuseok -- is upon us. This is a time when Koreans all over the country travel to grandparents' houses and eat, play games and celebrate their family ties. For non-Christian Koreans, the holiday includes worship and incense at the burial sites of ancestors. But for everyone it's a time to be thankful for what they have because of those who have gone before. (It's also a time of MAMMOTH traffic jams, which makes me glad I'll be in the Philippines for this Chuseok.)

Some of the AeYukWon kids will visit family members they do have over Chuseok. But none of them will feel the full embrace of family the way I always did growing up. I can't replace that, but in the hope of making happy memories of their own, we're going to do something special this year.

Next Saturday, Sept. 25, we're having a barbecue picnic for the orphanage kids. It's the tail end of Chuseok holidays, when many of their friends will be traveling to or from grandma's house. So we're going to introduce them to a good old-fashioned North American barbecue: burgers, hot dogs, chips and cola, the whole thing. This should be really fun, because the kids love food, they love our visits, and they love doing new things. But it won't be cheap, which is why I'm bringing back the old "Donate" button up there. The AeYukWon doesn't have a grill, and while I'm hoping to borrow one or find one second-hand, there's still the matter of charcoal and all that meat. It's not that we can't do it without your help. But here's a chance for you to be part of making a holiday special for some really special kids. I know times are tough back in the U.S., but if you've got a spare five or ten bucks, I promise you that it will make a difference over here.

Thanks for everything, everybody. May God bless all your hearts and give you even more to be thankful for this year.

Epilogue

2010-07-28T05:20:00.000-07:00

HyeonHo and I got together last night and hooked up the computer. It seems to work pretty well. Now we gotta get these kids some good games and educational software. Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks for all your help, everybody. Here's where your donations went. Money well spent.

And now the fun part!

2010-07-17T06:12:00.001-07:00

Guess I'm a runner now.

The race is over; the rainy riverside course was gentle enough to let me set a new personal record with 28 minutes, 34 seconds. The other runners were amazingly friendly and helpful, and even spoke English fairly well. They helped me figure out where to turn around and run back -- running in the rain means running without my glasses, so I couldn't read any signs.

Technically I guess I won; there were only two runners in the 5k today so there are no official results. But I was the first one back and I got a medal, so that's more than good enough for me!

The next step is gathering up all the donations and ordering the computer for the kids. I'll be doing that on Monday, and I'll post the final total then. Thanks everyone for taking part in this and for supporting me. In particular, thanks to Susan for getting out of bed insanely early twice to go up there, encourage, motivate, and take photos. If you don't have a Susan in your life, see if you can get one, because then you will run faster, work harder, believe stronger, wake up earlier and just generally be more awesome.

This was fun, guys! Let's do this again sometime and see if we can brighten some more days!

The outlook is bright

2010-07-15T18:17:00.000-07:00

Sara just confirmed for me that I'm all signed up for tomorrow morning. I'm checking the location and time for the 50th time. The weather looks like it will clear up just in time. The race is on!

Seeeeeeeek

2010-07-12T00:43:00.000-07:00

Talking to a friend this afternoon, I got to thinking about the times that life takes you right up to and past what you're able to handle. One anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, calls this a "limit of endurance," and suggests that it's one form of limit that religion helps people transcend.

I think we all have limits to our endurance, or at least we think we do. But then God takes you by the hand and walks you right up to that point and says, "we're going over there." You would never go by choice, but then you have to. Suddenly you are beyond what you can bear. What's going to hold you together at that point?

We all turn to something. Friends, family, denial, daydreams, alcohol, whatever. People who have some connection to God want to turn to him, but where is he? That makes it worse, when you need him more than ever and you can't find him. "Why have you forsaken me?"

Maybe God isn't showing up easily because we need him to be hard to find. Rich Mullins has a song called "Hard to Get," about being in utter despair and not finding God right there waiting for you. When you're in anguish, you're fixated on that thing that is killing you -- whether you're dwelling on it to try to solve it or trying with all your might to avoid or forget it. And the human mind doesn't handle a vacuum well, so you dwell and dwell and obsess and fuss and worry and this thing sinks its claws into you and hauls you off a cliff.

I think the important thing in those moments is to keep looking. Jeremiah 29:13 says "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart." Seeking God is important even when things are horrible. And when things are amazing. All the mental energy that wells up inside you in moments of emotional pressure can have a productive outlet. Turn your attention from solving the problem to seeking the Provider. When the world tugs at your heart and wants you to worry, orient that hunger toward God himself. Seek him with all your heart and watch him show up.

I think he will keep just the right distance to make you seek him enough to find him right when you REALLY need him. And at that point finding him means so much more than it would have at the moment of crisis. This goes for delirium as well as despair. Don't focus on what's got you transfixed in this world. Seek him and find him. Then watch what he's got in mind for you on the other side of the trial.

Without a doubt

2010-07-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

[I'm doing back-to-back posts today because this part has nothing to do with running.]

I'm learning a lot lately about patience, or more accurately about how I don't have any to speak of. Do you ever look at your life and say "Wow, God is doing something amazing here," and then you get so excited that you find you can't stand waiting to see what it's gonna be like? This is where I'm at right now.

And I've been here before. Back in January I was stuck in the hospital, waiting day after day for Gleevec to kick in and my white blood cell counts to go down. I was losing my mind. I wanted to get out of there and back to my job. I missed my kids. I missed the Sunday school. I missed feeling like a productive member of society. I missed my freedom and my privacy. And I was scared -- what if the medicine didn't work? What if my Philadelphia chromosome didn't respond? What if I never got back to work, never got my life back?

I think God was using that time to, among other things, wring that doubt out of me. I had to get past thinking "what if." I had to let go of being scared to be wrong. I had to stop being prepared for the worst and just trust God to do his thing. Aaron Shust showed up on my iPhone today and reminded me, "I am not skilled to understand / What God has willed, what God has planned / I only know at his right hand / Stands one who is my Savior." I had to stop preparing myself for the worst, stop trying to understand everything, and just see the face of someone who loves me more than himself, and know that person is standing before the God of the universe and pointing at me and taking care of things. The part of me that was simulating utter disappointment -- taking myself through the steps to be prepared to hear bad news -- that part had to die.

Not because things always work out the way we want. There are more than enough stories of good people suffering bad outcomes for me to know that endings aren't always ostensibly happy, even when you do trust God. But the response to that isn't to expect or prepare for the worst. It's just to trust and concentrate on that. If those horrible things you're worrying about come to pass, it's then that God steps in to take care of it. It's not for me to make backup plans for God. He has planned it, and he's all over it.

So one of the products of those 19 days in the hospital was that I kind of lost my ability to doubt reflexively. That's not to say I don't ever doubt; it's just that my cynical, knee-jerk "well this probably won't work out so get ready for it to fail" reflex was broken. Praise God for that -- there is so much more peace in my life now than there ever was before.

But lately I'm learning how much easier life is with doubt. My buddy Paul back home, who always fills me up with wisdom and good things, wrote a long time ago about how having faith is actually a harder, more vulnerable way to go through life. Some people say faith is a crutch that lets weak-minded people more comfortably tolerate a cruel, capricious universe. I'm telling you it's not so. Doubt is the crutch. Doubt is a cushion.

When you see God working, your heart soars. You dream dreams about how this is going to play out, how the world will change. You careen through delirious joy at God's grace and faithfulness and sheer cleverness in working things out. Doubt keeps you anchored in these times. It tempers that joy and puts a ceiling on your praise. You're thinking, "well, this may not happen, but wow if it does~!" And that's so much safer, because deep down you know if you're wrong, some part of you saw it coming all along. You feel like you'll be more ready for that time.

Without doubt, without cynicism you are totally exposed. The mystified sensation that comes from witnessing the utterly unbelievable is looking for a channel, and can't find one. It's kind of like watching a magic show, I guess -- it's fun and interesting and cool as long as some part of the back of your mind knows that what you're seeing is just a really clever trick. But if you lose that sense, if all of a sudden you're fully committed to the realization that you're watching real magic, it changes everything you thought you knew about the world. Without doubt, it's like that. You can't go back to your base assumption that there's a logical, acceptable, not-nearly-so-exciting explanation for all this.

This leads to a peace, most of the time, that can only be described as "extravagantly intense." Why, then, do people doubt? Wouldn't we have learned by now it's more peaceful and easier to just believe? Why is it so hard? I think that's because doubt gives you the ability to protect yourself. It's your one foot in the boat "just in case" while you're trying to learn to walk on water. It keeps you safe and keeps intact your "illusion of control" (as Nancy says). Life without doubt -- life lived by abject faith -- is actually a lot riskier and takes more effort.

A little more waiting

2010-07-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

The race didn't work out.

I had the car rented, the gear packed, the training done; what I didn't do was confirm one more time exactly where the run was to take place. I was just sure that I was going to Daegu World Cup Stadium. And the navigation system I rented along with the car got me there, albeit along a circuitous route that nearly made me late. But when we got there, we couldn't find the starting line. Why? Well, it turns out that I had mistakenly signed up for a race in Seoul instead. Oops.

We had a great day in Daegu notwithstanding; the National Museum is well worth seeing even with the main exhibition halls closed for construction and the Daegu Arboretum is beautiful. Plus, it just turned into a fantastic day with the best of company. After touring Daegu for a bit, we went back to Masan and had a pizza party with the Aeyukwon kids, then barbecued in the park with more friends. By the end of the night, I had almost forgotten the epic failure that started the day. It was just that good.

I've made a new plan, too. There's another race, this one actually in Daegu, in two weeks. I signed up for it online, but the site's application system for foreigners is not working all that well, so I'm not sure whether I'm actually in or not. Assuming it worked, I'll be running on July 17th -- two days after my 33rd birthday. I'll post here as soon as it's officially set.

Ready to go

2010-07-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

In 18 hours, I'll be running my first 5k. I never thought I would run on purpose. But Couch to 5k has gotten me there, and the thought of all those smiling AeYukWon kids makes this prospect more exciting with each passing moment.

Now I can only pray that everyone can see what God has done through all this. He has brought me into that hospital and out of it. He has held onto me through the deepest despair and breathed life into cherished dreams. And when I cross the finish line tomorrow morning, it's gonna be with Jesus holding onto me.

Along with that, I want to tell everyone how thankful I am for all your support, encouragement and donations. I'll post a final total this weekend, but I'm pretty sure we are over 1,000,000 won -- 133% of my goal. So many people have given so much to make this happen. I hope you all know that you have saved the day for some amazing kids. Their lives will be changed because of you. No matter what happens, I hope you can always come back to that memory. I promise that they will never forget what God has done through you!

I was just about giddy as I walked over to get my rental car that will take Susan and me to Daegu for the race in the morning. (It's even got a plug-in thingy for my iPhone, so I can text and call everybody after the race and still have juice for the trip home.) I stumbled through the necessary conversations with my apartment office and the parking attendant to get a stamp that will allow me to park the car there overnight without paying 20,000 won in fees. I've washed my running clothes. I've run my final training run (29:50). This is finally going to happen.

The race starts at 8 a.m., and there aren't any buses to get me there early enough, so I'm driving the rental car. We're leaving Changwon at 5:15 to arrive at the race area around 7. That should give me time to get acclimated (or get lost) before running at 8. I'm planning to run Cyclemaster on my iPhone, which will show my progress on Google Maps, even though I'm actually not riding a bike; if you guys get really bored you can check in there through the link on Facebook.

That's it for now. The next time you hear from me will be from the other side of the finish line.

Way to GO, Planet Earth!

2010-06-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

WE MADE IT!

When I set out to do this thing, I set a goal of 750,000 won. Check it out -- we're well past that and still going! Friends in Korea have given me 390,000 won in cash, and Americans have chipped in $365 through Paypal and direct cash donations. That adds up to 818,000 -- before even counting what's in the KEB account! You guys are all amazing.

So here's my plan. After setting aside the funds for a really fun computer, whatever's left from this funding drive will buy the kids a new set of English textbooks. Last time around, this cost about 140,000 won. If there's anything left after that, it'll pay for a pizza party at the AeYukWon after the race on Saturday. That's to celebrate the kids finishing their last set of books. They work so hard and are always so proud to show off their filled-in workbook pages.

Of course all bets are off if we actually raise enough money to buy two computers... What say you, everybody? Five days left! God can do anything, right?

Over the hump

2010-06-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

Here's an update: Donations in the PayPal account plus local donations total 425,000 won as of tonight. That's more than halfway to my goal of 750,000! Keep it up you guys! And thank you!!

<3 As One!

2010-06-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with As One on the K-Popular show on TBS Radio. You ladies are awesome! Ever since I started listening on Wednesday, you always pick up my day. You remind me of all the things I love about Korea: the joy, the friendship, the innocence and honesty. Korean people are beautiful inside and out, and this country is so much fun! I'm hooked now.

I keep getting messages from K-Popular listeners, and you all are so encouraging. I love hearing from you. I think that if you believe, and if you look for them, God gives us all chances to save somebody's day. So here's one way to do that! If you want to help the orphanage kids, you can send money to my account at KEB (외환은행) 620-184095-562. If you're not in Korea, you can use the PayPal link. If you want to e-mail me, just click here or leave a comment below.

Thanks so much for everything, everybody!

Taking it to the airwaves

2010-06-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

And so it was that I got offered a chance to talk about the AeYukWon on the radio!

Thanks to my good friend and Korean teacher, Sara, I'm going to be on TBS' "K-Popular" program on Friday afternoon at 12:30. Sara called them today to tell them about the race in a couple of weeks and to send me a message. I listened in and found that it's a pretty awesome program. This may be mostly because I have a soft spot for K-pop music, but the hosts are funny and energetic and their exchanges with listeners are fun.

Anyway, the program called me shortly after her call, and they set up a time to interview me Friday. We're going to talk about the AeYukWon and the race in a couple of weeks. The hosts, As One, seem really friendly and cool: They told Sara they would like to come visit the orphanage with me sometime if it weren't so far away! They're in Seoul and the AeYukWon is in Masan, and it's harder to get much further apart in this country. Anyway, I'm really excited to get a chance to talk about the campaign on a nationwide stage. Already people in Korea that I've never met are sending donations -- go Korea!!

So if you're in Korea, listen in at 101.3 FM in Seoul, 90.5 in Busan and Gyeongnam, and 98.7 in Kwangju around 12:30 p.m. Friday. If you're not in Korea, go to this link to listen live. (I can only get it to work in Internet Explorer; your results may vary.) I'm expecting this to be a really short spot, so don't forget to tune in!

And if you haven't already, send a couple bucks for the kids! If you're in Korea and don't want to deal with Paypal (and I don't blame you), just send funds to 외환은행 (Korean Exchange Bank) 620-184095-562 and e-mail me. Thanks, everyone!

Playlist

2010-06-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Today was the day I broke 30 minutes in my 5k training. I hit 5,000 meters with 5 seconds left in my workout program. That felt REALLY good -- I feel confident now that I can finish the race in a couple of weeks without leaving the staff sitting at the table waiting on me!

(Not that that would've happened anyway -- there will be people running 10k at the same time, and I'm pretty sure I can finish my 5k before they do their 10. But you get the idea. I wanted to feel like I would finish in some reasonable amount of time.)

Anyway, it was a good feeling, enhanced by the merciful weather (cloud cover and 22 degrees at 11 a.m.). But I gave myself a little problem -- my 5k playlist, currently on "shuffle" mode, just about did me in. It started me off with an old Petra song, "All Fired Up," followed by Big Bang's "승리의 함성 (The Shouts of Reds Pt. 2)," a rocking anthem for Korea's World Cup team. You try listening to those two songs back-to-back and not jumping up and down and singing along. I got through those first six minutes with plenty of adrenalin but not nearly enough oxygen -- that is no way to start out a 5k pace if you're still a running newbie like me. I gotta move those songs to the end of my playlist!

Which raises the question: What songs should I be listening to as I train and when I run this thing? I am terrible at finding good music. Katie, you are responsible for just about all of my musical horizon expansion in my adult life. Help me out here! Everybody else -- give me some ideas!

Here's what's on the list so far:

Definitely IN:

1. Big Bang - "승리의 함성" (but only at the END!)

2. Steven Curtis Chapman - "When Love Takes You In" (to remind me of why I'm doing this)

3. Something from FLOKS -- Yannis' Greek Christian rock band. But I haven't decided which song yet. Who else can say they listen to English, Greek and Korean when they run? ;)

Probably IN:

1. Loveholics - "Butterfly" (국가대표 OST)

2. Petra - "All Fired Up"

3. PFR - "Home Again"

4. "Your Grace Is Enough"

5. Geoff Moore & The Distance - "More Than Gold"

Other possibilities:

Survivor "Burning Heart"

David Bowie "Heroes"

Jonathan Coulton "I Feel Fantastic"

Yoko Kanno "Sure Promise" (Big-O OST)

Gackt "To Feel the Fire"

Petra "All Fired Up" or "Powerhouse"

Flatfoot 56 "Loaded Gun"

The Decemberists "Summersong"

Blur "Song 2"

Cherry Filter "낭만고양이"

거북이 "싱랄라"

Pipettes "Pull Shapes"

Hold Steady "Slapped Actress"

Yellowcard "Believe"

Wayne Watson "A Place For You"

Newsboys "Something Beautiful" or "I Am Free"

Ray Boltz - "I Will Tell the World"

Shinkichi Mitsumune - "Runners High"

Shaun Groves' cover of Michael W. Smith's "Rocketown"

The Pillows - "Hybrid Rainbow" or "Little Busters"

I need something new, exciting, uplifting, fun and engaging. Suggestions, people!

Bringing back the blog

2010-06-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time since I've had anything to say. But I guess it's time to do this again. So much has changed in my life since December of 2008; I'm not even going to go into detail, because if you're on this blog, you already know all about it. In a nutshell, since then I have extended my Korean teaching contract twice; visited America on a whirlwind Christmas tour; gone skiing; bought a bicycle (well, actually three of them) and started a foreigner biker gang; helped start an English Sunday school program; and come down with leukemia. It's been interesting over here.

And I let this go by the wayside because whenever there's something worth writing about, I'm too busy to write it; and whenever I have time to write, there's nothing to say. I'll do my best to change that now, because a blog can be a part of ministry, and maybe what's going on in my head can help somebody down the line.

More importantly!
...and more immediately: I'm bringing back the blog because I've finished the Couch to 5K program and it's time to do the 5K part of it. I'm officially registered for the "Park Love Marathon" ("Marathon" is the word Koreans use for every kind of running race) in Daegu on July 3. Why is this worthy of a blog entry, you ask? Because I want your money.

This race is NOT a charity race. (Those are hard to come by over here.) But for me, it is. I am not the most self-motivated of individuals, so just running for the sake of running does not do it for me. However, if I'm training for this race -- and running it -- for something bigger than me, then it's fun and interesting. So I'm running for the Masan Aeyukwon, the orphanage I volunteer at on Saturdays. I dunno how much I can squeeze out of my recession-ridden friends and family back home, but I'm going to do my very best.

So there it is, over there on the right. The Paypal link. Sponsor me, would you? I'm not asking for any great chunk of change here. I'm hoping out of my 400 plus FB friends, I can get 50 people to give me 15 bucks or so and buy the orphanage a computer. Or send me a dollar, or 44 cents, or whatever you've got. That would sure make these sweaty mornings of training worthwhile!

You guys who have known me for a while know that the idea of me running five kilometers is pretty hilarious on its own. So here's your chance to celebrate vicariously with me. Thanks for any help you can give. I'm sorry I'm not a 501(c)3 or anything, so I won't send you a tax deduction receipt. But I will send you outstanding photos when it's all said and done. And you can have the satisfaction of knowing you made me run. Not just anybody can say that.

Christmas in Korea is pretty amazing

2008-12-25T18:37:00.001-08:00

OK, so I'm kind of over this whole blogging thing, but I just had to share the story of my Korean Christmas. It all begins on a chilly Dec. 24.

I got up at 9 a.m. and put on the Santa Claus suit I bought at Alpha for 30,000 won. I wore it to Kids Club, which is an English school in Sangnamdong where some of my friends work. They had asked me to come be their Santa on Christmas Eve. From 10:30 to 11:30, I was dashing from kindergarten class to kindergarten class handing out presents. The kids were in shock -- they don't see many foreigners, and their teachers are all significantly smaller people than myself. Plus, the whole Santa thing. Some of them asked me questions, like "Where are your reindeer?" When I told them they were on the roof, they begged their teacher to let them go see.

After Kids Club, I ate some lunch and bought a Christmas cake to take to work. The next stop was my school, where I wore the suit and helped the kids make Christmas cards for their families. My kids are older and know me well, so they didn't fall for the whole Santa thing, but they still thought it was pretty hilarious to have Santa Claus for a teacher for a day.

My missionary friend Arianne picked me up after work and drove me to the orphanage in Masan. We brought the kids ice cream and sang songs, then ate some cakes that they had been given. I had wrestled for a while with the whole idea of giving them ice cream: Should I really be giving these kids so much sugar right before bedtime? But the cakes they had easily outsugared my gifts. Guilt assuaged. I have to imagine, though, that some serious visions of sugarplums were dancing in some heads that night.

From Masan, Arianne brought me back downtown and I went to Mujur, the club in the basement of Hotel International. The best live band in Changwon plays there -- a group called RED from the Philippines. They had asked me a week or so ago to come and be their Santa. They handed me a big red bag full of toys and treats to hand out to the crowd. A group of my friends met me there, and outside of our table, there wasn't another Westerner to be found. But the place was PACKED with Koreans and they ate up the Santa routine. I seriously think I had my photo taken 30 times that night. I did the gift-giving, and shook hands and said "Merry Christmas" to everyone, and got up to dance when the band played Christmas music. It would have been quite embarrassing and scary if I hadn't been hiding behind the beard. That makes everything easier.

My cluster of foreigner friends had trickled away by about 1 a.m., and I was sitting by myself. But, as I told them when they left, "Santa Claus is never alone," and before long I was sitting at a table with a bunch of amazing guys from the Philippines. They were traveling in Korea and had been a little sad at the prospect of spending Christmas away from their families. But William, Edwin, Ed and Cesar and I spent the rest of the night dancing, singing and talking about life in the Philippines and the U.S. I was very lucky to have met them, and they kept calling it "the best Christmas ever."

I got home at 3 a.m. and crashed. The alarm went off at 7 and I dressed again -- no Santa suit this time -- for breakfast at my friend Carrie's apartment. Many of my closest friends were there, except Gretchen, who was too sick to get out of bed. Poor Gretchen was battling some horrific stomach thing that had made her "more sick than I've ever been" for the past 3 days. The rest of us had fun though, sitting around, talking, eating French toast and exchanging presents. Carrie gave us each a cute coffee mug to use for drinking coffee while we ate. It was pretty awesome.

After that, I zipped home, changed into some nice clothes and went to the church. Arianne had asked for my help with the Christmas service, and it was a wonderful service. Not polished and perfect like back home, of course; this was definitely a Christmas service of the people. We didn't really know what we were doing, and microphones wouldn't work and music stands tipped over and babies and little kids crawled and squealed across the stage randomly. But it was a beautiful service, with some of the Korean families in the church getting up to sing songs together. All of us foreigners got up and sang "The 12 Days of Christmas" for the Koreans at the end. It was sweet.

My friends Dani and Regina gave me a 3D puzzle of my favorite TV show, "Pucca," and when I got it out after the service all the kids in the church crowded in to help put it together. Before long, I had completely lost control of my puzzle and I was just watching them do it. Some of those kids have amazing English, and some have none at all, but they are all adorable. We finished the puzzle and ate some homemade Korean food for lunch, and then most folks broke off to go to a party at the home of a couple I know in the church.

I was a little drained, so I went home for an hour or so. After some text-message urging, I decided to head over to Nancy and Henry's. They had homemade pumpkin pie and whipped cream; they were watching Christmas movies. It was heavenly. Gretchen texted me to say she felt much better, so I met her at a department store nearby and brought her to the party as well. A handful of us went out to dinner, and then I put the Santa getup back on and took my laptop back to Nancy and Henry's so we could watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on it. There wasn't much of a crowd left there, but we had a blast watching a holiday classic and Nancy and Henry got a kick out of my outfit.

After that, it was back to Mujur, which was very sedate. My friend Erica met me there along with her friend Doug, and we watched the band play for 3 hours with energy and joy even though there were only about 10 people in the bar watching. I love those guys.

About 2:30 it was time to go home again, and I called Mom and Dad to wish them Merry Christmas before going to bed. This morning -- Christmas night in America -- I called the rest of my family. Now here I sit among the detritus of wrapping paper, discarded Santa clothes and unplugged Christmas lights, thinking, Christmas really must be all in the heart. Otherwise how would it be so easy to carry with you anywhere you go?

One more thought about politics before I go back to happy things

2008-11-05T00:18:00.000-08:00

My good friend Matt, a diehard Broncos fan, used to root for Denver to lose every game a couple seasons ago. Why? Back then, Jake Plummer was the Broncos' quarterback, and Matt knew that as long as Plummer was running the offense, his team was doomed to good-but-not-great-itude. He also knew that coach Mike Shanahan would never realize this unless the team totally tanked. In the end, he got his wish; the Broncos got really bad and Plummer was traded. (They haven't gotten much better since then, but I guess the future is bright or something.)

This is exactly how I feel about the Republicans this year. I admit it -- I wanted Obama to win in a landslide. Not because I like the guy -- I distrust and disagree with him on a lot of topics, most notably gay marriage and abortion -- but because the GOP needed to be sent a message.

These jokers have co-opted Christians all over the country, and now it's almost like Rush Limbaugh was made an apostle. If you go to church, you vote Republican. And what did the church get out of this exchange of trust? Did the party back true Christian values against all odds? Uh, no. We got a decade of compromise, power-grabbing and pork-barrel spending. That's because the Republicans know they can appeal to the evangelicals as their "base" even though they have failed to represent us. They've failed to represent anything, really. Except themselves.

And now that failure has come home to roost. All that back-patting and home-state lily-gilding brought us a disgusting national debt. Genuflecting at the altar of Wall Street brought us a colossal credit disaster that exacerbated a cyclical recession. If the party had actually delivered on the hopes invested by Christians everywhere, the worst that could happen is they'd lose the next election, but they'd sleep at night knowing they fought for what's right. Instead, they're booted out of power and they know it's their own fault.

Maybe now the folks who run that party will get the train back on the tracks. Remember what you stood for. Remember what it was like to stand for something. And then deliver on it, even if CNN and Stephen Colbert make fun of you for it.

If not, maybe a new entity will emerge that Christians can get behind, to which we can give the support and trust of which the GOP proved unworthy.

In the meantime, we've got four years of Democratic rule. That thought doesn't excite me, but it won't keep Jesus from reaching anybody's heart. That can only happen if we choose to be bitter and depressed and discouraged. Look up, open your eyes and fight on.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

2008-11-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

I'm at work now, waiting for my first class of the day, and entertaining the occasional student who drops by to talk, so this post will be brief. But important. Important to me, anyway, because I've gotta get this off my chest.

America. You're bringing me down. I've been lucky enough to have some good friends, people working hard on both sides of this election, and people who firmly believe in candidates from each party. Great. Good. But the way you guys talk about this election makes me seriously ill. Ill enough to where I chose not to vote this time. That's right. I sat this one out.

To my conservative, Christian, Republican-voting friends: Did you seriously think John McCain was gonna accomplish anything for Christ in the next four years? What did George W. Bush get you? Are we any closer to being a Godly nation than we were when Bill Clinton was in office? I like tax breaks as much as the next guy, but God isn't calling our nation to a trickle-down economic model. He's calling us to our knees, and piling up a golly-gojillion dollars in debt is not the way there.

To the blue staters: You guys holler about the McCain campaign being too negative -- and it was -- but be aware of your own words, especially in victory. I read one message from my close Facebook friend that said "I'm so tired of the Republicans calling people dumb. They had their eight crappy years." Do you not see the hypocrisy in that comment?

The deal is, like it or not, this election was between two people who truly wanted what they believed was best for their country. You can disagree, you can say their ideas would have bad results, but what's with all the slinging words like "stupid" and "evil" and "hate" around? Let's save those for when they're truly deserved, like describing the KSU athletic department.

God's in control here, guys, and nothing ever takes Him by surprise.

Happiness is:

2008-10-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

No time to write a real post -- I'm off to church. But you guys have got to see this picture:

These are a few of the kids at Ae Ook Won, the orphanage I volunteer at in Masan. After the lessons they always draw and write on the whiteboard. Yesterday they drew me in my usual "Funny 10" shirt. (And cargo shorts, even though it was chilly yesterday and I wore jeans.)

Now if this doesn't make you want to come over here, then I just can't help you.

It's just too bad that ol' No. 10 officially lost its magic, as the Jayhawks got stomped by Texas Tech. Normally I'd be a little sullen over losing 63-21 at home. But this is a glow that doesn't fade!

Passion Seoul

2008-10-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm writing you from the free Internet room at a fantastic little hostel here in Seoul. The keyboard setting is goofy, so this will be short. Today, I went to Passion Seoul.

Maybe you've heard of the Passion World Tour. (I hadn't. But I'm a million miles from the loop.) It's put together by Louie Giglio, who I actually had heard of, thanks to the Sunday evening Bible study led by the worship leader at my church in Colorado Springs.

Anyway, the experience was beautiful for three main reasons.

1. Seoul. It's my first trip to the big city, and the town is amazing. The conference itself was held at the Olympic Park, which is a memorable sight. I was standing there on the plaza eating lunch with all the other conference-goers, and looking around I could see all the venues that were built for the 1988 Olympics. It occurred to me that this was my first trip to an Olympic city. And it was so cool just to imagine what it was like to be there 20 years ago, among all those people from all over the world, celebrating peaceful competition.

2. Music. The conference featured Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and the David Crowder*Band. All talented musicians whose songs I've sung before in church. There were a ton of foreigners at the conference, but the majority of the people there were Koreans, a good chunk of them university students. And to be among such a diverse group singing praise songs to God is a powerful thing. There were two points that the leaders actually sang the songs in Korean, so I got to hear thousands of people singing "How Great Thou Art" and "How Great Is Our God" in Korean. I love that feeling -- hearing the melody of a familiar praise song with words from another language, sung so heartfelt and beautifully by people for whom these words are native.

3. God. (Saving the best for last.) I went into the weekend praying, and asking others to pray, that God would give me some guidance and direction about the next step in my life. I love it here in Korea, and I love teaching, and I really have no idea what I'm going to do when my time here is up. I've got dreams, and I'm just not sure which one to follow, and I really prayed that God would show me which was from Him.

Guess what? He didn't. But He gave me something better instead. In the morning session, pastor Francis Chan spoke about grace and how difficult and important it is to see it for what it is -- a free gift from God that I can do nothing to earn. At the close of his message, he challenged all of us to "do nothing" -- to experience and accept the free gift of grace without acting on it, without trying to weave a proper prayer or make promises to God, but just to be silent and accept it. He talked about the prodigal son and how he had intended to become a slave to his father just to gain his acceptance, but the father welcomed him home as a son. God gave me this sense of Him walking up behind me and just wrapping his arms around me. It broke through my defenses and I was blown away. And the more overwhelmed I was by this image of grace, the tighter I felt Him holding on.

Then, in the evening session, the final part of the day, Louie Giglio talked about asking God to "use my life to make the name of Jesus famous on this earth." The image of that father, blanketing the son with unearned and limitless love, came back to me. I want others to come to experience that, and I want God to use me to bring that about. And I don't really worry now about exactly how, where or when He does that. He'll get me to where I'm supposed to be to make that happen. For now, I need to keep that thought in mind -- God, use me to make the name of Jesus famous in this generation.

OK, I'll post again.

2008-10-04T02:21:00.001-07:00

This is too cool not to tell anyone, and I'm not real sure anybody over here can completely understand it. So, here ya go, world.

I wanna tell you about what an amazing God I know. I went to the orphanage in Masan today, like every Saturday, and I brought some materials to make crafts. I wanted the kids to make nametags so I could start learning their names.

I also decided I could teach them "Jesus Loves Me," the Sunday school song, and try to kind of make the connection between the "me" in the song and the name on their nametags. I looked up the song on Google to get the Korean version, so maybe I could teach them that as well. I figured maybe then they'd have a song they understood in their native language as well as in English. But then I realized that I don't have a printer, and I didn't have time to copy down the words by hand, so I figured I'd save it for another day.

These kids rock, as I've said before, and after we reviewed some of our lessons from before (numbers, relatives, colors) I introduced the song. First, I had them read the words off the board. Then, I tried teaching them the tune --

They heard me singing the chorus, "Yes, Jesus loves me," and recognized the tune immediately. Right away, in unison, this whole room of Korean kids starts singing the Korean language version of "Jesus Loves Me." At the top of their lungs. All ages -- tiny 3-year-olds and preteens, screaming these lyrics:

예수 사랑하심은 거룩하신 말일세
우리들은 약하나 예수 권세 많도다
날 사랑하심 날 사랑하심
날 사랑하심 성경에 써있네

Yesu saranghashimun
Garuk hashik marilse
Woolideuleun yakhana
Yesu kwanse mandoda

Nal saranghashim
Nal saranghashim
Nal saranghashim
Seonkyun-e seo-it ne

My romanization is terrible, but at least you can get an idea of what it sounded like. The chorus literally says, "He loves me, He loves me, He loves me, it's in the Bible, yes."

Here's group of kids on the other side of the world. They're far from their families -- the ones that have families at all. They don't have TV or video games or expensive schools and tutors to teach them. But they know Jesus loves them, and they know it sure enough to yell it for the whole world to hear.

Think about that, and how big and awesome and loving God is. Then remember that Jesus loves you, too.

Horsey Ride, and other stories

2008-09-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

There are some amazing people in Korea.

Today at church, I met two more of them -- teachers from South Africa, Dani and Regina. Gretchen and I spent the whole day hanging out with them. We went to lunch at Jino, then goofed around in one of Changwon's numerous gorgeous parks. I ran through the fountain. The girls rode toy horses. Afterward, we sat and chatted about faith and education and everything else that matters to us. Then we went to the mall and ate Korean food.

Here is the horsey ride part of the story. Why am I not in it? I'm holding the camera. And learning how to work Windows Movie Maker. Duh. That is, however, my finger at about the 19-second mark.

In which my friends discover I may not be as cool as they thought

2008-09-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

Korea and Colorado have way too much in common.

Today started as intended. I met SunA for lunch; we had pork rib roast that reminded me of Sunday dinners back home when I was in junior high. (This was Korean style, though; Mom never made it this spicy. Or with jop chae noodles in it.)

Anyway, after lunch we went to the community center to do some volunteering. I've been to this center with SunA once before. The kids love me there -- they don't get to go to private schools to work on their English, so it's rare for them to come in contact with a native speaker. SunA says she asked them who they liked better, her or me, and they picked me unanimously. I think she's full of it. She usually is.

Volunteering was wonderful. The kids were scheduled to learn their numbers from 40 to 50, so we spent a whole hour playing games with numbers. I made most of them up on the spot, since SunA waited until we walked into the classroom to tell me what the day's lesson was supposed to be about. Thank goodness for Sunday school, teaching me how to think on my feet where kids are concerned.

After visiting the community center, I was scheduled to visit the Ae Ook Won orphanage in Masan. SunA took me to a bus stop where I got on an express bus to Masan. The express buses cost more than regular buses, but they make fewer stops so you can cover a great distance faster. Since Masan is quite a ways from downtown Changwon, the express was the best choice. Only problem was, I wasn't sure exactly where the express bus would go, or where I should get off, or whether I'd find the orphanage again from the bus stop after only having been there once.

Somehow, it all worked out. I found the orphanage easily, and walked up to the office right at 4 p.m. The kids were jazzed to see me and even remembered my name. We talked about the Ugly Duckling story, sang "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," and worked on numbers from 1 to 39. At the start of class, almost all of the kids were too shy to count to 10 in front of everyone. But at the end, there were so many volunteers that we ran out of time. I was proud of them. And, just like before, it took a little extra time getting out of there while I talked to some of the kids and passed out hugs and high-fives. (That's the nice thing about working at the orphanage. Kids are allowed to hug you. Once, at my real job, a little girl waited until she was sure no one was looking -- in a room where I had just turned off the light to leave -- to give me a hug. Aw, the shyness.)

After the orphanage, I met up with Gretchen and Michael at City7 Mall. This mall is amazing; you should go there if you're ever in Changwon. The design is unlike anything I've seen before. I'm not even sure whether to describe it as an indoor or outdoor mall. Check the link.

We had supper and smoothies at the mall and wandered around for a bit, but my ankle, still sore from Busan adventures, started acting up so I went home. I limped into my apartment, downed an ibuprofen and settled in for the night, even dozing off for a bit before John called.

John is one of my closest Korean friends; he works for the recruiting company that brought me here. I help him out with his English a few days a week. He's a great friend. Tonight he called and asked me to come out to meet his friends, so I figured, sure, why not?

OK, Hank? Summer? Katie? You guys could learn a LOT about partying from John's friends. These people are crazy-mad. We spent some time at International Pub hanging out and talking, and John's buddies were just enthralled to meet a foreigner. (They're cool guys, too.) They kept asking me why I didn't have a girlfriend, and did I want one? Every female who walked into the bar, they asked me to "pick up." Uh, no chance, guys.

Then they asked if I like to dance. "Are you crazy?" I said. They laughed, John paid and we left. I followed them to ... well... a nightclub. (This is the part where Kristin needs CPR from laughing too hard. Whatever.)

So we went to the Newcastle Night Club. Now "nightclub" in Korea means something slightly different from "nightclub" in the US. For one thing, in Korean nightclubs, they have "booking." No, not scrapbooking. We'll get to that later.

Also, I don't have a lot of experience in American nightclubs, but I have to figure they're nowhere near as ornate as this one. This nightclub looked like something out of Miami Vice. Almost completely dark save for brightly-colored neon on the walls. A massive stage with about 250,000 moving parts, including a smaller stage that lowers from the ceiling. Miles of tables full of people. And a dance floor. (They don't allow cameras. Here's the best I could come up with from my phone. Sorry.)

Now my buddy Greg has tried to go to a nightclub before. But they wouldn't let him in. No foreigners on the weekends. But apparently John has enough pull with this joint that they let me in anyway. Seriously -- only white dude there.

Guys, I totally danced. This is where "dance like nobody's watching" totally kicked in. It's too dark in here for anyone to see me. And to be honest, John's friends weren't particularly awesome dancers either. (I could probably kick their tail in DDR with a healthy ankle.) So we made our little dude-circle and danced all awkwardly. I had a ball. It was a pretty good workout, and while somewhat painful on my bum ankle, I think it might have actually stretched out the muscle and made it better.

Then came the "booking." This is a deal where you pay your waiter to bring a woman to your table and introduce her to you. No, not like THAT. These girls are all customers as well. It's more like speed dating than prostitution. Anyway, John's buddies uh, bought me a girl. And she came over, and she was nice, but she spoke NO English. Good call, guys? Whatever, we talked for a bit, and then she left. I think I let the guys down, because after this things kind of quieted down. But we did go back out and do our weirdo dance three or four more times during the course of the night. And I laughed, a lot. And I sweated, a lot, but so was everyone else, so whatever.

At one point SunA showed up. She said John had called and told her to come, but when I told John she was on her way, he freaked out. So I have no idea why she came, or how she knew where we were, anyway. Whatever. She wouldn't even dance with us! She kept trying to hide when we dragged her out with the group to the dance floor. It was pretty funny, though.

So, guys, I think I might be Korean now. Yesterday it was the traditional squat toilet; today I've had people pay for a girl to meet me. What's next? Maybe a jimjilbang...

Super Epic Kweekend For the Ages, Part I

2008-08-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

This part happened first, but I'm writing it second because it's shorter.

I've been attending church at Hanbit International Christian Fellowship, an English-language church in Changwon. The church is fantastic, about half Koreans and half foreigners, and all very friendly and kind. The preacher is a missionary from the Netherlands named Arianne. Arianne's mission is actually to the orphanages here in Korea -- she just does the preaching at HICF because at one point years ago she was asked to. And she's very good.

Anyway, last week I was talking with Arianne and some others about how much I love working with kids, and she invited me to visit an orphanage with her. Apparently they've had an English teacher who volunteers there, but she's become too busy to see them every week. I met Arianne yesterday at 2:30 and she drove me to the orphanage in Masan.

(Pictures were taken, but not by me. Maybe I'll get a hold of a copy someday and add them.)

I wore my Kerry Meier KU football jersey, because it's brightly colored and has a big number 10 on it, which I figured would appeal to the kids. It did. Even though they all learned my name, they call me "funny 10" now. Which rocks, because as my closest associates know well, I am TEN.

There were about 30 kids in the classroom, of all ages. A couple of babies about 10 months old were there, and there were a few kids who looked to be 13 or 14. The minute I walked in they grabbed their chairs and arranged them into a classroom-type setting. Arianne had given me an English-language storybook, so I decided to tell them the story of Goldilocks.

I used the markerboard and some charades to illustrate the words. Then, I had no idea what to do next so I winged it. I drew pictures on the board and had them call out the words. We played "I spy" with colors. ("Can you find something green?") Then we sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," which is always an instant hit with Korean kids, especially when you sing it as fast as you can.

One little girl, probably about 3, would grab my hand every time I walked to her side of the room. She was a sweetheart. When we sang, she jumped out of her chair and stood next to me to "show" everyone how to sing. Then she followed us out to the car and stood there waving as we backed away. Adorable! Heartbreaking, but adorable.

I'll see them again next week. This is my new gig, now, and I'll send you guys some pics when I take them. The kids at the orphanage are smart and sweet just like my GnB kids, but the orphanage kids are a lot more excited to see me. I love them all. I am so lucky to be here, living this life!

Super Epic Kweekend For the Ages, Part II

2008-08-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

We sailed away on a winter's day
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible, I say
And the nautical, like all things, fades
And I can recall our caravel
A little wicker beetle shell
With four fine maste and lateen sails
Its bearings on Cair Paravel

Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
To be
The ones
To've seen

(Joanna Newsom, "Bridges and Balloons")

OK, it's not winter, and we only spent about 3% of the total trip on a boat. But this fairly well sums it up. Me and my pals Michael and Gretchen went to Busan this weekend, and we survived.

It was my first intercity trip without the assistance of a veteran Korea-in-liver. We met at the bus stop at 5:20 p.m. Saturday, after I finished volunteering at the orphanage in Masan (see "Super Epic Kweekend For the Ages, Part I"). I had done a little Internet research on Busan, picking out a few places I wanted to see, and Gretchen had added a couple of ideas of her own -- but I didn't want to plan the trip too much. I didn't pick out a place to spend the night, for example -- I kind of wanted to sleep on the beach, just for the adventure of it. But we'd wing it and see what we felt like doing.

We took the city bus to the express terminal and bought tickets for Haeundae. Standing in line there, I watched all the destination cities flash by on the screen and hoped I was buying tickets for the right Haeundae. 해운대 seemed right. But didn't some of the Web sites I'd read romanize it as "Hyoondae"? Should I be looking for something like 휸대?

Well, there weren't any listings for 휸대, so I had everyone buy tickets for Haeundae. We got on the bus, and as it was pulling out of the station, I figured I'd let my compatriates know that I wasn't entirely certain this was the right bus. (I'll skip the suspense for this part. It was. This part, I didn't screw up. Dun dun dun.)

Let me tell you this, fellow Korean travelers: If you go to Busan, do not arrive on Saturday night. I assume the same is true of Friday evening. The traffic situation was a masterpiece of hilarity. At one point, traveling across Busan to the Haeundae area, the main highway is through a tunnel under a mountain. This tunnel is one lane in each direction. And there had to be nine hundred thousand people on the road to Haeundae at the same time we were. It was like trying to get from Omaha to Lincoln on a Husker Saturday with I-80 down to one lane at Greenwood. For you Colorado readers, it was like trying to get to Coors Field for a Friday evening game with a wreck closing down three lanes of northbound I-25 south of Auraria (a situation I've actually been in -- ew). Kansas readers, it was like... uh... well, there really aren't enough cars in Kansas to create a traffic jam of this magnitude, so you'll just have to rely on my hyperbole and your own imaginations to picture this one.

Eventually, we got to Haeundae, after being tossed fore and aft by the bus's whiplash stops and starts. Leaving the station, we took a short walk down the street toward the beach. This would begin a period of 20 hours in which some 14 of them were spent walking.

We tried a Korean restaurant along the road, but it was pretty bad (I normally like 순대, Korean sausage, but this place was nigh upon terrible). So we went to Papa John's. I had no idea there was Papa John's in Korea. It was fantastic, and we ran into some other Americans there, so we figured we'd hang out on the beach for a while with them.

We got to the beach -- it was dark and cool, so no one was swimming, but the place was still bustling. Not as packed as I expected, but active. All those travelers we shared the road with must have been in the bars. I walked straight out to the shore and stuck my toes in the water so I could say I've touched the Pacific Ocean. ("Sea of Japan!" Gretchen is yelling in the back of my brain as I type that. So what. It's the same water.) Gretchen and Michael followed soon, and we took some photos of ourselves touching the water. Yeah, those are my feet.

We went back up the beach to find our new American friends, but they were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they got embarrassed by these rubes splashing around like they'd never seen an ocean (sea!) before. Whatever, I'm from Kansas. Heard of it?

I don't remember exactly why, but we decided to walk around the neighborhood at this point. We wandered for a while, then figured we'd find the subway station and visit some of the spots we'd picked out. We got... a tiny bit lost. After asking for directions a couple of times, we found our way back to the bus terminal and the subway station near it.

We took the train halfway across Busan to the Lotte Hotel, where there is a huge and glitzy sign for a casino. "Casinos in Korea? Seriously?" We went in. The place was tiny, and there was no Texas hold'em to be found, so we didn't stick around long. Gretchen did manage to break a slot machine when she hit "cash out" and it jammed on her credit of 250 won. An attendant came to hand-pay the balance, worth about a quarter. He kind of laughed at her and I don't think she ever got her 250 won. But since she had only played it because she found a 500-won coin somewhere in the casino, I didn't feel too badly for her.

We left the casino and went back to the subway to get to Haeundae again. But the subways in Korea apparently stop running at midnight (OK, I should have done a little more research). We were quite a distance from Haeundae, and I figured a cab would cost us 20,000 won or more (not a huge amount by any means, but more than we're accustomed to spending on cabs). Gretchen and Michael suggested we find a place to stay in the neighborhood we were already in, Bujeon-dong.

Bujeon-dong is a happening place. It was packed with Koreans and foreigners. But while every building in Haeundae seemed to have a motel, they were hard to come by in Bujeon-dong. We walked and walked and walked, searching for a 모텔 (motel) sign. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then finally -- success! Kind of.

"You haven't really lived in Korea until you've stayed in a love motel."
Kristin, my touchstone for all things Korean culture

Now I know a tiny bit of Korean. Enough to get us to Busan and back. But when I tried to get a room for the night at this tiny motel, the woman prattled on in Korean to me as if I were a native speaker. We couldn't get a room for three people, she said. Two people only. She smacked Gretchen on the shoulder and told me again in Korean -- "three people, no." The rates on the office wall showed 200 won, which made no sense -- a 20-cent motel? We left and then I figured out, busting up laughing, that we were in a motel that rents by the minute, not the night. Whoops.

We went to a PC bang next to get on the Web and search for a motel near us. Only one showed up on the foreigner Wiki -- 금란 "KumRan" hotel. We wrote down the directions and set out to find it.

It took another hour or more to figure out where to look. Eventually, we found the bookstore and alley mentioned on the Wiki. But none of the signs down the alley said 금란. About 2 a.m., the three of us exhausted from being awake and walking, Michael pointed out a sign on a motel. "They take Visa. It can't be bad."

Oh, but it was! It was ridiculous. The rates were posted in "per-night" rather than "per-minute," which got our hopes up. But the owner was puzzled as to why there were three of us. (I can only imagine what she was thinking.) She took us upstairs to two separate rooms. One had a round bed with pink sheets that nearly filled the entire room -- there was barely room for a TV stand and a vanity that looked like it came out of my grandma's house. Across the hall, Gretchen's room wasn't much better -- while her bed was a bit more normal, the whole place was dusted with hair and one wall clearly showed a door to the next room masked over with wallpaper. Both rooms had dingy, moldy bathrooms. It reminded me of a hotel we stayed at once on a debate trip to Parsons, Kansas. Ah, debate road trips. Anyway.

Michael was horrified, and Gretchen and I couldn't stop laughing. Michael said there was no way he could sleep here, and while I was pretty tired, I figured it might be tough sleeping on the floor anyway. So we decided to sit in one room and play cards until morning. But the motel owner camped out at the top of the stairs and scolded us (in Korean of course) when we tried to get into one room together. Two in one room, one in the other. She wouldn't have it any other way. Finally, I tried to talk to her. I got almost none of what she said until she asked me: "러시아?"

"Lushia," I repeated to myself. "Lushia, lushia... Oh! Russia!" She was asking if we were Russian. "No, 아니요, 미극 사람 (aniyo, miguk saram -- no, American)". "미극 사람!" she answered, her face turning to a bright smile. She patted my arm and said something encouraging in Korean, then left us alone. We spent about three hours sitting in one motel room, resting our feet, playing Phase 10 and watching The Simpsons. Then, just before 5, we left to try the subway again.

The subway started running about 5:30 and we went back to Haeundae, hoping to see the sunrise over the ocean. The sky was far too cloudy for that, so we took a long walk up to a lighthouse behind one of the ZILLIONS AND ZILLIONS OF DECENT HOTELS AND MOTELS WITHIN A FEW STEPS OF THE BEACH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. It was a beautiful walk, although very long after spending most of the night on our feet already. Then we asked a cab driver to take us to McDonald's to have breakfast. We wandered back to the beach about 9 and took the 오륙도 (Oryukdo) ferry for a sea tour.

The ride out to sea was beautiful. The sun started to come out, and the sea breeze felt terrific. The views were nice, too. I left my seat and stood on the aft deck with some other passengers, some of them clinging to the railing and throwing chips to the seagulls. One 12-year-old kid, 태경 (Tae-kyoung) gave me some of his chips to throw to the birds and asked where I was from. I ended up talking with him for most of the trip about the U.S. and his friends. Korean kids love to show off their English skills for foreigners, and Tae-kyoung was pretty good.

A few minutes later, though, the weather started getting rough. Our tiny ship was tossed. It didn't rain, but the wind kicked up and the waves grew huge. For a while, it was a fun and exciting ride, clinging to the rail on the deck. Some kids who looked like students from a Buddhist temple held on and whooped as the boat crested and crashed down every giant wave. OK, I admit it -- I yelled "whee" a few times, too. But then, my Kansas-from-ness kicked in and I started getting seasick. So did Michael. Gretchen seemed unaffected, but Michael and I grew weaker and weaker. I closed my eyes and put my head between my knees. "Please, please don't throw up and make this really horrible," I thought.

But it was OK. We made it to the pier and scampered off the boat. Dry land. Still walking, we wandered through a few shops and then down to the Busan Aquarium, which is also right there on the beach.

By the way, Koreans are really good at safety. Every movie begins with an illustration of where the emergency exits are. And on the beach, there is a giant billboard diagramming the evacuation routes and safe areas in case of a tsunami. Worry not, Mom. I'm safe from tsunamis.

Now the Busan Aquarium is worth visiting, but my memories of it aren't very clear. At this point being awake for 30+ hours and walking for 10 or more was taking its toll. I literally felt myself falling asleep as we walked to the entrance. Every place that looked like it might support my weight, I sat down. Some high-school-age Korean girls talked to me in English for a bit, and I wanted to help them practice more but I just couldn't keep up the conversation. We saw the aquarium -- one highlight is the shark tank, where divers swim with the sharks while doing demonstrations and guests can ride glass-bottomed boats on the water -- and then stopped at Lotteria for lunch, then got back to the bus station and back to Changwon.

We survived. Everyone got home OK, and as far as I know, they're still speaking to me. We'll see how that goes this week. But Busan, man, Busan is off the hizzy for rizzy. I can't wait to go back next summer.

The latest

2008-08-17T00:36:00.000-07:00

Developments from over here:

My computer's toast. I have no idea what happened. It was working fine, except that the mouse button wouldn't work in Red Alert. So I hit restart to see if that would fix anything -- the thing hasn't restarted since. I've tried rewriting the MBR, the boot sector, the system folders... nothing works. The hard drive seems OK, because I can access it through the recovery console; this is a huge relief because all my music is there. But it looks like Thursday (my first payday) will be "new computer day." Or, more ideally, "used computer that's more functional than my old used computer day."
Had another dinner party on Friday night. This one had a Western tilt -- six foreigners, three Koreans. Greg, Jasmine and Myrna were in Busan, so it was me, Kristin and Adam from Daegu, plus Gretchen a new teacher named Michael, another teacher named Stephen, and the Korean delegation of SunA, Sue and John. Gretchen brought her Wii. Pictures TK.
I love my church. I went back for a second week today and met more people; I even got the chance to go have lunch with a few of them. It's inspiring to see the Spirit of God moving in people so different from myself, in a culture so far from what I'm used to. Same God though.

How 'bout some more Korean?

2008-08-14T02:10:00.001-07:00

Useful words I've learned about thirty times but can never remember:
화장실 (hwajangshil) - toilet

왼쪽 (wen-jjok) - left

오른쪽 (orun-jjok) - right

직진 (jikjin) - straight ahead

천만에요 (cheonmaneyo) - you're welcome (this is what comes after "kamsahamnida")

오징어 (ojingoe) - squid (which I have to remember to order one of my favorite Korean dishes, 오징어덮밥 [ojingoetoepbap] which is spicy squid and vegetables over rice)

In Which I Keep Meeting Awesome People

2008-08-10T05:18:00.000-07:00

Korea continues to rock today.

I met a new American friend via Facebook last night, and we decided to visit an English church here in Changwon. It's called Hanbit International Christian Fellowship, and so far it's great.

It's a ministry of a Korean Presybterian church here in town. It's about a 15-minute walk from home. The preacher is a missionary from the Netherlands, and I had my first true "international moment" when I realized I was singing hymns in English with a bunch of Koreans (and other nationalities) followed by preaching with a strong Dutch accent.

The English church isn't big -- there were about 30 people there -- but they were, of course, super friendly. It's probably half Koreans and half foreigners. I met a few of the foreigners, and one of them, an engineer from Michigan named Steve, gave my friend and I a ride back to where we'd have lunch.

Adding to the awesomeness is having a foreign teacher friend who is actually less experienced at Korea than I am. I got to teach her a little about how to get around and get along here. She gave me someone bright and super-fun to hang out with... who also happens to own a Wii. But, I swear, I did not know that when I decided to be her friend.

Daegu mu-mu Daegu mu-mu Daegu mu-mu mu-mu mu-mu mu-mu.

2008-08-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

That's a VeggieTales reference. If you don't get it, too bad. If you do get it, YAY.

I went up to Daegu last weekend during summer vacation. (By the way, if you come to a new place to start teaching, I highly recommend starting a couple of weeks before vacation.) My good friend (and primary reason for being here) Kristin lives there, so I got to meet her friends and enjoy a bit more of Korea. But first, the prologue...

I am not always the most perfect communicator, especially with my recruiter and friend Sun-A. I planned to take the express bus from Changwon to Daegu, so I asked Sun-A how to get to the bus terminal. "It's behind HomePlus. Just get on bus 100," she said. That seemed easy enough, so I foolishly decided not to do any further research.

Friday at noon, I got on bus 100 and headed for the terminal. An hour and 15 minutes later, I found myself in Masan (a neighboring town southwest of Changwon) and figured I'd missed my stop. I got off the bus and called Sun-A. "What are you doing in Masan?" she said.

"Getting lost," I answered.

"Take the bus back the other way to Jungang-dong (my neighborhood)," she said. So I did -- after walking a bit to find a bus stop on the other side of the street.

Another hour went by and I got back downtown. I called Sun-A again. She told me to come on back to my apartment building, which is the same building where her office is. So I did, and I stopped by the office to figure out what went wrong. It turns out that she wanted me to go to the Masan bus terminal -- but didn't tell me where THAT terminal was. So I had no idea where to get off. This time, she said to take bus 115 to the Changwon terminal. So I decided to try it.

About 4:30 I got on the bus. It was packed with people, and hard to see out the windows -- and HomePlus is right next to an underpass, so I missed it. I rode on down the street and around a corner before I realized that once again I was lost. Sick of buses, I decided to just walk back along the route until I saw the terminal. It took about 45 minutes -- carrying my backpack with all my stuff for the trip -- before I found the Changwon bus terminal. But there it was! And I was in time for the last bus to Daegu. I even had time to eat some bibimbap before getting on the bus.

After the bus got going, I figured out why Sun-A had told me to go to the Masan terminal -- the "express" bus made a stop in Masan. Then it was on to Daegu, and about 8 p.m. I finally arrived. That's the story of how I got to Daegu.

I called Kristin and met her at her workplace. We went out to dinner with some of her coworkers, and I had the best samgyeopsal I've eaten since moving here. (That's not saying much, though -- I've only had samgyeopsal one other time.) They all work evenings, like me, so we stayed up late watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" at Kristin's pad before crashing out.

Saturday was awesome. It makes a huge difference hanging out with someone who both knows the city and knows English well. We went to the "Scorching Hot Festival" at Sooseong Lake in Daegu. I painted a Jayhawk on the public mural there. It was great, but by the time we walked back that way, the wall was covered and my Jayhawk was nowhere to be seen.

It was, indeed, scorching hot, and much of the festival was dedicated to ways to keep cool. There was a big area for kids to run around with squirtguns. (Made me miss Jerry's house.) There was an archway that trickled water down like a car wash. That felt GREAT.

Then we came to a big, round, inflatable pool. "That looks nice," I said, taking a couple of steps toward it. I could see there was a game going on inside -- two kids with sumo belts tied around their waists were wrestling in the middle of the pool with another man officiating. I stood there watching for all of about eight seconds before a Korean man came up behind me and clapped me on the shoulder. "You, me, do this," he said. I looked at Kristin and John and grinned. "OK."

You'll be surprised to learn that despite my martial arts prowess, I was roundly and soundly defeated before the sudden crowd of Koreans and cameras that had gathered to watch the giant goofy foreigner get crushed. My opponent was a great sport, and for my trouble I "won" a souvenir towel, which came in handy for drying off.

A few hours later, still slightly damp, I went with Kristin and John to the Artfia for "B-Boy Loves Ballerina," a dance show with lots of b-boy (breakdancing and hip-hop) and a little ballet. It was cute, and there were tons of kids in the audience who absolutely loved it. The dancing was definitely fun to watch.

After that show, Kristin and I took a bus to Pohang for the International Fireworks Festival. I wish my photos had come out. The place was packed -- tens of thousands of people crowded all along the beach and in the streets to watch the fireworks. It was the last day of a weeklong festival, and the finale was definitely grand. I counted -- 90 minutes of fireworks, almost nonstop. I never thought I could be kinda bored of fireworks, but I admit that in the middle of the third act, about 78 minutes in, I was taking in the rest of the scenery.

So that's my trip to Daegu. Kristin got me back to the bus station Sunday and I wandered around Masan for a bit before finding my way back to Changwon all by myself. Via bus, I mean, but without, you know, help.

The view from above

2008-07-29T21:56:00.001-07:00

Between classes at work, I created this Google Map so everyone can see all the places I hang out. It also helps me find my way around town. Enjoy!

View Larger Map

Live, from the floor of my apartment...

2008-07-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

I guess this is what it's like when you "know how to party"?

I mean, I thought I was filled with party living in Colorado, but nothing like this ever happened:

The body count is three, here. That's my friend Myrna in the foreground, John on the floor, and Jasmine in the far bed. I happen to have two beds in my apartment for the time being because my school director brought over a bigger one and hasn't come back to take away the original small one yet. And a good thing, too, because Friday night hammered these jokers pretty good. See that spot between the chairs on the right? That's where I spent the night. Being the only non-drunk left gives you few options, really.

Our story begins at International Pub about 11 p.m. I went over there to meet up with Sun-A, Greg, John and Aaron, after finding an ATM that actually accepted my card. Also at the pub was Sun's friend Myrna, who I'd met the night before at the badminton court, and Myrna's friend Jasmine. Both of them are English teachers: Myrna here in Changwon, and Jasmine a little ways down the road in Jinhae. They're both from the Philippines originally.

We ran into Aaron on the way over, and he was headed to a different bar with his wife, so I just got a chance to say hi. The rest of us hung out at IP until about 1 a.m., telling the stories of how we came to Korea and how it's treating us. Jasmine's dream is to go back to the Philippines and teach there. I'm not sure what Myrna's after in life; come to think of it, she was playing darts with John most of the time we were there.

Anyway, about 1 I asked Jasmine if she ever went to noraebang (karaoke rooms). She said yes, and I replied that we'd have to take our whole group sometime, "but not tonight." Well, the idea caught on and we actually decided to go. So we wandered around briefly before finding the same noraebang that I went to last Saturday after arriving here.

It was fun, again; Sun-A was in her usual great voice and Jasmine has a lovely voice as well (and probably the best English of any non-Westerner I've met here). I even got to sing my first "request" when Myrna asked me to do "Hotel California" (a song I hate, but who am I to disappoint a fan?). John introduced us all to soju, which is the Korean alcohol of choice; my Army friends back in the Springs had warned me about the stuff. Apparently, they were right. I tried a shot of it, but Myrna, Greg, Jasmine and John hit it pretty hard. However, they were also articulate and upright when we left there about 3.

My apartment's close by, so someone suggested "house party" and we all took cabs over here. (It's about a six block walk, and we took taxis. Maybe they were more smashed than I thought.) We picked up some supplies (water, snacks, some more beer for John, Greg, Jasmine and Myrna) and set up at my place, just hanging out, listening to my crappy MP3 collection, and talking. This part pretty much rocked, because I got to know everyone better than before. Sun-A has a kidney condition that prevents her drinking alcohol, and I was done with that for the night, but between the four others, they took care of two pitcher-sized bottles of Hite beer.

Then Myrna decided it was time to go, but she was fully incapacitated. She made it about halfway down the hall out of my apartment before Greg, Sun-A and I carried her back into my room. We put her in my old, small bed to rest for a bit, and of course, she's still there six hours later. Greg lives just a couple of blocks away, so he headed home; Jasmine hadn't been drinking much since the noraebang, but she was pretty tired so she crashed in my new bed. John passed out on the floor between the beds. Sun-A and I started watching "Enchanted," but we were only about half an hour in before she decided to head home. So I took the laptop onto the floor and finished the movie, dozing off for about half an hour between the Central Park scene and the shopping bit. And now, here we are. In three hours, I'm meeting Sun-A to do some volunteer teaching at Changwon National University, and then after that we're supposed to help John clean up a building he's working on, and then it's on to Yongji for badminton with Aaron later. Hopefully I can at least take a shower in there somewhere...

I'm pretty sure this is worth a whole bunch of party-awesome points, and that's why I'm posting (even as the other three start to stir from their soju-comas). Rest assured, my Colorado and Kansas brethren. I'm making friends; I'm having fun. I like to rock the party.

배드민턴 FTW

2008-07-23T18:18:00.000-07:00

In class, I get to ask kids about their favorites of a lot of things. Favorite food, favorite TV show (which will come up in another post later), favorite music, favorite sport. They all love badminton (배드민턴 over here, which is just the Koreanized English word "baeduminton").

"I can play badminton," I said to myself. "We play that every year at Christian's July 4 party." And since there's no frisbee golf here, I needed a sport to take its place as a simple, free-once-you-buy-the-equipment activity. So I e-mailed Sun-A and Greg, and we all went to Yongji Park.

Now from what I understand, badminton here is like basketball in the U.S. Everyone knows it, has seen it, maybe played it once or twice, but not EVERYONE plays. So Sun-A isn't a hardcore player. And when we got to the badminton court, there were people there, but it wasn't packed. And there's only one court.

The actual court was occupied by about 10 Korean kids who looked to be about 14 years old. While they played, Greg and I swatted the shuttlecock back and forth in an open space next to the court. The activity gave us a chance to practice Korean numbers while we kept score.

Then Sun-A asked if we'd like to play with the kids. "Sure," we decided. It could be pretty hilarious. Greg and I took the court against two of them expecting to get killed. But we destroyed them pretty easily. Then to even things out, we let their other friends play, too. We switched off among the three of us -- two playing, one sitting out -- against four Korean kids. It was a riot. We didn't keep score, just kept hitting it back and forth until the KIDS begged US to take a break. That's right. I wore out Korean teenagers.

I love 배드민턴.

Korea is orange!

2008-07-20T00:11:00.000-07:00

This was my first thought as the plane descended into Busan: "Korea is orange!" The sunset blazed brilliantly as lightning sparked through the clouds below. The city lights, draped in the Korean mountains, glowed amber against the same clouds, casting them in a subtle array of orange, purple, green and gray. It was beautiful. After 20 hours of traveling, I knew then that I was in the right place. I fell in love with Korea through the window of a DC-9.

That was last night. After arriving at the airport, I was picked up by my recruiter, Sun-A, and her supervisor, Aaron Seo. They took me from Busan to Changwon, about a 40-minute drive to the northwest. We saw the school I'm teaching at, dropped off my luggage at my apartment, and then went out to dinner downtown.

I researched Changwon before I decided to come here, and I had an image of it as a quiet but large suburb of Busan. I underestimated the city. As we walked around downtown late Saturday night, the streets were continually packed with people. Not for just a block or two like the Old Market in Omaha or downtown Colorado Springs, but throughout the downtown district. The towers that pack this city glowed and vibrated with clubs and parties. The energy, the life flowing through the streets surprised me. I could hardly eat, I was so busy just taking it in.

(Yes, that was me, doing the full-on tourist thing -- my jaw slack, my head tilted back and swiveling from one side of the street to the other. "Gawly, they got sum big bildins here.")

Oh, and there are mountains, too. If you took away Pikes Peak, it'd be about like Colorado Springs -- the mountains surround the city, but there's nothing near a fourteener around here. I can't see a treeline on anything within sight of the town. But still, it's pretty.

After dinner last night came my first Korean karaoke experience. Another teacher, Greg from Minnesota, and another coworker of Sun-A and Aaron came with us. I expected the karaoke to be subpar here, since you just take up a room with only people you know, and my favorite thing about karaoke is meeting people. But this rocked in eight dimensions. Maybe it was because I had just met all these people, and so it was kind of like performing in front of strangers. But I had an absolute ball, and everyone else got into it too. Let me tell you, watching Sun-A sing Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey just about made my face explode. What a night.

I finally got home a bit before 3 a.m., and even though I had slept about three hours in the previous 48, I still didn't feel like I wanted to go to bed. I did, though, mostly because there's nothing else to do (the TV and Internet don't get here till tomorrow and I didn't get a power converter for my laptop). It's going to take some getting used to, sleeping on the eighth floor right next to the window that takes up the east wall of my apartment. I haven't lived this high up since Omaha, and even though that apartment had big windows too, I never got the feeling I was snoozing on the brink of the precipice.

My apartment, by the way, is about what I imagined. It's a bit larger, with an actual room for the bathroom, and there's more kitchen than I expected (I have a four-burner gas range, but no oven). The building has a PC bang (cyber cafe) on the third floor and even though I speak next-to-no Korean, I've about figured out the system for renting a machine and checking my e-mail. It's only a buck an hour, and I've yet to use more than an hour at a time, so it's a fine substitute for having a computer of my own.

The only problem is, I can't seem to find the cord that plugs my digital camera into my computer, so this blog will be text-only for a while. Once I get an SD card reader, I'll be able to post some photos. Until then, use your imaginations, guys!

Annnnnnd.... resume!

2008-07-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

OK, I took a little hiatus from blogging there because things were somewhat up in the air. There was a small chance I might've called off this whole Korea thing to go to Colorado Springs and teach at the little Christian school close to my heart. But that didn't work out, and now I'm headed out tomorrow morning. Back on track!

The ABC game, kind of

2008-05-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

To help myself study hangul, I threw together this Flash game. It reviews the different characters of the Korean alphabet and asks you to match each character to a sound. If you miss five times, you lose. I hope this is useful to somebody, but even if not, it's helped me learn a lot just making it.

Make it bigger

Learning to Talk

2008-05-29T23:50:00.000-07:00

People keep telling me that many Americans go to Korea knowing literally none of the language. I don't want to be that guy, so I've been taking lessons online. It's a great program, and it's cheap too -- just a buck for the first month.

I haven't been learning much in the way of grammar or sentence structure so far; I'm concentrating on useful phrases to start out. After a few weeks of that, hopefully I'll be ready to look at how the language actually works. In the meantime, I'll use this blog to take notes. Key phrases I've picked up so far. I'm sure my dear friends will correct me if I've typed something wrong! (Thanks in advance, Kristin.)

안녕하세묘 annyeonghaseyo - "Hello." (I also learned how to make my computer type in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. It's hard when you can't see at a glance what keys type what characters.)

네 ne - "Yes"

아니에요 anieyo - "No"

저눈 (name)-임니다 jeo-nun (name)-imnida "I am (name)."

반갑슴니다 bangapseumnida - "It's a pleasure to meet you."

감사함니다 gamsahamnida - "Thank you" (most formal sense; other forms of "thank you" are 고맙슴니다 gomapseumnida and 고마워 gomawo).

It's ON.

2008-05-13T00:11:00.001-07:00

Tonight I signed the contract.

June 28, I'll be on my way to South Korea. That's about six weeks away. Six weeks of being totally American. Six weeks of Dave & Busters, disc golf, karaoke at Jack Quinn's and being around my friends and family. Then the adventure begins.

I did choose to sign on with the school in Changwon, partly because I've looked into their curriculum model and like it, and partly because the city is beautiful. Also because I have a friend there already -- the recruiter assistant who talked to me about a totally different job suggested this one because she lives there. So I know one person who lives in the city already.

I guess tomorrow I'll turn in my resignation and become a lame duck for five weeks. I plan to make June 17 my last day at The Gazette. This is also my brother's birthday, which is kind of cool. I'll be in Colorado Springs for another six days after that, teaching Vacation Bible School, cleaning out my apartment, and hanging with friends. My friend Nikki is getting married that Saturday, the 21st. I'll hang out in town the 22nd to say my goodbyes, then drive to my parents' house on the morning of the 23rd. I'll stay with them through the 27th and then fly out of Kansas City on the 28th.

I'll arrive in South Korea on the 29th, settle into my apartment on the 30th, and start work on July 1. (Two weeks later I'll turn 31. Huh.)

The wind blows hard against this mountainside

2008-05-09T02:59:00.001-07:00

No, this blog will not be an unending homage to Mr Mister. This is just the beginning. But "Korea Eleison" kind of sums up this grand adventure I've decided to embark on. Korea, have mercy.

Today my wild-hair dream of moving to Korea to teach English took on a degree of realness. I talked to my family about the decision, and informed my supervisor at work that I will be taking off in a month or so. No, I don't have a definite date or even a specific destination yet, but the working relationship I have with my boss permits me to tell him stuff like that which I think he deserves to know. I don't think this makes me officially a lame duck. Yet.

Right now the decision centers on one main possibility: GnB ChangWon Towol, in Changwon. It's a town of about half a million people in the southeast part of the country, near the coast. It's not one of the three big cities, but it's not in the sticks either. And it's a half-hour bus ride from the port city, Busan.

I've asked my recruiter to get me a couple of concessions from the school -- namely, a settlement allowance to buy some stuff when I get there, and a firm departure date around July 1. I was hoping to hear back tonight, but that's clearly not happening as it's now 7 p.m. Friday Korean time. Looks like I'm in a holding pattern for the weekend.

If this job doesn't pan out, I have a couple of other options I'm looking at. The nice thing about getting a job in Korea is that it's easy -- the job offers come to you. It's just a matter of picking a good one and not getting screwed. Right.