Small victories

I've been deep in the doldrums for some time now. I don't know if I'm sick of Korea, sick of teaching, or just sick of myself (...after all, I'm with myself almost constantly), but it's been a while since I've gone anyplace without trudging.

But sometimes little wins come along.

Hashing, particularly my home pack, Yongsan Kimchi H3, has been my social life, my exercise, and my outlet; I've been to nearly 300 runs, 230-plus of them at YK, in under 4 1/2 years. Even that has lost some of its luster, as my best friends in the hash have departed, one by one, and I've gone on with newbies. I was recently selected as GM (Grand Master [leader]) of YK for the year, which is nice, but it's mostly meant responsibility more than prestige.

This past weekend, I hared a trail at Maebong, right by the school and not far from home. Choopa Cabroan, one of the nicest and most popular human beings ever at the hash, had on-outed a few months ago, but he was back from California for the week and it was great to see him. My trail, over Maebongsan (Hountain) and Yangjaesan (Hountain) and along the Yangjaecheon (Stream) kept the pack together...

 ...and elicited plenty of praise, which is rare. It was the first gorgeous day of spring and we had a great, happy turnout. It was a golden day.

This evening, three days later, I headed out for dinner, which is always a boring routine, sitting alone night after night and eating one of four or five things I can find in the neighborhood that isn't full of dead animal; even kimchi, which is ubiquitous, is preserved in clam or fish juice, and mool naengmyeon (ice noodles), which I used to enjoy in blissful ignorance, turns out to be in meat broth.

Tonight, I realized I needed to get some of Tug's specialty dry cat food, so I begrudgingly went eight blocks to the pet shop outside the huge Lotte department store. Afterward, I strayed down to the Lotte basement and found a Korean-style restaurant. I read hangeul, but I don't know all that many words; however, I found one I do know: dubu (tofu). I knew just enough Korean to ask the waitress, "Dubu isseoyo?" (It's tofu?) and "Gogi eopseoyo?" (No meat?) and say, "Eegeo juseyo" (Bring me this, please) and ended up with what I can only describe as tofu tempura in sweet-and-sour sauce:

It wasn't the best dish I've ever had, but it was tasty, and I was so happy to expand my dining options by 20 percent or so that I didn't even get offended that she'd brought me a fork when she trusted everyone else in the place with chopsticks.

Things aren't magically great now, but a win's a win, and I'll take every one I can get. And maybe the tide's turning.

A poor idea, in the long run

I'm never doing that again.

Last spring, I found out that this year's Chuncheon Marathon would be on my birthday, Sunday, October 26, and decided on the spot that I had to run it. My first marathon, four years ago, was in Chuncheon, and another run there would nicely bookend the three Joongang Marathons (here in Seoul) I'd run since.

The Joongang course is very boring, but Chuncheon's is beautiful, albeit hilly. It winds around and across a lovely river shaped like a Rorshach blot, overlooked by lovely little mountains covered with fall foliage. I did my first marathon there in 2010, walking one of every four minutes, in five hours, 40 minutes. My three Joongangs, running the whole way of a flat course, were clustered right around five hours even, and I figured I could handle Chuncheon's hills in 5:15 or so.

The long runs in training went badly; the muscles above and below my left knee stiffened up after eight miles or so each time, and without my erstwhile training partners Lauren, Val, and Laura-Claire (who had all left the country), I didn't have the will to push through it for another six or eight or ten miles to complete the runs. I did, however, complete a test 20-miler three weeks before the marathon, so I talked myself into believing I'd be fine on the day. ("Take no prisoners!"- George Armstrong Custer)

I'd rejoined the Seoul Flyers running club mostly to be able to ride their bus out to Chuncheon, a couple of hours east of Seoul. My only worry was finding a cab at 4:30 a.m. to take me across the city to the bus, but one came along within a minute of my hitting the street. Riding 65 miles an hour on the darkened city streets was just about enough to wake me up.

When the Flyers set up camp at Chuncheon, the leader announced that everyone should be back on the bus at 3; if I finished in my self-predicted time, I'd make it by 2:40, despite starting the the last group, almost a half hour after the tiny, fast East Africans. (Seriously, guys, they have the size, build, and speed of whippets.)

It was a beautiful day for a run, and the first miles went off fine. But the hills got to me, the knee stiffened up right on schedule, and I had to walk most of the last half of the course. This caused a lot of anxiety, as I kept thinking "If I run the rest of the way, starting now, I'll be back before everyone is on the bus and wanting to get home" while just not having the energy. All the way, minute by minute, I saw fifty exhausted runners on the bus, wondering "Where the hell is that guy?"

It just went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (squared). I had planned to carry my cellphone so I could take photos, but it made my shorts sag (what with the iPod and half-dozen energy gels in my pockets), so I'd left it behind and missed the "Where are you?" and "Call me!" texts from the Flyers' president at the finish line.

As I finally, finally, got near the end, people by the side of the road were applauding, which only made me feel worse; I imagine they were rooting for the plucky old man running his first marathon, but it was my fifth, and it was slooooooow and pathetic.

Then I was finally done, in six hours and seven minutes (cue sad-sack trombone) and I limped as fast as I could to get my (completely undeserved) medal and pick up my bag o' crap, and then halfway through the damn town, burdened as I was, to the most humiliating moment of all, boarding the bus and being applauded--sincerely, I think, but it felt sarcastic--by the impatient busful of runners.

I did my best to ooze into my seat and disappear.

The Flyers' tradition is to take the bus over to a traditional Korean restaurant after the marathon; Chuncheon is famous for its dakgalbi--spicy chicken ribs. When we got there, I went in, but the difficulty of finding a seat, the sheer impossibility of my standing up again after a horrible marathon and a half hour sitting cross-legged on the floor, and the fact that I'm a vegetarian and chicken ribs are not technically a vegetable made me decide to wait alone in the bus instead.

At least the street was empty, so I could change out of my soggy running gear on the bus. This was the first birthday I've ever had where being naked, alone,  on a tour bus was the highlight of the day.

The trip to Chuncheon had taken two hours; the trip back took five, thanks largely to some bozo who delayed the bus until the traffic was utterly clogged. Add another two hours to hobble up the stairs to my second-floor apartment... it was a long day.

I am registering today for a 10K run in April, then I'll probably do a half-marathon, but a full marathon is much, much longer than twice a half-marathon. My ego is finally past needing to say "I'm a marathoner" or feeling old because I don't do the full course anymore. I could; I don't want to.

I promised myself in 1970 I'd do a marathon one day; I've done five. But...

I'm never doing that again.

Ends and odds

There are several tidbits of fascinating, if not essential, info that have slipped through the cracks as I haven't posted or self-edited to keep things relatively brief over the last many months.

Here are a few of them for your edification and amusement. (Mr. Caslick, my favorite junior high teacher, always started with "For your edification and amusement", and I, sadly, lack the style to follow suit in person.) So... here you go. Hope you will be edified and amused. If not, I will gladly refund the time you spent reading this stuff.
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In my last post, I mentioned my mixed feelings over moving from a quiet, greenish neighborhood to an extremely urban one. I guess what decided me to move was the feeling that not doing so would be clinging to the past. Last year, we had a little Yangjae Gang of St. Paul teachers: Jie and Dave in one building, me next door, Alysia next to me, and Claudia and her husband Frank next to her. Frank and Claudia hosted movie night every week, with the snackiest snacks ever, sundry adult beverages, and their beautiful giant TV and professional sound system. I almost always got to ensconce myself in their beautiful pleather-covered recliner... good times. (It's my beautiful pleather-covered recliner now; guess it wouldn't fit in the overhead for their flight to Cairo.) I could also look forward to frequently meeting one or another of my freighbors on the street. Frequently we would go en masse to the noraebang (karaoke room) to demonstrate to the neighborhood what fine singing is. Since the great diaspora, the 'hood felt like a ghost town, and it just seemed like it was time to be somewhere else.
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I am deeply, passionately in love with Korean fall. The weather we've had for the last week has been utterly perfect... 75 Fahrenheit with low humidity and piercing sunlight and infinite blue skies in the daytime, low mid-50s at night. One lunchtime I hiked up the hountain behind the school and found three bunny rabbits lazing about in the sun. The sun has been so bright that I've been reminded of the wisdom of living east of work (which I do). The sun's behind me when I go to work and behind me when I head home. Clear skies, no squint, can't lose.

Hey... how ya doin'? Relevance of photos to blog posts is overrated.

  

Jeez, I leave you guys alone in America for six measly years and you go and change stuff! It feels from here that the USA is so much better and so much worse than it was in 2008. We elect a minority president and edge closer to equal rights for gay Americans, and half the country goes nuts, saying they "want their country back". Obama has been a great disappointment to me, though I always knew he wasn't the bright-eyed crusading reformer some hoped for... but the vitriol directed at him has been shocking. He's just a little to the right of Richard Nixon, (Ol' Tricky created the EPA, froze wages and prices, and opened China to the West... Obama presides over a health-care system originally proposed by Republicans, he orders drone strikes that kill many, many innocent people, and--possibly due to his name and skin color?--he's the African, Commie, Islamist, Nazi, Socialist antichrist.

Come to think of it, what's so bad about socialism? People think it's Soviet-style Communism or Nazism, since both Lenin and Hitler threw the word "Socialist" in there to gain support, but you know who's truly socialist? Denmark, repeatedly named as the happiest and most peaceful country on earth, and the other Scandinavian countries, which are right after it on the happy/peaceful scales. Hey, public parks, paved roads, and fire departments are socialism. Even uber-capitalist South Korea has true public healthcare, and when I got a twelve-mile ambulance ride, an examination, a cleaning of my eyebrow gash, x-rays, and stitches for $35 out of pocket, I was glad of it.

You know, it's been 18 years since we had a president that half of the country didn't loathe. The level of vitriol in American politics is unsustainable, and the coasts and northern Midwest hardly seem like the same country as the middle and southern parts. The corporations and banks get stronger and stronger and the rest of us wither on the vine. What are you guys doing over there?

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I love teaching frequently-banned books: Huck Finn, Of Mice and Men, Catcher in the Rye, Speak, Hunger Games, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian... I get no thrill from sharing ripe language or adult themes with young people, but so many of these books get challenged because they confront authority and ask kids to think for themselves. My parents never told me what I could and couldn't read, and I'm the better for it. Fortunately, the parents here are apparently either respectful of teachers or unaware of what the books mean, because I've had no trouble with my selections, and I think the kids appreciate the respect implied by my trusting them with the controversial stuff.

Right now, I'm teaching Fahrenheit 451, which was once burned by an irony-deficient school. As Bradbury quotes in 451's epigram, "If they give you lined paper, write the other way."

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Eli Manning's lost it all faster than Oedipus did.

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I miss having a dog so much it's almost painful. I've been in love with dogs my whole life, and I miss our Bodhi at least as much as I do any human, but I've had four dogs and 19 cats. But leaving a dog alone all day in an apartment, and ignoring it for paperwork when you're home, doesn't seem fair or humane. Cats are a lot more social than many people think, and I pay as much attention to Tug as I can, but it can't seem so lonely when you're asleep 70 percent of the time anyway. Cats are pretty cool, too, but they're not dogs.

"Cats are not dogs." With that pearl of deep wisdom, I shall head for bed. Another full day of corrupting the morals of Korean children awaits.

The more things change...

,,,the more they, well, change.

After five years living in the same neighborhood and teaching at the same school, I'm now in a (radically) different neighborhood and a (mostly) different school.

The last school year was an utter nightmare. Through a combination of horrible business decisions and, somewhere along the line by somebody, malfeasance and probable embezzlement, the school was constantly in danger of closing mid-year, a bunch of teachers and a lot of students quit, and we the teachers got cheated out of our legally mandated pension money and other benefits and lost three months of pay. Overall, we were shorted somewhere near ten thousand bucks apiece. At times I dreamed about going into a less stressful business, such as bomb defusing.

The school staggered on, somehow, to the end of the spring semester and then quietly expired. (This is gonna get complicated, so take notes, kids: there will be a quiz.) The owners of two hagwons (evening academies), called Proud 7 and British Columbia Collegiate, formed a partnership and contacted Saint Paul's parent organization in (duh) Saint Paul, Minnesota. They bought the name and insignia and opened a new school, in a new neighborhood, with 30-some of our former students. This is where I, along with a few of last year's teachers, work now.

The old school started as Saint Paul Preparatory Academy and changed to Saint Paul Preparatory School when we got accredited in the US. (However, according to Korean law, we were still an academy--a hagwon--because our kids aren't foreign and haven't lived for years abroad. They didn't care that we had an American curriculum and credentialed teachers, were fully accredited in America and had kids admitted to Notre Dame, NYU, Boston College, and USC. The inflexibility of Korean bureaucracy is a nightmare.

A local TV station ran a sensationalistic, biased report on us... it was so slanted that it made Fox News look, well, fair and balanced. This certainly didn't help the cash-flow problem.) This was the same station that ran a "news" report saying that Americans' purpose in coming here is to despoil virgins and spread AIDS.

The new school is called Saint Paul Preparatory Seoul. My friend Bob Ellison, the math teacher, is the principal. It's a teeny-tiny place, more or less an elongated log cabin with six classrooms, most of them rather claustrophobic. We have just seven teachers, and of that only three (Bob, Billy Stewart, and I, the remnants of the old SPPS) are full-time.

This is not it.

After six whole days of classes, I can say I like the school. I like that every student in school is in one or another of my classes, and we have really good kids. It's a very homey, friendly atmosphere. The back wall of the school is all glass and we're at the base of a hountain, so I can always see trees and birds. Also mud, but what the hell, it's organic.

The glass-walled offices on the first floor are decorated with four-foot-high photos of Ivy League colleges. Also an NFL photo labeled "rugby"; go figure. Anyway, all the college photos are simple shots of boring old buildings, except Cornell's, which is this one:

It's really nice to walk past this every day and remember what a beautiful place I come from.

I guess it's not as unique being a Cornellian here as I thought; our college counselor at the old school was a Cornell alum, and so is our new math teacher, Min. She and I were practically classmates; only missed her by 30 years. (No, I'm not implying that she graduated in 1950.) And now I hear we've hired a part-time science teacher, who also has a Cornell degree. Apparently they're giving the damn things away in Cracker Jack boxes now.

As to my new digs, sometimes I feel I've made a terrible mistake. My apartment in Daegu was in a quiet, residential area, and for my five years in Seoul I lived in a very (literally) green neighborhood a few blocks south of the city. There was an institute across the street with a big empty soccer field, there were two big, beautiful parks with, no exaggeration, thousands of trees, and I was 200 yards from my beloved Yangjae Cheon, the landscaped stream that runs from Gwacheon City to the Han River in  the middle of Seoul: ten miles with no cars, lots of wildfowl and trees, and mostly soft, rubbery surface for running. I could see hountains from my windows.

My new apartment is bright, modern, and airy, but all I see around me is concrete and bricks. I'm a couple of blocks from one of Gangnam's busiest avenues, an eight-lane, traffic-choked street lined with hundreds of stores and businesses. Cars drive across, and sometimes down, the wide sidewalks to park in front of storefronts, and I might get clipped by a bike, because only idiots with death wishes would ride a bike in that street.

Straight down the end of the street, a couple of miles to the east, is the half-built Lotte World Tower, which will top out at one hundred twenty-three floors, a good deal taller than the Empire State. Right now, it's a mere stripling of 70-some stories.

Note the giant-gorilla-proof tip.

It's just like living in midtown Manhattan, which for a small-town boy like me is a shock; every time I've visited New York City, I've loved it for three days and then couldn't wait to escape back to Ithaca, where it's green and quiet and the buildings are on a human scale.

It's also eight-tenths of a mile of running on cement and brick, with heavy traffic, to reach the Cheon. My legs are taking much more of a pounding, my left knee stiffens up faster, and I may not make it to my marathon this fall.

On the other foot, sometimes it's good to walk out the door in the evening and find a myriad of restaurants, grocery stores, miscellaneous shops, and people, mostly teens, because there's a hagwon every few feet. Compared to my old digs, there's a lot less nature and a lot more life.

It may not help my marathon prep that there's a Baskin-Robbins, a Krispy Kreme, a churro stand, two Dunkin' Donuts outlets, and a soft ice cream shop within five minutes of my place. I wish I hadn't typed that; it's 10 p.m. and suddenly I feel an urge to take a little stroll...

It's also centrally isolated, farther away from everywhere I want to go than I'd thought when I was being driven around to scout apartments. It's right in the midst of Korea's ritziest area, but the subway stations and bus lines don't line up to go anywhere quickly. It's a 30-minute walk to school, barely closer than my old place would have been, or 20 minutes combining walking and the subway, which in itself is a treat during rush hour.

Great honk, I miss greenery.

But hey, Krispy Kreme...

My late friend Steve

You think I'd learn, wouldn't you?

One of my longstanding bad habits (that is, mental malfunctions) is continually underestimating how long it takes me to get out of the house and go someplace. Today I paid for it, in frustration and embarrassment.

It's a gorgeous Easter Sunday, 70 degrees without a cloud in the sky (or, you know, anywhere else) although you wouldn't know it was Easter, aside from the church lady who handed me a packet of two hard-boiled eggs in the subway. (They weren't dyed, but there was a churchy message on the plastic.)

Anyway, today was the so-called Bundang Marathon, although there wasn't an actual marathon-length course. In the US South, every soft drink is called a Coke... here, every road race is a called a marathon, whatever its length, and today's "marathon" was a set of 5K, 10K, and half-marathon (21K) races.

I'd trained for a couple of months, with my friend Laura-Claire, to run the half. But as so often happens--and did I mention you'd think I'd learn?--I got there just minutes before the race and, after frantically stashing my bag with a Korean guy who looked trustworthy and dashing to the restroom (where I got precious little rest), I couldn't force my way through the thousands-strong mob of 5Kers and 10Kers to the half-marathoners up in front.

So, rather than slink home in self-imposed disgrace, I ran the 10K. The course started in the most beautiful park I know and mostly ran alongside the nearby stream. After 3K, I was pleased (and a little shocked) that I was running a six-minute-per-kilometer pace, about a minute per K faster than usual, and decided to try to beat an hour, which would be nearly ten minutes faster than my previous 10K, a few years ago.

And I woulda got away with it, too, if not for that meddling bathroom stop on the course. Still, 1:00:35 ain't bad for a broke-down, overweight sexagenarian. (Oh, calm down... the "sex" in that word just means 60.)

A bunch of my hashing friends also ran in the various races...

I guess I was late for the photo, too... shocker.

I couldn't find my bag, with my clothes and my wallet, after the run. I got busy panicking and walking around the big plaza without much hope that it was still around, but the man who'd said I could leave my bag corralled me at the other end of the plaza and handed it back; he'd been carrying it around with him for an hour.

Afterward, a bunch of us went to the start of the Southside hash, though I didn't do the trail because I was already limping. A couple of the guys and I had lunch at a Korean restaurant. I thought I'd communicated "no animals" to our waitress despite my minuscule Korean knowledge and her matching English skills, and I was having the most delicious noodle soup I've ever eaten, till I found a tentacle in it. Apparently I'd already eaten some chopped-up mussels, which I'd thought were mushrooms. It's that kind of day.

Still, I've been feeling leaden since the horrible ferry tragedy on Wednesday. Many public events have been canceled, and I'm grateful that the race wasn't, because an Easter morning with friends in the sun, in a gorgeous, sunny park and by a gorgeous, sunny stream, is exactly what I needed.

And I swear I'm not gonna run late for stuff anymore.

I mean it this time.

 No, really.

 See? Right on time for the photo after the race. Doing better already!

Me and Yu and K forty-two

Last month I ran my fourth marathon, my third consecutive Joongang International Marathon, from the Olympic Stadium down to the outskirts of Bundang (that is, the suburbs of the suburbs) and back. I had thought that last year's would be my last, till the Boston Marathon bombings prodded me into an irrational but definite sense that I needed to do another as a statement to... someone... that we runners won't be intimidated, a day in memory of the victims.

Maybe that wasn't reason enough; I ran my first marathon to keep a promise I'd made myself in high school, my second to break five hours, my third to no-kidding break five hours (as I'd missed by less than a minute). All through the grinding miles this summer (about 360 of them, but maybe you find 575 kilometers more impressive), I pushed and sweated and resented myself for committing to this and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. (That, however, would take a bit more than 360 miles to figure out.) And on the really long runs, my left leg would stiffen so that I could hardly bend it... if that happened in the race, it would be the Bus of Shame for me.

Getting out of bed on the morning of the marathon is a grim affair. The predawn hour, dressing and fretting, feels like anticipating a root canal, and on the taxi ride to the stadium, every speed bump (and there are many) makes the stomach contract just a little bit more. I felt like a chihuahua getting fastened into a bungee harness and looking down in dismay and perplexity. I had no idea why I was doing this.

In the shivery November morning at the stadium, I kept busy finding a men's room that didn't have a 20-minute queue, stashing my stuff in a bag and storing it, and dodging among the masses of energetic Koreans doing their stretches in front of the girl group dancing and blasting K-pop from monstrous speakers. Then it was time to line up on the street.

I had been regretting not having a running partner (Val, from last year's marathon, or Laura-Claire, from my training this year), but I got very lucky. Within a few miles, a Korean man a few years older than I spoke to me and we began to run together. His English was pretty decent, certainly years ahead of my Korean. I told him my name was Steve and he gave his family name, Yu. (Maybe he thought his full name would be too much for a foreigner, and maybe he was right.) We ran the whole rest of the marathon together. That, right there, is a strong reason to not give up.

Within another mile or so we were joined by another guy of about 40, whose English was good enough for the circumstances. He never gave me his name, but he talked about loving his job as a city bus driver, so I'll call him Ralph (as in Kramden). He was especially proud that he can say "hello" in a dozen languages; he likes to make his foreign passengers feel welcome. He's a sweet guy.

So Yu and Ralph and I shared the next dozen miles together, and somehow the scenery and the time went by. They only knew to say "Good job" to encourage a foreign runner, so I taught them the finer points of "Go get 'em" and "You got this." I expounded on the superiority of the F-word in English to its Korean equivalent. ("Shibal" just doesn't have that same satisfying percussive effect.) They taught me some useful Korean phrases that I, being me, forgot by the end of the race.

We ran the whole way near the pacesetters carrying big blue "5 Hour" balloons. I began to long for the turnaround point out in the countryside and had just persuaded myself that we must be near it, and was abashed when the "3 Hour" balloons went by on their way back. The turnaround just would... not... come.

My leg had been aching under the knee since about Mile 5, but it never got any worse. However, after we finally turned around, with about ten miles to go, both calves got tighter than snare drums. Ralph's hip began to pain him about that same time and before long he fell ten feet behind us. I turned around and asked, "Gwenchanayo?" (Are you okay?) He said "Neh" (Yes), but the next time I looked back, he was nowhere to be found.

When running for five hours, without the option of quitting, there really is nothing in the world but putting one sore foot in front of the other, forever. It's purgatory.

Yu and me, among the select 20,000 who got their photos on the official website.

Yu was patient as I had to walk the uphills and stop occasionally to stretch my calves, yet as we approached the finish he said, "If you are not here, I am not here" several times. He's very gracious; I don't believe him, as he's a far better athlete than I--he'd run the Chuncheon Marathon the week before--but it did my heart good nonetheless.

Finally we were approaching the stadium after 42 kilometers, and I was lifted by seeing my friends Laura-Claire and Lesley there to root for me, as well as my colleague Claudia and her husband Frank inside the stadium. Yu and I struggled around the track until we got to the homestretch and I said, "Let's go" and we picked it up through the finish line.

Then L-C, Claudia, Frank, and I took a cab to Butterfinger Pancakes (or, as I call it, "Heaven's Denny's") for a huge brunch and a long convo mostly about how wonderful I am. Not a bad Sunday, all in all.

At the finish line, Yu had said "If you are not here, I am not here" once again, we shook hands, and he walked off. That was nice, but here's why I'm leaning toward not doing a full marathon again: in my previous three, I got a little choked up, in relief or triumph or fatigue, I don't know which: just a tiny bit teary-eyed, as far as my manly manliness allowed. This time, it was over and I didn't feel much of anything. Just another thing on my list, another thing to do on a Sunday.

 How to make a Budweiser taste good: run for five hours first.

I may yet do another; I know that the training gives me structure, something to think about, and the kick in the butt I need to get out the door. (Since this year's race, I come home from school intending to run, but it's cold and windy and gray and I'm tired and I don't wanna and you can't make me.) But maybe I can get the same benefits from a half marathon... I could do one with L-C or Les...

I've done a full one at age 60; a little voice inside says that cutting back now would be giving in to getting older... but what's to look forward to? Running one every year, just a little slower than the year before? (This year's time was a minute and 45 seconds slower than last year's.) Who am I running them for, anyway? It's nice to impress my friends, but I'm not impressing myself so much, and for really serious runners, it's "just" a marathon, not an ultra or a triathlon.

Well, I'll figure it out eventually. For now, I have nice memories of me and Yu and K forty-two.

If he is not there, I am not there.

Sixty is the new fifty-eight

Hwangap, the sixtieth birthday, is a big deal in Korea. Here, as in other East Asian countries, there's a tradition that a new life cycle starts every 60 years, so hwangap marks the start of one's second life, with the opportunity to start over and do better. (Also, it used to be quite an accomplishment to reach 60.)

My hwangap came on Saturday. If we count from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon, I had a great day. (Saturday evening involved sitting in front of my laptop, eating cheesesticks and drinking hard cider, alone. Don't you judge me.)

We had a day off from classes at school on Friday so the teachers could greet the parents and justify why their little angels weren't all getting straight A's. (The questions are always about the grades, never about the learning.) That wasn't so very much fun, but at the end, I got a "Happy Birthday" song, a delicious cake, a handmade card, and a pointy yellow hat. So that was way cool.

Friday evening, a bunch of us from work hit the noraebang, the private karaoke room. The two requirements for noraebang are to sing loudly and to smuggle in beer. We fulfilled both admirably. Noraebang is the most fun I can have with my clothes on, and I loved it, as always, especially seeing some of my work friends really cut loose. The highlight was my friend Dave and I singing the K-pop hit Ugly: "I think I'm ugly, and nobody wants to love me/Just like her, I wanna be pretty, I wanna be pretty..." It has a ring to it, especially in our deep, manly-man voices.

Saturday morning, my actual hwangap, brought my birthday hash. I'd been announcing it at the end of every hash for months, and I was happy to get a big turnout. (It was also the World Peace Through Beer Hash, which didn't hurt.) It was a beautiful, sunny fall morning, and a couple of guys and I laid a really interesting trail near home... (have you ever slid on your butt down a 30-foot slope covered in AstroTurf?) 

Afterward, there were many kind words and two red-velvet cakes; nobody brought candles, so I blew out the toothpicks. Three of my friends from work, all women, attended their first (and maybe last) hash; they all said they had a good time and it was nice to have them there. I handed out the patches my buddy Oranguspray executed from my design:

(You read the "Don't you judge me" up above, right?)

Then some of us went to the foreigner ghetto, Haebangchon, for pizza, beer, and merriment.

To top it off, I walked over to Itaewon and stopped in to see Minha, the woman who makes the patches for the hash. (Her mother, in between selling souvenirs such as kimonos and keychains, sews them onto our happi coats.) They told me they had a present for me and presented me with a gorgeous, and gorgeously tacky, baseball-style jacket:

It's very comfy, but I won't be wearing it in public; ornate as the design is, it looks like the kind of thing a 19-year-old GI would take home to his girlfriend. Next to the kimonos, it's probably the most expensive item Minha's mother has in her shop. Minha made sure that her mom brought out a midnight-blue jacket, knowing that it's my favorite color. I was very touched by their generosity; I'm just a customer, after all, and they weren't doing it to drum up business, just being extraordinarily nice; there's no place else I could go to get the patches made. I'll remember their kindness for a long time.

Then... home. Nap. Cheesesticks and cider.

So, anyway, guys, I've been thinking about this whole "aging" thing...

First, of course, 60 isn't what it used to be; people live so much longer, and I expect to be respiring for a long time yet. My family is long-lived, and I've never smoked, I don't eat meat, I drink just the right amount for longevity, and I run. 

Also, emotionally and mentally I've just turned 25 for the thirty-sixth time; it used to be that people got all proper and respectable when they became adults, but we Boomers--call it refusing to get old or failing to grow up--decided not to change; we still do all the things we loved when we were younger, just less often and more slowly. (I hope that my knee doesn't stiffen up halfway through my marathon this Sunday... yes, I'm a marvel of athleticism and courage. Sometimes I amaze myself. [/sarcasm] )

I really do feel 25, except for when I get out of bed in the morning. Maybe I should stop doing that...

Hana, dul, seht, neht, five

Last weekend marked five years in Korea for me. The fact that I didn't bring myself to blog about that, and haven't blogged even about such vital (to me) events as my first trip back to my hometown in 18 years, makes me wonder why I hardly ever post anymore. (It's been nearly three months, after all.)

I think the big thing is that the original purpose of this blog was to uncover the wonders and oddities of Korea for my friends back in the States, and now things aren't wonderful or odd to me; this is just where I live and the way things are. As the blog has gone on, it's been more and more about SJC and less and less about the ROK, sort of a free therapy session in which you, Constant Reader, have been my unpaid shrink. Thanks.

It's always been a fine line to walk, trying to reach a tone between "What a fascinating country" and "Look at rhe funny little Asians." My friend and colleague Dave went to the hash with me yesterday, and he made a troubling observation.

At the YK hash, the hares set off to lay the trail and somebody (sometimes me) leads the pack in a long, scripted, farcical ceremony, partially to reinforce pack unity and largely to give the hares a fair head start.

It looks a little something... like this.

One of the many, many parts of the ceremony:

Leader: "Once there was a hasher; was he smart?"

Pack: "NO!"

Leader: "What was he?"

Pack: "Stupid!"

Leader: "He was really (expletive deleted) dumb. He tried to cross an eight-road lane."

Pack: "An eight-road lane?!"

Leader: "That's right; they have those in Korea, because things in Korea..."

Pack: "...AREN'T QUITE RIGHT!"

Dave pointed out that it's condescending to our hosts, at best, and could offend the occasional Korean person who comes out to hash. I responded that we make fun of everything, especially ourselves, which is true... but I had to admit that there's a difference. It smacks of Orientalism, the antiquated concept that people in the "Far East" are alien and exotic. (Heck even "Far East" smacks of colonialism; there isn't any "East" on the globe, and what's east of here? California.)

I remember an episode of The Amazing Race in Africa, in which one Racer made a comment about the "natives". His partner said, "They're not natives; they're called people." I've gotten well past the point where I see natives here; they're people.

There are practices here that appall me beyond words; some people eat live, squirming baby octopus, and some (fewer) people eat dogs, which were kept in horrifying conditions and killed as painfully as possible, in the belief that the adrenaline makes the meat more tender. I have to put that aside, in a double-locked room in my head. And some Korean beliefs are just silly, such as that sleeping in a closed room with electric fan on is likely to kill you, or that your blood type determines your personality.

But, all in all, as the song says, people are people. I think, in a gross generalization, Korean people tend to be closed toward strangers; emotional; extraordinarily warm toward friends, family, and coworkers; and, among the young, obsessed with attractiveness. But I have equally strong feelings about Americans en masse and about our customs.

So... five years. Am I shutting down the site? No. But I may not post much. I like expressing myself and I try to be entertaining. But this place, interesting as it can be as an ultra-modern, super-capitalist society overlaid over a backdrop of ancient culture and superstition, is just... well, where I am.

You can't be a newbie for five years.

Just say neh

I think my favorite word in any language is "내". It's transliterated into English as "neh", and its sound is in between that and "nay".

It is so very, very useful! It means "yes", sort of, but maybe a fuller translation would be "I agree with what you said." It is just used all the time, since the Korean language lets a lot of things be implied by context. It can mean, "I heard you" or "That's true" or "Well... okay, then." It's good for everything from "I swear it's the truth!" to "uh huh..."

It's especially cool walking into a mom-n-pop store or a traditional market:

host: "Welcome."
me: "Yes, hello."
host: "Yes, hello."
me: "Yes."

and, later:

host: "Thank you."
me: "Yes. Goodbye" (the "goodbye" that means "I'm leaving.")
host: "Yes, goodbye." (the "goodbye" that means "I'm staying here.")
me: "Yes."

It's such a relief, when dealing with a language that is so complex that it has different "goodbyes" depending on who's leaving, and two completely different sets of numbers, and seven layers of word endings depending on the relationship between the speakers, to have something so simple and versatile.

내.

The tricky part, for a Westerner, is that Koreans will say "neh" when we would say "no" to a negative question:

me: "Didn't you do your homework?"
student: "Yes." (I didn't.)

...which takes some getting used to, but, if you think about it, makes sense.

I find myself using "neh" all the time, even with English speakers who live here. It will take a while to get over it; I spent some time in another South, dangling off the eastern side of another continent, and I still love saying "y'all".

I just got back from Costco, where the checkout lines are interminable. The Korean man in front of me had a moderately full cart. He saw me with my lone item, a bag of frozen ravioli, and asked (in English): "Just one?"

I said "neh". And he motioned for me to go in front of him.

In Korean, the word for "information" is "안내", which may or may not stand for "no yes". Maybe I'll stop at an 안내 booth and ask, "Doesn't "안내" come from 'no yes'?"

The answer will probably be "neh". (It doesn't.)

Just say "neh" to language.

Empty stomach, full day

Many of my friends have, one time or another, gone on a "Templestay". This is the program that immerses its visitors in a day and a half of life in a Buddhist temple. Never having been that hot on sleeping on the floor and being awakened 'way before dawn to squat cross-legged and gimpy-kneed (and caffeine-free) on a different floor to meditate, instead I tried the "Templelife" program, a 2-1/2-hour sojourn at Bonguensa. (I posted about my first visit to Bongeunsa on 9/30/10, in case you inexplicably haven't memorized the contents of my 386 previous blog posts.)

Most Korean temple complexes are expansive and set in the quiet of rural mountains, where they were driven by the government's anti-Buddhist campaigns centuries ago. Bongeunsa, despite the fact that it's the locus of Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhism, is a pocket-sized complex right in the midst of the richest neighborhood in Korea: down the street, past the Jaguar and BMW dealers, you can see the Olympic Stadium; right across the street from the temple is the biggest underground mall in Asia and Seoul's World Trade Center, where the G-20 meetings were held last year.

21st-century Korea, in one photo.

The lady at the ticket booth was very friendly and spoke excellent English, other than telling me that a ticket cost 14,000 dollars. (I didn't want to go in that badly.) It's actually 14,000 Won, or about 13 bucks. There were enough foreign visitors that we were split into two groups of a dozen people each.

Our guide, a very pleasant ajumma (middle-aged lady) with good English skills, took us on a 15-minute tour and explained the temple's history and Buddhist traditions.

(White is for mourning.)

(Red is for funsies.)

After being taught the correct way to bow (knees, forearms, and forehead touch the ground), we laid down mats in the main temple building and sat before the three gold-toned Buddha statues. Then it was on to a tea ceremony, then (paper) lotus flower construction, followed by a brief meditation, led by a young monk...

... which would have been better if, among the two dozen Westerners and the-oh-so-earnest monk, all meditating together in an absolutely silent room, somebody hadn't chosen that time to make his 59-year-old, empty gut sing all kinds of gurgly, twangy melodies (and, believe it or not, harmonies). Echoes, too. It would have been funny in a movie; in real life, I tried to become one with the floor.

Well, Buddha would have laughed; Buddha's my homeboy.

Say hello to my little friends.

Then, finally, each of us was given a surprise present: a Buddhist prayer bracelet. It matches the one I bought at Donghwasa, outside Daegu, and have worn for four years as a reminder to be peaceful.

I could wear one on each wrist, but then how would I take the photo?

So, down to it: I enjoyed my brief stay, though I was glad I hadn't done the overnight. My opinions of Buddhism were reinforced: first, the worship end of things is goofy. I don't believe that hideous, snarling guardians painted on the wall scare evil spirits away; I don't believe that your karma determines whether you will return as a ghost, an animal, a human, or a demon; I don't believe in touching my forehead to the ground in front of a golden statue of a guy who said not to worship him. (I did it--I don't like to be rude--but I don't believe in it.)

But, also, there was a great feeling of serenity at Bongeunsa, as I always get at the temples in Korea. I still hold with the things I've learned from Buddhist philosophy: compassion for all, detachment, living in the now. Holding them in my mind and heart has made me more peaceful and less troubled. 

For me, Buddhism as a way of thinking is priceless because it sees the world as it is, including all the pain and loss that we can't avoid, and teaches us how to look at it a different way and to be happy, not in some promised postmortem future, but every day. 

So I was glad I went.

---

I cut through the aforementioned COEX Mall to the subway, and here's a surreal and ironic juxtaposition for you, after the aura of gentleness at the temple: in the courtyard stood the star of the new American TV show Hannibal (as in Lecter), which hadn't even shown in the US yet. He was signing autographs and having pictures taken with the shoppers and his assistants, who were wearing butchers' aprons stained with--I hope--fake blood.

 

Buddha and the world's most famous fictional serial killer? I call that a full day.

Cavemen snort

It's really nice when something you've been bumbling about with for a long while finally begins to click into place. This week, I've had that nice feeling with two aspects of my life here

The first is the Korean language. I've been in the RoK for nearly five years now; I learned hangul, the alphabet, within a few weeks, for which I take no credit--it's brilliantly designed, unlike ours, which kind of fell into place over hundreds of years, with sounds from a score of languages. (Try explaining to a Korean child why the c in center is pronounced utterly differently from the c in carrot or the one in cherry.) In Korean, 라 will always be la. (Or ra, since there's no difference betweeen l and r, and it sounds almost like n... but, however hard it is for us to pronounce, it's always the same.)

I learned some stock phrases within a few months; I can say "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry", and I could understand a Korean saying it, if any of them ever did. (Koreans are very warm and polite to people they consider to be in their social or business circle, respectively, not so much to "outsiders".)

But actually having a vague idea of how verbs are conjugated or how parts of a sentence go together? That's new. Say "syntax" and I would have thought you were talking about paying extra for cigarettes or liquor...

 ...nah, soju's nasty; drink maekju (beer).

Till now. I've been going to the weekly Korean class with Qinjie for a while, and I still feel like an idiot when I'm there... I'm slow to pick it up, and there's so very much to learn. I will probably never understand a fast-paced conversation on TV or between people near me on the street. But I'm beginning to see how the pieces fit: 집애가요 (jip eh ga yo)--"home"/grammar marker for "place"/present tense of "go"-- means "I'm going home," or, in context, "He's on his way home" or, with a rising inflection, "Are you going home?" And I can say "I'm going to the park" and "Are you coming home?" (Not that I have any use for that one.)

It's like, say, an anagram contest where finally, finally, you see that Ithaca spells A cat! Hi! or Seoul is the same as louse (no slur intended; I'm happy to live here), or Steve Cornman spells Cavemen Snort.


(Okay, it's not very much like that, but it does allow me to use Cavemen snort as my headline. And, as Captain Mal Reynolds on my second-favorite science fiction show, Firefly, said, "That's not nothin'.")

And now for something not completely different...

I began running 43 years ago, and have been running very regularly since 1999. When I read the delightful book Born to Run last year, it changed my outlook and technique. But it took till this week for the full message to come through.

Born to Run is anthropology, kinesthetics, topography, marketing study, and biography all at once, all wrapped in the fascinating story of a secret ultramarathon. It's about a hidden tribe in the Copper Canyons of Mexico whose members of all ages routinely run dozens of miles at a time, their feet protected only by homemade sandals made from discarded tires or old strips of leather.

 ...like this.

The first time I read it, it made me a convert to minimalist (that is, near-barefoot) running. Briefly: our bodies were designed by uncounted years of evolution to be runners; we survived for millennia by chasing prey, which (as quadrupeds only cool off by panting, and nothing can sprint and pant simultaneously) would eventually collapse from the heat, while we, able to cool off by sweating, kept going. We ran with our feet under our torsos, landing on the balls of our feet, using out bent knees to cushion the shock. But 40 years ago, with the development of padded running shoe with thick, built-up heels, we began running by sticking the front leg forward and landing on the heel, which left the knee unable to absorb the heavy impact. Thus: injuries.

So I done got me some flat, minimally padded shoes, just enough to protect from pebbles and broken glass...

 ...like this...

, and started running "barefoot". It feels more natural and more connected to the earth, and I no longer get injured, through up to 20 miles at a time of marathon training, a full marathon, all on hard surfaces, and all... those... hashes, on concrete and up and down the rocky hountain trails of Korea. All while hunting the elusive tofubeast.

I'm a convert. Once you go flat, you never go back.

But it was just this week, after my third reading of the book, that the rest of the lesson finally got through: the purpose of running is to run. It's being alive, experiencing the world. For all these years, as much as I've gotten from running, it's usually been a chore, something to control weight or reach a time goal or win a medal or feel virtuous about. Now I've started just being out and moving and feeling alive. It's being in the moment, as our Buddhist neighbors would say.

And yesterday at dusk, on an hour's run along the creek, out away from the city, the physical aspect came together after all this time. Without conscious effort, I found my feet rotating under me like a bicyclist's, with small, quick steps, pushing forward smoothly rather than moving up and down like pistons. I told my cross-country kids for years that every running motion that isn't straight forward (such as swinging the arms across the body or bouncing up and down) is a waste of energy, but this is the first time I've ever run so straight and so smoothly.

Don't get me wrong: I still move at a glacial pace by athletes' standards... the winner of last year's Joongang Marathon was in the air, headed back to Kenya, before I finished. But I cut a minute per mile off my usual pace and felt fresher. And smoother and lighter and... well, gooder.

Okay, I've gone on and on and on. So I'll make the conclusion short and sweet. It's nice to see at last that life doesn't always have to be such a struggle. Let the cavemen snort; I don't care.

Going viral

I finally had the follow-up appointment with Dr. Choi regarding my illness yesterday. It's been a bit nerve-jangling for the last four days, knowing my test results were in but being unable to get at them. Ive been feeling fine, but worried about how the results would affect my having a job next year, or even being able to run again.

I guessed that I might have a hormone imbalance of some kind, perhaps with my thyroid or testosterone (and, no, despite appearances, not overburdened with an excess of it). But it could have been something far more wicked, such as CFIDS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), which I was exposed to for years. I've seen what CFIDS does to someone, and it's not nice.

As it turns out, it was neither hormonal nor CFIDS, just some passing virus, like catching a severe flu with no muscle aches, fever, or rumbly tumbly. I hadn't known that it was possible, for such a minor reason, to feel as if one's veins were filled with molasses and one's eyelids weighed 17 pounds. Each.

It is.

But it's over and no reason it should ever come back.

So... good.

Energy is very good indeed.

Pheeling phully phlebotemized

You know when it would be really good to speak fluent Korean? When you go to the hospital for tests, that's when. (Speaking of "fluent", it would be nice to know, when the guy hands you an empty paper cup, that you're supposed to fill it.)

Yesterday I went to the Catholic University's St. Mary's Hospital, where I go for my BP meds, for tests to determine the cause of my recent mysterious fatigue. Hardly any signs are in English and hardly anyone there, outside the small International Health office, speaks it. And the floor plan that IH gives out is in English, but wildly inaccurate.

Interior design by M.C. Escher.

I finally found a sign that said "phlebotemy", but if I didn't have such a marvelous vocabulary, I would still be wandering around on the third floor.

I had a chest x-ray and wandered into an office that I hoped was the place for an EKG. (Fortunately, since I was unbuttoning my shirt, it was.)

Then it was time to go find the blood-testing office. I walked only about as far as Frodo in the Rings trilogy, but finally found it. The attendant gave me a little paper cup mysteriously devoid of Kool-Aid, and I intuited that I needed to fill it in the men's room. (Jeez, I hope I was right! Otherwise, whoever picks up the cup is in for an unpleasant surprise.)

I'm proud of my blood test result; I didn't even study for it and still ended up with an A+.

Afterward, the guy who took my blood asked his neighbor how to tell me, in English, to press down on the gauze for five minutes. Then he told me, in English, to press down for five minutes. And then I went home.

Oddly enough, I don't like going without food all day and being impaled by big needles. But it wasn't too bad and I'm eager to hear the results. It's kind of a big deal; Dr. Wilder, our new principal, let me know, frankly but sympathetically, that the school can't deal with a chronically ill teacher, so if it's Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I'm out of a job and have no purpose in this country. Also, I'll have to say goodbye to the Hash and to marathoning; the way I've been feeling, I can't drive 26 miles.

I really believe, though, that the cause is something more innocuous. (Sleep apnea? Stress? Something environmental?) I'm feeling better now, anyway.

I know I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Sleeping thickness

Yesterday, our school had its Family Day, with all the students and parents gathering for tug-of-war, dodge ball, and assorted sports and games. I confess to doing ten percent more than the required grumbling about holding it on Saturday, thus making me miss my beloved YK hash; in past years, the school had always held Family Day on Friday.

Since I couldn't hash on Saturday, I did on Friday night, where I ingested a grand total of one beer. (One light beer, at that.) We ended at our fellow hasher Panzer's house, where I promptly fell asleep on his couch in the midst of the merriment. Val woke me at 2 a.m. and shepherded me home via taxi.

As it turned out, I missed both YK and Family Day, as I woke up at 10:15, too late to go to either. Apparently I'd forgotten to plug in my cell phone the night before; it died, preventing my alarm, as well as phone calls from work, from waking me up.

Swell. Way to make a good impression on the new principal! How professional of me.

I have been just exhausted every day lately, fighting to stay awake past 9 p.m. I don't know what's wrong. Yesterday, in the afternoon, I went for a gentle hike on the hountain near me, in hopes that the sunshine and breeze would wake me up. I ended up nodding off sitting up on a bench. Last night I fell asleep fully dressed. I woke up and jumped out of bed, ready for the day... till I checked the clock; it was 1 a.m. I went back to bed and got up at 7:00. It's four hours later and I'm still nodding off at my desk; I feel the way I do when I get up for a bathroom trip at 3 a.m., all disoriented, grainy-eyed, and walking through knee-deep pudding.

It's taken me twice the usual time to write this blog entry. Clearly it's not twice as interesting.


To sleep, perchance to dream...

Once more into the breach

It was too much.

In my planning period, at the start of the school day on Tuesday, I put my head on my desk and tears came to my eyes. I felt myself on the verge of weeping; I'd be no good for the next class. So I went to talk to Kate, our school therapist, and got myself back together. But the sadness lingers.

First, on Thursday evening, our student Jaesung (Louis) was hit by a car and killed. He was such a sweet kid, friendly and cheerful and quiet. He was a wonderful guitarist. On Friday morning, the school canceled our amusement-park field trip and went to a meeting room at the hospital, where waiting in the long, long line in the hallway was so hard, listening to the sounds of grief from the next room. On Saturday morning, according to custom, on the way to the funeral, they stopped at the places important in his life for one last goodbye. Many of us gathered in the school library to lay flowers in front of his portrait and listen to remembrances. On Monday, the school put up a bulletin board for his friends and teachers to post their memories and messages to Louis.

And then, on awakening on Tuesday, I turned on my computer to the headline MARATHON HORROR.

You can't quantify shock and sorrow; was September 11 a thousand times worse because a thousand times as many innocent people died? What about Sandy Hook, where all those pure, little kids died? I only know that this one, the Boston Marathon bombing, was personal to me.

Running is such a positive, life-affirming activity; it's all about self-discovery and breaking barriers and believing we can do better and be better. I've been running on-and-off (mostly off) since 1970, regularly since 1999, and it's changed who I think I am. It's changed who I am. I think of all the miles I've put in, the hundreds of thousands of miles those marathoners in Boston put in, the wonderful kids I coached in cross country, the lovely people who came out in Boston to cheer on strangers and show love and pride in their family members...

It was too much.

Boston's the Holy Grail for runners, the World Series, the Oscars. It's far beyond the abilities of a poor schlumpf like me to ever run fast enough to qualify for it. To the Church of Running, it's the Vatican and Mecca rolled into one.

As I wrote on this blog in November, I'd decided my days of running the full marathon were probably through. Training that much, through the Seoul summer, is not fun and the race itself is an ordeal.

Nobody who was in Boston even knows I exist, except for my hashing friend Sarah, who ran the race and, afterward, was standing in front of this Starbucks, but left a few minutes before the explosion. (She is fine, thank goodness.)

(Sarah's amazing blog about Boston is at 

http://travelfitnessandlove.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/boston-a-lonely-runners-experience/).

None of the victims will know or care if I run another marathon. It won't help them in any way. In the end, nobody will care but me.

What I'm about to say makes no logical sense at all. But I can't help it:

I need to run a marathon this fall. For Boston.

Chuncheon, 2010; I was a little younger and the world was a little purer.

Tell them

The lovely cherry trees are blossoming along the Yangjae Cheon, and it's spring. And a bitter, wintry wind blows every day.

Today was supposed to be our school's field trip; we were going to Lotte World, the amusement park. But when we got to school, we found that one of our students had been hit and killed by a car last evening.

He was a very nice kid, a sophomore, whom I had in my English class last year.

Instead of Lotte World, the rented buses took the teachers and almost all the students to a meeting room at the hospital in Bundang to pay our respects to the family. Based on the original purpose of my blog, I should tell you all of the fascinating cultural details of how such things are done here; but the grief was so raw and so deep that it would feel almost obscene to cheapen it with some kind of touristy retelling.

Instead, please remember the last time someone you know died unexpectedly, and it seemed so unreal, and how everyone said to tell the people you love how you feel, because you never know... and how maybe you forgot the principle a couple of days later.

Tell them now.

It was the better of times...

...it was the worse of times.

Our school has been having its spring break this week, and some of my colleagues have been jetting off to Malaysia or Thailand (or, in the case of our counselor, Brian, a honeymoon in Italy--but he's a Cornell graduate, and you know how privileged they are). But I feel I've made good use of my time at home.

Qin Jie and I had a Korean class on Monday and reviewed together on Tuesday; we've gotten to the part where we're supposed to remember which verbs go -어요, which ones go -아요, and which go -애요 in the present tense. "Supposed to" is the precisely appropriate term here.

On Monday, I went to Itaewon for a farewell drink or four with my departing hashing friend ToT and other friends.

On Tuesday, I went to Itaewon for dinner and my first good talk with Tori, another hasher. She's a good example to me about prejudices; I didn't take to her at first because she's a heavy smoker, her arms are completely covered in tattoos, and--because she's Southern and in the Navy--I jumped to the contusion that she's a redneck. Turns out, she's a terrific person and very well-read and interested in the same kinds of New Thoughty, Buddhish spirituality that I am. Shame on me for prejudging her like that, missing the mark so widely, and losing out on months of good conversations we could have had.

Then, after dinner, we had drinks with ToT et al (whoever he is) again, because why not?

On Wednesday, Qin Jie invited me to her apartment, in the building next to mine, to show me how to make fried rice. You wouldn't think a Chinese person would suggest putting ketchup on fried rice, but she did, and it was good. Then our new colleague Dave--who incidentally is a great running partner and is becoming an enthusiastic hasher--was passing by on the way up to his apartment and invited us up to join a couple of our other friends/coworkers for drinks and pizza.

Yesterday, I went to Bongeunsa, the Buddhist temple across from the COEX Mall, which once a week holds a 2 1/2-hour Temple Visit program for foreigners. But I'll post about that soon. Then I came home and made fried rice; it's probably not as good as Qin Jie's, but I didn't get sick or burn anything down, so good on me.

Today I rejoined the gym near my house, which in the past I've only used for running during the coldest winter months; I need to build up my gerbil-like upper-body strength. Dave, who speaks excellent Korean,went with me and he was so damn charming that the lady at the desk let me start today, even though the membership is for April. The downside is that I worked out and now my arms are quivering as I type.

Meanwhile, I've also done spring cleaning to the point where the cat has space on the floor to lie down. Hey, it's not as bad as it sounds; he's a pretty big cat. (I exaggerate the messiness for humorous effect.) (Not by much.)

(Happy Easter, by the way!)

So I've been making strides at getting my house (mentally and physically, as well as literally) in order. It's the better of times. But, also...

All of my closest friends here are about to leave and who knows if I'll ever see any of them again? This, as I've said before, is the hardest spiritual lesson of all for me: learning to let go, knowing how to say goodbye. I have leaned on these people, Kat, Jane, and Val, when I've needed someone to lean on, and tried to be there for them as well. I'll miss them--Kat's leaving in a couple of days, Jane in a couple of weeks, Val in a couple of months--very much. And Tori, whom I'm just getting to know and care for, is gone in a few days as well.

There's uncertainty at school, as Ron, our principal ever since I've been at St. Paul, is leaving. I've enjoyed working with him, as he trusts his teachers, and his laissez-faire attitude has allowed me almost free rein to teach the way I want to. If you know me at all, you know I bridle under close supervision. I think I'm a pretty good teacher and I've enjoyed being my own department head. I'm grateful to Ron for that.

A few weeks ago, two men jetted in on different days to see the school and be interviewed, and Mr. Park hired one, Dr. Wilder, to take over in the fall. But now he's going to start *this Monday* instead. It's always a little stressful (though often in a good way) to get a new boss. Dr. Wilder is obviously very well qualified, but the uncertainty of how things will change...

And then, of course, everyone in Seoul could be evaporated in a nuclear fireball any day, so there's that.

"Totally serious this time, guys"

It's a little odd living in a metro area of over 20 million people, just 35 miles from the Crappiest Place on Earth(tm). I can't deny that I get a little nervous from time to time, and last week, for the first time in 60 years, the North announced it would no longer recognize the DMZ and the cease fire. (You did know that, technically, the Korean Civil War is still going on, right?)

They're also using such snappy phrases as "rain fire" and "sea of flames", and much as the winter chilled me, that prospect is strangely unappealing to me. If they came over the border, there'd be many, many thousands of human deaths, and a cat.

But we haven't gotten any warnings from the US Embassy, unlike a year and a half ago after the North shelled the South's Yeonpyeong Island. At that point, the embassy sent out an email saying, basically, "We don't think anything's gonna happen, but if it does, come to the embassy and we'll put you on buses to Busan and fly you out of here." So, until we get something like that again, I'm not overly worried. (Although the doctor told me my brain was too tense: "Too tense the size of a normal brain.")

Nothing on a large scale will ever happen here unless the guys up north are totally nuts, because it would mean their complete destruction. They've shown over and over that they don't give a damn about their people, but they do care about themselves.

I've likened the situation here to living in Florida or California: you know there could be a 'cane or a 'quake, but you just go about your life.

Sometimes I think we should just give the rulers a billion gazillion dollars and one of those islands that Survivor has been based on and tell them to go away and lie in the sun. They're nasty little baskers.

Things were slough all over

Dante began Inferno by talking about how he had been lost in a dark wood. I know what he meant; I've been stumbling around quite a bit myself lately, and all the impediments I've tripped over have come from inside me. Since November, I've had just enough will and energy to do my job and come home and slump (in more ways than one) in front of the computer while eating all the junk food in East Asia, trying to stay awake till 10 p.m., and waking up a 4:30 or 5:00.

I know what you'll say, O Hypothetical Reader: must be the Winter Blues. That is a factor; I cut way back on my running and general outside-being, which is always my favorite state. I holed up and ate a lot of synthesized food-like substances and got a little rounder.

But the downswing started before the weather got bad, and it ended before the first tentative hint of spring. I suspect the proximate cause was finishing the marathon; the training gave me structure and purpose and something to look forward to, and meeting my goal left me aimless. (I wonder how Neil Armstrong felt right after he got back from the Moon...) Then again, I was obsessively following the US election, and that ended a few days after my race. And maybe, just maybe, I've been lonely.

But in the last few weeks I've pulled myself out of my slough and sloughed off my malaise . (I like to preen over my knowledge of our language, but I never knew that "slough", as in swamp, rhymes with "cow"; I thought, like "slough", as in cast off, it rhymed with "tough"... didn't you? Don't think you can avoid answering just because you're hypothetical.)

Anyway, I'm doing much better.

What changed?

Mostly. energy or not, I got out and started doing stuff, rediscovering that there's life beyond the cat and the keyboard. My friend Kat, whom I've mentioned here recently, has been a great inspiration. She goes and does stuff, the more adventurous the better. Her inviting me to hike Bukhansan gave me a great jumpstart. And I've been going out for lunch and merriment on Saturdays after the hash.

In the last few weeks, I've hashed a bunch of times and had some interesting experiences:

Well, we laid that meme to rest for good.

Yes, I slid down the slidewalk too.

 Yeah, I would love to drink that, but I'm a vegetarian. It's a shame.

...and took part in a surprise 30th-birthday party for our friend HHIT; Two dozen of us hid in Foo Foo's little kitchen as HHIT walked in, thinking he was going to help Foo Foo move a TV, saw us, muttered a rude word, and we erupted in laughter. The only implement we had for him to break the pinata with was a golf club, and as Foo Foo has a big-screen TV and a light hanging from the ceiling...

...someone just threw the pinata to HHIT, who broke it open with a single punch. 

And then he had his nearly waist-length hair chopped off for Locks of Love:

Adult beverages may have been consumed, in moderation.

The next day, I hiked the silent hountain near my house...

 This is my church on Sundays.

and hurried back to change clothes and head to Itaewon, where I played a bartender in my friend Lost-a-Lot's indie film...

Stars have chiseled cheekbones; extras have bow ties.

...and attended Kat's pre-departure house party and ran a bunch of times with my new friend and colleague Dave, who's really very smart even if he only graduated from Cal Berkeley, and... you know, it all runs together. I know I've forgotten some things...

In the last week, I have literally had more social engagements than I did in a full year in Daegu:

Friday: poker with the guys from work

Saturday: hashing

 Some of them are my close friends; all of them are family.

Sunday: Coffee and Korean practice with Qinjie:

Friends don't have to have a single thing in common.

Monday: Korean class, then pancake dinner with Kat.

Tuesday: Chinese dinner with Qinjie, Kate, and Ms. Jeon. (See previous post.)

Wednesday: Mexican dinner signaling transition in mismanagement...

I'm upper management now... time to set my fiendish plan in motion!

Thursday (today): Nothing! So I'm gracing you with my wit and wisdumb.

Friday: Our course counselor Brian's bachelor party. (We are anticipating such decadent activities as bowling and darts.)

Saturday: Kat and Jason's going-away party.

Sunday: Coffee and Korean practice with Qinjie.

Monday: Korean class.

So, as you see, I've been a busy little corndog. Tug is slacking off and not doing the dishes as he should, or the cooking--and he's already got the oven mitts built in! So the place is a mess. But otherwise things are hopping and I am well.

(The following denouement is a bit overly rosy... the best friends I have here [Kat, Jane, Val] are leaving soon and school can be a grind--30 four-page papers to proofread--and the Mets still haven't called to give me a tryout at first base, but still, I love an upbeat ending, so...)

I'm  looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Also dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep. Good night!