Memories from Earlier

By the door you said you had to go
Couldn't help me anymore
This I saw coming long before
So I kept on staring out the window
Calling you, calling you home

Born in a war of opposite attraction
It isn't, or is it a natural conception
Torn by the arms in opposite directions
It isn't, or is it a modernist reaction

Is it like this
Is it always the same
When a heartache begins

Is it always the same
Will you come back again

Will you tell me

Laptop's Birthday

While it's still December 29th....Happy First Birthday to Laptop! You've been great. And you can play Civ V, even though that game blows and IV was so much better.

Here's to some more great times together.

What's it For?

I just remembered one day during my senior year of high school one of my guy friends asked us at the lunch table, "What's the hole in the front of underwear for?"

I questioned his having of a penis at that moment.

Some more Left

I just Political Compassed myself again. My results last time were -6.25, -5.47. This time I got -7.50, -6.15. I wonder if living in Korea has made me more leftist? I think being out of the closed-minded US for a while really lets you see how the world operates outside of the typical conservative box that America is stuck in.

I could say a lot more, but my positions on things are well-known and I don't want to waste the time typing them out again.

Fanta Fiasco

I broke my arm at the elbow and was out of commission for a while. It's getting better.

We were talking this evening at work about stealing and I said I feel bad about stealing things. I was quickly reminded of a 2 liter bottle of Fanta I stuffed into my pants a few weeks ago at a company party before walking out the door. I then tried to say that I meant stealing from stores, but my co-workers would have none of it, jesting at me until I left the room. Embarrassing as it was, it was simple playing around. No hard feelings.

Tomorrow is Friday. I feel like this week has rushed by. I don't really give a shit about most of my classes anymore. I only meet with my TR classes 3 more times and my MWF classes 6 more times until the end of the term on November 30. I'm ready to change things up, except with my night classes. I really want to keep them. They're my older kids, and the only ones I can say I genuinely like. I'm just not good at working with children still.

The word 'cute' is said often here. And sometimes in awkward situations. Hands are left on shoulders and "sup's" are said with strange looks in eyes. It's strange here sometimes.

And..

Oh, and blah blah blah blah blah blah Steve Jobs blah blah blah blah. Why not just make him our new god already...I don't understand why people are acting like this when there are thousands of people dying while fighting for freedom (since we Americans tout that as SOOOOOOO important to fight for our freedom) in other countries that we turn a blind eye to. Why aren't we saying anything about Fred Shuttlesworth, a Civil Rights activist who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., to end segregation and advance the rights of an oppressed people in our country? He died the same day as Jobs, but you'll find little mention of it. It's truly sad that we would ignore somebody like that to apotheosize someone who "told us what we needed before we knew" as a headline that I just saw read.

It's really sickening.

Jealousy

After a brief snafu about the resumption of me teaching middle school classes tonight instead of tomorrow and me teaching only an hour out of the two because I was late, I had plenty of time on my angry walk to think about things. I had fully planned out my angry speech which would be delivered eloquently the next day, and, as it was Friday, I'd have a full weekend before having to see these people again. But I decided against it as it's probably not the best thing to do. I'll just have a talk with them instead.

But I also started thinking about other things...like how jealous I am of couples, and how I'm jealous of the way they can walk around holding hands and acting like everything is perfect in the world. Because I want that. I want someone to share the pains of the world with me and tell me that things will be alright. To comfort me, to be with me, to WANT to be with me, to tell me the things I want to hear, and the things I need to hear. Someone who can put up with my cynicism and snarkiness and still want to talk to me later. Someone who will let me complain about keeping the house clean only to let me mess it up myself during an alcohol-fueled binge. Someone who can help subside my rage at politics and people and bigots and racists and homophobes and everybody in-between and at the fringes.

I had something good for a while and I fucked it up. It wasn't all me, but a lot of it was me. And......and I think it's ridiculous that I can try to blame myself for something like that. This is why I need that other person with me. To tell me that not everything is my fault, because if it were up to me, everything would be my fault because it's the only way that some things will ever be apologized for.

It's October

Congratulations to Matt and Anna upon their wedding. I'm so happy for them and I wish them the best of times together. :)

Now, after that lovely introduction to this post, I have to say that being sick sucks. Oh my god. I haven't left my apartment in days now and I have a fan blowing out of an open window to hopefully take some of the funk out of my room. I finally got around to showering today and washed the clothes that I had not taken off for the past 2 days. God I'm gross.

On a good note though, I'm finally feeling better today and was able to, besides take a shower and do laundry, get all of my grading done. This means that tonight I can lay back and stream some shows onto my laptop. Speaking of shows, I've read that Arrested Development is going to return to TV and then will have a movie to finish it off. I'm super excited and I hope the ratings for the show are through the roof when it does come back on. As someone who was a loyal viewer from episode one of the original run, I've worked hard to spread my love of the show around. I think I've done well.

Ha, I was thinking about making spaghetti tonight for dinner, but I remembered that that means I have to strain the sauce as I accidentally bought a jar that had olives in it. Curse you olives. You make making dinner difficult. And I hate you and everybody who puts you on pizzas just to make sure that I don't steal any of it. You and green peppers can just go and die and never come back.

I'll still probably make spaghetti for dinner tonight.

Abroad

I keep singing "Mamamia" in my head because 1) there are posters for the show all along my trek to work, and 2) it reminds me of the episode of Community where everybody turns into zombies at the Halloween party and Troy says "I love you" to Abed seconds before Abed is swarmed by the mass of infected people..............

Anyway, I've got some Soviet Russian music playing now so maybe that'll clear my mind from outdated pop music as I drink my Friday night celebratory soju and think about what I need to do around here before we go to the FC Seoul game tomorrow for "Foreigner's Day". I resent calling it that so I usually refer to it as "International's Day", but it should be a good time. Most of WILS is going.

Ok, this drink I made seriously tastes like rubbing alcohol.

On a side note, I cannot believe how much I am loving the food over here. It's like the Koreans have found a way to make the most repulsive sounding things taste delicious. Want some cabbage that's fermented with bits of rejected fish and oysters and other nasties that nobody wanted to eat? Have some kimchi! (which has very much grown on me. I actually made a 김치 찌개 the other night that was amazing). Want some raw beef and a raw egg seasoned with some of the spiciest spices your mouth has ever experienced? Have some yukhoe (육회)! Reisha (and by the freaking way, I found out that I knew Reisha's brother at UVA because he's totally Anna Kushner's boyfriend), Wally and I went out to a place today where I cannot remember for the life of me what the food was called, but it was absolutely amazing. It was thin (and I mean THIN) slices of beef that we grilled. It wasn't bulgogi. And if I didn't know better I would have called it beef samgyeopsal. We sat around and talked while our waitress grilled our meat for us. We wanted to tell her that we could do it, but, well, we didn't know how to. She was super nice to us and even brought out a bottle of 'digestive tea' for us to have at the end of the meal, on the house.

People here are so nice and welcoming to us. I know that sometimes it feels like they're all looking at me and judging me, and they probably are, but when it comes down to us actually interacting with them, they have been so courteous and kind that it would put Southern Hospitality to shame. I was in the Family Mart at the base of the Tower tonight buying my soju and there was an older man in there and as I walked up to the register he gave me a big smile and patted me on the shoulder and let me go in front of him in line. By the time I had put my bottles in my bag he was done paying and was at the door the same time I was. He looked at me and bowed and let me go first before he said 'thank you'. I said 'thank you' back out of English habit even though I should have said something like '감사합니다' to him. I walked over to the elevator smiling thinking how lucky I am to be living in a place where people are accepting of foreigners and don't treat them like shit because they can't speak the language and don't know the customs. I make an ass of myself every time I go to a grocery store or cross the street or hold the door for a stranger, but the Korean people just look back at me and, I'm assuming, think something along the lines of "It's ok, he's at least here and he's trying to learn some things." I was complimented the other night when I received my change with both hands and bowing to the clerk at a convenience store as I had taken my change "very Korean-like".

Maybe it's because I love other cultures. Maybe it's because I grew up in an area that rejected any notion that was not purely American by nature. Maybe it's some completely random reason that I have no control over, but I love it here. I love this whole experience. I love being oblivious to many of the things going on around me, but at the same time being more into some things because I have to use senses other than language to operate. I pick up more on body language than I ever have before in my life. I'll pass a group of people on the sidewalk and pick out two words of what they're saying, but it's enough for me to contemplate what they were talking about until I pass the next group..all pushing past each other on the crosswalk trying to make it across the wide streets of Seoul before the little green man stops blinking.

Imagination is a big part of surviving while abroad. If you cannot wonder about things then you're doomed from the start. The language barrier creates a wall of solitude when alone that mandates some kind of inner thought process of what is going on around you. If you think you know everything; if you think your culture is always right or is the best, or even close to being the best, then you're setting yourself up for failure. You have to be more accepting than you've ever been in your life. You're not just visiting another culture, you're living here. And I have to remind myself of that every single day. When I wake up and look out of my 12th-story window I have to tell myself that I am but a simple visitor to this land and I will learn the most that I can. While I cannot learn everything, I will try my hardest to be able to hail a cab and tell him directions in Korean or go to a restaurant by myself and speak no English the whole time I'm there by the time I leave this city.

Whenever that may be.

It all comes down to Grapes

Because I said that I'm going to do posts on here after I do posts on my Seoul blog I figured I'd come on here tonight and type up some things that I can't really say on my other one since there are people I don't necessarily want reading all of my feelings who read that one.

I'm not going to say anything too bad about Seoul. I still love it here. There are, however, a few things that bother the shit out of me:

1) The way people walk over here. Back home people usually walk in straight, or at least semi-straight lines. Here, there is little of that. You could be walking down the sidewalk and the person coming in the other direction decides that they now want to meander through the sidewalk and get into your path. Either you run into them or you get out of their way because once they decide to do what I call the "Korean Swerve" there's no turning back for them. A lot of the sidewalks here are brick-lined so I can look at the lines people are walking and oh my god, people seriously don't walk in fucking straight lines. Especially at night. Oh my god. And it's not that they do it to just foreigners, it's everybody. And for god's sake stay clear of bikers. Just like in Charlottesville, they think they rule both the roads AND the sidewalks.

2) The smells on my way to work. At first I couldn't smell what I've deemed to be the "smells of cities" here. But lately I've been smelling some kind of sewer smell on a good part of my 20 minute walk to work. It's pretty bad. I mean, not like how KWHS used to get when the sewer system used to back up into the bathrooms, but it's bad enough that I'm like...ew...it smells here. Maybe it's the little fruit sack things that are dropping off the trees near the sidewalks and being perpetually crushed by pedestrians. Somehow people have a thing for planting smelly trees and shrubbery where people have to walk and I really don't know why.

3) My Yellow Class. They're fucking terrors except for one quiet girl who is trying her hardest to operate in that environment with them.

4) How the Korean people stare at foreigners. It's long, it's hard, and it's bad.

I can't really think of others right now, but I'm sure it'd be something about how something it supposed to taste like something, but it doesn't.

Oh, 5) The grapes here suck. You know that realllllllllllly fake grape flavor in things? Well that's what grapes are like here, except the skins are tough to the point that Koreans actually spit it out rather than trying to eat it; there's probably 4 big seeds in each one that you can't eat, and thus, as the Koreans do, spit them out; and the texture and overall experience of the grapes remind me of the grapes my grandparents used to grow at their house and I can remember people telling us not to eat those grapes.

And 6) Fruit is fucking expensive as shit here. 15,000 won for a bunch of your shitty grapes, sir? I think not. I'll just go buy some fruit-flavored candy from the convenience store down the street. At least I don't have to spit any of that out when I eat it.

The rest of the food has been great here, though. I just know not to bother with grapes while I'm here.

Brief Rant

I still hate my Yellow class, but they're getting better. I, haha, I wanted to say 'drugged'...I BRIBED them with drawing yesterday and they were better behaved in order to get the reward and then as they were drawing they were dead silent. It was great. Having them as my first class actually wears me down some days. Kinda like how 2nd block at AHS used to do. Luckily I didn't have 4th block in their place though. God, I wouldn't have made it. The only thing that got me through 4th block some days was knowing that I could go home soon.

I need to figure out which words my EFL7 class actually understands, though...Sometimes I'll say something to them and just get blanks stares..

Later, in my Indigo class, we were reading about King Tut and his mysterious death and whatnot and we got to a part that said in 2000 the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, or whatever it's called, started using advanced x-ray technology on the mummy. One of my kids pointed out that 2000 was the year he was born. I guess it kind of caught me off guard to think that, soon, people who were born in 2000 will be in high school. These people have no memories of September 11th happening, which means that it most likely had less of an effect on their lives and maybe we can stop using it to justify things with the younger generations of people. I was never really affected by the Cold War (being born the year the Berlin Wall came down and just a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union) and I don't understand how people can justify war and hatred over different ideology like that. Maybe these kids can be a new voice of reason against the kinds of things we're doing around the world in order to tout our failing power and crumbling influence. We just have to remove the old people and the closed-minded asses from power first.

And also get the young people to care....Which is always a difficult task..

Ok, getting serious Now.

So, hey, guess what. I'm still living in Korea. Yeah, it's going to be like that for about a year. Hopefully the fact that I started another blog will help me get back on here. I know I've promised this to my sparse number of readers many times, but this time I can just try to get in the habit of posting there and posting here in the same night. It may not be every day, but I'm sure it'll be more often than what I've been doing recently.

I love it here. I made sushi for the first time last night because I can easily, and cheaply, find the materials to make it. I'm still getting used to the whole I'm-in-a-huge-city-in-Asia-and-I'm-a-rural-kid-from-eastern-Virginia thing. Culture shock hasn't been that bad though. I'm learning enough Korean to get by and as time progresses I'm hoping to learn more. Funny how one of my target languages from a few years ago is now the official language of the country I live in.

I've thought about moving to Spain or Poland after this. I don't know. I have a good amount of time to think about that later.

Once I figure out my address I'll be sure to post it up here. And on my other blog: thirteenhoursearlier.blogspot.com

As for now, I have some grading to do, not much at all though. And nothing like grading was back at AHS. There's like...3 sentences for 10 kids that I have to read. It's much more simple than reading historical identifications and having to pick out what parts were important and what others were meaningless drivel meant to expand the writing to a point the students thought was an acceptable length. I would have accepted 5 sentences if you could tell me Who, What, When, Where, Why is this Important....but no, there were different ideas for what was supposed to be written. My favorites were from the beginning of the year when the ID was on Columbus and the kids had no freaking idea who he was.

Did you know that Columbus discovered America in the late 1980s? Me either. Because he didn't. It made grading suck something fierce.

But now, I'm circling words and checking to see if the kids put "The" at the beginning of a sentence or include "is" in the middle of their 5 word sentence. Tedious? Maybe. Super easy? Yes.

I also have to make up a vocabulary quiz for my National Geographic class. I think the last quiz I made was a bit too easy because from the look of it, most, if not all of the kids didn't miss any of the fill-in-the-blanks or multiple choice questions. I still have to read their sentences though.

But that's enough rambling about work. It's strange to think that I actually have a job here. Any other time I've visited a country it's been for my own enjoyment. And this is too to most extents, but I do have to do work.

My job starts at 2 in the afternoon. It's great.

Uhh..

Holy fuck. I live in Seoul now.

J.L.O.T. 2

Last Friday night I went on a "date" with my ex, the ex I first wrote about in the original J.L.O.T. post from a long time ago. We went to a Thai restaurant in Richmond and then went back to his place where we proceeded to play video games and watch TV just like we had done 5 years ago while we were dating in high school. As we were playing video games we both started to inch closer to each other until we were leaning on each other towards the end. When we started watching TV he got us some drinks from the kitchen and we switched places on the couch. As I got more comfortable with the situation I leaned my head onto his shoulder. He looked over at me and then back at the screen, leaning slightly towards my new position.

As time passed our arms became interlocked and soon after that our fingers followed. We sat there like that, like we used to, just watching TV and holding each other -- laughing, talking, and just sitting in silence as the people on the screen did the talking for us. We would occasionally steal glances at each other, but neither of us really knew how to progress the situation to where we both knew it was heading.

As midnight rolled around he told me that he had go to sleep soon so he could go to work the next day. I picked myself up from the sofa, leaned over to him, and said that it was probably a good thing because I still had to drive an hour home. I put my shoes back on as he watched and I said that I would love to see him again before I leave in a few weeks. He responded that he would like that and we began to walk to the door. Before opening it I turned around and looked him in the eyes. He met my eyes and we stepped toward each other. We embraced in an amorous hug and as we broke it he leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. I returned the kiss and, eventually, broke it off, laughingly telling him to go to bed and that I would have to see him again soon. He nodded and told me good night as I opened the door, looked back at him, walked out, and closed it.

As I walked to my car I felt giddy, much like I had after he first kissed me in the high school parking lot shortly before my seventeenth birthday. Even though I had been the one who had broken the kiss and ended the night by leaving, I was the one who had wanted to start it. I had honestly thought about that upcoming moment all day long from the second I asked him to dinner until it finally happened shortly after the stroke of midnight. I longed for it because I missed it.

But the problems come in here: I'm going away for (at least) a year, we already tried dating and failed, both he and I have changed from what we were back then, and we've been in a similar situation to this before.

The fact that I'm going away for a year is probably the biggest issue for me. Separation can make the heart grow stronger, or whatever, but eventually time can erase those feelings, as well as present new opportunities.

We dated from March 22 to (December 11), 2006, (we broke up for about 3 days in early November) and by the end of that time I couldn't bear to even look at him, much less spend time with him. We were different from each other, we had different viewpoints (I, for one, was actually very religious at the time, which put us in some harsh and angry conflicts at times) and were from very different backgrounds. This could be just something that's stressing me because I feel that we may run into similar problems now..even though many of the issues that drove us apart have been mellowed.

We have, however, changed from five years ago, and it's hard to predict any problems that may come up again, or any new ones that may present themselves. But I guess that's the challenge of being in a relationship..you sometimes never know what could come between two people until it actually happens. But this brings me to my final major issue..

A few years ago, during my second year at UVa, I would meet up with him once every few months and we would do things similar to this. While we were together one night he turned to me and asked me if this was what I wanted. We didn't get together again until a few days ago. I was, and am still, unsure of what I actually wanted with this. Is it just something that I like because I'm used to it and it's just like old times to me? Is this something that I actually want to try and re-start? Do I think that we can actually make it this time, despite our past together and apart?

I told a friend that I kissed him after having a date-like evening and she responded: "That's the good thing about exes-- you know why you don't want to date them, but, you know, they can still be fun to be with." I'm not too sure how to feel about that. I knew back in 2006 why I didn't want to date him, but now...things have changed. He's changed, I've changed, the overall situation has changed. Maybe things could be different now, or maybe they'd be exactly the same. I guess I won't know unless I actually try something.

He does have a dog though....that could be a deal-breaker.

(Kind of) The Ides of July

Well, oops, I missed all of June. And half of July. There has been so much since I posted last. I graduated from UVa in a super hot outdoors ceremony and then proceeded to JPJ where I received both my bachelors and masters degrees. Shortly before graduation I got a call from a professor asking if I was still interested in teaching English in Korea. I said yes and I soon after found myself rushing down to Barracks Road to have an interview with the president of the school in Seoul. He offered me a job on the spot.

I can't believe that in just a month I'll be starting a new life in Seoul, one of the largest cities in the world. I am excited beyond words. None of it feels real right now though. I guess because I'm sitting at home in West Point waiting. Just waiting.

Words fail me now. I think this post is more just to make me restart things. A quick run-down of the past two months will hopefully turn into more meaningful posts in the future. I'll also be starting a blog of my life in Seoul soonish..so I can describe the process of me going over there and then how things are when I'm there.

I just hope I like kimchi..

Bitter pills to Swallow

Boop be boop be boopee boo.

Might as well make my first borrachado post in a while. Mmmm...Me, Travis, Justin, and Jessica are watching 'Game of Thrones' and hanging out. I'm getting my Frank on: orange juice and my people's water. I'm kind of debating what I should do with my time tonight once Justin leaves.

Hold up, sex scene. Ooohh...she's crying...that's not good...

Oh, that wasn't much of a sex scene. Disappointed.

I think I should just put up quotes from what people are saying right now:

"You know how much life would have sucked if you were illiterate and retarded back in the day? All you could have done was sit and stare at the damn wall."

"Remember how I said that the queen and her brother were diddling each other? Well, they're diddling at the top of this tower."

"Well, Shit."

"Gimme my booze juice."

"Oh, Michael, you weren't here when we decided to look up if dwarfs have smaller penises.............................they do."

Yeah, that wasn't much. The episode ended now. But apparently we're starting another one. We did start a new one.

Whew...it's getting hot in here. We turned the fans on so hopefully it'll get cooler. And I just passed on the URL to my blog to my friends. Let the embarrassment begin.

Finished...

Well, around 10:30 p.m. today I finished my time at the University of Virginia. It's a bittersweet moment. I feel like I won't see many of the wonderful friends I made here after graduation. I also have this strange feeling of being cut loose with no direction. I guess that lends itself to the joblessness I'm still suffering. Either way, my prospects should be good. And now I'll have much more time to focus on getting applications in to people and talking to prospective employers.

It's also a very anti-climactic moment. I was hoping that I'd feel a great deal of relief, but really, all I feel is this...unknown future. I was writing a Korean history essay on Confucianism and filial piety in Early Goryeo society and after I wrote the sentence I almost had to force myself to think that I'm done. For some reason I either can't accept it yet..or I don't want to accept it. Maybe after I wake up tomorrow with nothing to do it'll feel more real, but until then I'm just kind of floating here.

My friends and I are talking about what we're going to do now that we're done. We have two weeks until graduation and we'll all be done with school by this coming Friday. I think I'm going to go home for a bit, get orders from my mom about what to do with my free time, GET SOME LAUNDRY DONE, and then just hang out with my friends for the last bit of time that we'll have together for a long time, if ever.

I don't mean to be a downer about this. I'm pretty excited. My future looks bright. I just can't help feeling that all of this was a dream. That my anti-climactic notions of being done are stemming from the fact that my brain has created the last three years of my life as a fantasy while I'm actually in a coma in a hospital or something.

If it is a dream and I wake up sometime in the future, at least I'll know what kinds of people I want as friends. The kind of people who have supported me through everything these past three years. The kind of people who deal with my annoyingness, my bitchiness, my constant complaining about messes, my obscene liberalness, and all of the other things that make me who I am.

Regardless of all of that though, for now, I have some time left in my first-celebrated Cinco de Ocho.

To market, to Market

After being reminded the people actually (read: sometimes) look at what I write on here, I decided to put up a much needed post.

A big flying bug just landed on my hand and I freaked out thinking it was a moth. Just thought you oughtta know.

The final days of my final semester of college are rocketing towards me. It's already Friday night, my last Friday night of school. I mean, there's exam week, but I have a 9 a.m. exam on Saturday so I don't think I'll be doing much besides memorizing Chinese terms that night. It's weird to think that I won't be seeing my friends much more after May 22. Weird being a synonym for sad in this case. It's not like high school when we knew we'd pretty much end up in the same state...now we're all splitting up to different parts of the country or world, wherever our jobs take us.

Speaking of jobs, I was rejected for the KWHS job. I don't know why, probably because I bombed the interview. There could be other reasons, but I think that's the most probable. Now with that disaster behind me I'm looking elsewhere for some kind of employment opportunity. After becoming depressed while browsing the VA Employment Commission's website and seeing that almost every job that's not hard labor required about 2-3 years of experience, I decided to look back into teaching positions, but in South Korea. I had left my resume with a South Korean school at the Curry Career Fair, but had forgotten about it until I started looking at jobs. Even then I didn't think much about it until I got an email this afternoon from someone in Curry saying that the president of the school in Korea would be contacting me soon. I read the email, put my head down on my bed, and started laughing hysterically....the possibility of me moving to a foreign country becoming more and more realistic as time flashes forward.

I went to see the AHS production of Phantom of the Opera tonight and I was smacked in the face with the reminder of why I've never been able to sit through the whole thing before: It's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring. I don't know what the proportion of slow songs to medium-paced songs is, but it's got to be like 20 to .5 or so. Which I guess would be 40 to 1. Either way, OMG. The kids did an excellent job though. My babies.

My foot, for the most part, is better. Rather than feeling broken now, it just feels stiff. And in typing that last sentence, I realize how much Polish has taken over my mind as I tried to spell words as they would be in Polish. And speaking of Polish, Lany Poniedziałek was this past Monday and I totally Śmigus Dyngus-ed my former Polish teacher. I was going to put something on Facebook about it but it would have come out sounding like I did something in a sexual manner with her, and that's not the case at all. I don't think either of us would have been down for that. She's a good sport about having water thrown on her as she's teaching though.

I'm back to being single, too. When things break down to just the nominal sense of being with somebody, I'd prefer just to not have it. So, I guess I'm back on the market for that...I'm also currently in the market in which people pass by and say "Oh, you, you're Social Studies? We've got nothing for you." And I look at them, smile, and say "Fuck you. I'm going to Korea."

It WOULD happen like That

My first bone breaking. Well, fracturing, but it's still some kind of 'this is not how the bone should be' kind of thing.

Sunday had started out like a nice day. I played some video games, let my family know I'd be coming home on Monday to deliver my KWHS application in full, and went to visit Kaylyn at Lambeth. As I was leaving I walked down the hill towards where I had parked and rolled my foot. I stumbled forward and leaned against the railing at the bottom of the hill and thought "Damn. I'm going to vomit...[deep breath][deep breath]...[try to put weight on it]...ok....ok...I don't think I can drive like this." I limped slowly towards my car where I collapsed into the driver's seat and managed to push the clutch down and start my car. I figured I had just twisted it badly but that it would get better. I made my way to Barrack's Road where I tried to stand in the Chipotle line, but the pain started getting worse and I felt like I was going to throw up so I hobbled back out to my car, leaned the seat back, and proceeded to take an hour nap in the parking lot, hoping the pain would subside by then.

It didn't, but I still managed to get dinner in some form and drove back to my apartment. I had started to feel better by this point, but when I tried to stand up, my left leg gave out in pain and I crumpled to the side. I limped back to my room and tried to watch Netflix, but decided that I should try resting some more. When I woke up again, my foot had started to swell, so I began to RICE it and texted Kaylyn to see what to do about a possible fracture or sprain. She told me to just keep doing what I was doing and to see a doctor the next day.

I eventually got to sleep and when I woke up for class, my foot was swollen and bruised and I couldn't stand on it at all. I called my mom and got her to make a doctor's appointment for me since I was still coming home to drop off my application. I made it home, went to the doctor, and got an x-ray. Initially they just told me that I had popped the fifth metatarsal tendon resulting in a 'bad sprain', so I limped back to my car and drove home to RICE it some more. As I was sitting in the living room, my mom handed me the phone. It was the doctor calling to tell me that the radiologist confirmed an "undisplaced linear fracture" meaning that I hadn't actually shifted the bone, but had cracked it. Erin brought up her crutches and I began to learn how to live my life for the next 4-6 weeks.

I'm terrible at walking with crutches. After getting bored from sitting by myself in the living room for hours, I ventured outside where my family was and on the way back inside through the back door I caught my crutch on the doorstep and stumbled. Out of habit I stuck my left foot out to balance myself, landing my foot squarely on the spot that is broken. I fell back against the wall and struggled to get my shoe off before angrily crutching back into the living room.

I can't carry anything in my hands when I walk, I can't stand up easily, I can't go up or down stairs easily, I can't figure out how I'm going to carry my stuff around grounds and make it up and down all of the staircases and do everything that I was able to before I stupidly rolled my foot on that hill.

These next few weeks are going to really be a test of my patience and ability to manage myself without the usual convenience of a left foot.

Further Left

I just took the political compass test again. The last time I took it and wrote down my results was March 23, 2010. While that's not exactly a year ago, it's pretty close and if I don't do it now, I'll forget about it until April or May. Last time my results were -6.25, -5.47....This time I got -7.50, -5.28, meaning I've moved pretty significantly to the left, with a small change away from complete liberty, but still pretty far in that realm. I'm looking up books on Amazon right now that, well, fit with my current political state of mind. And yeah, it's the Far Left, but I rather like being Far Left. My room is currently bathed in a red glow coming from the sun shining through the Soviet flag I have hanging in my window.

I don't think Ronnie likes it being there and he said that my room is like some kind of vampire cave now because whenever he walks by during the day there's that red glow showing from the crack under my door.

But, like I said, I like this. And whether I am actually revolutionary or not we will just have to wait and see as I have other things I need to finish first. 2 months until graduation. I'm kind of scared.

Happy birthday to my Blog

1 year ago over Spring Break I decided to restart my blog. I know that I have significantly slowed my posts since I began student teaching (and ended it relatively successfully) and I really do miss putting things on here whenever I can get myself to sign in and type something.

My Spring Break is coming to a close. It's gone by fast with the 'help' of Sims 3. My characters are at the top level in their respective fields (Symphonic music and Athletics) and I am pleased with their overall progress in life. If only things were so easy. If I only had to worry about eating (and not catching the house on fire while cooking), going to the bathroom, gaining skills by watching TV, occasionally talking to someone else, and going to work on time then I'm sure that things would be much better. But since I don't live in the Sim world, I don't get that simplified version of life. Which brings me to what else I did over Spring Break.

I applied for a job at King William High School.

Had you asked me when I first started education school if I would ever return to my home county, I would have replied with a definite "never." But as job desperation creeps in and graduation races towards me, King William started to look like an ever more viable option. When I got home and read in the local paper that one of the history teachers was leaving to get a coaching job in Pennsylvania, I decided that there was an opportunity to get into the system and try for a job. Luckily for me I know the head of Human Resources (she's my old principal), the head of the history department (she's my old APUSH and APGov teacher), and countless other employees, so I think I may have an 'in' with them. Not to mention they could use me as a poster child of a success story for their school system. I'm actually very excited about this prospect. After student teaching I realized that I actually could teach and that I was, you know, relatively good at it. I just hope that things work out. It would be nice to have a job lined up before graduation.

So, once again, here's to new beginnings, but also to the return of things once known. If things have lined up so that I get a job in King William and don't have to pay housing for a year or two then, hey, I'm fine with that. At least for a little while.

And the job search Begins

I won't apologize for my recent lack of posts, even though it's totally been my fault. I've thought about posting on here quite a few times, but never got the motivation to do it. So here I go I guess. I had actually decided to start writing a new short story this semester and even wrote the first few pages of it, but it sounded waaaayyy too depressing so I canned it after only writing those pages. I don't know, maybe I'll pick back up with it. I do feel a strong urge to create something written..which is why I guess I'm back on here on this rainy night.

It's Spring Break and I'm sitting alone in the living room of my parent's house. Everybody else has gone to bed already and, although I'm a bit tired, I've still got a few hours to go before I go to sleep. I'll probably even drive over to the shop in a bit to print out a copy of my resume (I don't know which way the accents go in that word so I'm just going to leave them out). I'm going to talk to KWCPS tomorrow to see if I can possibly apply for a job there. I read in the Tidewater Review that the head football coach (who is also a history teacher) is leaving this year. So, technically, there should be an opportunity for me to get a job there. I hope with my background in King William could help propel me above other candidates. I don't know. I just need a job. And I'm sure I could suffer through more time at KWHS. Again..

On a side note (and this was actually going to be a separate post originally) I went to the Ra Ra Riot concert in Charlottesville with Matt on Friday night. I really like how the crowds at concerts have this mix of total cacophony and pure choreography. As the headlining band was playing their last song everybody downstairs (I was upstairs) started clapping to the rhythm of the song with their hands above their heads and from my view it was totally amazing to see this whole mass of people looking so in-sync with one another at that moment. Afterwards they went back to yelling and clapping and talking as individuals, not one person doing the exact same action as another like they just were. I thought that was cool.

Stalked while Stalking

Yesterday Tricia and I made plans to go see one of my former students at work and when we were getting up to leave, two of my other friends asked where we were going. We essentially told them that we were going for ice cream and that they couldn't come. We walked out towards my car and saw them come out of the house soon after we reached my car. They ran over to my friend's car and Tricia and I jumped into mine and thus started the "Stalked while Stalking" chase that ensued through Charlottesville all the way up to Target. My friends even ran through a red light to keep up with us. When we got to Target we were whipping around through the parking lots and cutting other cars off. Yeah, sure, it was probably dangerous and everything, but it was actually pretty fun.

Eventually I gave up and just went to our destination and we had a good time talking about Grips and Sips, Meat Tower, Salad Queen, and Hootie Hookah. We have the best business ideas. Afterwards we went to the liquor store to purchase supplies for our Kahlua milkshakes that we made. They were very good. We then proceeded to play Apples to Apples for three hours. I tied for second place with 23 cards. Travis had 29.

On a slightly side note, the Grammys were terrible. Fuck Lady Antebellum and their fake 'southern' ways. They're not southern. Fuck Lady Antebellum.

I'ma let you finish...But

I woke up early today because our heat went out. It was very cold and I just laid in my bed, wrapped up in my blanket with the sun streaming through the window reflecting off my white walls and back into my eyes. I then rubbed my eyes and managed to make one of my contacts go up into my eyelid. I'm very sure I scratched my eye because it hurts like a bitch now...even when I don't have my contact in. So now I'm just sitting around not doing my reading for class in an hour and listening to music that I've ignored for the past few years.

I have a lot to do today actually...class, run home to read, drive the carpool to the museum for class tonight, dinner with Matt, then celebrating one of my really good friend's birthdays, and then reading a shit ton for my Chinese discussion tomorrow. I hate when I put stuff off until right before I have to do it, but it's what I always end up doing every time.

I guess I'm going to go up to Central Grounds and get something done today.

Rzeczowników

I'm really enjoying being back to taking classes, rather than conducting them. If I had money I would just go to school for the rest of my life. There is so much to learn, so much to be gained from knowledge. So many languages to learn.

Speaking of languages, I finally got Ronnie to admit that Polish isn't a totally terrible language and even got him to start learning the sounds the letters make. It was funny to hear him trying to say "słownik odmiany rzeczowników język polskiego." He actually said "polskiego" correctly after stumbling through the other words, especially rzeczowników (it's pronounced jech-ov-nee-koov and means 'of nouns'). I then started reciting "Lokomotywa" for myself to see how much I could do. I got pretty far. I prefer the Michał Żebrowski version to others that I've heard. They're just too slow and don't put the inflections that make it interesting to memorize as an adult, since I missed it in my childhood.

I was also drinking some of the grape juice that I fermented into "wine." It wasn't too bad tasting, and it was definitely potent.

But anyway, my classes are great. The only one I somewhat dread going to is the Museum class on Thursday nights, but the teacher is hilarious which makes up for the very dry material. My other teachers are also wonderful, as are the subjects. I mean, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish histories are a great variety to be taking for my last semester of college.

New Years...uh...Event

Oh, hey, I forgot about you....again....

New Years was a semi-disaster. My friends and I have gotten together every year for the past...I don't even remember..I just know I was living in town the first time I spent New Years at Justin's so it was at least 14 years ago that we first started getting together for possibly my favorite holiday of the year. Last year was also a semi-disaster but this year takes the cake.

My friends and I couldn't get together.

I spent New Years Eve alone in my apartment sitting on my sofa drinking my prematurely-purchased champagne by myself. I passed out 15 minutes before midnight and woke up at 12:30 a.m. It was bad.

So that was Friday night and Sunday night my friends eventually did come up for a late celebration. 3 of my best friends from high school, the people I usually do hang out with on December 31, came up to complete our annual tradition. One of those traditions is the sparkling cider chugging contest between me and Justin. For as long as we have done this I have lost, but this year I felt something would be different.

And, shit, it sure was different.

We postponed the contest until Monday afternoon/evening because we both weren't feeling up to it on Sunday. Monday morning came and we set the bottles outside so they would be chilled and around 4 p.m. we stepped out onto my balcony to commence the contest. That's when we saw her.

My friend Paul was actually the first to see her and his EMT training kind of kicked in and as I was the next to come out he quickly got my attention and said "Something doesn't look right." Down in the hill-side parking lot of my apartment complex was a car stopped awkwardly in a spot, partially on the sidewalk, with a girl inside completely slumped backwards in the car between the driver and passenger seats. The car was still running and she was buckled in.

To be honest we didn't expect what we found when we went to check on her. We thought she was sleeping awkwardly. She was dead.

We immediately called the police who responded so quickly to the report of a dead body being found that I only had time to go up to my apartment, almost in tears trying to call my mom as I ripped the blinds in my living room shut before they had arrived. My mom didn't answer and I went back down to the scene where my friends and I were detained inside the caution tape that was being put up as the police took down our information. We weren't suspects, it was just protocol.

Someone there must have known the girl because her husband soon showed up. I have never seen such grief before. The emotions of pure shock, dismay, and what must have been a feeling of complete devastation tore through this man so fiercely that I had to turn away before I started crying.

The police let us go back to my apartment and I just stood outside my door. I felt so bad. I felt guilt that maybe there was something that I could have done earlier. Like..had I gone out on my balcony when she first got into her situation maybe there was something I could have done. My friends tried to console me and I eventually went back into my apartment but forbade anybody from opening the blinds until the next day.

The girl's identity was released the next day. She was 27.

My blinds have since been opened but the parking spot where we found the car was spraypainted by the police as the scene of the incident so I can clearly see it every time I look out on my balcony. I just have to tell myself that there was nothing different that I could have done and that we did the responsible thing through all of this.

On a lighter note we did the contest before everybody left. I won for once, but it just didn't feel right this year. I'm going to say that it was because it wasn't on New Years Eve rather than because of anything else.