The Here and Now

Today I was walking through the airport.
Headphones on, listening to old episodes of Dragnet from the 1940’s.
Minding my own general business, when something strange occurred.

A man looked my way and gave me a smile. A kind of flirty smile.
It took me aback. This man was in his mid thirties/early forties. Way too old to be shooting me a smile.
I automatically thought, “Dude he’s like 1000 times my age!”

Then I realized something. He was not 1000 times my age. He was not twice my age.
He was relatively close to my age.

How did I get old? When did age appropriate men start to include those in their 30’s? What the hell!

Currently, I am on a plane heading back to the US of A. Soon I will touchdown on the tarmac of freedom.
The Airfield of English.
The landing strip of the slightly new and potentially exciting.

I am, believe it or not, moving back to the “real world.” (The “realness” of said world is still being debated.)

Like, right now.

In a matter of hours I will be landing in a world of wonky culture shock. There are things I am excited for. There are things I am dreading.
There are things that make me kind of queasy.

But here goes nothing.

A new chapter is starting. Hopefully this chapter will have a lot more pages than the last.

Remember Die Hard 4? I could argue that it is one of the top 12 movies of all time. I think I would win that argument. (Partly because of my debate skills, mostly because the movie speaks for its wonderful self.)

Any who.

There is one thing that always bothers me about that movie is the language issue. The henchmen talk in some random guttural language, they never speak anything but their own tongue.
Their boss is an American who speaks in perfect English, he never speaks anything else.

When they talk to each other they each only speak their own languages and yet they completely understand the other.

Is there ever a situation were you would understand rapid-fire idioms in a foreign language and yet do not have the skills to answer. Why the hell would the writers do this?

It just doesn’t make sense.
Until, today. Well, technically, yesterday. But I am counting it as today.

A few of my South African friends were having a long conversation about Rugby. Two of them are fully fluent in Afrikaans; the third was raised around it, but had a family that tended toward English.

Half of the conversation was in Afrikaans and half in English. It was nutty.

Proving once again that Die Hard has a completely accurate and plausible plotline.

There is one thing that I will desperately miss about Korea, about Asia really.

The man bag.
The murse.
The manly handbag.

Asian men carry handbags. Not the metro type messenger bags of the west but actual purses. Some are leather with fun flirty colors. Sometimes they are canvas with cartoon characters slashed across the sides.
I even saw a man with a vinyl bag with rhinestones and rainbows.

The strange part is, these men and manly types. They are just as likely to have a wallet, paperwork and a few tools in their purse, as they are to have chap stick, hairspray, and a fluffy bunny.

I had a much better picture that had the details of this situation.

I spent a few days on an island that, by law, was legally required nothing in the way of motorized vehicles. Instead, there were just a few horse drawn carriages to take you from place to place.

In just one of these carriages was a full sound system. Something like this...

At Sunset, Almost...

As it turns out, that computer crash was a wee bit more serious than I had previously thought. The shiny new computer ended up with the type of crash that results in a trip to the Apple store. Not the simple trip with a small hardware fix. No, it is more on the lines of a 20% chance that I will actually be able to fix the problem without completely replacing the entire unit. That and the fact I will not see an Apple store until shortly after landing in the US of A, means a long wait for pictures.

I love technology.

But, as I recover the past potential posts and pictures I will respond to a comment left by one of the best teachers I know. She is also great at the coaching of sports of all kinds.

So, the books I read…

1. It all started with the new-ish Grisham, The Innocent Man. Not his best work, but useful for a long flight. Just interesting enough to make it through without falling asleep, but not quite enough to keep me from missing a round or two of the flight attendants and their wonderful drink carts.

2. Next came the atrocious A Tale of Two Cities. As it turns it is just as bad in adulthood as it was when I was in 7th grade. It has a great story line but that Charely Dickens is screwed up writer. I can honestly say that I have read that damned book and, this time it was not in the Cliff Notes edition.

3. Now came what I like to call fluff. Fluff is great for vacation. It means mindless fun. Jeffrey Deaver’s The Vanishing Man. Not terrible. A great form of mindlessness. Decent book.

4. Now my mind was found wanting of something less dreamy and more thought provoking. The Two Koreas. Great book, a little too heavy for the beach, but it held my interest at least ¾ of the time. Sun burning to that type of book is not recommended, though the book itself totally is.

5. Harry Potter One. No Comment.

6. Harry Potter Two. No Comment.

7. Keep with mindless and add Iris Johansen’s newest (in paperback). Quicksand. If you like mindless detective novels, you will love this one. It’s a whole lot of awesome.

8. Shit, there were a few more than the afore mentioned 7. Kathy Reichs, Devil Bones. She is a forensic anthropologist who writes about the more extreme possibilities in a job such as that. Nothing too realistic; more along the lines of CSI type crazy-ness. Great author though, one of my favorite for the fluff.

9. Stephen King’s Bag of Bones. I am nearly through with this one. Nearly. It is not bad. It is not good. I haven’t figured out what it is yet. Give me time, just give me time.

So those are the books I read over vacation. When I mentioned the 7 books read, I knew I was estimating, but I kind of though I was rounding up. As it turns I missed the mark by a few. (Though Harry Potter Should only count as a half…)


Hopefully before this week is out I will have Paint type replacements for the picture victims of the computer crash of 2009.

Moral of that story is… back your shit up. Back it up now.

I just made it home from a wonderful amazing relaxing vacation.

My flights were long, but they allowed me to finish my 7th book of the week. Which, frankly, is awesome.

I have a series of pictures and several mildly humorous stories about the trip, however, there became a problem.

On the plane back to Korea my computer crashed. My shiny fun computer, the one I just bought a few months ago. The one that I had just downloaded all my trip pictures onto. The one with all the stuff I had written on the trip and several things from the past few months.

Without back-ups.

There is hope, I don't have a lot of it, but there is some. I just have to wait for apple office hours and hope there is a quick and easy fix. Keep your fingers crossed.

I will attempt to re-write those stories and maybe use some sort of paint program to re-make the pictures.

This is where I stayed.

There was much in the way of beach views and 20 ft ceilings.

This little cabin was mine and mine alone.

Read line 4.

I am currently on my way to Bali.
Indonesia.

Beaches.
Pools.
Awesome-ness.

Jealous?

You should be.

This is not a funny story. It's not even a mildly entertaining story. But the incident involved made me and one of my uppermost bosses giggle, so I figured I'd retell it.

We were on a field trip today. A field trip to the art village across the street from my place of employment. We were walking outside, around the various buildings, trees, sculptures, and streams.

Off to the right of our procession of students was one such stream. Standing in the midst of the slow moving water was a man in thigh high rubber boots and a fishing hat. He had a small net, a few buckets, and what looked like a ladle. He was cleaning bits of trash out of the would-be pristine environment.

The kids were a bit excitable and began shouting hello to the older gentleman as he ladled through the murky water.

The young student directly to my left shouted something in a sing-song-y Korean.
Now, this being an English emersion program and the fact that the director of my school was not 3 feet in front of me, I glanced at the student and muttered our mantra, “English Only...”

She looked up, and in one of the creepiest little kid voices I have ever heard, repeated her previous comment in English.

“Don't drink the waaater...”

Today I had a meeting.

Today I had THE meeting.

I was in the big building with the administration all clad in suits and ties

I walked in with my ripped jeans and an old leather jacket ready for THE meeting.

I sat, we chatted, we mulled over the more serious of matters and chuckled over the lighter ones.

When I left the building there was a weight off my shoulders. I am officially not re-newing my contract. I am moving back to the states. To the lower 48. To the “Real World.”

It’s has been a long and difficult process to figure out what to do. Should I stay or should I go?
Should I continue on in a world so far away?
Should I move back to a place of gas prices and jobs where you actually have to work?

Today was THE meeting.

My boss looked surprisingly sad too see me not sign on the line and encouraged me to come back again someday. He also asked if I had any friends back home who would want to take my place here.

We discussed plane tickets. I should have a one way ticket in the next week or so.
We talked about my last paycheck and the housing deposit.
We talked about Visa’s and passports.

I am going home. Or at least to my home country. At least for awhile.
Only 45 more days…