The Doug cameth

Despite my work schedule, I’m still managing to get a post out (finally) after only 2 weeks or so. Aren’t I great?

Since it’s been a while since my last major blog, I have quite a few pictures to post. But before I get into those, I guess I should do a little update on the microcosm that is my life.

First, since my new promotion, there has been a large increase in my workload but I expected that from the get go. What I didn’t expect was the necessity of more effective time management skills. I know, I know, that’s essentially what an increased workload requires if one would like to maintain his/her free time but I didn’t know I’d be tossed right into the fray without any time to adapt.

But adapting I am.

For instance, this past Tuesday I had a veritable assload of work to take care of but still wanted to maintain my streak for hitting the gym everyday. Knowing this, I took care of certain things within a time frame which allowed me a 2 hour window to leave the company and come back. After working out and burning some accumulated stress, I got back to the office at around midnight ready for the evening onslaught.

So yay to adaptation; one of the key tools used in the daily struggle of the cubicle jockey.

In other news, the well-spoken beam of truth that is Doug came to visit me in Seoul. As is often the case in our meetings, we cut a drunken swath through the surrounding areas and left no brain cell unscathed on our way to the longest weekend binge I’ve been on in years. It was great seeing a Japan-familiar face against the background of my current city of residence and I’d like to think Doug had just as much (if not more) fun than I did. I look forward to our next meeting and hope he gets Japan ready for me. *wink wink*

Finally, after months of not following a workout plan, I’ve embarked on my 12-week beach body workout schedule. As an added incentive to follow it through (rather than go back to meandering around the gym and randomly doing sets of stuff), I will post a before (Circa March 23rd) and an after (June 15th) picture in one of my June blogs.

Make sure you guys hold me to it.

So onto the pictures:

Doug as he arrives in Gimpo.

Our group for my promotion party/Doug's arrival. Clockwise from left: Beehaam, Doug, Micah, Heejung, Glen, Dave, Jayce, Me.

Me and Darg.

Jayce gave me this candle for my birthday "cake". Yes, my face looked just like that as he explained it to me.

Me, Dave and Jayce celebrate.

Okay, so Micah had the perfect angle for this drunken shot, which is perfect in and of itself but knowing me, I had to take it and make it into this:

Yeah, I'm a ass.

At least, I'm a funny ass though.

Help out a fellow human in need

I'm a little late plugging this due to my work schedule the past 2 days, but here is a story you need to read.

http://www.billkapoun.com/

http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2008/03/nows-your-chanc.html

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/03/05/donations-for-severely-injured-english-teacher/

Basically its the story of a 26-year old English teacher here in Korea who sustained 3rd degree burns over most of his body when his apartment burned down a few days ago. Unfortunately, due to his lack of insurance here, his bills are astronomical and his parents aren't in the financial position to accomodate all of them.

The really wonderful (and honestly a bit surprising) thing is that the foreign community in Korea has pulled together quite a bit of money. However, it still pales in comparison to the cost of the many operations he will have to endure. Therefore, I ask anyone who can pull together some money to donate what they can to help his chances of making it through. I've already donated an amount close to a few nights out on the town and I don't think that's a large sacrifice to make in order to help someone who really needs it.

This issue hits home with me because this could have happened to me or any of my friends here just as easily as it happened to Bill.

There are ways to donate money whether you live in Korea or the States, just find the links on the site I posted above.

Thanks for your time and donations.

-Mike

My Bertday and other updates

Time to update and show a few pics from my birthday party which was held at my house (mostly) this year.

Turning 27 has its ups and downs I guess. So while it does bring you only 3 years away from the big 3-0 and only 13 years before you have to start regularly having a doctor stick his finger up your ass, it also starts bringing a sense of accomplishment in life. By accomplishment, I mean a good reason to get rid of a few of those brain cells that happen to be lying around collecting dust.

I decided this year's party would have tacos-- which I painstakingly created myself. It turned out to be a fairly successful idea as I only had a small fistful of ground beef at the end of the night when I started with close to 5 pounds. I also made sure to stock up on the good ingredients and have the drinks and PS3 ready to rock. I was determined to have a successful party.

Part of the fresh ingredients I lined up for folks. Avocados were close to 6 bucks apiece!

So after setting everything up, people started to arrive adding yet another display of my uber sense of timing (luck?.)

The guys parked themselves in front of the PS3 while the girls were watching "House" on my computer.

Even a few co-workers showed up to take part in the festivities.

After everyone had satisfied their taco cravings and screwed around on the PS3, the drinking games started.

My new mascot, KIWI!!!, as he enjoys a nice stiff one.

We ended the night at a luxury Karaoke room where we sang, drank and danced for 2 hours into the early morning.

Overall, it was a great night and everyone had a great time. Just ask Gyu-Hong.
Now, if making a really cool birthday party wasn't enough, I went on this week to receive some more great news. Namely, yours truly has gotten a promotion. Yep, ol' Mike is moving up the corporate ladder into the realm of middle management and Dilbert comic strips. Of course this brings more responsibility, more hours, and more stress, it also brings more money and of course, more money. So it all evens out in the end. Let's see how this turns out.


Finally a video which was filmed at my house: KIWI ATTACK!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiYh-bXX9iI

enjoy

The last few months or so in pictures

Since I haven't been putting up any pictures lately, I figured it was time to finally dump a bunch of them for your viewing pleasure.

Me and the other two idiots who are getting married this year (Dave and Jayce).

Jun, Glyn and Me on Glyn's last night at Nielsen and in Korea.

My birthday present from me, to me. Thanks, Me. I always knew I liked you for some reason.

Resistance: Fall of Man on my new TV. Orgasmic, isn't it?

Beehaam and Heejung get silly at the bar.


Only 2 more songs on Hard mode to go then it's Hello expert level.

View of Seoul from the top of the Gangnam Financial Center.

Me and Heejung after her wedding. Isn't she cute?

Me and Joel after his wedding. I know he ain't cute.

Joel and Heejung trying their best not to laugh and look serious.

They both wanted to laugh here.

Back view.

This is what they normally look like, in their normal positioning.

View of Namdaemun from my office window after the first snowfall of they year.

The domino carrot I designed for our domino team.

All together I think we set up something like 40,000 dominos and then watched them all fall down. I think it took like 7 minutes to watch.

Setting up the dominos took about 4 hours altogether.

Me and Greg at Bricks in Itaewon.

Micah mixing up soju smoothies at my house.

And this is the result of those soju smoothies.

After Lunch Reading Material

So I was in the bathroom at work taking care of my morning ritual of expelling the demons from the previous day(s). During the course of this most vital of daily habits, I was pondering the great questions that any man does while straddling his porcelain throne.

“What will I eat for lunch?”
“Would a turtle look funny in a basketball uniform?”
“What ever happened to Fred Savage?”
“Is Winnie from Wonder Years still hot and if so isn’t it about time she did a spread somewhere?”

These and other important questions reverberated about in my skull as I made my first push into boweltastic bliss. As I looked down to admire my work, I was startled to see that my ass also seemed to want to participate.

Low and behold, a perfect question mark.

After the initial glee at seeing that my ass had finally decided to join me on my daily quest to ask the questions that keep us all up at night, I realized I must have missed the entire question. Had I paid better attention these last few bowel movements, I might have gained insight into the deep inner anal cavity thoughts my ass has been pondering over the past 27 years. Did I just miss the chance to actually converse with my own ass? I was rather saddened by the prospect of never having this opportunity again as I flushed the toilet.

Then I thought, “Maybe my ass speaks Spanish and it was an upside-down question mark and the rest of the question will appear in bowel movements further down the line.”

Now I REALLY need to learn Spanish.

More on this as it develops.

Peter Pan's ass is busy

Work has kicked it up a notch this last couple of weeks and I was averaging about 50-60 hours per week for the last month. It really wasn’t too bad because as long as I get time to get off to the gym and get home for a good night’s sleep it doesn’t bother me.

This past week was a different story though.

Altogether I ended up posting close to 80 hours, which included to 17 ½ hour shifts in a row and coming in on Sunday. As you can imagine, I’ve been pretty damn tired. Let’s just hope this was a random occurrence and I get back to my normal 50-60 hour weeks soon.

I honestly never thought I would look forward to a 50-60 hour work week and think, “You know, this isn’t that bad.” Oh, how the times have changed.

Other than that, I used my one day off this week to attend the wedding of my friends, Joel and HeeJung. They did an old style Korean wedding which was really nice and at the end I got to be one of the people who carried HeeJung around in her carriage after she officially tied the knot. After that we all got to sit down and enjoy a pretty good lunch which of course gave me the opportunity to burn some stress by hitting the soju bottle for a bit.

It’s weird to think of all of my friends who are getting married this year. Joel and Heejung are obviously the first, but come March my friend Jayce gets married, in May its George and in October its Dave’s turn. I feel like Chris O’Donnell in “The Bachelor” (title?) where all of the guys are running like wild steeds and the crew slowly gets picked off with lassos by the girls they eventually marry. It’s even funnier to think that none of these guys even had girlfriends a year ago. Oh, how the times are changing.

I also have my 27th birthday coming up in about a month. As I get closer and closer to passing over the threshold from the desirable 20s and turn into the guy who says he’s 29 until he’s 35, I’ve realized that I have in fact become a much wiser person. And of course with all of the wisdom these years have imparted on me, I’ve decided to ignore all of it and burn some cash and get myself an HDTV entertainment system to keep my PS3 company. Honestly, who cares about wisdom when you can hunt dinosaurs with guns in sweet, sweet HDTV greatness? Oh, how many things haven't changed.

“I won’t grow up….”

Nappy Nude Deers

Alright, the first post of 2008. That means that this blog has been operating in 3 separate years already. Boy, time sure does fly.

I guess the most appropriate way to begin this post is to talk about my New Years’ resolutions but since I don’t have any this year, this would become a really short and rather unfulfilling entry. So instead of that, I’ll begin with my normal update at work and follow that up with my plans for the coming year.

Work has been pretty interesting as of late. We completely switched around the organizational chart and moved our desks. This sort of thing happens at the end of every calendar year here at my company and from what I hear, a lot of other companies as well. Since I was quite the newbie last time this happened, I really didn’t pick up on the ramifications of what these changes mean. Essentially, wherever you end up is where you will stay (in most cases) until the end of the year. This means you better hope you end up with a cool group of people or it could get pretty miserable sometimes. I lucked out and ended up with half of the people from my old group and the other half is composed of people I already knew and liked.

We also have a new Assistant Managing Director who will now take over the entire side of my wing of the company and also have the dubious honor of being one of two (me being the other, obviously) non-Koreans in the entire building. While he is about 15 years or so older than me, we do have quite a bit in common. He is from Michigan, so that makes him a mid-westerner as well. He has also lived in Japan but for a much longer time than I did (10 years), has a Japanese wife and speaks Japanese better than I do. I’m really looking forward to see what is going to happen in the company in the coming year and I so far it looks like change will be good. Here’s to hoping.

As for my plans for the coming year, I have a few interesting plans.

First, I was planning on going to Japan for about 5 days in February but since there are no tickets available (it’s a Korean holiday so everyone and their mother has the same days off), those plans got shot. I will now instead hook up a Mexican siesta party at my house that weekend complete with homemade tacos and hopefully a sombrero or two. Hopefully I can work something out around that time to get Doug out here and show him around Korea as well.

I don’t see too much going on after that (other than a wicked 27th B-day party I plan on cooking up) until about May or June when I plan on setting up some sort of beach travel and hopefully sometime around then is when I will visit Japan to see my Grandmother and family. I will also probably hook up with Ryan at some point as well since he will be living in Japan at that point as well.

In July or August I’m assuming there will be another beach bash in Japan with all the old friends so I will definitely be out there for that. I also plan on finally getting out and spending some vacation time in a country that isn’t Japan or Korea for the first time ever and I hope to hit Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand this year.

All in all, I know 2008 is going to be a great year for me and I hope it’s the same for everyone else too.

When it rains

This is probably a lot more somber than my usual posts so those of you who come here for my low brow humor should probably just skip this one. Don't worry though, the low brow stuff will be back in the not so distant future, I promise.

As there is no more reason to not post entries on my blog regarding the recent tragedies in my family, I guess I should just go ahead and get them out of my system.

First, this past Tuesday, my grandmother passed away at the age of 81 with what I can only imagine as the majority of her loved ones surrounding her hospital bed. As bad as this situation was, it was not an unexpected one and I’m just glad that she had the time she did to see everyone. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet her twice during my recent trip back home and though part of mind knew it could be the last time on this earth I could see her, the optimist that always guides my actions refused to let me treat our meetings as such.

When I finally did get to talk to her on the phone for the last time, my mind was poised to try to say everything I needed to say to her in a few short sentences since I knew she couldn’t respond to me. After fighting off the urge to say the trivial “How are you doing?” at the beginning of the conversation, I couldn’t realign my thoughts. My mind started flooding with thoughts and emotions and I was for a brief moment completely silent as I realized that nothing I will ever say after this moment would ever touch my grandmother’s ears. After doing my best to sound stable and saying the few things I needed to say, I hung up and found myself back in my silent company bathroom, with a loud horn playing in my mind. I will miss you, Grandma.

R.I.P. Grandma

A few days before this happened, an unexpected tragedy happened: our family dog, Colt, died. Since he was only about 5 years old, this was really a surprise and when my mother recounted the events, I was sad she had to go through the night-long ordeal without me or my brother there. Colt was a great dog, as anyone who knew him could attest, and it’s a real shame he had to go the way he did. I will miss you too, Colt.

R.I.P. Colt

Now it would be completely inappropriate to follow this sort of entry up with a story about how my Christmas went, wouldn’t it? Well, if I had a happy, merry, whatever Christmas then I’d probably agree with that but since I didn’t, I’ll sum it all up here with as much humbuggery as possible.

I got pretty sick from some sort of flu bug which I have now recovered from on Sunday, or Christmas Eve-eve. The bug lasted just long enough to keep me pretty much incapacitated in my apartment by myself until the day after Christmas. So the only real celebrating I got to do was watch the occasional 30 minutes of Scrubs and hoist my huge bottle of orange juice to my lips before I fell back asleep.

So all in all a pretty good couple of weeks.

When it rains, huh?

Office Party and Random Updates

Well it’s that time of the year again.

In my company, we don’t have what would be considered a Christmas party at the end of the year but we have something called “Nielsen Day” which normally occurs around December 15th. It’s sort of like a Christmas party in the sense our entire company gets together for a string of activities including eating and drinking but it doesn’t carry a Christmas theme. You might be thinking, “Well, why would they celebrate Christmas in Korea?” and to that I say “Contraire mon frere, about 1/3rd of the population of Korea is composed of Christians”. So it is possible, like in America, to find Christmas trees and decorations pretty much everywhere and because of that it is easier to get into the Christmas spirit here than say, Japan. Unlike America, however, you will not find houses that look like they are single-handedly using a trillion watts of electricity per second to power abhorring, mechanical Santa/Reindeer/Jesus and the Techno Colored Dreamcoat scenes that can be seen from space. I think that is a good thing.

In any case, today should be fun if not at least somewhat amusing.

After we finish at about 10pm tonight, I head face first into my weekend. I am starting to get my new year’s resolutions in order by slowly introducing them into my daily life now. For instance, I am now spending 2 hours every Saturday and Sunday studying Japanese and Korean. I plan to have that up to 4 hours every Saturday and Sunday and at least 30 minutes every weekday. I will pass the level 2 proficiency test (one lower than the top) in Korean before the end of 2008. I’ve also been hitting the gym with a bit more fervor lately since I plan on getting to the gym 5-6 times weekly next year. But enough with my new year’s resolutions because they merit their own post in the not-so-distant future.

Now on to a list of random things that have been going on in my life:

Work can be mind-numbingly long sometimes but it is challenging and interesting so I don’t notice it as much. There are also a few changes happening here that I look forward to seeing the results of and so far it’s looking pretty good.

Outside of work, I am now an accomplished, Hard-level Guitar Hero player. I’ll probably never be able to “Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce on Expert level, but honestly that isn’t on my list of goals.

I haven’t been to a karaoke room in about 2 months. I believe that is the longest period in which I haven’t gone in about 6 years. I will probably go tonight though because I’ve been practicing on my Gnarles Barkley “Crazy” in the shower and I’m getting pretty good (I think).

Finally, I’ve painted a face on the now rock-hard orange that has been sitting on my desk for 8 months or so and I now refer to him as “Executive Orange”. I also insist that people who have been at the company for a shorter period than him do the same. Don’t worry though, if it starts talking to me, I’ll get help. Okay, if it starts talking to me AND I LISTEN TO WHAT IT SAYS, I’ll get help. Probably.

As you can see, life is rather copasetic for me at the moment. I hope it’s going just as well for everyone else too.

Home Trip '07

As promised, here is the post from my trip home.

This year I got tickets to go home from Nov. 7th until the 18th. Not really a lot of time considering I would be spending a total of about 2 days of that time on an airplane but since my work schedule was sort of hectic, I figured it was the best I was going to be able to do. So I snatched up the tickets, made the necessary preparations, and flew out on a Wednesday afternoon.

After arriving in Chicago, my Mom met me at the airport and we drove home discussing what exactly I was going to do now that I was home. After arriving home and greeting everyone and almost going into a stroke after seeing how much weight my Stepfather had lost, I settled into my brother's room as it was the only vacant room at the time. Then I decided to call Ralph who I knew had the next day off of work.

Once Ralph arrived it was like old times hadn't skipped a beat. We immediately headed over the the closest bar and proceeded to catch up on the last year. After more than a few drinks, we headed back to my house where we passed out thus ending my first day home.

I spent the next couple of days hanging out in the morning with my Mom and Grandmother and doing random shopping, talking and eating. I decided to knock out the remains of my jet lag before the weekend hit because I knew I was going to have a big night out on the town with my friends so I pretty much just laid around and caught up on sleep.

On Friday I picked up Ralph and drove into the city to meet the rest of the people I would spend the evening with. We met up with Marc and though we had reservations at a Brazilian restaurant for dinner we ended up cancelling because we had arrived to early and just decided to go to Hooter's. After catching up over a few drinks and some food, we met up with Mike, Erin and Danny and headed out to the Apartment (a bar club near Fullerton and Halsted) where we started to get our party on.

Ralph, Me and Marc at Hooter's

The night continued on rather well and after getting thoroughly tipsy and partied out, we snatched taxis back to Mike and Erin's house where the night would end. After waking up and engaging in a bit more tomfoolery, Marc and I went to my house and slept the remaining part of Saturday away as I had an early Thanksgiving dinner in my honor the next day.

Danny, Me, Erin, Michelle, Marc and Mike at the Apartment

Sunday went down without a hitch and thanks to all of the hardwork from my Mom, Grandmother and Stepfather, we had a wonderful feast complete with all of my favorite dishes and family members who I hadn't seen in about a year. After eating half of my weight in turkey and various other dishes, I sat around and caught up with everyone and watched the Bears game which they surprisingly won despite the fact that I was in Chicago.

Soon after everyone left, Ralph, Marc and myself carried ourselves to the local watering hole and got down on some darts and pool while enjoying our libations. What happened after that will go down into the halls of pure, unadultered idiocy and I will refrain from describing it here due to the questionable legality of it but I will say that its something the three of us will not soon forget. "GAHHHH!!!"

This was the spread at my early Thanksgiving dinner. *drool*

Marc, Me and Ralph before we got STUPID

After making poor Marc take the train to go to work after 2 hours of sleep, I recovered for the rest of the day. The following days saw me meeting up random friends, family members and old coworkers in my feeble attempt to meet any and all people who actually still remember me. Before I knew it, it was the weekend again and I was left with only 2 days before I had to get back on the plane bound for Seoul.

On Friday night, I met up with Chris to hang out for a while and bullshit about what has been going on with each other. After catching up a bit and meeting up with Marc, we went out to meet Ralph and other Mark at Buffalo Wild Wings to hang out for awhile more. The night ended at Ralph's house with copious amounts of alcohol consumed while playing Guitar Hero and making loud asses of ourselves much to the discontent of Ralph's poor mother. Mark was also pretty pissed after the discovery of all the marker tattoos that blanketed his face and body when he decided to unwisely pass out. All and all, it was a good evening.

Mark, Ralph, Me and Brandon at Buffalo Wild Wings

Mark's sentiment is understandable after you look at the artwork we endowed his face with

The next morning when Ralph had to rush out to work, I had to say my goodbyes to everyone because I would be leaving early the next morning to jump on the plane. It kind of sucked that the vacation was ending so quickly but I'm sure we have all grown accustomed to it as this would be my 4th time returning for a brief period before leaving again. At least I got to spend a lot of time with my homies. I'm sure they would gladly give up the sleep they missed again for the chance to see me. Ha.

My last day at home allowed me to spend some quality time with the family and my Mom hooked up my favorite dinners all in one day so I made sure that I had them before I left. I got to hang out and talk with everyone on a one-on-one basis and it all reminded me that it would be another year before I could see them again. I also got to finish a bottle of wine with my Mom as we discussed the near future plans for ourselves. Overall, my last night there was probably one of my best.

In the morning before I left, my Father came out to see me one last time before I left and we got to sit and have some coffee before I had to get on my way. My Mom, Stepdad and Grandmother were all nice enough to see me off at the airport, which they have done every year I've been back home to visit. Eventually I'm going to have to stop making them have to watch my back disappear slowly in the distance as I head back to my foreign residence. Not too much longer now guys, I promise.

Anyways, this has been my long and drawn out description of my trip home. Overall, it was a short, yet sweet, trip home this year. I can't believe it will be another full year before I get to see everyone again but if history is an indicator, I will be writing another "I'm going home soon" entry into this blog before I know it. Here's to hoping.

My sister and father at my early Thanksgiving dinner

Colt, my brother's dog

Me and Marc at the Apartment

Me and Chris in his basement

Me and Ralph at the Apartment

Ralph eyes his breakfast while Marc looks on with clear disgust

Me and my dad outside of my house

Ralph somehow made this impossible shot into the dartboard keyhole

Me and Uncle Jerry

Me and Chuckaluffagus

Picture from the expressway heading into Chicago

The wall in Chris's basement that outlines all of my trips abroad in random messages from over the past few years

And so shall it be

Okay, I will seriously get to posting about my trip home, complete with pictures, this weekend. I will also continue to play the “I was busy with work” card to justify my laziness because honestly, it’s the only card I have.

I will also follow that up with another post, once again complete with pictures, of Matt’s recent trip to Seoul.

What I will follow up with beyond that is actually the subject of this post.

Not to get into any further detail about the trip home because as I stated earlier, that will receive its own post, but while I was there I stumbled upon a portable external hard drive that I used to use to store things from my laptop back in ’03. I also found my old picture CDs from my trip to Japan. After bringing all that back with me and loading all the pictures, videos and whatnot onto my current desktop at home, I started to take the all too cliché trip down memory lane.

I have a juxtaposition of the last six years of my life in picture format to pore over and sort this weekend and I have to admit I’m kind of psyched about it.

Instead of just dumping all of that content into one, gigamegamongous post that would surely take weeks to create, I’ve decided that in the coming month (read: months) I will create several posts chronicling my journey over the past six years. I’ll start from the beginning, my trip to Japan, and post random pictures and try to dreg my mind for the remaining bits of memories that are still present.

As Matt said while he was here, that year in Japan changed a lot of people’s lives. After thinking about it, I would have to proudly include myself in that group. Who knows what my life would be like currently if I hadn’t taken that turn in the road. I guess the coming posts will help me remember myself as I was and also allow me to reflect on how things have changed.

I’m looking forward to it.

(Of course the recent home trip post comes first though…)

Ruminations

I was originally going to save my next blog entry for after my triumphant return to Korea but decided to drop a quick update before I left anyways. I will save details for my next post upon returning to Korea, but here is a quick summary:

This has been my 4th return to America since I started living abroad. One could say that all of my friends and family have become relatively acclimated to my yearly trips home and these trips seem to have become holidays in their own right. Not to say my ego isn't large enough to believe (falsely) that I should have my own holiday, but it seems my friends and family only come together while I am visiting. That was also the case this year.

I had a couple of large family gatherings complete with incredible home cooked meals and also a few liquor-soaked evenings out with my good friends. I met a few good people I haven't seen in years and I got a rush of various, vivid emotions while going through all of my old boxes that contain bits of my past. I have a lot of stories, a lot of pictures (I'll post them next time) and a lot of memories to remind me of my latest trip back home. Coming back here reminds me why I miss it but it also reminds me why I have to leave again...

There are still things I need to accomplish and a couple of things I haven't given up on yet.

Let's see where this next year takes me.

Until next time Chicago, when your earth bares my travel weary feet yet again.

Sweet Home Chicago Revisited

The last time I wrote about visiting home was when I first started this blog over a year ago.

A lot has changed since then but due to the brevity of this post, I will write about that in another entry.

Even though this trip home will only be about half as long as my last visit, I plan on making up for that by making sure everything I do has a purpose, is well thought out, and is meticulously executed. Either that or I’ll just do what I always do and wing it. No matter what happens though, I know I’ll have fun.

Lots of activities are planned and for the sake of me having a way to remember them, I shall list them here:

- Hang out with the Moms and Pops
- Visit Grandma in the hospital
- Have an early Thanksgiving dinner with the family and catch up with all of them
- Go to a Brazilian restaurant with my best friends and probably end the night laying around in a vat of our combined bile
- Hang around with sis
- Screw up my brothers room and mess with his stuff so he knows how I’ve felt for the last decade
- Go clothes/gift shopping
- Get my suits refitted (I’ve lost over 20 pounds since I bought them)
- Eat all of my favorite foods
- Make sure I’m running at least a few days a week because of the above reason
- Visit with my old boss and co-workers
- Try to meet as many friends as possible
- Play with the dogs
- See if Buddy Guy’s Legends is still around, and if so, go there
- A veritable cornucopia of other things

So that is my rough list of things to do. All of a sudden 12 days doesn’t seem like much anymore but I’ll do my best to get it all done and make sure I need a vacation from this vacation.

Until then, it’s all about the excitement of traveling back to my hometown.

I’ll see you soon Chicago. Hope you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.

Now I got a plane to catch...

8 Minutes till lunch

A lot of the things I do at my job consist of little mini-projects that take a lot of time to complete on their own. Some of them involve simple database manipulation and number crunching which can be completed rather quickly if I focus like a laser beam with the I-Pod on blast.

There are, however, very, very few things at my job that I can complete in the 8 minutes before lunch which comes inevitably at noon. Therefore, instead of starting something, not being able to finish it, then coming back and wondering where I left off, I always screw around for the last few minutes with whatever is currently capturing my limited attention span.

Examples of this include checking the latest news blogs, bothering my co-workers with pointless babble, flashing my laser pointer around the office, seeing how the 6 month old orange behind my computer is progressing, etc. and of course, updating this blog.

Today I decided to update the blog since I didn't want to get up and bother people and the orange behind my computer has been giving me the evil eye since I got in this morning.

You guys got lucky.

I'm back again

Okay, so I lied.

I wasn’t back later in the week like I promised and now it’s been a whole month since my last post. I guess I should blame it on work, which has definitely been one of the reasons for my prolonged absence, but I can also blame part of it on sheer laziness. Most of you who know me well know that I am renowned for my ability to procrastinate, so this shouldn’t surprise you. Anyways, I’m back.

So lots of stuff has been going on since my last post.

I went on Chuseok break (I will not attempt to try to explain it since all of you have Wikipedia at your fingertips) which was the longest break I’ve managed to get since I started working here. I got off from Friday to Wednesday and managed to relax, have some fun, and get some things done around the apartment. All and all it was a great time but like all vacations, it ended way too quickly and before I knew it I was back to staring blankly at my work computer screen.

As you can imagine, after getting back from a 5-day vacation it took me a little while to readjust to the work atmosphere and I sort of dragged ass through the first week back. After that, work sort of went into overdrive and hasn’t let up since. I’ve got plenty of presentations, translations, and whiny clients to keep me busy for the rest of the year and 12 hour+ work days have become the norm. This outlook might sound depressing at first, but there is a light at the end (in the middle?) of the tunnel: I’m going home to visit soon.

Yep, after spending yet another year outside of my home country, I am finally getting back for a visit again. I bought my plane tickets and will be flying into Chicago in the afternoon on November 7th. It will be good to finally get back home for awhile and see all my family and friends. The unfortunate thing is that I only get about 11 days or so before I have to come back to Korea but I guess I’ll have to enjoy it while it lasts. Of course only visiting for 11 days means I have to plan this vacation with a bit of foresight so as not to waste a second, but just like I stated in the opening paragraph, my procrastination is legendary. I guess I’ll need some help planning what to do when I get back from some of my friends and family who read this blog. *hint*

In any case, I’ll try to drop another blog entry or two before I get out of here to go back home. Thanks to all my patient readers for being so….patient. I promise to update more soon.

On a final note, this post marks about a year since I created this blog. I actually didn’t think I was going to carry it on past the first couple of months.

Here’s to you, blog. Happy Birthday.