Juxtaposition

So here we are again.

Work has been particularly interesting lately, albeit rather busy. Last week I got to present two projects to a client, one of which I had 3 days to work on. Essentially that meant I had 3 days to turn a report into a good report into a presentation into a concise and effective presentation and finally memorize all of the key points. The entire thing lasted about 3 hours or so and it went extremely well. The second in command of my company was there to watch me as well.

I recently found out that my job title and position will be changing effective this March, due mostly to the results of my presentations. I will now be handling RMS (Retail Management Services) business as well as my original CRS (Customized Research Services) duties. This means that I will be doing more of the presentations to big clients and also get a chance to get my hands on more of the raw data for projects. Up until this point, I’ve been mostly handling the ass end of reports and final presentations. This switch means I will be able to gain a more holistic approach to what we do here. More responsibility and more work. Same pay. Ha.

I also participated in the recent inter-company basketball game. Since I’ve been getting back into shape and running lately, my basketball legs are also returning to me. It was pretty evident that I still have some rust spots to work out but this recent game was my best outing at the company yet. My CRS team beat the RMS team 107-68. We pretty much pulled away after the first quarter and built close to a 50 point lead in the fourth. I don’t know how many points I scored (between 20 or 30) but I cleaned up on the boards (42) as usual. And yes, I do keep track of my rebound total. It’s all I have to be proud of. I look forward to next week’s game.

Enough about work though.

This coming Saturday marks the 26th anniversary of my entrance into this world. I guess it is rather unfair to most people to say that I feel like I’m getting old but, whatever, I’m getting old. While I am eager to start what I am sure will be a more successful quarter century, I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic and sad when I look back at my more carefree, responsibility-less days. I guess you can really tell you’re getting on in years when you start using the word “nostalgic”. In any case, happy birthday to me.

Things are really starting to move forward on the travel plans for the next year.

In April I will be going to Japan to see a few old friends. I am kind of mad at myself for going so long without seeing them but at least it’s good to see that they still remember me. I look forward to meeting you guys.

After that, my bro-ham will be coming out here in June for a little while and I’m excited to see him. Fresh from graduating from high school and he already has traveled more than I did at his age. I look forward to showing him around Seoul some more. Also in June (?), I will be going out to Japan again to attend a Jungle Juice beach party, something along the lines of what I did during my year there. I’ve heard they’ve had one every year since we introduced it back in 2002 so I’m looking forward to being there for the 5 year anniversary. Watch out kids, the Jungle Juice King is back.

In July (hopefully), Marc and Ralph will be making it out here so I can show them around Korea. It’s going to be hard to synchronize everything, and the price of the trip is a pretty steep but I’m confident that they will get here and have a good time.

And of course, in September I will be going home for a couple of weeks to see the family and friends.

So as you can see, I’ve got a lot to look forward to the next couple of months. Maybe 26 will be the best year yet.

Here’s to hoping…

"Who has efficient nipples?"

“I DO!!”

This is my line of the week, courtesy of “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law”, one of the DVDs my Mom sent me. I can’t believe how much I love cartoons.

First I guess I’ll start with the Super Bowl and the all-too-unfortunate ass whipping handed to my hometown team. Even more unfortunate was the way I found out about the result. The friends and I had a pact going that we would refrain from the internet all of Monday because we were taping the Super Bowl (it started at 7:50am Monday for us here in Korea) and we were going to meet at night and watch the game. I figured I would be fine since my company is 99% Korean and nobody (or so I thought) cares about American football. Everything was fine until 3pm when I walked into the bathroom. As I looked up, there was one of my friends with this sad look on his face as he said “I’m sorry about your team, Mike”. ARGH!! I was waiting TWO WEEKS for this day and you had to ruin it!!! If he wasn’t so sad about ruining it for me, I would have ripped off his scrotum and fed it to him. We still got together and watched the game, but it just wasn’t the same. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Now onto work developments:

Work has definitely been picking up for me lately as the bags under my computer worn eyes can attest. Not that I am complaining. The work is pretty interesting and I am left alone to my own devices for the most part. I also get a fair amount of freedom when it comes to changes in projects that I am working on and people actually listen to my opinions when I give them. All in all I’d have to say that work has been rather copacetic if not just a little tiring.

I haven’t been able to do much blogging lately due to time restrictions and I don’t see that changing too much in the foreseeable future. Besides work I am also engaged in Korean language study (and Japanese when I get the time) as well as deciding on MBA programs and when I will take the GMAT test. Mix that in with meeting the girlfriend when I can, going to the gym, and occasionally meeting the boys from my old job for a drink or two and we have a recipe for the quintessential 26 hour day. I guess as long as I’m occupied it’s all good.

I was able to use what little free time this week to meet up with Joel and Anthony near Joel’s house for a burger and some beers. I was able to buy one of Anthony’s books entitled “A really good book (about Korea)” which is the culmination of 3 years in Korea and a lot of hard work. It’s a perfect bathroom book due to each page being a story from some point in his life in Korea. It’s rather unfortunate that despite all of the efforts put into it he won’t be able to profit at all from it due to publishing. Oh well, I’m sure he didn’t do it for the money. I recommend to anyone who would like a quick guide to some of the strangeness/wonderfulness of Korea to pick this book up. I especially like the story where some girl described him as “Harry Potter’s friend” Ron. I want to meet her and pat her on the back.

Now that the cable guy is gone and I can watch television, it adds one more entertainment element to my apartment that it was sorely lacking. Even though chances are I won’t get a lot of time to watch it, it’s still nice to have. Plus I have 2 cartoon channels. Yay.

That is this week’s update. I promise to start writing more in Korean and Japanese once the pressure at work lets up.

Updelayted

I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't been able to post in awhile. I wish I could say that I've been busy because of purely productive matters, but I'd be lying.

I've been doing a lot of spending for the apartment lately. I just got my brand new desktop (i'm using it right now) and I'm on the market for a desk and a couple of new suits. Next month I will make the final (major) addition to my apartment, a new fridge. So as you can see, I have to buy a lot of things. The apartment should be pretty pimped out by the time I finish at which point I will post pictures of it.

Work has been going rather slowly lately with brief moments of pure insanity. I have another presentation coming up in a couple of weeks. The topic is contraception. Yep, I will have to present to the German board about their product and how well it stops conception in the eyes of Korean consumers. So I get to use such terms as "external ejaculation" and "vaginal insertion" in a business atmosphere and still be considered professional. I guess that all depends on if I laugh afterwards or not. So here's to professional contraception. We'll stop that baby....with a suit on.

The Super Bowl party will be going down tomorrow at my friend Dave's house. This means I have to stay off of the internet from the moment I get into work tomorrow until the moment I leave. A momentous task considering how much time I spend on the internet. It will be kinda cool to be able to sit around and drink beer, eat subs (or whatever the hell we get) and watch the game with the boys.

Go Bears!

I will be updating again later on this week. Now that I have a computer at home, I should be able to do a little bit more with this blog so look for that in the future.

Shouldn't you be shuffling?

The last time I was able to write something like this, I wasn’t able to write. Well, probably not much more than my name or so since I was 4 years old and cared for football as much as I did about the national debt or Billy Idol. Anyways, this has been a long time coming.

So here we are 21+ years later and I can finally see the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl.

While most people who know me would describe me as much more of a basketball fan than any other sport, I’m sure those same people would know that I pay attention to Chicago sports just as avidly. Granted, I don’t know much about most of the other teams, and probably don’t understand the finer details of the game itself, but to hell with you if you think I care about that when it comes down to rooting for Chicago sports.

Besides the games I got to watch while I was in Chicago this year, I’ve had to watch most of the other ones on nfl.com’s Sports Center which involves looking at little football heads move up a green block of field. I didn’t even get to catch them winning the NFC championship even though I really should have. It seems I’m cursed to be thousands of miles away from my hometown every time a team starts doing well. The Bears got to the playoffs almost every year I was abroad, the Bulls have had a few playoff seasons, the Cubs almost made the World Series and the White Sox actually won the World Series. Now the Bears are going to the Super Bowl and where am I? Seoul, South Korea of course. Thousands of miles away from most people who even know what American style football is. Well, at least I have a plan this time.

The Super Bowl will start at 8:00am on Monday, February 5th Seoul time. That is one hour before work starts for me. I am not even sure if there are any places that will be showing the game at that time. However, do you think I’m going to be watching football heads move around on my work computer at my desk that day?

Hell no I won’t be.

I will find a place to watch this game and take a damn half-morning off so I can watch the hell out of this Super Bowl. So to all of my Chi-town homies who will be watching this game and partying like I know you should be, remember to raise a glass for me because I will be right there watching it with you.

DA BEARS BABY!

Week 2 Update

Week two of my excursion home has been interesting to say the least. I've been running myself ragged to meet as many members of my family as humanly possible before my time here is up as well as drinking and carousing with my good friends since we won't have that opportunity for at least another year.

I got to go to my cousin's wedding this past weekend which was an interesting time because I was able to meet an entire side of my family in one day and also see my cousin who had just recently come back from Kuwait. As always, I spent most of my time at the reception drinking and mingling with family. I was in such a hurry to get there on time that I actually forgot my camera at my father's house, so no pictures of this event unfortunately.

My doggie, Colt

Watching the Chicago Bears play the 49ers this Sunday was too funny. It's very satisfying to watch the team that trounced us all through the 90s finally get their comeuppance for a decade of making me wince whenever I watched sports updates. 41 to 10. Haha. Stuff it up your ass San Fran. GO BEARS!!

That evening I also went out with some of my friends I haven't seen in awhile. Since we all wanted to drink in a bar setting without paying bar prices, we decided to go to my friend Chris's basement to play pool and drink. The night ended like it usually does when 8 people spend a better part of the evening drinking, with slurred yelling and head shaking. Here's to all of you drunken derelicts.


The cast from Cheers

Finally, Halloween this year seems like it will be a bust. Everyone is working and I can't drive anywhere because I lost my damn license. So the only "holiday" that I get to spend here seems like it will go out with a whimper. Whatever. At least I can sooth myself knowing that my friends back in Korea will be having a great time with whatever shenanigans they have planned. Rock out guys, take some good pics.