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Munchkin - Shawna Manske

Shawna Manske Good ol' Canadian (Okotokian) girl...done a degree, done the bar slinging bit. Sometimes a girl dreams of becoming something else, seeing ANYTHING else, other than the familiar. Or dreams of finding the familiar somewhere alien. I'm doing the foreign teaching thing in Korea for a change of pace. Plan is to "see the world" after that. I want something.... I realize it's easy to say "I want to change the world", so I would rather say that I want to just follow whatever path is possible to make somebody's life better, somehow. And let's be honest, no one forsakes the comforts of home without looking for a little happiness for themselves. I'd say travelling is a constant finding and a constant searching. I don't think anyone really gets anywhere, or at least no one should expect to, but one is always going....life's a trip, right? Hopefully it'll be an interesting one.
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Joined on: June 13th 2005
Last Login: May 10th 2008

Blog Entries: 63
Photos: 1262
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by Munchkin, order by Date newest first.

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....I wake up, once again having to shake the disorientation out of sleepy eyes, eyes that just can't seem to get enough rejuvenating sleep and are perpetually drying out, and remember that I am in fact in my parents house. This is my room, the room I wanted with all my heart at the age of 12 and was denied, unfairly, so my brother could have his "own space" in the basement. Apparently this is still a sore spot for me. Only had to wait 13 more years, and travel across the world, to get it. The floor is strewn with [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1350 words | [diary=274949] | 2008-05-11 07:18:41


By Munchkin
April 4th 2008

Still....in Ubud

 Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Ubud
"Rain falls, drip drop, leaning a slow, steady din into Ray Charles' crooning voice, aching strings. The roll of thunder. Wine slips down my tongue. Lightning softly flashes. Katie's fingers gently fight with ehr hair. Thunder echoes again. Again, I am feeling my heart swell, my gratitude release in tiny pulses of invisible energy, tenderly rustling the flower petals, the grass in the rice fields; lifting the wings of the flock of birds that dip and swerve, swoon in the cool air that glides low in the sky." I have many passages like this in my worn, leather bound notebook. My [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1232 words | [diary=263023] | 2008-04-04 18:07:41


....I wake up, the morning of the 9th, feeling melancholy. It feels very, very foreign...like sadness doesn't belong in a place like this. I decide to do my best not to look too far ahead my own footsteps. I am still, afterall, in paradise... We all wake up and have breakfast, Adam packing his things and hitting the "road" (slash slow boat to Lombok, then Bali) before the rest of us. I take one more stroll down the strip, running into the dozens of friends I have somehow managed to make in the short time I have been here. They say [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 3317 words | [diary=259834] | 2008-03-26 04:11:21


Where to start.... Stars? No, too cliche. No one wants to hear about how you rediscovered the immense empyrean that exists right above the hazy fog of Korean nights skies, and how somehow it opening up above you opens up the crevasses inside to reveal all kinds of vibrant emotions that were seized in the heart, like air embedded in rock. Too obvious. Start smaller... White sand? Come on now, really? Toes tickling soft silt while the sun sets and the beer in your hand drips droplets of dew down your fingers and onto your bare legs? Really? Isn't that the [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 70 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 4047 words | [diary=259100] | 2008-03-24 06:03:43

Economy Airport, KL
The sunset on Kuta
Me and a local.....oh wait

By Munchkin
February 18th 2008

September

 Asia » South Korea » Gyeonggi-do » Seongnam » Bundang
So eventually I had to teach my kids the happiest song in the world (also, my favorite), and in doing so it was only natural to also make them dance around like little Earth, Wind and Fire prodigies. Eat your heart out MJ. [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 43 words | [diary=247663] | 2008-02-18 20:52:33


Tancheon Riverbank
Tancheon Riverbank
Sun setting over Jeongja...the scene of many a glorious/strenuous morning run
OK, so once upon a time I was a drama queen. I know, this is a difficult thing to admit, and if there's any place a girl should be able to let it all out, it’s her blog. It's taken me a long time to get here, to the place where I can admit my problem....I mean, my problem of days of yore.....but here I am, naked to the world; recovering drama queen. God, I feel so much better....... So now that that's out of the way, I will now attempt the least sentimental approach possible for a sentimentalist like me [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 31 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 3279 words | [diary=245487] | 2008-02-12 12:01:20

William and I
Tom, Harry and I
Random Korean Signs

By Munchkin
January 1st 2008

Sky

 North America » Canada » Alberta » Kananaskis Country
Sky Car wheels roll, wheels crunch, wheels squeak, Over rocks, on dark black ice, spread Haphazardly on open, swelling highway, Heaving hills, and open, gaping Sky. Space. Lights of the city lie flat, Spread wide, and I open, open Up, and out and up the stars Dance subtly against a stark, black Canvas. I smirk, as a smile won’t do, not With the derision, the hindsight I have Not seeing from above, or below (as For so long all I’ve done is look up, Or down). But now, I am looking across; Looking in. Breathe. There are no layers Here, no [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 1 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 150 words | [diary=232122] | 2008-01-02 03:47:29


In a loop, or a figure 8, it is difficult to know where the line begins. In fact, it's downright impossible, unless you get REALLY close to the paper and see where the smudge on the line exists, where the 'blob' of ink is just a little bit thicker. And maybe, in the end, it is irrelevant where the line begins...just knowing that once upon a time it began, and now it is a full circle, is enough to know and move on. Of course, most people don't spend that much time looking closely at a circular mark on a page, [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 1171 words | [diary=231421] | 2007-12-30 07:49:58


Hannah's throws me a party
Hannah's throws me a party
The most fabulous little girl in the world, that I have the honor of "teaching" every week, throws me a surprise birthday party
Through the Looking Glass.... My parents will arrive on Korean soil in T minus ten days. A few months ago I was completely unable to wrap my head around this idea...my parents, in THIS context, as part of THIS life. Last year it wouldn't have even been a possibility. And a few years before that I was going to finish my second degree in Calgary and get a job in Alberta...skiing in the winter and imagining hot, exotic places somewhere in Neverneverland, existing silently in a steamy breeze on the ouskirts of reality. And a few years before that, I don't [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 13 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 811 words | [diary=198563] | 2007-09-03 14:08:40

Gym time at the Park
Swans and the Han
Dinner as the sun sets

Central Park at Dawn
Central Park at Dawn
If there is one thing I have become absolutely, shockingly aware of, it is that I am truly a morning person, and that I have trained myself to be so
My second contract has begun. The first day of classes of the new semester, it rained. Like I have become accustomed to in this country, seasons begin in one day. The earth literally just wakes up one morning and decides its time for a change. The humidity rolled in Friday morning, along with some yellow dust and the smell of moist, fertile earth (quite possibly my favorite smell in the world). Winter is over, Jennifer is done her contract, and I am on my own. I have my own glorious apartment to myself, and although it is an incredibly difficult thing [View Full Entry]

Munchkin - Shawna Manske | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe | 0 Comment(s) | 9 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s) | 533 words | [diary=134566] | 2007-03-03 13:33:56

Central Park at Dawn
Central Park at Dawn
Saying Goodbye



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