Daily Routines

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I've just realized that it's been a long while since I've written a blog. I originally started with the goal of doing one every Friday but as life here often does distractions come and schedules change. It's been a good month and a half or so since my last post and it's been busy.

The summer is finally here and the days are starting to reach their muggy Asian feel. The rains are coming down more and more frequent. In fact as I write this it's the first day in a week that it hasn't been raining but there's a strong chance that streak will continue tonight and through the weekend.

So what have I been doing these past few weeks? In early June we headed up to the Northeast coast for a 3 day weekend. It was good getting up and seeing some friends that we hadn't seen in far too long. It was a long harsh trip but in the end it more than made up for it. We left on a Friday night and stayed in Seoul with some good Irish friends of ours, Anto and Aisling. They took us out for Japanese sake, which was a much welcomed releif to soju. We'd planned to just go out for one and head back to the apartment due to our early rise but as things tend to do in Seoul they progressed through the night until your staring at some early hour of the morning. Plus the added fact that they'll soon be leaving Korea made us want to make a good night of it. The next day we resumed what would turn out to be a nine hour trip from Yeosu to Gyeongpodae overall.

Sometime around noon we found ourselves on the coastal town and on a bus headed for the beach and a place to hold up for the next two nights. We found it quite easily. We booked a room with some friends at a beach front pension and spent the next two days on the beach kicking soccer balls, throwing frisbees, and trying to avoid being hit by the ball of an Irish sport called hurling(Pictures have been posted on Facebook).

Fires were built, Gin was drank, fireworks were detonated. All in all good times.

I've also acquired a MacBook Pro in the last month. It cost a healthy chunk of my paycheck but as a reward for my Wonderland troubles and my other laptop being on the way out three years prior it was time to upgrade. I've since delved a little bit into what it's capable of and I'm loving it very much. I'm converted, an Apple man.

It's also been a busy month as far as work goes. I've planned my Summer Camp, which will start in a few weeks. I had my open class in front of the other teachers and the vice principal and I feel that we nailed it. My co-teacher and I recieved a lot of postive response about our class and I feel that I've earned a little more respect around the school now that they know that I can actually do a good job of teaching the students. I was also glad that my co-teacher got some praise after she sweated and became a nervous wreck the weeks prior to the class.

I've also been getting steady writing jobs. Unpaid, but published and steady which makes me happy enough at the moment. I've been working with an expat magazine called NEH (that's Korean for yes). I sent in a little short story I did a couple of months ago and they published it. The following issue, which should come out anytime now, I did an article about the struggle some expats face when they leave Korea and return home. I was a bit nervous sending that one in because I hadn't done an article before, only short stories. It turned out that it got great reviews from the writing editor and the editor in cheif. Both sent me emails saying that they loved it and it took a little bit of pressure off because I was waiting for the email that said it sucked. I'm still waiting for that email so it keeps me on my toes.

Then for the August issue, which is about Fashion, Film and Food, I submitted an idea to do a look at Korean fashion and where Westerners fit in. I picked this idea mainly because I didn't know a lot about fashion and wanted to test myself and see if I could write and interesting article about something I'm not really passionate about. They sent me an email back a few days after my preposal and said they wanted it to be a feature.

Each issue has two features. The cover story and the 2nd feature. Mine will be the 2nd feature and I was really surprised that they offered it to me. Immediatly I was regretting picking fashion instead of food. I wondered if I could type up four good pages on something like fashion.

To put the article together I interviewed a wide selection of friends. The people of Yeosu were great. They answered everthing I asked honestly and quickly. They even came out for a photo shoot that will appear in the magazine with the story. I finished up the story last night after I met my 2000 word quota and revised it many times with Jen's help. Hopefully that email saying it sucks doesn't come but even if it does I had a good time doing.

I'm ejoying working with this magazine. It's keeping me very busy but it's nice to have something to do other than come home and go to the gym before returning and reading or watching tv before bed.

I'm trying to keep myself busy. Along with the NEH stuff I'm also starting to do short story collaborations with Joe, a friend living up in Suwon. He's a photographer and a damn good I might say so he's sent me some shot's and I'm gonna try and put something together that goes with the images.

And just this week I had another stange but exciting thing happen. On Wednesday my co-teacher asked if I wanted to be the narrator of a film. "Yeah, why not?" I told her before she'd even mentioned the details. It turns out that her sister in law is a pretty respected South Korean film maker and she was putting together a film about Jeju island ( basically Koreas Hawaii) and they needed a someone to speak over the images.

So they showed up at lunch and recorded me about 4 or 5 times as I read from a script. It was posted on youtube today. It's been entered in some contest that people the world over get to vote on I guess. I haven't seen it yet but from what I was told if it wins first place it will be the movie shown to visitors of Jeju island so soon the honeymooners of South Korea could be listening to my voice telling them about the wonders of Jeju. Next stop voice over work for the BBC. David Attenbourogh has got to be on the way out.

So that's it folks. My month of random crap happenings. It's been tiring but exciting and strange. Hopefully the good fortune will keep on rolling and I'll have more for next time.

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