Strawberries in the park

The other night I dreamt that I was back home. The first thing I thought in this semi-lucid state was how unbelievably brief my time in Korea was, and I suspect that even after the year is through, I will still see this tenure as a brief, yet exciting, chapter of my life. When I look back at Japan, my nine months there seem like a spike of chaos amidst the relatively workaday routine I had nailed out back in Ottawa. I suspect that Korea will be a somewhat longer, less radical spike, but carry with it the same amount of sentimentality.

Sometimes when I wake up, I have to establish what continent I'm on and who's around me. I've never, ever lived completely alone in my life and it's definitely a weird feeling having absolutely no one around all the time. One night when I stayed at Gord's apartment, he woke up in the middle of a semi-lucid dream of his own and screamed at me at the top of his lungs. Another night, in the midst of yet another lucid dream, I thought there was someone sleeping next to me and I felt like my heart stopped for million possible reasons.

Things are getting a little more routine over here. I go out a lot on the weekends, and I don't do the tourist stuff nearly as much. I have a whole slew of acquaintances that I met through various people and common interests. Most of the people I know exist within the microcosm of foreigners that live in Seoul since language barriers make it difficult to make Korean friends. I'm trying to start a band with Gord, since the one I was in didn't work out too much for me. In essence, life is rolling on out here, and Seoul is starting to become the setting rather than the plot.

Other notable things:

- Teacher's day was on May 15, and I received an assortment of candy, chocolate, flowers, socks, and Korean sweets from my students. I think the male teachers get less, cause my female coworkers went home with bags filled with gifts. Either that or my students don't like me.
- I'm going in for a CATscan this Saturday for my mystery ear problem. I'm not really scared about what they might find, but rather, how much it will cost me.
- I bought a sampler. This one actually. I've been messing around with it a lot, and I hope to use it with the band that I'm starting with Gord. The place I got it from was a multi-story shopping complex that was exclusively music stores; close to 100 of them. Totally unreal.

AAAANNNNYYYWWWWAAAAYYYSSSS.... that's all