When Life Gives You Lemons...

... bark at them. Incessantly.

(The viciousness really starts at about the 1:01 mark.)

Aaaaaand I'm pretty sure our neighbors hate us now. A lot.

[Forgive the terrible quality of the video.]

Lately

Oh me oh my. I have nothing to say here, and yet I still feel compelled to update this useless blog of mine. Maybe because it makes me feel like I'm being productive when, in all actuality, I'm just spewing verbal diarrhea for all to see. (How embarrassing.)

Life is still relatively uneventful in this corner of Lake Ontario. Ken is working full time and I'm looking for a job full time, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I'm quite frustrated with the job-search already and I've only officially been at it for approximately two weeks. I may be a tad impatient with these kinds of things, but honestly; why can't finding a job be easy? Moreover, why can't a job I actually want to have just fall into my lap? *sigh* Moving on....

I've been taking advantage of the summer weather by spending lots of time out and about in the city (in between bouts of boredom spent in front of the computer in my apartment), and I daresay my farmer's tan is coming along quite nicely. Here are some little things I've (we've) discovered on some recent outings:

Toronto has a castle. Why? I have no idea. It's called "Casa Loma," that much I know. I also know it costs $20 to enter its lavish gates, so my knowledge ends there. 

Toronto has lots of money. We discovered an area called "Forest Hill" last weekend, and the homes through there are enormous and most definitely cost millions. Our curiosity got the best of us while we were walking up and down the neighborhood's (or neighbourhood's) streets last weekend and we began trying to discreetly peer in through the extravagant windows from the sidewalk. Aside from not successfully seeing much, we had been walking around for a few hours prior, wearing old shorts and t-shirts, sweating buckets in the heat, and undoubtedly looking poor and suspicious. I'm surprised we weren't arrested for "casing the joints", but aside from a few disgusted glances, no one gave us the time of day.

Toronto has a crap selection of breakfast joints. No Denny's or IHOPs or Pancake Pantries around these parts! (Oooh, how I miss the Pancake Pantry in Nashville.) But we did discover a great little breakfast place about a week ago that just opened its doors recently a mere two blocks away from our apartment. Yay! Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the city's population found out about Cora's this past weekend. When we eagerly walked over there for some blueberry pancakes on Saturday morning, we were met with a line trailing out the door, about a hundred people long. Sadness! I guess I'm going to have to start dragging my bum out of bed a little earlier on the weekends....

Hmm.... I thought I had more Toronto-based discoveries to blabber on about, but I've forgotten what they were.

I suppose in other news, Ken and I bought a "family pass" to the Art Gallery of Ontario a couple of months ago, which I think was a wise and useful investment.

I spent the afternoon there last Wednesday looking through their "Drama & Desire: Artists and the Theatre" exhibit that featured the above painting, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (my favorite), along with other, perhaps more famous paintings. The exhibit was interesting, but not nearly as interesting as trying to find my way back out of the enormous building. This was my first time going there without Ken, who knows the place pretty well, so I ended up the most lost I've ever been indoors. The A.G.O. is like a giant maze and I plan to go back again this week for that very fun reason. (Plus, the family pass gets me a discount at the cafe.)

OK, that's enough spewing for now. And, just to err on the side of caution, I should state that none of the above photos are mine. I stole them from the web, like a good photographer.

The End Is Near....?

I'm feeling particularly paradoxical (tongue twister!) at the moment. I feel the need to write something thoughtful--profound, even--and yet I have nothing thoughtful--or profound--to say. And I can almost hear your sighs of relief as I type. But don't exhale just yet; I'm going to try to organize my thoughts here, in a half-hearted attempt at giving a real, honest-to-goodness update.

The big news: I'm finishing my teaching assignment in Korea on February 14th (happy Valentine's Day to me!) and heading to Southeast Asia on the 15th. The tentative plan, as of right now (always subject to change), is to start in Vietnam and make my way up along the Mekong River through Cambodia, Laos and Thailand (I like finishing on a high note, and Thailand is always a high note). Aside from seeing the all-important cities and sights (Saigon, Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat, Laos in general, Chiang Mai, etc.), I have zero agendas for this trip. I'm not going for the sake of missions or humanitarian purposes (a common misconception among inquirers); I'm going as a straight-up tourist, hoping for an eye-opening experience and--let's be honest here--a good time (which I realize is selfish... but I suppose that's the way a typical American rolls, right?). The reality of leaving Korea and traveling for nearly two months hasn't sunk in just yet, so the excitement for this adventure hasn't entirely caught up with me. But I'll probably be out of my mind by the time February rolls around.

The (not so) small news: After Southeast Asia. That's the part I don't like to talk about. Why? Because I have no idea whatsoever what I'll be doing next. March 26th is the all-important date, as I'll be returning to the States on that day, and then________ (that's me, having no idea what 's next). I'm planning a trip to Europe in the summer, but Europe (being Europe) is absurdly expensive and will therefore force me to remain within it's small corner of the world for only a short amount of time. Then I'll be scrapped for money once again and looking for employment. The inevitable question that comes with the "E" word, however, involves a word I believe to be far worse: Where. Where am I going to settle this bum of mine for the next year* or so? (*I only plan for one year at a time, otherwise I get insanely restless. And, yes, I realize I probably need to be in therapy.) Nashville? (Sigh...) Michigan? (The winters there are almost reason enough not to return to the Great Lakes State.) Korea? (Last resort, please!) Somewhere in Europe? (If I win the lottery, perhaps?) I don't know. And since this is the longest amount of time I've allowed myself to think about my mid-twenties-life-crisis, I'm beginning to feel antsy. And so I'll stop thinking about it.

I'm getting typer's cramp, which is my cue to ever so ungracefully wrap up this post.

Good night, morning, or whatever time it is on your side of the globe.

I'm a Pro

I am an expert at many things. Unfortunately, the world as a whole doesn't tend to deem these things--these arts, if you will--as conventional and least of all worthy of any sort of income. Of course, I blame the world for being far too narrow-minded, and I truly hope that someday it will become more open to the finer things in life, such as:

1. Coffee drinking. I could drink enough coffee to turn the ocean from a deep blue into a syrupy, coffee brown. And I probably do. I'm quite good at consuming coffee and I'm even better at making the distinction between "good coffee" and "bad coffee," "light coffee" (usually bad) and "dark coffee" (almost always delicious, assuming it isn't dark because it's been sitting on the burner for an ungodly amount of time and scorched beyond drinkability). My taste for coffee is honed right down to the very region of the world where the coffee is grown. I can taste the difference, and believe me, I have a preference (Latin American grown, in case you're wondering). Of course, I do my best to support fair trade coffee, even though I spend an obscene amount of time (and, sadly, money) at Starbucks. Side note: I'll quit giving that particular capitalist establishment my business as soon as I leave this country (hey, Rome wasn't built in a day).

2. Globe trotting. If the job to travel with no strings attached (read: no other work involved) existed, I would be the best in the business. Granted, I've only been to a handful of countries and I'm not exactly the best traveler in terms of roughing it (I nearly faint every time I see a cockroach), but I love traveling more than I love my iPod or my cat (another story within and of itself), and that's saying something. Traveling to new and unseen places, eating new and delicious (and sometimes disgusting beyond description) cuisine, and meeting people from all over the globe are what I consider to be my niche in life. If only I could get paid to travel instead of paying through the rear to do it. I've come to terms with the fact that I will probably never retire because (a) I won't have anything to retire from and (b) I will never have the money to do so, thanks to my traveling addiction. But, hey, you only live once. Oh, and while I'm on the topic of traveling, I would like to announce my upcoming travel plans: I'm going to Japan for a little over a week in July to visit Osaka, Kyoto, maybe Tokyo, and to climb Mount Fuji. Seriously. I'm going to climb it.

3. Wasting time. If this were an art, I would be Leonardo Da Vinci. I'm the queen of wasting time. Doing what? you may wonder. I don't know. "Wasting time" usually means not doing anything noteworthy or memorable.

4. Reading. (See previous post.)

5. Thinking about life and/or the meaning of it. This might fall into the category of "wasting time", but I sometimes feel like I've figured it out and, consequently, feel productive. However, I'm a little bipolar in that I swing back and forth between enlightenment and total cluelessness, the latter of the two being most prominent. I find myself frequently asking "Why am I on this chaotic Earth?" or "What the @#%# am I doing with my life?" These are the questions most people ask at some point in time, but I seem to obsess over them. I fill pages upon pages in my diary asking these questions in different variations (e.g. "Should I join the Peace Corps next year? If so, what's the point? No, I think I should go to Spain to learn Spanish and to find a rich European man. Wait, scratch that. Graduate school in Australia. But maybe...." so on and so forth). Needless to say, I don't have life figured out and I probably never will (the only real conclusion I've come to).

If I could acquire some form of income for any or all of the above, I would be a billionaire. But thanks to the world we live in, only brainy people like Bill Gates are recognized for their supposed "talents". But as they say in French, "C'est la vie". And now I will stop wasting your time while I'm wasting mine. People.com is calling, and so I'm going to move on and continue my #3 art without imposing it on the rest of the world.

A Hodgepodge of E's and I's, P's and J's

If you know me well (or if you even know me at all) you probably know that I have a mild obsession with the study of personality types. OK, maybe "mild" isn't a good adjective to use here; it might be a major obsession of mine, but--hey!--everyone has their quirks. I am particularly fascinated by the typology test known as the "Myers-Briggs", and I must admit that I put more stock into it than I probably should. I find it, however, to be surprisingly accurate in most instances, and I find that it feeds my desire to put everything inside of a tangible box: "You don't understand me? Well, it's probably because I'm an ENFP and you're an ISTJ. End of story." To the curious interest of some and the incredible annoyance of others, I have made most of my friends (and sometimes even new acquaintances) take the test; sometimes more than once. I then proceed to analyze everyone accordingly from that point on: "There you go again straightening the card pile. It must be the 'J' in you." Some might write this off as a serious character flaw of mine, but I might heartily disagree. I view the process of studying personality as incredibly important in understanding our fellow person and for the development of healthy relationships. Call me a nerd, but it's the way I roll.

I recently had a group of my friends here in Korea take the typology test one night while we were crowded around a friend's living room for a game of Euchre. They pretended to be annoyed and proceeded to give me an exceptionally hard time for being weird and adamant about the test, but I think they secretly enjoyed it and found it almost as fascinating as I do. I mean, honestly, I didn't make them take the test; I just nagged them about it for a few hours until they begrudgingly complied. After everyone had answered the questions and tallied up their scores, I looked over the test results and was intrigued by the overwhelming number of NF's sitting in the room. (For those of you who know absolutely nothing of what I'm talking about at the moment, I highly recommend reading up on the many different personality types. It really is enlightening and fascinating, at best.)

Ever since I arrived in Korea, I have been increasingly intrigued by the many different breeds of foreigners who reside here. I mean, honestly, it goes without saying that there are definitely some odd ducks in this pond. We're all here for different reasons, whether it be financial, social, or an escapism of some sort, but there is something that most definitely ties us together somehow. I used to think our "bond" revolved around a generational issue: We're all trying to figure our lives out, so we're in Korea seeking money to pay off our sky-high debt and to take a stab at the adventurous unknown. I still think our reasons for being here and the tie that binds us are undoubtedly generation-related. I don't think I need to make a hard case to prove that most of us who fall within the Generation X bracket are exceptionally lost and desperately trying to discover our niche in life. If you're a Generation X-er and you feel satisfied with where you are and the path you have chosen, I would venture to say that you might be one of the lucky few. Or maybe you just don't possess an ounce of self-awareness.

Back to the personality test. Although I think Generation X-ers share a common life-placement-problem, I think we all deal with it differently, perhaps based on our personality types. As I'm learning about my fellow Gen X-ers on this side of the globe--the Gen X-ers who are searching for an answer to the big "What?" anywhere other than home--I'm finding that our personality types are astonishingly similar. Now, my question is this: Does our personality type determine the course we might take in life? Are certain personality types inclined to travel and live life on "the edge" (is that what this is??), while others are more career-driven and home-based? Am I putting way too much stock into standardized testing, or are they insanely accurate?

Take the test and let me know what you think. I love, love, love talking about this stuff (and I apparently have way too much time on my hands).

a plane ticket in hand and a head full of ideas

I specifically remember writing a blog post a few months ago, complaining about the fact that I hadn’t figured out what to do with myself after my time in Korea is officially over. Well, here I am, four weeks and four days away from my departure date, and I still haven’t the slightest clue. And to be totally honest, I should be a lot more stressed out about it than I am. As it stands, I’m feeling pretty indifferent about the fact that I will be on the other side of the world and hopelessly unemployed in only a matter of days (thirty-two, to be exact).

As of right now, I’m looking at either returning to Nashville indefinitely, or heading to Seattle. I don’t even remember why Seattle is an option, but there it is, penciled in on the tentative plan for my future. Lovely. Graduate school is still up in the air, but so is living in the States for a long period of time. I miss all of you back home desperately, but for those of you who know me well know I’m a hopeless drifter and therefore cannot remain in one place for very long. Maybe I’ll outgrow this restlessness of mine someday, but I doubt it will be any time soon.

Now, a little note to those of you in the States: I will be arriving in Michigan on January 7th and I’ll be in Nashville by January 20th-ish. Mark your calendars, please, because I want to see your beautiful faces. And to my dear friends in Korea: Please visit me someday, wherever I end up. You always have a place on my couch (if I can afford one).

October

I love autumn. I love it even here in defiant little Korea, where the leaves refuse to change color and the weather remains too predictable to pull my favorite sweaters out of their hiding place in my wardrobe closet. Because even though there are few visible signs of autumn here, I can smell it in the air; fall has a subtle scent of crisp breezes and of the color orange, even when the actual weather doesn’t seem to want to comply with the season. The steam softly spiraling into the air from my cup of tea and the aroma of my glowing, scented candles are helping my imagination in my pursuit of the feeling of autumn, even though my window is wide open and I have a fan blowing in my direction. But I refuse to be disheartened by the persistently warm air that is hanging stagnant in my apartment.

Autumn represents change, and it is during the fall season that I begin to dream of what my life could look like in the not-so-distant future. Restlessness, without fail, seems to consume me during the glorious month of October. As I’ve been sprawled out on this crunchy, black leather sofa in my living room, basking in my pseudo-autumn environment, I’ve been clicking through my blog posts from last year at this time. I came across a post I had written about a trip I had taken to Chicago last fall, and as I was reading through it like an old letter from a long-lost friend, I suddenly noticed a developing pattern in my life: October, for me, means it is time for a drastic life-change. And as I’m sitting here marveling over how much my life has changed over the past twelve months, I realize—with a jolt of excitement and a pang of frustration—my feelings at this very moment seem to differ little from my feelings at this time last year.

Korea has pulled me apart and put me together again like a jigsaw puzzle, all in one year. It has been a tumultuous year, a good year, and an enlightening year; the kind of year I think everyone needs to experience at least once in their lifetime, if not a few times. My decision to come here, although somewhat unclear and difficult at the beginning, was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I have learned more about life, relationships, culture, and even myself in this one year than I have in any previous year I can remember. I have made many dear friends during my time here who have made my life all the richer by simply existing in this small corner of the world. And yet, as I sit here in my dark living room, listening to the sounds of the street drifting on the autumn air outside of my window, I realize every chapter in life has to close at some point.

October is a month of change, and my decision, although unstable and a little bit terrified at the moment, has been made. My future is still very unclear, but I know Korea will not be a part of it for much longer (and I truly hope these are not famous last words). This revelation of sorts is both gut-wrenching and curiously exciting. I have no idea what looms before me in the cold months ahead, but I thrive on change and thus have a growing desire to soak up these last few moments in Korea, and then move on. I am now waiting for the air to cool, the leaves to change, my sweaters to make their long-awaited debut, and new opportunities to arise and be taken advantage of.

Mind Vomit (Part II)

It is yet another tedious Monday and I have yet another persistent cold. My nose is dripping like a leaky faucet and my head feels like it’s stuffed with approximately seven thousand cotton balls—an undoubted side-effect of the decongestant I think I’m taking at the moment. (I use the word “think” here because I spent a number of minutes in the pharmacy today, trying to explain to the girl behind the counter that I needed some kind of drug designed to stop the insane amount of mucus oozing through my nose; she didn’t speak English, I speak very little Korean, so after a few minutes of playing a game of charades, I walked out of the pharmacy with a box of something that doesn’t seem to be working too well.)

I clicked into Blogger a few minutes ago with the intention of writing something meaningful, but, to be totally honest, the topics that are near and dear to me at the moment feel too private to broadcast on the internet for the pleasure of the blogging world (whether this “pleasure” is edifying for some or the object of ridicule for others). I do, however, feel the need to give some sort of an update; a tidbit of news that will lead you to believe my life is exceptionally adventurous and enviously interesting right now. But, as fate would have it, my life of late has been relatively uneventful. It’s amazing how taking an unconventional path (such as moving to and living in the eastern hemisphere) can become humdrum after awhile. I bore far too easily, and I fear that—consequently—my future will be spent in a permanent state of nomadic-ness. But although "settling down" seems like a nice idea in theory, every time I try it on to see if it fits me, I’m usually unable to squeeze myself into it. Most people crave some form of stability, but I seem to crave only change. My world is in a constant state of motion, but it rarely moves fast enough for my liking: If I’m in one place for one year, it usually ends up being ten and a half months too long. My bank account, however, doesn’t allow me to move on as quickly as I would like, and so I remain stagnant for as long as my attention span can possibly handle. In short: I’m a piece of work.

I suppose the point of this seemingly meaningless babble is to somehow say that I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life in the months to come (I only have three months, by the way, to make this frighteningly life-altering decision). Should I stay here in Korea, where money is never an issue and where travel is exceptionally affordable? Should I go home to the things that are most familiar to me (although the word “home” is becoming more relative as the days progress)? Should I take another stab at adventure and move somewhere entirely different? Or should I take what little money I have and spend it on traveling the world until I can no longer afford to feed myself? I thought I had made up my mind on this decision weeks ago, but, true to my typical behavior, I’ve begun to analyze my life and question every decision I’ve ever made (should I have eaten the bagel with cream cheese, or should I have gone with the strawberry jam?).

Any suggestions?

Mind Vomit

I have reached The Point. The Point I have heard other foreigners speak of time and again, but never identified with until recently. I've always taken news of The Point with a grain of salt, assuredly believing I would never actually reach it myself. But yes, I have officially, and perhaps regretfully, reached the infamous Point.

The Point, by common definition, is the point a foreigner reaches when they've grown accustomed to the society in which they live, and their original society--the society they were born into and the society they know--becomes foreign. The Point is a place of no return: I've changed and no matter how hard I try to prepare myself to return to my home country, I will always see it through different eyes, and I will leave a small part of myself in the country I have grown into over the past few months.

The Point is a confusing, uncomfortable and somewhat frightening place to be. It is also a place of growth and change, and if I had a sense of who I am and where I want my life to go from here, I might just welcome The Point with open arms. But I feel as though my sense of self--my foundations, my beliefs, my dreams--is hopelessly waning at the moment. (But I suppose "my sense of self" is another topic entirely.)

Being away from my home is painful. I love it and I miss it, but the pain isn't entirely the pain of homesickness. The pain is a certain sadness that comes with The Point--knowing I've changed and knowing the people I left behind have changed and that nothing, no matter how hard I try to make it the way it used to be, will ever be the same again.

The Point, for me, is questioning where to go from here. I'm one month away from my halfway mark in Korea. My time here has flown by faster than I can articulate and I know the remainder of the time left on my visa will fly by just as quickly. I resolved, when I first arrived in Busan, that I would start making plans for my future at the six-month mark. But as the six-month mark quickly approaches, the one question I have in my mind is relatively simple: Should I stay here or should I go home? I'm caught between two worlds (or two hemispheres, to be geographically correct). These worlds offer me two sets of options that are so distinctly different that any decision I make will quite literally determine the direction of my life. Which direction should I choose? East? West? Or something entirely different?

I don't want to start contemplating my decisions just yet; I still have a month before I need to start thinking about my future seriously. But my decisions are harder than I want them to be. The decisions I need to make come June, July, August, and September leave me feeling like a child; a child waiting for a parent to make the decision for her so she doesn't have to choose. (Welcome to adulthood, Liz!)

The Point, for me, is a point of struggling surrender. This is the point where God comes in to play, but only if I let him. Or perhaps he's a little more in control of things than I give him credit for. Hmmm.... I need to think about that for a minute.

Are you still with me? Ten points to the person who actually makes it through this post!

Oh, and while you're still here, can you give me any ideas on how to get rid of a dog my roommates have grown to love? I think the dog is adorable and sweet, but he chewed up my journal the other day. Needless to say, I'm a little irked with the orally fixated critter and I would like to find him a puppy-proof home.