30 Days to a Better Man, Day 25: start a debt-reduction plan

Whoo-ee. Yesterday's playtime went very well indeed. I got my tax stuff done, though I had to wait around and sip a coffee frappé while the T.A. finished his lunch. He was quite thorough and efficient, having done tax forms for several other professors before me. It took him just 30 minutes to fill in and print my forms. I was out of there by half past one.

I hopped Line 7 to Line 9, and thence to Yeouido Island. I strolled down Uisadang Boulevard and through the long, echoing pedestrian tunnels under Yeouido Park. A young couple was learning to skateboard down there, their skin jaundiced from the glow of beat-up incandescent lights. Despite signs warning him not to, a scooter driver zipped by as I walked along, filling the air with exhaust fumes. Upon emerging back into the diffused daylight, I found myself across an intersection from the National Assembly. Standing near the guardhouse at the gates were four cold, bored-looking policemen in black-and-yellow uniforms. The grounds seemed dead and shriveled under the muted sky, the grass brown and the fountains bone-dry. The National Assembly building itself, however, was magnificent. Apparently it's the largest building of its kind in all of Asia. I made a mental note to book a tour there with Miss H at some point.

Then the real fun began. Hungered by my walk, I hurried back down the boulevard to a tiny little mandu shop I'd noticed earlier. I sat down at a narrow red table (with recessed steel trays for kimchi and pickled yellow radish) and ordered the ₩3,500 assortment. It was delicious, though the last two dumplings were so spicy that I had to gulp down some water. I retreated back into the subway and took the geumhaeng (express) train to the last stop, Sinnonhyeon (New Nonhyeon), just a block or three north of Gangnam Station. I entered the enormous brown Kyobo Building, delved into its basement bookstore, and purchased a copy of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka for ₩6,900. With the book between my knuckles I jogged across the road to the Urban Hive, which Miss H and I have nicknamed "the Swiss Cheese Building," and Take Urban, the coffee shop on its first floor. I sat down with a cup of Darjeeling and read Kafka's whole story, soup to nuts. It was fascinating, moving, grotesque, poignant, unexpected. I don't know why I didn't read it sooner.

I had intended to walk a few blocks north to the old Nonhyeon Station on Line 7 and catch a train for Gwangnaru and a little izakaya (Japanese-style pub) I knew near my apartment, but I got a call from Brant — you know, the fellow I brew beer with. A buddy of his, Marcus (born in Texas but attending college in Cairo, Egypt), was in town and the two were bumming around together. I'd challenged them to a game of billiards the previous evening. Brant told me to meet him and Marcus at Gangnam Station at eight o'clock. To while away the intervening hours I went to an old nemesis of mine, WaBar, a "western-style ice bar" and sipped their infamous saeng maekju (draft beer) for ₩4,000 a glass. To kill time I read Kafka's story "In the Penal Colony," which was even more disturbing and emotional than The Metamorphosis.

At 7:45 I wobbled down to Gangnam Station. Brant and Marcus showed up on time. We sipped Jack and Cokes for ₩6,000 apiece at a bar called Whiskey Weasel, jockeying for position amid a group of young foreign men and Korean girls having a language exchange. The three of us shot pool and eyed the sultry goings-on. Following my resounding victory, we adjourned to Woodstock, a nearby LP bar. We requested Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Who, Warren Zevon, Wolfmother, Led Zeppelin, George Thorogood, and many more. Bourbon, Scotch and at least four pitchers of beer were consumed. We went back to Whiskey Weasel and shot more pool, our aim now a great deal unsteadier. I vaguely remember getting into a cab at 2:30 in the morning and collapsing on my couch at three. Undoing the ramifications of this bender has been today's sole concern. 

Well, not my sole concern, truthfully. Today is Day 25.

I already have a debt-reduction plan. I fork over $114 every month to pay off my college loans, the total amount of which is now (thanks to years of hard work in South Korea) four figures and dropping fast. My first year at Sejong University was so remunerative that, a week ago, I paid off a whopping $1400 of my debt in one fell swoop just to expedite the process. For the sake of this challenge, I calculated that if I pay $500 a month into my loans, starting in February, I can be totally debt-free by this time next year.

...at least until I marry Miss H and take on all of her debt.

Whoopee. Welcome to married life, Postie.

Stump up for Day 26... 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 7: reconnect with an old friend

Time to say hello to my little friend.

No, not that one. Let's just call this friend Dirk. He's been a great pal of mine since high school. Unlike a lot of my other friends, he was quite a cerebral fellow, soft-spoken, erudite, calm, moderate and easy to get along with. His very presence was a soothing tonic on some days. You know the type. Anyway, he had a most diverse knowledge of international relations and diplomacy (which he later went on to specialize in at college) and we would speak at length about it together.

So it goes. The years marched on, and the two of us went our separate ways. He attended the University of California at San Diego and I hopped that plane to the Great White North (North Dakota State University, that is). He got steady work in Southern California, and I went overseas to Korea to find my fortune.

Ah-ha. You'll notice I said "steady work." That's because I have no idea what Dirk did during the intervening years, or even precisely what he's doing now, Facebook or no Facebook. I know he's in a relationship, but I can't recall his girlfriend's face. (Before you ask, I've never met her.)

The Art of Manliness has a rather touching story about Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, William H. Seward, and a friendship he had in his youth with a man called David Berdan. Read it. It makes the rest of this make sense.  Needless to say, after reading AoM's article, it didn't take me long to figure out who I was going to reconnect with. I sent out some lines of communication this morning. As per the article's instructions, I did not use Twitter. I don't have Twitter, and never shall, so it was easy. I e-mailed the dude. I asked him about his girlfriend, his life, his work, and so on (not in that order). I'll let you know when I hear back.

Hang in there for Day 8. 

mid-September 2013 bulletins

Hey there, blogsphere. In the next few days I'm going to publish a confessional about the prejudices and preconceived notions I harbor about the People's Republic of China. Might be best to do that before I go there next week, you know?

Before that, though, here's the news:

• I am fully recovered from that week-long bout of tonsillitis that plagued me the first week of the new semester. 
• The weather appears to be turning. The dreadful summer heat has subsided, though the humidity is still sky-high. And speaking of the sky, the heavens have opened: the middle peninsula has been deluged with 120 millimeters (not quite 5 inches) of rain every day for the past three days. I'm surprised the subways haven't flooded yet. The downpour was so heavy yesterday that the lower half of my slacks were soaked through as I made my way from Gangbyeon Station to my final appointment with the ENT specialist. The rain bucketed down so hard that it was finding cracks and chinks in my umbrella, and icy drops were falling on my head at intervals. Yikes. Coupled with the unpleasant humidity (and the insane amount of sweating I do whenever it occurs), the situation has been untenable. I can't wait for fall to properly set in.
• In other news, the first two weeks of Sejong University's fall semester are over. Chuseok, the Korean harvest festival (roughly analogous to America's Thanksgiving Day) is coming up next week. It's three days, Wednesday to Friday, and that's when Miss H and I are actually going to China. I think this semester is starting out pretty well, but I feel tired already—the prospect of another four months of teaching is daunting. I think I'm finally starting to be well and truly burned out on education. I wanna go home and fly again. I may have some further news about that in the coming weeks, actually; Miss H is pretty burnt out too, what with her kids being so spoiled and unmanageable and all, so we may decide to go home early. We're going to talk it over.
• After many fits and starts, Miss H and I are going to start implementing some healthy habits around here: resuming our evening tea-and-yoga routine, for starters. It really helps us sleep. We've been looking around and garnering information about gyms, and tomorrow we'll probably stop by a few and ask about their rates and facilities. We've made dozens of attempts to get into shape on our own, but we've decided that forking over a membership fee and having personal trainers bark at us would overcome our lack of willpower and provide us with motivation. We have to start getting in shape for the wedding, you know!
• I also think I'm going to start keeping a nightly journal again. I keep buying blank journal books, excitingly leather-bound and full of blank college-ruled pages ripe for filling with life's intimate details, but I never write in 'em. It's difficult to get into the habit, for one thing. Our evenings can be so unpredictable. Hectic, too: I cook and wash dishes and plan lessons and so forth. Moreover, since I'm keeping a blog, there hardly seemed to be any point in keeping a journal...but I've realized that this blog is more like a twice-a-month thing (when I don't have travels to report on), while the journal would be every night. It'll be good to marshal my thoughts, clear my head, and sleep soundly knowing that the events of the day have been recorded and analyzed (in a non-electronic medium). Might help with penning my memoirs down the line, too. Journal-keeping rather sounds like a constructive habit to cultivate.
• Apart from that, there's not much news. After China, I don't have definite travel plans. I'm still considering doing a working holiday in Australia in January and February of 2014, but that might have to change if Miss H and I are going home early.
• Speaking of 2014, the World Cup qualifiers have begun. I was in a bottled-beer bar with a couple of coworkers last Tuesday and the Korea-Croatia game was on. I didn't stick around to see the whole thing, but apparently Korea lost 2-0. The national team has a rookie coach this year and this loss has made it warm for him. Korea will play Mali and Brazil in the coming weeks and they'd better put on a good show, or they might not qualify for the Cup. Golly, I'd hate to see what'll happen to that coach if that happens.

Alright, it's time for me to run. Miss H and I are meeting our friends Josh and JB (my coworker and his North Korean wife) for a double-date today: coffee, the Paul Gauguin exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art, and samgyeopsal for dinner.

What's samgyeopsal, you ask?

Barbecued pork belly—strips of thick, streaky bacon fried Korean-style and eaten with lettuce leaves and ssamjang (meat sauce). Very fatty, very delicious and very popular among the locals.

Toodle-oo!

sci-fi art, entry #2

It's 12:35 a.m. on a Friday night (or a Saturday morning, if you want to think about it that way). I've had a hard week and a glass of bourbon. I don't feel like posting anything particularly profound, and you know what that means—time for some more sci-fi art.

This one's called "Ancestors." I don't know what the title means, and I have no clue what the contents were meant to portray. And that's the beauty of it, really. Just stare at that half-ruined structure and the stunning panorama in the skies above it, and wonder.

the punsters were right

...Korea's got a lot of Seoul.

Okay, that was awful. I know. I'm not the first one to make that pun, either. And that's just my point.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm living in Korea's capital city. For the previous two years I was in the hinterlands. I was way down on the islands in 2008-2009, about as far from Seoul culturally as I was geographically. And in 2012 I was in Bucheon, which, even if it is part of the greater metropolitan area (barely), hardly counts as part of the big city. It was relatively quiet, laid-back and dull compared to this hoppin' metropolis.

Seems like everywhere I go in this town, every corner I turn, every street I walk down, every new neighborhood I explore, every event I attend, a new and surprising part of the Korean way of life jumps up and punches me in the nose.

Take the Sejong University Festival, for instance.

Technically it lasted from Tuesday to Thursday, May 14-16. I didn't get much of a glimpse on Tuesday because I had class all day, and I don't have any classes on Wednesday, so I wasn't even on campus. Thursday was my last shot. So after I finished up at two o'clock, I strolled around and snapped some photos.

 

  

 

 

Not much to speak of, right? Students were setting up tents and awnings. A few enterprising souls were already peddling cocktails for four bucks a pop. Some of the English department professors were rehearsing for their big show at 4:00 p.m. Knots of students were meandering here and there. Other than that, the campus was serene.

My friend and coworker Sam and his wife JB (whom I mentioned in my last post) invited Miss H and I to come back to campus at 9:00 and view the proceedings then. I didn't figure there'd be an appreciable difference, but I agreed. My girlfriend and I duly arrived at the appointed hour—halfway through it, anyway—and took a look around.

BOY, was there an appreciable difference.

Those awnings and tents that I had seen being set up earlier were packed with people—students. Soju, beer and cocktails flowed freely. Barbecue lines were everywhere. Snacks of every description were being fried and served to groups and couples at plastic chairs and tables. A famous female K-pop group was performing at the live stage in the middle of the dirt pitch, and dance music thumped from every speaker and amp on campus. Students danced in the streets and under the incandescent lights. Shouts, screams, and roars of laughter echoed and bounded from every darkened window and building. I tried to snap a few pictures, but nothing could encompass the joyous chaos. I'll leave that to your imagination. Sam, JB, Miss H and I sat and nibbled on fries for time, shooting soju, sipping beer from Dixie cups and taking the occasional gulp of baekseju, a Korean wine somewhere between potpourri and cough syrup. Then we got up and wandered around, snacking on chicken kebabs and having conversation when the noise level abated enough for us to be audible. We didn't stay on campus long, but we stayed long enough.

I remember being struck most of all by a feeling of gratitude. After riding my students like a slave master for nearly three months solid, it was nice to see them kicking back before a long four-day weekend. (I bumped into two of them during our wanderings through campus, and they looked like they were having fun.) But most of all, I was awed by the difference in the atmosphere. By day, Sejong University was a somber, venerable educational institution. During these few nights of festival week, however, it had donned a lighthearted and jovial guise, absolutely riotous, star-spangled and comical, infectious in its enthusiasm. A question occurred to me as we weaved through the happy milling crowd.

"Sam," I said, "what exactly is the point of this festival?"

This wasn't his first rodeo.

"It's like spring break," he replied, "but they don't go anywhere."

Well, there you have it. This was the Korean equivalent of spring break. With classes still on and nowhere to go, they threw a party on their school's own grounds. No wonder they were so enraptured. The weather had just turned lovely, the leaves were green and the flowers in bloom, summer was right around the corner, midterms were over and all was right with the world. I was catching a glimpse into a rare sight: Korean students kicking back in grand fashion during a lull in the academic war they'd been waging since grade school.

I felt ever so privileged to have that glimpse.

channeling Dostoevsky

One of my favorite books—and the only one I didn't sell back to the Royal Rip-Off Club (the university bookstore, in other words)—is Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I couldn't really tell you why I kept it, except that I like it. The protagonist of NFU is not a likeable fellow. He's a neurotic mess. Mind you, his environment has something to do with it. His job was boring and didn't pay well. His (few) friends are all better-off than he is. His butler is passive-aggressive. And to top it off, he lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, which (Dostoevsky puts this quite delicately) is a frigid cesspool. Understandably, this unnamed protagonist is lonely, distraught, and used to be downright ornery (before the ennui overwhelmed him and turned him into an apathetic pile of dithering paranoia). His self-esteem is in tatters, and his perceived inferiority to others drives him to fits, so he takes this bitterness out on people. He acts solely out of spite. Everything he does is done out of spite. He even spites himself when there's no one else around. He finds pleasure in toothaches and liver pain. He was as nasty as possible to the petitioners who appeared before his desk. In his own words:

When petitioners came to my desk seeking information, I gnashed my teeth at them, and gloated insatiably whenever I succeeded in distressing them. I almost always succeeded. Most of them were timid folk: naturally—petitioners. But there were also some fops, and among these I particularly detested a certain officer. He absolutely refused to submit and clattered revoltingly with his sword. I battled him over that sword for a year and a half. And finally I got the best of him. He stopped clattering.

This novel entertains me. On the surface it's the depraved maundering of a nihilistic sociopath, who once would've liked nothing better than to set his hooks into you and drag you down with him. (Now, his soft insides hidden beneath a layer of calcified spite, he sits on the sidelines of social interaction and cackles like a demon at the artifice of it all.) Underneath it's one of the first existentialist novels, and a complete rejection of utopian socialism. It pulls no punches in presenting humans as irrational, uncooperative, uncontrollable beings.

Much as I enjoy the idea of a happy little world filled with soap bubbles and hearts and fluffy clouds, where everybody gets along and all are considered equals and nobody kills anyone else and whatnot, the idea is laughable. This is a central theme in my own novel, in fact.

Moreover...

It is ample justification for what I am about to tell you.

I once had a coworker whom I couldn't stand.

The man was an utter and complete idiot. He wasn't safe to work with, lacked any understanding of his trade, and worse yet, he would equivocate, exaggerate, downplay and flatter to avoid being called on it. He'd say anything to wiggle out of being blamed for mishaps he caused. (And he caused quite a few.) He undermined our supervisor's authority by calling the higher-ups behind his back. He treated near-misses nonchalantly, as if they didn't really matter. He routinely forgot (or conveniently misplaced) the most fundamental things. (I could list more of his transgressions, but I wish to avoid casting aspersion on the company.) Suffice it to say that this fellow was a piss-poor worker, forgetful, sneaky, inept, incompetent, and conniving—and his arrogant attitude compounded the problem tenfold.

So I saw nothing wrong with giving him hell on a daily basis.

I called him out on his errors. I raked him over the coals when he screwed the pooch. I sententiously bossed him around in the cockpit (remember who you're dealing with). I contravened his wishes (though never in an unsafe manner). I second-guessed his intentions. I challenged, I questioned, I snarked without mercy. In short, I submarined him any way I could. If he borked, he got an earful...and so did the supervisor, chapter and verse.

Got a problem with that? Sue me.

I was on a holy mission. The Royal F@#&-Up and I had to work together. His foul-ups weren't severe enough to get him fired. And I wasn't in a position where I could logically or conscientiously refuse to work with him. I had gone before the higher-ups and complained, and there had been problem-solving sessions and group discussions, but in the end, the Jerk was exonerated, and I had to suck it up and roll with it. But I didn't have to acquiesce to his stupidity, I decided. As the duly-appointed safety observer, it was my job to point out any issue I felt needed to be addressed. And did that. I was civil about it, too, mostly. But I didn't have to like the guy. I figured it was better for him to watch his ass when I near. I wouldn't tolerate failures or slip-ups. After all, if he balled up the airplane, I'd get splattered all over the countryside along with him.

I looked at this the same way the Underground Man in NFU does. There was a battle of principle taking place. The Royal F@#&-Up refused to submit and began rattling his saber. So, I vowed, I'd gnash my teeth at him until he quit.

I finally got him to quit. Or to crack, at least.

It started innocently. It may not even have been a hill worth dying on. We had a slight disagreement about procedures. Tomato, tomahto. He did something, I questioned him about it, he defended himself. I filed the matter away to be discussed later.

And when I brought it up...

He exploded. He used a rather naughty word. He threatened to quit, which made me quite happy, if only he could've known. He said he didn't need this kind of aggravation. He was the superior here, he insisted. He would do things the way he saw fit, the safest way he knew how. I could barely choked back the laughter. I leaned against the nearest wall and soaked it all up. I'd beaten him. I'd shaken his cool. I'd rattled his cage. I'd cracked the ridiculous veneer of professional calm which he'd exuded up 'til now. Victory was mine.

By and by he calmed down. He said that he didn't have a problem with my calling things to his attention, per se (odd, seeing as how that was what had set him off in the first place), but my delivery could use some work. I was nitpicking and hypercritical, he said. (Excellent, I thought, he picked up on it.) My tone came across as condescending, he said. (Oh good, he'd noticed.) I shouldn't stop bringing these issues to his attention, he said, but my bedside manner could be more polite. Delighted, I agreed. I'd continue my duties as safety observer, but I'd work on my delivery, no sweat. I was chuckling inside all the while. Sure, I'll be nicer. Now that I've knocked all the supports out from under you, and revealed you to be the pompous, egotistical, scheming nincompoop you always were. And now you know I've revealed it, too. And indeed, his manner was conciliatory. He seemed to regret his loss of temper and took pains to ensure that we had resolved the conflict—and by proxy, that I wouldn't report anything to the supervisors. I didn't report a thing. There was no need. I'd gotten what I was after: sweet satisfaction. I felt almost no guilt about it, either.

Undermining people's egos isn't something I've made a habit of since, largely because I've never again been forced to work so closely with someone I despised.

But now that I've done it, I can see the benefits (and potential harms) of it. And I understand Notes from Underground a lot better, too.

Because, to a substantial degree, I didn't need to do what I did to the Jerk. I'm not a malicious man, and neither was Dostoevsky's protagonist. We are not, by nature, spiteful or hateful or nasty or mean. We were just amusing ourselves.

Because it can be mighty amusing.

the ol' college try

So, says the storyteller, sitting on a chair on the back porch, a tumbler of Irish whiskey in his hand, did I ever tell you about the time my cousin and I went on a pub crawl one frozen December night in Fargo after I graduated college?

It was 2007. I was 22, and a newly-minted college graduate. And I do mean new: I'd been handed my diploma only two hours earlier. It was bitterly cold. December isn't even the coldest month in North Dakota, but that night was a frozen hell. My grandparents and my eldest cousin B had graciously driven eight hours from northwestern Illinois to be at my graduation ceremony. Along the way, they'd had a flat tire. It was the dark of night, somewhere in the vicinity of Wahpeton, one of the loneliest stretches of Interstate 29. The wind was howling. Snow caked the landscape and filled the air. It was easily -30 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind was something corrosive, like acid. Any exposed skin was instantaneously stung by the icy blast, and then numbed, deadened. Changing that tire was an exercise in the same kind of agony that's buggered everyone from Neanderthal man to the Donner Party. Grandpa could only stand to be outside the car for a few seconds at a time. Dad and Mom (who were themselves driving up from their home in Wyoming, and had joined my grandparents in their mutual trek along I-29) stood outside in the midst of Valhalla and changed the tire. They spent the remaining hour to Fargo trying to prevent their hands from turning black and falling off. My cousin B is tough. He's a Marine, for crying out loud—that should tell you something right there. He's four years older than I am, lean as a rail, every ounce of him either muscle or bone or sprung steel. Gimlet eyes, square jaw, warrior's courage. Even he said he'd never been anywhere so cold in his life. He couldn't figure out how I stood being up there for three winters straight.

Not even that, however, could stop me from having myself a drink on graduation night. The ceremony went well. I didn't trip leaving the stage. I waved modestly to Mom and Pop, sitting in the stands, misty-eyed. I found them in the lobby after it was all over. I shook hands with some of my classmates, and humbly accepted the congratulations of my proud parents and grandparents. We all (somehow) made our way through the blizzard to our cars parked outside the Fargodome, and got back to the Radisson Hotel.

Then we had a celebratory dinner. B and I each had a tall glass of the Michelob Amber Bock, and without even realizing it, the night's drinking had commenced. The folks and grand-folks hit the hay after dinner, leaving B and myself at the hotel bar for what we assured them would be "just a few drinks." He had a Heineken. In complete defiance of the weather, I had a Corona. With lime. That's how I roll.
Blizzard, you can go take a running jump, I thought to myself.
"So, you know anybody in town who might like to come out?" B asked me.
I did, as a matter of fact. Brad and Arthur, two fellows I'd had the privilege to share some general education classes with, and who I'd been bumming around with ever since. (Without them, I'd have spent most of my college career sober.) I couldn't think of a better pair of drinking buddies, so I gave 'em a ring and before long they were coming in, shaking the cold out of their coats.

It seemed only natural, after B & A had had their opening beers, to transition into shots. This is where my memory starts to get fuzzy. Only starts, mind you. There were three drinking establishments that we hit, all situated along Broadway in midtown Fargo. Well, there were three drinking establishments that we hit, at the time of this particular slice of debauchery at least: Dempsey's Irish Pub, Rooters, and the Old Broadway. These varied in style and patronage from dive bar to as-hip-as-North-Dakota-can-possibly-get, which ain't much.

We hit Dempsey's first. Good crowd. Standing room only. The joint's only about as wide as a walk-in closet, but somehow we fought our way to the bar and got some beers. The night was in full swing. Smoke filled the air. (Yes, real cigarette smoke; you can still smoke in bars in ND. Quaint, right?) The yells of happy drunken people, most of them in our age bracket, resounded up and down the long, low room, drowning out the jukebox. Up at the bar, teams of four were challenging the "Shot Ski," an old wooden ski slotted with four round holes. Four friends would simultaneously lift the ski and tilt it, each thereby imbibing the shots thoughtfully inserted into the aforementioned holes by the willing staff. My single greatest regret about that night is that B, Brad, Arthur and I didn't try it.

Finding Dempsey's a little packed and smoky for our taste, we ventured out into the dark, slippery streets, back into the chill wind, to sample another venue. I remember there being no shortage of other people out walking around that night, even despite the blasphemous weather. We walked and walked and walked, down to the southern boundary of Fargo nightlife, the Old Broadway. Colloquially known as the "Slut Factory," the OB was eastern North Dakota's number-one producer of freak-dancing blondes. The production line was running at full capacity that night. Blinded by strobes, deafened by insidious music, wowed by beer brands we didn't recognize, elbowing our way past members of both sexes, all clamped tightly together on the tiny dance floor, we made our way to the back corner. Flippant to the last, we sat down and ordered some Jell-O shooters. This was my first and (so far) only experience with Jell-O shots of any kind. I was too far gone by this point to remember much of anything about them. I must've found them rather forgettable, even with a BAC of 0.2%. Attempts at conversation proved futile, what with people like Usher and Ludacris exploding from the sound system. Brad's Lutheran sensibilities, admirably ingrained even after two pitchers and six shots, were offended by the number of wannabe lesbians out on the floor.

With that in mind, we adjourned to our final stop: Rooters, right in between Dempsey's and the OB, on the east side of Broadway. This place must've been around since the pioneer days. It looked exactly like one of those enormous saloon halls from the movies: a wide room with a high ceiling, and a bar a mile long. Excuse me, I mean two wide rooms with high ceilings, and bars a mile long. This was what kind of freaked me out. It was as if two bars were built right next to each other, and the proprietor's minds were connected by some strange psionic link, causing them to make their respective establishments exact mirror images of each other. And then, after discovering this salient fact, both owners just said "screw it" and knocked out the wall between the two bars, rendering them two connected rooms displaying bilateral symmetry. The bar in the southernmost room was on the south side; the bar in the northern room was on the north side. Both rooms had their mirrors, bar stools, tables, and even lights in exactly the same place, only diametrically opposed to each other. And in case you're wondering, no, I was not seeing double. We picked a table in the southernmost room after deciding the atmosphere in the northernmost wasn't quite right. (It's anyone's guess as to how we decided that.) We sat down, ordered up a few more pitchers, and just sat and talked as best we could over the noise of hundreds. I caught up with B, and he and Brad and I had some entertaining discussions about life, the universe and everything, booze-fueled. Arthur, bless him, who had remained Brad's designated driver by some Herculean effort, indulgently sat and listened to the doggerel we spouted for hours on end. It was a fine, relaxing cap to an end-all evening.

At something approaching 2:00 a.m., we staggered out of Rooters and turned our steps to the Radisson. We slithered over slush piles and ice puddles, wantonly weaving through the now-empty street. B and I took fond leave of Brad and Arthur in the lobby, called for the elevator, entered our shared room, and promptly passed out. Little did either of us realize that we would be woken up at 5:30 to go drive home. I'd rather not remember anything about that morning. I remember B raising an emphatic fist and bringing it down with all his might upon the shrieking alarm clock; I remember Mom and Dad finally jolting us out of bed at six with a thunderous knock; I remember trying to pack my clothes into my suitcase, still drunk, wondering how in the world I was going to drive my car 13 hours back home; I remember saying goodbye to Gramp and Gran and ashen-faced B in the freezing hotel parking complex in the snowy gray light of dawn; I remember the hangover kicking in somewhere between Main and 13th Avenue; I remember begging my mother to kill me and hurl my abused corpse into the icy Red River; I remember my sweet, sympathetic mother buying me some hot chocolate at the gas station; and I remember slowly, ever so slowly reviving as I downed the scalding beverage and cranked up the radio in my Ford Taurus, as our little two-car convoy clambered onto I-29 and headed south, bound for Wyoming.

It was a good night: fun, booze-filled, freezing-ass cold, and it made for some rather fond memories. B and I agreed (via e-mail, much later) that we would make it a tradition. We'd visit every one of our remaining five cousins when they graduated college and treat them to something similar. My cousin Dirk and my brother H both graduate in the spring of 2011. Oh boy, won't that be interesting...

cram it

A saphead I am, and a saphead I shall remain. I actually thought, as I walked to the car one frigid December night in North Dakota in 2007, having successfully skidded my way through three and a half years of college, that I was done with studying forever. I wish the Knight-Who-Hits-People-With-A-Chicken from Monty Python's Flying Circus had come clanking across the parking lot and hit me with a chicken right then. Boy, was I barking up the wrong tree. Why did I ever think I was finished with studying? I mean, I knew I was going to try and get a pilot's license and all. And I knew as soon as I stepped into the ground school classroom back in February of '08 that I was in for a trial. Private pilots have to know Bernoulli's theorem, basic principles of electrical circuits, meteorology, the Federal Aviation Requirements (dozens of them), airspace and safety rules...I could go on and on. We also have to know what the word "camber" means, what the angle of incidence is, what to do if your engine dies or you lose your electronic instruments, how far you have to stay below clouds in VFR conditions in Class B airspace, and hundreds more factoids of that ilk. I've been trying to review all this for the past two weeks (in anticipation of taking my pilot's exams and checkride before February's out). But let me tell you, trying to cram when you haven't so much as peeked at the material for nigh on two years is...something of a challenge. But it gets even worse. On top of this, I'm trying to simultaneously get through bartender's school. It's a lot easier, sure—just memorizing drink recipes and various mixing tricks—but therein lies the problem. My memory, never the best, is being frayed thin by it all. At any given time I might have the ingredients of a gin and tonic or a Freddy Fudpucker bouncing around in my head, ricocheting off Bernoulli's theorem and principles of aerodynamics and stall recovery. (I'm also still trying to edit my novel, but I'm beginning to view that more and more as a leisure activity.) It's maddening. I don't know how I'm going to get through it all. This is worse than anything I ever faced at college. There, I could just roll out of bed, eat a bowl of Cheerios, glance over my notes, skim the textbook, slope off to class, sit for the exam, go play campus golf with the fellas, and execrate my bad-but-passing grade later. I can't do that now. If I don't pass bartender's school I'll have no income. If I flunk my pilot's exams I'll be delayed in my pursuit of happiness—and be out of $500. And if things are this bad now, what are they going to be like later? I'm not going to stop at just your ordinary average everyday garden-variety pilot's license, you realize. I'm shooting for a commercial pilot's license. That takes time and money. How much time and money? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'll list the requirements for a commercial pilot's license right here and now. This is what I'm going to have to go through in order to achieve my pie-in-the-sky dream of having an international air service. FAR 61.129 [Aeronautical Experience] [Excerpt] For an airplane multi engine rating:

If you are applying for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and multi engine class rating, you must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot (of which 50 hours, or in accordance with FAA Part 142, a maximum of 100 hours may have been accomplished in an approved flight simulator or approved flight training device that represents a multi engine airplane) that consists of at least:

1. 100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes.
2. 100 hours of pilot in command flight time, which includes at least 50 hours in airplanes, and 50 hours in cross-country flight in airplanes.
3. 20 hours of training on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, that includes at least 10 hours of instrument training of which at least 5 hours must be in a multi engine airplane, 10 hours of training in a multi engine airplane that has a retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable pitch propellers, or is turbine-powered, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in day VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in night VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure.
4. 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of a pilot in command in a multi engine airplane with an authorized instructor on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, which includes at least one cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance and as specified, and 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.

Permitted credit for use of advanced flight training equipment:

Except when fewer hours are approved by the Administrator (FAA), an applicant for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane, helicopter, or a powered-lift rating who has satisfactorily completed an approved commercial pilot course conducted by a training center certificated under FAA Part 142 of this chapter need only have a total of 190 hours for an airplane or powered-lift rating and total of 150 hours for a helicopter rating to meet the aeronautical experience requirements of this section. FAR 61.129 really freaks me out. In order to get a commercial pilot's license for a multi-engine rating, I need 250 hours of flight-time. To put that in some perspective, you only need 40 hours to get a private pilot's license. A mere 40 hours. And those 40 hours still depleted the savings I'd socked away in Korea, several thousand dollars. Who knows what this is going to cost, or how much time it'll take, or how hard the final exam is going to be? I've made a vow to be done with both bartender's school and my private pilot's license by the end of this month. I'm taking my last review lesson with Harold on Wednesday the 17th, and I'm going to knock off the last two time-trials at bartender's school in the next two Mondays, and take the final on Saturday the 27th. [Gulp] Wish me luck. Goodness knows if my poor abused brain will be able to take the punishment, and retain all the information necessary to pass a written, oral, and practical flight exam, plus a comprehensive six-minute time-trial covering roughly 100 drinks. Let's hope Dad's luck kicks in again.

the Meticulous Grammarshal

Risking accusations of narcissism, I think it behooves me to tell you something more about myself. That sarcastic blurb on this webpage is not sufficient for you to truly understand your author. If, perhaps, you are the type of person who prefers to understand your author before reading him, I present you with this treatise on my favorite subject, myself.

I was born in Auburn, California, in 1986. We lived there only about a year; then we moved around Northern California a bit, then to Southern California. After a year or so there (during which my brother, Harlan, was born), we moved across country to a small, out-of-the-way burg named Piketon, an hour from Columbus, Ohio. Some of my earliest memories come from there; our simple house, the creek out back where I used to catch crayfish, the enormous noise the katydids and crickets used to make on summer nights...and our hick neighbors, whose kids I used to play with.

After a while in Columbus (during which I attended public school, which I remember very little of), we moved down to East Tennessee: Oak Ridge, to be exact, once home to an installation of the Manhattan Project. I believe the uranium ore was refined there. The enormous complex still loomed like a gray set of epaulets over the city itself. We lived (as we usually did, disliking cities and suburbs) way out in the boonies, closer to Clinton, Tennessee. That was a wild place. We had a two-story house, a pond out back, and acre upon acre of woods. When it snowed in winter (if it snowed) we had a splendid sledding hill, too, with thorn bushes at the bottom and everything, which once my brother and I aimed for and plowed at least eight feet into. Fortunately we were protected from injury by our thick parkas. We fished for bluegill and sunfish in the pond, mowed what seemed like a twenty-acre lawn every summer and promptly collapsed into our in-ground pool (where Dad taught us to swim), played in the upstairs hallway (where once we put our pet gerbils into a Tonka truck and ran it down the hall, seriously injuring them and necessitating a tear-laden, anguished trip to the animal hospital), and swung on the swing suspended from the gigantic black oak tree in our front yard, where every fall we'd rake the leaves into a pile beneath and catapult into it. Those were the days. We lived in Tennessee the longest we'd lived anywhere: five years, including the year-long stint we had in a townhouse after we'd sold the big house while we were preparing to move back out west.

In 1999 we went back to the California desert: Apple Valley, the same place my brother was born. Dad actually got his old job back, ten years after he'd left it. We lived in a wonderful adobe hacienda way out in the boonies once again, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The place was beautiful. We had two acres of paddock out back, where we kept wild mustangs purchased from the Bureau of Land Management and trained them; a dirt road running across the north and east borders of our property, which horse trailers and dirt bikes rattled or roared along more often than we liked; a fresh desert breeze blowing through the windows; a porch and a semi-green lawn out back great for playing touch football or grilling; the scenic juniper-laden slopes of the San Gabriels behind, and the valley spread out in front, and across from us the rocky, sun-blasted Granite Mountains, which looked like they could've been dropped from the planet Mars. To the northwest was the tri-city area: Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia, visible to us nearly in its entirety, glimmering like a mirage by day, twinkling like a starlit sky by night.

It was here that I, home schooled since Tennessee and third grade, went to high school: AVHS, Apple Valley Senior High, class of 2004. These were the halcyon days of my youth, I think. I joined clubs and spent many a hot desert afternoon planning History Club outings, playing chess or computer games, debating (I founded the debate club myself), or just chilling at the library. I grew to love that school, despite how unfamiliar and unfriendly it had seemed to me as a newcomer to the state and the public school system. In my sophomore year, however, I found some great friends, who are still with me today: John, Lee, Virginia, Megan, and more. I came to be the class clown and was voted "Most Unique" in my senior yearbook (if that makes any grammatical sense at all).

Upon graduating in 2004, I began making the three-day commute to my chosen college, North Dakota State University, every summer and Christmas. Struck hard by senioritis, I suppose I was your typical lazy college student: drinking on weekends, playing video games or walking in the park by day (or playing Ultimate Frisbee, or just cruising around town, or going to see movies at the dollar theater, or chilling at the library, or riding my classic Schwinn Beach Cruiser around campus). I wrote papers and essays the night before they were due, alternately scrambling and relaxing, panicking and unwinding, being diligent and procrastinating. I lived in the dorms the entire time. As charming a city as Fargo was (cool breezes and flowers in spring, beautiful fall foliage, not-too-hot summers and Christmas-card winters with a blizzard or two, and all sweetened by a veneer of Northern hospitality) I knew I wouldn't be staying after I graduated, so I didn't bother with an apartment. I wouldn't have traded the dorm experience, anyway. It was like living in a house with a few dozen brothers. We were always wandering the halls, peeking into each other's rooms, jumping up to go get pizza or see a movie or play a game out on the fields around campus, starting up impromptu video game tournaments or movie marathons, or just generally having fun of some kind. We bunked our beds and turned our dorm rooms into personalized man-caves: posters ribald with college humor on the walls, Christmas lights, comfy furniture, carpeting, refrigerators filled with snacks, and what-have-you. It was my first taste of true independence, and there was magic in the air. College was like a big commune, really. I tasted alcohol for the first time, first considered the mysteries of the opposite sex, exposed myself to opposing viewpoints on all subjects, and ventured into states of mind of which I had not dreamt. I even had a girlfriend in college, my first and (thus far) only: Elizabeth. She was just what I needed, a wonderful, kind, sensible woman who could always cut me off before I reached the limits of stupidity or boorishness. We had some wonderful talks and spent many an hour in conversation, circumnavigating the campus or reviewing one another's movie collection. She and I remain friends to this day.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. I graduated college in December, 2007 and spent the next six months in fruitless job-hunting in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My parents had moved there in '06, putting their Apple Valley house in the market in the meantime, which still hasn't sold. Besides looking for work, I took to strolling around beautiful Sloans Lake, taking flying lessons at Cheyenne Regional Airport, working at Sierra Trading Post (the wholesale version of REI) and cruising around town in my '96 Ford Taurus, blasting classic rock on the radio.

Then I found this Korean job and took it. And here I am. The rest you know.

If you want to know about me, personally, I can tell you a little of whatever comes to mind. I am six feet tall, with blue eyes and dark brown hair. I have a round, somewhat chubby face. I played soccer (and later, reffed it) in Apple Valley, but I've been overweight ever since graduating high school. The Freshman 15 didn't miss me in college. It is only here, taking walks every day and doing exercises, that I've lately begun to get my figure back.

I am an outgoing guy, not much of a conversationalist but willing to attempt it. I used to be quite shy; I gradually trained myself out of it. I love to be the jokester, the class clown. Puns are my cup of tea. I'll spout bad puns whenever the occasion even thinks of arising. I'm always looking for a way to turn casual sentences into plays on words or jokes. That's annoying to some people and hilarious for others. I am a relentless optimist, usually. I try never to be down in the dumps, 'cause that shortens one's lifespan, y'know. I'm desperately afraid of death but am going to have a risky lifestyle anyway, just for the fun of it. I like to write and have been told I'm good at it, just as I was once good at drawing.

I am very uptight about the sanctity of language: I detest all emoticons (those annoying smiley-faces people put into their e-mails and text messages) and trite abbreviations like LOL, TTYL, LMAO, ROTFLOL, and so on. I correct other people's grammar unmercifully (as the Meticulous Grammarshal, which sounds better than Grammar Nazi; I've included the Grammar Nazi flag above).

Traveling, flying and writing are the three things I hold most dear, but I also love reading, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, imagining, gaming, dancing (if I knew how), and learning. In fact, I want to learn three more languages (after finishing Korean and Spanish), and there's a lot of history I don't know yet.

As you know from my writing updates, I'm writing a book and am going to turn it into a comic book. Any book ideas that I have later I'll duly report on. I'm sarcastic, selfish, mean-spirited and whiny sometimes, but most of the time I'm happy-go-lucky, cheerful, and intelligent. I'm half action hero and half cartoon character, or so I hope. I want to live a full life so I can die without regrets (preferably in a heroic fashion). I hope someday to be a published author; an accomplished pilot; a seasoned traveler; and a loving husband and father (if I could but find the woman). I value the brain above all other human possessions, the book above all other art forms, airplanes above all other inventions, democracy above all other governments, liberty above all other abstract nouns, and whiskey above all other liquors. And that's me.

Any questions?