Check out the Feb. 24 post for info about accessing photos I've put up on www.ofoto.com.
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Spring Courage

It's definitely warming up. Despite my dislike of the upcoming season, I am looking forward to seeing green. I arrived here in early October, so I saw dying leaves for a short while and then, when they fell off, only bare branches.

My spring break is in four weeks, and I'm psyched to go to Southeast Asia.

On Monday night, I went to the Coex Mall, the largest underground mall in Korea, and location of one of the biggest bookstores here too -- makes your average superstore B&N look like the neighborhood cubbyhole bookshop. I vacillated between the Lonely Planet's guide to Vietnam or its guide to Southeast Asia. I really want to go to Vietnam -- have for several years -- and liked the depth of coverage of the Vietnam book, but I opted for the broader guide in the end, because who knows where I'll end up going?

After buying the guide (a whopping 30 percent markup from the American price), my stomach beat its way through to my brain and steered my body into Burger King, where I had some fries. Greeeeasy and gooood.

So I sat in the Burger King at Coex Mall, and read about Vietnam and Thailand, and it occurred to me that I really haven't gone out by myself much here. Even just the simple act of going to a bookstore and then hanging out in a shop afterwards is a novelty for me. I go to school, I go to work, and I go home. On the weekends I'll go see family or get together with friends. But I don't really go out much by myself.

(Watch out, there's some navel-gazing about to come your way.)

I didn't go out much by myself in DC, either -- there was always something to do at home or someone to call up if I wanted to go out. If I couldn't find someone to go with me, I'd often just say to myself, "Oh well. Oh, hello, Little Women!" and end up reading or watching TV or something.

Why do I do that? Or rather, why don't I just go out myself and do things? I think I might lack self-confidence. I think I also might be afraid, strangely enough. And of course, I am definitely really, really lazy. I know it doesn't seem like it, but if I don't have something planned, I can just slum around the apartment all day reading books that I've already read a dozen times.

This is something I feel bad about, considering the riches to be mined by living in a vibrant city (be it DC or Seoul), but I'm trying to get over it, because I enjoy slumming around the apartment, and I don't enjoy running around all the time.

But the fear thing, that's not so good. Nor the lack of self-confidence.

Before I left, a couple friends expressed their admiration at my plans to throw my life into complete upheaval. I'm not sure they believed me when I told them that I was petrified. I thought I'd have no friends, I thought I'd be laughed at and scorned by native Koreans, I thought I wouldn't be able to find a job, I thought I'd be holed up in my room reading Harry Potter books for the 20th or 30th time. I was fully prepared to hate the first three or four months, and was determined to stick it out for at least that long, since I was bound to hate Korea during that period.

As it turns out, Seoul is far more westernized than I thought it would be, school is a veritable cornucopia of friendly people, I found a job right away, and when I do hole up in my room and read Harry Potter books for the 25th time, it's completely by choice.

Since I live with my dad, my life here is practically free of all discomforts and unease. So my pre-Korea fears look foolish from this side of things. Even so, I didn't know how comfortable it would actually be, and so I do give myself some credit for actually going through with my plans despite my fears. I guess I believed I'd land on my feet.

Now that I'm here, how do I translate that faith into something that will give me the courage to go explore on my own?

I suppose you do it by doing it, and that's what I'll have to do.

Once I get over being lazy, that is.