Pictures of Jejudo at ofoto.com. Login: "hkim100@hotmail.com", password: "hkim100".
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It's 11:20 am here on Thursday and I'm not in class because we have today and tomorrow off due to Easter. I still have to go to work; it's not a national holiday or anything, but since Sogang is a Jesuit school and there are a lot of nuns and fathers enrolled in the language program, we get these two days off.

I just came back from a walk in Olympic Park, where I've gone on a semi-regular basis to get a bit of exercise. It's mid-April and it's not exactly hot, so I was wondering why the hell I was sweating, when I realized with dread: humidity.

Summer is going to suck. Especially since there is no AC in the apartment.

The park is much nicer, I think, at dusk, when there are no schoolkids running around on field trips and when the animals come out to feed. Lots of rabbits and pheasants, plus the occasional crane.

Listening to: Noel, a Korean boy band.

Thinking of: The fact that the Korean contemporary music scene consists of boy bands, girl bands, and bubble gum popsters. Oh, and the occasional rapper.

Feeling guilty about: Using this format of "Blah: Blah", since it's blatantly stolen from other blogs. Oh well. Nothing original under the sun.

Also feeling guilty about: Not finishing the American Landmarks chapter for the American Culture book yet, mostly because it took me two days to figure out that Monticello, the redwoods, and the Grand Canyon are not really "American Monuments" or "American Symbols," and while they are "UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites," I'd be better off calling them "American Landmarks." Two days!
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Same day, 8:02 pm

This morning, my dad called me up at home. He can't really afford my mother's upkeep in the States while she finishes her master's thesis, so he asked how I'd feel about her coming to Korea and us all living together.

My first reaction was that I'd move out rather than live with my mother. And I may do that, if she does come here -- not that there's any guarantee that she will. In fact, my guess is that she won't. But while musing about it on my walk home from the subway, the utter hilarity of the situation struck me.

I've lived apart from my parents for 10 years now, and they've lived apart from each other a little bit less than that. I can't speak for them, but for a good four years of that time, I was inexpressibly glad to be a minimum of 3,000 miles away -- as far as the North American continent would let me run. But within 6 fucking months of moving to my birthplace, I'm living with my dad and now maybe my mom? Like one big happy fucking family again? Pardon my French -- there's just no other way to express my incredulity about the way life can frog-march you into the weirdest and most unexpected of situations.