Hello from Korea

(Yes, Julie, I'm Asian.)

I'm at my uncle's appartment right now, where I have been since last Wednesday, Korean time. (They're 17 hours ahead; think 7 hours behind Olympia, but tomorrow.) I'll refrain from making the silly "Writing from the future" joke. Couldn't feel a pun for it.

Life's temperatures have been alternating between two Olympia weather conditions: A cold December day without rain, when outside, and July with the windows open when inside my uncle's appartment. He likes things hot. Sometimes when we wake up, the temperature is 29°C (84°F). It was like that one night when the family was watching TV, and he then put his coat on. If they believed in former lives, I'd say he was a very brightly colored Amazon treefrog before.

My time outside has been walking around downtown Seoul with my cousin, Hi-Young ("Hee Hyung") and her boyfriend. She and my aunt Maria have been intent on having me see Seoul sites, get myself slightly cultured. I've enjoyed the experience, and taken over 200 pictures so far (most of them even in focus!). I got a nice camera the day before I left (model DSC-T5), and am very happy with that decision; I got to photograph my grandma, getting her to smile, and show her a picture of my brother and bird. It made her happy to see family outside of the nigh-19-year-old photo album my mom's siblings have of my family.

About my grandma: She doesn't have much longer to live. Her liver has functionally died, and her gall bladder has stopped working, so food can't be ingested anymore (just vomits up after ten minutes). She's getting glucose via IV for sustenance, along with a few other substances, to prolong her living. Unfortunately, she's also suffering an onset of pneumonia, so she has frequent fevers, too. The doctor's prognosis is that she will die within a week.

I will be here until she does die. It makes her very happy to see my mom and I, so neither of us will leave before she goes.

Well. While I'm here, I will read e-mails and respond to them. However, I'm trying not to spend much time on the computer, besides writing in my travelogue (which I'll publish when I get to some photo-editing software in English, and not cutely confusing), and doing some work for my office to cut down on the weekends I'll have to work for making up vacation time I'm taking but don't have. I'm also rediscovering the lost art of sitting down and reading a book. It has been quite relaxing.

I'll be back in a week. In the meanwhile, here are a puppy and some guppies.

— A big dog seen by a farmer's store / greenhouse we stopped by a few days ago.

— Seen in a Korean department store. Can you see the fat one? Man, was he fat. (This is my present for Julie, more fish for her aquarium.)

WISH: The Weekend's End

Dodgeball was a massacre; WISH's first round, we were all out in about 10 seconds. Jock teams are scary. The rest of the rounds we still lost, but a few times we had some really dramatic moments where one member of our team was left against two or three of the other team; those bouts last a surprisingly long time. Of course, once WISH's RA was the last one standing, and the entire other team stopped throwing balls because she's such a sweety [I guess]. Well, stopped, only to coordinate one massive blast at her. Amusing, in a slightly twisted, "I probably shouldn't laugh out loud," kinda way. [Sorry, Paige.]

I saw the second-greatest incentive to never have a baby: Eraserhead. It's a definite cult film. Squishy sperm, 4 feet long; really screwed up chicken scene; and the ugliest. baby. Ever.
Not like I'm letting it play against my life plans; Katie compared that method of "Birth Control -- Abstinence Enforcers Greater than Martha Thatcher" with videos that follow the pregnancy cycle, through childbirth (emphasis on "through childbirth), and I agreed.

Like last time when I came, dinner was home-made tortilla chips, method c/o David but cooking c/o Katie. They made ex-cellent nachos. While Katie was cooking the nachos, Kira played piano (she's -really- good, I was quite happy to listen to her) and Elena prepared some strawberry pie...mmm, strawberry goodness and music. I liked the kitchen Saturday.

Saturday night went late; no, there wasn't any strip poker (to Kira's and Elena's disappointment), but movies instead. Super Troopers kicked ass once again, and Harvey Birdman -- the Apache Chief Growth episode afterwards only rode the wave of immature boy humor. Ah, penile growth, where would our chuckles come from without ye...

However, after Harvey, Kevin showed Katie, Marcus & I "Happy Friend Tree." That cartoon was made by one (and I hope only one) sick puppy. I won't link it here, but if you want to expend the effort yourself and search for it, it won't be too hard to find...just, uh, mind the blood splatters. Eeyeah. Then Kevin showed us "Tokyo Breakfast" or something; it was essentially a Japanese, business-class, business-clad family, acting as much as possible as American Blacks. Every sentence ended with the word "Niggah," except for the one-liner "shee-it"'s. (Let me just say that I'm not too culturally respective of this kind of American Africam-American. I don't like the term "Niggah," "Bitch," or most any term pertaining to rap/hip-hop. Sorry if that's racist, but it's really a poor way to spend one's vocabulary.)

So, as I watched a Japanese man in a suit, a sweet Asian lady (no husk anywhere) in a housewife dress with apron, and a baggy-dressed teen act as Black as anti-archetypically possible, I felt suddenly inclinded to ask Kira & Elena if they wanted to get naked. Maybe my IQ was dropping with every sentence from that show; I dunno. Sounded like a good idea at the time.

Again, there was no nakey-time. It would've been just the four of us (Katie followed me into the lounge), and we all agreed that would've been infinitely more intimate than any of us would've wanted. Again, the point of strip poker isn't boobies--if I wanted boobies, I could just dig into my Hotmail account's junkmail--it's to watch people squirm. Oh well; no squirming occured.

The next morning (an hour past morning, actually), I got Kevin back for the Happy Friend Tree thing. Kira (emphasis on KIRA) suggested that I wake him up; I took some artistic/wussic license and just knocked on his closed dorm door, and walked back to the lounge. Twenty minutes later, Keven was standing in the doorframe to the front lounge; Sean, Kira, Katie and I were chatting. Quoth Kevin:

"Ok, who thinks they're cute?"

Quoth [the ratting-bastard] Sean: "*Cough* *Cough* It was ALEX*cough*."

Kevin, the taller-than-me-and-buff mass of Man walked by me calmly, shower goods in hand. We heard him step into the men's room. Quoth Sean again: "I wonder how long this'll take." I set my watch.

Two minutes, twenty seconds later, Kevin pounced into the lounge, grabbed both of the heavy-duty pillows, and proceeded to wallomp me in two swift blows. Back to the shower.

On an extremely related note, Tammy said I could be an honorary member of WISH Saturday night; that was touching, really. I adore the dorm, for its small and extremely friendly population; I'd be quite happy to spend a year of college with them. (If only I'd have enough classes to take...and, uh, sufficient scholarships & all that good stuff...) Heck, I'm already enough of a part of the family that Kevin will happily beat me. I'm so loved. Really, I felt a lot of love in those two pillow thwacks. I'd hug the guy, if he wouldn't throw me out the lounge window after attempting such an act.

I hope I get another break in Spring quarter to visit WISH again. I love those guys.

WISH: Day the First Half

I watched Kevin drag Katie 10 feet. Awesome force was had...until "he kicked me in the boob" (Katie speaking).

Apparently, while Katie, Sophie and I were investigating the downstairs, we almost wandered into the computer room, but Katie hurried us back upstairs. She saw...well, it wasn't technically twenty toes, since they had shoes on...Ahem.

Right. So far, the weekend's been that "parent-friendly" fun I've talked about. Nothing naked yet, though Kira seems to be itching to see me naked with lots of people. Itching. I've apparently gotten a reputation of...little cotton here.

More on this later. Oh, and tomorrow morning, I'm playing dodgeball in Elena's place. I hope I'm not too slow or anything...I will do at least one spectacular dive-out-of-shot, and probably hurt my shoulder in the process. That's a promise, damnit! I've gotta learn to roll at some point.