Don't Panic, make sure you have a towel

It's nice being busy. Work, class, gym, hang out. You really can't ask for much more than that. Personally, I like being busy because if I'm not, I end up doing a whole lot of nothing. Like in college where you get a day off from work, have nothing planned, just wanting to relax and you end up...doing nothing the entire day. A few of those days here and there are nice but too many makes me feel like a waste.

Quite recently, South Korea had announced that it had determined that North Korea was the cause of the destruction of the South Korean naval ship, Cheonan. Right after the incident was reported I immediately registered with the embassy and took a look see at some evacuation procedures just in case. I live south of the Han River and the closest evacuation point for me would be the Mok Dong Ice Rink. Talking to some of my military buddies, looks like we'd be evac'd to Japan if anything happens. I'm always hoping nothing will but just in case it's nice to know where to go.

I never understood how good we had it back at home. How VERY good we had it. My parents flew a war torn country to get to a place where all you needed to do was to go to school, get good grades, get a nice job, and be happy. Many of the people who grew up in Orange County often remark on how it's "the bubble" because we're so sheltered from the "rest" of the world.

But it is.

I've never had to think about war or military action. Stuff like that was always a world away. These days I've been reading articles and posts on forums on people's opinion on what's happening with this North Korea situation. The articles would talk about Kim Jong-Il, nuclear weapons, what would happen to Seoul, this that and the other thing and I realized something - it's just a game for them. A game of analysis, a game of debate. They have nothing in stake because hey, they're a world away. It's a whole 'nother ball game when it's right at your doorstep. All of my friends who I've talked aren't trying to analyze anything, they're not trying to see the financial ramifications or the political movements in all of it, they're just trying to stay calm and collected because like me, they've never had to worry about stuff like this before.

As always, random stuff -

- The Korean accent is funny to me. my female companion once remarked that she liked "chomby" movies. I looked at her and asked her what that meant in English. She said, "No no, chomby, you know, scary."

"Huh?"

"They eat your brains?"

"OH zombie movies!"

Koreans don't have the "z" so they have a difficult time pronouncing it. Oftentimes it comes out sounding like a "ch".

- On that note, some of my teacher friends are devious. My friend told me a story about how one lesson was about presidents and such and how one of the vocabulary words was "election.'

Hilarity ensued.

You can tell our level of maturity with that one.

- Recently I've been trying out that P90x thing. I really like it, it's super useful. Unfortunately, it's not for me. After doing it (sort of) for about a month, I've lost a lot of muscle mass.

- At the gym tonight I put my cheerleading training to good use. I was sitting at the bench press resting when I saw two of the female gym staff members carrying this unconscious girl to the front. I BURST into action and helped carry her to the front of the gym where she woke up. She's fine now. One of the staff members gave me an energy drink for that. It was nice.

- I've come to realize why we watched so many movies in hs and college. Damn teachers are lazy. How do I know? There are just some days where I look at my kids and go, "Man, I wish I could just put on Mr. Bean right now, dang kids."

- How to Train Your Dragon was bad ass.

- Apparently Koreans don't really like milk tea. It explains the lack of boba shops around. I travel far and wide in search of boba. I've been calling it bubble tea recently because for some reason, the rest of the US calls it bubble tea. My friends and I have found one place in Sinchon and one place in Myeongdong.

- My Vietnamese and Chinese is so bad now. I called my mom the other day and it was the funniest thing you'd ever seen. Granted, my Vietnamese was never great or even decent but man, seeing as how only speak it about once every month or so it's hard to maintain it.

- For the longest time back home I didn't like bibimbap. I know it's good. But shoot, I can't justify spending eight bucks on rice, veggies, and gochujang (which is this Korean sauce thing, very similar to Vietnamese hoisin sauce in how it's in EVERYTHING in Korea). But now that I'm in Korea, for 4000 won (roughly 4 bucks), it's delicious!

- I'm convinced that when Star Craft II comes out, nothing will get done in Korea for at least a month.