Funk & Seoul

In celebration of Buddha’s birthday, this weekend was a 3 day weekend. While Lawra went with Matt and some of his friends from Suwon on a group trip to an Island, I had decided to stay behind. I was invited, but I thought it would be healthy or good for us to do our own things for the weekend.

As it’s approaching 8pm on Monday night and all is almost said and done, I really regret staying behind. It was an extremely boring and lonely weekend. I didn’t really feel motivation to do hardly anything, the weather was gloomy, and I couldn’t stop dwelling on school/work. I guess I’m so used to being at work or hanging with Lawra that I had forgotten how lame it would be to spend 3 days completely by oneself.

One of my only highlights from the weekend was finishing the book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Having been kinda depressed lately, reading this book has felt appropriate and has given me some good insight. In my case, if I was to pull meaning from this weekend, here would be some of the things that I learned or at least ruminated on :

1. Appreciate your girlfriend more. One is lucky to have someone to share life with, especially in trying circumstances.
2. Appreciate your job more. I hate my job, I hate who I work for, and I don’t care for who I work with, BUT it gives me something to do everyday. Too much idle time can make a man go KARAZY.
3. You are more likely to regret the things you didn’t do than the things you did. Although, this isn’t always the case, it was this weekend. Don’t hold back. Always say yes to opportunities.

Obviously, if I could go back, I certainly would have done it differently; However, in an ironic way, I guess I still found some enlightenment.

We would have left today. Right now we would have been in Incheon, anxiously awaiting our flight to Bangkok. Maybe/probably wondering if we were doing the right thing. But we would’ve been on our way.

Today was a rough one. Spent the first half of it reminding myself of how much extra money I’m saving/making by staying til my contract ends. Spent the second half hating my director for expecting too much from us; wondering, ‘did I make the right choice by deciding to stick it out?’. There’s only a few more months, but that all depends on how you look at it.

It sucks feeling stuck in the middle.

Friday Night : After work, went out to an all-you-can-eat galbi place. We stuffed ourselves with 3 plates full of tasty meat, then proceeded to go to Baskin Robbins and buy an ice-cream cake that we’ve been dreaming about for months now.

Saturday : After my early afternoon orthodontist appointment, we told ourselves that we were gonna’ go to the conversation group. While procrastinating at a hipster camera shop in Hongdae, we saw an ad for a cool-lookin’ flea market in Itaewon. We decided to bail on the group and went to flea market. It was hard to find and it ended up being pretty small. However, it was such a unique scene; Really sheek and artsy, almost like a Greenwich Village gathering in Seoul. They had some neat clothes and played some cool music. We ended up getting a few things. I’m glad we went just for the atmosphere and the people. I hadn’t seen anything like that over here. Aside from that, we grabbed lunch at M Burger; which has the BEST jalapeno burger I’ve ever eaten. Also got to pick up some fresh hummus at the Arab bakery.

Saturday Night : We met up with Matt in Itaewon. His friend’s friend from England was Djing a show. The club reminded me of some of the clubs in San Francisco. The music was mostly dub-step, drum ‘n bass, and grime. It wasn’t too bad. It was nice to hear some live electronic music, as well as somewhere that didn’t just spin Black Eyed Peas and Rihanna. After leaving the club, we grabbed some tasty burgers on the street and ended the night with a fun Norybang session.

This one comes from one of my afternoon students. He wrote this in his speech, which debated the topic of whether or not children watch too much television.

When everyone see a TV the engry (energy) get more off and our bran (brain) get bad.

Well put, Chris. Well. Put.