Everything Corps

Last night I had a dream in which a woman had a bumper sticker on her desk that said: "Everything Corps". It was a joke on people who are always joining this organization or corps such as the Peace Corps. Of course the joke fell flat once I was awake, but it seemed funny to everyone in the dream last night including me.

When I stood up, I thought about the Peace Corps. At one time when I was in my early 20's, I thought about joining it; but I could not think of anything I could teach anyone in a third world country and just gave up. Now, since being here in Korea, I know I can teach English and if I joined them maybe they would help me get some training on teaching English as a second language. I felt so ill prepared here because my training consisted of one semester of ESL. I also thought about my age. Would they take me on? They took Lillian Carter, mother of Jimmy Carter, president of the United States. She was in her 80's but then she was a registered nurse.

But that was the joke. I am always trying to get a job because that is what I have always done over the years. I have worked full time since the age of 15 and never stopped. Am I one of those people who are trying to be a member of the Everything Corps when I already have a job. I am a writer. It is so hard to be self-employed when one has spent the better part of 50 years working full time and looking for better jobs.

When I was in the last few years of my job working for a state employment office, employees retired from their job and then still came to work and sat in their cars in the parking lot. They started to look for other employment. They didn't know anything else. I laughed to myself that when I retired I would not be that way, but I have been for the most part.

It really isn't funny when you change something that has been ingrained in you for so many years. I have hobbies and something I really want to do full time. yet, I look up from my laptop or my notebooks and think about getting a job somewhere, anywhere. Look where I am. I am in Korea where I had taught English and writing in an university. I almost got an overpayment in my Social Security.

That bumper sticker should have read 'anything corps' and maybe it did and I remembered it wrong. I need to sit and evaluate things and learn to do what it is I really want to do. It is not easy doing that. Some of me is willing to do anything but that.

Thanksgiving Day

Today is Thanksgiving Day although not in Korea. It is only Wednesday in the US. It was always one of my favorite holidays when I had a regular job and was in school because we got two days off and the weekend. Sometimes, I had a job that made no difference but in the last years of working it did. That is what made it such a favorite day.

On a television show that I watch on the Internet, the announcer stated that he asked for viewers to tweet what they were most thankful for. Many viewers said family, good health and other things. He put up some of his favorites such as Sarah Palin not being president and that Sharon Angle and Christine McDonald not winning their senate races. He said his favorite was the little beeper in your car that tells you when you turn off the car that the lights are still on. That is how they ended the show with that sound playing.

I am grateful for my trip to Korea although I had to go kicking and screaming all of the way. I remember crying a tear or two when I saw Mt. Shasta on the way over here. Korea was not one of the places on my list of I most wanted to go in the world. It turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me in a very long time. Even the awful people that I met here at first turned out to be angels in that they pointed me in the right direction for my life to go. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, I want to thank them although I doubt they had that in mind when they yelled and screamed at me.

I am grateful for my family especially my grandsons for just being themselves. My youngest grandson wanted to tell me something important on the phone a while back and it was to say "I'm hungry." He had no idea that I could not come home and fix him something to eat." I miss my sons and grandsons and look forward to seeing them soon.

Most of all, I am grateful that I woke up this morning alive and well. I won't always do that, of course; but this morning I did.

Inspiration

I was reading about how some writers get inspiration from other writers and that is true in part. I thought about inspiration. This might sound trite, but I get inspired when I just wake up in the morning and I am still among the living. I have had cancer enough times that I don't even know the exact number anymore. I have had surgery and lost enough parts to make up another human being. I have one of everything now when there was a choice to have two. I am grateful my body can exist using just half of what I was allowed to have at birth.

I am also 65 years of age soon to turn 66. I can't believe I have lived this long. The other day I was having lunch with some ladies and we were comparing our palms and lifelines. I looked at my palm to see if my lifeline showed if I am going to have a long life or not until I remembered I already know I will live a long time. I am there already. I felt a bit silly.

My health has improved since coming to Korea, but nothing will turn the clock backwards. I remember being in my late teens and hearing about the shooting of President Kennedy. I thought, in my ignorance, that if those doctors at that Dallas Hospital really wanted to save the president they could. Of course, they couldn't. None of us can live forever and many of us towards the end of our life don't really want to anyway. I know my mother and father didn't. They didn't want to live with all of the pain and discomfort they had at the time. I feel great now. I don't seem to have any health issues, but nothing lasts forever. This morning, I made it and I am alive. I feel inspired.

Sherlock Holmes

I am reading or re-reading the short stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have a book journal but this post really belongs here. I have always loved this fictional character and love his method of deduction. I don't always agree with Mr. Holmes actions in his stories but I like the way he calmly investigates a mystery and tries to see clearly what the truth is without any preconceived ideas.

I am getting ready to go back home and will be leaving in three weeks. I want to take back all of the lessons that I have learned here in Korea. I don't want to return to the life I led before coming here. I lay in my bed and watched television, read and ate too much. I rarely exercised. I felt hopeless about getting myself in shape for further adventures and yet did not believe I would have anymore. Then Korea kicked me in the rear and it was a very hard kick. It woke me up.

I think I am going to call this adventure in Korea, "Waking up in Korea". Every place I went I was reminded of the 1950's. I think I am reminded of the place I was in at that time too because I had so many issues not looked at, shadows not examined and it seemed to go along with what I was seeing in Korea.

Taking what I understood to be the methods of Sherlock Holmes, I have been examining different issues so I won't get stuck in the same place before I left. I will be gone for only nine months but it feels like nine years. Each month here was full of surprises and discoveries and I seemed to live more in one moment that I did in California. My son who lived in another part of Asia said it was the same for him too.

My method in this discovery is my journal and it is proving to be very fruitful. I have found out things that I knew unconsciously but not consciously. It always surprises me how the mind can play such tricks, but then if it didn't therapists and psychologists would be out of work. I won't be able to get help in unraveling these mysteries of my youth and earlier years. I could not afford it and not too many therapists are as intelligent as Mr. Holmes. My journal will have to suffice. I am lucky in that my resources are sufficient for this.

There is no Dr. Watson unless it is my journal, but I don't have to worry about what I tell it. It must be rough for some well-known people such as presidents or actors that they could never confide their darkest secrets to a therapist and not even to a journal. It is too risky for them. They have to solve their own problems without leaving a paper trail or a series of tape recordings. Ah well, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything.

Right now, I am counting on Mr. Holmes' help in getting to the bottom of my problems at least enough of them so I can continue my quest to get healthier mentally, emotionally and physically.

Facebook

I have a Facebook account and love connecting with people I haven't seen for a long time. Sometimes, I get readers from these blogs and other writing that I do and people I met here in in Korea. I have had a wonderful time with it. Then I got a request to be my friend from someone named Lady Godiva. I chuckled to myself because the only Lady Godiva I know is my cat who is home in California. I wonder who would call themselves Godiva and I go into her Facebook account and see a picture of my cat looking back at me. I was astonished. I go ahead and push the button that I agree to be her friend.

Then a minute later another request pops up from someone else named Mary Russell. Oh, oh, I said to myself. That is the other cat and sure enough when I go into that account I see my cat's picture looking at me. So, I push the button that she can be my friend and before I can send a message to someone at my house, the dog is asking to be my friend. I am laughing so hard my stomach is hurting.

They all have profile pages, picture albums and the like. I send a message to Lady Godiva asking her how she got her paws on the keys and I got back: "Meow, meow, meow and meow."
I look at the live chat page and see that my son is on line and the "aha" reaction kicks in. I really thought it was my son's partner or my grandson.

Again, I am laughing and it is so much fun. It can be sad too when you find out the reason why someone is not corresponding to you anymore. They could have at least sent you an email that told you they died: "I am sorry I am allowed to use the computer only once here at St. Peter's Gate. I am no longer alive, dear friends and family. Computers and the Internet are allowed only in Hell. See you when you get here." WTF????

Hijacked

Someone wanted to help me out because I can't view many programs and websites from the United States and gave me a software program that was supposed to help me do that. It was the software from Hell. It took over my computer. I still don't have all of the evidence off my computer and I did go to the part where you take programs off officially. That was only the start. I am looking at a tool bar that is still in place on my Mozilla Firefox that I can't get off. Luckily, it is not doing anything. It took me hours to get all of my regular programs back such as my Google home page and this morning I finally got the English version. Yesterday, all I could get was the Korean version.

It didn't work all that well. I saw one episode of Saturday Night Live off of HULU when the program stopped working. I really wanted to watch PBS Masterpiece Theater but that never worked there. I will just have to wait. I wanted to watch the new Sherlock Holmes serial on that series. Oh well, I will be home soon.

I can watch Front Line and NewsHour and that is pretty important. I think the PBS NewsHour is the best balanced news anywhere. I can watch them without difficulty. I watch MSNBC for opinion news which I think is important as long as there are real facts there and I think MSNBC does a credible job. When things get me down and I think everything is going to Hell, then I watch Jon Stewart and the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert. On Sundays and Mondays, I don't watch anything except some videos from the New York Times.

The one thing I have not missed is a television set. I have not had one since coming to Korea. Cable in Korea does include some English channels such as CNN. There are movies in English with Korean subtitles. There was a time I did not think I could live without a TV. I have known other people like that as well. One friend used her TV Guide as a calender. She put her appointments among announcements for programs.

I have a small apartment, one room with a kitchen. The computer is an important part of my life here in Korea. It is how I keep in contact with my relatives and the world. I have had the same email address for years. That is how a friend who was in Korea on assignment knew how to contact me. He sent me an email. Having that stupid program hijack my computer really scared me. In the past, I would have asked one of my sons to help me put it right. I can't do that here in Korea. I have to handle all of my emergencies to some extent. I am less prone to trust such programs again.

No more coffee....

I had decided not to buy caffeinated coffee for here at home because my time was getting short in Korea. I was buying only decaffeinated coffee and of course milk. I am now less than 30 days away from leaving and decided not to buy decaffeinated coffee and milk anymore until I get home. It just does not seem worth it. I get to Home Plus and a few other coffee shops where I indulge in coffee so that should do it. I have lots of tea both regular and herbal and sugar and artificial sugar that I got from from my son.

When I am at here at the apartment, I sit at the computer as I am doing now and sip my coffee so I will have to get used to at least for now sipping tea. Tea is not bad and during those days I don't go to a coffee shop, I get my caffeine from tea. I also have stopped drinking carbonated drinks, but that had nothing to do with leaving Korea. I am so used to drinking artificial sweetener that I could not stand the regular stuff and I needed the bottles so I could put water in them and freeze them for my air conditioner that I had in my apartment. It is a swamp cooler and Korea is very humid so I did not want to use ice or water and put more humidity in the air. Frozen ice in coke bottles did the trick. With the artificial sweetener, I could make my own herbal drink with fruit slices that I would buy at Home Plus. Lemonade is good in the summer.

I am going to miss having coffee here in my apartment, but it will only be a short time before I am home. I have one of those coffee machines that brews one cup at a time in my home. I can also buy canned evaporated milk in California so I don't have to go to the store for milk all of the time and store my extra milk right in my bedroom. My bedroom is the size of this apartment so I know I can do it. My son said he put a microwave in my room but I have not used one for a long time. I don't have one in Korea. I guess I will just have to think of ways of using it.

My mind is on the trip. Yesterday, my son made a reservation at a hotel at the airport in Incheon so I will be there the night before I leave. My plane leaves around 8 am. I was afraid of leaving Daejeon in the morning very early because so many things might go wrong.It might snow and I can't get there in time. Hopefully, they will have some coffee and milk at the hotel. I know cream is out of the question. Koreans don't put sugar or cream in their coffee. It's funny in a way. I use sugar, sometimes artificial sweetener and sometimes nothing in my tea. Koreans use nothing. But, everything else, Koreans use sugar. They love the stuff.

In the last month of my stay here

I am in the last month of my stay here in Korea and there are decisions to be made. One person called my landlord and talked to them in Korean to make sure they knew I was leaving next month. I was so relieved. They also asked that the landlord call the Internet people and cut off my Internet on my last day. I will be leaving enough money to pay my charges in my bank account. That was easy for I have a deposit that will also pay any left over utility bills. I have paid all of them up to now.

I am thinking about not buying any more coffee as I need to buy milk and don't want any of those items left over. I also am going through my clothes and figuring out what to throw away. Some of my clothes are too big to wear anymore. I am giving away most of my books to English teachers and the rest to the English Library across the street. I have no idea what I am going to do with my printer as yet. I might give it to a church in case they might know someone in the future.

My landlords rented this apartment as furnished. Now, when I leave, it really will be. I am leaving all of my furniture including some dishes, an air conditioner and fan. I am leaving my washing machine soap and soap for washing hands. I am leaving a lot less than what I brought.

When I went to Japan to renew my VISA, I was searched physically when coming back. That has never happened to me before. I doubt if anyone would search me leaving for I will have a few gifts for relatives but that is about it. It costs a lot to bring things into Korea but not to take things out.

The excitement is building regarding leaving Korea but also a sense of sadness for Korea has been very good for me. I hope I have been good for Korea too.

The Shrinking World

Before I came to Korea eight months ago, I never gave a thought to all of the people who travel around the world looking for work to support their families and themselves. I knew about it, but I just did not give it much thought. Like so many Americans secure in their own little worlds, I lived my life dwelling on the world around me and that world consisted of my children, my 9 to 5 job and friends. When I read that Americans were isolationists, I never thought I was one of them.

Then I saw a bit of the world and saw how different people worked hard to make a living when the ability to do so at home was impossible. The world shrank. No longer did places like China seem so faraway. I have been to a few countries such as Japan and the UK and others. They are no longer pictures in a book. They are real to me. I remember looking down at the Atlantic Ocean and seeing ice as my plane few overhead. I wanted to see Iceland and Greenland but there was a cloud cover.

I grew up in San Diego, California and saw people from all over the world when their navies would come into San Diego. That was just the top of the iceberg of reality. The bottom half still was hidden from me until I was in those countries and saw the people and I rode the buses and used the money and talked to people.

Today, I met a professor of engineering from Romania. Since she lived in the United States for a while, she spoke English. We had a pleasant conversation. She was learning Korean as she was going to live in Korea for a while. I have met people from India, Pakistan, Poland, Russia and many other places and they are here trying to make a living so they can send money home to their loved ones. Korea is doing relatively well in comparison to other places and there are jobs in certain professions. I have met some men and women who come from the Philippines who are working in factories who are doing the same. All of them speak English as well as their own and they are earnestly trying to learn Korean too.

My mother's family came from Manchuria and she used to say so many of us in this country was spoiled. I just knew she was wrong. Her favorite peeve was ice cream and cake together. Since I hate cake and ice cream together because it is too sweet for my tastes, I was sure her other assumptions were wrong too. Now, I am not so sure. I had gotten spoiled by my car and by the fact that I can buy anything in the supermarket in the US. Here in Korea, I can't, but it is a matter of taste not availability. In some countries, people don't have that much luxury. Here in Korea, I won't eat pigs feet. I guess I never got that hungry where I had to.

Anger

Last Sunday, I went to church that has church services in English. It is a Christian one and I am not but they know that and don't mind. I don't believe in many of the things they believe in and have trouble with those things such as not accepting everyone for who they are. Several times, I almost walked out of the their talks because of it.

At a visit to one of their printing plants, one of the employees gave me a blank book with the cover in Armenian that has a picture of a constellation. I take notes in there so that I can better understand my reaction to what I hear and learn what is in the Bible. I do meet some very interesting people in church and looking at that book, I see I met some Hindus and Muslims. They want to go to church services that have teachers and professors that speak English. It was a Hindu professor of Chemistry from India who talked about anger that got me thinking about the emotion of anger. In the talk that day, an elder said God got mad when people did not follow his laws. That was from some scripture in the Old Testament. I told the chemistry professor that I did not understand it either because I am a Buddhist. Since then, I have been writing about anger in my journal and on my other blogs.

I knew I had anger issues. That was not new to me. In meditation, it came up time and time again. The more I wrote about it, the more it became apparent that I had more of a problem with it than I realized. I am writing a short story about someone who has trouble dealing with people. I don't model characters on myself, but she likes people but they don't like her. She does not understand why.

I have strong religious beliefs, but I don't believe that there is this god up there that gets mad at people all of the time especially when they don't obey certain laws or rules. Yes, Buddhists have precepts to guide their lives. We break them and create karma which I believe is a cause and effect force that is there to teach us what we need to know. We as human beings control karma to some extent by our own actions.

I had a hard life in some ways, not as bad as some and certainly worse than others. Some people have been mean to me and made my life a living Hell. On the other hand, many of the things that happened to me that was bad, turned out to be good. I did not realize that I was very angry at the world and showed it. I realized it because the character in my story slowly began to realize that she put up a wall to keep people away from her. That was my wall too. I was convinced there was something wrong with me when in reality there wasn't. I stored that anger in Bubbles of memories that I did not let go. I formed strong attachments to them and remained very angry at those people whose names I had long forgotten and I remained angry at people who have long since passed away.

Talk about a total waste of time. I wrote on another blog that I was getting tired of being angry. It serves no useful purpose other than making the self aware of what sorts of people one should avoid. Living in Korea has had its benefits. Often when people piss me off, I can't tell them off. I can sit and watch others handle situations and know that there isn't a darn thing I can do to help such as drunk and stoned bus drivers, angry car drivers, kids on the bus who try to steal fire extinguishers, men who walk in front of me in line and so forth. Now, I just let it go.

I am now aware of things having to do with anger. They are in the sunshine of my consciousness. Meditation is good in doing this. I use writing meditation most often in uncovering this. I don't overeat when something comes to the surface from the unconscious.

I have one month to go before I leave. I have so much to do so I won't return to that other life. I am so much happier, healthier and well on my way of doing what I want to do in my life. This was my quest to be healthier and what started this blog in the first place.

Exercise

One of the things I am going to miss in Korea is the mass transit system. It is excellent. The bus drivers drive like race drivers, but the buses ran regularly and all of the time. There are usually at least two or more bus routes that take you to the places you want to go. I don't know all of the routes, but I know there is routes 102 and 113 that takes me to Home Plus where I go. They run frequently. It is not that way in the States.

When I am at home and working as I am here on the computer or in bed (I rarely put the bed up into the couch) I read and write by hand and type. I don't see anyone. I don't have a television set, thank goodness. I watch or read the news and that is about it. At night when things are all done, I might watch an old movie or a documentary. I work on Facebook or Hotmail. Sometimes I need exercise and to see human beings. I reward myself by heading to the bus stop and going to Home Plus usually at noon.

Lately, someone told me about hidden stairs that I did not know about. I no longer have to walk on the thin road leading to the main road where there are several bus stops. The main bus stops have benches to sit. The corporation next door who put in the steps also put in a bus stop so people can sit in a shelter and wait for the bus. It is a very nice shelter. Now I head for the stairs and climb them and cross the street to the stop and the bus comes within a short period of time. I rarely take the taxi anymore unless I am bringing home groceries. Buses will stop on a dime, so to speak, and when you are carrying groceries and standing that can be a serious problem. I take the taxi home. It cost 7,000 wons or 7 dollars to take the taxi home one way. It cost 1,000 wons or 1 dollar to take the bus. Korean senior citizens pay less but I am not Korean so I pay the going rate. Still it is cheaper than the taxi.

I get the exercise I need. When I get to Home Plus, I buy a rice burger and coffee with skim milk. I am lucky to get that. Koreans are not into milk in their coffee as Americans are. I hate skim milk but it is better than black coffee. I drink coffee here at home with regular milk. I have never seen half and half. I used to go up to the grocery store at Home Plus and buy a individual cheesecake, but they have discontinued that so I have given up the cheesecake. I can't eat donuts and that is what Dunkin Donuts sell there. I buy the rice burger from a fast food chain that is here in Korea and consider myself lucky to get it. I don't eat the french fries.

I never go more than one day without getting some exercise. Going to Home Plus is a treat and gives me the incentive for going. It is still a good walk to get to the bus stop and a beautiful walk. I don't go anywhere when it is foggy for the cars would not see me. I still can't get over how easy it is for me to climb those steps without any pain or even pain reliever. I don't even get out of breath anymore. Korea has been good for me.

Fog

I got up when there was enough light that I could see the clock. I love these days when I could do that. I did buy a clock that does not have a jaw jarring sound to wake you up with it. It has a pleasant song each time you use it and it is not the same song each time. I did not know that when I bought it here in Korea. I bought it because I could tap the top button and it would light up and show me the time during the night.

I was cold so I turned on the floor. Here in Korea, the heat comes through the floor which is nice. I opened the sliding doors which leads to the small laundry room which also has the only windows of my small studio apartment. It is foggy out there so thick that I cannot see the tall and imposing apartment buildings next door. It is a good thing I did not want to go anywhere because it would be dangerous to walk anywhere especially with Korean drivers who don't obey lights or observe crosswalks even when there is no fog.

In a way, it was beautiful to see the autumn colored trees just outlined in the fog that run along the small road and fence just below my window. Yesterday, there was a truck lifting some railroad ties up into the area above the soccer field that the corporation next door maintains for its employees. They also re-marked the lines so I am guessing they are playing some games this weekend. They have cement bleachers for those who come out to watch. In and around the area are wonderful gardens. The man who sweeps and trims the bushes had put his cart aside so he could help.

It has been a while since it has rained. There for a while it was raining every day. Now, the sky is clear for the most part except the thin white clouds which is now on the ground giving us all fog. The trees are all different colors of yellow, gold, red and there are some flowers here and there with some stubborn red roses along the road on the fence. Korea is breathtakingly beautiful in the fall.

Looking towards home

I will be leaving in a little over a month and have been making plans on what to do with my stuff. My ticket has been bought and I know pretty much what I will be doing with my furniture. I will be giving it away to my landlord. They rented the place as furnished and now it really is.

I am giving my Korean/English books away to a English teacher and to a American boy who is being home schooled. He is very smart and already knows how to speak, write and read Korean. He and his family have been here the same time as I have.

I have lost over 50 lbs although I have no idea how much. What is more important is that I can walk, climb steps with ease. I can move without pain and without difficulty. I need to keep this up so that I can continue the progress that I started here in Korea. Much of it depends on eating less and exercising as much as possible. I have been giving that a lot of thought and planning on what I am going to do once I am home.

I have been told there is a desk in my room and I will be getting another computer in addition to this laptop. I like a regular computer so I can have a lowered keyboard as not to put too much strain on my arms. I need to get a office chair. Too bad I can't take the one I use here for it is the best I have ever had and it cost new, $65.00. The desk here has been at a height that is too high and it hurts my arms after a while. It is small, though, and fits in this small room very well and again cost very little brand new. It cost the same as the chair and has book shelves above it.

It is a mindset that I am trying to establish right now. I have found out that I have a new car waiting for me in Los Angeles. It is a Honda Accord with power windows and air conditioning. I will be driving it home once I get there. I will also be getting car insurance, the same as I had before at AAA. I will also get a cell phone as well. I am looking forward to that.

I plan on walking to Barnes and Noble from my house instead of driving. It isn't all that far. The weather in my home is sunny and warm most of the year and there is no reason to drive as I did before. I will drive to the store but I walk as much as possible. One time I tried to walk to the Starbucks on the other side of my house and it was very dangerous. There is more sidewalks on the way to Barnes and Noble than the Starbucks that I did walk that time.
I don't have the dog I did have anymore as she is at a ranch with other dogs. So, I can easily walk to places and go in.

When I was working for the Veterans Administration as a Federal Police Dispatcher and switchboard operator, I got carpel tunnel syndrome. I am always afraid of getting it again. I had to use the old style card system switchboard with the pulling and pushing of cords. When the doctors and administrators were busy making their calls, it got very busy there. I was still there when they put the new system in which saved all of us our arms and sanity for some doctors can be very testy about getting their calls through ahead of others even though they are not emergencies. Still, having my arms on this desk, I can feel the strain in my arms.

It seems to me, that I need to have a schedule in place so that I don't return to the earlier way I did things such as staying in bed too many hours, driving when I could be walking, and not writing when I could. I watched too much television and watched the calendar slip away. I am determined not to do that anymore. The eight months and will be nine that I have spent here and seem like years and they have been good for me. I don't want to lose the work that I have done here.

I had a neighbor who retired, like I did from government service. I watched her because she lived across the street and had a large picture window. She got up seven days a week around noon, watched television until she went to bed at 2 am. She ate all of her meals in front of the television. I went to visit her from time to time. She had ordered a book to read from a television commercial and it remained on her side table next to her chair unread until the day she died. The only time she went out was to go to the doctor's and she had all of her food delivered to her house. That, alone, should have been a wake-up call to me. We were the same age.

I was so glad I got the chance to come here to Korea and fought it all of the way. Once I got here, I had some bad experiences with some people. Yet, there were far more good things that happened to me than bad. I want to make sure it continues when I return. I am using my journal and my writing as a way of doing this. I have also made friends here too. I have been seeing Korea and traveling. I think Korea has saved my life.