9. 23. 97

Just went to check the mail (because someone's been stealing it and I wanna get there just after the mailguy does) and for the millionth time I forgot that someone had totally slobbered green once-sticky-but- now-crusty stuff all over the "1" button in the elevator. Unh! To top it off, the phone bill is a nightmare.

There is always web work to be done. Because I spent yesterday just working on my pages, I thought I’d better get my butt in gear and add a little variety today. Variety means chores of course, and so it’s not fun but at least it’s something else and I can feel a teeny sense of completion at the end of the day. Coding is never done and I never feel like I’m finished. I made more phone calls today which resulted in more obligations I’m not excited about. I’m optimistic, though. I know myself well enough to realize that I’ll feel glad that I busied myself afterward. Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to some things. I think I’ll be starting a class soon which will be a follow-up to a course I took in the Spring. It’s about women in Korea and even if the lectures are mundane and introductory, the students usually keep the class time entertaining. Imagine a class where the lecturer is Korean and speaking on Korea. She is using English - not her native language - to communicate to students who originate from all corners of the world and who may not speak English natively either. Add to that some pretty serious class/colonization/racial issues and the probability of major misunderstandings makes for not only interesting interpretations of the lectures but interesting questions as well. There were a couple of really lively discussions last term. I’m counting down the minutes to jog time again. Yesterday I jogged and now I hurt, but I’m determined to make a habit of it even if I’ll need knee replacement surgery in a couple of decades. We jog on the trail that runs along a canal about 1/4 mile from our apartment. Its usually 7pm or so before Dave and I trot out there and these days that means its dark. The darkness is our friend as it keeps us hidden a bit from others who inhabit the trail nightly. The trail is paved. I think that might explain the knee pain. Anyway… last night I felt happy on the trail, despite the sideache and knee thing. I don’t know if it’s the endorphins flooding through my body or if it’s seeing people out on the trail having a good time with their friends, spouses, kids, or just their thoughts. Maybe it’s both, but whatever it is I don’t feel so hateful when I’m pounding the pavement. I actually think it’s kinda cool jogging along with the Yangjae stream on one side and tall skinny apartment buildings on the other. There are lights everywhere and it seems kind of Bladerunner-ish in a Seoul kind of way. You’d have to be here to understand just what that means. The weather is cooler now and, aside from the small gnats I kept inhaling last night, all the bugs are gone. It's quiet again, which means I can turn down the volume on my walkman a notch. So it’s been just another day of hanging around home, except for the trip to the grocery store, which takes about an hour and a half in this city as the store is 30 minutes away by train. And I guess I’m not feeling so bad about being back; that is, I’m getting used to being here and what life is like. I’m still feeling lethargic and definitely lacking in energy. I guess that’s normal, but I’m kind of on the high end of the scale, even for me. I think I’m purposely losing myself in html so that I don’t have to deal with the things that are really important, like all that literature I should be reading and writing about in hopes of getting published so I’m a better candidate for grad school and can actually get in to become a doctor (not the physician kind) and make a decent living doing what I’m interested in. I’ll get around to it sooner or later.

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