NEW DIGS
So we are in our new house. Finally got internet connected today. Still unpacking but getting there. We definitely like this new house better than our old one. The square footage is less but the use of space makes it seem twice as large. This has got to be my most boring entry ever so far.
The only things Amy doesn't like about the new house is that there is less closet space and the master bedroom is a little smaller and right outside the main hallway. We'll just have to keep the boom-boom down to a hush-hush and pad the headboards or something. Which is good because I won't have to wear a helmet during sex anymore.
Another cool thing about this house is that there are little secret side rooms all over the place. The layout is almost like a maze until you get used to it. And then there's the blue room in the basement and all the side corridors.
Eh, where's Johnny?
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KOYANGI AND THE KABANG
I also started a new Hanguk Hokkyo, or Corean School yesterday. The beginner's class was too easy - learning the alphabet - but at least I am learning a few new words. Just being with a group who wants to learn the same thing you do is comforting. And unlike my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu club, you don't have to experience new types of pain with each lesson.
The only full Corean person in the class is the teacher. There are three half-Coreans in the beginner's class: myself, a little girl, and another young woman whose mother recently died. She wants to be able to speak to her relatives in Corea someday. She burst into tears while telling us this. Such somber and noble reasons to learn.
For the longest time I've been trying to reconsider my own reasons. To reaffirm the Greater Glory of Choson? To sing along to teeny bopper K-pop tunes? To score a hot Corean chick -- well, that one's out of the way since she's the mother of my children and keeper of the checkbook. To speak with relatives or impress the ajummas with afros (they're perms but they look like afros to me)? To convince myself this is who I am? All and none of the above. All I know is that I feel like I would be giving up something that I will miss if I stopped now, as impractical as it is in my life.
Then again there's always at least one good reason to do something: Because it's practical, or because it's fun.
The intermediate-level class was just me and another guy who speaks much better than I do. It was all copacetic until he said:
"Hey I read about you on the internet."
And then a slight silence of realization on his part and the subject changed.
I was getting used to the idea of anonymity after leaving The Empire. No second guessing whether odd aloofness was due to nothing you did or something you wrote.
But now, maybe the koyangi (cat) is out of the kabang (bag). We'll see. He seemed nice enough and his half-Corean kids were beautiful.
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THE ROOM OF DOOM
The picture above is the basement of our new house. It's "finished" meaning it's pretty nice and livable. Plenty of room for exercising, partying, wrestling, wild sex on the floor, whatever. I suspect this space won't get used much.
Welcome to the Mothership, Corean Corps Central, my room. Lately I've been getting re-acquainted with Steel Battalion on the X-box and how loud my new speakers can get. Pretty loud according to threats of Death From Above in the kitchen above me. The walls and carpet were blue when we got here. It will look nice with a taegukki (Corean flag) on the wall. Appah likes.
I've been drawing a bit this week too and listening to old K-pop CD's. (The unfinished sketch is GG, but I'm not sure about the likeness yet.)
The top shelf of my Corean DVDs are the movies I have NOT watched yet.
I have this theory that bookcases are for books you want to read or want people to think you read, not necessarily for books you've actually read. The books in the bathroom by the toilet are the ones you are actually reading currently.
All work and no play .... We've taken Sun Su to the local Chuck E. Cheese already. Sun Su seems to think any token in any given cup is his if the owner isn't paying attention. I am not sure if this would be considered communism or simply corporate capitalism.
Oh, and one more thing...
... THE LIGER! RETURNS !!
It looks like fate has meant us to be together with ... The LIGER!
When the person we were originally going to give our cat to discovered how old he was (born in 1987), she backed out and said,
"That cat is too old. Maybe you should put him to sleep."
So ... The LIGER! stays with us and the universe remains hinged. Mostly because no one else wants his old lazy ass. Except me.
Amy's given up on trying to give him away now. As long as he stays in the basement.
I consider ... The LIGER! to be good luck. As in, he's lucky he's not dead yet.
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