News

Rain, rain go away

The monsoon season is in full force right now.  We thought about heading south today to visit ceramic shops and the Korean Folk Village in Icheon, but we decided to abort at the last minute.  Instead, we took it easy at home today.  In the afternoon I tried to take my son to the pool for his first swim.  We wanted to buy him something to keep him afloat in the pool (as a safety precaution).  Unfortunately, the local sporting goods store carried neither child-size life preservers nor arm floaters.  The lack of common items readily available in Korea is one of the more frustrating aspects of life here.  For example, finding grilling utensils such tongs and oversized metal spatulas is difficult.  Typically, items not often used in Korea are hard to find.  I realize that seems like an obvious assumption, but it’s a reality you realize often if you’re an expatriate living in Korea.  I plan to take my son to the pool as soon as I can find something that will buoy him in the pool.  We also had difficulty finding a good pool.  We drove to the one freely accessible pool near our home and discovered that it’s an outdoor pool.  Swimming outdoors in a monsoon is not much fun.  We spoke to the pool manager and finally learned through the broken English that there is also an indoor pool nearby.  Unfortunately, it was closed by the time we arrived.  We decided to try again another day.  My son was a good sport and settled for Popeye’s Fried Chicken.
 
All in all, it was a quiet, melancholy day.  I would normally be bummed out about this time of the evening with only five days of work to look forward to, but tomorrow is U.S. Independence Day and I have the day off.  Tomorrow night my wife and I will attend the annual Fourth of July celebration at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence.  In the morning, we’ll take it easy at home.  Although there is presently no U.S. Ambassador to Korea (there should be within a few months), it is still an important event.  Dignitaries and honored guests are invited to this annual event.  The Chargé, or acting Ambassdor, and the former Ambassador’s wife will host the event.
 
This afternoon I also assembled our elliptical machine.  We don’t get enough exercise and are constantly finding excuses not to exercise, so I decided to bring exercising home.  I put the machine next to the bed to serve as a constant reminder that we need to exercise (or perhaps it will serve as an extra clothes rack).  I set up a small TV and DVD to give us something to watch while we exercise.  What better incentive could we have to exercise?  Of course, I didn’t use it today except to test it.  I reasoned with myself that because I worked "so hard" putting it together I didn’t need to use it today.  And so the excuses go on and on… One of these days I will actually start exercising.  No wait, tomorrow.  No, I can’t…I have to go to the Ambassador’s residence.  Yeah, right.
 
Wade3016, thanks for the comment on the audio I mentioned yesterday.  The problem does have to do with mono- to stereo-audio conversion.  I bought a Y-splitter to split mono into stereo audio, but that did not work.  I will try a few VCR channels to see if that works.  I have a feeling that I may have to return the cheap VCR and buy one with stereo audio output.  I’ll exhaust my splitter and channel options first, though.  I’ll write you soon offline or give you a call.
 
To everyone who has written comments in the past few days:  Thanks for your input!  I appreciate it.  I read every comment posted.  I’ll look at your sites soon too.  I appreciate the traffic.  I’m not sure why, but traffic on my blog has increased substantially in the past couple of weeks.  I’m glad to see it increase.  Your comments let me know I’m not writing in a vacuum.  Thanks!

Gender difference of opinions?

I shared the idea of going to Papua New Guinea on a three-month assignment with a few people I know and trust.  I wanted to see whether they thought taking this assignment was a good idea or a bad idea.  Again, the assignment isn’t mine by any means.  However, if I’m convinced I should take it, I can lobby hard for it at work.  I have a great chance of getting it if I want it.  The assignment has both positives and negatives aspects, and it isn’t clear how good an opportunity it really is or how much of a hardship it will be.  I do not even know if the opportunity will pan out, but it has definitely stirred strong emotions among those who know about it. 
 
What is perhaps most interesting is that those who favor going to Papua New Guinea and how those who do not differ by gender.  Every woman I talked to about it thinks that I should not go to PNG, regardless of whether my family accompanies me.  Every man I talked to thinks I should do it.  I have my suspicions as to why this is, but I thought I would throw this out to you, dear reader, as food for thought.  If I have the opportunity to take an important assignment in a very difficult location, probably separated from my family for about three months, should I take it?  Should I pass on it?  What do you think?  And why do you think men would agree and women would disagree?  It just goes to show you, we don’t always think the same way.

Our first house guest

Our first house guest in Korea arrived today.  Our good friend Trudy, who lives in northern China where she studies Mandarin Chinese, arrived this afternoon.  She will stay with us for three days until she departs for the United States on vacation.  After she returns to China in July, she will study for one more month before she moves to a small city in Qinghai Province in order to teach English.  Qinghai, located in central western China, is the Chinese version of Nevada (sans the glitter of Las Vegas).  Dry and isolated, it has missed much of the frenzied development taking place along China’s eastern coastline.  I admire Trudy for her willingness to live and teach in relatively harsh conditions.  She will be one of the first foreign teachers teaching in that part of Qinghai.  It’s great that she can bring native language instruction to an area of China that sorely needs more TLC, especially economic development.  She definitely has a servant’s heart.
 
I’ve known Trudy as long as I’ve known my wife.  In fact, I met them together one fateful day in the fall of 1992.  Through the years she’s been a great friend.  She was the maid of honor at our wedding, and we see her every year or so whenever she passes through where we live (until recently in Seattle).  She had never been to Korea before, so she went out of her way to book a connecting flight from China to the U.S. via Seoul.  We’re happy to see her, because we always love catching up with her.  As my wife says, she’s one of those friends where you can pick up the friendship right where you left it.  Do you have a friend or friends like that–the kind you’re still very close to even if you rarely see them?   In general, my family doesn’t get too many visitors.  We didn’t while we lived in Seattle because Seattle is a bit isolated relative to the rest of the U.S.  Granted, my entire family, including Wade3016, visited us while we were in living in Washington, D.C.  However, I don’t anticipate that we will have many house guests here in Seoul.  My parents, Wade3016, and his aunt have told us they’re planning to come for a visit, but not until next year.  My wife’s family will probably come for a visit from China.  That might be about it for our house guests in Korea.  I’m happy to be able to show someone the live we have here.  It’s great to share.  If you’re in the Seoul area while we’re here, let me know and we’ll see if we can connect.
 
We have a spare bedroom that I fixed up for Trudy.  Until last weekend it served as an ad hoc storage area.  Her arrival gave me an excuse to straight up the room.  Unfortunately, space is at a premium in our house, and I had to shuffle a bunch of junk from the room to other areas of the house.  Most of it went into the laundry room, so now the laundry room is full of boxes.  I’ve created a small path so that we can access the washer and dryer for the time being.  One of these days I’ll get rid of some of those boxes, but for now it’s nice to have reclaimed the guest bedroom.