And so the chapter ends.

Here we are. 24 hours from now, I'll be a few miles up, somewhere over the middle of Russia. My emotions are actually quite similar to what they were when I left the U.S. for Korea. The long and the short of it being, regardless of excitement/nervousness/worries, I'm getting on that plane. Step on the plane and lets go.

Before I go though, I wanted, mostly for myself, to write a little retrospect of the past 3 years.
I think the easiest way to sum up what's happened in that time is to describe the scenes then and now.

February 28th, 2007. My first day in Korea. My apartment was, well, small. Small enough that I could reach my refrigerator from my bed. Small enough there wasn't room for someone to stay over-not just in my bed-in the entire apartment. My furnishings consisted of 1-3 drawer Tupperware stand. 1 17 inch dull color TV (sans remote). A childrens' sized bed with one sheet. (Thank god for my beloved Broncos blankie.)ln the kitchen I had 1 spoon, 1 set of chop sticks, and a frying pan. A little gas oven to cook on.
I lived in the middle floor(It really wasn't 1st or 2nd floor-more 'under the stairs') in a run down neighborhood inhabited mostly by angry ajossis and ajjumas(old people.) and I had exactly 1 friend. Good old Alex. (Who I'll be seeing in South Africa by the way.) If I wanted a taste of home, the nearest McDonalds was a 10 minute cab ride away-and that was the closest thing to Western food we could get.
I was-mildly-happy to be here, but you could quite literally fit everything I owned into 1 suitcase. And the size of the apartment didn't matter-I had one friend. It was kind of a shell life. It was a basic existence, and I planned to stay for my year and get back out of here.

Things kept building though, one contract led to another. And now.

Three years later. The situation is different. I live in a 3 bedroom apartment, in the foreigner district, almost exactly in the center of Seoul. I can no longer reach my fridge from my bed. I sleep in a wonderful queen sized bed, own a full closet, an entertainment center (my beloved TV. Oh, how I love my TV.) XBOX!!1 and even have a spare room converted into a study of sorts. I have a roommate. I have a cat! (The cuttest little cuddly kittie in the world! Yes, he is! Yes, he is!) As I write this I'm sitting in a cafe, from which I can see my apartment. For dinner I have choices of just about anything Western I want, or Middle Eastern, or Indian, for that matter, all within walking distance.
My collection of books in Korea is now larger than my collection of books in America(something I never thought possible.) Basically, I have the possessions of a real person now.

I had a going away party on Saturday. It wasn't the biggest one I've ever had. (How could I compete with a party held in honor of THE Joe Crewe?), but it's safe to say I have more than 1 friend in Korea now.



And then I think on all the friends I've met along the way here. The beauty of meeting people in Korea is A) a far higher proportion of them are really quality people when you get to know them. You meet people here and you realize that nationality really has nothing to do with personality. I've met wonderful people from everywhere. and B) those friends stay lifelong friends(Thank you facebook!) which means, I can claim to have close friends on 5 continents right now. (6 when Johnny moves his ass back to Australia.) That's great, firstly, to be a part of such diversity, but it's also great because,hell, pretty much any English speaking country in the world, I got a free couch to sleep on. (Sadly, I don't have many people knocking down my door to come backpack through the cornfields of the midwest.)
The best thing I've collected in Korea are my friends. What a great group of people.


And then, there's the always overly sappy issue of love.

My wonderful girlfriend, Jeong, and I have been together for over a year now. I really detest writing grand opuses of love on blogs, but I think it's safe to say, if I've even mentioned here on here. She's someone worth knowing. I was telling her just the other night. She's definitely made all this harder. If it wasn't for her, I can't imagine a single drop of regret finding it's way into my thoughts, but leaving her behind for 5 months. You feel the pangs. There's no worry there. I have no doubt she'll be here when I get back. It's simply a matter of this-I love spending time with her, and I don't want to be away from her for that long. Simple as that. But, because she is who she is, she would absolutely refuse to let me not go. She knows what it is to have dreams, and she knows how important dreams are. You can't put them on shelves now, or they'll never come back down. We both understand that.

The point of all this is, I guess the big jump from America to Korea really gave me a genesis point to watch my life grow from. I look back, and I'm just in awe, life has been good to me. (And I'm of the opinion that most people, if they could really see the progression clearly, could, and would feel the same way about their lives as well.)

I speak Korean...ok. I can get around at least. Yet, I realized just last night, I've never learned the word for Sad. Korea round 1-has been a hell of a chapter.