New Name for Everything

(View from my window, New Year's Day.)

Our first session has ended here in Jeju, it was only four days but I was sad to see some of the kids go, but we got 24 more new ones today. I finally got to sleep in this morning, the first time I have slept past 7 in Korea! Which was felt really good. Then we took the campers staying between sessions down to the movie theatre in the superstore Lotte Mart the catch phrase for Lotte Mart is "More Than Life" which is pretty sweet. We saw a very weird film called "The Last Godfather" starring Korean star YoungGu a weird Charlie Chaplin, Mr Bean, Ernest blend who is wildly popular here in Korea. Even though the movie was made for Koreans, it was all in English, really horrible english with minimal plot, but English nonetheless.

The sun has still yet to make an appearance here in Jeju, but tonight I am going to make the trek down past the Korean megachurch to see the ocean. Even though I have been going out in Jeju and seeing various things, I dont have much of a sense of how close or far away things are. I know also that I am very close to Mt. Hallasan, the highest point in Korea but because of cloud cover there has only been one day I was able to see the foothills covered in tangerine farms. Tangerines are very big here, they are not like the Floridian variety I grew up with, these have thicker skins and are much sweeter, none of the citrus tang Americans are used to. Speaking of Americans, since food was scarce after the Korean war Americans imported lots of food which has infused itself into staples that the locals consider their own, including Spam which is popularly used in a soup which translates to "Army Base Soup" a meal that any time I am in a restaurant is recommended to me since I am American. Culinarily speaking, this country is astounding, I knew about kimchi and korean bbq, but the soups and breads have been a wonderful surprise. At every meal in the cafeteria there is the option of a spicy salty soup, which if anyone knows me, what more could I ask for? Hope all is well back in the states.

I miss the sun.

(the view from my jog yesterday)

The last few days here in Los Angeles it has been overcast. Not in the California its-cloudy-so-let's-call-it-overcast way, but as in real total overcast. No sun. It is like constant civil twilight from Santa Barbara southward. I saw the sun in the valley on Tuesday as I walked across the Haskell Elementary schoolyard, but by the time I got out of my class. It was gone. All this darkness has a weird effect on a boy from Florida. When I sat down and thought about it today this might be the longest prolonged darkness I have ever experienced. It is taking a physical toll on me too, I have been having bouts of dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness, trouble sleeping, all of which I directly attribute to my lack of sunlight. Tonight I made myself dinner, and was sitting listening to a hockey game, when I got very sleepy so I decided to rest my head on my table while I listened to the post game show. Next thing I knew I was waking up to a random commercial about a furniture store in Dale Mabry in Tampa.

I might also have some horrible cancer that is undiagnosed, but I dont go to doctors because when I do they convince me that I have mono. or worse.

Not enough sun or terminal cancer? you decide.

__________

unrelated: my good friend, high school valedictorian, and columbia graduate Anna Wood is published in Line Zero next month for her short story "Tandem" you can pre order here