The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Hey, you lot.
It's been a while, but I'm back at PC Ghost.
Not out of necessity, though.

A lot has changed.
I have a new co-worker living in the Hambaek, so I'm showing him around.
He doesn't have internet yet, so we're at PC Ghost.
Wanted to show him around, show him how things here work.

Went to Itaewon today.
Evan and Wes helped me drop 80 fliers on the area.
Evan was posting them wherever he could, often times in rather creative places (there was graffiti reading 'boned your mom,' so Evan put one in the middle of the O in 'mom.') He also put them over fliers for other things.
Wes was handing them to people he thought might appreciate my music and gave them a quick rundown of what was happening.
We saw the venue, but we went relatively early so we didn't end up going inside. Most unfortunately. Regardless, I think it'll be pretty solid for my gig.

Speaking of which, I'm getting more and more excited for my first show in Seoul. I can already say with certainty that it won't be my last, though- my crew has a lot of interesting and pragmatic ideas for promotion, so I'm sure I'll get my foot in the door somewhere at some point. I've also been playing my music for a lot of different people to get opinions on which tracks are the best, etc. It's good times. Once I sink a few hundred thousand won into a good Logitech 2.1 speaker setup, I'll be cranking some sick shit out. This is a promise.

In other news, well, there really is no other news. Nothing really mindbending is happening here, to be honest. I mean, I live in a pretty neat part of Korea, but it could be busier and more interesting. Not complaining, though... not at all.

Money's been going a bit more quickly than I'd hoped- I had to pull some money out of my account from home today, unfortunately, because I still have until Nov 5th before I get paid again and, lo and behold, I ran out. It's crazy because I haven't even been going out, getting crunk and being a moron... Hell, I've been walking to work. I'm not sure where the money's gone, but that's the problem with money. On top of that, I pulled in significantly less this month because I didn't have overtime, etc.. I guess my first water bill payment came out, some other stuff. It doesn't much matter, though. I'll be okay. I just didn't want to dip into my savings this early in the game... though I'm sure I'll be able to more than make up for it in the future.

School has been a mix of good and bad. I had to kick a student out of the classroom yesterday for bringing a bunch of paper pouches from the water cooler to class. See, that sounds pretty innocent, but the students somehow find a way to blow air in them and pop them. Which, naturally, does not fly in Thomas Teacher's classes. They've done it before, I asked the Korean teacher to detentionerize them (which may or may not have happened), and they continued to bring the pouches to class. So I'm kicking them out for it. It's a last resort, but it has to happen. On the flipside, I had some extra time with one particular class (who is on a different schedule because of some circumstances) so I threw together a vocabulary review day involving an epic as Hell game of castle-conquering. Oddly enough, the girls in the class loved it to death. I tried to adapt it to a baseball game for a class of eighteen, but.. that's the class with the water pouch addiction. I couldn't get them to quiet down for long enough to start the game. It was a sad day.

What else... I tried to get some input from my students. I want to know what they like about my classes, what they don't like, what can be better, etc... the results were mostly predictable (boring, ditch the book, nothing is good about your class, etc) but I had a few that really stood out. Along the lines of 'Thomas Teacher is getting better but it is not finished yet. He shows us many fantastic picture.' Though nothing really trumps 'you need to smile more because if you smile we know you are not angry.' The adorable factor from that comment... oh man. So I've been trying to smile more, trying to be more of a goofball with my students... it makes them happy, it makes me happy.. it's good times.

I think I wasn't smiling in classes before because, well, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of my big problems is that I've lost a good deal of passion for life. I'm not depressed or anything, I'm just trying to self-analyze. I remember when things would make me jump out of my skin with excitement; not much does it these days though, I'm afraid. Not much has done it for a while. I've been a bit of a shell of a Thom, chasing skirts around because should something actually happen, well, that'd be a thrill of sorts. I don't know. Even in Korea, I've kind of being doing the same old shit... letting my relations with women dictate my mood.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

I think I'm starting to get better about it, though, albeit rather slowly. I think I started to get better at it three sentences ago, actually. I need to remember that it's not the end-all, be-all... but considering how I spent my time in middle school and high school, I think it can be chalked up to a case of 'wanting what you never really had,' the thing in question being game. Though I might've had a bit of that in the past. Whatever, doesn't matter now- it can't be my first priority because it can't be my first priority. Other things matter more.

Other things like getting a studio together, getting my life started, all of that noise. My life isn't going to get started unless I start it; it's just a shame I didn't realize that until it seemed like it was too late. Though I doubt any other circumstance would've done it.

What else... Joel is in Malaysia this weekend for a wedding. He's bringing a carton of cloves back for me. I don't know what brand they'll be or if I'll even like them, but it's times like now that I can't help but say 'EAT IT, AMERICA, I WILL SOON HAVE WHAT YOU CONSIDER CONTRABAND THESE DAYS.'


And that's what I have. Also, I realized that I'd been spelling my name incorrectly in Korean- the letters I'd been using would be pronounced 'Toh-maht.' Not quite there.

-토마스
(Toh-mah-suh)

The Three Month Mark...

As of this coming Tuesday, October 20th, I will have been in Korea for three months.
Everyone says that time flies when you're overseas- it's true, but I do understand that this is just the beginning. Everyone also says that culture shock sets in around the three month mark, which may or may not be true. I've felt some uneasiness about being here, missing home and all of that, but... I think my experience may be somewhat unique. Somewhat. I don't know.

Yesterday night was a going-away shindig for one of my co-workers; a casualty to the stress of everything. Things are still rough at work... but it's all coming to a close, hopefully sooner than later. Anyway, we went up to Touchdown for drinks, pool, darts and witty banter. A lot of the Korean teachers came as well, which was nice because I don't ever really see them outside of work and our relationship seems to be mostly professional, so. It was definitely interesting, especially when they took us to...

DRINK BOOZE FROM BOWLS. Touchdown is primarily a foreigner bar. Granted, some Koreans go there quite often, but it definitely has a foreigner atmosphere. So the Korean teachers took us to a different place which serves rice alcohol in teapots, to be poured into small tin bowls for the sipping. There was soju and many, many a drinking game... followed by much ridiculous behavior that will make me see the teachers in a different light on Monday. It's that feeling when you have your first night out with co-workers.. you realize that they're quite different outside of the office and, maybe, not as different from you as you thought.

All of this talk about going home from my co-worker really made me miss home.. he showed me videos of himself and his friends back home, told me about his future plans.. and yeah, I missed home. A lot. Last night kind of solidified my belief that this is where I'm supposed to be right now, though; the two of us are pretty much polar opposites at face value but, again, in the end, we aren't so different. I just thought we were because I was taking things at face value.

Yesterday afternoon consisted mostly of preparing my set for Halloween. I'm at about the halfway point right now, but it did involve stemming out a remix that was done half in Ableton and half in Reason. It's already a pain in the ass stemming stuff out from Reason, and adding Ableton to the mix just made it more complicated... but I digress.

So, being two days removed from the three month mark, I can say that I've grown quite a bit: I can eat and enjoy spicy foods, though my tolerance still needs some work; my alcohol tolerance is going up so I won't have as many problems that come with being a lightweight in the future; I'm becoming more financially disciplined, insisting on saving the majority of my salary every month; I'm becoming more disciplined overall, forming a strong sense of duty; I'm becoming more socially adequate, able to assert myself when need be. The only thing I can see that I really need to work on at this point is state of mind and emotional maturity; I tend to let small things get me down for a while, and that needs to change because life never stops throwing punches... if you let the jabs bother you, then you're in trouble.

I'm one quarter of the way through with my contract (despite much adversity) and I'm still going strong. I don't expect the 'going strong' part to change anytime soon.

Be well, friends and family.
-Thomas