J.T. vs. Winter

Well, I’m sorry for the lack of recent updates. The simple truth of the matter is I’m not doing much worth writing about. The cold weather has minimized my traveling, so I really just work most of the time. Sometimes I just don’t know where the times goes.

This week (and month, really) isn’t a bad example of that. My first class is at 9:40 and my last class ends at 9:00 most days, a little later on Wednesday. I have a nice long lunch break, but it doesn’t lend itself to a whole ton of social time. I just order/cook up/pick up some food and prepare for my next classes and watch some T.V. or some such thing. The weekends, well, I do whatever I do. Last weekend, I went to see the new “Harry Potter” movie. It was pretty good, I think. I went with one of the other Korean teachers, and we had a pretty good time. She actually just quit her job because she needs more time to study for the big English teaching test she’s taking in a few months or a year or something. Yikes! That’s Korea for you; you might actually find yourself studying so much that you can’t possibly work your part-time job. That’s hardcore.

This weekend I just did a bunch of random junk that needed to be done. I went out and bought various things for my apartment that I should have bought 6 months ago. Oh, by the way, in case any of you haven’t been counting down the very seconds to my return, I’ve been gone about 6 months now. That means I’m halfway through my trip. It makes me think back to when I thought a semester abroad was a long time. Whenever someone like Todd, Cori, Mike, Luke, Katie, etc. went abroad it seemed like they were gone forever. Now I’ve decided to take off for three times as long. I really think it would be much different to have been here for only 4 months or so. Faced with at least a year here, I’ve really had to get into the mindset that I LIVE here. I’m not here just to visit or see the sights; I’m a full-fledged member of the society. Well, maybe not fully, as I still can’t socially interact with most of the population, but a really active member, at least. Plus I have a job and bills and adult-resembling responsibilities. It’s crazy. The longer you stay in a place, especially one so different as Korea is, the bigger the adjustment you have to make and the more it changes you, I think. I was already going through a lot of change even before I got here, so I wonder what I’ll be like to people when I get back. I hope it’s good!

I’m equally curious as to what you people will be like when I get back. Let’s face it, a year is a long time. In the case of Mr. Mikey McG, it’s been almost two years since we’ve been able to have some real good hang out time. That’s a lot of change. For a whole bunch of you people you’ll have only been in the real world that long (much like me). My family will be different, as well. There’s been some family drama while I was gone, the most interesting of which definitely being the purchase of our very own family-run trailer park. For those of you in Grove City, I’ll lay out the scene for you. You know where “Skate America” is, right? Well, really close to there is a trailer park with a nice little house in front of it. Both the trailer park and the house were built by my great-grandfather. If you want to know what kind of man he was, just look at the two-story garage he build for himself there. The one bigger than the house he lived in. Yeah, he was that awesome. Anyways, when he got older he sold off the trailer park. My grandparents currently live in that house he built. The previous owner of the trailer park was talking with my grandfather, Pappy Jack (you know him), and mentioned he was going to sell the trailer park, but he’d like to offer it back to the family. So, my family, one part irreverence to nine parts heart, took up the call. My mother and all her siblings are running the thing. Will the responsibility go to their heads? Will it make mature adults out of them? Will they suddenly become model citizens? I hope not… if my family is anything, it’s crazy and fun, and I don’t expect as simple as business could change that. My grandmother has run her own business forever, and she’s still the family role model. I can’t wait until I grow up and can add my own small business to “Slacker, Inc.: a Grove City family business since, uh, a while ago… sorry, we lost the records… I think they’re in that pile in the corner…”