Perpetual Writer's Block

It takes a lot to get me to write. Especially in length on a particular topic. I'm pretty good at spelling and grammar, but there's just something that keeps me from getting my ideas out. It must be some kind of inner insecurity that I have and just haven't figured out how to break it yet. Many times, I start to write something, but when I go back and read what I've written, I see it as stupid and end up erasing it all. There are a lot of posts on this blog that ended up that way. When I absolutely must write something, I usually get to a point that I just absolutely can't go on and have to stop. Then I usually just have to click send if I'm working on an email or just turn in the paper I'm writing.

My perpetual writer's block is so frustrating. What do I do?

Cell Phones in Korea

I leave for Korea in less than a week. Leading up to my trip, I joined a couple groups on Facebook about the Yonsei Korean Language Institute and I made some contacts who will hopefully turn into some cool friends. What to do about getting a cell phone seems like a recurring conversation.

One of the things that you must have when you're in Korea is a cell phone. I know it sounds like peer pressure, but it really is hard to connect to people without a cell phone and public phones can be hard to come by sometimes.

So what does a foreigner do to get a phone in Korea?

First, you must know a little about cell phone network infrastructure: Most of the world uses GSM cell phone networks, which uses SIM cards. SIM cards hold all your subscriber information, can be removed from the handset, and theoretically you can switch SIM cards around in multiple handsets without changing phone

numbers. I say theoretically because in order to successfully switch SIM cards around in different handsets, you've got to have unlocked handsets. The difference between locked and unlocked is that GSM providers normally sell phones that are "locked" onto their specific GSM network (i.e. AT&T or T-Mobile). Unlocked phones can be used on any GSM network. Unlocked handsets are usually more expensive than locked handsets that you get when you subscribe to a provider. Don't worry too much though, you can usually unlock your handset by calling your provider and punching some codes in your phone. They might charge a small fee for unlocking your phone, but once it's unlocked, you can use different SIM cards in your handset. GSM phones are convenient for world travel because you can either get a prepaid SIM card in the country you're visiting and use your own handset or you can rent a handset and use your regular SIM card.

CDMA, on the other hand, is a different type of network entirely. It is not as widespread around the world as GSM, but it is the most widely used in the US and Korea. CDMA providers sell phones that are locked and it's very difficult or impossible to unlock them. CDMA does not use SIM cards to store the subscriber's information, instead the information is stored directly on the handset. In order to travel internationally with a CDMA phone, you should contact your provider to make sure there is a roaming agreement between

your provider and a provider in the country you're visiting and find out what fees are like and what features will not work when you're there. For example, Verizon and Sprint have roaming agreements with Korean providers, but while you might be able to send/receive text messages using Verizon, you can't on Sprint.

I imagine Korea only really has a GSM network in order to please foreigners because it's the most widely used type of network in the world.

There are many options now available to foreigners visiting Korea.

First of all, there are convenient mobile phone rental kiosks in the airport. There are at least three companies that rent phones to foreigners and they have several options for rentals. You can rent a prepaid phone, have a temporary account which you will pay at the end of your trip, or you can even rent a Korean GSM handset which you could put your own SIM card in. Here is a site from the Korea Tourism Organization that will lead you to the rental companies. If you make a reservation online, they usually give you a discount.

If you have a family member or friend in Korea, it might even be a better option for you to get them to put you on their plan, like adding a line.

The other option is to somehow get a Korean SIM card and put into your unlocked GSM handset. This likely involves getting an actual contract with the cell phone provider, and I'm not real sure how that works because when one of my friends tried to buy a SIM card, she was unsuccessful.

I have Sprint (CDMA) service in the States. Last time I visited Korea, I was only there for about a month and a half and I didn't know anybody there, so renting a phone was my best option. I could use my BlackBerry Curve from home there with no big problems, but it was expensive to make calls and use data, so I only really used it when I had to. My Korean phone was just a simple phone and it cost me about 2,000 won a day, which included rental fee of about 1,500 won and the little bit that I used the

phone for calls and te

xts. This time around, I'm going to rent a prepaid phone for about 50,000 won plus how much ever I want to prepay. I have an Android smartphone now (the awesome HTC Evo 4G, pictured left) that I can use to get on WiFi networks, so I can hopefully keep my Sprint bill from giving me a heart attack.

At any rate, it pays to do a bit of research before you get to Korea.

Preparing for Korea

Namsan, a photo by blueoceanpalm on Flickr.

In about 8 days or so I'm going to be hopping on a plane for the first time in well over a year and going to Korea for 3 months to study again at Yonsei University. I'm super excited and I'm pretty much already packed.

This time I'll be attending the summer regular program instead of the summer special program, so I'll be in Korea for the whole summer instead of just a month and a half. This summer is probably one of the last free summers I'll have because I am planning on getting my associate's degree in the winter or spring of next year and beyond that is a big, vast plain of uncertainty. Better take this opportunity when I can, yeah?

When I get to Korea, I'll be staying at a hostel for the first four days or so, and in that time I've got to find somewhere else to live for the rest of my time. I'm thinking about a goshiwon-type place, which is kind of like a dorm room, but off-campus. I'm hoping I'll have a more authentic Korean experience at this kind of place because when I was staying at the dorm the last time, I spent WAY too much time speaking English. I probably won't be able to distance myself too far from my mother tongue, but I can try my best.

At any rate, I will probably have better Internet access in Korea than here at home. That said, I will try my best to post stuff like blog posts, pictures and videos while I'm there, but I will be pretty busy going to school and traveling around as much as I can, so there is a chance that I might not update very often. We'll just have to see how things go.

One time when I went to San Francisco, I stopped periodically and wrote what I was experiencing in a notebook. I tore the pages out of the notebook after my trip and sent it to my mom. I wish I still had those pages, but it was so relaxing to just stop every once in a while and write about what I was doing. I've gotten myself a notebook and I've been writing in it a lot lately. Maybe while I'm in Korea, I'll share some of my notebook entries. This blog is called blueoceanpalm's notebook, after all...

Nancy Wood Poem

Hold on to what is good
even if it is
a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.

- from Many Winters, 1974

I wrote this in one of my notebooks so long ago that I don't even remember when. I should read some more of her work.

Song of the Day: Three Little Birds

It's been a while since I had a song of the day, but I thought I'd post this anyway. This video is cool, but the song is awesome.

I heard this song today on my iPod and I thought about destressing.

"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing is gonna be all right..."

One of my friends recently quit her job and she's having a lot of changes in her life all at once. A stressful time indeed. She wondered how I managed to not get stressed out over much. I do get stressed out a lot, but I guess I'm just good at hiding it or naming it something else, like sadness or hopelessness.

I have sad thoughts a lot, and I worry about a lot of things. I worry a lot about my world crashing down around me. I worry about completely failing all my classes and not ever being able to find a decent job. I worry about going broke.

It's songs like this that help me remember to not sweat the small stuff (which all that stuff is) and just smile. Everything happens as it should and it will all work out in the end, so try not to worry so much and don't lose hope. :)

Spam Commenting

I've been neglecting this blog for a long time and it appears my commenting system was too lenient because I've had a crapton of spam comments on a few of my posts. I think I've cleaned them all up now and I've changed my settings for comments. Be careful out there on the Internet, folks.

Idea for a new blog

OK...I'm finally thinking about starting a new blog about Korean. Having a blog such as this with no real direction or topic doesn't really motivate me to want to write on it very often, and Korean is something that I've hated, struggled with, tried to give up, can't stop talking or thinking about and basically has just had me obsessed for the past 8 years. I'm planning on going back to Korea this summer and studying at Yonsei again, for a whole quarter this time, so I guess now is a good time to start a blog, a few months out.

Post topics I'm considering:

• How I started Korean and how my quest for language acquisition has become a full-blown obsession.
• Pictures and reviews of Korean stuff in my city. Korean close to home.
• My fascination with the entertainment industry to include dramas, movies, music and other art forms
• Learning vocabulary and grammar
• Technology I'm jealous of
• Awesome blogs
• Language learning aids
• Youtube videos
• Travel stuff

I haven't come up with any kind of title yet and blog design and I don't quite get along, so I'd love some help.

Thanks!

Alaska 5 Day/2 City

Day 1
Fly to Anchorage Airport (ANC)
Check in to hotel (Hotel Captain Cook)
The Hotel Captain Cook is Anchorage’s only luxury hotel. It is located downtown and has 547 guestrooms. It has three restaurants and separate men’s and women’s athletic clubs.
Explore Anchorage
Rent a bicycle and riding on some of the 120 miles of paved trails throughout the city. Stop at Earthquake Park and see evidence of the strongest earthquake ever to shake North America.
Return to hotel/Close for Evening
Day 2
Depart Hotel
Train to Whittier
Board the Glacier Discovery Train in Anchorage for your trip to Whittier. You can see glaciers, wildlife and other beautiful scenery on your trip.
Cruise Prince William Sound
Once in Whittier, you will take a day cruise of Prince William Sound and see glaciers and wildlife.
Return to Anchorage and Hotel
Day 3
Check out of Hotel
Train to Denali
Catch the McKinley Explorer domed train to the 6 million acre Denali National Park and Preserve.
Check in to Hotel (Denali Park Resort)
The Denali Park Resort is a full-service resort with 345 guestrooms. There are a variety of activities provided by the resort, including a dinner theatre.
River Rafting
Go on a guided raft tour of the Nenana River and view Denali National Park from the river.
Close for Evening

Day 4
Depart Hotel
Bus Tour of Denali
Board bus and learn about the history and scenic wonder of Denali National Park.
Train to Fairbanks
Check in to Hotel (Sophie Station Hotel)
Sophie Station Hotel is the #1 hotel in Fairbanks according to TripAdvisor. It’s an all-suite hotel and is known to have superior service.
Close for Evening
Day 5
Depart Hotel
Take Riverboat Cruise
Take a riverboat cruise on the Chena and Tanana rivers and learn about Fairbanks and native Alaska history.
Depart Fairbanks for home

Tumblr.

Was doing some updating to my Delicious and Yahoo! accounts today, and I decided to join Tumblr. Check it.

Introducing The Next HOT Blogger, SEAN!

Well, he finally did it. I have been trying to get Sean to start a blog for ages, but now he's finally done it only because it's a required part of his English class.

I'm in an English class too, but we haven't done anything that cool yet, and when I lament about how much work I have with English and all the rest of my classes, he always tells me, "You should have went to Ohio State instead."

Oh well. I wish him all the best with his new blog. Check him out here.

I Wanna Be Starting Something OR Thriller's Gone

So, I was thinking about a title to this post about me starting my first class at "real" college next week, and I thought of Michael Jackson's song from his Thriller album. And as I was looking up a video to post, it got me thinking about my vinyl copy of Thriller. I don't have a record player right now, but Thriller would have likely been my first record to play on a newly-acquired record player. I have a small milk crate filled with records, and I decided to go through it and pull out my treasured Thriller album that I payed maybe 50 cents for at a yard sale a number of years ago. Alas! After going through the maybe 30 or 40 records in my small collection, there was no Thriller to be found! Which means somebody must have taken it. I haven't played my records in years, and they had been in various states of storage, but all my records have always been together with each other. There are a few faceless suspects, but very little I can do to really prove anybody stole it. Oh well...I guess I'll just have to buy one off of eBay.

Now, back to my main topic: I Wanna Be Starting Something. That something is my "real" college career. I've had some limited experience with college, but it's always been studying Korean, and I can't imagine that my experience is much like the experience of college.

This week, I will finally be starting classes at CSCC. I am kind of nervous, but at the same time, I'm really excited. I'm nervous because I do have a slight aversion to studying something that I'm not entirely interested in and I have a very big fear of writing papers, thanks to my high school experience with writing papers. I'm also quite nervous due to my apparent ADD. I'll be studying and then, "Oooo! Butterfly!" and I can't concentrate anymore on my studies.

Despite these fears that I have about returning to school, I am very excited to start. I do really enjoy learning new things and I know it usually helps me to be in some type of structured environment. Since I moved to Columbus, I haven't made too many friends, and thanks to my experience this summer in Korea, I am sure that I'll be able to meet some really cool people at CSCC too. Starting classes will also help with my terrible case of cabin fever. Since I got out of the military in January, aside from my "travels," I really haven't gotten out much. All in all, I'm just really excited to be startin' somethin'.

P.S.

While I've been lamenting about my lost Thriller album, B.B. King's classic, "The Thrill Is Gone" came to mind. Cheered me up a little bit because, a) the blues always makes you feel a little less blue, and b) if you distort the words a little bit, it sounds like "Thriller's Gone" :)

Momo2 and the 노래방 (Song Room)

So, we just moved to Columbus and we just got our furniture and personal items out of storage, which included my bowling ball.

Sean's been nagging me to go bowling, and he apparently wants to try to get more than gutter balls now, so we decided we'd go bowling. At first, we were going to go to Momo2's, which is pretty close to where we live, but we decided we'd go to a "real" bowling alley across town, the Columbus Square Bowling Palace, that's open 24 hours and has 64 lanes of bowling fun. Unfortunately, they were bowling leagues on all 64 lanes when we got there and we were told that it'd be an hour before we could do open bowling. Ugh.

We decided to leave the bowling palace and just drive around for a little while to see what was in the area. From the looks of it, most of Cleveland Ave. is kind of crummy, especially after dark. We moseyed our way toward home and weren't ready to retire for the night, so we ended up at Momo2's after all.

Momo2 is located at 2885 Olentangy River Rd, next to Kroger. They've got four lanes of bowling, a cafe with free wi-fi, pool tables, food, and 노래방. They call it Karaoke to please the people that don't know better, but it is DEFINITELY 노래방.

Noraebang is translated to English from Korean as "Song Room," and it's a place that has various sizes of private rooms that you rent by the hour and the rooms basically include a karaoke machine and a couch. I think this is basically the only way karaoke should be marketed. You lock yourself in a little room and sing and dance to your heart's content with yourself or your friends, and the only people that will make fun of you are your friends who already make fun of you for other things. (Some 노래방 might not be suitable for those that are claustrophobic though.) You get a songbook that has songs in English, Korean, Chinese and a few other Asian languages. You punch in a song and sing away to the lyrics on the television.

The lyrics aren't the only things shown on the television while your song is playing. You get to see a video too! Some videos are related to the song, but most of them are just ridiculous! Imagine watching a video of someone sailing out in the ocean while you're singing along with the lyrics to Madonna's "Material Girl." Some of the Korean songs at least show videos of the singers performing.


If you ever get a chance, definitely check out Noraebang. I think I saw another 노래방 somewhere around Clintonville, so I'll definitely have to check that out.

Here's my new "signature" noraebang song. We'll go bowling some other time.

What have you done for me lately?

Was thinking of a title for this post, and this song just popped into my head. Not exactly the topic, but it's a cool song nonetheless...


Anyway, I've been home a little over a month now, and I've been pretty busy, and I continue to be busy. It's a pretty cool and hectic time, I'm sure you can imagine. Christmas is only a couple days away, and I'll be traveling to New York with a daytrip to Canada and back to Maryland before going back to Tennessee/Kentucky for a couple weeks and then onto my new life in Ohio. Sometimes I really wish I would have been able to get out of the military in July like I was supposed to so I wouldn't have to take care of everything right now, right in the middle of the holidays, but I suppose everything happens for a reason, so I will try not to fret about it too much. :) Something I really do miss about being in Iraq though is being able to study Korean. Hopefully, when everything settles down a bit in about a month or two, I'll be able to study Korean again. I know I'm going to have to work hard so I don't become distracted. 

I've been posting quite a bit on Twitter lately. It's really quick and easy to just write down what I'm doing and what I'm thinking or whatever. It's sometimes good for me to post what I'm doing to just keep track of myself too. I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone last week, so if I am trying to remember a date that I did something, I maybe could search for it on Twitter and find out when I did whatever I was thinking about. Twitter's also great to find out what's going on in the community. Weather, traffic and event updates, oh my!  

Now I've got to go to bed. Not many big plans for tomorrow, but I might do a little last-minute Christmas shopping. 

An instance where the Internet is NOT helping me.

Usually, I can do just about anything I want or need to on the Internet, although right now, I'm really starting to think that looking online for a place to rent is a bad idea. Although the Internet does serve as a good starting point to know where to look for a place, it's really difficult to just pick and choose from just looking at pictures or plugging in addresses to Google Maps. I guess I'm just going to have to physically go to my new city and do things the old-fashioned way. Just like I found my last apartment. Too bad it's going to be FREEZING!

Pharmacies are hellish

Pharmacies are one of those places that I dread going to. No matter
how few people there are, it always seems like you have to wait
forever to get your prescriptions. I would much rather self-medicate
than wait at a pharmacy. At least the one I'm at now has decent chairs
and there aren't too many people waiting. Then again, that is just an
illusion anyway.

--
Sent from my mobile device

This title has no inspiration. Sorry.

Well, I've been back in the states now for about two weeks. I had a lot of plans when I was in Iraq, and I still do, but the plans that I've put into action so far haven't necessarily went as beautifully as I had pictured them. Yeah, I know, pretty much everything is easier said than done, but it sure can get depressing sometimes when things don't go just right. I'm okay though. :)

I've got about a week left until I go to my new city to start looking for a place to live. I'm really excited about that. I've also got plans to visit one of the schools I'm considering applying to there.

I have just a little time left before they'll let me out of the military, so I'm trying to get everything squared away for that.

Gotta spend time with my family too. Haven't seen most of them in way over a year now and I've got a little army of new babies in the family to greet. They all look really cute in all the pictures I've seen!

Haven't really had much time for reading or studying lately, and I worry about that sometimes. Now that I'm back in the states, I really don't want to let myself lose focus and just quit studying and reading completely, but right now, I guess, those things are kind of being pushed out of the way. I really hope that it's just because I'm not really settled right now, and whenever I complete my move to my new city and start my new life as a civilian, I'll snap back into shape and be a good, studious student.

I can't wait for this week to be over so I can travel again!

Finally. Home.

Well, I'm back home now, and I'm so excited. My trip here was kind of sucky, but it was definitely worth sitting on an extremely packed bus for 12+ hours and not sleeping more than an hour at a time for a 48 hour period.

 
 

I've got a lot of stuff to accomplish, and right now, things are going kind of slow and not always the way I want them to, but that's life, I guess.

 
 

One of the very first things I wanted to do when I got back was to get my cell phone turned back on. I have Sprint, so when I deployed my first time, I called them up and had them put my numbers on the military suspension program. When I got back, I called them back and they gave me back my numbers, no problem. This time, however, they said that their system canceled my numbers and gave them away. So, I have to get new phone numbers. That sucks, because everybody I know has the old phone numbers, but I guess this might be a good thing because it's forcing me to change, and I'll be getting phone numbers for Ohio, where I'll be living for the next few years. I have to wait a few days before I get my new Blackberry though. (I'm really excited about that! Yeah, I know I'm a geek!)

 
 

Whenever we redeploy, the first seven days consist of a bunch of briefings and stuff so we can get our paperwork and medical stuff squared away. Most of it is death by Powerpoint, but the days are generally short, so it's not too bad. After that week, we should be able to go on leave shortly thereafter.

 
 

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I really have no clue what I'll be doing for it. Since I'm spending Christmas with Sean's folks, I get to plan what we do for Thanksgiving, but with the way things are, I don't know what's going on with my leave, so the decision will probably be made like the day before Thanksgiving, and I might have a super long drive ahead of me. Ugh.

 
 

Gas is really surprising to me now. The lowest price right now in my town is about $1.73. It's kind of hard to believe what I saw on the news when I was in Iraq about how expensive it got earlier this year. When I left last year, I think it was somewhere in the $2.50-$3.00 range. We've been driving Sean's car a lot lately, and I'm keeping my truck at a friend's house, because it's kind of a waste to drive separate vehicles all the time, but I'm really happy about these gas prices.

 
 

There have been a lot of changes in the past year…I went to the PX yesterday and I was going to go to Clothing and Sales that was right next to the PX, and the building was GONE! I'm gonna have to search for it today, I guess. It looks like they've completed some major road work in my area as well. One road, I know they've been working on for about the past three years or more, and now it's all nice and finished!

 
 

The weather is going through a pretty icky cold spell, I guess. It's snowing all over the place and it's absolutely freezing here. I really would have preferred to come home when it was a bit warmer, but oh well. I'm home, and that's all that really matters, I guess.

 
 

Ah, that reminds me of shopping! Last night, I went clothes shopping for a little while and got myself a pink peacoat at Gap. It's really pretty, and I'm really excited about wearing bright colors again. I'm probably going to end up buying a lot of sweaters too. I didn't shop for too long because Sean gets bored with it quickly.

 
 

I went to Wal-mart my first night back to pick up some necessities, and I got really overwhelmed by the selection. After reading this book, the way I look at making choices has changed dramatically. I was shopping for a new deodorant, and the selection was so vast, I ended up spending way too much time trying to pick out the best one for the best price. Luckily, I realized fairly quickly that the excessive amount of choice was eventually going to make me give up and leave without making a choice, so I just picked a deodorant that was good enough, and I'm a lot happier with that.

 
 

Well, I better get going because I'm getting distracted by other shiny objects, so I better get going. I'll be posting a lot more fun stuff now that I am back in the "real world!" I can't say enough how happy I am to finally be home!

Wannabe Extrovert

I'm a rather introverted and quiet person. Especially when I meet someone for the first time or if I don't know them very well. I'd much rather listen than speak. Someone asked me one time that if there was anything that I would change about myself if I could. I didn't have to think for very long. It wasn't anything like being skinny or pretty or anything like that. I would just want to be articulate.

It amazes me that I'm as interested in languages and people as much as I am because I am horrible at expressing myself. My mind works faster than my mouth or my pen, so I stumble on my words a lot and sometimes when I'm saying something, some kind of connection between my head and my mouth gets cut and then the word I'm about to say just doesn't want to come out of my mouth for some reason. Also, I have perpetual writer's block. If you have been reading this blog any, you can probably tell (yeah, I go on terrible tangents frequently as well).

I have been complemented about my writing style before, but I think my insecurities about speaking and writing really hurt me sometimes. I know this is something I must overcome somehow. Just how I'm supposed to do it is still a mystery to me, but I'm trying bit by bit to come up with ways to help get better at expressing my thoughts and emotions. How about these for ideas?

 
 

Ideas for breaking out of my shell:

Volunteer for charity or some kind of event

"People who volunteer are 42% more likely than people who don't to say they are very happy with their lives."

Read to children at a library (Reading is Fundamental!)

Force myself to write on this blog, no matter what it is or how crappy I feel it is.

Be more forward about meeting people and making friends.

 
 

After listening to the life stories of a lot of different people, I've decided that up until now at least, I've led a very sheltered and uneventful life. Sure, I've had good times and bad times like everybody else, but no matter how bad you think you've got it, there's somebody out there that has had it worse than you. I've been so very lucky to have had such a boring life.

A part of me wants to keep living this boring existence, but then another part of me wants to break away and live for adventure (whatever that is). Soon, I will begin to undergo a major lifestyle change. I am anticipating that change to be quite difficult at times, but at the same time I'm really expecting it to be quite liberating. Oh, I'm so excited! It'll be just like I'm reborn and I get to start all over again! Of course, I will be coming with some baggage, but who doesn't? Dealing with life's baggage is what makes life interesting, I think. I can never seem to fit it all into one neat and tiny container. Maybe that's why I like boxes so much. (Yeah, that's totally off topic, but I've been trying to pack my bags for the past couple days and I still have a bunch of crap that's not fitting in my bag as nicely as I would like.)

So I've decided that a major part of my new life is going to be spent working on trying to be more extroverted and adventurous. Maybe I should decide on religion as well…um…Religion'll have to be another posting. :)

 
 

Here's some touching quotes about change. Just the type of changes that I will soon be going through…

 
 

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  - Anatole France

 
 

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.  - Confucius

 
 

If you do not change the direction in which you are going, you will end up where you are headed.   - Confucius

 
 

 
 

 
 

Thoughts on the Election

So, Obama won the election. Good for him. I don't know how good it will be for the country, but we'll just have to wait and see. I would have said the same thing if McCain had won. I'm really not the political type, so it didn't really make much difference to me who won, although I did think that Obama would be the winner either way. As far as I can tell, that's pretty much how the presidency goes: switching back and forth between the two parties every two cycles or so. Four years isn't really long enough probably for the public to get sick of seeing your face on television, so they reelect you for a second term and then by the end of the second term, the people are sick of you and your party being in the hot seat, so they give the presidency to the other party and so on. Maybe that's why people think politics is so exciting, because it's so dynamic and volatile.

 
 

I just really hope things get better for the country, from what they've been. I know a lot of people will either blame or praise Obama for pulling troops out of Iraq, but I think a lot of the troops would be going home from Iraq soon anyway, despite who's president. However, without any big advancement in other sectors such as technology or industry after we go home, like things that happened around the ends of WWI and WWII, I think we will probably be in for a bit of recession or depression anyway.

 
 

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, right? Good luck, Mr. President.

그냥 Rambling

I don't really know what to write, but I'm going to write anyway and post this. I know it's being a little reckless, but I don't care.

 
 

Every time I think of writing a blog, I almost never know an exact topic, so most of my postings are ramblings like this one.

 
 

You know when you meet someone for the first time, and they just give you a bad feeling? There's this person that I know that has given me that feeling. This person has not spoken more than ten words to me I think, but from quietly observing their behavior towards other people, I can't help but wonder how these types of people survive in the world. Always disrespectful toward superiors and foul-mouthed. Also very confrontational. I'm not really one to judge people, but I just can't see a person like that succeeding in the world. Does this person even know how to smile or be thankful? I may never know.

 
 

Should I even post this? Maybe. Maybe not.

 
 

For the last few days, I really haven't had a lot to do…maybe it's been the last week…I don't know because my days seem to be running together. I keep promising myself that I'm not going to let myself be this dormant when I go home. I really hope I can keep that promise, because this is no way to live.

 
 

The weather is fairly nice now. A few days ago, it was cold and rainy, and I really wished it'd clear up. I really hope it stays this way.

 
 

Today is election day in the states. I voted. May the best candidate win. I am not a political person at all, in fact, I pretty much loathe anything to do with politics, but I feel that voting is pretty much a duty as a citizen and it must be done. And as a woman, my ancestors fought so hard for the right to vote that I feel that voting is an act of respect toward them. I do regret not being more educated about the candidates than I am, but from reading various news articles about the election, I figure I am probably a lot more informed about the candidates than a lot of people who don't even know who the current president is.

 
 

Well, I can't really think of anything else to write, so I guess I better post this before I get frustrated with it and just delete it.