I set this up as a means to keep everyone who cares up to date with my life in Korea. The world has come along way, when I went to Germany with the Army I wrote letters; when I went to New Guinea with the Peace Corps I wrote letters and sent emails; now I'm going to Korea and I have a sweet Blog. Sometimes progress is more than you could have hoped for.
My first task was to give this thing a name. Writing a blog in the first place seems a pretty vain act in and of itself, so I really didn't want a stupid name. Let me tell you it was a struggle, stupid names are pretty easy to come by. I've always thought my life broke up neatly into chapters: chapter 1, youth; chapter 2, (hell) Jr high/high school; chapter 3, Army; chapter 4, college; chapter 5, Peace Corps; chapter 6, (Hell part II) . So why not call the thing Chapter 7.
Considering nobody has been around for all the chapters: some people are coming in somewhere in the middle, others were there early but missed a few of the later chapters, etc... it seems fitting to use this first post as way to give a short summary of everything that has come before. Alright here we go; special mentions will be made along the way, if you don't get one don't fret I probably still think highly of you.
Chapter 1 Youth (The best chapter ever)
Some people say high school is the best time of your life, others say college, others marriage (obviously I don't know anything about that, but I have severe doubts; my life really hasn't been surrounded by many good marriages); I say being young was the best time of my life and probably always will be. Having your life peak in the 5th and 6th grade (age 11/12) might seem a little hard to deal with, being so young and unexperienced, but that in itself is probably part of the charm. I'm convinced that at the time I had a very real, other-worldly sense that my life was truly sailing along and would never get any better. Pretty self-aware don't you think? So why so great? Well it was the 70's (or at worst the very early 80's) and in my opinion the 70's were a pretty hip decade. Those of you who are younger please don't ever romanticize the 80's, lamest decade ever (more on that later). Also I come from a big family, five kids in all, and we were all together and there was always something to do: In the summer I played sports and looked forward to seeing my brother's friend coming down the drive way in his camaro blasting "another one bites the dust". In winter I wore moon boots and pretended I was on the moon. We had red shag carpet in one room and orange shag carpet in the next (what's not to like about that?) Obviously a special mention goes out to my brothers and sister. I apologize to my brother Matt for hitting him in the eye with a piece of plastic from an old kitty litter box one time and slapping him in the eye another time, each of which resulted in a hospital visit and I apologize to my brother Dan for knocking him out of a tree and putting him in a neck brace. Other than that I have no apologies and lots of found memories.
Chapter 2 Jr high/High school (the 80's years)
It's tough to go from one of your happiest times to one of you worst times and even worse when you have to do it at the age of 12. The whole idea behind Jr. high or middle school makes no sense to me, we need radical new solutions. As a teacher I hope upon hope I never get stuck in one of those places. I'm going to keep those memories repressed, like they should be. Instead I will give you my rant on the 80's. If you ever need someone to blame in life, try doing what I do and blame Ronald Reagan. Oh my, what a piece of abhorrence that guy was. Being a young teenager is bad enough, you'd hope you'd get a little help from, of all people, your president; but no, Oh No. What made the 80's such a lame time to grow up is how the powers-that-be seemed hell bent on making you afraid of everything, and let's remember, young teenagers can be impressionable. Let's look at the list: be afraid of World War III and the Russians (do I need to bring up the movie Red Dawn? "Come on Matty"; Swayze's first great role), be afraid of herpes, and AIDS (and of course sex), we'll tell you to be afraid of drugs and start a bogus war on drugs (seriously, it's been 25 years and nobody who wants drugs has any trouble finding them; I thought we were suppose to be good at fighting wars?), be afraid of music with dirty words (we'll solve that by putting a little sticker on the packaging, genius!). Look at what we got: sex, drugs, rock'n roll, and WWIII; I mean come on, I was a teenager! What did you want me to do? Of course this led many people of my generation to learn a very important lesson early on, never listen to old people.
Chapter 3 Army
What do you do when you are a dissatisfied, confused, uninspired recent high school graduate? Join the Army! Why in the world did that seem like a good idea? The short version of my Army experience is this, while in uniform it was kind of lame, out of uniform it was pretty fun. I'll leave it at that, most of those stories don't need to be told here. I will say this, I have never been in a fight, never even thought of being in a fight at any point in my life outside of the Army. That should tell you something about alcohol and something about the Army; avoid them both and your life will be just fine. I had a blast being in the Germany, my brother Matt was also in the Army and nearby and I met some crazy friends, some of the best friends I'll ever have (even though I have no idea where the are or what they're doing). My special mention goes out to them (except Condoosch, those feet still haunt me). You do learn some good lessons in the military: you're not special, whining and crying does no good, not having a choice can be a good thing (no matter how bad you feel or how little sleep you may have gotten, you can still pretty much do anything), etc... Believe it or not you also learn to be pretty lazy, that old saying "good enough for government work" is really true.
Chapter 4 College
Sometimes of course you don't learn lessons, I went from uninspired high schooler to uninspired Army guy, to uninspired college student. (you have to at least appreciate the symmetry) I found getting good grades pretty easy, appreciating the material was something I struggled with. All in all it was a fun time though; once again we'll skip most of the stories. Through my brother Matt (who got home from the Army before me) I met a new group of friends. During this time I probably spent too much time around Matt Geisler, who can however attest to how well I sing Bob Dylan's Tangled Up In Blue. On Geisler's behalf I will say we turned seemingly unimportant events into grand events. Anyone can have fun at a wedding, but we turned the two-days-before-a-wedding-tuxed0-pick-up into an unforgettable event. I think his wife eventually forgave me, it probably wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't pregnant. Of course having never been really good at planning my future, I finished college at a bit of a loss with what to do next.
Chapter 5 Peace Corps (With one of the lesser known countries of course)
Life is full of all kinds of decisions, good ones, bad ones, weird ones, etc... This has to go down as one of the best. First off I had a really good going away party. I'm going to change things up here and give the special mention early. My special mention here goes to my good friend Joey Rios (who, as you Spanish speakers know, was named after the famous Joe River). I did this early because, I have to admit, I was more than a little bit skeptical when I first met him). Before the Peace Corps actually ships you overseas, they fly you to some city for a couple of days in an attempt to talk you to death. My roommate during this time was of course, none other than Joey el Rios. Here I am, wore out from traveling and soundly sleeping when in walks Joey and his girlfriend (we were in San Francisco and Joey was from the area). So my first memories of him are trying to fake interest in meeting the girlfriend of some polo-shirt wearing, long ponytail-having, California-jacuzzi dude. It got much better from there; during our first week in New Guinea he asked me to rouse (cut off) the pony tail which really helped. It turns out we had a lot in common, we both had a real love of ceiling fans and we both could link an analogy to the movie Rocky with any meaningful event in life. Most importantly we both were absolutely fascinated by MTV Asia ("Say my name say my name", Oh My! and Chili is fine). We also make the world's best (we're talking restaurant quality) apple cinnamon pancakes (completely from scratch, I handle the pancakes he takes care of the apple-cinnamon topping). The Peace Corps also opens your eyes. I saw plenty of kids with extended stomachs and fly-infested open sores. I went to the funeral of a student who dropped over dead on her way home from school one day. Funerals there aren't like here either, we go to the village in our best clothes with rain crashing down all around, someone hands you a shovel and you start digging a grave. When done we grab this big basket made of woven palm leaves (containing the body), throw it in the grave and fill it back up. During all this, I'm of course sad and quietly freaking out, but everyone else seems quite different. I realize that someone falling over dead really isn't an uncommon event here. After that we all sit around and chew betal nut and I get the worst head rush of my life. The world isn't like America, if anyone's wondering. My Peace Corps experience even ended on an important note. Another truly important lesson was learned by Joey and I; some mountains aren't meant to be climbed.
Chapter 6 Nothing good can really be said
Before you get out of the Peace Corps they gather together everyone who's still around (in our group we lost roughly half) and tell you how to reenter the world. They tell you all about this reverse culture shock thing you're going to experience when you get back. At the time you're kind of excited about going home and don't really pay much attention to what's said. Of course it all turns out to be true, you get home and everything seems crazy. I ended up sitting around and becoming refascinated with TV. So this chapter didn't start out particularly well and sadly only took about 5 months to get worse. Unfortunately it stayed that way for quite awhile, two brothers dead in two years is tough to deal with. It's tough to think of any time or event as being completely bad, but I'll make the exception here.
Eventually I needed a job and, right at this time, St. Catherine's High School needed a teacher; a match made in heaven right? Well not really. I'll admit we were probably never a good fit, but that won't stop me from remembering the good times. We had a great Halloween party last year. Oh my! who knew how much fun it could be to bob for apples, let alone to have bobbing for apples relay races. A lot of people were really nice to me there; I feel like I have a whole new family now, my St. Cat's family. So of course one special mention goes out to all of you. I probably stayed too long, possibly should have left last year. Of course I would then have missed out on meeting some people and may have ended up in Las Vegas which seems like a really bad idea now. This time everything worked out in the end, I'm happy to be going to Korea. (This is of course my 4th continent, and I'm talking living there not vacationing. Let's also remember one of those continents is for most purposes uninhabitable)
A last special mention goes out to Ella, my new favorite person and to Jack, my new favorite fat guy.
Well that's it, everyone should be caught up now and ready for the Korea adventures. To review, there are some important lessons to be learned: being young is where it's at, don't listen to old people, don't join the Army, it's probably better to actually take something away from your college experience, don't hang around Matt Geisler, when in doubt join the Peace Corps (ask for the South Pacific; trust me, if you ask for it you'll get it), America really isn't where it's at, don't judge pony-tail wearing people by their covers, some mountains aren't meant to be climbed, if you think life is great just wait, and most importantly of all, blame Reagan for everything. I'm sure there are more but my brain is getting tired.
Hopefully you'll check back often and enjoy chapter 7. And if you enjoy this, just wait until we get to chapter 8, Retirement, it's going to be sweet.
