Orientation at Kyung Hee

Have been having a fantastically good time the last few days. Had a little rough patch last Friday/Saturday when I was very tired, and started feeling like everybody found me annoying, which had its usual perverse consequence whereby I become quite annoying through trying too hard. Had a restup and a think and went back to my call-centre job plan of just trying to relax and focus on each conversation I had with anybody and make it pleasant. Also to stop thinking about social dynamics and how people are perceiving me so much, and be comfortable with being by myself some of the time. On Saturday we went to a Nanda performance (hard to explain: comic buffoonery with elements of tai kwon do and percussion done with cooking instruments, but very enjoyable). Then Saturday I came back to the university, Rosa had bought herself a baby guitar, we sat on the amphitheatre steps with my favourite people here and played. That night we got drunk on soju and beer and did noriban (karaoke), and it was one of the best nights I'd had here. Everybody kept saying it was the perfect group, which made me feel good, because I was feeling that, too. I think it was because all the hyper-extroverts stayed out. Since then the social thing has been fine - I feel very comfortable with my friends here, and there are other people I talk to outside that group whose company I enjoy, and I don't believe I have a bad relationship with anybody. I can't remember going through a process like this since high school - a great sorting-out of a social structure - and it has been fun when it's been going well, and a little stressful when it hasn't. But I think most people have been going through something similar, and it has sorted itself now, and I'm feeling happy both with my friends and with being by myself some of the time. So that's all good.

Had our medical checkup today - tomorrow we are off to visit a school in my province (Gyeongsangbuk-do), then going to a supposedly amazing amusement park, Everland.

Here are some pictures mostly stolen from facebook:

Noriban

Playing guitar on the stadium steps with Jun

Eddie, Jun, Sam? and me in our finery for opening ceremony. It was ridiculously hot for a suit that day and successive photos show me deteriorating and becoming cranky and exhausted, but I looked good here.

What pas
ses for a soccer field at a regional university in Korea; where we mostly hang out


The girls: Blair, Steph, Rosa, Naomi



What soju does to you - I am laughing hysterically because I am unable to make a star corner with my fingers. Very, very drunk.