Hello everyone!
Yep, I am still alive and mostly well ^^. It's been ages since I last wrote anything here (approaching 2 years, actually), although I've thought about doing this from time to time. So finally I'm sitting down and putting some fingertips to my keyboard. Guess what?! My 4-year anniversary just came and went this past week. By now I'm about 5 days into my 5th year. It seems like the past 4 years have flown by in the blink of an eye, but that's just how we perceive time, now isn't it? Even I were back in the States I imagine that I'd feel the same way, although that blink would have been filled more with you all and less with a bunch of Korean kids. Ha.
The past year and a half has been a pretty good stretch, although it's also had some of my lowest, most frustrating times as well. As some would say, it's through those lows, though, that we get to better appreciate the highs … or even just the regular times. And I think that my specific struggles helped me to put life and what I'd been doing in a better perspective, and they ultimately helped me to make some better choices. In both of those stretches I found myself really questioning why I'm doing what I'm doing and feeling like I wanted to just run away, but despite those impulses, I stuck it out, got some help from friends and family and here I still am. But I think that things are gonna change in the near future, although I can't say much about it yet. Hah.
I think that after having been here for 4 years now, some things are still the same, but other things have changed a bit. I think I feel increasingly confident talking with people in Korean, although I still have the trouble of not being able to express myself fully. The road to fluency is such a difficult one. As an English teacher here, I don't often (or at least often enough) appreciate how hard it is for the kids in my school to pick up a second language. Of course it's easier for them than it is for an adult like me because they're a bit more receptive to it and flexible, but still … wow. It's such an amazing process. Someday I hope to speak/understand Korean more fluently, but it will definitely take more time and effort than I've had to give until now.
A few (3, to be exact) months ago, I started using a new app on my phone. It was called TwoGrand, and the name recently switched to YouFood. The guys who made this app wanted to create something to help people be more aware of the way they treat their bodies — specifically with food and exercise in mind. Too many people try to rely on temporary diets or fads to control body weight/image, but maybe, just maybe, if we all thought more about the actual food/beverages we put into ourselves and the intentional exercise that we do each and every day, we might have a better read on how our bodies are working and why they are the way they are.
The app has a social networking aspect (and I have convinced a few friends to join it), but I primarily use it just for myself. For 3 months now, I've taken a picture/written about nearly everything that's entered my body (other than water … although there's a way to track the amount of water one drinks as well) and all the exercise-related activities that I've done. This app has been so great — not only because I feel more in control of how I think about/approach food [like just minutes ago … when I decided to not take a mint at the counter of the restaurant because a) I didn't need it, b) I didn't actually want it, and c) I didn't want to have to take a picture of it, although pre-app, I would have just eaten it without even giving it a second thought], but it has also given me more clues about how my body processes food (like the day I woke up with a really bad stomachache, and I was able to look at/pinpoint exactly what caused my distress). I highly recommend this app for anyone who's thinking about health stuff … or just wants to be a little more aware of her/his own habits.
Because of that app and wanting to be a little more active, I decided to start slack lining more intentionally this summer. A couple years ago, Josh sent me a slack line for my birthday, and I hadn't really used it too often until this year. Recently it's been really rainy (rainy season has begun), but before that, I was going to a little park near my school about 3 days a week to practice. This whole thing turned into a really cool experience because not only did I get to improve my own slack lining, but I also started to build relationships with some of the neighborhood kids really close to my home. There are about 2 dozen kids who cycle through that park during the week, and a bunch of them started to come back specifically during my times there so that they could walk the line with me. Ha. There is even one boy who's done it enough that he's gotten pretty good. He can now walk by himself without assistance. I was super impressed by his progress and dedication.
Alright. I think that's about it for now. This week is my summer vacation, so I'm pretty excited to have a week off and do some traveling around the country. So far I've planned to meet up with a few friends in a few different cities and even visit a big amusement park (for the first time!). I think it'll be a great time, but I just have to get to bed on time tonight because my first bus leaves at 7am tomorrow. ^^ I hope that this message finds you and yours healthy and happy, and as I said so many times before, please shoot me a reply when you have time to let me know about your lives. During this time away I've definitely missed a lot of things (birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, babies), but I appreciate all the effort others have put into keeping me informed and included as much as possible. I'd love to hear from you and/or even chat (on the phone or through a video chat).
Also, over here there's an app that's used by so many people. It's a communication/file sharing app called Kakao (Ka Cow) Talk. Over the years, it's expanded to include other apps that do slightly different things. One of them, Kakao Story, is like a Facebook wall on which one can post photos and videos and just make comments. I use this for a lot of things that I do here, and I've been trying to use it a little more regularly since last year (when I made the trip back to the States). If you want to see some things from my daily life (and the weekend trips/special things that I do), check it out here: https://story.kakao.com/benjaminrollie.
And if you're interested in that other app I mentioned (YouFood, formerly called TwoGrand), I still encourage you to check it out! Otherwise, you can also see my posts here: http://www.twogrand.com/food-journal/benjaminrgraves/2015-04-21. That was my first day using the app, and if you manually change the date in the address bar, you could see every single day from then until now. If you're curious to see just how much pizza I eat or see the woman that I dated for a couple months earlier this year, you can page through the posts to find those things and others ^^. haha.
Alright. Lots of love from Korea!
pfn,bg
ps- Happy Birthday Jacquline! My younger sister turned 21 today. Woo hoo~!
