Updates

It's been way too long since I blogged last. I guess things have just flown by rather quickly...

Here are just some random updates on my life and on developments in Korea:

1) I'm quite happy right now, having both a fulfilling career and a satisfying personal life. I'm blessed, quite frankly, and while the tendency would be to second-guess what's happening and maybe wonder when it's all going to end, I'm going to just take the "take it one day at a time" route instead. God's been good to me, and I'm very grateful.

2) With regard to work, I've started teaching an extra 8 hours a week. This takes my teaching load at Daewon to a grand total of 18 hours a week. I know a lot of ex-colleagues who'd kill for that kind of schedule, so I'm just happy to have the opportunity to do other things during the week;

3) With regard to my personal life, I've just come back from a great vacation in Thailand. I love that country, and honestly want to retire there in the future. I don't know if I'll be given the opportunity to do that, but it would make me happy if I could visit it at least once a year. I just have too many fond memories and good friends to ever really say "goodbye" to that place.

4) Love is good. :) I'm a rather secretive sort, so I'll leave it at that. But it is good. :)

5) The Korean High School Nationals are over, and we've already selected 21 kids who will be part of the national team training pool. All of the former national team members who participated (Seo Hee, Bo Kyeong and Suhyun) made it to the pool, so I'm happy for them. I'm also excited to coach some new blood. The tryouts promise to be very interesting...

That's it for now. Will post pictures soon.

Back from the World Schools Debating Championship

It's been a month since I've updated this blog, and the reason for that was the 2006 World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC) held in Cardiff, Wales, from July 5th to the 14th.

I spent the past month training the Korean national debate team, first in Thailand (for a week) and then the succeeding two weeks in Wales. This past week was merely my "detox" period, so my body could rest.

First of all, let me proudly announce that Korea is a Quarterfinalist at this year's WSDC, the first time it's ever achieved that distinction, and the first time, if I'm not mistaken, that an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) team has ever made it to that point in the tournament. Add to this the fact that we beat the no.1 seed, Pakistan, in the Octofinals (round of 16), which is the first time it's ever been done in WSDC history, and you have a very successful tournament indeed. The fact that one of the Korean debaters, Seo Hee, was named the No.1 EFL speaker was the icing on the cake.

I'm proud of all the team members this year (Bo Kyeong, Hye Won, Jihye, Seo Hee and Suhyun), and am also grateful to all the people who supported us and helped make it possible (Joshua, as team manager, Jiho and Jungwon as judges, and Bo Yun, Hoon Ik and Sang Jin as observers and valuable researchers). Thanks also goes to our middle-school observers, Christine and Jay, who flew all the way to the UK to witness our historic triumph.

I'd also like to publicly appreciate the tremendous help offered by our friends in Thailand, such as Amp, Billy, Praew, Tanya, Pat, Namwan, Rut, TJ, Sara, Nico, Sabiha, Peter, Suree, Saurabh and everyone else. Thanks to you, Team Korea had a very fruitful and enlightening practice week leading up to the WSDC. I'm truly grateful.

Lastly, to everyone from Korea who helped to support the team, in training and elsewhere, I'm also sincerely thankful. Thanks, especially, to Ah Young, Jumin, Jong Min and everyone else who went to trainings and helped the team learn, either by debating against the team, or providing valuable input and feedback.

Now that I've reached the end of this Oscar-like litany of thanks, I only have one more thing to say: British food is good, but Korean food is sooooooooooooo much better. ;) So, for that matter, is practically every other food in the world. =)

On life, love and food

Love is nothing more than having faith in something greater than yourself. For us to truly love anything or anyone, we must first find within us the strength to let go of our fears, and to embrace something we cannot yet see to the end of.

Will it always be good? Of course not. Will you ever get hurt? Naturally. That's the reason why love is so precious. It hurts us in ways we could never imagine, but still we hang on... because we realize how precious it really is. Besides, we only really live once. How sad would it be to grow old knowing that you had rejected the chance to be happy, just because you were afraid of being sad? Is the point of life simply the avoidance of all pain? Or is it to experience everything life could offer, good and bad?

The best analogy I could think of is rice. It's absolutely tasteless. No chance of ever getting food poisoning from it. No allergies, no rashes, no spices, no taste. It just is. And yet how many of us live for the day when we can eat only rice? Sure food can be spicy, sweet, sour, salty or anything and everything in between... but how much more joy is in our lives because we can eat the foods that truly excite us? And would we ever be foolish enough to give up eating something just because someone couldn't cook it right now and then?

I don't know about you, but I don't only want to eat rice for the rest of my life. I want to eat all the greatest foods in the world: beluga caviar, tom yam kung, kimchi, sushi, penang char kway teow, pate de foie gras, buffalo mozzarella with fresh tomatoes and olive oil, szechuan shrimps, etc. etc.

Life would seem so boring with nothing but rice.

Would you pay $1.2 million for this car?

So you wanna fly? Try the Bugatti Veyron, which goes so fast that they had to design it not to take off. For slightly more ($1 million) than your Average Joe Enzo, you can do what most people will never, ever get to do – which is generally the point of spending all that cash. In this case, the money goes toward owning the fastest passenger car ever built, a phenomenal exercise in engineering, perseverance and the great lengths a rich person will go in the ultimate game of one-upmanship. The engine, an 8.0-liter W16 (that’s two V8’s fused together) that has four turbochargers, gets 1,001 horsepower. It carries a dry sump lubrication system and a giant radiator so as to handle the amount of heat that comes from all that power, and burns about 1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute.

Frankly, that’s an obscene amount of excess.

Price: Around $1.2 million

Source: ESPN.com

Go Red Devils!

I went to City Hall in Seoul to watch the World Cup match between Korea and France this past Monday morning. It was amazing to see tens of thousands (a hundred thousand? more?) of Koreans just jammed in there, at 4 a.m., cheering their guts out for their team. When Park Ji-Sung scored the equalizer in the 81st minute, I swear there was an absolutely defeaning eruption from the people in the streets, no doubt mirrored in every public place and private home in all of Korea.

This led me to a few observations of the Korean people:

1) It's amazing just how patriotic Koreans can get. I have NEVER seen a more patriotic people in my life. Ever. And I've been to five different continents;

2) I was tremendously impressed with how Koreans clean up after their own mess. Right after the match was over, thousands of Koreans (plus yours truly) started picking up the trash/litter found on the street and putting them in plastic trash bags for easy collection by the city sanitation workers. I went to City Hall about an hour or two after the game, and it was spotless! Absolutely clean. Even cleaner than Manila City Hall without any celebration. Then again, that's Manila...;

3) Football is the perfect game to get a whole nation enthralled, and Koreans prove this. It's 90 minutes (or more), with very few goal-scoring opportunities... so it builds up anticipation like no other game. Anything can happen in the final minutes (or seconds), and because there are so few goals, when one is actually scored, it gives countries an excuse to go absolutely bananas. I never really appreciated football until I lived in Thailand... but I can now understand why people LOVE the game after living in Korea;

4) Koreans, in general, are quite orderly. No massive rioting (unless you're a farmer fighting the WTO =), no major need for tear gas from the police, etc., etc. Very large aggrupations of people are not at all frightening. I know if I were stuck in the middle of a band of cheering football fanatics from... England, for instance, I would be afraid. Very afraid; and

5) The color red absolutely fits the Korean people. No doubt about it. Red is the color of passion, fire, excitement, heated emotions, anger, shouting, etc. etc... It's what Koreans are all about. :) If there's one nation on earth I could be SURE would be passionate, it would be Korea. It's not always good, as many Koreans I've met have demonstrated when angered, but it does make for great cheering sessions. :)

So, for the first time in my life, let me say... "Go Red Devils!" =)

Starbucks more fattening than McDonald's?

This counts as something in the "interesting to know" department...

Who knew that Starbucks could be so fattening?

* * * * *

"A 20-ounce Venti banana mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream contains 720 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat, and a banana cream crunch bar weighs in at 630 calories and 25 grams of saturated fat. By comparison, a McDonald's Corp. Big Mac has 560 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat."

Source: Reuters

Last day of work!

This is my last official day of work for the term. :) I still have other work, of course, related to national team training, etc., but this is my last day with my formal employer for this term. I'm expected back on August 5th.

:)

I suppose this is going to be good for me because it will give me a chance to renew my batteries for the long haul. I never realized just how valuable vacation time really could be. I won't ever take it for granted again.

After today, all I want to do is spend quality time with friends and/or myself. I wonder if I should party tonight?

Hmmm... ;)

I'm tired...

I'm just tired. Mentally, physically, emotionally...

I need something to renew me. No matter how strong a person may or may not be, it is impossible to sustain energy for everything in life without having something to renew that energy.

I don't know where to look, but I hope I find that source of renewal soon. Otherwise I may just break.

I know it's funny that I'm saying this now, after such a good start to my day, but I guess I was just on a "sugar-high" that time... it's hard to sustain enthusiasm when the source of your energy is your own, finite well of emotions.

Maybe it's all the work I've been doing lately. Fulfilling as it may be to teach young people, it still takes a lot of emotional and physical energy. It takes a huge toll, really. And I would normally take my off-days as opportunities to rest and relax, but my off-days are when I train the national team, or do other work.

I think I will have to declare a moratorium on things that cause me grief... at least for a week or so. I just need the break before I crack under all the non-stop stress.

I'll reassess my life after, and see if I'm really heading down the path I want to head, or if the price I'm paying is worth the potential reward.

It's never too late to fulfill your dreams

This story was taken from www.inq7.net
http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=3&story_id=79207

San Francisco grandmother, 98, gets high school diploma
First posted 10:14am (Mla time) June 15, 2006 By Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO -- A diminutive grandmother donned a cap and gown on Wednesday and fulfilled a dream she had abandoned 80 years earlier -- she got her high school diploma.

"I felt like I had missed something," Josephine Belasco said when asked what inspired her to complete the schooling she began at Galileo High School when it opened in 1924.

"I thought, gee, if I could ever get that, I'd have a fruitful life," Belasco said.

Born in Calabria, Italy, in November of 1907, Belasco was 18 when she moved to San Francisco with her family.

She was one semester shy of graduating from Galileo when she dropped out to care for a severely ill sister and took a job with an insurance company to help support her family.
Her career as an accountant spanned 36 years. She married and became a mother, then a grandmother.

A grandson inspired her to go back to school and get her diploma, she said.

School officials still had her records on file, and arranged for her to earn an honorary diploma by completing tutoring sessions with Galileo students. The typical ages of high school graduates there are 17 or 18 years old.

Belasco held a white flower as she was escorted to her chair on stage during the high school graduation ceremony on Wednesday.

Her late-in-life accomplishment garnered nationwide attention, including a telephone call at home from late night television show host Jay Leno.

"I'm over the sun and the moon," Belasco said after getting her diploma. "I'm just stunned. I can't believe it mushroomed like this."

Life is good

When you wake up in the morning with a smile on your face, and you know that whatever you will face that day you will face gladly... you're having a good day. :)

I'm not usually one for bright, chirpy mornings... but then again I've been doing a lot of things lately that I wouldn't normally do. I guess that's just par for the course when you're having fun with life.

Thank you.

Sometimes it's good to admit you need people

I've always thought of myself as a loner. Even when I was young, I tended to keep to myself, opting to read books in my room or go on the internet instead of trying to socialize with friends and family.

Things changed a bit when I got to high school and college, where I discovered, in turn, debate and judo. I guess the combination of the two helped me to break through that tough facade I had been maintaining all those lonely years growing up.

However, a part of me never really changed. I never used to like asking for help, and I still don't. I somehow felt then, as I still do now, that being independent was a good thing, and that my problems were my own... not meant to be a bother to others, but rather an obstacle for me to overcome. After all, wasn't it Nietzsche who said, "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger..."?

But lately, I've started to realize that it's ok to ask for help. After all, even the greatest generals had their armies to lean on. Alexander the Great didn't conquer the known world with just his sword; Attila the Hun didn't get to the gates of Rome just because he was fearsome or, by all accounts, ugly. :)

No... they had their armies, and their trusted lieutenants. Few are the men and women so great that they can change the world all by themselves. Even Jesus Christ needed his apostles.

So as I get older, and painfully wiser, I suppose it's time for me to accept that I can't solve all my problems on my own. In fact, perhaps some of my problems stemmed from the fact that I kept wanting to solve my OTHER problems on my own. After all, you can't bandage your own back. If you're bleeding, you need someone else's help to stay alive. I'd just been leaning with my back against walls, trying to stem the flow. A stupid way to live, really. Not even physicians can heal themselves of everything.

So now that I know you're a part of my life, however that may play out, let me publicly acknowledge that I need you. I can't do everything on my own, least of all the things that matter most. If you'll be beside me, however, I think I can push away from that wall, and start to see the world the way I was meant to see it.

If you watch my back, I'll watch yours. Deal? :)

What price are your dreams worth?

I had a long talk last night with a very special friend, one of the best I've had in a long time. We basically covered a whole range of topics, but the one that stuck in my mind was related to dreams and money.

She told me that she was at a point in her life where she was faced with a quandary: should she pursue her dreams, the ones which she has had for over a decade, or should she instead try to find work and make the most money she could? The options are mutually exclusive, as she couldn't do both at the same time. On the one hand, she could pursue her passions, but with the knowledge that, before she became successful in her field, she would have to really "struggle" first. On the other hand, she could pursue some career in a field that she really hated, earning decent money, but never looking forward to the next day's work.

I told her it was no contest: she had to choose her dreams. I mean, what price are one's dreams really worth? Sure money is good, but only because it can help pay for the things that help make you really happy. If you give up being really happy to make money, of what use is it then? The opportunity cost of giving up something so sacred to who you are, something so special that you have been dreaming about it since the time you could really formulate adult-level dreams, is incredible. Unless you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, I just can't see the opportunity cost being paid, to be honest. In my case, millions of dollars wouldn't do it. That "hated" job would have to pay as well as what Bill Gates is worth for me to want to give up my dreams for it.

Of course, it's easy to say "follow your dreams" when you have enough money to feed yourself, pay for rent, and so on. And I realize that all human beings have to have their most basic needs fulfilled, but my friend can earn all she needs for her basic necessities without having to take those "hated" jobs. She can find enough money to survive, and to pursue that which makes her happiest in life. So it's not like she's going to starve or anything. She may have to give up buying expensive things, or shopping on a whim, but what price is that to pay compared to the alternative? At the end of one's life, one will never regret not buying another bag, or having spent less in a shopping spree... one WILL regret not giving one's dreams a chance to be realized.

I have a simple philosophy with regard to choices like these: when faced with a difficult decision, always choose the one you will LEAST regret when you die. It has served me well so far, and I'm sure my friend will realize that it is a philosophy that will help her be happier with her own life. After all, I want to see her, in 30 or 40 years time, being happy and content with the life that she has led. I want her to be able to hold her head up high and tell the world that she made her own decisions, based on her own dreams, and that, regardless of the mistakes she may have made, she was proud of the life she has led. I do NOT want her to say that she is a rich yet bitter woman who can afford to buy the most expensive things on earth... and yet finds that nothing she could ever buy could ever make her as happy as the dreams she had given up many, many years before.

Just remember, before you choose the path that leads to great wealth, to ask what that wealth is really for. If it is to buy you greater happiness, then isn't it counter-productive to give up what makes you most happy in life, just to be able to lead a life you hate with which you hope to be happy in the future? It really doesn't make any sense to me.

If a fisherman has already found a way to catch his dream fish, and it's right there, in front of him, would he then stop fishing and work in an office, just to buy a bigger fishing boat? I don't know about you, but since that ocean is so damn wide, I will take the opportunity NOW to catch that fish... instead of spending the rest of my life dreaming about "the one that got away."

Marriage is...

"...like a slumber party with your best friend. but all the time. :) "

- My dear friend Henny, who just recently got married

World Schools coming up...

Getting to the home stretch for national team training... About a month to go before the start of the World Schools Debating Championship. :) Can't wait to see how the kids will do against the best of the best.

Congratulations to Bo Kyeong, Hye Won, Jihye, Seo Hee and Suhyun for making it to the team!

Dinner was good, wasn't it?

Thin strips of prime beef, marinated in bulgogi sauce, lightly sauteed with olive oil, on a bed of stir-fried onions and garlic

and

Two kinds of mushrooms with broccoli and carrots in oyster sauce, garnished with spring onions, and seasoned with black pepper, oregano and basil leaves...

;)

Now THAT was a dinner to remember. :)

Re-evaluating...

I'm re-evaluating my life at the moment, and wondering if I'm making all the right decisions. I may have acted impetuously in some areas of my life, and I think I have to start being a bit more careful about my choices from now on. After all, I'm not getting any younger, and each new decision leads me further down a path I may not be able to come back from.

Normally I wouldn't care, as my life has been one long series of vignettes... of moving from place to place, city to city or even country to country, and discovering what life has to offer. At this stage, however, I'm starting to wonder if life hasn't already offered me the best deal I could get... and if perhaps I should start shouting "Deal!" instead of "No deal!" ;) (For those of you who didn't get that reference, you probably aren't fans of Howie Mandel either. :)

Hmmmm.... Deal? Or No Deal?

Money isn't everything

Big decisions have to be made soon... mostly involving my future and money. I'm being offered a job that pays very well, but which would entail me losing a lot of the freedom and independence I so cherish. I was tempted for a long while... but no longer. I've decided to turn it down.

Funny how giving up a lot of money can somehow make you seem so free. :)

I've built my whole life around the principle that money would never rule my world. I've even taken huge pay cuts just to get the jobs that would make me happy in the end. For the most part, I've been successful in finding situations where I can be both fulfilled and yet marginally "successful," at least monetarily. The key for me, however, is living a simple, almost spartan lifestyle. Once you have few wants and needs, you have much less need of money, and that helps broaden my options; it helps to set me free.

I'm not going to be poor or anything like that... I certainly appreciate many of the finer things in life. I just won't be given to stupid expenditures that can't be justified, especially now that I'm giving up that other job. What use is money to me anyway? It's not like I need much to be happy. :) I've got all I want in life already, with the exception of one thing. And THAT you can never buy with money...

I would weep, if I could

I would weep, if I could
For all the memories lost
Of a future now untold, unpassable
Now that you no longer tread the road
Beside me, in the dark, lonely night.

How sad is it that your presence
Is most greatly felt when you're gone,
And even the shadows seem more substantial
Than the hand I once felt holding my own?
And the most unrelenting sadness
Comes unbidden to my eyes
Even as they hide the tears I never cried
When I walked by your side
Down that road only you and I dared try.

I will never again have the chance
To tell you how much I love you
Or how much you helped me understand
That life is about more than hopes and dreams
And is, instead, a choice that we make
To stand and face the inchoate demons of doubt
That scream and rail and shout
Even as we write our own chapters with our own hands
And we taste the blood we spill as we bind them to our hearts.

My soul, forevermore, is altered
Without the calm, guiding softness of your smile
And the days that seemed bearable
In spite of the coldness of the nights
Seem no longer as warm, nor bright.
Help me, one last time, through the spirit that still
Inspires in me a yearning for the light,
To face the final steps of my own journey
To the eternal conclusion of my now lonely life.

*Dedicated to my good friend, Tarique, who lost his father. May his soul rest in peace... always.

Climbing my own mountains

Life has new beginnings all the time. Every day has a new sunrise, every new friend you meet has a smile, every new memory brings new emotions that can elicit laughter, tears and everything else in between.

The problem with life is that some people are often only willing to begin something they think will make them happy in the end. I just had a chat with a good friend about whether or not to love someone, even though the relationship is "doomed" to fail. I told him that, on a practical level, it would be better not to go into it if it was so serious, because the pain would almost be unbearable at the end.

However, I also feel that life is not about the missed opportunities, the blown chances, the lasting regrets that we will never be able to make right. Life is about risking, each and every day, what contentment we might already have... because how can we truly be content when we don't know if we've tested our own limits? How can we be content when the only valley we know is the one we've lived in all our lives? Some days, wouldn't it just be cool to go climb up that scary mountain that casts a shadow over us everyday?

That's what I'm doing right now: climbing my own mountains. I'm not sure what I may see on the other side, or even if there will BE another side... but I do know that staying put won't ever make me happy. Not if there's a chance, small as it may be, that there's a more beautiful place somewhere not too far away.

My friend and I eventually settled upon the ideal that life is too damn short to be wasted by NOT choosing to love someone. I told him to go for it, because life is not complete without at least one tragic love story. :) I should know... I've had my fair share. But, really, how many opportunities do we get in life to love the person we truly want to love? When the chance presents itself, you MUST take it. There's really no other way to act.

Someone once asked Sir Edmund Hillary, the great mountaineer who, along with Tenzing Norgay, was the first to scale Mt. Everest, why he climbed the mountain. His response?

"Because it was there."

And THAT is why, if you ever need to find me, you'll have to look up a bit, into the shadows of the great mountain. I'll be somewhere up there.

Rest in Peace

One of my best friends, Tarique Shakil, lost his father this past Friday.

It is a profoundly painful time for him, as well as for his family, and I wish them my sincerest condolences in this time of grief.

Salaam Alaiykum, Mr. Shakil.