The Benefits and Bummers of Courtside 6th Floor

The weather is quite nice right now, and after sleeping with the windows open last night, I decided to reflect on the pluses and minuses of living courtyard-side on the sixth floor in my box-shaped apartment building.

Benefits:
a. Hidden from direct sunlight, resulting in cooler natural temperature (and lower electric
bill) during heated times.
b. Secluded from street noises (though the "rice cakes!" salesman's voice is still heard at 3am).
c. Situated above five floors; during the wintertime, heat from the lower floors rises, resulting
in warmer default temperature (and lower electric bill) during chilled times.
d. Hidden from street light.

Bummers:
a. Hidden from direct sunlight, resulting in vitamin D deficiency and moody mood within
apartment confines.
b. View of cream-colored walls and apartment windows across the gap.
c. During days of nice weather, fresh air polluted by cigarette smoke rising from smokers
below.
d. During nights of nice weather, quiet air polluted by noisy drunks and noisy lovers (last night
was ridiculous).

The DeBiking

The blue and grey "Lespo Sidewinder" seemed safe and sound, sitting beside the subway entrance whilst strapped to the bicycle rack. I gave it what turned out to be its last goodbye, through the spokes of the front wheel lacing the loop of the lock and latching it around the bar rack. Down from the subway I returned the next day.
Some ugly, old, slightly rusty piece-of-crap bike stood where my bike was supposed to be secured. I wondered, "Didn't I leave my bike right here?" Then I headed off to my Korean lesson, late, because some stinking kid or looney drunk had taken from me my mobility.

English-on-Korean (Caption) Action

Last weekend, before going to play some hockey (I hadn't played floor hockey since high school; lots of pain following the matches) I saw a boy, aged maybe 11 or 12, T-Shirt emblazoned across the chest with phrase: "The guns." On each side of the phrase were arrows directing the reader to the boy's arms, where his biceps muscles were supposed to rest.
Underneath the previously stated phrase was another: "The weapon." Below that a downward-pointing arrow beginning below the navel area...
I couldn't contain myself for a minute or two. I'm a foreigner, though, so I was allowed to show emotion in public, even if it was laughter and amusement.
Yesterday, at the bus stop, a woman about my age got off at the stop where I awaited my bus #7. Across her hat: "PIMP." I love it.

The Land of Morning Calm Leaves Me Restless

I am somewhat enjoying the ropes of classes now that Gena (the expert cook, amongst other areas of "expertise" including the music of Eminem and Steven King) is gone. A trip to Japan made me realise that fun exists out anywhere: you just need to find the means and proper company whose energy and ideas off which you can feed. Funny that I saw this more clearly while there, considering that Tokyo is so beautiful and full of energy and excitement, spotless, like a city from a futuristic cartoon.

As one concerned with the concept of time moving faster with every increase in one's age, I found the feeling of weeks/weekends blurring together disturbing. Always meeting for dinner followed by drinks in the bar, sitting there only listening to the talk because all I can think about is how I'm always just working and studying Korean and then always end up drinking and doing nothing (but drinking) on the weekends. Simply being a muse leaves me unamused. I need some inspiration to come alive, some spark that gives me drive.

I recently received a surprise email from a Minnesotan who I'd met during my previous year in Korea. He's back in Seoul. He'd left for the States last time, and I thought he'd be settling there. This is the guy who one night (at 5am) slithered like a snake across the floors of cars on the subway, his shirt changing from a light blue to light brown in the process, then proceeded to run up every "down" escalator upon his exit of the deep underground subway, screaming "Bulgogi!" (marinated beef) all the way. So maybe life will have a little more zing to it in the coming months.