K-K-Korea =)
Well well... I haven't posted since I left Ft Huachuca. That could be because I'm either lazy, boring, both, or neither. Ha Ha. I'll instead save you the trouble and simply say neither. I'm not really one to go on and on about myself or what I do every day, but here I have the graciousness of anonymity. Well, not so much any more. At first I was just going to let someone stumble across this, then I told my sister. From there, invariably, everyone that knows me shall find out who this is, eventually. That being said I shall go on at length. ^_^
Ah Korea, my home for the next two years. Already I've found it to be an interesting place and I've only been here for, going on, three months. The weather is eratic; one day it'll be sunny and low 70's, the next it'll be cool and windy, and still next it'll be snowing and frigid. It even sometimes decides to change mid-day. And this is just the winter weather. =] (I can't wait till summer.) And everywhere I go I get to feel like a giant. *evil grin* It was especially funny when I got lost in Yongseong. I was by myself, and figured, "I know where I'm going, I can get back to post by myself." I couldn't have been more wrong. I had taken a taxi to an area off of the main post and decided to walk back, but I didn't know exactly how to get back to post. I'm not so egotistitcal as to think that I know everything, so I asked directions back to post. The guy I was asking had a very odd accent. I would have sounded rude if I had asked him to repeat himself more than the two times I had already asked for, so I took off with a somewhat general understanding of where I had to go. That ended up with me walking aimlessly around a rather large city block. I think it is the most amusing thing in the world when one finally comes to the realization that they are in a foreign country. That being said, I was quite well aware of it when the only people I saw staring at me as I wandered, rather lost, through a Korean neighborhood. I took that as a learning experience. A chance to see the Korean people in their natural habitat, instead of transplanted onto an American Army base. I also got to see the neatest thing ever. A three foot tall door stuck in a wall facing out onto the street. That must've been for the Korean's that come in the extra small variety. XD After all of that, I, obviously, found my back to Yongseong Garison. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, now would I. ;)
I've also gotten back into the hobby that is the bane of my wallet, Magic the Gathering. I have been playing this game on and off for the past seven or eight years. During that time my collection of cards has expanded in very short bursts. For example, I probably spent about $50 getting my collection started by buying cards from my friends. When I started up again in college I spent approximately $400 on cards in the span of three months. Just a few months ago I probably spent about $500 in one sitting. Plus I spend a little more every time I go to a tournement. It's one of the few things I allow myself to spend money on. What prompted me to reopen this very brutal addiction was the fact that a couple of guys I work with play as well. Then I was informed that they hold tourneys at the CAC(community activity center) every sunday. I went to the first one and have been going as my work schedule permited. Unfortunately I was informed last week that the guy who devotes his time to come down to the Hump every sunday is liquidating his stocks and heading out, and the guy who organizes the tourneys, Chris, will only be holding them up in Yongseong. Fortunately I had the pleasure of talking with Chris at length, and I have learned when and where he will be holding the tourneys. Now I have an excuse to go to Yongseong every Saturday. He decided not to have them down here because of all the trouble he has to go through to get here, and get on post. It's a ten dolar round trip bus ticket, plus whatever I have to spend to enter into the tourney. All I have to say is it's a better habit to have than drinking. I can't die from playing cards. -_^
Then there's work. >_< As much as I would like to go on and on about all of the neat stuff I get to do on a daily basis, I can't. I can however talk about the guys that work there. *devilish laugh* For the most part I really enjoy working with the people in my section. There are only a couple of people that just don't sit well with me. Two are complete idiots, and the third's personality clashes with mine in every way. I don't say that they are idiots from just my observations, well their actions speak for themselves. The first one, SPC Whiteaker, has a similar name to our shop NCOIC(Non-comissioned officer in charge), MSG(Master Sargent for all you non-army folks) Whittaker. So, in a glorious display of stupidity, SPC Whiteaker makes the comment that his and MSG's names are similar, and goes on to say that that might be because his great grandfather owned slaves. That's not terribly funny by itself, but when you add in to that the fact that MSG Whittaker is a black man it becomes hilarous. There's another incident that I can think of off the top of my head, but that involves sensitive information, so I can't really tell it. Sufice to say it was a shining example of stupid. The other, PFC Orona, is just generally retarded. We ask him to do something, and he stares at us for a few minutes. After that he goes off and does his own thing for another few minutes, then we give him another instruction and he stares at us some more. Sometime later he may have done what we asked, or he'll tell us that he didn't know he needed to do something when it was painfully obvious it was part of the task that we, we being anyone in the shop more senior than him, assigned him to. The third, PFC Coe, just sort of grates on my nerves. Fortunately, I don't have to work with him on a regular basis. =D For the most part though I love my job.
On top of that all I still get to deal with my family. Until recently that has been a somewhat sore subject for me. See, I pretty much resented my family. I thought they were to blame for the problems I had prior to joining the service, and so I had a bad habbit of not talking to them on a regular basis. When I did, however, my mom and I would fight. Well, I sorta pushed her over the edge, and she came back and slapped me across the face in written form. Trust me when I say that reading the email she sent me caused me to physically recoil. After that I took the time to evaluate my actions of late, as well as my past actions. I came to the conclusion that I was, as my mother had suggested, an insensitive, self centered, prick. So, armed with that knowledge, I set out to try and fix that about myself. I haven't seen anyone that used to know me before that email since then, so I have nothing to really gauge my progress against.
Whew, alot of stuff there. In closing I would like to add that I am on my computer starting at about 1700-1730 EST and at about 0200-0700 EST on working days, and 1700-0800 EST on off days depending on what I need to do. So feel free to drop me a line on IM, I'll start putting up away messages corresponding to what type of day it is. Oh, Korean candy sucks =/, and yea for the null looking mood guys. =)
Ah Korea, my home for the next two years. Already I've found it to be an interesting place and I've only been here for, going on, three months. The weather is eratic; one day it'll be sunny and low 70's, the next it'll be cool and windy, and still next it'll be snowing and frigid. It even sometimes decides to change mid-day. And this is just the winter weather. =] (I can't wait till summer.) And everywhere I go I get to feel like a giant. *evil grin* It was especially funny when I got lost in Yongseong. I was by myself, and figured, "I know where I'm going, I can get back to post by myself." I couldn't have been more wrong. I had taken a taxi to an area off of the main post and decided to walk back, but I didn't know exactly how to get back to post. I'm not so egotistitcal as to think that I know everything, so I asked directions back to post. The guy I was asking had a very odd accent. I would have sounded rude if I had asked him to repeat himself more than the two times I had already asked for, so I took off with a somewhat general understanding of where I had to go. That ended up with me walking aimlessly around a rather large city block. I think it is the most amusing thing in the world when one finally comes to the realization that they are in a foreign country. That being said, I was quite well aware of it when the only people I saw staring at me as I wandered, rather lost, through a Korean neighborhood. I took that as a learning experience. A chance to see the Korean people in their natural habitat, instead of transplanted onto an American Army base. I also got to see the neatest thing ever. A three foot tall door stuck in a wall facing out onto the street. That must've been for the Korean's that come in the extra small variety. XD After all of that, I, obviously, found my back to Yongseong Garison. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, now would I. ;)
I've also gotten back into the hobby that is the bane of my wallet, Magic the Gathering. I have been playing this game on and off for the past seven or eight years. During that time my collection of cards has expanded in very short bursts. For example, I probably spent about $50 getting my collection started by buying cards from my friends. When I started up again in college I spent approximately $400 on cards in the span of three months. Just a few months ago I probably spent about $500 in one sitting. Plus I spend a little more every time I go to a tournement. It's one of the few things I allow myself to spend money on. What prompted me to reopen this very brutal addiction was the fact that a couple of guys I work with play as well. Then I was informed that they hold tourneys at the CAC(community activity center) every sunday. I went to the first one and have been going as my work schedule permited. Unfortunately I was informed last week that the guy who devotes his time to come down to the Hump every sunday is liquidating his stocks and heading out, and the guy who organizes the tourneys, Chris, will only be holding them up in Yongseong. Fortunately I had the pleasure of talking with Chris at length, and I have learned when and where he will be holding the tourneys. Now I have an excuse to go to Yongseong every Saturday. He decided not to have them down here because of all the trouble he has to go through to get here, and get on post. It's a ten dolar round trip bus ticket, plus whatever I have to spend to enter into the tourney. All I have to say is it's a better habit to have than drinking. I can't die from playing cards. -_^
Then there's work. >_< As much as I would like to go on and on about all of the neat stuff I get to do on a daily basis, I can't. I can however talk about the guys that work there. *devilish laugh* For the most part I really enjoy working with the people in my section. There are only a couple of people that just don't sit well with me. Two are complete idiots, and the third's personality clashes with mine in every way. I don't say that they are idiots from just my observations, well their actions speak for themselves. The first one, SPC Whiteaker, has a similar name to our shop NCOIC(Non-comissioned officer in charge), MSG(Master Sargent for all you non-army folks) Whittaker. So, in a glorious display of stupidity, SPC Whiteaker makes the comment that his and MSG's names are similar, and goes on to say that that might be because his great grandfather owned slaves. That's not terribly funny by itself, but when you add in to that the fact that MSG Whittaker is a black man it becomes hilarous. There's another incident that I can think of off the top of my head, but that involves sensitive information, so I can't really tell it. Sufice to say it was a shining example of stupid. The other, PFC Orona, is just generally retarded. We ask him to do something, and he stares at us for a few minutes. After that he goes off and does his own thing for another few minutes, then we give him another instruction and he stares at us some more. Sometime later he may have done what we asked, or he'll tell us that he didn't know he needed to do something when it was painfully obvious it was part of the task that we, we being anyone in the shop more senior than him, assigned him to. The third, PFC Coe, just sort of grates on my nerves. Fortunately, I don't have to work with him on a regular basis. =D For the most part though I love my job.
On top of that all I still get to deal with my family. Until recently that has been a somewhat sore subject for me. See, I pretty much resented my family. I thought they were to blame for the problems I had prior to joining the service, and so I had a bad habbit of not talking to them on a regular basis. When I did, however, my mom and I would fight. Well, I sorta pushed her over the edge, and she came back and slapped me across the face in written form. Trust me when I say that reading the email she sent me caused me to physically recoil. After that I took the time to evaluate my actions of late, as well as my past actions. I came to the conclusion that I was, as my mother had suggested, an insensitive, self centered, prick. So, armed with that knowledge, I set out to try and fix that about myself. I haven't seen anyone that used to know me before that email since then, so I have nothing to really gauge my progress against.
Whew, alot of stuff there. In closing I would like to add that I am on my computer starting at about 1700-1730 EST and at about 0200-0700 EST on working days, and 1700-0800 EST on off days depending on what I need to do. So feel free to drop me a line on IM, I'll start putting up away messages corresponding to what type of day it is. Oh, Korean candy sucks =/, and yea for the null looking mood guys. =)