The Invitation

this post is an email that i received today (subject: The Invitation) from an old friend, one whom i haven't spoken with in some time. it stirred up a little spark in my heart and i think it's worth sharing. enjoy.

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A good traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving – Lao Tzu, The Way of Life

Ok Aimee, I hope that this doesn’t sound too crazy, and that you’ll make it painlessly all the way through...

None of us needs to work a 9-5 to survive. We think we are making a living, and maybe at times we are making a killing, but through it all we are slowly dying, just like everyone else. There is a vicious cycle being perpetuated here that is caused by, as Jack Kerouac said in The Dharma Bums, ‘the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming all that crap they didn’t really want…general junk you always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of [it] impersonal in a system of work, produce, consume’. In the book Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, we are reminded that ‘the things you own end up owning you’. I am proud to say that as far as I know, there is nothing that I own that I could not part with tomorrow if necessary. I am ashamed to say that 11 years ago, I listened to the words of the song ‘Time’ by Pink Floyd, and told myself that that would never be me; that I was young, independent, and going to seize the day; I wouldn’t miss the ‘starting gun’.

I know that I do not ‘need’ a job, do not ‘need’ a car, do not ‘need’ an apartment, television, computer, cellular telephone, new clothes, new shoes, stereo, iPod. I have come to the stark realization that the only reason that I ‘need’ to work is to pay off a rather large student loan debt. I have also realized that as much as it is a burden, that debt is also a security blanket. I can hide behind that debt, use it as an excuse for why I can’t do the things that I really want to do; say that the only reason I’m still living in this material world full of creature comforts is because I am bound by that debt to a job, and as long as I have to be here working, I may as well enjoy it, right? The truth is, I haven’t been very diligent in saving money, or very disciplined in putting my ‘extra’ money into paying down that debt. So I chip away at the edges of it, and it continues to hang over my head like a dark, ominous cloud; it is my ball and chain that confines me to the world of consumerism. The reality is, I can still see the world around me without shirking my responsibility to repay that debt. With a bit of effort, self-discipline, and saving, I can set up a bank account to automatically make my payments each month for a relatively long period of time. While I travel, I can work here and there to support myself; work for food and lodging when necessary, work for money to re-up the account here and there.

So my goal has long been to travel – to see as much of the world as I can before I die. In May of 1997 I traveled to Panama with the Marine Corps for some jungle operations training. It was my first time abroad, and the lush, tropical rainforests of Panama blew my 19-year-old mind away. I spent three months there, during which time I also went to Punta Arenas, Chile for some cold weather training. Despite my extreme dislike for the cold, I saw some breathtaking natural beauty that made quite an impression on me. Since that time, I have traveled outside of the country on exactly three occasions: [...] And I cannot even give an approximation of the thousands of dollars I’ve spent and wasted since my first paycheck from Burger King back in December of 1994.

The dream that I had was to travel the world, but somehow I let myself be led astray by so many other things. I put my dreams on hold to pursue less meaningful ventures. I understand that this is my dream, that those were my mistakes, and that none of this may apply to you. I do not want anyone to go boldly in the direction of MY dreams; I want you to go where your heart guides you, to follow your own dreams – TODAY! But if any of this sounds familiar or appealing, I urge you to strongly consider joining me. Drop what you’re doing (unless you're still cruising around southeast Asia). I have too often told people that I was going to ‘live vicariously’ through them as they went gallivanting across the globe to exotic destinations for varying periods of time. No longer. I have too often looked at a map and said, ‘someday’. No longer. I continue to see my friends swallowed up by jobs, girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, children, houses, and more, and it worries me that nobody has the balls or ovaries to break themselves free. My favorite quote is from Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’:

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;

None but ourselves can free our minds.

Yet even I was subject to my own mental slavery until about 3pm on Monday, December 21, 2009. I think I finally have my priorities crooked. I suppose it still looks as though I’m putting my dreams on hold, not leaving until the end of next year; but I’m now actively working toward that dream.

This journey is something that I have to do for myself. It is not an escape as I am not running away from my problems or responsibilities; I am eliminating the source of many problems, and finally embracing and accepting a responsibility to myself. It is not a self-righteous mission to ‘save’ anyone from anything; while it is very likely that I will work to help others along the way, it will be for humanitarian or even selfish reasons, not because it is the moral high ground and something to show off to others later. There will be no agenda, no itinerary, no end date, no time that I will be required to be anyplace; as Ziggy Marley so astutely pointed out in ‘Dragonfly’:

Everybody’s worried about time, but I just keep that shit off my mind.

People livin’ on 24-hour clocks, but we’re on a ride that never stops.

If at this point, you are feeling pretty good about this idea, by all means, read on…

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and that's all i'll include. the way i see it, if you're not living your dreams right now, you're probably cheating yourself. go for it. :)

elephant gun

i'm snowed in! ...well, not really, but it did snow most of yesterday. so i learned another song on the uke this morning. beirut is one of my favorite bands these days, and they rock the ukulele.

*turn down the volume first

thanks to my friend, allen's suggestion, i think i'll go get some new strings (good ones) for the uke this week... today, though, i'm just not up for facing the mobs on the subway, not to mention the cold. but here's hoping that rosie sounds better w/ new strings. :)

holidaze

just a random jumble of photos from this holiday season. =)

xmastime

for christmas eve, i went out on the town w/ my girl, smilja. first we went to a little christmas recital shindig, which was also a fundraiser/toy drive for an orphanage. we sipped our drinks (i tried the mulled wine) and listened to an array of holiday readings, ranging from "how the grinch stole christmas", to a story about a turkey-cooking folly, from bible passages, to a piece about a screaming potato pancake (latke). after that, we wanted to dance, so we set off for our 2 favorite hongdae spots. the fun lasted until about 7am when we hopped the subway en route to my place to crash.

yesterday was christmas and some friends came over to my place for brunch. it was a nice, warm time... comfort food, good people, xmas tunes, card games, korean cocktails, and then a nice nap. i finished the night w/ some wine and a movie. lazy goodness.

so, it is now the day after christmas, and i'm ever so peaceful. i'm actually glad that i decided not fly off to somewhere warm for my vacation. sleeping in, making food, reading, playing the uke, watching movies, doing yoga.... this is nice. however, i'm sure that after another day or two of this laziness, i'll get restless and go out exploring the city once again. today, however, i never changed out of my pajamas. i decided to look up the chords to a few new songs for the uke and this is one that i started with today. the sound of silence. i love me some simon and garfunkel. hope you can find it bearable. (turn down the volume, and please forgive the zipple ;)

sweet honesty

meet karen c. she's the first to come into class each morning. after she hangs up her coat and backpack, she takes her seat and then we usually just chat for 5-10 minutes before the rest of the kids start rolling in. she tells me how she's feeling, or something funny her brother did the day before, and then i tell her how i'm feeling and something funny i thought of, etc. karen c. is full of character. a big jokester, always making funny faces and voices. she's smart....does her work super fast so that she can get some free time to read or draw or do origami. she loves to make everyone laugh, but absolutely cannot stand it if someone picks on her even the least bit. everyone seems to piss her off, someway or somehow, and i always catch her arguing w/ the other students in korean. she's sensitive, i guess and she's all about revenge. so i've been riding her all year about being nice...don't let them get to you.....just be nice to everyone and they will be nice to you... and...being mean to someone won't make them be nice to you, etc, etc. yesterday, before i left them alone for playtime, i asked karen c. to promise me that she would be nice and not fight w/ anyone. and she just looked at me w/ a painful face and refused my pinky swear. she said that she couldn't promise that.... because david always makes her so, so mad. haha. so i just told her to do her best and kill him w/ kindness.


today she gave me a note, wrapped in sparkly pink paper that said, to: Miss from: Karen C. [heart] on the outside. she told me it was a secret and not to read it in the classroom or to show it to the other students. this is her little note. she's too cute.

kids, man. <3


(if you can't read it, it says: "I'm very sorry to so not being good in dram[a] class. I want to being good but I can't because I don't know how, so in Orion class too, and my best teacher or friend is you Miss Aimee teacher. And also I want to be a good gril. I will love you ever. love, Karen C.")

all i want

one of my favorite joni mitchell tunes... i'm just learning it, so it's really rough. but it's all about the process, right? (for your own good, turn the volume down)

never ever saw the northern lights

learning a coupla new songs.. ;P (warning: turn the volume down)

...every man returns to dust.

SMiLE!

i sure did when i was offered this piece of chocolate. :) :) :)

night life

whenever i go out on the weekends, i've pretty much narrowed down where i like to go. hongdae, surrounding the art uni, is my favorite part of seoul. there are a gazillion places there to get your groove on or whatever you'd have in mind for a night on the town, but there are these 2 places where i've never not had an amazing time: the reggae bar & club obeg. they are both a refuge for freedom of expression and creativity. beautiful, conscientious people, great music, and killer ambiance. yesssss. :)

+++club obeg/500+++

+++redemption [Re] reggae bar+++

walking in a winter wonderland

...well, not quite. but it snowed! =)

i told myself after the last hike in the bitter cold that i was done for the winter. i just can't hack the wind chill factor, or would rather choose not to. BUT, my friend and hiking trip organizer, warren g, put together a trip way down south to wolchusan national park. i checked out the photos and saw an amazing suspension bridge that stretched between two peaks, and the rock formations in the park also looked pretty sweet. i signed up immediately. and glad that i did.



it was another hike that began on zero sleep at 5:00 in the morning, right after a long and uncomfortable bus ride. that's one way to wake up. brrrrrrrrrr! we charged for the peak to catch the sunrise, crossing the suspension bridge along the way. the sun was starting to rise before we reached the highest peak, so we climbed up on top of a big steeple-like rock to enjoy. as soon as i pulled myself up onto the rock, snow flurries started to swirl up toward my face. the sun was rising through the thick fog behind the peaks in the distance, creating a heavenly glow all around, while the snowflakes danced across the landscape. i can't imagine a better way to experience the first snow of winter, and the first snow i've seen in years.



the remainder of the hike was a bit extreme, regarding weather. winding around and up and down the rocky terrain, we battled ferocious winds, sporadic white-outs and even miniature hail. at times we frolicked and times we just trudged on. but for the last stretch, through pampas grass and pines and back down among the streams, we galloped like antelope until we reached the grand temple at the end. a great time. and for once i was able to sleep on the bus on the way back. hello winter!

cabin fever; giving thanks

this time of year, i always think of family, and how nice it would be to spend the holidays with them. in reality, though, with the places my life has taken me over the last decade, i'm away from home far more often than not. however, this doesn't, by any means, imply that i spend the holidays just sulking around the house. i love these festive months and i do my best to enjoy them to the fullest. thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday (halloween is a close 2nd)...and certainly not because i'm so proud of my ancestors butting in and taking over what wasn't theirs.....but because it is a time spent w/ loved ones, a day of relaxation and indulgence, a day to give thanks for all that we've been blessed with in our lives, sharing of food and stories, etc. i feel like on this day, everyone is in my usual mood & it makes me just ooze w/ love.

i've had some pretty amazing thanks-givings to date (playing a contemporary version of hide & go seek with walkie talkies in columbus, ohio and, of course, jess' birthday bash at the manoa cottage in hawaii comes to mind) but this year was right up there w/ the best of them. a big group of friends and i rented both a small cottage and a huge cabin just outside of the city. all the ingredients for a great time were in tact: good friends (old and new), heaps of delicious food, good beer (and bad beer), egg nog, rum, wine, stringed instruments, drinking games, karaoke room, fireplace, etc, etc. no football or macy's parade on the telly but, personally, i don't give a crap about that (no offense). i ate, drank and sang my face off.

the meal that we all, so lovingly, cooked up was off the hook...and all veg! there was so much food that we had to do 3 rounds, with lots of drinking and other frivolous acts in between.




this was the menu:






first course~ spicy pumpkin chili, garden salad deluxe, spanokopita, devilled eggs and cheese.


second course~ chickpea-seitan sausages, mashed potatoes, walnut-apple stuffing, mushroom gravy, sweet corn, roasted root vegetables, baked beans and persimmon-cranberry sauce.


third course (which didn't happen until the next morning)~pumpkin pie from scratch, homemade cookies, fruit and fair trade haitian bleu coffee.

there is a shortage of photos, but that's a sign of an unbelievable. good. time. :) i love you all and wish you a warm and happy holiday season.

my toaster oven did this

roasted radishes with garlic, rosemary and olive oil (like potatoes, but better). ....AND pumpkin mini-muffins (vegan). success.

Hiking Jirisan

i went on another hiking trip outside of seoul last weekend. it's almost too cold for the likes of me, so i figured i might as well do at least one more good mountain before it's unbearable. jirisan happens to be one of the three most notable mountains in korea (the others being seoraksan, done that, and hallasan, which is on jeju island).
we left seoul before midnight and made it in time to start hiking in the dark, just before 5am. we caught a nice sunrise en route to the peak, and then it was a long, knee-jarring descent, but we made it back in time for a late lunch. unfortunately, the fall colors were past their prime, but it was a great hike w/ a sweet group of folks. we were pretty beat by the end, but a little soju and makgeoli took care of that. ;)


before heading back to seoul, we made a little cultural detour for some traditional music, and we also got to make our own jjango drums! we probably looked pretty ridiculous when we got back, though... about 40 foreigners w/ little toy drums walking the streets of seoul at night. haha. bap, bap!

harvest; tuber time

it's been mighty nippy outside these days. well, it's actually been o.k. this past week... you know, mild autumn weather.. a nice sweater and a thin jacket.. maybe a scarf. but there were a couple of days that were just FREEZING. and i thought i was gonna die. anyway, we decided we should head out to the garden one last time to harvest what was left; what survived the freeze anyway.
daylight is growing shorter w/ each day, so we had to book it to the garden on our bikes straight after school. we knew that we'd only have a couple of hours, at most, before dark. when we got there, it was a bit sad. it was obvious that the gardening season was over. folks were harvesting their cabbage to make enough kimchi to last god knows how long and they wouldn't be planting anything else. our little garden was barely hanging on. all of the basil was dead; wet, brown drooping leaves. we were just a couple of days late. so we started uprooting all the tubers (beets, radishes and carrots) and harvesting huge piles of herbs and greens. getting it all home on our bikes was a bit of a challenge but we made it.
so then i had all that stuff to deal w/. just washing it all took forever. now i have enough greens to have huge, amazing salads for dinner this week. as for the other stuff, i found some good recipes for daikon radish and beets and i set aside one whole evening for that magic. the outcome was daikon kimchi, do chua (vietnamese pickled vegetables) and, my new favorite, daikon cakes. YUM. as for the other stuff, the herbs are drying & i'm gonna make some herbed radish butter and i'll roast some of the beets (but i mostly like them fresh on salads). damn, having a garden has been good. :)

rainy halloween

well, halloween has come and gone and i'm trying to remember what actually happened. ...not that i had such a wild night that i blacked out or anything, but just that it was pretty uneventful. oh, yes, now i remember. so, i initially had big plans of dressing up and biking around to different pubs and/or attend a friend's party, and also to participate in a big halloween scavenger hunt around seoul. but...it RAINED. all day. looking back, i can't believe i let the weather take control of my halloween fun like that, but it happened. so be it.i did make it out on halloween night, tho. joined some friends at a music festival where we had some drinks, caught some mediocre high school garage band style music, and we saw some pretty decent costumes. the highlight, tho, just might be the falafel that i had at the end of the night. ;)

actually, the best thing about this halloween was definitely the party we had at my school. i actually got to plan it & it was a lot of fun. the whole school was decorated, all the kids dressed up for the costume parade, we had a pumpkin carving contest, trick-or-treating, a halloween movie and, best of all, a haunted house. the haunted house was in the gym, which is down in the basement. we fixed it up like a spooky obstacle course: a scary soundtrack playing, ghosts and spider webs to walk through, tunnels to crawl through, and a "witch's kitchen" where the witch (one of the teachers) was brewing up some eyeballs and worms (the classic peeled grapes and noodles). we also made a sweet coffin out of cardboard, tape and spray paint that one of the teachers laid in and grabbed people as they went by. the kids were a little bit scared (they ARE preschool & kindergarteners), but it ended up being their favorite part of the day. halloween...luv this holiday.

oh, the simple things

as much as i like to get out and see & do exciting stuff, i still get the most pleasure out of the most simple of things. like this bowl of oatmeal ...and the fact that i got to sleep until my body wanted to wake up before i made it ...and that it was accompanied by a very black cup of coffee. heck, i'm just ecstatic that my neck doesn't hurt anymore. i've never been so excited to do nothing with my weekend. this body of mine deserves some rest and goodness. =)

orion class learns a new song

i take rosie, the ukulele, to school all the time & my kids love to learn new & not-so-traditional songs (like "hotel california" & george michael's "faith"). i try to teach them the more appropriate ones and so far they know "somewhere over the rainbow", coldplay's "yellow" and now we're learning "stand by me". the video quality is pretty bad, but here's a short clip. the best thing about it is that we catch david picking his nose. hehe.

corn makgeoli? what more could a cultured ohio girl want?

last weekend: another bus trip to the korean countryside. mindungsan in october. picture steep mountains covered w/ waves of dancing reeds, clouded in the morning fog. magical, mystical, and miserably cold. the other side of the mountain was shrouded in pines and colorful deciduous trees. oh so fresh & invigorating. i love the feeling of having moved through nature's calm for 6+ hours before lunchtime.
which reminds me ... lunchtime was, perhaps, the most satisfying bibimbap that i've ever had. oodles of bottomless side dishes, as usual, including fresh grilled tofu & veggies galore. it was here that the makgeoli (milky rice wine) started to flow & did not cease for the remainder of the trip.
after lunch, we scattered out in the old town of jeongseon. i fell in love with this place, set in a peaceful valley, gorgeous mountains all around, shining in their gold coat of dried reeds. we spent hours wandering through the lively open-air market & sharing food, drinks and dance moves with the locals in the market square. this town is known for their performance of arirang, which is one of the most popular korean folk songs. we caught a performance just as we arrived, and it was nothing less than a celebration. i've never seen so many smile wrinkles & i probably developed some of my own just from the few hours i was there. we danced and danced, and we drew quite a crowd. people kept bringing us bottle after bottle of the local corn makgeoli and trays of food, which would have been just plain rude to refuse. so, we indulged the crowd as we indulged ourselves. what fun! ....and the bus eventually dragged us back to seoul.