Happy Easter

A better blogger (of which Beater Becker bicked) would have had something to say at regular intervals throughout the last number of months; I'm often torn between not wanting to list inane details and apathy, which keeps me pretty far from the keyboard. But of late things have been really getting into a good stride, and not wanting to write eight essentially identical update letters to my close friends and family, here I go.

Noelle is in Iksan tonight. I've got her computer at my place. This last couple of weeks, issues warranting serious discussion have been popping up, as I imagine happens in any engagement. Like a lot of couples, we perceive the individual and his/her responsibility in a relationship in rather different ways. When she considers someone, she gives greater weight to who that person is now than I do, while I am more inclined to factor in what I feel to be his or her potential. At its worst, sometimes it seems that I'm not accepting enough and that she doesn't try hard enough; at its best, this difference in perception provides support in unexpected places. Having never considered another human being so much before (actually it feels sometimes like I've never considered anyone before, just bumbled through friendships and relationships) I'm now having an easier time getting in the shoes of strangers and aquantainces. In short, I'm really excited to be getting married. The most affirming thing to me, so far, is that when we talk of the future there is so much room for one another. Neither of us are eager to sacrifice dreams, but we are learning to say to one another (and soon to everyone we fricking know) that those plans are less important to us than the health of our relationship. Ten bucks says in five years I'm kicking myself for writing this paragraph; I could have been racing horses across the Mongolian steppe but instead I'm clipping her toenails.

I don't know if the heightened empathy has anything to do with it, but I've been making a bunch of friends recently. My Korean has just reached the point where, instead of only smiles, nods and I don't knows, my conversation partners get frustrated with my small vocabulary and ball up beer labels while I thumb through my dictionary. It's a nice balance: those who would be my friends must master their impatience in conversation (and be good at charades). Like an inverse version of the Groucho quote about clubs and members. This evening at Kimbap Chunguk (riceroll heaven) I ran into a student of mine, Su-Yeon, her younger brother Keon-u, as well as their parents. The family lived in Alexandria, Virginia for just over two years, enough time for the ten-year-old boy to learn a lot of English (but not enough to get by in a US school) and miss a lot of Korean. He's something of a discipline problem in his class, I guess. We met while I was peeing at school, and he snuck a peek, so to speak. I pushed him back and he said, clear as a bell, "Why are you hitting me!?". We have both acknowledged ourselves as 'special' in a somewhat derogatory sense; our lack of understanding creates a kinship. Noelle and I have also got standing invitations from the town stonesmiths (Chinese characters into boulders!), the family that owns "First Tearoom", and a county bus driver, all of whom have asked me directly how much soju I can drink. And I don't want to jinx it, but I might have finagled private Tae Kwon Do lessons from a 3rd dan instructor in exchange for tutoring his daughter.

Frisbee is going over really well out here. No one has played before, and it's an instant hit with the kids. We're going to bring a bunch back this summer; they'll make fantastic gifts.

Happy Easter. I confess I was hoping for something really poetic to come out of the woodwork here, but instead I've said my piece. The cherry blossoms (big ol' misnomer as there ain't no fruit gonna come no how) are in full bloom, it's warming up, and Anna Karenina was a good read. Next is "The Geography of Thought" (thank you, uncle Steve) about quantifiable differences between Asian and Western reasoning. It looks like it's going to be very good.