Sneaking in a post before the end of the month

And golly gee willikers, what a month it's been. I went on (technically?) my first date ever, met both BoxeR and (more importantly) Firebathero, found new Starcraft friends, had a fun bonding week with my group, picked up laddering, and  generally just continued to enjoy life in the city. I promise I will cover all these things in the post and with that, I shall get started.

Social interactions:
Most of those leads I mentioned in the last post have dried up. The North Koreans are not going to work out, but I had begun to think maybe that wasn't the best idea to begin with. The GSL girl is still around, but I still have no idea if that guy with her is her boyfriend or coworker. Either way, I was too shy to ever ask her out, and anyway, I wound up asking out the girl that was my first choice anyway (well I guess second if you count Sunny >__>). Anyway, the story shall be detailed below.

November 11th is Pepero day in Korea (Pepero is the Korean version of pocky sticks). Since this was 11/11/11, it was called millenium pepero day (despite it happening every century the way they wrote out the date, but whatever), however that is more or less irrelevant to this story. The magic of Pepero day is you can give Pepero to anyone and there doesn't have to be a romantic connotation to it, thought there often is. It's the perfect way to fall flat on your face in rejection, perfect for me and my nervousness! On top of that, I heard that the director for the program (the reason I am too shy to go up and ask the assistant out in person (her name is Boram which I will use from hereon out)) had the day off that day, so I took it as a sign that this was the time. I went out that night and bought her Pepero and the next day, went to deliver it in person. She looked pretty happy and surprised when I gave her the Pepero (no one else did that all day it seems). She then invited me in because she had something to bring up with me because of the volunteering project and the English tutoring I'm doing. That lasted a couple minutes, then it got more casual for a couple more minutes. Since I was concerned about the rejection last time, I tried to casually slip in my desire to move back to Korea to teach English in the future which she seemed surprised by, but it was well received. Right before I had to leave, I then decided to ask her out to dinner. Unfortunately, both our schedules didn't align for a couple weeks, so we decided to just get lunch the following weekend. I left the office quite happy with myself.

A handful of the girls in the group know I like Boram, but none of then knew I asked her out on a date. They just knew I had given her Pepero on Pepero day and all of them seem to think it's super cute. On my way to the date, I passed Katherine (girl that I came over on the same flight as) as she was waiting for the elevator. I had worn pants because I wanted to look nicer than usual for Boram, so I walked quickly so my legs would be hidden around the corner from Katherine, then when she said hi to me, I leaned back so she would just see my upper body and head. But she is too smart for her own good and walked around to where she could see all of me at which point she asked if I was going to the international party that day. I said no because I was going out to Sinchon for lunch (trying not to say I was going out with Boram because I didn't want it to be big news in case I failed). At that point, Katherine looked down and saw I was wearing pants, then looked back up at me with a smug smirk that just said "You're wearing pants, I know exactly where you're going..." With that, she said goodbye and I did too, then I headed out. The actual date went pretty well. I don't know how much she thought it was a date, though the fact that I was wearing pants should have clued her in. After eating, I paid and she only offered once before letting me do it (I take that as a success, if she had repeatedly insisted, that would have been bad). After that, we were going to go back to the subway originally since I had to tutor that afternoon, but she suggested we walk around a bit to find this art flea market nearby. So we walked around there and saw some cool things, then slowly made our way back to the subway. All in all, it was about 1.5-2 hours with her and quite enjoyable. I'm currently trying to find a time when I can go out to dinner with her. Eventually I'll be able to tell her I like her, I just gotta get out on a date with her again.

In other social lifey things, I made some new Starcraft friends. I found out through TeamLiquid that there is a girl that goes to school here that loves BroodWar. She actually recognized me at a GSL event (I have a blog on TeamLiquid with Starcraft related posts and pictures of me), but was too shy to say hi there and wound up PMing me later on. We eventually connected and now we go to games together (along with a couple other cool people from TL that go here too and one guy that's here on vacation). It's nice to have foreigners to hang out with at BW events because otherwise, I would be the only white guy there. She is a rising superstar on the TL forums and has studied BroodWar extensively. She only started getting into it in June, but she now knows a ton. I guess she went back and just researched the hell out of BroodWar history. There are still times when I can give some knowledge to her, but generally, her memory of events is better than mine (and I was watching them unfold live T___T). Anyway, hanging out with them has been entertaining. I'm planning to go to a PC bang with the girl so we can play some BroodWar (she has trouble with it on her computer and hasn't actually played hardly any BW yet).

Group Project Bonding/Classes in General:
My professor that keeps cancelling class surprised everyone one day when he declared that he wasn't feeling well and thus would be ending class early....in the semester. That meant that after last Friday, the class would no longer be meeting for the remainder of the semester. The two remaining presentations would wrap up on that final day, then we would be done except for our papers which we are to submit online. The only problem with this is that my group was the last group and until he told us that (on a Sunday night), we were under the impression that we had twice as much time to complete the project. And we hadn't started. So we instantly figured it was crunch time and proceeded to spend a lot of time together over the course of that week. We did a prezi presentation to stand out and it went really well actually. You get docked points if your presentation is below 18 minutes and you get scolded if it is above 22 minutes. He asked for 20 minute presentations and ours wound up coming the closest at 19:47. The second closest was my friend's group who came in at 19:23. In the end, it didn't look like we scrambled the few days before it was due (though everyone knew we did because we freely admitted it) and we got 40/40s from all groups except one group who is full of bitches and grades everyone's projects really low (they gave us their highest grade all semester, a 39/40). When they said their score, half the class just got this confused look on their face and a couple people just confusedly stared at her. We were damn happy with our prezi and what we had accomplished in such a short time. We even included some trolly things in it, such as a hadoken and some cheesy pictures. Me and the gamer girl snuck those in late at night when we were really bored working on the project. The link is here for you to see. The slides are generally devoid of information because that's what the professor said he wanted from all groups.
http://prezi.com/itnjhtj_xzpa/topic-10-kim-jung-un-and-north-koreas-future/
(does you little good to learn from it without it being narrated, but you can still go in and spot the little hidden gems we put in).

My other classes are going well and are far less interesting than that one.

Laddering:
This one is brief. I have begun laddering more on the NA server. I ended the prevoius season with my MMR really low and because I lost my placement match this season, it put me in Silver. This has incresed my drive to get back to gold and someday higher leagues as well. Confusingly, I am ranked in Silver league on the Korean server as well, so I'm not sure what to make of that since the Korean server is way harder than the North America one. If anything, it might just be proof that I play better against better opponents (and the reason I feel like I played really well (though not nearly well enough) against the pro players I played in the Code A preliminaries.

Meeting BoxeR and FBH:
Two of my favorite players ever, I got to meet them in one month. Meeting BoxeR was already mentioned here, and my meeting FBH can be found in my TeamLiquid blog (it's a bit long) http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=289853

Getting to meet him was extremely awesome and I can't wait to keep supporting ACE at events.

So in conclusion, wish me luck on perhaps getting more dates. Who knows, maybe she likes me too and I will get a girlfriend. That would be quite interesting. Until next time, peace out.

I wasn't feeling guilty about not posting because I had forgotten that I hadn't in a few weeks.

Well I suppose it has been a while since my last post. I've been up to mostly the usual, Starcraft and adventuring. I also find time to do homework and attend classes of course, but those are less interesting. Our study group went to Japan recently, so expect that to take up most of the post. Other than that, nothing big to report (at least not intro paragraph worthy) so I'll dive right into the post.

Starcraft Stuff:
I was a little disappointed because the GSL finals for October were going to Blizzcon in Anaheim. It was a good just my luck sort of thing, I go all the way to Korea and the GSL goes to America. There's one more final in Korea for this current GSL that I will get to attend, then I have to wait until I come back to go to a final again. Since a lot of people now had no good way to watch the GSL, GOM invited us all to the studio to watch. In the main studio, the Korean stream was being watched. For us English speakers, the lobby was playing the English casted version. It was a pretty fun day, though nowhere near as good as the last GSL finals.

In other Starcraft things, I've finally gotten to meet two of the best players known to man. Of course I'm talking about NesTea and Mvp (I know you knew that already). Someday, I hope BroodWar starts again because I'm really itching to see some good BroodWar games. In addition to that, I really want to see Firebathero play. Really badly.

Ok and I actually had to add this last part because even though I finished this section already (had to leave it unfinished overnight because I was busy), but this is too awesome. I met BoxeR. Of course it wasn't the first time I had ever met him, but the last time I met him, it was just kind of a pulling up in front of him, getting an autograph, thanking him, and moving on. This time, I actually got to more formally meet him. Like with BroodWar (but not with SC2) there are fan meetings after games. Being an old BW player and a generally popular guy, BoxeR held one of these meetings after his game yesterday. After it died down slightly, Jessica (his girlfriend) invited the other white guy and I to get pictures. It's hard to tell when to interject when fan meetings happen and in all cases where I have, the fans haven't minded having a random white guy come in really quick and get a picture and an autograph before asking questions again. This was just nice of Jessica to make it less awkward for us. The guy and I swapped taking pictures for each other and it was really cool. BoxeR used my pen so I don't think I'll ever be able to part with it now. Staying for the fan meeting was cool too even though I caught less than half of what they were talking about. I don't know what to say exactly, it was just so awesome to meet BoxeR for longer than 10 seconds. It's been the highlight of my Starcraft adventures here. Now all I really want is a picture with Firebathero, but that requires BroodWar to start up again.

Japan Excursion:
Our group had a trip to Japan (specifically Osaka and Kyoto) to study Korean diaspora. Unfortunately, the first day consisted of leaving for the airport at 5am, then getting on a plane and spending about from noon until 6pm walking around and touring. By the end of the day, everyone was super wiped out and nobody really recovered until we got back to Korea. The first day was spent touring around Kyoto. We went on a walking tour of an area near where there is supposed to be heavy Geisha activity, but did not see any. Later that night after dinner (which wasn't that great. I didn't eat well in Japan due to the fact that I detest fish) there was an optional tour to the actual geisha activity area at which point a few of us did get to see geisha after we split up to head home after giving up as a large group. After giving up, the big group split up into two groups. I was with the less party-tastic (stupid way of saying less popular?) group which was cool because I like hanging out with them. It's also good to get good points with as many of the girls in the group as possible which I am actively trying to do. Gotta alienate myself a bit less here. We got froyo and saw actual geisha (the other group did not) and then we went back to the hotel.

The next day was the long walking tour of Kyoto. It was pretty informative and for some reason the guide liked talking to me even though I didn't know that much about Japan and couldn't add to the conversation. Usually if a guide likes talking to me its because we have something in common like a deep knowledge of classic rock or maybe just I knew about the topic we were learning about. Either way, this tour was informative, but way too long and about halfway through, everyone kind of stopped paying close attention when we got somewhere. It wasn't necessarily to be rude, it was just that none of us were able to sleep that well given the rigorous schedule we were on (bed at about midnight, up and ready to leave at 7). Everyone welcomed the hour and a half bus ride that afternoon from Kyoto to Osaka at which point we were given the night off. It was one of the girls' birthdays, so a handful of us went to celebrate with her. In the process, I found a really good steak place for cheap that I ate at with a bunch of people before the two groups (we split up to get seated at different restaurants easier) rejoined each other. At that point, a lot of people began to be drains on the productivity of the group while myself and the birthday girl looked around for bars that had room for all of us. I hadn't interacted with her a whole lot before this, but she was one of the people in the group that gets me, so it made walking around with her less awkward. I also think I earned points for being one of the only people helping her find a place to go. Eventually, we all decided on a bar  that had some karaoke in it and we just went there and drank and the girls sang a lot. Well the bar neglected to tell us that there is a 200Y charge per song (about $1.50 per song). Anyway, all but a couple of the girls sang a bunch of the songs, but we all decided to chip in equal amounts to punish ourselves for collective ignorance. The guys wound up paying extra because those couple of the girls that didn't sing (unlike the guys) were really bitchy about not paying. We made sure everyone was back safe in the hotel, then me and one of the guys went back out to casually walk around the town for a little bit because we weren't quite tired and we wanted to get away from a couple of the girls who had been really annoying. After walking around for about an hour, it started to rain so we headed back in.

This hotel was nice because the rooms were really small so every person got their own room. Even better was the bed played good elevator music (a console on the bed rather) so I got to fall asleep to that. I actually got 6 hours of sleep and that was the most sleep I got in one sitting the whole weekend. Sunday was our fun day. We had to get up early to tour around a big palace in Nara (just outside of Osaka), but then got the day off starting from noon. The big palace was really cool. In the surrounding area, there were free roaming deer (a lot of them) and they were really tame, so it was like a strange petting zoo. Going into the temple was also pretty amazing because of its size. It is the largest wooden structure in the world measuring at about 160 feet tall, about 190 feet wide, and about 170 feet long. Inside the temple was really nice as well, containing two huge statues each about 45 feet tall. There was also a pillar with a hole at the base that was just large enough for someone of my size to squeeze through, so a bunch of us tried that. You're supposed to gain enlightenment or wishes granted if you do it, so fingers crossed. I also did a special love walk at a palace in Kyoto where you walk from one stone to another with your eyes closed (me and two other guys did it for fun) and if you do that, you're supposed to find true love so fingers super crossed. Who knows, maybe Sunny will just appear at my doorstep someday with all this good luck I'm supposedly accumulating. After seeing the palace, we had an hour to just randomly explore which turned into people trying to eat whilst being harassed by the deer. Apparently I was either the deer whisperer of the group or just the only one that had any experience whatsoever dealing with farm animals because the responsibility kept falling to me to keep the deer from bothering the girls too much. Having so many deer to pet was a nice substitute for not having a cat.

That afternoon, the group split up quite thoroughly. Not even all the guys stayed together which was the strangest part. Usually there are at least four of us (plus one guy that tags along), but this time, only three of us went to get food together. I had planned on hanging out with Boram during this time, but as with all weekend, she was perpetually kidnapped by other people and was hanging out with them. I'll go into a bit more detail in a little bit here the subject of her. Anyway, the three of us got food, then went back towards the hotel to rest for an hour because we were all tired. One guy offered to knock on our doors in an hour and we all went into our rooms. The problem for me was that my bed was so comfortable, if I even sat on it briefly, I would fall asleep. Such was the case this time and I wound up sleeping for four hours as did the other two guys. By that time, we all decided we should go get dinner because it was 6:00. The two guys really wanted steak, but the other people we were now with did not, so I volunteered to go get steak with the two guys since I desperately wanted something that wasn't seafood (any meal provided to us through the program was predominantly seafood which sucks because I hate hate hate that stuff) and I also didn't need to hang out with those other people. We got the good steak again then proceeded to wander around town looking to find gifts for people. Eventually we concluded that gifts were too expensive and we gave up and left back for the hotel to rest for an hour again. Then 3 hours later, we woke up and a couple people decided they wanted to do a night exploration this night similar to the one I did with that other guy from the night before. It went pretty well, but eventually it started to rain, so we went back inside. Back in the hotel, I played cards for a bit with one of the guys, then eventually began winning at that game really consistently. I guess I'm a natural. We then played a few games during the first half of the Giants game (one of the guys is from New York), but at halftime, it was 3am and I was tired, so I went to bed for 4 hours before getting up for the next day.

It was now Monday, our final day. We took a tour of a nice temple which took up a good amount of time. We then spent most of the afternoon making our way to the airport and then waiting for the plane to arrive. A few of us stopped at the duty free store to pick up alcohol (it's gonna be a partay when I come back to game night with all these asian drinks). Also somewhere in there, me and the two guys I hung out with on Sunday ran across Little Bow Wow (who I didn't recognize). He was super nice and the two guys got their picture taken with him. I didn't want to get in on it because I only know who he is because of Like Mike and there was no way in hell I was going to tell him that. We finally arrived in Korea at about 9:00 at which point I got back to my room and passed out at about 11:00, then proceeded to get a much needed 12 hours of sleep.

Japan was actually an interesting experience in that it was not terribly interesting. I had been wondering for a couple weeks prior to going there if I was really liking Korea for Korea or if I was just liking it because it was different from home. After going to Japan and coming back to Korea, I now know that I really like Korea for being Korea. I feel at home here and it was nice to get back into my regular familiar schedule here, doing all the things I like to do on a daily basis. I am positive that were I to come back here (which I still really want to do (but how to tell my family....)), I would really be happy. I know if I tell my family this, they will all say well you're an adult so you can make the decisions and that's cool, but I would rather they support this decision rather than accept it. And unfortunately, unless I underestimate how much they would approve of my plan, my most convincing strategy for them realizing why I want to come back would be to get a girlfriend over here. And I don't want to make that sound really creepy, I would really like a girlfriend here anyway. I've been spoiled here with all the pretty girls everywhere. So with this topic, I shall transfer into...

Amorous Affairs:
Well not so much I guess given my general lack of success/attempts.

First, we have the assistant. I did ask her "out" about a month and a half ago, but after a few events that made me wonder if she understood I asked her out instead of asked her to hang out, the rendezvous fell apart and never happened. It also sounded like she wanted to meet with a larger group of people so it would be more casual. That sounds pretty straightforward, but I still have no idea if she knows I asked her on a date (I applied some of the nuances with the English language that I would on an American girl (that a Korean girl might not understand)) so I'm currently debating whether to try again and that end has kind of been left open for now. I'm also working other leads.

The girl that seemed to like me from the volunteering project has not shown up since that first week. In fact, I haven't heard from her much, so I assume that is now a dead end.

But last week, a new girl showed up to the volunteering project. She is 150cm tall (the perfect height!!) and recently got a license for something involving programming. I take programming to mean one thing, but it sounds like she may just be certified as proficient in excel and programs like that. Either way, she's slightly nerdy and I'm considering asking her out next time she comes if I haven't scored a date by then already. And again, we're allowed to do anything with the people outside of the project so it's totally okay. I actually have a student now through that project and every Thursday, I'm going to be teaching him some English.

And last, but certainly not least, there's the girl that works at the GSL front desk. I see her every day I come in and she greets me with a big smile and I greet her back in Korean. I sometimes try to make chit chat briefly in Korean (still haven't gotten her name yet though) and we're too shy to make prolonged eye contact, but people that have seen me talking to her described what she did while I was complementing her or talking to her and it's usually something that gives me a pretty good vibe. Confusingly, there's this one guy that always sits with her and I can't tell if he's her boyfriend. I don't necessarily think he is, but there's also the possibility that he is a close friend that is protective of her or possibly even an unfortunate friendzoned guy. Being in that position a few times myself, I hate to ask her out under his watch, but I figure I gotta do it eventually. I was planning to do it last night, but since BoxeR was there, getting to meet him had to take priority and in addition to that, there were a ton of people, so I couldn't talk to her really well. Ideally today the guy will not be there and I can just approach her during a game or something. Wish me luck, hopefully win or lose I will actually get up the balls to do something.

Korean Life:
The classes are going well, but they're really boring and my desire to talk about them is even less than your desire to hear about them I'm sure. I've been making casual friends mostly through trips to Costco. It seems every time I take my roommate, he finds someone that wants to tag along, so I get to meet new people that way which is kind of fun. People are also getting to know me as the Starcraft guy or the Costco guy. I also have taken to liking to make really terrible puns around people, so that's been fun to have that going too. Hopefully I can provide people with some amusement. As for my adventures, I haven't had time for many since my last post what with my Japan trip and midterms taking place. I did manage to do another big walk starting at midnight the other day though. The subway broke and I was too cheap for a taxi, so I walked for about 2 hours from my location to my dorm room starting at midnight. And I only got harassed once and it was in the most public area. A Korean guy called me the n-word to which I gave him a confused look and kept walking.

Not much else to report. This post has taken me a while to write and for a second time is running right up into my language class, so I should get going to that. Until next time, peace out.

Whoa, I go to Korea and Blogger gets revamped

Not that any of you would know since nobody besides me posts anymore. Hey guys, sorry about the massive delay. I should really have posted 2 weeks ago, but I got kind of sidetracked with Starcraft events and other cool things I've been doing. I recently decided that at least once a week, I want to try to just go explore random parts of the city on my own. It's been pretty fun, especially since I've gotten good places to explore by watching a Korean show I like called Running Man. More on that later. Also, I've started keeping a blog on TeamLiquid, which is the most used site for everything Starcraft. Because I now have a medium to make long, ranting posts about Starcraft in a place where I don't feel like it's bothering you guys, my posts here will be less about just Starcraft and hopefully more about my IRL life (and thus perhaps slightly more condensed! (but don't count on it...)). Once I learn more about how the blog setup works on that site, I'll link to posts I've made if you guys want. Until then, best to get on with what's been happening!

First off, I got two of the things on my list of things I wish I had brought. It took a while, but I eventually ordered and waited for a frisbee to arrive. It turns out, it got here in about 5 days, then spent 2.5 weeks on the floor of the mail room (which is odd because usually packages do not get put in the mail room) until it was discovered by a girl who knew me and told me it was there. Success! I still haven't gotten to use it though because I've been going to Starcraft a lot. This weekend, I'm going to get some chances to throw around though, so that will be fun. I also acquired a compass. It came when I visited this big flea market in Seoul on one of my adventures. I've kept it on my person at all times since then. When I'm outside of the major metropolitan area, I can easily tell which way is north. The compass really comes in handy inside the main part of the city and at night though. I still do not have a pokewalker, but I also doubt that I will get one here.

Adventures:
I've been around to a lot of places in Seoul now. Once a week, I get the whole day off, so I like to just hop on the subway and hit a new destination. The best part is at the places I visit, I'm usually the only foreigner there which is pretty fun. It satisfies my hipsterness. Eventually, I'll get around to uploading pictures to facebook. Anyway, I've been to some cool places such as:
-A bridge in South Seoul that every 2 hours also has a fountain display from one side. I then walked back to my dorm from there which was a really long walk, taking just a couple minutes shy of 3 hours.
-A folk flea market which I spent WAYYY too much time at because it reminded me of walking around in a nicer version of my grandpa's shed. I also liked it because I knew Sunny had been there to film an episode of Running Man when she was a guest on the show. Anyway, I'm definitely going back there. I saw an old record of Never Gonna Give you Up and if it's still there next time, that thing is mine.
-Dream forest up in North Seoul where there's a big nature preserve. There's a good forest with good hiking and occasional views of the whole city. There's also an observatory which was unfortunately closed when I was there, but if I go back, I'm visiting it.
-SM entertainment building located southeast of the fountain bridge. The building is pretty boring actually, but I wanted to see it because SM is the label that Girls Generation is with, so you know....there was a chance I could run into Sunny >___>

Starcraft:
I gotta hit on this a little. Starcraft has been really fun. I'm starting to get to know the casters and they definitely remember me by now. I usually come alone, but they're more than willing to talk to me between games and I actually feel like I'm not troubling them, but that they're actually liking me. I've also been able to talk to a lot of people that come in for their first time for whatever reason. It's fun to tell them a bit about esports and what goes on. It feels like being an esports ambassador of sorts, I like it.

I've also found a couple guys here that play SC as well, so occasionally, the three of us will hit up a PC bang together. One guy is my skill level and the other guy is really good (Masters in KR server), but he still likes to play with us, so that's nice. The two of them both go together a lot when I'm going to GSL matches, but they always invite me along and I try to go whenever I don't have a GSL thing going on.

Food:
Because I know you guys are concerned. I found a restaurant here near the GSL studio that I have become a regular at. I eat really good meals there and they always know what I want to order when I come in. I've also started drinking this Vitamin C drink that Girls Generation advertises because it's good for me, it tastes good, and sometimes Sunny is on the bottle. It's a triple win!

Volunteering:
Our study group does this thing called the BACK project where we volunteer on Saturdays with North Korean refugees, teaching them English and going out and doing fun activities with them. In addition to that, we're allowed to be friends with them outside of class and do whatever we want because they're really also looking for friends as well as people to help them learn English. I'm the only guy in the group, plus I'm one of the oldest two people from our study group (then two of the North Korean guys are 25) so naturally I'm pretty popular. And it's nice to talk to them because they're all our age (between 19 and 25). There are two schools that participate in the thing. On the first weekend, only one girl came from one of the schools, and the other school had about 9 or 10 people coming. It sounded like the one girl was excited to come though because she wanted to make a lot of friends because she is the only one from her family here in South Korea. She came with her teacher who has since stopped coming because this program is designed to just be interaction between students. So anyway, this girl and I made good eye contact right away (sorry about the cheesy, slow build in) and then didn't talk much, but I heard her asking her teacher how to say a bunch of different questions in English. Eventually, after all the introductions and games were played, we had a bit of free time in which it turned out the North Koreans were to ask some of us for our contact info so we could become mentors for teaching them English and whatnot. Just to brag, I'm the only one that got more than one mentor, it's because I'm an older guy. But the nice part was as soon as this started, that girl ran up to me and used all the questions she had learned from her teacher on me to get my contact info. I've since been in fairly regular contact with her. She wasn't able to make it last weekend and now we don't see the group until the first weekend in November due to our group's busy schedule, but I'm hoping to possibly see her sometime before that. Who knows, maybe I'll ask her out sometime. I don't know if I should think about doing that just yet. It's going to be fun doing that for the coming weekends though. Also, the experience of teaching them English has been really fun and its making me consider coming back here to teach English even more (PLEASE OVERLOOK ALL GRAMMATICAL ERRORS I HAVE MADE WHEN THINKING ABOUT ME TEACHING ENGLISH).

Well now I have Korean class coming up in about 10 minutes, so I should be heading out. Fortunately, I got to cover everything I wanted to talk about. So I'll get pictures up on facebook and then hopefully I will get to talk to you guys individually eventually. Until then, peace out.

It's too exciting over here!

Hey, sorry about the big delay between posts. I know I keep saying every other weekend, but I am currently failing at that. I've been keeping really busy with Starcraft matches on weekdays and random activities on weekends. Fortunately, my classes are not big on homework and similar to my home university, they assign term papers and those combined with a midterm and a final will make up my entire grade for the class. I really like it being done that way because I can work on my papers a little at a time instead of just having to crap out a new homework assignment every night while procrastinating on a short essay due at the end of the class. It occurs to me now that I never even got to tell you about my classes, so I'll take care of that in this post. Also, I might start getting a bit more starcraft experience heavy (I'll try not to too much) because we're really trying to keep posts on http://starcraftcrew.tumblr.com/ on the short side so that they're easy to get reblogged.

International Trade Practices:
I like this class despite the fact that it's a little basic. It's the best I could do in terms of getting into econ related courses, so I hope I can get credit for it. At the very least, I am far enough ahead in credits that I can afford to have none of my classes here count towards my major (though I would REALLY like it if I could get that to happen). The professor for this class is kind of silly and has a really thick accent, but either doesn't notice or doesn't care because he just powers through words that he blatantly mispronounces. Every day, we're greeted with a really loud "HERRO EVERYONE." The class as I said is more basic than what I expected from a trade class, but I guess it will work out fine since I know about of the stuff that's we're going to learn.

Politics and Society of North Korea:
This was a class I came across when I was desperately looking for a class to add so that I could have the required 15 credits (I got screwed in registration and ran the risk of getting kicked out if I remained with only 12 credits. Now I'm safely full time at 15 credits). The professor for this class actually lives in Busan (about as far as you can get in Korea from Seoul; it takes about 3 hours on the train) and rides the train up every time there's class (and class is at 9am!). For this reason, he made the class only meet once a week instead of twice (one of the days was a one hour meeting). He suggested we work on our group projects in that time, so my group has gladly begun to do that. The class looks like it will be really interesting.

Philosophy in East Asian Literature:
This was the only class (besides my language class) that I successfully signed up for during the registration period. I'm always into philosophy courses (it's still my minor), so I know this class will continue to be interesting. Additionally, I think the professor likes me because I'm usually the most attentive person (and I sit in the back (I don't like having my back to a door and I like a wall to lean on)). He's actually a lot like the 'typical philosophy professor' so naturally I get along with him well.

Korean Language:
I was a little disappointed to land in the beginner beginner level because it felt like the hours I spent studying this summer were wasted. To anyone interested, I don't recommend Rosetta Stone. It was not particularly effective for me. We spent the first two weeks of the class learning the alphabet which was hell for me and two other people in the class because the three of us knew the alphabet, but not much else (the reason they just stuck us in beginner). More recently, we've been working on introductions and stuff which has been nice. The guy that knew the alphabet is struggling now, but me and the (Dutch!) girl that knew the alphabet are still finding this class kind of easy. Just last Friday, there were some games between our university and Korea University, our rival school. Everyone wound up skipping classes throughout the day to attend this. I was unable to do so because of a test in my philosophy class, so there were only two people (including myself) in my language class. Because we couldn't learn anything new in the class, we took a look ahead to what we'll be doing at the end of the semester. I now understand it, so I know for sure I will pass the class. I also started going beyond the scope of the class which impressed the teacher. She has actually said I'm a smart student to my face, which was a good way to build up my ego haha. We have two teachers, one does M/W/F and the other does a lot of just reading and pronunciation work with us on T/Th. I call the reading teacher the aegyo teacher because she (somewhat effectively) displays a lot of aegyo. Most of the guys like her better. I actually like the M/W/F teacher better because she's the one that said I was smart ^__^.

YonKo Games:
Each year, Yonsei University and Korea University have a sporting event that covers a weekend in which the two schools compete in Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Rugby, and Soccer. The main activity during the games though is not watching, but chanting and singing nonstop (literally, there were zero breaks at every game). I learned that the point of the YonKo games are not to see who can win more games, but to see how collectively drunk the student bodies of both schools can get. After the games wrapped up on Saturday, there was a big party on the Yonsei campus at which there was an open bar for two and a half hours until they ran out of beer. An open bar for college students....interesting idea. Needless to say, it was a quiet morning in Shinchon the next day. Unfortunately, I didn't meet any pretty girls at the street party T___T. I did go drinking with my Starcraft friends from Korea University though. I impressed them with my bottle opening ability (that was the first time I've done it in Korea, I'm more worried about hurting myself since I'm not drinking my usual crap-ton of milk each day). They insisted on getting a video of me doing it, so I obliged. I don't know why it's such an impressive feat. I later continued to impress them by chasing beer with soju. Again, something so mundane being found impressive is something that confused me. On the note of beer also, I had a Heineken last night (first time since coming to Korea that I've had non-Korean beer. Heineken is not my favorite Dutch beer (Amstel is) and don't get me wrong; Heineken is good and all, but it's not stellar. But it being my first foreigner beer in so long, it tasted like gold. Korean beer just doesn't stack up. I feel sorry for people here T___T.

My roomate and I have gotten to know each other better. He's actually a pretty cool guy. We're on a comfort level in terms of jokes and information sharing that I'm on with you guys, so it's nice. He's a Ravens fan and I like the Ravens, so we stay up on Sunday nights to watch them play which is also fun. We're going to do that again tonight. It's nice to have a way to watch some football over here, especially since I can then sleep in since I have no class early on Mondays.

I went to the GSL Finals a few weeks ago and it was quite an experience. They had the 10 "all star" players lined up for autographs before the mini tournament. All foreigner fans got instantly moved to preferred spots in the line, then preferred seating, which was really cool. I got autographs from several players and got to chat with a couple too. I joked around with Jinro from TeamLiquid and found out he's actually a pretty nice guy. Also, interacting with BoxeR was quite amazing. When we went in to actually get our seats, we were placed in the third row. There were only press and family members in front of us. When the finals started, team IM sat in the section next to us. My friend was on the aisle and across from him (across the aisle) was NesTea himself. It was pretty cool and the finals were really great TvT.

A couple weeks later, I went to the OSL Finals with my BroodWar friends and some guys I met online from TeamLiquid.net. It was a cool enough experience and the guys from TL were nice, but a few of them really wanted to get absolutely drunk during the matches. I didn't have any interest in doing that because I came to watch BroodWar (they didn't really know anything about it). I've actually found that being a white guy that likes BroodWar, I'm a dying breed. The finals were absolutely amazing and way more intense than the GSL Finals. I was glad I got to go to this because there might never be an OSL again unless the BroodWar scene can find a way to survive in the troubling times it is going through.

General Starcraft viewing is going well too. I found out that Moletrap (english SC2 caster) likes BroodWar and I've run into him at some events, so I've gotten to talk to him a bit more which has been cool. I'm also glad I met him more because I admittedly didn't really like him when I lived in the states. Now that I've gotten to know him a bit (and this is true with all the code A casters), I really like them. They're cool guys. And I like to think they like having a regular visitor to the studios that actually kind of knows his stuff. Most people just pop in once and want autographs and pictures and we never see them again. Can't blame people for being like that though, I was there in my first week. Some players and coaches are recognizing me too, probably since I stand out in a crowd and I'm there quite literally every day. Watching BroodWar has been fun too because I hang out with people that really know the game, so it's nice to have someone that can help me to spell it out. In the semifinals match, I attended with my friend that teaches here. The match actually happened to be on the same day as the birthday of my favorite BW streamer on TeamLiquid (and he's my only way of watching BW matches live back home) so I wished him happy birthday on TeamLiquid and said I would get a sign on stream for him. I wound up actually getting it on the stream much to my surprise. And during each match in the OSL, the winners of the day will autograph a keyboard bag after they win. The bag is then given to the person with the best sign at the end of the day. There was just one winner today, but I got the bag. And it was Jangbi's autograph (current OSL champion), so even better! I was going to buy a keyboard bag while I was here, but not now that I got that sweet one. I was really happy.

In other news, stuff is going pretty well here. I'm really liking it. I of course miss talking to everyone more regularly than I currently do and not having game night kind of sucks, but I can replace it pretty easily with stuff here, so that is always fine. No girlfriend yet, but who knows, maybe one will come someday soon. It took a trip to Korea to learn how badly I actually had 'yellow fever' >___>. So before I sign off for this post, I'll leave you with the short list of things I really wish I had brought.

1: Compass:
I still have trouble finding north sometimes due to cloudiness or  tall buildings preventing me from determining the location of the sun. When I can actually see it, I always know which way I am facing, but sometimes it is just not possible. And the worst part is that (like all things in this list), I had a compass in my hand all ready to pack, but I wound up deciding not to bring it at the last minute.

2: PokeWalker:
With this, I figured I wouldn't be walking very much and I didn't want to risk losing it. Turns out I would likely have not lost it, plus I'm walking at least 2-3 miles each day (then running a mile every other day to stay in shape for frisbee) so having that PokeWalker would have really come in handy since I'm just grinding my pokemon up to higher levels in my free time (when my internet dies randomly).

3: A frisbee:
I jokingly said when I was packing that if I couldn't find a frisbee on a college campus, then it wasn't meant for me to play frisbee while I was here. I of course thought I would have no problem finding one in a store. Turns out I was dead wrong and they're super hard to find. I spent 6 hours today looking for one and about 3 hours last Thursday doing the same thing. I'm going to have to give up and order one online because I need to be throwing so that I am tournament ready when I get back to the states. At the very least, the running is helping me a bit. I also play soccer with the Germans occasionally, which is a good way to keep some coordination up I guess.

Ok well thats it for now. Until next time, peace out!

Your eyes do not deceive you! It is an update!

Hello everyone! I totally spaced on updating last weekend. I'll try to be better about it in the future. It's been a really cramped few weeks and I'm starting to get more and more free time as we go into the actual semester. This post will probably run long, so I'll be keeping all Starcraft related posts short for the time being. I recommend you check out http://starcraftcrew.tumblr.com/ if you want to read about my Starcraft related adventures. Keir and Peter also work on the site, so to tell if I made a post, just find out whether it pertains to Korean leagues or not. If it does, then it is one of my posts. In the future, I'm going to start tagging posts with my name to let people know who made it. And again, I apologize if I'm late on posting in the future (going to try for every other Sunday/Monday), but it may be due to having written too much for that site or just a busy schedule. I'm working hard to try to fill the tumblr blog with as many important news posts as possible in the hopes that it will someday grow big and strong. And since I'm the only one posting about all the things in Korea, I've been pretty much constantly writing posts and getting a huge backlog of them saved up because I don't want to just spam a ton of posts to that site in one day. But I've spoken enough about that, time for a post here!

My plane ride over was nice. As I hate being jetlagged, I made the decision to not sleep the night before flying so that I would wind up having been awake for about 20 hours before hopefully crashing that night and getting a good night's sleep and quickly adjusting to the local time. This staying up idea turned out to be especially great because I was able to get through 13 hours of flying without having to use any electronics or other entertainment items I had brought along. I remember nothing from the SEA to SFO leg because I was asleep before we took off and woke up after we landed. The two guys next to me seemed to have done the same thing, so good thing I [probably] didn't prevent them from using the bathroom. For my SFO to Incheon flight, I sat next to a guy who is an English teacher over here. We wound up talking about Korea related stuff (what I could expect to encounter and whether it was a good experience to teach over here) for about 3 hours of the 11 hour flight. The other 8 hours of the flight were spent sleeping. I was pretty happy with myself. When I landed, I was wide awake and was worried that my sleep plan had failed, but it did eventually work out. There was one girl on my flight from the CIEE group and we had spoken via facebook before the flight, so she waited for me at the exit to the jetway and we went through customs and got our bags together to prevent ourselves from getting too lost. From there, we proceeded to go to the meetup location for the CIEE group. We met the program director there and her (pretty) assistant. Spoiler alert, I wound up asking the assistant out recently, more on that later. After meeting them, we waited for about 3 other people to show up, then we got shuttled off to the university where we ate dinner and all went to bed.

Some names really quick:
Katherine - The girl on the flight, I think of her as kind of a little sister (independently of the coincidence that her name is the same as my actual sister). We don't hang out much anymore, but early on in the program, we did.
Gary - Nerdy guy, but once he starts drinking, he is a party animal. He's pretty cool and good to hang out with, but I've been hanging out with him less and less as he makes more acquaintances.
Peter, Matt, and Chang - I hung out with them a lot during the couple of weeks that we were with the group. They are fully aware of my Starcraft activities and plan to come to one game with me in the future. They're really cool, but they like to go out drinking whereas I like to watch Starcraft. I'll still go places with them occasionally though.
Boram - The assistant director for the program here. I like talking with her and hopefully I'll get to do more of that as the semester progresses.

By the following morning, the group had all arrived. I was surprised to see the ratio of guys to girls in the group (23 girls and 6 guys). We had an orientation thing, then got assigned to 6 groups (one guy per group as it turned out) and were given a photo scavenger hunt throughout the city. Once I learned it was a competition, I really wanted to win. Fortunately, the girls in my group also wanted to win, so we worked hard all afternoon. Other teams took a break for dinner, but ours did not and as a result, we wound up winning. We didn't even have anyone that was really fluent in Korean, but between a girl that knew some Korean and my ability to read Hangul, it worked out really well.

The rest of the week was pretty normal, containing just some minor events like learning locations of important places. On Friday, we left for our three day excursion to the southern part of the country accompanied by a guy who is an expert on Korean history and knows a lot about the land in the southern provinces. He was kind of weird at first, but was really cool after I got to know him. At lunch, people were kind of sick of him after his hour and a half lecture about Korean philosophical history that took place on the bus ride. As everyone was sitting down at tables, I noticed he was alone while all the others were filling up. I decided I would leave my seat to go sit across from him because I felt pretty bad. Boram wound up sitting next to me, so I must have earned some good karma for that to happen. I got to talking to him (his name was David as well) and I found out that we have pretty identical taste in music (he was a hippie) and he is also an Eagle Scout, so that was pretty cool. I gained a lot of respect for him after the conversation during that meal.

That night, we stopped in a small town to stay at a traditional Korean home (where you sleep on the floor and all that (oh, it's great for your back, I'm sure (not))). Everyone went out to eat, but the group got kind of split in two because no restaurant could hold all 29 of us. The staff people went their own way and I don't really know where they ate. The people that I went with went to a Korean BBQ place which was pretty amazing. We decided this would be our big party night, so we all got a lot of alcohol. Knowing that I could handle a lot of Tequila (I learned that lesson after not reaching my limit after 7 shots and 2 beers over the course of 2 hours earlier this summer), I decided I would try to see how much soju I could have. By the end of the night, I wound up having 2.5-3 bottles of soju on my own. Soju is considered hard alcohol in case you're wondering, so yes, that is a lot. There was some lame truth and dare stuff that I didn't really partake in, but it was funny to watch. I didn't actually get drunk until I blacked out. I felt fine, but then at one point, I remember looking at my bed and thinking "Man, I'm really tired." Next thing I know, I'm waking up in that bed. Apparently, I only blacked out for about 5 minutes before falling asleep, so I guess that worked out. All that happened was I stubbed my toe, a girl asked if I was okay, I said yes and apologized for being drunk, then I proceeded to lie down and go to sleep. Being drunk is an excellent way to fall asleep on a hardwood floor! When I woke up the following morning, a ton of people were hung over, but I felt pretty great actually. Everything wasn't super bright and I had no headache, so I don't know what to make of that.

The second day, we went around the southern part of the country looking at buddhist temples and other cool historical stuff like that. At our traditional hotel for the night, we found out that they got MBCGame on the tvs, so the guys room wound up watching that for a while. Later into the night, we went downstairs to the small scale PC Bang that was there to play some Broodwar. I challenged 4 of the other guys to a 1v4 since they really wanted to play on Fastest Map. Two had never really played before, but two of them had. The worst part was that I totally should have won. If I had stayed in my base for about 30 more seconds, I would have repelled their mass attack and I would have been free to move out. Instead, I was impatient and my forces were all the way across the map when I got attacked. After that, we did a 1v2v2. I killed one guy early on, then the other three allied up against me and I wound up losing. I was playing zerg that time, so I didn't have the chance to go carriers like I did the previous time.

On the third day, we saw some more buddhist temples on our way back into Seoul. We arrived late at night and at that point, I just stuck around the dorm and went to sleep.

Throughout the following week, we just had a mass of orientations: first for our program, then for the university and the dorm we were staying in. It was a lot of sitting and listening, but I was able to find time at nights to go to see Starcraft every night. I've become a regular there and I'm starting to even get recognized by some Korean players and coaches (I mean, I have to stand out being one of the few white guys they see on a daily basis). I've also made some good friends through these matches which has been really fun because it makes the games a lot more interesting. I can't hear English casters (and there are none for BroodWar matches), so having someone to talk to is nice. If you've seen my facebook, you know that I've been meeting players left and right, it's been really cool. I've been finding new players to become a fan of and it's been really nice. I've also liked getting back into the BroodWar scene too, I had really missed it.

So less has been happening recently because classes were starting this last week. We did make it out to the DMZ which was pretty interesting. It was a full day, but we got to see into North Korea, we got to see tunnels they dug, and other cool touristy locations. During the trip, we asked Boram if she wanted to come out clubbing with us one night and it was eventually decided on a Friday night. Weekday nights are nights that I go watch SC and Fridays are BW match days, so I was a little bummed, but I was excited to get to hang out with her, even if it was also with a bunch of other guys and some girls too. I found out we were going to meet her in a part of town that is near the GOM studio, so I figured I had time to be over there to watch those matches instead of BW. Then, I got a better idea and asked Boram if she wanted to go get dinner with me before we met up with everyone. She said yes, so that was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, plans fell apart and the hangout never wound up happening. It turned out she had something come up, so she wasn't able to get dinner with me either (T___T). She apologized, and it was fine. Secretly, I was kind of happy because I got in touch with her on my way to the subway, so I hopped on one going the opposite direction and got to see the BW I had thought I would have to miss. She also said that we'll have to hang out later in the semester, so there is still hope.

Today, I had my preliminary games for Code A. There was of course no chance at me getting into Code A, but a couple friends and I figured it would be a fun chance to maybe get to play some pros. My friends went yesterday and didn't do so well against their opponents. To make it worse, the opponents weren't really big games. Moletrap and the other commentators offered to stream their games for fun, but it turned out BoxeR was playing at the same time, so that didn't wind up happening. I thought there was going to be a chance for me today, but I had an early match and the commentators weren't there yet. Oh well. I wound up playing Startale.Squirtle who is actually a really good player and a former Code A member. When he said his name in the chat, the first thing that came to mind was "Oh thank God, a Protoss!" TvP is my strongest matchup, so I was happy to give Squirtle the best games I possibly could. He was really friendly and didn't roll me too insanely hard and it was a fun experience to play him. Afterwards, I asked where he was sitting so I could congratulate him and I did that. He seemed kind of surprised that I offered to do it, I guess it's not that common of a thing to do. I got to meet quite a few pro players today and it was nice to have played Squirtle because I could just tell them I got beaten by him and nobody would have to ask how skilled I actually am at Starcraft. They know Squirtle is a good player and should beat me regardless of my ladder ranking. One last fun note, I got a lot of attention from some spectators. I'm not sure whether it was due to me being white or due to me playing southpaw. It was probably a combination of the two.

Oh, but I forgot! I got to see BoxeR play! Usually, when he plays (be it at MLG, GSL, or whatever) he is instantly upgraded to showmatch status and is put in one of those booths. He was in the later stages of the tournament, so nobody was really around and I was able to stand behind him with SlayerS_Jessica, SlayerS_MMA, and a couple other random people. I know it sounds kind of mundane, but to actually stand behind BoxeR while he's playing in a tournament is probably a once in a lifetime experience and it was totally cool. He lost unfortunately, but maybe next time I'll get to see him rack up some wins.

That's all I can really think of to post for now. My classes aren't 100% locked in yet, so I'm going to refrain from posting about them until that is taken care of. Until next time, peace out.

Last Post (IN AMERICA)

+1 for Bandit Keith reference? I leave tomorrow for South Korea, so I'll try to keep this post short because I haven't started packing yet (I actually leave in about 15 hours). The remainder of my summer has been quite enjoyable, providing me with good times and some decent stories for you. A quick note first though, I will probably not get to post from Korea until sometime at the end of August. From that point, I'll try to hold myself to weekly/bi-weekly posts because I'm sure the posts from Korea will contain more interesting things (or at least new things).

I went to the beach one weekend with Grandpa and my aunt. I promised I would go with Grandpa during the summer and this was me finally coming through on that. He got to do the go-karts at ocean shores, which he really wanted to do. After returning from that, I continued just studying Korean and doing my usual activities around here.

D&D:
I attended my first session since May a couple weeks ago and the session ended well considering I will not be back for at least four months. I became the first player in our current party to die. I had low health in the fight, but I was trying to make sure we just got through the fight and I was taking calculated risks. The ogres we were fighting had been hitting me for about 10-12 damage or less the whole time and I kept getting good heals from our healstick. So at one point, I got hit down to -5 health, but I healed up to 5. The ogle supposedly was near death, so I figured landing one good hit would kill it. I hit it, but it did not die, so I was kind of hoping Steven would get it on his next turn and I would endure the one hit it would lay on me in the meantime. Out of nowhere, the ogre did 15 damage to me. That was exactly enough to make me die. If it had done one less damage, I would not have died. Anyway, it works out because now they don't have to come up with a reason for my character being unmanned for the next four months. I also feel like this death was a little more legitimate than my last ones.

Keir Here:
Keir came out to Washington because his sister is going to school up here and he was coming up to visit with people/accompany her to the orientation. He managed to get enough time to stay the night over here at my house one night. We had pretty good times playing Starcraft. Keir had not yet experienced Starcraft 2 on ultra graphics, so I had him use my PC while I used my laptop to once again stress test it before Korea. The whole time we played, I kept hearing him being amazed at how smooth everything was. We would be in the middle of a game when suddenly I would hear "OH MY GOD, THE CREEP JIGGLES" or "THE PROBES GLIDE!" The following morning, we played through some Battlefront and did pretty well before getting to a difficult level at which point he had to get going to go see Robin.

That day, since Keir was gone, I went to the rescheduled game night (which was just Steven, Chris, Eric, and I) which we had rescheduled to Friday so that we could have a bigger game night/bbq party with a bunch of people on Saturday. It was quite a standard game night, playing some badminton, then moving on to other games. This time, Chris and I stayed the night because it was meant for this to be just a huge party weekend for the four of us. Eric had to go, but he came back at about 1pm the next day, which was cool. After Eric left, the three of us watched Pulp Fiction (the first time for Steven and I (I really liked it)), then we tried to watch Wild Wild West (which we had all seen), but I fell asleep sometime during the movie and I guess the other two passed out sometime after me because when I woke up, I saw the menu screen for Netflix with Wild Wild West on it. A couple hours after we got up, Eric came back and we went out in the (surprisingly bright) sun to go play badminton while waiting for others to show up.

Eventually, Peter came by. Eric decided that he was going to pretend to be Ting, a foreign exchange student we hang out with. Peter correctly identified Eric, but Eric has such a good FOB impression, he convinced Peter that Peter had incorrectly identified Eric. As Eric went back on the court, Peter sat down with Chris and I and said "Man does he not look exactly like Eric?" It was pretty funny and we let Peter in on the joke shortly after that. A bit later, I went to go get Keir and to buy some beer for the bbq. When we got back, Ting struck again, introducing himself to Keir. Since Keir had never met Eric, the Ting thing was much more believable to him. Throughout the day, hilarity ensued from that. When they were playing badminton together, Keir spoke slower to Eric. Poor Keir was trying to be so nice to him. I was making fun of Ting's accent just to be a dick to see if Keir would say anything and I guess Keir did actually notice. While we were eating, Eric pointed to his beer bottle and asked Keir what the word "Refresh" meant (said with perfect terrible pronunciation) and Keir went on to define it. After about 3 hours of this having gone on, Keir was let in on the joke. His finding out was pretty funny as well, Eric really had him going. After it got dark, we had a ping pong tournament which mostly consisted of showmatches between Keir and Steven. Keir is actually really good at ping pong and managed to beat Steven (I know, impossible!).

People started to trickle out until about midnight when it was down to just Keir, Steven, and I. I was kind of tired from getting 4 hours of sleep and not having eaten all day until we got to dinner. I wound up falling asleep during a brawl match, so Keir and Steven decided to play some ping pong so I could sleep on the couch while they were playing. After that, we played a game of Risk in which I might have been able to win, but I was too timid and Steven took the win on his next turn.

The remainder of my time since then has been spent just playing Starcraft, studying, and packing. I also spent a lot of time visiting people and being visited (because I'm leaving for four months and people seem to think I'll never see them again). I think I'm ready to leave now though, this is going to be a fun semester.

I had to register for classes earlier in the week. That was kind of stressful because they have all 25,000 students enrolled in the university enrolling at the same time. I'm going to need to do some work during the add/drop period, but I think things will work out. Even if I were to get into no classes I need for my major, I only have 6 classes left to take, so I will be able to graduate on time (provided I can get into those classes back at SU).

Last night was more or less my last night since I leave early morning tomorrow. I spent some of it with the guys for game night, then I had to head downtown to hang out with my friend from school. I promised her I would see her during the summer and we hadn't really gotten in touch until late in the summer (more or less my fault there). Anyway, I felt bad and she said that this was the best night for her, so I went to go hang out with her. She was out with some friends, but they were pretty cool and I got along with them anyway. Her and one of the guys were pretty drunk and the designated driver (I assume) was also there. As soon as I got there, she  handed me a PBR (oh God, I've become a hipster T____T) and told me to drink it, so I obliged of course. She then told me it was spiked. I didn't ever find out with what, but I didn't taste any hard alcohol in it, so whatever was in there, there was not a lot of it and it couldn't have been strong enough to matter anyway. The four of us walked around the capitol hill area for a bit before it was determined that she needed to get back to her house to sleep off the drunk, so we parted ways. I'll have to hang out with her when I get back because I kinda felt bad about not contacting her sooner than the end of July. After I got back, I hung out with the guys a bit more before we all parted ways for the night.

Today, I'm spending the day packing and desperately hoping I didn't forget anything. I've never been big on first drafts or stuff like that, so if I don't remember to pack something, I'm probably not going to catch it until it comes up that I need it. That's about all I have to say before I head off tomorrow. I'll try to be in touch with you all in Korea. An easy way to figure out the time in Korea is take Pacific time, add 12 hours, then add 4 more. That's how I usually add it. Good times to talk to me will probably be late afternoon/night here when it's morning/early afternoon for me.

Oh, and before I go, visit this site and recommend it to people you know that are into the Starcraft scene and like to follow it (I'm probably pandering to the wrong crowd here, but oh well).http://starcraftcrew.tumblr.com/

It's a blog that Peter, Keir, and I are running. On it, we're going to be talking about Starcraft stuff and we're hoping to make this our niche in the Starcraft community. I will be posting about my SC related experiences in Korea on that site, but I will also be posting them here, so fear not if you don't want to check that all the time.

Until I am in Korea, peace out.

Oops, some mad procrastination happened

I guess after not really procrastinating this last quarter, I was due. It's not like I haven't also been busy though, I have. Fortunately, even though this post covers a whole month, I will be able to keep it relatively short. You might not even be reading this post anyway, but if you are, thanks! I leave for Korea on the 16th of August and I plan to make one last post before I leave (probably on the 14th or 15th). When I'm in Korea, I'll try to get back to updating more often because I'm probably going to have a lot to talk about. I think I'll be able to hold myself to every other week. I'll repeat myself in the next post and I'll probably tell you all in person too just to make sure you know so you have a way to keep up with my shenanigans over there.

Turning 21:
I was excited to finally turn 21. The ability to drink and gamble is cool, but what I wanted the most was my new license picture and to remove my corrective lenses restriction. Thankfully, I got both of those done. On another cool note, I won the bet! I have proven (to myself at least) that not all kids drink illegally without their parents' knowledge (or some combination of those words) before they turn 21. I get nothing other than a sense of satisfaction from this in case you were wondering. I basically just stuck with this because I am stubborn as hell.

Starcraft:
I've been mostly playing 4v4s with Keir. Occasionally, Peter will get in on them with us which has also been really fun. We maintain a roughly 50% win record which is fine, but not as good as we want. It's difficult because my ranking is artificially high (I should be ranked lower, but the bnet ranking system is too generous). Hopefully for the next season, I will get ranked lower and we will have more success. A recent example of this ranking system comes from earlier tonight when I started doing 1v1s. I lost a game in less than 5 minutes (my computer froze and I disconnected T__T). When I got back on, I had been placed into gold (middle of the pack ranking). I should have been much lower. Oh well though, it seems I'm holding my own in that league so I'm happy for now.

Vacation:
My aunt and uncle were having their 35th anniversary recently. Last summer when my uncle did the marathon, he set in motion this grand plan to have them renew their vows in Maui this summer. It was not until long after this whole vacation was sorted out that I decided to go to Korea. Had it not been a function with the entire family, I might have tried to get out of it because I had(have) a lot of stuff to do before I leave in one month. It was nice to get to see everyone though. My little cousin has become obsessed with the Green Lantern and repeated the oath ad nauseum throughout the trip.

The first seven days of the trip were spent in the timeshare we have on the west side of Maui. Most of each day was spent just relaxing around the town, but there were some other cool events such as watching some family members get surfing lessons. There was not much to tell about that part of the week. The unfortunate part was I had the garbagiest Internet connection at the place. It would take an hour to load a youtube video with a length of four minutes. In fact, the entire time I was there, I could not stream games which was kind of frustrating because there was a lot of good Starcraft I wanted to watch. And it would have worked out especially well too because my parents did not adjust to Hawaii time very well and would go to bed around 9-10pm, leaving me to stay up (if I go to bed before midnight, I take at least an hour to fall asleep). In that time, I wound up just studying Korean as much as I could.

For the final few days, we moved to this house in the middle of the island. What we didn't know about the house was it was more rustic (well actually it was a palace as far as I was concerned) than they advertised. Many cockroach encounters happened which led to many freakouts by all the girls. For the guys, we just hung out all night drinking. My cousin's husband who is a hardcore drinker got Patron at the grocery store (he's kind of a Patron hipster, not liking how popular it has become (mostly because of the price)). The two of us along with dad and my uncle just stayed up late each night taking shots until we got bored and went to bed. Even on the night where I had 5 shots and 2 beers, I did not get drunk. I have now decided that it is definitely not economical to get me drunk and will probably not try anymore.

On the last full day, I finally got to do what I wanted to do which was hike the Haleakala crater. Dad and my uncle came with me. They forgot to bring warmer clothes (it gets cold up at 10,000ft), but we read the trail we were taking was only 9 miles, so we figured it would be about 3-4 hours and thus, coldness would not be a big problem. It turns out, we kept a much slower pace due to dad and my uncle and in addition to that, the trail was 14 miles instead of 9. At the end of the day, we wound up taking 6.5 hours to do the whole thing. The first four miles consisted of a 2,000ft descent and then it was flat for a while before a 3 mile 1,500ft ascent to the end of the trail. It was pretty amazing scenery (not that the other two noticed it, they were really tired). By the end of the hike, they just plopped down in the car and I had to drive home. The women had freaked out again because we took a lot longer than expected, but all was well. They had me to scout the trail and carry all the stuff we brought, so it worked out fine in the end. I would gladly do the hike again, but I'm pretty sure dad and my uncle are not up to doing that ever again.

So since I've been back, it has been just Starcraft and some Korea stuff. I anticipate my life being mostly that before I leave. I'll post again in about a month, so until then, peace out.

Guess I have nothing stopping me from updating.

Well it's been over a month. Oops, I guess I kinda forgot to post. I've been out of school for 10 days now (clock just hit midnight) and I suppose the first week and a half of break was spent just appreciating that nothing was on my plate. But I do want to keep record of all the important things that have happened to me in the last month. I can only hope I have not forgotten most of the stories. I'll get through school stuff first I suppose then get into other things.

Business Ethics:
This class turned out to be a good one in the end. I enjoyed the first half a lot more when were were talking about philosophies and cool things like that. Eventually, we went into globalization and environmental sustainability which was less exciting for me, but was still good. For the final essay, we were given a prompt for this case about Wal-Mart and we also had the option to do our essays on another topic if we so desired. I decided to do a report pointing out critiques and then ultimately defending Rawlsianism (a more logical version of Utilitarianism to keep it very simple (I discovered that I subscribed to Rawlsianism without even knowing it over the course of the quarter)). I think the professor was impressed at my choice which was cool because he would point me in the right direction for interesting essays and opinions on the topic. It was very helpful and I guess my report was well received because I got a good grade in the class. Also, he agreed to be a recommender/evaluator for my law school applications which was super excellent as well.

International Political Economy:
This class ended up like the one I had with this professor last quarter, I wound up enjoying the class. The individual research report was kind of a doozy though. We had to write a 4-5 page (double spaced thank goodness) research report on the topic of our choice that pertained to the international political economy (if it sounds really open ended, it was). I had a lot of trouble nailing down a topic at first, but eventually just chose to write about food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. I went a little gung-ho with the project and went well above and beyond the guidelines. While the project was really a glorified literature review, I actually did a legit research report complete with graphs and all that good stuff. In the end, my report wound up being barely contained within 6 pages (even after extending the margins to allow more text on the page). Oh and by the way. that was single spaced. So my report was over twice the length required. From my final grade in the class, it looks like I got a pretty bangin' score on it. In addition to that, I turned my project in first, 2 days early. I did it in order to win favor with this professor in the hopes that I could ask her to be a recommender for law school apps (she was my first choice for recommenders because she's pretty highly regarded in the department). To my great excitement, she said yes. That was the highlight of the week for me (and keep in mind, this was a week in which I relieved myself of having the stress of 3 projects, a final, the LSAT, and the same week in which I began summer vacation (it was that exciting)).

Economic Growth:
Well this class picked up once the first half was done. Eventually it became just a freetime on laptop while we learned about how to write research reports. During that time, my partner and I would work with our own data or if we were bored, just mess around on laptops for an hour before getting out. In the end, our report came out very well. I don't know when/if we hear whether he wants to work with us (or any papers this quarter) to try to get them published, but I don't particularly mind either. Both me and my partner are in Korea this fall, so we're going to be kind of busy if it comes up.

Frisbee:
I didn't go much after the last tournament that I went to. There was one more the team had, but it was on the same weekend as Kathryn's confirmation so I couldn't go. During some practices, some of the guys on the team made comments about how they wished I was there, but I think it was just polite talk after I made a good play during scrimmages. I do know that they could have at least used me there for the camping part of it. They had a lot of good horror stories about tent fails and stuff like that that might not have happened if anyone that knew how to camp were there (yes fellow Eagle Scouts and readers of this blog, I know enough about camping to get by...). It's too bad I'm going to miss the first half of the season next year, but I look forward to rejoining the team when I get back.

Confirmation:
Kathryn's confirmation was pretty nice. I got to catch up with Josh H. while I was there because his sister (who is a friend of Kathryn's and who he was sponsoring) was also doing it. It was just nice to have another person there with as cavalier an attitude about the whole thing as me. I realized that the service was the first one I had been to in that church since I had been confirmed in 2006 and the first time I had been to a church service since June of 2008 around the time my grandfather died. And I have no plans to return to church any time soon. My family likes to give you a free pass once you go through confirmation and since you're then an adult in the eyes of the church, you can make your own decisions. We get confirmed to appease the older, more devout members of the family, but they don't care if we don't go to church every Sunday (or at all) so we don't. Don't worry, the irony of getting confirmed in my family is not lost on me.

LSAT:
The class seemed to have helped me in the LSAT. I went into the test feeling pretty confident, having lifted my score up to levels that would work for applying to the UW. The test itself was rather good. To anyone reading, if you're going to take the LSAT in the Seattle area, do it at Seattle U. The conditions were top notch. I don't know how much else I can say about the test given that I signed a confidentiality agreement, but feel free to ask me in person about it and I definitely won't tell you ;).

Starcraft:
Keir and I have started playing Starcraft again. We're burning through the 4v4 ladder, but mostly getting burned. I've done some research and found out that people are having similar problems to us, less than strategic allies. We're trying to find ways to more or less carry our team when some moron decides to tech to battlecruisers that either never see the light of day or die within 30 seconds (highlight was the mothership that actually lasted 4 seconds before it died). So far, we have been unsuccessful, but we will keep trying. Also, I will soon be done with Guild Wars forever. I swear the more I play that game, the more I just want to play SC2. When I finish Guild Wars, it's onto 1v1s for me and I shall begin my progress towards my 750 Terran wins to get back the picture that was stolen from me after the beta (battlecruiser profile pic).

Other stuff:
Jack was in town recently which was fun. I missed having someone around who constantly reminds me that I need to get a haircut. But seriously, it was nice to see him, it had been too long. I enjoyed the few times I got to hang out with him and Davis. We also saw Rosa and Lucy one day which was fun. I got to show off my picky eating skills by finding a restaurant that was considered a good place to get seafood despite me not eating or liking seafood. In case any of the four of you were still wondering, I knew about that place because my mom's family always liked going there when they would come visit my parents in Magnolia. Soon after they moved and occasionally today, that side of the family suggests going there when they're in town. I usually approach it from the other side (since we live that way) and its really one of the only things I know about in that part of town. Along with Jack being in town, I mentioned this, but Davis was in town too. We got to do an SC marathon day with him and Keir which was pretty fun. We messed around in Bronze and got fewer wins than we should have, but that was still fine. Happy now-belated birthday by the way Davis if you find yourself reading this.

Now not much is going on. I'm eventually going to start the big load of work I have to do around this house, my aunt's house, and my grandpa's apartment sometime soon. Orion comes up this week actually, so I don't know what my full schedule will be. I'll try to work on days when he does if he does. For now, I'm staying up to watch a tournament (SC2 of course) and it starts soon, so I'd better get going. Until next time, peace out.

Real post coming after school and the LSAT are done. I simply do not have enough time to sit down and make a full post between now and then. The LSAT is less than a week away (cue fearful whimpering noises) and my final final is on the 10th. In the meantime, enjoy some quotes!



Reading suggestions of things to bring to Korea:
Me: Oh, they suggest bringing contraceptives!
Mom: Yeah, you don’t need that. Just keep it zipped while you’re there.
Me: Well what’s odd about it here is they list it under “General” and not “Things you can buy there.”
Mom: Haha, that is pretty weird.
*Dad walks into room, other conversation ensues*
*Conversation gets to a point where mom says…*
Mom: I just hold my family to a higher standard.
Me: I’ll say, she won’t even let me bring condoms to South Korea!
Mom: You’re just there for four months, you can hold it!
Me: Interesting choice of words…
*… then assorted laughter*
Mom: I didn’t mean it like that!



Dad: Ok, I’m going to give you a quiz I heard about to see what you thought of us as parents.
Me: Uh, ok
Mom: Ken, don’t do it, he won’t give you a straight answer!
Dad: Oh don’t worry about it. Okay, so say you’re a little kid and your first pet, a goldfish, dies unexpectedly. Would we:
a. Go out for a jog
b. Tell you to suck it up and not be a crybaby
c. Go out and buy you 10 new goldfish to compensate
d. Sit down and have a good cry with you
Mom: And talk about it!
Me: Uh, probably either b or c
Dad: Oh come on! No!
Mom: See? I told you he wouldn’t give you a straight answer!
Me: What? You guys would totally go out and buy 10 more!
Mom: No, we’d sit and talk to you about it!
Me: He said cry with me about it! You wouldn’t cry with me! Why am I even crying? It’s a goldfish!
Mom: Oh you’re not getting the question!
Me: Well then maybe it’s a. You guys like going on walks. Maybe you would go on a walk
Mom: No, it meant running away from your problems!
Me: No, maybe it meant you were just absent-minded and liked walking!
Mom: What? No!



Me: And then when you have prom, I can supply you with booze!
Me (imitating mom voice): No, Kathryn, David won’t do it. I’ll supply you.
Mom: What? I wasn’t paying attention.
Kathryn: He was talking about how he can give me booze for prom parties.
Mom: David!
Me: What?
Mom: Well what if…
Me: What if what
Mom (slightly quieter but still quite audible): She might not get asked
Kathryn: MOM!
[We have no idea what she was thinking, but she wound up apologizing to Kathryn later. Epic absent-mindedness maybe?]

 
 
lastredcoat: grrr
i have diag tomorrow
Me: same
but im not staying up as late as you
lastredcoat: lol
L(
Me: what is that one
crying?
lastredcoat: yes
Me: ah
do it the azn way
T___T
lastredcoat: no
i am white
i have sideways faces
Me: haha
lastredcoat: not up and down ones



Talking about fantasy football last season:
lastredcoat: how the fuck did i not win the whole thing?
me: idk
didnt you lose to dad?
oh right
lastredcoat: :/
i was regular season winnraw
me: your quarterback got fucked up
and you had to roll with ben
lastredcoat: bennn
noooo
me: yeah you got majorly shafted
lastredcoat: so bad at fantasy
me: so unlucky
lastredcoat: o well
no fantasy baseball rite?
me: nope
i considered it
lastredcoat: lolzes
me: no fantasy nascar ever formed either : (
lastredcoat: damn
i would have drafted jimmey joe bob
me: that would have been good competition
in that none of us would have any idea who to pick
ah jimmey joe bob
he's pretty good
almost as good as lester johnson
or his brother/father carl johnson
lastredcoat: true
also remember the billie bobs
first family to have 4 generations in nascar at the same time
me: hahaha
odds are one of them will win the.....
[wikipedias nascar]
nextel cup
lastredcoat: lol

Happy Birthday Sunny!!!

If you don't know what I'm talking about in the title, it's probably for the best (though feel free to ask I suppose). This will be the first of hopefully two updates this month. Around the next time I would be thinking about posting, I will be freaking out about the LSAT and I might delay a post until after it depending on how I feel. In this post, I don't think I'm going to say much about my classes because all I would wind up saying is how each one of them is assigning me a project. Again, I'm working on studying for the LSAT, so having those projects is an added challenge. For my growth class, I have the group paper that involves a lot of econometrics and other fun mathy things like that. The idea on it is hopefully all the reports are able to be published with a little bit of work over the summer. In my IPE class, we have a theoretical paper coming up. It has to pertain to an issue in the international political economy and has to be written for an executive at an NGO. I don't think it will get read by one, but having to write for that audience is a new challenge. The third project is my least concern, it's a paper on any topic we want from business ethics. There's a standard prompt about Wal-Mart, but the professor encourages us to go ahead and do anything we want if we are not inspired by that. Being the moderate achiever I am, I have decided to do whatever I want which will be a bit more difficult, but more enjoyable for sure. And that is all I am going to say about my classes.

Frisbee:
There is only one tournament left this school year and since Kathryn had confirmation this weekend, I was unable to go to it. The past few weeks since the tournament, I haven't been going to frisbee very much. I've only really been able to make it on Sundays because on Fridays I have felt like I didn't need to go since I wasn't going to the tournament. On top of that, I decided that I was better off using those 3-4 hours (including driving times) to study for the LSAT and/or work on my projects. On Sundays, I've been going to pickup games at Magnuson park with Steven, Eric, and Chris because I prefer to play with them.

Confirmation:
Kathryn had her confirmation today. It was pretty meh. Aside from maybe some weddings here and there and funerals, I doubt I will find myself in a church again. The ceremony went pretty well. It was actually not such a bad process because Kathryn's friend who is Josh H.'s sister was also getting confirmed so when sponsors had to come, there was someone cool there to hang out with. It was also nice because we seemed to have equally cavalier attitudes about the whole process.

Guild Wars:
Jen (the guild leader (and my facebook friend!)) has been off doing alliance battles with her friend recently, so she hasn't been doing as many money earning DoA runs that have coincided with my schedule unfortunately. Still though, her or some other guildie has been online and talking with them while vanquishing has made the whole process a lot less painfully boring. Since I caught up on a youtube series, I've been doing homework and some Guild Wars stuff during my break between classes now. I'm earning a lot of money and I am quite certain I will be done with Guild Wars altogether before I turn 21. In other gaming news...

Starcraft!!:
I've gotten back into playing. The more I play SC2, the less I care about Guild Wars. But then I see that Hall of Monuments calculator and I have to finish it. I've been mostly getting in time with Keir, but having Steven involved also has been fun when we are able to do it. I missed SC during winter quarter, especially the part where Keir and I bicker incessantly during a match. We're not that great yet, but we took a lot of time off and what can I say, Guild Wars really does not hone your videogaming skills (though when I went back from SC2 to Guild Wars, I got a lot better). Last night, Steven and I were playing some games against computers, working on our 6-pools when Steven accidentally clicked on "Find Match" instead of "Coop vs. AI." Neither of us noticed during the loading that there were human players and it wasn't until our zerglings were attacking and we saw they were walled off that Steven realized they were humans. For people that don't know, 6-pool is pretty generally douchey and we felt pretty bad, but at the same time it was funny that the mistake happened and that we were able to beat them. After that game, to add to the moment, battle.net decided it we deserved to be placed into diamond. So that is the story of how Steven and I are in diamond for 2v2s (not that it's a terribly impressive achievement, just that we definitely didn't deserve it after 6-pooling). I can't wait until the summer when I have nothing but time for SC2 and I definitely hope I can get back into the culture before going over to Korea. I'm already getting into pro games again and I discovered they still do Broodwar matches, so I might start watching those again too when I get time.

Game Nights:
They have been going well. Eric recently got Settlers of Catan, so I expect that to be fun in the future when we continue to play it. In other games, Steven and I are often able to make deals by me giving him something in the board game in exchange for something in Guild Wars that I can use to fund my Hall of Monuments run. I try not to be ridiculous about it though, I want to put up a reasonable fight to win in the board games to make them more interesting, but if I have enough to spare, I find making those deals is very good. For example, we were playing Life and I had the high income. With that, I was clearly doing well, so I offered to pay Steven's college loans in exchange for Guild Wars money. I can't wait until we play Risk next. I'm going to be a super assassin.

D&D:
Our campaign is going along pretty well. We're only two sessions in so it's hard to tell what exactly the overarching story is yet, but I think we have an idea. Our spellsword is starting to learn how to play her character. I like to think Chris is learning his as well, but then he does things like shoot at a ghost with a crossbow unsuccessfully......twice. At least Steven and I are there with some good DPS although we are also the ones getting messed up a lot of the time too. I think the only real downside to Steven's character is his speed. Other than that, he is good at tanking and dealing out good damage.

That's all for now. I don't know if I forgot anything, but I should really finish this work. I'm reviewing papers for our group essay. I've actually been doing that throughout this post between writing sections. The papers are 30 page walls of text followed by 8 pages of regression data, so I've found it has been easier to take breaks between essays. For this project, I'm reviewing 10 this weekend and my partner is doing the same. I then have to review about 5-10 more for my IPE project that I'm doing alone. Bleh......how many weeks are left in the quarter? Ah well, once again, Happy Birthday to Sunny and until next time I post, peace out.

I can't tell if this quarter is going to be really hard or really easy.

Considering I'm nearly halfway through, that's an interesting thing to have up in the air still. Some days, it seems like there is a huge amount of work coming down the pipeline for the remainder of the quarter. Other days, it seems like those projects coming up aren't such a big deal. Either way, I don't get too much free time anymore since I have now started devoting what was formerly free time to LSAT study. It's weird to actually be studying for somewhat of a "standardized" exam. I never studied for the SAT, WASL, anything like that, so it's strange to not be studying facts and equations for once. That being said, I should get into the progress on my classes. I have a bit more to say outside of classes this time around, so hopefully that will make this post a bit more interesting.

Business Ethics:
This class has turned out to be pretty cool. The professor is a really nice guy and I like that he actually makes you defend your point of view and reflect on why you feel that way about an issue. As we have gone through the quarter, he occasionally makes references either cultural or historical (or both) and generally, I'm the only one that gets them. There was the Ayn Rand example from my last post where I was the only one that had heard of her (although I was rather happy about that). I've since found out that there are some pretty hardcore conservatives and some libertarians even in that class, so I'm pretty shocked that they had not heard of Ayn Rand. It's just pretty sad. Recently, the professor referenced the HUAC. I knew what it was right off of that. When nobody else knew what it was, he said what the acronym stood for. Still, nobody knew what it was besides myself. When he finally explained what it did, about half the class seemed to realize what he was talking about. Its times like this that make me wonder what I could have done with my GPA if I had buckled down in high school if people like this are being passed through to college. And these are people that have been at the university their whole college career unlike myself. I guess at least I know I wasn't missing out on anything when I was at SCC.

Another fun thing in this class was that we were discussing Rawls and his theory of economic justice recently. For a critique to it, we also read an article by some Nozick guy who was a huge libertarian and basically stood against Rawls. Now the class on the whole is pretty liberal (as is the school). When the professor asked us all to raise our hands to take a side, he began with Rawls. I proudly raised my hand because his ideas made perfect sense. One girl in the front row sheepishly raised her hand to about her nose, then began to put it down quickly as she scanned the room. The professor then counted out the people supporting Rawls "One....two?...no? Only one?" I looked around the room and realized I was alone in my support of Rawls. Crazy. The professor decided that most of the class was probably undecided and went to see who supported Nozick. Aside from three people, EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CLASS RAISED THEIR HANDS. So basically, it was about 25 people against me when we went to defend our opinions. I think I earned some points with the professor for being able to defend the idea on my own against that many people. After that class, I think I should look into becoming a defense attorney after law school, it was pretty fun.

Break time:
Between that class and my next class, I have a huge break. I've started going back to the gym during it. I don't know if the gym usually is crowded during the day, but since I'm there at 10:00am, it's not an issue for me. The nice thing about getting there that early is volleyball is getting off practice, so I have to walk through them to get to where I'm going (very nice!) and there are a surprising amount of attractive girls working out when I'm there. There's generally always one on those machines that men agree is the most fun to watch (the leg spready one (I'm not a pervert, I swear!)) which is also nice (hmm, maybe I am...). I didn't know it could be done, but today, a girl actually used the leg spready machine AT me. As hard as it is to explain how someone can use an exercise machine AT someone else, you'll just have to trust me, such was the case. I wasn't sure on protocol whether I should follower her to the free weights when she got up and went to use them. I might have overcome my shyness (lololo yeah right) and gone to talk to her, but a more alpha-male-y guy went to go hit on her after she got up so I wound up not going over. Missed opportunity, she was actually pretty attractive too :/

After working out, I usually head back to a cubicle in the library and "do homework" which means I watch some videos then fall asleep for a couple hours before waking up for my next class.

International Political Economy:
It's going pretty well. A lot of the stuff we learn is foundational information for economics because of all the international studies majors, but she is able to mix in current events and the occasional new piece of information for us econ majors to keep it interesting.

Economic Growth:
I don't want to give the wrong impression, I like the professor and I like the class. That being said, the material of the first few weeks was terribly dry and given the time of day it was in, I had a lot of trouble staying awake. We recently had our midterm exam, so now the remainder of the quarter is spent on excel writing up our big research papers. My partner and I wound up choosing financial aid and its effectiveness. It's not the most original idea, but we are both really busy outside of class this quarter, so we wanted to pick something we know we could do and that we could possibly excel at.

Frisbee:
A few weekends ago, we had a tournament over in Cheney. Only 11 of us were able to go, so it was a pretty intense weekend in terms of our lack of subs. Despite the lack of players, it was pretty much the best group we could have asked for (only would have switched one guy out and one guy in(who was too sick to go)). We were actually going to have 13, but one guy had to stay in town for some reason and one guy got robbed the night before. It was funny to find that out because we all get the emails when something of a criminal nature happens near campus, so we had all heard about it, we just didn't know who it happened to. Also, the fact that it was that guy getting robbed helped explain why exactly he and his friends were smoking "cigars" (as the email claimed) at 1am. So for things like this, we usually rent a 12 passenger van from the school and one of the captains drives that. Unfortunately, he was sick and couldn't go, so the other captain was to drive. Now I don't want to be rude, but he is a terrible driver. Like comically bad. At least he knows it and doesn't mind us poking fun at him. In the email he sent the night before we left, he said "If anyone is certified by the school to drive, let me know since I'm probably not the safest option we have." I asked him how easy it was to get registered and as it turns out, it is very easy. Long story short, I wound up getting certified to drive by the school. On the way over to Cheney, he drove until Ellensburg because he didn't know that I enjoy driving or how good at driving I was. After I took the wheel halfway through the trip, I was the only one for the remainder of the weekend that was allowed to drive (it was a vast improvement haha). The motel we stayed at in Cheney was kind of sketchy (doesn't narrow it down, I know) and it was quite an interesting experience because we had 11 guys sharing 1 room with 2 beds. Needless to say it was pretty cramped. I did learn that I can dry my whole body with a washcloth though.

Oh hey shoutout to Davis here: Thanks for showing me around Eastern when I came last summer. I was the only person on the team that knew the area and it really helped to know where everything was. It was too bad we didn't get to meet up that weekend, but I don't know if the timing would have worked out anyway.

So the actual tournament went pretty well. We got put against the usual teams, UW B-team, WSU, Eastern, and then a team called 'Combo' that was made up of the best players at Eastern (since they had enough for two full teams) and some from Wilamette. Usually, we suck pretty bad at tournaments which is ok because this is a building year for our program. This time though, we had a pretty elite team with us. We beat UW in our first game and I think took them by surprise since they had rolled us in every prior meeting this year. After that game, we had a bye, so I went with two of the players who had forgotten their cleats and we went to Wal-Mart in Airway Heights (near Spokane) to get them a pair because they were slipping around in the first game. When we got back, it was just in time to start our second game. Our second game was one of the best games that whole weekend. Each team was guaranteed one game on the red turf at eastern's field. I had admired it back when I went with Davis in the summer and to get to play on it was really fun. We played Eastern's team on that field. Zack was on Combo as were all the Eastern players I knew, so this was just some rookie team. We almost bageled them, winning 13-1. It was a really cool experience playing on the red turf. For our third game, we played the combo team. This was the 'elite' game for the day since both our teams were 2-0 and at this point in the day were likely to be spots 1 and 2 in our division. We got off to a rough start then somehow found our rhythm and actually managed to beat combo in a pretty amazing game. I don't remember the score, but I know it got hard capped and we were only 1 or 2 points ahead when it happened. That was the highlight of the day (besides the red turf). Our last game of the day was against WSU. They brought their parents for some reason and their parents were super annoying. We had to ask them to stop yelling "travel" every time one of us caught the disc. We wound up losing that game, I don't know why. We should have won. At the end of the day though, Combo and us tied for first with records of 3-1. Since we beat combo though, that meant we got the official first place and the oh-so-sweet first round bye that came with it. We headed into Spokane for some Olive Garden, then went back to the motel after that. We wound up watching Return of the Jedi with me and one other player pretty much quoting the movie as it went (to the amusement of the other people for some reason).

On Sunday, we didn't do very well. We won our first game in a rematch against WSU. After that, we played Gonzaga who were pretty good. It got hard capped and we were down 3 or 4 points anyway, so it seems like they would have won. Overall, that means we got third place, but still, a rematch against combo in the finals on the red turf would have been amazing. It's too bad it never came to be. We left after our last game and just went straight home in one sitting since I was more than happy to do all that driving. After we got back, I was complemented a lot on my driving which was pretty cool and then I was told that either myself or the captain that couldn't come would be perma-drivers from here on out. That was also pretty cool. The other guy is a good driver as well, it's nice to be in company with him. Overall, this was one of those good team bonding experiences and it turned out to be fun because we had an elite group and did a lot better than we usually do.

Since the tournament, I haven't been coming to practice as much. There is one tournament left, but I can't go because I'm sponsoring Kathryn in confirmation (a couple of you just spit out your morning cup of coffee laughing at that sentence (trust me, the irony is not lost on our family)) and it happens to be that same weekend. It's all the same though, I've also been injured. I suffered a pretty crazy fall onto some non-padded ground on our indoor field (falling about 5 feet down right onto my ass) and my leg has been kinda messed up since then. It didn't hurt tonight when I went though, so I think taking the last week off really helped to heal.

Miscellany:
So yeah I'm sponsoring Kathryn in confirmation. It seems appropriate because she is just about as motivated to do it as I am. I can't wait until our whole family is confirmed, then we never need to go to church again (that is TOTALLY how it works ;)).

I've found that I am really retarded when it comes to women. For some reason, I just can't pick up on subtle social cues. For instance, I was leaving a building a couple of weeks ago to meet dad in a parking lot on campus. He had come to get me since it was suddenly hailing and lightning after a day of having been bright and sunny. I happened to leave the building at the same time as this moderately attractive girl (617 maybe?). As I held the door open for her (as I always do), she commented about the weather. I lingered outside for a bit as she started to put her jacket on and I talked with her about something. I forget what it was exactly, but it was most likely related to a joke about the weather. Then, I noticed dad in the parking lot and without thinking, I went away from her and straight to the car so as not to keep him waiting. I got about halfway there and suddenly came to my senses. As I looked back, the girl was still standing there, kind of with a dumbfounded look on her face. I'm not sure, but I think that leaving was probably the totally wrong choice to make there. Oh well.

In better news, I got accepted to study abroad in Korea!!! Now all that remains is to finalize paperwork and stuff like that. Pending plane tickets and visa approval though, it looks like I will be in Korea come August. Now, that means I'll be missing PAX, so if you're going, don't forget to get tickets. I feel like I should still remind everyone since I always do anyway. Have fun, take lots of pictures for me to look at.

Chris, Steven, and I joined up a DnD group with this girl Chris knows and her boyfriend who DMs. He's a good DM in that he knows the rules well and is helpful and makes well balanced campaigns, but even after one session with him, I think Steven and I have been able to appreciate how awesome Davis' DMing is much more (wow man, two shoutouts! This is what you get for talking to me while I'm writing a post I guess). I'm playing a monk in this campaign. I was going to be a druid, but I found out that they don't have tree form in 3.5, so I was like "screw that" and decided to be a monk since I felt like I never really got to appreciate the class. I must say, it's a pretty awesome one. It also helps that I got Dirk-like stat rolls (17, 16, 16, 12, 12, 11). My favorite moment from the first session was when the four of us were going to use ranged attacks. Steven fired his shortbow and missed. Chris shot his crossbow and did a little damage. The girl fired a spell for a little damage. I picked up a rock off the ground, threw it 50 feet and scored a kill in one hit. In that same battle, my character jumped through fire to punch a hobgoblin (my favorite enemy) in the face before throwing it into said fire. Oh, I also had the time to curb-stomp a werewolf from a tree. That was pretty cool. I think I can get used to this kind of monking.

Ok that's about it. Aside from this stuff, I've been doing videogames as usual and still hanging out on Saturdays which has been fun. This post is definitely long enough though, so I'll let you go. Peace out.