I haven't written for a while. Right now I've got my frayed sweatshirt on and my shoes are covered with mud. I just came to my office really quick to get a book then I'll go back to my house to prepare for my lesson today. This semester my free time is in the morning and I teach at night. So this morning I had my Tae-kwon-do lesson and then went stomping around the little lake on our campus taking pictures for my online photography class. I'm borrowing one of my student’s camera so I always have limited time to take pictures because he needs it back during the weekends. It has been raining nonstop for the last couple days making us all depressed and making it difficult for me to take pictures so now I'm relieved I can finally take some pictures outside. I'm kind of stressed about my lesson today. I need to teach about poetry and that makes me a bit insecure. I also just don't have the time today to do all the research that would take. So I hope today isn't a nightmare. Gotta go prepare...

I can't believe this! MIT has put 500 of their courses on the internet for anybody totally free. I just reviewed it quickly but they had classes from "Drugs and Culture" and "Middle Eastern Poetry" to "Neuroloical Studies of the Brain". Wow and it's all free... It's called Open CourseWare. Wow... I'm going to go crazy now looking through that info...

I've stayed up too late. I'm sleepy but I think I'm still going to go home and read for a while. However, I must let you know why I stayed up too late in my office. I told you a while ago about how I walked around the fishing villages around my university and took pictures. Well, I've got some of the pics up and I really like them. Not all of them are up but a good portion. I think I captured some cool scenes. (if I do say so myself:-)) Take a look... I strongly recommend you put in it on "slide show" if you have a fast connection.

Ok, I've been sitting in my office chair so long that my leg is aching. Am I getting old? Actually, I don't think I've been sitting in my chair that long. It might be that ever since I started Tae-kwon-do my hamstrings have been constantly soar from my new stretching routine. You know if you're not flexible you just physically can't do some things in Tae-kwon-do. Sometimes when my teacher teaches me something and I'm having a hard time instead of modeling the kick again he just makes me stretch again.

I found out at church today from a fellow prof. that I was on the news in Korea lately. Well, not just me but the university I work at, too. Last semester MBC came and filmed my class for about 10 minutes. So about 1 minute of that time is on this video that was shown on MBC. So if you want to see it I have the link, but first you should have a fast connection and you'll have to brave the Korean website. I'll try to give you clear directions but you won't understand most of the writing on the website and also the speakers on the video are Korean. But I think it's still really interesting and not too difficult to find the link. So go to this website (the Korean website, not the English one) and look for the "Handong PR video" title. The title will be in English. The first video link will have the letters "MBC" that's NOT the correct one. Go 3 links down and you will also see MBC again. That's the right link. Click on that and you will see me in about 2 minutes after starting the video and you'll also see other professors from my school.

I'm sick and kind of sad. I've been home all day lying around my house. I haven't been this sick in quite a while. My voice sounds pathetically croaky and I've got a cough. I should have been lying in bed but instead I was glued to my laptop surfing the internet for hours. Honestly, I can't remember what I was doing on the internet for so long. Hmmm...Let's see I typed out all my goals, did research on different books on making documentaries, researched laptops, researched pda's... Oh, I guess that's what I did. I have that kind of mopey, lump on a log kind of feeling. Like I'm trapped inside my body. I don't want to lay around- I want to do things, go places but I just don't want to move my body.

I was supposed to speak for MNE on the topic of "Spiritual Warfare" today but I had to cancel. That would have been great, hopefully I will get to speak for them later this semester. I also canceled my classes today. Thankfully my night class is taking a test, so another teacher is going to drop off the test for me and the students will take it with out me there. Another thing that was canceled today was the filming of my life. :-) Actually, it's true. A student's taking a documentary class and would like to make a documentary on a foreigner's life in Korea. I was really excited this student asked me to do this because I'm also interested in making documentaries and would like to learn as much as I can.

The desire to learn about documentaries has grown in me. I travel a lot and see such amazing things. I would like to capture some of those things and share them with people. It's a way of not having so many experiences, ideas and images bottled up inside you. Photography, making videos, my poetry and this website are methods I use to keep myself from feeling isolated or locked up inside myself with my experiences. I guess that isolation could be thought of as the other side of expression. In the past I thought artists expressed through their art just for the purpose of expressing. It never occurred to me that it was also a way to feel community or to feel less isolated.

I've finally started corresponding with, Frontiers, the mission agency I'm interested in working with . So I'm really happy about that. I've been trying to establish contact with them since the end of July. And it seemed somehow my emails didn't get through to them or the on-line vision survey I took didn't get through to them when I sent it to them through their website. But at last we are communicating and the "California rep" and I are starting to dialog over email. So we'll see where this goes.

Today I went with Ro, Sandy and some Korean guys on a hike to a temple on a mountain with the purpose of enjoying the changing fall leaves. It was beautiful. Fall is my favorite season. I love the crisp air coupled with the bright sunshine and the changing leaves. I think Ro gets tired of me going on about this though. And she often reminds me of why she doesn't like the fall, "It's the coming of death!" She's referring to winter, which she greatly dislikes. I mention this because the contrast in our moods about fall strike me as humorous. Well, I'm going to go do some reading. I just wanted to write a little bit. Hopefully, I'll write something more inspiring and deep next time...:-)

I should be writing a test but instead I'm surfing the internet and correcting the dates on my poetry page. It's really weird but when I viewed my poetry page the template was totally different (not of my doing) but I ironically I think I like it the best out of all the templates I've seen. So I hope it'll stay but when this quirky stuff happens with blogger it usually goes back to normal the next day. Thankfully I copied the html (A-ha...I'm so clever) so I can keep the template. So now that I've bored anyone that's not into blogger or websites I'll tell you that this was a "cool movie" weekend. I saw 2 movies that really touched me and filled my mind with things to meditate on. One was About a Boy and the other Equilibrium which I saw in the theater. Equilibrium really impacted me. It's been rattling through my brain the last 24 hours; I think I need to see it again. Its premise is really fascinating. Another movie that has been thought provoking for me, even though I've only seen trailers is Lost in Translation. It's a movie that I can really relate with in the sense that I daily have to interact with a culture and language I don't completely understand and doesn't completely understand me. Some of the scenes from this movie are like the story of my life in Korea. You know until I had a blog I had no idea that I cared about movies. Isn't that weird? But I guess I do cuz I'm noticing a trend in my blogs that I often talk about movies.

Ok, my poetry page is finally up. I want to put the real dates for when I wrote the poems but as you know I've had some probs with the page. So not all the dates are correct for each poem. Some of the dates are correct but not all. I'll change them later.

oh my gosh, there's my entry after all. Blogger is being so weird and flacky! Is blogger being wacko for anyone else!?

I'm really, really sad. I erased accidentally the entry I just wrote. I also have been working on a poetry page but something keeps on being weird with blogger. I've spent hours trying to get that thing published then the entries don't even show up. So it's like I totally wasted my time. Sometimes technology makes me so mad!

I've made a poetry page and I'll be adding it soon to my site. I'm using blogger for this page but for some reason I'm having a lot of problems publishing it. Usually I don't have any problems with blogger. So that's made me in a slightly annoyed mood. I've spent way too much time trying to fix it. Oh well. Soon as I get it fixed I'll let you know. I'm pretty excited about it. It's really amazing to see my poetry up in such a format. I put up whatever poems I could find (and I felt comfortable posting) scattered through out my journals of the past 5 years. So that was interesting to skim through different journals. I hadn't done that in a while and it was so enlightening. I realized that I had been praying about certain things a lot longer than I thought. I found certain prayer requests and concerns that I thought were more recent but I've actually been thinking about for years. Each poem reflects a period or circumstance in my life. It's so interesting for me to look at them all together as a kind of anthology of my life. I can see them from my eyes, remembering that time or I can see them through the eyes of someone else. They look so different when I look at them that way.

This weekend was a melancholy, lonely weekend. I was alone for the weekend for the first time in along time. It's hard for me to be alone usually during the weekends because I live on a campus in the forest with all my friends (fellow profs). So basically we are always together. But just by some fluke last minute situation everybody left for the weekend but me. Normally, this would be no problem at all because I do well alone for extended periods of time. I'm pretty good at entertaining myself. But I was sad anyway to begin this weekend. It turned all right though because after I got over the initial surprise of being alone I started to think of all the things I would like to do but never get a chance. So I walked around the fishing villages near my university taking pictures and filming people. It was great. I love doing that. I used to do that in Jerusalem all the time. It's so meditative. You can somehow soak up the culture more. Walking dusty streets, strolling narrow alleys, passing average fishermen entering their average house gets you in touch with something basic, something foundational in the country. And by the way, I’ll put those pictures up eventually, too. I didn’t take them with a digital camera so it’s going to take me a little longer to get them up.

Ok, this is going to be Joyce's "hook-up" entry. I often think of things or connections that have helped me out and I just thought I should share some of those things with you. So here they are. First, we've got two newsletters that have given me so many connections over the years. I strongly recommend them. One is a weekly newsletter for mission-minded people. If you want to be in the know about resources and networking with mission-minded people get on this list!
~Send an email just saying you want to subscribe (one sentence will do) and if you decide you don't want it you can easily unsubscribe
*To subscribe, write to brigada-today-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

*To check out their newsletter online go to at http://www.brigada.org

Ok, the second newsletter is bi-monthly and is called the web-evangelism newsletter. It’s also got a lot of great resources and info.
~To JOIN, send a blank email to: web-evangelism-subscribe@lists.gospelcom.net
You can also check it out online at http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/bulletin.php

Now here is an absolute LIFE SAVER for people who have acne problems. This is the only thing I know that really, really works without going to a doctor, spending TONS of money and almost destroying your liver with medication. It's a bit pricey but totally worth it. You also have to stay with it for over 6 months to get almost totally perfect skin but you do see results immediately. So suggest it to anyone that really struggles with acne-it works!! And no, I don't get anything out of this just the satisfaction of helping someone cuz I know what a bummer it can be.
www.proactiv.com

Some people want to support a missionary, they just don't know who or how. Well, I know a terrific organization. They are really reliable. A hundred percent of your money goes to a native missionary in Asia (as opposed to advertisement fees and such unless you specifically allocate your money to home staff and fees-which are important, too) You can "adopt" one missionary and pay about 20-30 dollars a month and that pays their salary. You also get a letter from them once every couple months telling you their prayer requests. It is written through a translator because most of the missionaries are village people. Another thing I like about it is you can sign up for automatic withdrawal out of your account, so that you won't forget. So here's the website. Check it out---www.gfa.org

Well, those are all my "hook-ups" for now. :-)

It's after work and I'm sitting in my office. Perhaps I'm finally beginning to get into my schedule since I've come back from Japan. This semester I'm working nights and starting classes at 3pm. So far I like it. One thing that I really like about it is that it gives me time to do things in the morning when I'm fresh. Something I'm really enjoying so far this semester is taking Tae-Kwon-Doe lessons in the morning. I get up at 8am, throw my clothes on and then run to meet my teacher near the cafeteria. So far I really like it. I was trying to analyze why I like it so much. For me it's so beautiful, so artful. Even though one could argue that in dance or sports a person trains their body in a similar way to produce some sort of movement. But in my opinion martial arts are the most beautiful. It was funny yesterday my teacher taught me a new kick. The first time I tried it he said, "Have you learned this before? It's like you already mastered it!" I think perhaps I was lucky the first time but it was true that kick came more naturally to me than other kicks. I was thinking later about why that was then it dawned on me. As many of you know I'm a major Matrix 1 fan and I've probably watched that movie 20+ times. (yes...it's true--in a sheepish voice) I’m pretty sure that Neo does this kick a couple times and one particular time really pronounced. So I realized that watching that movie a million times might have sub-consciously helped me out. See-it does pay to watch certain movies multiple times. :-)

You know the famed fables that some how involve one character being in a group where he tries to belong but there's always an ache inside him telling him that he doesn't quite belong. For example, the story of "The Ugly Duckling". Do you remember it? Its story line is something along the lines of a swan that grows up with a duck family. So it grew up thinking it was a duck but it was a terrible and supposedly ugly duck. The swan grew up thinking it should swim more like the other ducks or look more like the other ducks. It must have been so eye opening when the swan first realized who it was. I can imagine what it would have been like when the swan was first around other swans. They would have swam up to him and greeted him as one of their own. They wouldn't have been surprised at his size or looks but simply expected him to look like this because he was a swan, of course. The swan probably would have looked at the other swans and thought, "They swim like me! They look like me! They act like me!" Stories of such situations remind me of sometimes what I feel like in Korea. The interesting thing is though that I didn't always feel this way but it has grown in me. See-normally I just live my life like the ugly duck. I have a life here. I fit in here. I'm swimming pretty contently with all the ducks. But once in a while I'll get a glimpse of the invisible boundary between me and the Koreans. Like today I was interviewing potential members for MNE (Missions and English-a student lead missions group on campus) with other members of MNE who are Korean. One of the potential members came in and we began to ask her questions. She is Korean ethnically but she is Russian. She grew up in Russia and doesn't speak very much Korean. Within a couple minutes she made me realize once again that her and I are so similar and in some intangible way the Koreans are so far away from us. What I mean is her mind is western. I don't know her. I might not even agree with half of her ideas. However, that's not what I'm talking about, it's not about agreeing with each other. It's about sharing a mind-frame, a certain orientation. It's hard for one to put their finger on what it is exactly. Perhaps like how the swan felt when it was young. It couldn't see itself clearly in the water it just knew it wasn't the same as the ducks. Some sense or aching or longing inside. What's interesting is that I forget about the difference between my mind set and the Korean's mind-set until I'm with a lot of western people again. Then the difference between us glares so brightly.

This longing can work both ways. I can long for other "swans" but I can also long to belong with the "ducks" that I love and admire. Because if a swan is always around ducks it can begin to feel like one of them even though it always knows deep down that it isn't a duck. This can be especially acute for me when I start to feel romantic feelings for a Korean. There is the sense that I know them, that I'm drawn to them. But then there is that wall between us; our cultures are too fundamentally different. So I guess I'm like the swan that swims with a lot of ducks and I long for their company but our closeness can only go so far. So then I long for those who are fundamentally like me.

Here's a fascinating article called "Should Christians try to Convert Muslims?" It was on the front page of Time magazine. I was really impressed in a lot of ways when I read this article because the author had really done his homework. I felt he really knew about the evangelical mission movement; in fact I thought he probably knew more than a lot of evangelicals that aren't mission-minded. I also thought he represented Christians fairly and brought up issues that Christians themselves dispute. Read it-because it's more relevant than ever in these post 9/11 days.

I'm now in Tokyo at Ro's parents’ house. It's been a whirlwind of feelings and experiences. I got into the Tokyo airport last night and made my way through 3 confusing trains (3 hours later?) to the Potters' station. I also made a Taiwanese friend along the way when the book in my sweatshirt pocket stabbed her when I sat down next to her. We started to chat in English after she asked me to stop stabbing her with my book which, of course, I was unaware of. Once there Dr. Potter picked me up and I was once again reunited with the Potters at their home in Tokyo. Today I got up and Dr. Potter and I figured out how to get the embassy and Dr. Potter gave me impeccable directions as usual. I then proceeded to make my way around the maze that is called Tokyo's train system. You might think, "What's the big deal?" The deal is simply said- tons of trains. Not only that but tons of trains going to one destination but the trains are all different. One is the express train, one is the local train, one is the red, the blue, the green. So blue, green, yellow and red might all go towards the stop you want to get off at but one is faster so it only stops at major stops. (therefore skipping your stop) On top of that the signs are all in Japanese with English in small letters sometimes. At times there are crowds of people running everywhere and trains leaving and it seems you have to make decisions about which train to take in a split second or you might be left waiting for an hour. I also didn't mention some trains are only by reservation and/ or are way more expensive than others but they're also going in the direction you want to go. But you get the point-right? Did I mention that often you have to change the train 2 or 3 times each trip you take? ....OK, I'll stop going on about it. So thank goodness for Dr. Potter and his incredible thorough directions.

I finally got to the Korean embassy and when I got to the window they told me they closed "the visa time" 3 hours ago. But I said outside in the lobby it's says the visa time is from 1:30 to 4pm and it says that on the internet, too. So she says, "Well, it's wrong. We changed the time a month ago." Thankfully she took my passport and visa application anyway. After that we had a long discussion about just what had gone wrong with my visa anyway. Because technically my visa had 5 more months until it was invalid. So we went through the big discussion that I have had a hundred times by now and at first this immigration lady couldn't understand why the immigration people in Seoul had disqualified my visa. So we had a thoroughly confusing discussion and she finally thought she understood which I wasn't so sure about. Which just goes to show me once again out of this situation that a lot of the times even immigration people don't understand half the regulations concerning visas and that I've got to know what's going on with my visa because a lot of people don't know what they are talking about. At the end of our conversation she concluded with some slight doubt that I had been working illegally since Feb. 2003. That was her theory based on the paper work she had seen. Which I was pretty sure was not the case and somehow she didn't understand some part of the process. Anyway, all of this was not really relevant to the current visa process but more her and I trying figure out what went wrong. But it left me thinking this visa situation is so crazy and no one knows what they're talking about.

After that I headed back to Tokorozawa, which is the lovely suburb where Ro's parents live. I got there, I'm proud to say, splendidly and even met Ro's youngest brother, Brent, on the bus on the last leg of the 2 hour trip. I've known Brent since he was 10 years old but only seen him sporadically since then, so every 3 year increment I’ve seen him I've been astonished by how much he had changed . Especially when I saw him at 13 I felt like he had grown 2 feet since the last time I had seen him. This time it's like the boy I knew never existed and there's just this mature young man standing in front of me. (He’s 18 now.) I'm getting to the age when you can see people grow up and that in itself is weird. It also makes me feel like the dreaded relative that we all had whether it was an aunt or great cousin that said, "Haven't you grown like a weed....I seems just like yesterday that you were a tiny tot running naked through the sprinklers....and then there was when...." I'm turning into that person!! Oh no!

There's a lot more I could say about Brent and I doing dishes to Vanilla Ice's classic "Ice, Ice Baby" or eating dinner with the new missionary family that is joining the Potter's mission team in their area or how the Japanese dress so funky in comparison to Koreans or how I have felt anxious and sad about my money and future but also hopeful because "God can do more than we ask or imagine...". But I've got to go to sleep. Maybe later I can talk about the Muslim church planting book I'm reading (as one of my Uzbeki students once said, "It's just what the doctor ordered!") or some observations I've made about Japanese spheres of personal space. Good night!

I talked about it earlier now it's come up again. I get a web-evangelism newsletter and this was on it. This is a Christian website that is really influential in dialoging with non-Christians through film. This is what the web master of that site is saying. So Christians go on there and dialog with people on that message board. I'm going to try to go on the board also. ALso pray for venues for the film to be seen, people are protesting againest it being show in theaters.

MEL GIBSON'S FILM - YOU CAN HELP

Dave Bruce of Hollywoodjesus.com writes:
"Our message board for Mel Gibson's THE PASSION is being overloaded by
pre-Christians. I can not get to them all. The board is running 75%
pre-Christian, with very few solid Christians responding to those who
are
anti-Jesus. I have never seen anything like this!
Passion page: http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/passion.htm
Board: http://forums.gospelcom.net/view/hollywoodjesus/passion
Please post responses and get others to post. Needs 'Jesus makes a
difference in my life' personal responses. Goal: off-the-board dialogue
with
pre-Christians. Pass this need on too. It is going to be one of the
most
culturally-explosive films ever released!"

It's weird. This is the Monday of my second week of school. I feel both busy and in slow motion. I have the lightest schedule I've ever had at Handong. And that is exaggerated I think because the first week a lot of the things I'm going to be doing hadn't even started yet. I feel strange and strangely guilty like there is something I should be doing. At the same time I have felt preoccupied with my whole visa mess. I'm going to Japan to get a new work visa as soon as I get the paper work from my school. It looks like it's going to be a crazy ride though. Because I'm getting stand-by tickets from Ro's brother, who is a pilot. Stand-by is unpredictable and often stressful. I have only a short window of time to get the visa because of the most important holiday in Korea is coming up and the Korean embassy will be closed. But I have to get my work visa before Chusuk (the holiday in Korea) because my tourist visa will expire. So please pray for all the details that have to fall in place as I travel to Japan. A lot could potentially go wrong. well, I have got class.....

Wow, what a ride. I'm finally back in Korea. I had a lay over in Tokyo and it turned out that something was wrong with the plane so all the people on the plane had to stay in a hotel. (with all expenses paid) The hotel was about an hour and a half away from the airport and then it took another 45 minutes to check in. While waiting in line I really wanted to lie down on the floor by that time I had been up for a long time. (I didn't sleep on the way to Korea) The nice thing about going to the hotel though was that I got to sleep in a nice bed instead of a bus and a plane. I also took a hot bath, which was wonderful for my stiff back. Then I got up at 3:30am to catch the bus back to the airport which we were informed was now leaving a 9:50am instead of 7am. So more waiting around with the passengers of the plane that I was now well acquainted with. Then I got to Seoul and was told at the immigration booth that my working visa had expired. After sitting in the immigration office and having Joanne talk with the immigration officer (over the phone in Korean) I am still confused to what happened and worried about it. They let me in the country with only a 30 day tourist visa. This is actually quite serious. All I know is that I did what I was told and in Feb. when my visa was expiring I went to the immigration office in Pohang and renewed it. Obviously, something was seriously wrong. But I have no idea what happened, I remember specifically asking the immigration guy, "Is this a multiple visa?" We had a hard time communicating but I thought we both walked away with it solved. But I guess not. Please when you read this pray about this for me because I don't know what we are going to do. Jun-mo is going to call the immigration lady to find out what happened as soon as Joanne reaches him. I have the nagging feeling that somehow this is my fault even though I know it is not. Well, I'm still in the airport in Seoul so I better go and call Ro to see if she can pick me up at the airport in Pohang.

Oh great, suddenly I feel like I have nothing to write about. I've written a couple blogs in my head today, so where are they?
You know you are in America when:
*you receive the food you ordered and you gasp at its great size
*people drive so obediently and orderly
*there is an abundance of everything (you walk into Costco or Wal-Mart and can't believe the pure abundance)
*almost every young woman from 12 to 30 is showing part of her stomach (at least in Southern California)
* white people are trying to be really brown and somewhat succeeding (in contrast to Korea where everyone is always trying to be whiter)
It's funny cuz I a year ago I wrote a list like this for Korea (you know you're in Korea when...) to process some of the external cultural aspects when you first visit. I wrote it in my first semester in Korea and then later realized that I no longer noticed the very things I wrote about. But I wrote it mainly to illustrate the external things that usually strike the person who first travels to Korea from the West. And when I did this I tried to do it the other way and imagine what a person coming to the US would first notice. And to tell you the truth-I couldn't do it. I guess I couldn't become that objective. So today I realized that a year and a half later I have acquired some sense of objectivity about the US, so that certain things struck me as different or foreign.