The last three months of my Jinju experience were not exceptionally notable, at least not as far as I care to remember. I took up playing soccer with other foreigners on Sunday. I went for long walks along the Nam river until it got too damn cold. I hung out with Scott Gaines and Erin Burke, and sometimes got drunk with big groups of weygookin. I never finished my model, or solved the Rubik's cube. I sold my motorcycle for a paltry sum. I walked out of the country will a sizable nest egg, and spent two weeks in Cambodia.
Cambodia was an adventure. It's a beautiful country. Go, if you can.
My plan upon coming back to Canada was to become a paramedic, and just do that forever. I wanted to buy a car and stay with my parents while getting my training. Alas, it was not to be: it became apparent after only a few days that living with my parents would not be good for anyone's mental health.
It took a month to find a place in Vancouver. I had a great time during this period. I couched hopped, and caught up with friends--though some one them may have been a bit strained by the time I found a place of my own. I drank a lot. I was generally blissed-out. I took long walks and smoked. My brother's slack made me feel more comfortable about my place in the world. I made plans with a good friend and tattoo artist to get a new tattoo.
I moved into an old house in Mount Pleasant. I had three roommates: a severely introverted 30 year old artist, who worked at a trendy cafe/bakery on Commercial drive, and two young, transient New Zealanders, who moved in at the same time as me. They got the upstairs suite, and I got the shitty corner room in the main level with cracks in the walls. There was a spacious back yard that was almost completely taken over by blackberry bush.
I did some tutoring, bought a big TV and a playstation, and made up for lost time. I started hanging out with an ex-girlfriend from university and hoped we would get together (we didn't). I bought a machete and reclaimed the back yard. It took a long time. Dama, the moody artist thought I was crazy for doing it. I found a lot of interesting things in the blackberry bush: a rotten picnic table, planters, pots, a composter, lots of garbage, a rotten wooden ladder, and many other delights. Thus began my first experiments in gardening.
I found a bike frame on Craigslist, got the rest of the parts together and put together a speedy little single speed. When I wasn't tutoring (which was most of the time) or working in the back yard, I was riding around. I bought a 10 week yoga pass and did yoga three or four times a week.
Eventually, I needed to make some money, as what I was spending was far exceeding what I was making tutoring. Luckily, my uncle was able to help me get a job working up in Mt. Milligan--a mining construction site north of Prince George. The hours were long, and the camp was up in the middle of nowhere, but the scenery was beautiful, the air was clear and the work wasn't difficult. Someone of my coworkers were really cool. Others were complete fuckwits. I made over eight grand in two months...but sadly, I got laid off after that.
After the second month in Mt. Milligan, I got a job at an ESL school in Yaletown for rest of the summer. The gardeners had assumed everything in the backyard was weeds, and took a weed-eater to everything, so I started again from scratch. I continued doing yoga. The New Zealanders moved out to continue traveling, so I moved into the suite. I started spending more and more time handing out with Dama, who had gotten fired from his job in the middle of summer, and gone on EI. He's an all right guy, but has the bad habit of talking about himself constantly. On the bright side, he helped me decide not to go back to school for psychology.
Working at the ESL school was fun. I had some great students. I did a bit of tutoring, through which I met a Korean girl, who I eventually started dating. I've also been spending a lot of time with a guy and girl who I met through tutoring (they were colleagues). So, between the four of them, I've had a pretty good social base.
I'm really enjoying life right now. I've got a great space, I've got lots of free time, I've been drawing, cooking, working out and playing guitar. I bought a motorcycle and have been enjoying some excellent fall riding weather. My friends are great and my girlfriend is great. Unfortunately, I'm blowing through money far faster than I'm making it, my girlfriend and one of my friends are leaving the country soon, and I don't have much for career prospects here.
So, I've been looking at jobs abroad once again. I'm thinking Saudia Arabia. There, I can save a lot of money, pay off my student loan once and for all, and do a lot of traveling. I can see my buddy Dave in Hungary, and go to France at last!
Whatever happens, I'll write another post in the next little while...
