What have I been doing since I arrived in South Korea? 

That's easy to guess- eating. 

There are so many places to eat here. Restaurant after restaurant. I wish I had a bigger stomach so I could never stop eating. 

My first encounter with obstacles was when all my options for a meal had meat. I have been a vegetarian for the past 3 years now. It's been great. Until you come to Korea. I had never known of people eating so much meat. 

Girls are stylish. I'm surprised to see so many wear short skirts, dresses, and shorts. I mean I always had the impression that Asians felt more conservative in that way. (Ignorance on my part of course). 

The heat/humidity it is unbearable. Probably so because I have been walking a lot. Being from California where we only walk from our front door to the car, it's been quite overwhelming dealing with the sweat generated by this unforgivable heat and humidity. But if you're a food lover like me then the food totally compensates for it. 

Although I have been enjoying everything Korean, the small part of American in me was elated when I found Starbucks at my disposition just half a mile from where I am. I suppose when the culture shock finally hits me, Starbucks will be my place of consolation. 

For now, I'm soaking in the feeling of being a foreigner, the feelings of amazement at all the unknown things and have I mentioned the delicious food? Yeah, traveling is awesome. 

"There will always be the unknown. There will always be the unprovable. But faith confronts those frontiers with a thrilling leap. Then life becomes vibrant with adventure!"- Robert Schuller

Life Lessons of a 27 year old

I've learned.
I've learned that everything really is a choice.
That admitting to one's faults means nothing if one is not doing anything to change those faults.
That forgiving is not the same as forgetting.
That men tend to commit to things they don't intend to follow through. (Can't understand why).
That english literature is a wonderful subject except when it comes to graded papers. There are no definite right or wrong answers.
That friendship is (or should be) a life commitment. Just as marriage friends should take vows when starting a friendship.
That you should keep your enemies close and your friends closer, because your enemies will not give up their lives for you.
Not to judge, criticize or even try to understand someone else's mistakes, sins, problems, etc. because every single person is different, has their reasons, has committed mistakes/sins and I truly cannot know how they feel.
That I like individuals and not a group of people, ethnicity, or of a specific religion.
That I should just be a listener and only an advice/opinion giver when asked for it.
That when people speak of depression or suicide, 98% of the time they're ignorant fools that should keep their mouths shut.
That when I don't know something, it's best to stay quiet.
That wisdom does not always come with age. Travel, life problems, abandonment, death, pain, are all factors that change a person.
That one can truly choose how long to feel pain or what to feel pain for.
That loving yourself is not the same as thinking you're better than others.
That if you can't spend time alone then you must be a very boring person. (Extroverts can only have a great time when they're surrounded by an audience, that's too bad 😝)
That an average-looking person that loves him or her self is much more beautiful than the most gorgeous person that thinks their eyebrows are too thick or their elbows are not the right shape.
That loving life does not mean you'll always be happy or positive.
That the more I grow, the more there is to learn.
That.......

To Know Wisdom

I'm not worried about what my future will bring. I'm not even worried about the happenstance waiting around the corner plotting to steal my heart. I'm 27, hard to believe. I still find myself at times thinking "being 26 is..." As my thought trails off realizing with a hint of shock that I'm actually three years away from turning thirty. What does it feel like? I ask my friend who just turned 30. Is it knowing you are no longer allowed to joke with those of 25 years or less? Or is it some kind of "I-know-better-than-to-do-that" type of feeling? I am 27 years old now and I have yet to know exactly what that entails for I still feel (and act according to most) like I'm nowhere past my 21st birthday. Yet, I have sensed within me a mental ability to no longer care about social conventions. Truly, I have never embraced my peculiarities-mental, physical and emotional- more than I do now. I can finally try out the bathing suit I really like and think "I will buy it" regardless of the norm that only slender girls look "good" in a two piece bathing suit. I can finally understand that there's a fine line between letting your feelings take control of you and you taking control of your feelings. I can choose whether or not I want to be sad about something. I can choose how long I will cry over the loss of my most recent relationship and how much time I will put into reminiscing about the guy I once thought I loved. I can't say for sure if I have finally mastered the art of self confidence, all I can say is I have never been more in control of my own self than I am now. Is that what it means to be 27 going down the road into your 30's? To finally realize that who you are is the best you can be because there is just no one else exactly like you? I don't know. All I know is that I can finally gloat-without feeling pretentious- about the immense number of people that I know truly love me due to the fact that no matter how bad of a friend, daughter, sister or girlfriend I may be sometimes, these people still look for me over and over again seeking my company, my voice, my laughter and blunt jokes. I've been seriously (or jokingly?) proposed marriage by 3 guys thus far, one Hispanic, one African American and one American with a hint of Italian. Am I going to pretend I know why? No, because regardless of how I may see myself I know I have flaws. Yet, despite all that, I can say I am truly loved, and spoiled at that.  Maturity does not come wrapped up in every birthday. It comes from knowing yourself. I forget where I read this, I think it was the book of proverbs- "to know yourself is to know wisdom" (note: Proverbs verse actually says "to acquire wisdom is to love yourself")

It's snowing over here. I have realized I'm learning what I truly love in life. I truly love snow. I can stand out there in the snow for minutes on end. It is the simplicity that makes it so beautiful... Looks like stars falling.

Because...

In Creative Writing class we read Jamaica Kincain's poem/prose titled Girl and as an exercise we were supposed to write something similar to that writing style. Oddly enough, the day before I had started writing something that gave birth to the following excerpt.

Because the Christian walk is not always a smooth path down the yellow brick road.

Because the choice is simply mine. Because I am the only one that has the power to say “enough.” Because I am the only one at risk here. Because I am, ultimately, the only one dying here. Because I have the power to end this madness. -Stay here with me- it tells me. -I just want to love you and lavish you with attention, it’s all about instant gratification-. I can’t, because I have to keep moving forward. Because I simply can’t go back to where I came from. Because I can’t keep on betraying the One that loves me. Because I need to stop being so selfish. Because I need to die to self. Because sooner or later I have to make a choice, because -No one can serve two masters.- Because I have already been there. Because I can’t possibly make the same mistake more than twice. Because I can’t possibly choose to live in misery. Because I can’t go back into the darkness. Because I am at a risk of losing something greater than life. Because it is no longer about guilt or fear or punishment or death itself. It is merely because the Love I’ve had, I can no longer live without.

Sincerely, Me

Sometimes you come around a passage of writing that so perfectly and beautifully describes exactly what you've been dying to portray with your own words and fingers that you can't help but wonder if in some other dimension you might've written that yourself through the hands of another. Such has been the case for me in the following paragraph written by singer Lana Del Rey. I must say, although I am in a different mental state of mind now, I still can't help but admit that this sounds very much like the girl I once was. Hence, a part of me still shivers with the cold that sweeps over me as these words bring back to life the ghosts that once upon a time haunted me. In my present, I have found solace in the love of a God I have come to know and learn to love but being that I am a human; an imperfect one at that, I can say my heart still resonates with every single word she writes, more so with this line: "there's no use in talking to people who have home. They have no idea what it's like to seek safety in other people - for home to be wherever you lay your head." My past is my past and for one reason or another, I always felt like I was always on the move searching for a place- or person- to call home. A piece of that past is somehow still being dragged behind by my present, and maybe it will until God brings me across the man - or place - that will become my home here on earth.

So here it is:
"I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer.
At night I fell asleep with visions of myself, dancing and laughing and crying with them.
Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour, and my memories of them were the only things that sustained me, and my only real happy times.
I was a singer - not a very popular one,
I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken.
But I didn't really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted, and then losing it to know what true freedom is.
When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I'd been living, they asked me why - but there's no use in talking to people who have home.
They have no idea what it's like to seek safety in other people - for home to be wherever you lay your head.
I was always an unusual girl.
My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean...
And if I said I didn't plan for it to turn out this way I'd be lying...
Because I was born to be the other woman.
Who belonged to no one, who belonged to everyone.
Who had nothing, who wanted everything, with a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn't even talk about it, and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me." - Lana Del Rey

Once Upon a Time

You think you know what you're doing until you realize that sometimes things just are. They don't need questions or reasons for their mere existence.

Once upon a time there was a boy...