A Case of Writerlust: Stare Too Deeply into the Abyss...

It got dark for a while, you guys.

Real talk, I had some stuff happen that completely killed my motivation to do just about, like, anything. My days were literally wake up, shower, breed pokemon, go to work, breed pokemon, sleep. I ate, but it was ramen or cereal and nothing else. I think my weight dropped to a point somewhere in March where I actually had a moment of 100% true self-awareness looking in the mirror and went "wow, ick, that's not right. I'm gonna go get Dunkin." Which if any of you know anything about me, is pretty dire.

I don't know if things are better, but they sure are different. I think it's in a good way, but it's too soon to tell. Always in the back of my mind, I kept thinking "I need to update my blog or someone is going to think I'm dead." If I didn't respond to your messages, it's about as far from being personal as it could be. It got buried in the avalanche of emails and messages and smoke signals and things that I wasn't checking. Plz send again.

Maybe it's this time of year. I kind of hit the downward spiral around the beginning of February, which is sort of the one-year mark of when something bad happened last year and sent me spiraling then, also.

I've slowly dug myself out of it, I'm posting again to the blog, and I wish I had a lot more to say. I don't know what did it.

Things that have changed since I last posted that may or may not have something to do with me being able to post again:

1. It's spring now, and it's gorgeous.

I didn't get the chance to go see the cherry blossoms at the palaces in Seoul like I wanted to, but when I headed out to Busan for my birthday they were utterly gorgeous throughout Ulsan. I'm glad I got to see some of them.

It's always been a not-so-secret geeky dream of mine ever since that .Hack chapter where they meet Ouka at the cherry blossom festival. I don't even have it in me to be ashamed. As far as I'm concerned "I want to see cherry blossoms in Asia at some point" is a step up from the former wish of "I want to play a video game with a cherry blossom event some day."

(Side note and accompanying trivia: that same series may or definitely may not be the source of Rena's name. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. My protagonist's name came from a manga. And I'm too deep in to change it.)

Which I also got. Love you, Animal Crossing.

Mostly this is just me pretending I'm not an otaku while living in a country where people are becoming increasingly more aware of the fact that I am about as close to an otaku as one can be without walking around in a cat hat and screaming horrible, mispronounced Japanese. (Ironically, I try to convince them otherwise by walking around in a knit cap and screaming horrible, mispronounced Korean.)

2. Speaking of Pretending I'm not a Massive Nerd

I'm sorry, how can you not?

I got sort of addicted to K-Dramas. More specifically, I got sort of of addicted to Kim Soo-Hyun. In my desire to fill the black void of emotion inside me I made the mistake of trying to watch My Love From Another Star. It took me 4 days and I lost track of time, forgot to eat, and barely prepped for classes. I've heard before that I might have an addictive personality, I'd like to think of it as just having the ability to really, really like something. Too much. Or maybe not enough. Look at that face.

Cheon Song-Yi is basically my spirit animal.

3. I started going to the gym.

Me too, buddy.

I think this is the biggest thing that started to get me out of my slump. When all the bad stuff™ happened, I found myself sort of just wandering around aimlessly and feeling pretty bleh 24/7. I didn't really know how to cope with it and realized after a few weeks that I was doing nothing but convincing myself nothing was wrong. And it wasn't working.

So I started walking down the street to the gym 3-4 times a week, which does get a little pricey, but I can spend 45 minutes or so on a bike or a treadmill watching my favorite wind-down anime Polar Bear Cafe because nothing gets me more motivated than a bunch of animals being specifically unmotivated.

4. I'm teaching at another school, sort of.

This is another reason why I've been so silent. This was sort of in the works towards the end of last term but i've been spending my Monday nights (one of the few times during the week I was going to have off) teaching at a boarding school out in the country. It's only 5 kids, but they're fluent and even though I don't know much about what I have to teach them (it's a debate class and the only thing about debate I know anything about is arguing) we've been getting along alright. It's been interesting, but it makes it so I have a lot less free time than anyone else at my branch.

5. You might want to sit down, parents.

I woke up one morning and had a moment of self-confidence and clarity rising out of the mire of depression/permanent fatigue I'd been stuck in. I realized I needed to do something for myself, about myself, that no one necessarily "approved" of but that I could call a decision of my own.

The most permanent, least impacting thing I could think of short of moving to the other side of the world (which, of course, I had already done) was this.

Ask me how hard this picture was to take.

I didn't want to post before it was completely healed. It does need to get touched up, due to an accident while it was scabbing over where I rolled over and rubbed it against my bed like a clumsy idiot. But I feel good about it. I got it on Seoul, done by an awesome dude in an awesome parlor in Hongdae. I went on my own. For me it was cathartic, doing something for myself for once instead of trying to make other people happy like I've been doing for the past decade of my life.

One day I might get the other half done. But for now, it's there, because I'm realizing and appreciating more than ever that the only thing that will never change, that will never go away, is my books, and my writing.

I may not have much, but I will always have that.