wow, almost debt free

i think we can safely say at this point that any money i make from here on out--IS MY MONEY! very nice. it's been awhile since i actually got to make my money. oh and no more avoiding bill collectors, tho it would be fun to say "ya know what? you caught me, you send someone to my front door and i'll give them the last of it. ... yup, seoul... korea... no, no, you don't have to fly, i think you can just drive through north korea. yeah, they'll pretend like it's a big deal, but just keep driving."
of course i get out of debt just as the us economy seems to be tanking. perhaps this latest recession will get people to seriously consider a living wage idea. imagine if people actually had enough money for food AND shelter... ya know, without taking loans they can't pay back. oh well. i decided to stay at my company for another year anyway, and while the country's economic fears didn't have anything to do with it, mine certainly did. i...i just don't want to go back to living right below the poverty line. i like being able to buy things i want. i like being able not to worry about what'll happen if i get laid up for a month. in america, i have to work more than 40 hours a week just to be broke. let me repeat that- i can put in a full work week and still owe somebody money.
granted, it's not like i'm making bank over here, and it's not like every month i don't see the 23 and 24 years wishing they hadn't blown through $2,000 in less than 30 days, but they are spending it like it's nothing. just because we make 2,200,000 Won a month doesn't mean we are actually millionaires. thankfully i've been poor enough not to go crazy when i start getting money. of course now that i am living comfortably money wise, i need to find one that let me relax once in awhile. next year, if the economy really does fall flat and this all is the same old fear mongering, luke's looking for a university job outside of seoul- like busan, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty

here we go

well i haven't yet figured out how or where to create an album to link to this page but stay tuned because it'll be coming shortly. anywho, this picture deserves a special mention and needs attention now. that, my friends, is a pity fish. yes, you heard right- a pity fish. ok, adventure korea is a business, i get that. they set up tours and trips, and make their money off of people having a good time. you can't blame them for that. but still... after you've been fishing for 30 minutes or so, they start making their way around to all the gringos, with their local press, with their photographers, and with their cooler full of pity fish. the girl who was my fishing partner and i tried to say no. "no? you don't want a fish?"
"we want to catch a real fish."
"it is a real fish."
"we know, we just want to catch it ourselves."
"ah--don't worry, don't worry, this is for real... someone caught it. here, now smile big and overact. luke, pull it out with power, and you be impressed with his catch. overact. overact."

i said it before and i'll say it again- this kinda dirty just don't wash off. this picture, of course is not the one for the newspaper, but rather from my camera... nope, no overacting there- just pure, unadulterated ambivalence. one of my students said he saw my picture in the paper, and it might be true, but he is kind of a liar... tho i think i would like to have it just for fun. as for the fish itself, we had the option of eating it raw or having it cooked. easy choice right? well when they cooking it they don't bother killing it- they just wrap it in tinfoil and throw it on the grill. it doesn't start flopping around until the heat works its way through the tinfoil which can take kind of a long time... so does the flopping around. we decided our pity fish deserved a better fate than that so we took him to they guy with the big knife. quick and painless- kinda. i figured he'd cut the head off, but he flipped the knife around, tapped it twice on the back of the head, and gutted it. i'm not sure how hard you have to hit a fish to kill it, and to be sure, the guy with the knife has much more experience than me, but still, that didn't seem like enough... and it certainly wasn't any more dignified than the grill.
by the way, raw fish has a much better texture than cooked fish, and a different taste... all in all, ya know, except for the fact it was a pity fish, i liked eating it.

hiatus almost over

this isn't quite a real post but don't worry, i'll put one up shortly...WITH PICTURES!!!! that's right, boys and girls, i bought a camera!!! a canon ixus 70 (in the states it's called the powershot sd1000). as further proof i am my father's son, i went out to buy a piece of equipment without knowing anything about the field in the first place, yet am firmly convinced that it is the best buy i could have made. plus it was $20 less than i thought it was going to be, and i know this will make the parents proud, so i celebrated by going out and having a $30 steak... and a coke. yup saved $20 on something i'll own for years, spent $33 on something that'll be through my system before i go ice fishing... anyone else notice that you only ever seem to pick up your parents' bad habits?