It's alive!

So the blog is once again alive.

Right now it's 2:00am, earlier today (or yesterday I guess) my passport arrived in the mail complete with the desired visa. When I turned to the visa there was this note attached, as seen in the picture to your left. Some might have already seen me comment on this on my Facebook. So apparently I need to be sure I'm not forced into military service by filling out some paperwork when I get there.

In other news, a couple days ago I found out international video calls on Skype were free... and it would seem I was the only one who didn't know. With that in mind, and making what I believe to be a safe assumption that my apartment (3 other guys live there now) will have wifi, I might be able to pull off Skype tours of what will soon to be my abode.

I've been thinking about what purpose this blog will serve. Is there something specific I want it to address in the context of my experience in South Korea? Perhaps my own exploration of my heritage and personal history, examining my attempt(s) to grasp Korean culture as an outsider, my time as a conversational English teacher, or just whatever I happen to feel like writing about. I suspect it will end up more like the latter with healthy doses of me just rambling.

But on the subject of my personal history.... Awhile back, after I originally accepted this position. I asked my father to mail me whatever documents he had on my adoption which he prompted obliged. I waited until tonight to actually read it and discovered, with the help of Google, that the adoption agency and orphanage I was placed in at the ripe old age of 10 days still exists at the same address in Seoul. So that is probably a place I will end up visiting. The documents, while they do not include the names of my biological parents, do name case workers and foster parents. I don't really know whether that's something I want to explore. Not necessarily for any negative reason... just that the same set of documents seem to indicate I was transported to the US in July of 1988 making me about a month and change.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be in DC for the night and on Sunday I'm off to Seoul... and hopefully not military service.