The down draft

Today was a much needed day at home to get my shit done. My hands are barely functional after weaving eight rounds on my lamp, but that means I am almost all set for my lesson this week, leaving tomorrow and Tuesday for other things, like the mighty goal of figuring out how and when to ship crap home. I keep adding and subtracting to my "final to do" list, and realized yesterday that I am going to have to do at least ONE item on the list every day, or it isn't going to get finished. Thank goodness I got a family visit in last night and just found out that early July is a family gathering that I usually am never in Korea for, so that will be the perfect time to see all and say my final farewells.

I've nixed any overseas travel plans. That horse is good and beaten; hopefully no Lazarus effect there. But tonight, after getting my lamp woven before sundown, I went into super ADHD mode, with things sprawled all over my desk and floor, trying to work on at least three different projects at once while also trying to do at least that many things online. Luckily, the glue on my fingers kept me away from my computer for a while. I have been frustrated by my process during my entire stay here: I have a backlog of ideas, but instead of making them, I come up with new ones and make those. But I keep feeling like I'm "behind" b/c the backlog hasn't come to life. Actually, the new work isn't that far along either - just in the itty bitty seedling phase. Nothing seems to move past that stage. Everyone tells me that this year will bear fruit 20 years later, but I'm impatient for a solid BIG project instead of the incessant little ones that feel like noise to me.

Yesterday, I waited for a few hours to get a free cleaning at the dentist's office, and had to hear the news over and over about former prez Roh Moo-hyun's suicide. It took that long for me to fully understand it since news vocab flies right over my head, but I knew it had to be serious to be repeated with no other news being given air time. Mostly, it made me angry, and then sent me into the Korean reflex of feeling embarrassed. Of course I shouldn't judge situations like these, but I get tired of high-ranking men thinking it's okay to off themselves when the going gets tough. Hello, your family! My family has been directly affected by both suicide and related-to-the-prez corruption. It sucks ass and I believe that there could have been better solutions to both, so it's sad to see it playing out this way right now.

But if anyone asks, "where were you when you heard...", I was spinning hanji.