I Think I Might Just Be Too Old For My New Life

Last week it snowed!!!! I think it was friday and the kids were totally distracted by the snow. I guess it's not too common for there to be snow in mid march, but there it was....Having lived in portland, I am reluctant to use any sort of umbrella for torential downpouring rain let alone snow, but evidently the snow here is feared to be acidic enough to melt your skin off if should touch you. And so you will see a regan, my coworker/neighbor with an umbrella in the snow.
Saturday after a delightful bellydancing class for enrichment in my new ward (yeah, you thought there would be pictures??? ha.) I met Lumina and some other girls at Club Cargo in hongdae for an evening of very cool DJ's, Facepainting, graffitti art and generally more city culture than I have experienced in a long time. And why is this post entitled, "I Think I Might Just Be Too Old For My New Life"? Well, we met at the club at 10:15. The real DJ's hadn't even started yet...it was some scary be-leathered foreigner guy playing scary goth triphop crap...and the real action was slated to start at 2:30!!!! A. M. in the morning. TWO. THIRTY. And it turns out that the subways in seoul stop running around, oh, let's say, 11:30 pm just for kicks. Rumor has it that most club goers just stay at the club, get wasted and then take the subway home at 6 am when they start running again. A ploy by the city to appease needy cabbies? hmmmm...
Anyone who knows me even remotely knows that I am usually in my bed around 10:15 even on the weekends. You practically have to tell me that Hugh Grant will personally be ripping my ticket at the movie theater to get me to a late show. So how did I fare? I stuck it out until 2 am tanked up on diet coke and whatever was in those brownies that they were selling at the bake sale. Here is the outside of club Cargo. So very very cool...this is the seoul college town and it's amazing that "college town" translates... Lumina and Josie belly dancing! Check out my facepaint. Sorry for the uber sex-kitten pose. Ok, maybe not so sex-kitten, but definitely making a face. It was late!

My new friend Chan-Su (on loan from Lumina!) and Lumi's graffiti art...chan-su is proof that real men wear flowers...on their faces with glitter. I loved that he was willing to get his face painted!

Me and Stella...Stella is a total rockstar...she works with me at changwehakyo (Creativity School) and is lovely.

How many zombies can you find in this picture? Circle them and then realize that they are just really really drunk Koreans and Foreigners listening to seriously entrancing DJ Venus. This was actually after I left...(it's magic) probably around 3:30 am.Lumina, Vincent (the korean-french artistic director) and me outside the club. Vincent is deliciously French...ponytail and everything. He art directed a few of Lumina's photographs this evening and refused to actually take the pictures because we were using my tragically inferior camera.

And I actually had a real dilemma of thought the next day. I got home and into bed (after showering off the second hand smoke and quarantining the tainted clothes so as not to infect my 10 x 10 cell with the stench of "late night partier") after 3 am. I woke up for church which is at 11am and felt totally and completely devoid of the spirit.

I remember once when I was in college that my mom called at 7 am on a saturday catching me barely walking in from a late night with my friends...She started to lecture me and I think I said something like, "WHATEVER mom, I'm not drinking and having random sex!" and she said pointedly, "KaRyn, I know you are a good girl, but you can not continue to put yourself into places where the spirit can not speak and expect that it will not affect your spirit." Strange that 10 years later, I am thinking about that. I didn't really pay attention in college, but I came to Korea a changed woman with a purpose and a goal. I know who I am. I know what I want to do. And I have to decide what my life will look like here. Perhaps you will say that I am jumping the gun. "Ninny Beth, " you will say, "this is your first real weekend in Korea! Live it up and leave the heavy decisions for later." Yes, Yes, perhaps, but I don't want to FALL into a life in Korea. I want to choose it and I think that means that I have to make some decisions now. I will still have fun and do it all...but maybe I will plan to be home at a decent hour so that I can wake up and really celebrate the sabbath each sunday? Hmmmm...something to think about.