Well, now I really am back in Korea.
Let’s see, what things am I playing catchup on? Well, finding out what’s been going on in my friends’ lives, for one. So many phone calls. I’ve just changed phones, so I’m going to have to look into getting calls forwarded to my new phone number, which is with a different service provider. (I switched mainly because my old phone sucked, and I got the new phone for VERY cheap by signing up for a plan.) By the way, getting a phone plan can be ridiculously complicated in Korea. I had to have a Korean speak for me. It’s ridiculous that a professor needs to have an unemployed musician/activist vouch for him, but since the musician was Korean and the professor foreign, this somehow makes sense to SK Telecom corporation. Ah well…
What else? Ah, the band… after two months with no practice, my embouchre (the strength of my lips which I need to play saxophone) is gone to pot. It’s slowly improving but Saturday night’s concert is likely to be physically painful for me. Ah well… we have a nice practice space, so I’m happy that I’ll soon be able to go there and practice to my heart’s content. And the band is practicing everyday, and even though Myoung’s only been back a week, there has been a lot of work done on songs and so on, which I have been catching up on. There’s one song on which it seems I’ll be playing tanpura, and perhaps an interlude on which I’ll play Tibetan singing bowl, which is about the weirdest instrument ever to be credited to me. I’m insisting it’s credited to me if I do play it on the album, because it’s just so freaking weird. But I do like how we’re experimenting with news sounds as a band. Even if it’s mostly me playing the weirdo instruments, heh…
Finding out news from home, and catching up on neglected emails, is also a big task. My sister is getting married in June, and seems not to be receiving the congratulatory emails I’ve sent her! (How annoying!) Anyway, thinking ahead about that, planning for that trip to Canada in the summertime, is also taking up some space in my mind.
I’m having an old friend over for lunch tomorrow, which means I need to tidy up this room full of the stuff I hauled out of my various bags when they were delivered the other day… it’s sort of half-tidy, but I want it all the way tidy for tomorrow morning so all I need to do is start cooking.
Ah well… it’s still nice to be home, but it looks like I’m in the thick of my busy life here again. Wondering when I shall find time for writing poems. Must make some, I suppose. I will endeavour to finish my collection of poems on the Taiping Rebellion this semester, as well as a rewrite/edit of my novel so I can send it out to various publishers while I am in Canada.
Oh man. I gotta go put some laundry into the wash and tidy this place up now!
welcome back to korea, gord! :) (heh.. although I don’t live in korea)