While 2009 was not the greatest year, it was certainly no 2008!
2008 ended. That was a great start for 2009. Of course even 2009 started five minutes late. I had just returned from Qingdao (my favorite city and future home) two days earlier and journeyed into Seoul for an impromptu Hash with a couple of visiting Okinawa Hashers. I ended up by myself at the Grand Ole Opry which did their midnight countdown five minutes late. 2008 was bad enough on its own; it didn't need to be extended by being a Leap Year and having a honky-tonk bar DJ giving it another five minutes. I took a taxi to Kangnam Station and caught what was probably the last 5003 bus home, arriving at 0130. That was my introduction to 2009.
You have to understand that I don't have a history of having really good New Year's. My worst was certainly 2007-2008. My best is a tie between the New Year's Cooter and I were snowed in in K-town and the New Year's Wan-soo and I spent on the 5005 bus. 1999-2000 had it's moments, too. I especially enjoyed the next day.
The year had a blissfully mellow beginning. A new bar opened in my neighborhood, the Can House. It's a pretty decent little joint. It gave me and the Bottom of the Hill Boys a place to call our own. That all changed when my school of low standards hired Kat in March. This beast is an ill-mannered bore of a human being. He is the embodiment of every negative stereotype about English teachers in Asia in existence. He is the local leper. He has all but emptied the Can of its foreign clientele. The same goes for other local businesses. The owners know it, but most people fear this raging pile of psycho-ignorance.
My winter camp passed quickly but without giving me the same bright spot it had the previous winter. Camp ended, and I got the heck out of Dodge. I still had some work leftover from a my Second Language Acquisition course I had started in the fall of 2008. This required that wherever I went for my vacation, I had to stick close to someplace where I could get my craptop online. I wound up in Bangkok for the umpteenth time. I did nothing but run and drink with the Hashers in the evenings and work on my final paper in the mornings for a couple of weeks.
I completed my paper on the Malaysian island of Lankawi. I was ripped off on the train from Bangkok and was tossed off of a boat (engine trouble), but I had reached my goal. Five days of doing nothing but enjoying the sand and duty-free priced beer, I exchanged the beautiful, laid back beaches of Lankawi for the busy, grimy streets of Kaula Lumpor. The rest of Malaysia charges a sin tax on their booze. That was not fun for me or my wallet, although I'm sure my liver appreciated the short reprieve.
I managed to get in two trails during my five days there. I even ran with the Mother Hash! I have never been more lost while on trail. I stumbled through pitch-black jungle for hours searching for the four-inch squares of paper they mark their trails with. Four-inch squares of paper don't disappear as easily as flour, chalk or even shredded paper. I learned this the hard way when I accidentally stumbled onto an old trail. I floundered in the darkness until I finally emerged from the jungle onto the side of a mountain in the process of being carved out for a housing development on the farthest out new suburb of KL. It was hell, but it was fun. The people, the circle, the food, and the Tiger more than made it worthwhile.
I returned to Bangkok to wait for my first non-blood visitors in my then seven years in Korea. E-boy and Brett were coming to see me! We met up in Bangkok where we got into some fairly crazy adventures for a few days. We took a taxi almost two hours north of Bangkok to Ataya for the wedding of one of E's old friends. The occasion even brought in a couple of E's people whom I knew. It was my first Thai wedding, and it was incredible. Although at four hours, I don't know that I'm up for another too soon. E picked up an wicked eye infection somewhere along the way that diminished his capacity for the remainder of the trip. Brett's gut took a turn once they met back up with me in Korea.
Brett and E-boy returned to the States as the first semester of the Korean school year got underway. We added three people to our staff, one of which was the beast I previously mentioned. We didn't need all of them as we didn't have enough classes to go around. This would come back later to bite them in their collective arses.
Mom had retired in December and decided to pay me a visit for a few weeks. It wasn't all that exciting for her, because I had to work and study, but we were both really happy to spend some time together. I hadn't studied much during the first half of the semester and had to bust some butt to make up for it.
KNU made another bad decision this semester when we were told that we had to stay in country during the two weeks immediately following the end of the semester. Their rationale behind this was that this is a rule for the Korean professors, and they wanted to treat us more like them. My dispute that while they have to stick around for two weeks, they don't have to work the camps that we do half way through our vacation was ignored.
The only positive event to come of this was that I was in country when one of my good Qingdao friends, Clam Terrorist, came over to visit for almost two weeks at the end of the semester. I took him out to the east coast to hang out at Gangneung for a few days. We drank many beers and ate some shrimp and dead animals. Clam returned home on the ferry as I took to another Seoul Hash trail.
I flew back to Oklahoma for a short summer visit after doing Osan Bulgogi H3's Fourth of July trail. I only spent a month there. I couldn't shake the shackles of KNU's summer camp again, so I was stuck trimming more than three weeks from my usual U.S. visit. With more and more of my people settling down into real jobs and family life, I am able to see less and less of them when I do pop in to the States. The weekdays were mostly spent lounging around with Mom and Dad and taking Arlo for walks. The weekends were when I met up people or simply got out of the house. Mom and I took a road trip up to Joplin, MO for a weekend. We loaded the HHR with cases of wine from our favorite Altus, AR wineries.
Brett, E-boy, Jen, Kat, and I camped out at Foss Lake for Christmas in July. For two lazy and hazy days, we tooled around the lake on Brett's pontoon boat. Nick's birthday was that weekend, so we caught up with him at Paradise. I also ran into Lenny, whom I hadn't seen in a decade. Chuck Norris!
I did two lake weekends in a row, riding up with L-Ron, Naureen, Goob, and Bob to her parents' house on Grand Lake. The brothers took a shot a fishing. I relaxed in the semi-clean (for an Oklahoman lake) water. L-Ron had scored some fun toys to explode in the late afternoon.
Although I didn't see nearly as many people as I usually do when I go back, I did get to spend more time with most of the ones I did see, although I did only get to hang with GG and Antone once.
Cooter drove out to for a week or so. I hadn't seen him since L-Ron and Naureen's wedding two years before, so it great to finally catch up with me hermano. He rebuilt a few old bicycles with Brinkley's help.
My last night in the States was far and away the wildest. Mom, Dad and I drove up to OKC to stay the night at our usual motel on S. Meridan. Brett met us there. I traded my normal farewell dinner at a Mexican restaurant for something a bit more special to mark this occasion. L-Ron, Cutitz, Chuck, and John came out to the Shogun Japanese Steakhouse to say goodbye to me and...my hair! After dinner Mom plugged in a pair of clippers into the HHR as Cutitz braided my hair. I bent over, and Mom sliced through 17 years of hair, saving the braid. Dad didn't want to be left out, so she shaved him next. I was on the verge of my 33rd birthday and had had the same haircut for more than half of my life. The time for change had come. I can now shower in less than five minutes when I must. I can wear hats again. Mom sent over a pair of clippers I had found online. Now I shave my head every other Friday. It is strange as I still try to pull my hair back when putting on headphones that wrap around the back of my head. I tried playing with my missing ponytail for several weeks once I got back. It is an interesting change for me. Of course now everywhere I go, people think I'm military. I wish. Then I could buy cheese and play with guns in Korea.
I came back to another visitor. Stray Dog of the Qingdao H3 paid me a visit. He had to change his visa and choose to come here to do it. He didn't have a lot of time, but managed to get in some brew and dead animal.
My fall was mostly dominated by frustration with the two MSEd courses I took this semester. I finished both on time, scoring an A+ and an A. This brings my GPA up to 3.333. This leaves me with only nine hours to complete. I enrolled in six this upcoming spring and will knock out the capstone project course next fall. I have to give a presentation on the school's campus next winter. This will be my next visit to the States and will mark my first and last appearance on SU's campus.
The year had a great ending. Brett flew over at the end of the semester. He and I journeyed to Thailand and Cambodia, hitting Bangkok, Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, and Phuket. I finally Hashed with the Phnom Penh H3. They've got a great pack. I realized that the reason I missed them a few years ago was because I had mistakenly gone to a train station in Siem Reap. I was the victim of too much happy pizza. The day after the Hash was to be our last in Cambodia. I spent it in bed. Yes, I drank a bit the previous night, but no, that was not what did me in for the day. It took me all day to figure it out, but I came to the conclusion that I had come down with the flu. Luckily I always plow my way through flu viruses with the quickness, so I was fine and dandy in time for our flight the next morning back to Bangkok.
I didn't figure that Koh Phangan's New Year's Eve/Full Moon Party would bring in the crowd it did, so we lost out on securing timely transportation to and from the island. We did watch a 360-degree view of fireworks blasting around the roof of our hotel, the D&D Inn.
I made one or two clumsy stabs at reinserting myself into the dating world which failed or fizzled pretty quickly. Two years of being mostly single will probably come to an end this year. I don't know how yet, but that's usually how it happens with/to me. I am pretty picky and difficult to put up with.
The insomnia I have managed to control most of my life got really weird over the past two years (it's almost 0400 as I type this). But I get by. I drag some days. I nap some days. I figure that if a lack of sleep is my worst physical ailment, I can't complain.
That was my 2009. Not the best of times, but certainly not the worst of times.
And what does 2010 have in store for this Ninjalo Hasher? If I don't screw up too badly, I will finish my MSEd TESOL at the end of the year. I'm going to the Philippines (actually, I'm already there, procrastination apparently hasn't ended for me yet 1/28). I'll see Mom, Cooter, Cheeri, and Voice this summer at my first InterHash in Borneo along with a number of Korean Hashers from my home kennels. I'm going to have to get a new passport this spring, because I have nearly filled the second set of insert pages in my first. I'm going back to Oklahoma for my first winter since 2003-04.
It looks to be another year of insane adventures in the Far East. I hope to find more of you on Skype so that we can keep up a little better, because you all know how bad I am with email and much worse with Facef*ck. Besides, Skype is free!
I don't have a lot in the way of resolutions for the year. I will stop using my studies as an excuse for not exercising. If I get stumped in my work, I'll go for a walk or do something. I want to make it to more Hashes than I did in 2008. I also need to Hare more at Southside (SOUTHSIDE!) and Seoul. Finally, I want to write more and really get this blog thing going.
That's really about all I have to say for now. I do hope that all of you and yours had an incredible 2009 and a 2010 that blows it away.
Peace and Much Clown Luv to All,
on-on,
Nut 'n Bone
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