A Great Blog

Back and Busy

2011-06-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while. I've been through a few shows and a site re-design. Here's a quick recap:

Finished Klingon Christmas Carol in December 2010 and wound up being the assistant fight choreographer, which was a great experience. The show as a whole was amazing, we got a ton of national press and good reviews, and the cast and crew were an excellent bunch to work with. As a result of the show I was invited to join Commedia Beauregard as a company member, which also means I will reprise my role in this year's KCC and function as the main fight choreographer. The Commedia folks have come to mean a lot to me and this has been a great development. Really looking forward to digging in (soon!) for this year's remount. It's going to be really, really good. More on that later.

I started off the year with another Commedia show - The Bad Art Plays - which I also enjoyed quite a bit. Next up was Soul Samurai with InFusion which was an incredible show and one of the best casts you could ask for. After a really great bonding experience with those guys and a great run of a very unique play, I'm now on to Romeo & Juliet.

Observant readers and internet stalkers will remember I did a production of Romeo & Juliet last summer, and this summer I'm playing the same role (Samson) in, yes, the same play. The big difference is that last year's production was at Chase Park, and this year I'm in the production at First Folio. Very exciting to go from community theatre to professional, Equity theatre in the space of a year. Also, I have been honored with the position of fight captain which I'm very excited about. Our director and fight choreographer, Nick Sandys, is vastly experienced in stage combat, an amazing actor and director, and a great guy to boot. We've just started rehearsals and all signs point to this being an incredible production. Needless to say, I'm friggin thrilled.

That's it for now. Missing things from the site (and some all new things too) are being assembled backstage by monkeys while I go have a drink. Once those damn lazy monkeys quit screwing around I'll have the rest of the stuff up. Keep yer pants on.

A Klingon Christmas Carol

2010-11-28T03:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Kahless. A Klingon Christmas Carol is here. Open. Running. Buy Tickets before they sell out.

Too late to put up an adequate post about this insane journey and incredible show. A full write-up, with review round-up, coming real freakin' soon.

Till then: Qapla batlh je'! (Success and Honor)

Oh yeah... made some changes to the site. A new blog has begun: The Forge. More on that later.

Apocalypso!

2010-09-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this one for a couple months and we open tomorrow. Come see!

Psssst... use code "I have a message" for cheap tickets! (Only on brownpapertickets.com, not at the door.)

Extinction Fantasies Photos

2010-08-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

Extinction Fantasies is all done (Abbey Hoffman Festival was an insane closer!) but I just got a hold of the press photos and thought I'd post them here. Enjoy.

Standoff at the top of the show.

We're a cute couple...

... except when we're not.

Poptarts: official candle-warmed food of the apocalypse.

Images courtesy of Paul Martinez / Tympanic Theatre.

What's a Vacation?

2010-08-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Sometime in the distant past, I think it was April, I told myself I was going to take a break for the summer. Well, that didn't end up happening. Here's a brief rundown of what I've been up to since my last big update:

In the spring I kept busy playing Sampson in Romeo and Juliet at Chase Park Theatre, and simultaneously playing Red Samurai in The Rise of Emperor Eric at Gorilla Tango. These two shows could not have possibly have been more different. One is, of course, Shakespeare, and the other was a brand spankin' new "kung fu absurdist comedy". Both shows did really well, with Romeo and Juliet packing the house for the duration of the run, and ...Eric getting reader recommended for the general hilarity and awesomeness of the show, as well as the comical fight choreography of yours truly.

All the while I started taking classes at The Green Room Studio, which has been an incredible experience. The Green Room is run and operated by current and former casting directors from the Chicago scene. The focus is on commercial technique and these guys really know their stuff. Having taken a couple levels of classes with them, I now feel equipped for any commercial audition.

After ...Eric ended I immediately started rehearsing for Extinction Fantasies with Tympanic Theatre Company. This was another big transition, as I went from an ensemble role in a comedy to a lead role in a more dramatic show. The show also had good reviews and was a great experience. I'm now rehearsing Apocalypso! with Point of Contention, which opens September 9th at the Boho theatre space in Rogers Park.

After that, I'll be performing in A Klingon Christmas Carol with Commedia Beauregard at the Greenhouse Theater Center here in Chicago. Nope, not a joke. AKCC is the only play written entirely in the Klingon language, with supertitles so the audience knows what's going on. And in the spring, I'm performing in Soul Samurai with Infusion Theatre Company at the newly renovated Theatre Wit space!

I'm getting tired just typing this - taking a break has definitely not happened, but I've been pretty productive. More updates to come as these shows get closer. Damn, wasn't I going to record an album this year? Not enough hours in the day...

Voice Acting, and Auditions times one millions

2010-02-28T23:53:00.000-08:00

Did some voice acting today with www.tipyourwaiter.org - big thanks to Bil, Lance, and Trevor! Had a really good time. The project was acting out hate mail written about various people and sent into tipyourwaiter.org. The audio will be edited in with music, video images, and other cool stuff. The finished product should be pretty interesting. Here's me and Bil at work:

In other news, just auditioning, auditioning, auditioning. Looks like I'm doing fight scenes in a production of Romeo and Juliet, but other than that I'm not sure yet. Oh and starting this month I'm taking an on-camera acting class at Green Room Studio here in Chicago, which has come highly recommended. Very exciting stuff, I really can't wait to get started.

Annnnnnnd still working on the album. Actually having thoughts about expanding from a solo act into a group, maybe a trio? More to come...

Oh yeah! St. Paddy's coming up soon! If it's as cool this year as it was back in 2008 in Seoul, then I'll be pretty excited about that. Somehow this past version of me doesn't seem convinced. We'll see!

2010: a running start

2010-02-01T22:35:00.000-08:00

This week I am opening two shows:

Aelita/Shiny Boxes

These are two brand new plays presented together, and I’m in the second one. Working with the folks at Dream has been a really good experience overall and I’m incredibly excited about this show. I can’t recommend it enough. Details:

Tonight being a dress rehearsal I got a chance to see Aelita and came away impressed. As for Shiny Boxes - I haven’t been this excited about a play in a long time. This is going to be an incredible night of theatre.

TGIF: Raw

“Dramatic and Dangerous interpretations of Vintage Sitcoms”

I’m also doing a show with my good friends Lauren Maul and Tom Bambara (as well as a great cast of brilliant improvisers.) This show is going to be friggin bananas. We’re doing improvised versions of Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, and other classic TGIF junk food TV of yesteryear - but with a sinister and hilarious edge. Details:

Saturdays at 11:30PM
February 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th
12 bucks
The Gorilla Tango Theatre
1919 N. Milwaukee (right next to the Western blue line stop)

Did I mention that I am doing live acoustic versions of all these TV theme songs as part of the show? You do NOT want to miss this...

The truth about Santa and puppets

2009-12-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

Well, one show ends and another begins. Thanks to everyone who came out and made Giving Thanks to the Music such a fun show to play. All the musicians played great sets and it was good to see everyone coming out and having a good time. As always, sign up on the mailing list to get notified about upcoming shows.

The show that’s just begun is a night of new plays called The Feats of Strength. The theme is surviving the holidays and the shows are all a really good time. (If you want to know how this relates to the title of this entry, you better just come and see...) We’re performing at Strawdog Theatre and the show is being put on by Dramatis Personae, a new(ish) Chicago theatre company led by my buddy Tim Bambara, who actually was my TA in Basic Acting class many moons ago back at JMU. Dramatis Personae is all about working with Chicago playwrights and giving this city a voice, hence all the new plays. It’s good to be doing comedy again after my last show, which was, well, pretty friggin serious. Anyways here’s the flyer for The Feats of Strength:

(PSSSSST. I know the code to get tickets for only 10 bucks! Ask me!)

Also on the horizon, I am doing a new play at Dream Theatre called Shiny Boxes, which will open early next year. Dream Theatre has a great rep for its otherworldy and sometimes unsettling plays, frequently written by company members and other Chicago playwrights. They’ve gotten a bunch of Jeff recommendations for their work and I’m excited to be doing a show with Anna Weiler and company.

And finally, I’ve recently gotten my headshots re-done and updated my resume. Bounce over to the acting page to check it out.

Happy Holidays!

Big show coming up November 22nd!

2009-11-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a big show coming up!

Myself and four incredible musicians will be taking the stage at Studio BE here in Chicago, November 22nd, for a damn fine get-down before turkey day. Studio BE is a a multi-purpose theatre venue and it’s also BYOB!!! Located right around the corner from Belmont Red Line at 3110 N. Sheffield Ave, and almost across the street from the Vic Theatre. Featuring the talents of:

Sincerely, Iris - Singer-songwriter Todd Murray is going to start the evening with his seasoned folk-blues stylings, not to be missed.
Tiffany Strietelmeier - Tiff will be there with her band, playing some incredible stuff and promoting her new CD coming out in December!
Lauren Maul and her Songs for Children (which, uh, aren’t really for children - but they are friggin hilarious.)
Alive Day - Dan Arrecis, the force behind this local Chicago powerhouse will be doing a solo acoustic set!
And of course, me.

You can get tickets online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/87256
or just click

HERE.

Oh, and my long rumored debut CD might just get released that night as well... stay tuned for details.

A little here, a little there

2009-07-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

SO we just wrapped up the US premiere of Zero over at Oracle Theatre. What a great experience! I got to break back into the theatre scene with a great storefront theatre, a great play, a great cast and crew... the list goes on. If you missed it, no worries, I’ll be in something else soon.

And another case of right place, right time. Our fight choreographer for Zero was Rick Barrows. As the fight captain for the show, I happened to get into a discussion with him about my intent to study stage combat - it’s really the synthesis of my martial arts experience (two black belts and my time in Thailand) and my acting experience. I guess Rick saw that I was serious and shortly after working together he offered to be my stage combat instructor! Along with my good friend David Boren, I have been learning all manner of combat, both armed and unarmed, for about a month. We’re just getting started and always looking forward to the next session with Rick, who is incredibly experienced and highly skilled in performing and teaching the techniques of stage combat. Dave and I intend to stick with it and later this year we aim to take the Skills Proficiency Test administered by the Society of American Fight Directors. Needless to say, I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to train with Rick and Dave!

Aside from all that, there’s news on the music side of things. A couple months ago I entered a contest to win free studio time at Gravity Studios, a professional studio here in Chicago. Well I didn’t come in first, but I was offered a GREAT DEAL on studio time, which I intend to take them up on as soon as I can. I’ve also finally got my myspace page up and running at myspace.com/zachlivingstonmusic. Take a look! I currently have five songs available - there’s plenty enough for an album waiting in the wings, and I’ll put more songs up in time. Also on myspace, I’ve entered a contest called Rock the Space - I submitted my best song, and the grand prize is a record contract with Myspace Records and 10,000 bucks worth of Fender gear! You can actually help me win this thing - hop over to the Songwriter page for more info on that.

Other than that I’ve been playing small shows and open mics here and there, always with great response. In particular, I played an open mic at Uncommon Ground on Clark a few weeks ago and wound up coming in first place! (Hilariously enough, I wasn’t even aware it was a competition before I showed up.) That got me a spot in the Open Mic Semi-Finals on Monday, July 6th, 7:30pm at Uncommon Ground on Clark. If I move on from there, I will be in the FINALE at Uncommon Ground on Devon on July 8th at 7:30pm, and if I win that, I walk away with a thousand bucks! Needless to say, I’m pretty friggin’ pumped. If you’d like to come cheer me on, please do! It’d be slick to call ahead and make a reservation for a table though, since both locations get PACKED. I have the phone numbers up on the main page.

That’s about it for now. Please take a look at the myspace page, listen to the songs, feel free to leave comments, friend me, all that sorta thing. I also have a fan page up on Facebook - both are great ways to hear about upcoming shows and more news.

I hope everybody is happy and healthy!

Back by (popular?) demand

2009-05-04T00:52:00.000-07:00

Here we are folks. The site is reborn and the blog is back in action. After relocating to Chicago this past fall, I am pursuing my career in the arts in earnest. The website will still have this blog, but now-a-days it will also be a showcase for my creative endeavors and calling cards - headshots, demos and all that sort of thing. I’ll do a more general update on what’s going on at a later date. Watch this space!

Monsoon Lightning Rod

2008-09-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday I drove a motorcycle to Burma. I wrote my friend Sarah an email about it and rather than try to one-up myself with an even better telling, I'll repeat it here. I'll warn that because this was a personal email to a good friend, and I was still amped up from the trip, I drop the F-bomb about a million fucking times.

Good story. Here's one for you:

So I had to renew my visa eh? Right, time to go to Burma. I buy a bus ticket, and a few hours later my hostel running buddy Noom says, hey, why not rent a motorbike and just ride up there? He knows I love bikes and figures it'll be a good time. This is Saturday and I have to get to the border on Sunday or pay a late fee. Trouble is I already have the bus ticket for Sunday morning. SO I head into town on Saturday night with the idea of renting a motorbike and refunding the bus ticket. I was sort of successful.
Met a lovely American bird, name of Katie, and ended up drinking all night with her, and making out next to the old fortified moat at 7am. Walked her to her place, decided that I was going to wait for motorbike place to open up rather than go home to my hostel.
Walk into Starbuck's. Order mocha. Sleep for one hour. Rent large-ish motorcycle for 2 days for the princely sum of 1600 baht (about 40 bucks.) Back to hostel, 4 hours sleep, then ON THE ROAD TO BURMA. WHAT THE HELL?
North from Chiang Mai the roads are curvy as hell which = huge fun on motorcycle. The bike is big, but fast, and wallows through turns like a well placed brick. I take my time due to the insanely uncomfortable seat, which causes me to need to get off it and awaken my ass muscles periodically.
Evening finds me taking pictures of an ancient white temple just out of Chiang Rai (not Chiang Mai. Chiang Rai is farther north, on the road to Burma. Stay with me now.) An hour of puttering around this city with no apparent center or tourist ghetto finds me in a 12 dollar a night hotel with all thais, free internet and free breakfast. Chicken fried rice, sleep, awake. Read news. Read Barack Obama's convention speech and actually cry with love for country. Can't wait to get home. Have to go to Burma.
Up the road to Burma. Border crossing is confusing but not too worrying. Burma side of the border is like Thailand's dark side. Dirtier, poorer. Drab. A bit dingy. I am befriended by a man who slurrs his speech and calls himself Danny. He walks with me 5km down a dirt road surrounded by beautiful tropical countryside. I buy him lunch which, as far as I can tell, is fried pork intestines. Danny is really affable. We discuss our mutual love for martial arts, and his various stories of being arrested in the united states. At the border, before I go back, he asks for money and I give him 20 baht. (90 cents.) He's actually a decent guy, I think.
A brief and terrifying dip into a Burmese street market shows me what it's like to be a piece of meat thrown into a room of starving wolves. After denying at least 50 different brands of cigarettes ("MAYBE HE LIKES MARLBORO LIGHTS WE DIDN'T ASK HIM THAT YET) and who knows how many brands of nudie playing cards ("YOU LIKE YOU GO BOOM BOOM?") ("no boom boom. thanks.") I escape back into Thailand. Back on my bike and off to the Golden Triangle, the meeting point of Burma, Thailand and Laos. The road there is beautiful but about the same consistency as the Grand Canyon. I finally rumble into town which consists mostly of hotels, restaurants, t-shirt stalls, and a 40 foot high golden Buddha in sitting position, placed right on the bank of the Mekong River. This is absolutely just as fantastic as it sounds. But I'm bleeding daylight and I have 6 hours drive (I thought, haha fucking ha) to get back to Chiang Mai. Snap snap snap photographs go! And back on the bike! I slam the throttle and scream manically into my ill fitting helmet as I zoom over man-sized potholes at light speed. Hey, I was running out of time.
By the time I get to Chiang Rai, still 190km from Chiang Mai, it's total night. This is fine except for two things:
1) It starts to rain.
2) The headlight on my motorcycle is rivaled for brightness by things like fireflies, and the first lightbulb ever invented.

Needless to say the idea that I can continue blithely along at 80km/hour is done for. My speed and body temperature are cut drastically. Roads that were really fun in the daytime, perfectly dry and illuminated by golden sunshine wrapped around beautifullly rugged, green jungle and coffee farm covered mountains, are now FUCKING DEADLY in the rain, thunder, lightning, and candle-powered headlight from hell. A 3 hour drive turns into 4, then 5, then 6. I hit a bat on the road. He gets caught in my shirt and I flick him away. At this point I have one of those moments, when you just laugh your head off and go

WHAT THE FUCK COULD I POSSIBLY BE THINKING THAT I AM DOING HERE??????

Needless to say that after absolutely losing my mental luggage I finally made it into Chiang Mai around midnight. I am now safe and sane at my home piece hostel run by my home piece Noom, who by the way wants to go to bed, which means he shuts down internet, which means this story is OVER.

Hope you loved it. I miss you! Africa sounds great. Keep loving everything.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. There's more news to be had here in Thailand (state of emergency anyone?) but I'll leave that for later. I hope everyone is fantastic. Register to vote if you haven't already!

Bang.

2008-08-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

Last night, I fought my first Muay Thai bout. Here's the play by play.

Last week I asked one of the trainers, who is also the camp's fight promoter, to set me up with a fight for the last week of August. That would've been pretty close to 3 months here, so I figured it would be good timing for my first fight. For those of you who don't know, I've had a few years of experience in other martial arts and a couple black belts to show for it, so I'm not totally new to the idea of punching and kicking, but I've never had a real fight in a ring before last night. In any case, Den agreed to get me a fight at the end of August. A short while later that day, I heard him approach one of our more experienced falang (foreign) fighters, Josh, and ask if he would be willing to fight the following tuesday. (This was wednesday last week.) A few minutes after that, Josh came up to me and asked if I would like to fight the following tuesday. I was a little bit surprised, since Josh and I are not on the same level at all, and are in no way interchangeable as fighters. Josh made a good case for taking the fight though.

It was going to be at Loi Kroh, which, out of the three boxing stadiums in Chiang Mai, is not the one that hosts the toughest fights or toughest fighters. (That honor goes to Gawilla, the largest stadium in northern Thailand.) So my opponent would be, in Josh's words, "someone you can beat." Also, it's one thing to train and it's another to fight. You learn a lot through training, but a fight teaches you what you REALLY need to work on to get better. And since I'm going to be here for another month or two, fighting sooner would give me a chance to learn more, and apply it in another fight or two before I leave Thailand. So, I decided, what the hell. I'll do it. (That was also my response when Noom, who runs my hostel, challenged me to go bungy jumping with him a few weeks ago, but that's another story.)

So I agreed to do the fight, and I was actually much more excited than I was scared. After all, having a real fight in the ring in Thailand was what I had wanted to do for almost ten years. It's the main event, the focus of all my training. It's where I would find out if I had the guts and the heart stand toe to toe with a Thai boxer and put what I'd learned into play. Did I have what it takes? The years of wondering were over. I was going to find out. Even if I got my ass kicked, I'd still find out. So I can't say I was too scared, but I was burning to find out what it was really like.

The rest of the week passed without incident. I trained hard and focused on technique, especially my leg blocks. In Muay Thai kicks are allowed to pretty much every area of the body except the back and the groin, and like many inexperienced falang, I'm not the quickest or most consistent about protecting my legs from from low kicks. Not coincidentally, low kicks to the legs are a favorite weapon of most Thais who fight falang boxers. I was reminded by my head trainer, Andy, that I needed to work on that area of defense and I took it to heart. As it turned out, Andy wouldn't be able to see my fight, as he was taking one of our other fighters down to Bangkok for her fight (no, not a typo. HER fight. Yes, she's very good. Yes, she can probably kick your ass.) However, he turned out to be spot on with this assessment of my upcoming fight. After doing some padwork with him on Sunday, he told me to work on guarding leg kicks, since I would get them a lot. (True.) He also told me that my punches were strong and accurate, and that I should use them often. (I followed that advice to good effect later on.)

So the night of the fight arrived. I bought a big bottle of Jonnie Walker Black as a reward for after the fight. I jumped into the pickup with my Thai contingent from the gym and headed to the fight venue. Normally a bunch of falang who also train at my gym would come and watch, but I was the only one fighting tonight and it was kind of last minute, so I didn't have a lot of people from my gym there. Fine by me, since I just wanted to focus on the fight, which was at Loi Kroh stadium. Loi Kroh is not actually a stadium, in fact. It's an official boxing ring surrounded by bars. In between fights ladyboys (transvestites) step into the ring to do burlesque shows, and there's plenty of Thais and foreigners watching fights, playing pool, and drinking. It's not exactly a hyper-competitive fighting arena of herculean warriors obliterating each other with blows powerful enough to shake the pillars of the cosmos. But the fights are the real deal. And the fact that it was Mother's Day here in Thailand meant that most of the baars were closed and shut, which gave the whole thing a sort of dark feel to it. Or maybe I just thought that since I was about to possibly get the beating of my life.

I was not aware that mine was the last (and heaviest, by weight category) fight of the night. I was aware that on the fight flyer, my name was "Czech" and also the fellow whose picture they used to represent me, is not, in fact, me. Apparently I was also fighting for some sort of international title. What you should take away from this is that fight promoters will put just about anything on these flyers to get falang to come and watch/bet on/get drunk at Muay Thai fights, short of "free beer and backrubs!" I went through the whole pre-fight process, full rubdown with boxing liniment and other magic potions while laying on a mat on the concrete at the back of the crowd, incredible tape job on my hands that basically turned them into clubs, and a little warm-up to get the blood flowing. Then there was nothing to do but wait. I was torn between watching the fight before me or just looking away and trying to relax. In the end I did a bit of both.

Finally, it was my time. My trainer, Den, put the mongkon (ceremonial head-piece) on me and said a small prayer. I stepped to the ring with Den and my cornermen and stepped inside. This was it. I was in the ring. It was at this time that I finally got to see who my opponent was. My heart sank to see that while he was a good deal shorter, he was also a good deal stouter, with thickly muscled legs. I knew immediately that my legs were toast and I was going to have to throw plenty of punches. My idea of throwing lots of kicks, thus proving that I am not the the typical falang punch crazy fighter, took a back seat. I took a walk around the ring and bowed to the judges (no "Ram Muay," or ceremonial pre-fight dance, for this beginner thanks very much,) and went back to my corner. Den took off my mongkon and told me to do my best. In went my mouthguard, and into the center of the ring I went to face my opponent and have the ref give us the schpeal. The bell went, the Thai smiled at me, we touched gloves, and the fight was on.

Muay Thai fights are five rounds each, unless the fight is stopped due to knockout, injury, invading space aliens, or whatever. The rounds are three minutes long, with a two minute break in between. The first round is usually fought at a slower pace, as the two fighters feel each other out for strengths and weaknesses. As predicted, he started with leg kicks, which I managed to block most of. The block basically consists of me raising the leg he's trying to hit, so that I get it in the shin and not the thigh. If you think getting hit in the shin hurts (and it does,) go ahead and have someone swing the lower part of their shin as hard as they can into the area of your thigh just north of your kneecap. Let me know how that turns out for you. Anyways, I threw a few punches but he didn't want to box very much. Lots of teeps, which are sort of like straight jabs with the leading leg, to keep me away. Then he'd throw in leg kicks.

I was told by Den during the first break to throw more combinations, and hit him a lot harder in general. This guy doesn't have the heart to really fight, Den said. More power. So the second round started with me walking right into him and throwing lots of leather, much to the delight of the crowd. (Lots of falang, even a few guys from Virginia. Shout out to Virginia, way to cheer me on guys!) My shins were already killing me from the kicks I'd thrown so I tried to get more into punch combos in the second round, though I did have a nice fake that ended in me slamming my left shin into his left side. My kicks were not extraordinarily powerful but they were pretty quick. I was already starting to get a little winded, however, and his constant teep kicks were keeping me from closing in and hammering him with punches. Eventually I decided his teep kick was softer than hot butter and just started walking into him. It was clear the man did not want to box - his punches didn't have any power and he couldn't keep his hands up to defend against mine. I threw in some kicks now and then but the old one-two/jab-cross combo was becoming my bread and butter fast.

After round 2 Den pointed out that the guy didn't have the heart to really beat me. More combos, and not just jab-cross. Use my hooks, uppercuts, longer combos, not just one two. Protect your legs and throw those combos. I went into round 3 in some pain, but determined to step in and do some damage. He kept going for low kicks but I'd had enough of that and started nailing him with hooks to the jaw. He still couldn't get his hands up and paid for it. The crowd got pretty noisy as I staggered him with a left right punch, high kick to the head combo and after that I pretty much had to chase him. He was starting to get a little woozy, I could tell, as he clearly was just moving away as much as he could, and not in a very straight line either. I chased him for a bit, then stepped in with a big left hook that turned him around and had him leaning on the ropes. The ref stepped over to him to give him a standing 8-count and I stepped to the center of the ring. "Raise your hands!" Den yelled from my corner. I did, and was rewarded with a wave of approval from the smallish but highly vocal crowd. A few moments later the ref called the fight, came over and raised my arms in victory. I had won the fight!

I bowed to the judges and had some water. My cornerman, a young boxer from my camp, asked me how I felt. "Good," was all I could think to say. As I stepped out I got lots of congratulations and requests for pictures from all the falang who'd seen the fight. I even posed for a photo with some guy and my opponent together. (I'd like to point out that the guy I fought was a tremendously good sport and was almost always smiling between rounds when we tapped gloves.) All the attention was actually a little bit weird. Though I'd won, I hadn't exactly done it with style or grace, but I guess that wasn't so apparent to people who don't know the sport that well. Anyways, I thanked Sheryl and Noom from my hostel, Spicythai, for taking pictures (thanks guys!) and at that point I started to feel the incredible pain beginning to break through from the subsiding adrenaline. I had hurt myself kicking him, as well as taking kicks, and it was all starting to roll in. Tape off, shirt on, back in the pickup truck.

Later, back at the hostel, folks were very kind in bringing me food, ice, a glass for my scotch, and assorted sundries. I have to say that despite the muscle relaxants, ibuprofen, and 5-6 shots of whiskey, the pain was absolutely immense. It felt as if portions of my bones had been indented, or rounded off. Walking was complete agony. Just sitting there hurt so bad I had to laugh, the other alternative being sobbing. So I chatted with the other hostel folks who'd seen the fight and tried to be a tough guy about it. It worked ok. I was able to fall sleep in any case. I recalled a funny quote I read in a book somewhere that "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." If that's true then whiskey is the most satisfying theological argument out there right now.

So did I get what I came for? Did I, like, find out what lurks in the depths of my soul, or some junk like that? I don't really know. I know what I need to work on to get better at this, and I know that I have the heart to do it. I also know that I'm only going to do it for a short while longer, maybe a month or two. And I'll have one more fight before I go. I do look forward to finally seeing the states again, but I think another fight is in order to sort of seal the deal with this mission. I want to see if I can really improve and do a better job than the first time. I guess that's about all I can say right now, except that I am now finally ready to pick a date and BUY A PLANE TICKET TO COME HOME.

And when I know that date, I'll post it here. Thanks for reading! I hope you're all doing swimmingly.

Of bicycles and boxing

2008-06-30T05:06:00.000-07:00

If you travel enough, your thoughts on entering a new country are often reduced to the bare practicalities. You consider how you will handle currency and budget your money, you book places to stay and research how you will get around, and what you will try to see and do. It's easy to lose sight of the real substance of traveling, which is not in all these sundry details, but rather in the interactions that you have with real people in a foreign land, and in the alchemy that takes place in your soul as you become a part of something that previously you knew nothing of. As they say, you can't see the forest for the trees.

In my case, traveling to Thailand has been no exception, but I had good reasons for focusing on the nuts and bolts kind of details. I came here not with sightseeing or culture-absorption in mind, but something a bit different. For almost ten years now, it's been my plan to travel here and train in Muay Thai, otherwise known as Thai boxing. With that as my central focus, I've had little time for seeing temples and cultural landmarks -yet I've learned a lot already in my time here. First, I should describe where "here" is and how I got here.

Right now I'm living in Chiang Mai, the largest city in northern Thailand, and the second largest city in the country. Chiang Mai is an old city located on a historical trade route between China and points further south, and Thais are proud of their quaint old capitol, with its ancient walls and moat surrounding the city. Upon arriving in Bangkok at the beginning of June, I knew I could just hop a train/bus/plane up here, but I had a desire for a more adventurous (read: stupid) way of getting north. So after a few days in the insanity that is Bangkok, I bought a brand new bicycle with the intention of riding it 700km north, all the way to Chiang Mai. As you may have guessed/known, I did not end up biking the whole way.

I started off by taking a train 90km north to Ayutthaya. Being a former capitol of the young Thai nation, as well as a Unesco world heritage site, I figured it would be a good way to get a look at some really authentic and ancient Thai architecture. An added bonus was cutting some distance off my trip and avoiding the traffic coming out of Bangkok. After a couple days touring and photographing the various temples and ruins of the old city, I decided to start my biking trek north. Having a decent map and a route planned that avoided major highways, as well as a kitted out Trek mountain bike with all the bells and whistles, I felt pretty prepared for what lay ahead. And I was. Sort of.

The first day was only an 80km ride. I kept a great pace in the morning and had stunning weather. There really isn't much in rural central Thailand but rice paddies, a few factories, and small towns every 30km or so. Things were going so well I took a nice long lunch at a roadside restaurant. Waiting out the heat of the day with ice cold water and smoking hot pad thai turned out to be a great idea. The thing about tropical weather is that, well, it's hot. You know it, and I know it, but now I know it in a way that you don't. Bicycling on a blazing hot black tarmac in the heat of the day, roasting in the blazing midday sun, is enough to cook the brains of the most seasoned bad-idea-havers. So, I took my time at the restaurant and got back on the road in the mid-afternoon, making the crucial and highly regrettable mistake of failing to reapply my sunscreen, which I had done a good job of sweating off over the course of the morning's ride. Needless to say, as I pulled into the town at the end of the first day's ride, I was pretty fried. My knees were screaming with pain, and so was every inch of exposed skin, which had turned a sort of vicious candy apple red. As I pulled into town, I had to get off the bike for a few minutes and recuperate in the shade before trying to find a place to stay the night. Maybe it was the heat, or the dehydration, or the sunburn, or some combination, but I remember feeling about one minute from passing out on the side of the road. Staying hydrated was a huge challenge - drink too much and cramp up, don't drink enough and pass out. Anyways, I found a hotel in town after some miserably poor efforts on my part to speak Thai using my Lonely Planet book. My own room with A/C and a hot shower for 300 baht, which is about 10-12 dollars depending on exchange rates. I took stock of the damage that evening and realized that I needed to cover up most of my skin the next day if I was to make the journey without serious damage.

As luck would have it, down the street from my hotel was a massive night market. I bought a long-sleeve shirt for 100 baht and filled up on fried chicken, rice and fruit. I felt pretty prepared for the next day's trip as far as provisions and practicalities were concerned, but that was a pretty miserable night in all other respects. Taking on that kind of trip alone calls for a kind of fortitude that was difficult to summon when I was sunburned, exhausted, sore, and maybe for the first time since I left the states, a bit homesick. My thoughts often turned to the people I miss back in my country, and I kept asking myself: what am I doing here? Why am I doing this? Not just biking, but why am I in Thailand? Why have I wanted to come here for so long and train in Muay Thai, probably one of the most violent sanctioned sports existing in the world today? Not coming up with any solid answers made it really hard to find the motivation to want to continue the next day, especially since day 2 would be 100km, which is about 62 miles. However, having discovered that the only way to get on a bus or train north was to backtrack all the way to Bangkok, I was determined to make it to Nakhon Sawan or bust.

Needless to say, make it I did, though the experience was in no way enjoyable, at least not in the traditional sense of that word. The heat that day was absolutely ferocious. I felt like the sun was trying to rend my flesh from my bones, though it was having to penetrate long pants and sleeves in order to do so. Surprisingly, having my skin covered didn't make me any warmer when I was on the bike, traveling at speed. I finally understood why many indigenous peoples from desert areas keep their skin covered - clothes really do protect from the sun. However, the incredible heat and associated fatigue slowed me down quite a bit that day, and it being a longer ride anyways, I fell behind on my pace and nightfall caught me 20km from the town I intended to stop in, and it was raining cats and dogs to boot. Also, I'd managed to get off my quaint small road and onto the main highway. Sharing the road with 18 wheelers in the pitch black and pouring rain for the last two hours, with every muscle in my body cursing my stupid brain for thinking this idea up, was a tough time. At least I had a little light on the front of my bike. It threw off about as much light as a candle but at least I could say something of the road ahead. Finally pulling into town somewhere around 8-9pm was an incredible feeling. I found a great hotel right away, with a huge room for only 400 baht. After the last two days of cycling, that room was probably the greatest hotel room of my entire life. Granted, I haven't stayed in many hotels, but this one represented an accomplishment, something I'd never done before.

That night some things came together for me. Sitting in the room, I realized that the electrical sockets would actually allow me to plug in my laptop. All the hardship and introspection got my brain working overtime, and I randomly came across an online conversation with an old girlfriend that I'd saved to my computer. I decided then and there to write her a letter explaining what I was doing in Thailand, among other things. That letter is a whole other story, but writing it helped me clarify what I'm doing here, and why I want to train in Muay Thai. Briefly, for those who don't know about Muay Thai: it's a martial art and the de facto national sport of Thailand. It resembles kickboxing, but includes knee and elbow strikes, as well as clinches and throws. It's legendary for being incredibly difficult, with intense conditioning of the sort normally undertaken only by professional athletes. Two three hour training sessions a day, six days a week. The fights are often brutal and punishing. This ain't your weeknight Karate class with Master Bob. I realized that I wanted to train in this largely because of how difficult and punishing it would be. I wanted to throw myself on the fire, dedicate myself completely to something insanely difficult, but mentally and physically, and see what would happen. What would I become?

The answer to that question still lies ahead. One thing I knew in that hotel room that night, however, was that I wanted to get started training and cut the bike trip short. So the next day, I caught a bus the rest of the way north to Chiang Mai. I threw my bike in the belly of the beast, took a seat in the back next to a monk, and tried to sleep most of the way. Upon arrival around 8 in the evening, I intended to find my training camp and stay in a nearby guesthouse. I hopped in a songtaow (red pickup truck taxi) with my bike and pack, and an English girl who was going to some hostel called Spicy Thai. After repeated attempts by the cabbie to drop me off at various Muay Thai fight venues, and repeated (useless) attempts to explain that I was looking for Lanna Camp, not trying to see a fight, I gave up and tagged along with my fellow traveler to the hostel, figuring I would sort things out in the morning. Well, Spicy Thai turned out to be one of my favorite hostels of all time, and due to the fairly low price and various other factors, I'm still here.

So, for the past few weeks I've been training Muay Thai at Lanna Muay Thai. I had dreamed of the place for so long that actually seeing the camp was a surreal experience. Jumping right into training and living in Thailand has been pretty interesting. Obviously, my level of fitness, while pretty good for most people, was not up to par for training twice a day for three hours. So I've worked into it slowly, trying to concentrate on getting the technique down. I intend to stay here a few months at least, so I have plenty of time to build fitness and stamina before I have my first fight. In between bouts of food related sickness other random body failures due to training, I've gotten to most of the training sessions since I've gotten here, and I've noticed my stamina and technique have started to improve. I did skip practice today, but that's due to injury.

Last saturday, one of the trainers in the camp decided it was my turn to do some sparring with him in the ring. It was kicks only, and we were wearing pads on our shins and feet, which sounds pretty light and controlled. This was my first time doing any kicking sparring at the camp so I was pretty unsure of how to handle myself. Fully power? 90%? 50%? The trainer answered those questions for me by pummeling me with kicks to the legs. I'm sure he was taking it easy, but suffice it to say that I stayed in the ring until he got bored with it (I only found out later I could've stopped the session at any time) and I was in a lot of (very obvious and vocal) pain for most of my time in the ring. He then added insult to injury after the session by telling me that my kicks were weak, and top of that, he thinks I look gay. Well, well well. Far cry from the environment and attitudes of other places I've trained in martial arts. Pedaling home after practice, barely able to move, I was pretty furious. The lesson I was supposed to learn, I think, was to protect my legs better and hit harder in retaliation. However, the beating I took was a bit more than was necessary to teach those lessons. In any case, I didn't come here to get my hand held and make best buddies, so I've put my frustration aside, and I'm determined to go twice as hard when I start training again later this week. In a way, getting hit and learning to deal with pain is part of why I came. And I certainly can't afford to waste any time or energy taking offense to anything anyone wants to say to me. So, the only thing to do is heal up and get back to it twice as hard.

In other news, a friend from English teaching in Korea is coming to Chiang Mai tomorrow. Mitch and I had originally planned to do some traveling in Laos for a few days, but injury on my part and passport shenanigans on his will keep us in Thailand, I think. That's fine since I'm still having trouble walking correctly. I guess now I'll take the time to really check out Chiang Mai proper - training a lot keeps me too tired to do much of that most of the time, and my vows of abstinence from sex and alcohol while I'm in Thailand reduce my desire to check out the nightlife very much.

On a final note, I know I always say that I'm updating the photos section soon, but I really am this week. Not being able to train properly or move around too much means I have lots of time to get the site together and updated. Look for a huge photos section being reborn in the next week.

I hope you're all happy and healthy. Things are tough here in some ways, but I am getting plenty of R&R as well, no worries.

Roll Out

2008-05-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

The time is fast approaching. I leave Korea on June first. The last 6 weeks has been pretty eventful, what with the wedding, all the socializing, and preparations to leave. Seems like I'm pulling all nighters all over the place trying to get my stuff ready to go (it's not) and my website updated (it isn't.) I have managed to do a minor facelift and finally get up Ryan and Helen's wedding photos! So take a gander at those. Ok, better get my nose back to the grindstone, or finally hit the hay...

Changes are afoot

2008-04-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Changes in both my life and my website are forthcoming. First, life:

I decided to take advantage of a long weekend to travel to Tibet. Whilst there, I protested the Chinese crackdown on protesters, which in effect made me a protester. I was placed in a burlap sack and beaten, and I now write this from the slimy muck at the bottom of a jail cell in Sichuan province. My captors have agreed to update my blog for me, and have even given me pen and paper. All I had to do was promise to quit singing Kenny Loggins at the top of my lungs at all hours. Chinese prison guards HATE Kenny Loggins. Yup, my constant threat of singing KL has made me big man on campus around here. All the other inmates are forced to relinquish their gruel'n'guts eggrolls to me at mealtimes, and my guards give me a footrub on the hour, every hour. I'm thinking about staying here and starting a traveling band of inmate musicians. We will cover Abba, and only Abba, for every tiny podunk Chinese village for a thousand miles. If that all sounds pretty ridiculous to you, I suggest you take a look at the date on this blog entry. April second for me is April first for you USA types...

And now for something completely different... (reality or something like it)

I'm contracted to teach through the end of May here in Korea, at which point I will go ahead on to Thailand. I am midly considering extending for another month or two in order to obtain a faster laptop for my continued travels. In any case, at some point in the summer I'm going to Thailand, where I will remain for at least the rest of the year. How long I stay after that depends on how things work out. I will be training in Muay Thai full time, so I guess we'll see how I jive with that lifestyle.

Coming past the one year mark in Korea is a good time to look back. I've had a pretty excellent time here with few complaints of any sort. Or regrets for that matter, save one - I wish I'd spent the time to learn Korean and get truly immersed in Korean culture. This whole ex-pat scene has been a huge wake-up call for me. You come here and there is a friend group of english speakers pretty much ready to go. That plus high speed internet in your apartment can really kill your momentum on learning the local language and making local friends. It's taken me a long time to see how the habits and patterns form here, but I'm glad that I've learned how this works, because this will definitely not be the last foreign country that I live in for an extended period of time. In the meantime, it's never too late to learn - I intend to spend the rest of my time here hanging out with Koreans as often as possible and making a stab at speaking as much of the language as I can.

Martial arts wise, I continue to grow in capability and mental strength. Physically, flexibility remains my number one issue. But practice and exercise have become part of my mental and spiritual landscape to the point where I cannot imagine a life without training 4-5 times a week. There's a feel to it, a constant energy that is with you all the time. I've been getting more sleep lately too and that's always beneficial.

As far as the website goes, I'm basically reworking the entire thing. I've been using a Mac-based program to build and maintain the site, which has had pros and cons. The program is incredibly easy to use and enables me to do slick things (like those pop up menus on the photos page) without actually knowing what I'm doing. The downside is that it ties me to the Mac platform. I've been a Mac user for years, but lately speed and power have become most important to me as far as computers are concerned. Speed and power carry a hefty premium in the world of Mac, unfortunately. Also, I'd like to migrate my website activities to something that's more platform independent. As in, learn how to write html myself so I can build/maintain the site no matter what kind of computer I'm on. That's the end goal. This also ties in with my photography - I've stopped using iPhoto (which ships with all Macs) due to the fact that it cannot handle massive picture libraries like mine, on old/slow machines like mine. I've transferred all my photos to an old-fashioned regular old files and folders set up, once again with platform independence in mind. Ideally, I get a new laptop, run Linux on it, and do things the geekier/harder/ultimately more rewarding way.

To that end, the site is going to look really, really basic in the coming months. Also, I'm going with a new approach with the photos. Rather than having hundreds and hundreds of photos on the site, I'm going to pare it down to the shots I'm really, really proud of. I'll still try to keep things in chronological/geographical order, but I'm going to be a lot pickier about what I put up. Or maybe I'll just say screw it and put up a bunch of picasa web albums and call it a day. Only time will tell!

Real quick to my theatre friends: I miss you guys like crazy. Not living around a bunch of weirdo artists and doing theatre all the time is what's going to get me back to the states. For anyone who's wondering, yes I'm definitely coming back, and yes I'm going to work in theatre.

For those of you who have followed my Asian adventures and kept up with me via the website, email, chat, and what have you, thanks. As I look back on this past year I've realized the importance of community, and it's nice to feel that there is one/several that I can jump back into when I'm stateside again. I hope you're all doing fantastically well.

Busy Bee

2007-12-10T20:36:00.000-08:00

Lots going on this month. Finally updated the site - I added a few hundred pictures from my trip to China. Also I changed the look a little bit, feedback is appreciated. I've got my black belt test in Hapkido coming up on the 22nd, which will go fine if I can remember all the moves and also stop injuring myself once a week. On the 23rd I leave for a 10 day vacation in Japan. I will be in Tokyo for most of it, with perhaps a couple days in Kyoto. In any case I'll be in Tokyo for new year's, which ought to be pretty wild. In other news I met a lovely girl, but it's unclear yet if she's realized that she's met a really great guy. Harhar. In all seriousness, and despite setbacks, I'm going to go ahead and hold on to my unwavering optimism/confidence/ faith in the mysterious. Life is short. Carpe diem! I'll conclude with a quote from my main man Kahlil Gibran, from his masterpiece, The Prophet.

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Coming up for air

2007-10-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome back! It's been a minute since my last update (read: much longer than a minute) but I've been busy finding my way in the world. Here are some of the things I've done since July:

I had a week of vacation back in August, which I spent in China, as planned. That was about the only thing that went according to plan, especially given my loose notion of making a "plan." Let's just say that several boats, planes, and minor crises later, I am most certainly wiser. I did wind up in Beijing and spent the week there, which was fantastic. I met up with an old friend from the states and also met some great people at the hostel where I was staying. Beijing is an incredible place. I've never seen a place with so much history crashing headlong into the future. There is something a bit oppressive about the city, but at the same time, the strength and tradition of the place are plainly obvious to see, and there's also a lot of beautiful stuff to see. Highlights included Beijing Opera, the Forbidden City, the Hou Hai lake/bar district, and of course a 10k hike along the Great Wall. As you will see very soon, I took a lot of photos and will be filling up the currently empty China page with a few choice photos. It was my first serious outing with the Nikon D40, and I got a couple really nice shots. One more thing I'll say about China is that as cheap and awesome as it is to travel there, the attitude of the general populace certainly made me appreciate Korea a lot more. The atmosphere is definitely wilder and woolier than the more calm, if still crazy at times, feel of Korea. At least at night and at the markets.

Since then things have been pretty uneventful. People have come and gone at work, as contracts expire and begin all around. Silly office nonsense happens all the time and we all deal with it in our own individual ways. I have yet to make a dent in learning Korean. I finally stopped being addicted to novels and video games long enough to start updating my site and getting my photography in order, language is next on the list. I've certainly still got time to learn quite a bit, which leads me to my next bit of information.

Ryan and I have decided that we will almost certainly extend our contracts here in Korea. Our year is up at the end of February, but it looks like we'll be staying until the summer to make some money and for other various timing reasons. I plan on being in Thailand at the end of next summer, and I'll stay for as long as I can, probably just teaching some English on the side and training full time in Thai boxing. I've gotten a lot of "when are you coming back to the states?" type questions, which I love, because it's nice to know that people are thinking of me just as I'm thinking of them. But the answer is, I don't really know. As far as a permanent return, I'm loosely planning on early to mid 2009. As far as visiting, I'm going to shoot for a week in the states at the end of February, when I renegotiate my contract. I've got a week of vacation in December, but with plane tickets to DC running close to two grand, I've decided to fulfill another long standing dream of visiting Japan. It being literally at my backdoor, it's a great opportunity and also, it'll be cheaper. I have to remind myself that I need to be saving money here!

In other news, I hurt my knee in Hapkido. After taking a month off of training to let it heal, I'm back in the dojang (school) training 5 nights a week. The knee is hugely improved, but I'll probably be seeing a doctor soon to get some MRIs or other tests done. Might as well with my free health insurance! The master wants me to test for black belt in December, from what I understand, so I've got to be ready and stay healthy.

We just did Halloween at the English school and I was in charge of building the haunted house, along with Ryan and our head teacher, Aldrin. We definitely put in the hours and came up with a great setup, and after a full workday of screaming myself hoarse, wearing creepy masks and hiding in dark corners, I can safely say we scared the bajeesus out of those kids. My job is really great sometimes. (Really getting my mileage out of that theatre degree! Sigh.)

To all you folks back in the states, and you know who you are, I miss you. My life here remains interesting, instructive, and productive, but especially with the holidays coming on, thoughts of home are on my mind more often these days. I hope you're all doing well!

New pictures soon!

5 months in and I'm already skipping town

2007-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm leaving Korea.

It's time for summer vacation, which starts friday!
I'll be taking a 25 hour ferry from Incheon, South Korea, to Tianjin, China this friday. From Tianjin I'll be catching a train to Beijing, where I'll meet up with a friend and galavant about the Chinese capital for a few days, possibly followed by a short trip to Shanghai to see another friend. I'm beyond excited, especially now that I'm packing this little piece of kit:

That would be my new Nikon D40 dSLR. It's pretty cheap as far as digital SLR cameras go, but it has capabilities and qualities that my old digital camera can't hold a candle to. Much as I loved that Kodak and took some great shots in Europe with it, it's time to move on to bigger and better things. If you take a look in the photo section you'll see a bunch of new albums up; everything that's new has been shot with the Nikon and I think it's a huge improvement.

Besides my impending trip to China, not a whole lot is going on here. July 4th came and went with absolutely no fanfare (of course,) and that was actually a little bit sad. I'm not the most patriotic person, but you never know what you've got until you don't. That includes fireworks, crappy American beer, and bug bites.
I've been doing a lot of rock climbing, including two outdoor trips to nearby mountains with folks from my rock climbing gym. Those trips were incredible, especially the second one: a multi-pitch ascent up what I'm told is a roughly 600 foot face. It took all day, and we completed one section, we would clip into anchors drilled into the face and rest for the next portion. Definitely the most frightening experience of my life, including running with the bulls. Of course I was on a rope the whole time, with almost no chance of serious injury, but try telling that to your jangling nerves when you're 500 feet off the ground, holding onto a mountain using nothing but one tiny finger hold and the sheer friction of your climbing shoes on the rock.
In infinitely more boring and mundane news, management is being juggled around at work, with unpleasant consequences. The job is now no longer as much of a cakewalk as it was before, but remains a pretty decent living. I do have to say that my initial desire to extend my contract past the original 12 months has cooled somewhat. Right now I'm thinking I'll go straight to Thailand in February, when my contract is up, spend 6 months there, and then maybe move on to Hong Kong.

One never knows.

My next update will be packed with info and stories on my trip to CHINA. Stay tuned.

Brave New Warble

2007-06-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Note: I wrote this entry on June 20th, but I'm posting it July 20th. Things have gotten a bit behind on the site due to work, figuring out my new dSLR camera (!) and all that jazz. A really, actually new blog entry is coming within the next 48 hours. And so are a bunch more pictures. Stay tuned!

Hey! No big events these last six weeks. Korea continues to entertain and more importantly, educate.

One thing that happens a lot in this line of work is people coming and going. Due to the 12 month contract that everyone has, and everyone starting at different times of the year, my office has a constant turnover and arrival of people coming from all over the english speaking world. It's kind of fun and exciting to have people coming and going, but it's also kind of a bummer when cool people leave the office to go back home, or on to other adventures. This month, we are losing Justin, Irish Ryan, and Nathan, who are all great guys. It's been awesome working with you guys!

Speaking of Justin, he, Nate and I have been doing a fair bit of rock climbing these past 6 weeks. Nate (not to be confused with Nathan, who is one of the people leaving,) was a pretty avid climber back in the states, I had some experience, and Justin was just starting. We're pretty well into the groove now, thanks to the fact that we live really close to a bouldering gym. Bouldering means rock climbing without ropes, but it's generally low height, so you don't hurt yourself, and very difficult. The gym is an interconnected set of rooms with thickly padded floors, and angled walls covered in factory made holds that can be screwed into most surfaces. It's been excellent for making me stronger, dovetailing nicely with hapkido, which focuses a lot on hand strength.

Speaking of health, I've gone on a diet for the first time in my life. Don't worry, I'm not trying to LOSE weight, I'm actually trying to gain muscle. My new diet is gleaned from the book "Natural Hormonal Enhancement" by Rob Faigin. He asserts, after doing a huge mountain of research, that the best way to eat in order to gain muscle and burn fat, is to eat lots of protein and not worry about having too much fat. My meals are cycled, such that every 3rd day I have a big meal of carbohydrates, and then every 4th day as well. In between those times I eat very few carbs. The idea is that the human endocrine system is millions of years old, and is based on eating a diet that's very different from what most people eat today. Our ancestors ate a lot more protein and vegetables, and very few, if any, refined carbohydrates, like white bread, pasta, etc. Anyways, the book is well reviewed and makes sense, so I'm going to give it a try. Also, I'll be starting a weight training regimen next week, in addition to my martial arts training, so this could be the start of a whole new thing for me. I'll report back on how it turns out/is turning out.

In other news, I miss theatre and the arts desperately. I've got to find out about the english language theatre and other things like that in the Seoul area. I know it's out there, I've seen links and ads here and there. Time to do some research.

I've been pretty prolific as far as music goes. Pretty soon I'm going to start adding a few songs of mine to the website so everyone can listen.

My roommate Ryan Ellis is getting married, for those of you who don't know. He met a lovely british girl here named Helen Kenny. They don't have a date set yet, but I guess I'll post it when I know and when the time is right. For all those of you who love Ryan Ellis and want nothing but the best for him, let me assure you that Helen is a fantastic person and I'm 100% behind them getting married. They've moved pretty quick, but hey, when you know, you know.

What else? Teaching is a continuing process of self-discovery. Just when I think I have a pattern down and there's not much else to figure out, some new challenge or unrealized part of myself leaps to the fore to make things interesting. I feel that there are many days when I learn more than the kids by a good margin. Specifically, teaching these kids is really teaching me a lot about the meaning of patience. I thought I was a reasonably patient person before I came here, but I think now I'm starting to learn what real patience is. Real patience is teaching the same thing 4 times in one week to the same kid, who just isn't getting it, and persisting with it, until he DOES get it. There's usually a reward for patience in this job, but it's sad to say that sometimes there are brick walls that it's hard to break through. However, you never know when a breakthrough will happen, so it's best to just keep a clear head and take deep breaths. Patience is really the key here! It's incredible, though, because patience is really a way of creating stillness within yourself. And when you can do that, you notice things that have been there all along, patiently waiting for you to discover them. Or at least, that's the way it's starting to become for me.

Oh and one more cool thing that happened. A couple weeks ago, the birthday of Buddha was celebrated here in Korea with a massive parade in downtown Seoul. People came from alllllll over Asia to join in the festivities, and there were a bunch of performances of both traditional and modern musicians and artists during the day. There was everything from traditional Korean drumming to yoga demonstrations, as well as traditional Indian dance - Katakali, believe. The parade started at night. Why at night? Because the whole thing is called the Paper Lantern Festival, and there are thousands of paper lanterns everywhere! The buddhist temple near the parade area was decked out with a gazillion of them, and at night, every single lantern was turned on. With that, and the parade, the effect was really beautiful. I managed to snag some lanterns and take them home for decoration purposes. Check out the pics section if you want to see what I'm talking about.

Thanks for checking in. Remember to check out the new pictures!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

2007-05-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting time since my last update. I've hit extreme highs and extreme lows with the job, but it seems to come with the territory. I've gotten into hiking a lot on the weekends, and I've started going to a rock climbing gym pretty close to where I live. I've reached yellow belt in Hapkido, though I'm still looking for a place to practice Taekwondo.
I've put up a bunch of new picture albums to document all the most noteworthy adventures I've had recently. To start with is a nice little selection of photos from St. Patrick's Day here in Seoul. Yeah, I know it was a while ago, but some of the pictures were just too good not to put up. Plus, it was pretty surreal to see so many Koreans celebrating an Irish holiday with such gusto. They really love Guinness here, I can tell you that much.
I've also got an album up from a hike on one of the local mountains, Gwanaksan. It was a fun time and got me addicted to hiking around here. Of course, Korea is mostly mountains, so hiking is huge here. It's hard to describe the feeling of sweating up a thousand meter peak, only to watch people two or three times my age gleefully smoke me up the trail, flashing big smiles as they hustle their fully-outfitted-for-mountain-climbing selves right up the mountains. Koreans are strong people.
Then there is an album I've put up from a recent field trip we took the pre-schoolers on. In the morning I teach wee little ones (7 years old in Korean counting, which generally means 6 in American counting,) and this month's field trip was to the zoo.
Also, last weekend I took a trip to Wonju, about an hour and a half outside of Seoul, with Justin and Nate, two friends from work. We climbed a 1288 meter peak in Chiaksan national park, but that's only part of the story.
For starters, we weren't supposed to be in Wonju at all. Justin screwed up when we were getting our tickets, having read our guide book wrong. We were apparently supposed to go to an entirely different place called Muju. Go figure. We figured this out about 30 seconds before the bus for Wonju headed out of Seoul, with us on it. Luckily Chiaksan is right outside of Wonju(sorta) so we just rolled with it, and everything ended up working out.
We left on a friday night, and got a room at a place that would probably be described here in Korea as a "love motel." The room is basically designed for people to have sex, with lots of mood lighting, porn on the TV, etc etc. There was even a vending machine in the hallway that sold dildos, fake vaginas, and various other tools/toys. We stayed there two nights, actually, since the enormous bed was big enough for two, and there was a couch as well. The funny part was, the second night they supplied us guys with 3 condoms instead of the standard one... thanks, I guess?
Saturday morning we rolled out of the motel/hotel/whateveritis only to realize that our guidebook was incredibly vague on how to get from Wonju to the national park. After poking around for an hour, and getting lots of crappy directions, we finally stumbled across a police station. Being completely lost, we went in to ask for directions. The amusement we were able to provide for those local yokel Korean cops was something to see. They whipped out every phrase in English they knew, and after a few minutes of language practice, one of them finally said, "follow me." Figuring he was going to tell us how to get to the bus terminal we were looking for, we went along. Imagine our surprise when the officer loaded us into one of the cop cars and drove us directly to the stop where we could catch a bus up to the mountain. Koreans really are that nice.
The mountain was incredible, and was the longest hike I've done to date, at 1288 meters. In the foothills there is also a very old Buddhist temple, where we were accosted by a very old man who seemed pretty drunk for eleven in the morning. He proceeded to tell us a long, rambling, nonsensical, entirely charming (seriously) story about a big rock that looks like the moon with some clouds around it. I'm not making this up. He even gave us a business card with a picture of said rock on it.
The last part of the hike was so steep that there were wooden stairways built into the sides of the mountain. Imagine our surprise when, as we three struggled to the summit, it was already crowded with middle aged folks and middle school field trip groups. Definitely an educational experience, and very humbling.
After coming down the mountain and catching the bus back to Wonju proper, we decided on a galbi restaurant for dinner. In Korea, galbi is basically BBQ cooked right at your table, on a cooker built into the table top. It's delicious, and in true Korean fashion, the table is covered with little dishes containing all manner of little sides, garnishes, and various kinds of kimchi. In the bathroom I noticed a pretty old guy sneezing his head off approximately every 5 seconds. I can't say I was too excited when he rolled up to our table and invited himself to join us. "Great," I thought, in a typically American reaction, "this weird old homeless guy wants to make friends and eat our food." Not so! The gentleman made as much chit chat as he could with the English he had, bought us a round of beers, and wished us a good night, as he hustled his grandkids on home. According to Justin, he sees that kind of incredible hospitality and friendliness at least once on every hiking trip outside of Seoul.
Well of course we ended up making a bit of a night of it, and got up very late the next day, precluding any more hiking that weekend. Still, it was time very well spent.
Lastly, I threw up a smattering of pictures I took just before I came to Korea. There were a couple good ones I just couldn't keep to myself, like the shots from the anti-escalation/war march that I went to in DC, and the picture I got someone to take of myself meeting Ralph Nader. And of course, shots of me and and my brand spankin' new (at the time) black belt, posing with my TKD masters.
You'll notice in many of the pictures I've put up, by the way, that I'm sporting quite a gross little mustache. Myself and a bunch of guys at the office were having a sort of a competition, although Ryan and his 1/4 pure Italian blood whipped all of us, with an incredible Super Mario-esque 'stache.
It's getting warm here. Stay tuned for reports of island hopping and beach parties. Also, I'm in training for a Taekwondo championship that Master Yang (my TKD master from back in the states) has asked me to compete in. So there's a lot going on. I'll do my best to keep the site as updated as possible. If you want to leave a comment, please do - just click the link at the bottom of the post that says "comments." I hope that anyone who's reading this is having a wonderful day, and ate something delicious recently.

It took a while to sink in.

2007-04-20T01:02:00.000-07:00

I live in Korea now, but my heart is back in Virginia. It wanders the Blue Ridge and stumbles along the country roads. It shivers in the shadow of something that seems so incredibly out of place, something that is out of range of even the darkest expectations. I read the news almost every day. I am constantly reading about death, starvation, the woes of the world, its lightest places and darkest deeds. I think of myself as informed. That did not prepare me for what happened at Virginia Tech. And if I am unprepared, and shocked, and saddened, I can only imagine what the feelings must be for everyone back in the states - especially those in Virginia, and especially those at Virginia Tech. I just wanted to throw my two cents of support in. I am practically a world away, but my thoughts and wishes are back in those roaming hills and mountains now, and on those beautiful campuses, and riding on the shoulders of the students, faculty, and staff who must bravely continue on. All those who have been touched by this week's events: look to hope and gather your courage. We're all with you.

Bits and pieces as the rain comes down

2007-03-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

"Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering?
And shall it be said my eve was in truth my dawn?
And what shall I give unto him who has left his plough in midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress?
Shall my heart become a tree heavy-laden with fruit that I may gather and give unto them?
And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill their cups?
Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me?
A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?
If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons?
If this indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein."

That's a quote by Kahlil Gibran, from his 1923 book The Prophet.

I'm here and it's weird and I like it.

2007-03-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

Korea! Wow. It took a couple weeks for the novelty to wear off. Many, many things are very, very different.

First off, apologies to all who thirsted for news/photos/assurance that Ryan and I are still alive. Our internet access was pretty spotty for a while there, but now we have incredibly fast access in our apartment, so staying in touch should be a lot easier. If anyone is so inclined, my Skype handle is "swiftestranger" - don't hate on my LOTR reference. Keep in mind that if you want to chat, you're going to have to pick a time that might be pretty weird for you. I think the time difference is about 11 hours.

Ryan and I made the trip in about 24 hours of travel time, start to finish. It was exhausting and it's taken us quite a while to get our bodies adjusted to the change of place. We're pretty well settled in now. Speaking of settled, I should mention that we're very happy with the apartment that our employer has set us up with. It's about a 5 minute walk from the school where we're teaching, and actually is much bigger than I suspected it might be. It's a two bedroom apartment, with one MASSIVE bedroom and one much smaller one. Rock paper scissors, best 2 out of 3, decided who would get the big'un: yours truly. You might think it's stange to decide that kind of thing this way, but it's how Korean kids decide EVERYTHING. The results are never argued about. Rock paper scissors is IT. Anyways, after figuring out the heating system by way of a helpful visit from our landlord, Mr. Yang, I have to say I quite enjoy the ondol setup. Ondol is the Korean style of heating. Pipes are laid out underneath the floor, and hot water is run through them, which means that the floor is radiating warmth at all times. It keeps the place pretty cozy.

Adjusting to the culture has been more or less easy, since American English teachers are fairly well respected. Americans in general are treated well here, though the US soldiers stationed at the Yongsan base enjoy a somewhat less savory reputation. Korean isn't really required to get along in Korea. Many people speak enough English to complete basic transactions, like buying things at the grocery store and ordering food at restaurants. Koreans are generally friendly in these kinds of situations and will work hard to please guests and customers. I'm trying to learn Korean anyways, but it's slow going, largely because I am easily distracted from spending my personal time in constructive ways. Now that we've gotten more settled in and my schedule is starting to solidify, I'm hoping to make some headway on the language. I feel like it'll give me that much more opportunity to enjoy my time here.

Of course, many people asked me about my knowledge of the Korean language, (or lack thereof), as it pertains to my job, which is teaching English to Korean kids. Well, I don't need it at work, because the way language is taught here differs from the high school spanish/french/whatever classes you might be familiar with. Rather than translating everything from Korean into English, the idea is to create an immersive environment wherein the kids are obligated to speak only English from the moment they step in the building, to the moment they leave. In the early levels, this is hard, but over time the kids really pick things up. In my higher level classes - 10 to 12 year olds - the speaking abilities of my students are high enough that I can just sit there and converse with them. Of course, in the lower level classes I'm frequently just having them repeat after me, but you've gotta start somewhere.

My school (or English hagwon, as these things are sometimes called,) is the Pyungchon branch of SLP, the Sogang University Language Program. Basically, a highly regarded university here in Korea, Sogang, decided to get into the hagwon market by creating curriculum materials and starting up franchises. I think the business arrangements might be more complicated than that, but that's the gist. I use the books they write to teach English to the kids. This is a great deal more structured than it is at many hagwons, many of which do not have any kind of structured curriculum whatsoever. Of course, it's not perfect, but it helps, and I still have a lot of latitude to cover what I think the kids need to know. You might think that only experienced teachers could make those kinds of decisions, but when you're dealing with basic English, it becomes obvious pretty quickly as to what the kids need to be working on.

The kids themselves are an interesting lot. Going to a hagwon, which is basically a private afterschool program, is expensive, so we get our share of what seem to be spoiled rich kids. We also have a bunch of really sweet kids, though not as many as I'd like. I teach preschool in the mornings and elementary school aged kids in the afternoons. My preschool class is a group of 9 hellions that can be pretty bad, but the older kids tend to be much easier to control. Control is the operative word here. If you can't keep them quiet, you can't get anything done, so I tend to rule my classes with an iron fist. I goof around a lot, and make a lot of jokes, to keep the kids interested, but they all know by now that I can turn on the mean teacher juice at the drop of a hat, so I don't have to exert myself as much to keep them in line. All that projection and vocal control that I practiced as a theatre major is paying off in big ways now - in these small classrooms, I can pretty much deafen whole groups of kids without even trying. All that aside, it's pretty rewarding to actually see the kids learn things. It seems so hopeless for some of them at first, but they really start to pick it up. I've only been teaching for a few weeks, but already I'm seeing improvement in many of the students. I cling to this thought when the preschoolers make me want to throw them out the window.

Outside of the office/school, life stays interesting. I haven't found a Taekwondo school I'd like to train in yet, but I have found a Hapkido master who I like a lot. Actually, two of my coworkers, Ashley and Selina, started studying at this dojang a little while ago, and that's how I found out about it. The master doesn't have a lot of English, so the language barrier can be tough here. However, my previous experience in Taekwondo has really helped me in the beginning stages at least. Not to brag, but I am much more comfortable with the things that I'm learning than the other white belts are in the class. It only makes sense though - practicing one martial art is going to make it easier to learn others. Hapkido is quite different from Taekwondo in many ways, and after the stress of my black belt test, it's nice to take a few weeks off from training TKD every day and try something new.

Basic living here is easy. Ryan and I have discovered places to watch movies, buy electronics, get food from just about anywhere in the world, play putt putt golf, you name it, it's probably around Seoul somewhere. People are nice and prices are generally very fair. I like my job, my apartment, and my roommate. It ain't perfect, but I feel good about where I am. Plus, Koreans celebrate St. Patrick's day! I'll have some pictures up Irish folks parading (literally) through downtown Seoul very soon...

New Beginnings, Also, Other Cheesy Titles

2007-02-23T23:42:00.000-08:00

Well, it's all very official now. I'm flying to Korea on Monday, February 26th. With me will be my good friend Ryan Ellis. We're fixin' to learn them there Korean children some of that there English.

It still doesn't quite feel real. When doing serious traveling, it usually doesn't feel real to me until I do something normal like eat, or sleep. Then the reality of it all comes rushing in, like when your ears pop after hours of dim hearing. I'm definitely excited, though I know I'm going to miss some people very much. Some people I ALREADY miss a lot. You know who you are. But hey, that's the way it happens. People come and go - these days I do more of the latter, but traveling the world has been a dream of mine since I was a child. Only thing that's changed is that I figured out how to get paid for it.

In other news, I've earned my 1st degree black belt in Taekwondo. After years of on and off study, due to injury, college, etc., Master Yang gave me the chance to test for black belt before leaving for Korea, and I jumped on it. Having spent a good deal of my time over the last couple months training, it was still one of the hardest hours of my entire life. As it should be, I think. It feels really good to make that step before moving on to my next big thing. Taekwondo is something that'll always be with me, but it's nice to feel like I at least finished my current assignment before skipping town. Of course, I'll continue to train in TKD while I'm in Korea, as well as other martial arts. Also, immediately after my time in Korea, I'm planning on spending some time in Thailand training in Muay Thai... but that's a whole other story.

My next post will be from the other side of the ocean. Wish me luck!