It's been a solid three-and-a-half months since I updated so I guess I'm due.
Here's just a smattering of what's going on in South Korea and an overview of my future plans:
I'm nigh on seven months through this contract (December 7th, to be exact) and in some ways I still feel fresh off the plane. In others, though, I feel as if I've been here for years--it's so easy to forget the minor things about home. Fortunately I haven't felt much culturual alienation, and any homesickness is usually cured by visiting Itaewon (South Korea's foreign neighborhood--an eclectic mix of American military, Middle Easterners, Indians, Africans and English teachers with the occasional European or South American) for the afternoon.
Everything (as far as South Korea is concerned) should be downhill from here--three weeks from Friday I'll be flying into Ho Chi Minh City with Andrea; we'll spend seven days in between Saigon and Phu Quoc Island with a side trip into the Mekong Delta. Once I come back to work I'll be teaching four weeks of English "camp," which means, in other words, that I only have a dozen or so students for half the day. From the beginning to the middle of February we have to finish this semester, then another two weeks of camp (where I'll be teaching first graders). March marks the start of the new school year, which means new students--and eight weeks after that I'm out of here.
In other news, Andrea and I have adopted a cat. We found him roughly four months ago, tied up by a garage attendants' booth down the street from our apartment. He was confined to a tiny area with no room for play and with (as far as I could tell) only food scraps from the building's restaurants for meals. Andrea insisted that we start feeding him canned cat food, and so since August up until about two weeks ago we'd been stopping by daily to play with and give him food. The guards eventually offered him to Andrea, though I think there was some miscommunication there (apparently they meant to have us bring him home for one night only--but we're not giving him back). She's named him "Mittens" and he's been terrorizing me for the last week. He becomes bolder with each passing day but hasn't managed to destroy anything just yet.
As far as taking him home...we're unsure if Andrea will take him back to Hungary in March or if I will go to Hungary when my contract is up, and then come home later in May. Too many factors to go into at the moment, but we'll see what happens. I'm also trying to decide what to do about attending some weddings while I'm home, or seeing if it's possible to hit both of them on a brief visit in late August/early September.
Right now I'm hoping to start the American Studies graduate program at Eötvös Loránd University in September. Originally I wanted to do a master's in literature, but this particular school doesn't offer an American literature program (and English literature just won't cut it for me, I'm afraid), and as I've really started to read into the aims of American Studies as an academic discipline I've decided it's probably much closer to what I want anyway. In brief, it's an interdisciplinary approach to the study of "American-ness," using texts from just about every scholarly field in the humanities (literature, history, philosophy, sociology, etc.) I have a handful of American novelists whose work I'd like to study, and beyond that there's an endless amount of culture studies and critical theory that I need to digest.
I'll write again soon.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
For the past three months I've been procrastinating on writing an article for my hometown newspaper, the Smyth County News & Messenger. Initially I wanted to write a brief piece in which I could discuss my experience (as well as the experiences of two other graduates of my high school who are teaching here) in South Korea, why we chose to come here, the difficulties in adapting to so vastly different a culture, etcetera--more or less the expected line of pap. Every time I've attempted to start this article I've come up with so many other things that are worth mentioning, the majority of which I don't think would be of much interest to my hometown readers--contrasting the lifestyles of Marion, VA and South Korea would be too easy, and I would almost need to do a series of articles to even scratch the surface of everything I have to say.
I won't pretend that the following sentiments are mine alone, and I haven't studied any of this sufficiently enough to give an educated account, so bear in mind my complete subjectivity.
Why? There are so many different reasons for why so many Americans (as well as other English speakers) are choosing to teach overseas, the most common being to pay off student debt, to travel very cheaply and see another culture up close, and to delay the full responsibilities of adulthood in their home countries. Another, and one that is partially behind my decision to come here, is that the job market in the United States can't accommodate us all. The generation of young Americans who have earned bachelor's degrees in the past, let's say, six years, have graduated from a university expecting a warm embrace and congratulatory applause from the job market only to be met with blank stares and cold shoulders, being told they lack the requisite experience to land a job in their field, a classic Catch-22 of "I don't have the experience because I can't get a job, and I can't get a job because I don't have experience." The bachelor's degree has become commonplace enough to equate it with the high school diploma of earlier generations, forcing many of us to take jobs we could have had before investing four years and thousands of dollars into an education that so far has only led us into an abyss of debt. To sidestep for a moment, I'm currently reading Looking Backward (published in 1888), an acclaimed utopian novel by the socialist Edward Bellamy. In short, the book is about a man who is put into a trance only to be revived in the year 2000--113 years after he went to sleep--a time in which a form of highly-developed socialism prevails as opposed to the industrialist capitalism of the late 19th century. I have yet to finish it but I feel confident in saying it's more or less a tract of basic Marxism transformed into a narrative (which is something I personally enjoy). But the one particular passage which I can relate to my current spiel can be paraphrased as such: those of us who enter college at the socially-expected ages of 18-19 are often unsure of what we're good at, what we want to do for the rest of our lives--we're just too young to make such a final declaration. I can personally attest to that statement, as I lost complete interest in my major shortly after graduation; at the same time, I feel like I've learned much more living in "the real world," studying on my own and reading freely than I did as an undergraduate. Our Western, middle-class mindset (and the cold reality) tells us that no, our parents can't afford to take care of us forever, we're not going to find a romantic partner if we're still living at home or waiting tables at 25, we're not going to be socially respected if we're college graduates working wage jobs at 30. I won't go into what I consider to be the anguish of the middle-class, as I'm already far off my original topic, and because I don't consider this the appropriate forum. So anyway, back to South Korea--what else can we do? The jobs are here, the money is better than what many of have ever earned in our own nations, we don't pay rent and we don't have to feel worthless. Many of us face the decision of blooming into respectable adults here, or we continue to spit in the face of adulthood and live our lives in this giant, peninsula-shaped amusement park (a theme to be elaborated upon later).
Ethical concerns: I have conflicted feelings about the ethical issues of my position here, whether it be the so-called and inevitable "march of progress" or not. To clarify, I think it could be argued that what we're doing--teaching the English language--is an advanced form of imperialism, and if it isn't now it could potentially become so. Once again, I don't have the formal education necessary to really qualify these extreme, grand statements, but from my limited (and once again, subjective) point-of-view, this is how I feel. I guess my argument would be rooted in some kind of language theory coupled with something else, I don't know what, and I won't try to reference any scholarly sources because I can't remember where I've read them, by whom they were written, and I think I can elucidate my thoughts well enough to make citing unnecessary. So here it is: as the world slowly congeals into one giant English-speaking mass, our global diversity is going to seep right through a hole in the bucket. Right now there is an obvious rift between the young and old generations in South Korea, and as generations continue to die and be born, the ties to tradition will eventually break. So much of the culture is built into the language, and vice-versa, and over time the culture will succumb to total Westernization, with the Western world eventually succumbing to Americanization. I think such an extreme end result is unlikely, but I can't help seeing it looming on the horizon. With the majority of the non-English speaking world struggling to learn our language to reap economic benefits, how are they expected to maintain their own sense of cultural heritage and pride? As English rises to the position of the global language, won't many people end up feeling that to learn any other language is a futile gesture? At what point will foreign children start to be raised in English-speaking households in order to avoid the difficulties their parents faced as second-language learners? You can't put a price on tradition, you can't put a price on culture. Does financial gain justify their possible eradication? This is the most negative light I can throw on the subject right now, and I've had many days where I feel like what I'm doing is a wonderful thing, but I can justify it for mostly personal reasons--it's going to be easier for me to live in a world where I can speak to everyone, I can make a lot of money teaching the English language, etc. I tell myself that it's okay to be here because if I wasn't, someone else would be, and I need the money and experience--but I don't want to live in a world that justifies itself as such.
I'm burnt out for now.
I won't pretend that the following sentiments are mine alone, and I haven't studied any of this sufficiently enough to give an educated account, so bear in mind my complete subjectivity.
Why? There are so many different reasons for why so many Americans (as well as other English speakers) are choosing to teach overseas, the most common being to pay off student debt, to travel very cheaply and see another culture up close, and to delay the full responsibilities of adulthood in their home countries. Another, and one that is partially behind my decision to come here, is that the job market in the United States can't accommodate us all. The generation of young Americans who have earned bachelor's degrees in the past, let's say, six years, have graduated from a university expecting a warm embrace and congratulatory applause from the job market only to be met with blank stares and cold shoulders, being told they lack the requisite experience to land a job in their field, a classic Catch-22 of "I don't have the experience because I can't get a job, and I can't get a job because I don't have experience." The bachelor's degree has become commonplace enough to equate it with the high school diploma of earlier generations, forcing many of us to take jobs we could have had before investing four years and thousands of dollars into an education that so far has only led us into an abyss of debt. To sidestep for a moment, I'm currently reading Looking Backward (published in 1888), an acclaimed utopian novel by the socialist Edward Bellamy. In short, the book is about a man who is put into a trance only to be revived in the year 2000--113 years after he went to sleep--a time in which a form of highly-developed socialism prevails as opposed to the industrialist capitalism of the late 19th century. I have yet to finish it but I feel confident in saying it's more or less a tract of basic Marxism transformed into a narrative (which is something I personally enjoy). But the one particular passage which I can relate to my current spiel can be paraphrased as such: those of us who enter college at the socially-expected ages of 18-19 are often unsure of what we're good at, what we want to do for the rest of our lives--we're just too young to make such a final declaration. I can personally attest to that statement, as I lost complete interest in my major shortly after graduation; at the same time, I feel like I've learned much more living in "the real world," studying on my own and reading freely than I did as an undergraduate. Our Western, middle-class mindset (and the cold reality) tells us that no, our parents can't afford to take care of us forever, we're not going to find a romantic partner if we're still living at home or waiting tables at 25, we're not going to be socially respected if we're college graduates working wage jobs at 30. I won't go into what I consider to be the anguish of the middle-class, as I'm already far off my original topic, and because I don't consider this the appropriate forum. So anyway, back to South Korea--what else can we do? The jobs are here, the money is better than what many of have ever earned in our own nations, we don't pay rent and we don't have to feel worthless. Many of us face the decision of blooming into respectable adults here, or we continue to spit in the face of adulthood and live our lives in this giant, peninsula-shaped amusement park (a theme to be elaborated upon later).
Ethical concerns: I have conflicted feelings about the ethical issues of my position here, whether it be the so-called and inevitable "march of progress" or not. To clarify, I think it could be argued that what we're doing--teaching the English language--is an advanced form of imperialism, and if it isn't now it could potentially become so. Once again, I don't have the formal education necessary to really qualify these extreme, grand statements, but from my limited (and once again, subjective) point-of-view, this is how I feel. I guess my argument would be rooted in some kind of language theory coupled with something else, I don't know what, and I won't try to reference any scholarly sources because I can't remember where I've read them, by whom they were written, and I think I can elucidate my thoughts well enough to make citing unnecessary. So here it is: as the world slowly congeals into one giant English-speaking mass, our global diversity is going to seep right through a hole in the bucket. Right now there is an obvious rift between the young and old generations in South Korea, and as generations continue to die and be born, the ties to tradition will eventually break. So much of the culture is built into the language, and vice-versa, and over time the culture will succumb to total Westernization, with the Western world eventually succumbing to Americanization. I think such an extreme end result is unlikely, but I can't help seeing it looming on the horizon. With the majority of the non-English speaking world struggling to learn our language to reap economic benefits, how are they expected to maintain their own sense of cultural heritage and pride? As English rises to the position of the global language, won't many people end up feeling that to learn any other language is a futile gesture? At what point will foreign children start to be raised in English-speaking households in order to avoid the difficulties their parents faced as second-language learners? You can't put a price on tradition, you can't put a price on culture. Does financial gain justify their possible eradication? This is the most negative light I can throw on the subject right now, and I've had many days where I feel like what I'm doing is a wonderful thing, but I can justify it for mostly personal reasons--it's going to be easier for me to live in a world where I can speak to everyone, I can make a lot of money teaching the English language, etc. I tell myself that it's okay to be here because if I wasn't, someone else would be, and I need the money and experience--but I don't want to live in a world that justifies itself as such.
I'm burnt out for now.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
| As the type to always derive some kind of pleasure from the keeping of lists, I've decided to share with you what I've been reading and what I've purchased (book-wise) since arriving in South Korea. Read: Tim Poland - The Safety of Deeper Water Sherwood Anderson - Winesburg, Ohio Kim Young-Ha - I Have the Right to Destroy Myself Alan Moore - The Watchmen John Hersey - Hiroshima Ray Bradbury - Zen in the Art of Writing George Orwell - 1984 Edith Hamilton - Mythology Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle E.B. White - Charlotte's Web Alexander Trocchi - Young Adam Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls (three-quarters through it--I hit a snag at one point, but will finish soon) Strunk & White - The Elements of Style (read the majority of it) George Orwell - Why I Write (read two of the three essays) Deszo Kostalanyi - Skylark Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince (three quarters of the book, have read twice before) Franz Kafka - selected short stories Currently reading: Emile Burns - What is Marxism? Daniel Boorstin - The Creators Sherwood Anderson - Winesburg, Ohio Started but didn't finish/am not currently reading: Franz Kafka - The Castle Stephen Crane - Maggie, a Girl of the Streets John Gardner - The Art of Fiction E.M. Forster - Aspects of the Novel Kobo Abe - The Box Man Ray Bradbury - Dandelion Wine Bought/brought with the intention to read soon (unlikely): James Joyce - Ulysses Homer - The Illiad Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude Thomas McGuane - Gallatin Canyon The Bible (King James Version) Herman Melville - Billy Budd and Other Stories Albert Camus - The Plague Charles Dickens - Great Expectations Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum Peter Hoeg - The Borderliners Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels |
I'll continue to blame my lack of updates on the fact that most of my down time is spent at school, and unfortunately Blogger isn't accessible from my school computer. In fact, I'm writing on a Xanga account at the moment (for some reason the system here allows Xanga and Twitter while excluding numerous other blogs) with the intention of transferring the post to Blogger later .
There are so many things to touch on and I can almost guarantee that I'll run out of steam before I'm able to say everything that's worth saying.
Personal life: Andrea arrived in South Korea on July 17th, and with my paid vacation time scheduled for the two following weeks, we made some vague plans to island-hop off the southwestern coast of the peninsula. Our first destination was the fishing village of Mokpo, which was only intended as a stop-over before getting to the island areas, as bus rides can only be tolerable for so long. As we pulled into Mokpo we realized it wasn't at all what we'd expected (though I'm not sure exactly what we were expecting--this wasn't it), and the clouds and rain only added to the gloom of the evening. Earlier in the day my eye had started to become irritated, reddening and watering throughout the bus ride. By the time we checked into a motel it had become difficult to keep it open, but after napping for an hour or so it seemed as though it was improving. It was dark by the time we left the motel to find some food and my eye was so sensitive to the street lights that I had to keep it closed until we were back indoors, and then I was only able to open it comfortably in complete darkness, and I had a difficult time sleeping because not only was it sensitive at this point, it was a continuous throbbing pain.
When we woke up the next day I decided there was no way I could continue with the trip, that I would only be torturing myself by stepping onto a beach in the sunlight. Andrea convinced me to look for a pharmacy for some eyedrops* and upon finding one we were re-directed to an eye clinic that was in the same building. The doctor there told me I had a corneal infection or something along those lines, and gave me a couple different eyedrop prescriptions, assuring me everything would be okay, but that I should see a doctor in Seoul as soon as possible. The total cost for the doctor and the medicine was roughly 11,000 won (the equivalent of about ten dollars). The next day Andrea and I headed up to Seoul to find an eye clinic that she'd found online, and fortunately for me it was within walking distance of three major bookstores, one being the largest in the country. On the second tier of fortune I'd include that the doctor spoke more or less perfect English, and though he never smiled he seemed genuinely concerned about the condition of my eye, which he said could possibly end up with major vision loss. He prescribed some additional medication and by the time I visited him the next day the eye had healed dramatically, though it was still light-sensitive and painful. I ended up going to the doctor six days in a row, in which I had multiple medications, a consultation with another doctor at the clinic, a day spent with an eyepatch, an ultra sonagram of my eye and so on, but at this point my vision is almost back to normal.
*South Korea requires a pharmacist to dole out any sort of medicine, even something as simple as Tylenol.
So now that story has been told...and I'll attempt to blog about what else I've been doing and thinking in an upcoming entry.
There are so many things to touch on and I can almost guarantee that I'll run out of steam before I'm able to say everything that's worth saying.
Personal life: Andrea arrived in South Korea on July 17th, and with my paid vacation time scheduled for the two following weeks, we made some vague plans to island-hop off the southwestern coast of the peninsula. Our first destination was the fishing village of Mokpo, which was only intended as a stop-over before getting to the island areas, as bus rides can only be tolerable for so long. As we pulled into Mokpo we realized it wasn't at all what we'd expected (though I'm not sure exactly what we were expecting--this wasn't it), and the clouds and rain only added to the gloom of the evening. Earlier in the day my eye had started to become irritated, reddening and watering throughout the bus ride. By the time we checked into a motel it had become difficult to keep it open, but after napping for an hour or so it seemed as though it was improving. It was dark by the time we left the motel to find some food and my eye was so sensitive to the street lights that I had to keep it closed until we were back indoors, and then I was only able to open it comfortably in complete darkness, and I had a difficult time sleeping because not only was it sensitive at this point, it was a continuous throbbing pain.
When we woke up the next day I decided there was no way I could continue with the trip, that I would only be torturing myself by stepping onto a beach in the sunlight. Andrea convinced me to look for a pharmacy for some eyedrops* and upon finding one we were re-directed to an eye clinic that was in the same building. The doctor there told me I had a corneal infection or something along those lines, and gave me a couple different eyedrop prescriptions, assuring me everything would be okay, but that I should see a doctor in Seoul as soon as possible. The total cost for the doctor and the medicine was roughly 11,000 won (the equivalent of about ten dollars). The next day Andrea and I headed up to Seoul to find an eye clinic that she'd found online, and fortunately for me it was within walking distance of three major bookstores, one being the largest in the country. On the second tier of fortune I'd include that the doctor spoke more or less perfect English, and though he never smiled he seemed genuinely concerned about the condition of my eye, which he said could possibly end up with major vision loss. He prescribed some additional medication and by the time I visited him the next day the eye had healed dramatically, though it was still light-sensitive and painful. I ended up going to the doctor six days in a row, in which I had multiple medications, a consultation with another doctor at the clinic, a day spent with an eyepatch, an ultra sonagram of my eye and so on, but at this point my vision is almost back to normal.
*South Korea requires a pharmacist to dole out any sort of medicine, even something as simple as Tylenol.
So now that story has been told...and I'll attempt to blog about what else I've been doing and thinking in an upcoming entry.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Once again I'm back after a long period of not posting. I guess this is because Korea has become normal to me; my daily routine truly offers nothing worth posting about, or maybe I'm just looking at it from my personal perspective and am blinded to what is and isn't interesting.
Yesterday my Korean language and culture class went to see the tomb of King Sejong, who ruled Korea in the early 15th century. He is responsible for creating the Hangeul alphabet, which is the current alphabet system used here (and I'm slowly learning how to read it), and is generally thought to be, at least according to my little brochure, "the most enlightened king in Korean history." The trip was enjoyable but it was also hard to wake up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning and ride two and a half hours on a bus, so I didn't take as much from it as I might have under better conditions. After this we drove to a Buddhist temple, which was beautiful but once again, being in a large group of foreign teachers makes things difficult--everyone wants to talk and joke around because that's part of who we are, and it doesn't really fit with the atmosphere of a Buddhist temple with Koreans coming and going, offering prayers, and monks giving our group dirty looks for being (unintentionally) disruptive. After leaving the temple we headed to our final destination, a Buddhist museum, where we made decorative fans (mine is very ugly), saw a lot of artwork and had a traditional temple meal, which from what I was told is what the monks eat--Buddhist monks are vegetarian, so I didn't have to pay attention to what I was eating.
I managed to get a handful of pictures but my camera's battery was dying so I couldn't take full advantage of the day.
Yesterday my Korean language and culture class went to see the tomb of King Sejong, who ruled Korea in the early 15th century. He is responsible for creating the Hangeul alphabet, which is the current alphabet system used here (and I'm slowly learning how to read it), and is generally thought to be, at least according to my little brochure, "the most enlightened king in Korean history." The trip was enjoyable but it was also hard to wake up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning and ride two and a half hours on a bus, so I didn't take as much from it as I might have under better conditions. After this we drove to a Buddhist temple, which was beautiful but once again, being in a large group of foreign teachers makes things difficult--everyone wants to talk and joke around because that's part of who we are, and it doesn't really fit with the atmosphere of a Buddhist temple with Koreans coming and going, offering prayers, and monks giving our group dirty looks for being (unintentionally) disruptive. After leaving the temple we headed to our final destination, a Buddhist museum, where we made decorative fans (mine is very ugly), saw a lot of artwork and had a traditional temple meal, which from what I was told is what the monks eat--Buddhist monks are vegetarian, so I didn't have to pay attention to what I was eating.
I managed to get a handful of pictures but my camera's battery was dying so I couldn't take full advantage of the day.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
These are some pictures of the park across from my apartment building. Every single night the park is full of people doing various things--walking, lounging on picnic blankets in the grass, doing aerobics, jogging, drinking, etc. And there are fountains everywhere as well, as I'm sure you can see for yourself.
Well, it's been about two weeks since I last updated this thing. It's not solely because I'm lazy, though. Blogger is blocked on the school computers (it wasn't when I first started), so I can't make any updates while at work (which is when I have plenty of time to write the posts). My personal computer has something seriously wrong with it and freezes randomly whenever I'm using it. Right now doing anything on a computer is pretty frustrating.
I have plenty of pictures to post so maybe I'll do that later; right now I'll talk about what I've been doing lately.
I can't recall any particularly exciting events, so this post will be a rundown on the memorable/interesting occurrences since the beginning of June.
Two weekends ago, my weekend was more or less this: horse races in the afternoon in Gwacheon, a baseball game in Jamsil in the late afternoon, a casino at night, my friend getting into a fight in Hongdae, having to stay out the entire night because the subway stops running from Hongdae at 11 and a cab would be really expensive (the trains start again at 5:30 AM), etc.
That's honestly the only thing I can recall happening here in the past two weeks that would interest anyone. Right now my life has settled down into a normal pace. I'm working a lot (this week I started teaching two additional classes for students with advanced English skills), trying to keep my apartment clean, playing frisbee on Mondays and basketball on occasion, trying to read as much as I can, starting to enjoy Korean food (or at least what's vegetarian, which isn't much) and feeling pretty comfortable in what I'm doing.
I turned 25 yesterday and didn't do much to celebrate; my co-teacher brought a huge bag of instant coffee for me and also a birthday cake, and then I went out with about 13 friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant and had cake again (of course).
Currently the only thing I'm really looking forward to is this: Andrea (my girlfriend) is coming to stay with me in South Korea for a while, and she'll be here in mid-July. So far the days have been dragging on, and I expect this to continue until she's here. Expect more enthusiastic updates and lots of pictures once she's here, because I'll be a little more motivated to do things, I think.
That's all for now.
I have plenty of pictures to post so maybe I'll do that later; right now I'll talk about what I've been doing lately.
I can't recall any particularly exciting events, so this post will be a rundown on the memorable/interesting occurrences since the beginning of June.
Two weekends ago, my weekend was more or less this: horse races in the afternoon in Gwacheon, a baseball game in Jamsil in the late afternoon, a casino at night, my friend getting into a fight in Hongdae, having to stay out the entire night because the subway stops running from Hongdae at 11 and a cab would be really expensive (the trains start again at 5:30 AM), etc.
That's honestly the only thing I can recall happening here in the past two weeks that would interest anyone. Right now my life has settled down into a normal pace. I'm working a lot (this week I started teaching two additional classes for students with advanced English skills), trying to keep my apartment clean, playing frisbee on Mondays and basketball on occasion, trying to read as much as I can, starting to enjoy Korean food (or at least what's vegetarian, which isn't much) and feeling pretty comfortable in what I'm doing.
I turned 25 yesterday and didn't do much to celebrate; my co-teacher brought a huge bag of instant coffee for me and also a birthday cake, and then I went out with about 13 friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant and had cake again (of course).
Currently the only thing I'm really looking forward to is this: Andrea (my girlfriend) is coming to stay with me in South Korea for a while, and she'll be here in mid-July. So far the days have been dragging on, and I expect this to continue until she's here. Expect more enthusiastic updates and lots of pictures once she's here, because I'll be a little more motivated to do things, I think.
That's all for now.
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