Highlights of my Day... Sunday, July 22

1. Today is usually Yoon Jae and my day together… our day. Today it was just my day and so, with no plans and having come home around 7am, I stayed in bed until 4pm.

2. In a perfect fairytale world, full of pure romance, true intentions, and happy hearts, Yoon Jae would show up unexpectantly at my house at the usual time I meet him in Seoul. I’d open the door, he’d be there. He’d say sorry and we’d forget the whole retarded drama. Instead however, I live in the real world and there’s by no means any kind of Harlem romance novel playing out in my life. 5:30pm came; 5:30pm left and I was still here by myself. Yoon Jae didn’t come. My fairytale ending stayed just that… a fantasy story in my head.

3. Mi Nam made a new friend in the park today. He looks about my age and he was totally fascinated with Mi Nam, asking a billion and one questions about him. Mind ya, the two met in the park notoriously known as “Pervert’s Park” and so we didn’t stick around very long. Within 5 minutes, we were out of there.

4. The other day I registered for a paid tracker to put on my homepage. Today I got a notice and, honestly, I was kind of freaked out. It seems like nothing is a secret anymore, I mean, this tracker tracks just way too much stuff. It tells me how many times my page has been viewed -- by the day and even down to the hour. It also makes a graph of my visitors. It breaks down the visitors into “returning” vs “new” and does a summary that shows when exactly people are visiting my homepage.

5. Now, if that wasn’t enough info for me, it then goes further and tells me a whole lot of various things about my visitors:
a. IP address
b. Internet provider
c. Country
d. Region/State
e. City
f. How many times they visited, today and in total.
g. Exact times they visited my homepage.
g. If they were referred by anyone.
Wow… is there no secrecy? I mean, what does telling me that someone at IP address whatever, where ever, spent 1 hour, 39 minutes and 1 second on my homepage today really tell me?! It tells me that either a. I have too much time on my hands if I’m really investing in something that tells me this, or b. “Big brother” really is watching!

6. Honestly, I felt the whole tracking thing on my homepage was rather creepy. I only really wanted to know how many people visited it in a day but this was too much. I have only been using it for about a day now but today I pulled the plug on it. It just freaks me out.

7. Mi Nam proved he’s a true Korean boy today when he eagerly chowed down a huge piece of kimchi. Ya… I didn’t think it was too great of an idea considering it’ll probably give him a tummy ache but it was so funny.

8. Started thinking today about men, Korea and me. “Are Korean men really so different than Western men?” my friend once asked me. “Totally” is my response, and I think that’s definitely where the attraction stems from. Today, Jenn said it the best when she wrote me the following:

“Someone said something along the lines of 'how can you expect Korean guys to
UNDERSTAND you'......and in a sense I can see how the culture difference and
language barriers could cause a problem...........for me I look at these as challenges to overcome. It's way more risky and exciting to do something that is not the NORM or goes against the grain.........we both could have taken the easy way out. Marry men from Canada, buy a house and start a family........wow, sounds like fun to me!!!!! Well I think you know what I am talking about.

But what I really want to say about that comment that your friend made is that I
don't think any guy will EVER understand us. Isn't that what life is about, trying to discover yourself and become a better person. Well try doing that and then combined it with another life with someone doing the same and then tell me if it is possible to ever fully understand one......”

9. Ran into Mi Nam’s friend again. I was walking across the street when I heard someone call out Mi Nam’s name... hehehe. Turns out Mi Nam’s little friend is 25, is named Sung Hwan and likes foreign girls. And here all this time I thought he was just all about Mi Nam… hehehe.

10. Yoon Jae called me today… but so did the American Kid, Jae Min, and Ki Dong… so what. The conversation was full of various uncomfortable moments of silence, followed by us circling the issue, he not offering to talk about it, and me wondering why he really called me in the first place. Apparently he misses me but still isn’t really doing anything about it.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Are we getting wiser or just older?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
-- Barbara J. Winter