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"the struggle that we wage"

"Allegory" by Philip Guston Doing "We're born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That's inevitable. But what can you do? That's what it is to live.” -Hayao Miyazaki, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness I once wrote that the future only materializes once you hack away the foliage and look at the path you made, but I didn't realize hacking would take so long. I changed countries to pursue a new route 6 months ago, but this route didn't materialize, and I find myself in the same situation I tried to escape. " Your life is full of possibilities! " That promise from childhood looms over me once again. " So many possibilities! So many chances to make the wrong decision!" The fear of choosing incorrectly keeps me frantically swinging from one open door to another, and I never close or enter any. If only someone else would reach through and pull me to the other sid
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Itaewon-"You have set my feet in a broad place."

Titles from articles that emerged after the October 29th crowd crush disaster. (links at bottom of page) Sometime during the pandemic, I found myself wishing to enter a "broad place," like the broad places mentioned in the Bible: "You have set my feet in a broad place; You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way; He induced you away from the mouth of distress, And instead of it, a broad place with no constraint." I took a photo of the park on top of a hill, cut out the buildings below, and wrote, "If you angle the camera just right you can almost believe it's not the middle of the city." I told a friend I wanted to visit a broad place once, and he took me to a cafe in Bukhansan. Windows covered the walls from top to bottom to show the green mountain outside. I could easily appreciate the trees, and when we walked the path outside the air smelled like rain.  YONHAP/Reuters When I left my school's dorm, I first lived in a

Perpetual Tourism

안녕하세요! Annyeonghaseyo! In this update I discuss...  ...a new podcast venture ...young K-pop fans who utilize the musical genre for self-expression ...epic vocal groups and an epic musical ...and how living in Korea can feel like being a perpetual tourist As always, thanks for reading! Doing My friends and I began a podcast! "Mix Coffee" explores topics related to or stemming from our experience living in Korea. Our first episodes include conversations about "Extraordinary Attorney Woo," the highs and lows of the K-Wave, cafe culture, and consumerism. Lectures I listened to online lectures recently to keep my knowledge of Korea sharp 💪: "Rediscovering Korean Cinema" by Professor Sangjoon Lee from Lingnan University (I'd love to buy the book of the same title , but textbooks are still a bit expensive for me.) "The Famous and the Nameless : The Lives and Afterlives of Chosŏn Catholic Martyrs" by Franklin Rausch of Lander University "The Pe

Love, Hate, and Cyberpunk

This update includes a new Netflix documentary about the Nth Room, an award-nominated novel about a lesser-known side of Seoul life, colorful and striking Korean artists, and other things I've enjoyed the past few months. Thanks for taking a look! A temple dressed with lanterns in celebration of Buddha's birthday.  Doing I received differing reactions to the collection of abandoned coffee cups I introduced last blog post. Some people declared the collection, "pretty weird," while others grinned and asked when my exhibition would open. Others didn't say anything at all but sent me photos of abandoned coffee cups to show their quiet tolerance for my quirky habit. Whatever others think I have no plans to put aside my hobby, and in fact, I expanded my photo collection to the word, "premium," to better understand the word's use in Korean advertising. Perhaps these collections will turn into more than pet projects or a quiet appreciation of overlooked deta