Day One

I have now been in Seoul for just shy of 24 hours. It is Monday night and the next two days will be training before I begin work on Thursday. I am battling jet lag to a small degree, attempting to force myself to stay awake until at least 10pm. Because I had been so busy in the lead-up to getting here the weight of the decision to take this job really did not sink in 'til about half way through my 13 hour plane ride from LAX. [1] So, somewhere near Fairbanks, Alaska part of me began screaming, "Oh my God, what have you done? You are leaving for a year to live on the other side of planet!" As it is I'm trying not to think of all the fun things I'm going to miss, some of which I'm enumerating here because I am a masochist:
*Friends' birthdays
*Otakon
*Various exciting adventures with my former neighbors and good friends
*Heroes on Monday night at the Mouse House
*The next season of BSG (also at Mouse House)
*Dinner circles
*My cat
*Family
Things I won't miss:
*Being a temp
*Feeling like I haven't traveled
*Applying for jobs

I have my own apartment and it is less than five minutes on foot from where I will work. There is a mountain across the street from the cluster of apartment buildings where I live. I hiked part of the main trail today and took a few pictures. I relayed this elsewhere but for the record: the most notable event of the last 24 hours was finding this: in one of the cabinets of my new apartment. After calling my soon-to-be coworker to return to the apartment it was established to be merely a bb gun. Still, dude, what? It looks like a real gun to me.

When I am not fighting the urge to go to bed unreasonably early I shall impart more data and photos.


[1]I had never been to or flown through LAX before and was amazed to see that LA really is monstrously polluted. Departing I looked down at a disgusting brown haze floating in a layer over the city. Also, LAX is huge. I am half convinced that we landed in a neighboring zip code and drove, in the plane, several miles.