The timing of this TED viewing is appropriate to me personally because of the date today. It’s March 12, my birthday. But more significant to this thought process, it marks the third anniversary of my move to Korea. This is my third year of writing about this date. I did it last year and the year before. I just finished reading those entries and I remember that person very clearly. I can recall the moments that led me to write what I did.

So what about Year 3? In one way, it’s an extension of the feelings and impressions of Year 2. The “reality bubble” is still a weird thing. But this year is different in that it seemed to go by in a flash, much faster than the previous two. Maybe it’s age or maybe it’s my changing perception of the (memory of) the experience. This year (March to March) I made a stronger effort toward improving my Korean language ability (still frustratingly inept at it), continued to take fantastic weekend trips to the Korean countryside, and continued to play music. I spent what seems like an enormous amount of time applying to graduate schools. I traveled to the States in the summer, Japan in the fall, and Thailand and Cambodia in the winter. I completed an academic paper that had been nagging at me for a while, and started another one.

Perhaps the most significant thing that happened in Year 3 is who I met. It’s a story I love to tell, so I’ll tell it here. It was on my birthday, March 12, one year ago today. I was at a bar with some friends who took me out to celebrate. A beautiful girl walked in with a couple of friends. I watched her move across the room and then I did something I normally never do. I got up and walked over to talk to her. I didn’t think about it. I just did it. Her English was fantastic and we hit it off. We sat down and talked. I asked her what she was doing out tonight. She said it was her birthday (!) and her two friends took her out to celebrate. Quite a coincidence.

I got her number and later invited her out to coffee. Conversation was effortless. She was quirky and funny, and she spoke her mind without reservation. Within three weeks we were a couple.

That’s not the end of the story though. I got a real lesson in cultural differences that arise from putting a lot of work into a serious relationship with a Korean girl that I really cared about. Sometimes signals get crossed, there are misunderstandings, language breaks down, there are unmet expectations. And frankly, the older you get, the more you become entrenched in a certain mode of behavior. You’re less flexible, less willing to integrate the idiosyncrasies of another person’s lifestyle into your own. We broke up three months later.

We met again at a Christmas day party at a mutual friend’s apartment. We immediately fell right back into our familiar comfort zone. And now we’re trying again. I don’t want to jinx anything, but this time around things are different. We’re aware of the mistakes we made.

So, March 12 is our birthday, and the one-year anniversary of the day we met. I have a big weekend planned. It has nothing to do with bars, hanging out with friends, or playing music. We’re getting out of the familiar neighborhood to be lazy hermits, just the two of us.

I mention this because that experience (the evolving memory) has come to define Year 3 in Korea in many ways. This time I saw Korea through a relationship with someone I really cared about. I’ve had relationships with others since I’ve been here. But this was different. It also changes the way I see myself here. I’m not just a solo experiential sponge. It integrates me more into this world. The idea of staying or going is still my own, but it’s not so simple a matter anymore. And if this relationship sticks, that changes things even further.

Another curious thing has happened this year: I’ve become a bit more homesick for San Francisco, especially very recently, the last month or two. I mean homesick in the true sense. It’s not that I want to go there; it’s that I get pangs to live there again. I’ve been thinking about Sunday afternoons in Golden Gate Park, drinking a pint of Racer 5 at Park Chow, and having an apartment in the Sunset District to return home to. I’ve been thinking about wide open Sierra landscapes, desert silences, driving a car with the window down while Neil Young streams out of the speakers.

But not now. I’m too happy here. The lifestyle is better. I love my job. The strange is still strange. I enjoy the closeness of friendships I have and the conversations that come out of that. People here, foreigners and Koreans alike, love to spend time talking, rather than simply saying what is necessary before getting back to whatever they were doing.

So for now, I have my memories of California. It’s part of my story, living inside my head right now. But the story here continues in a forward progression. Toward what, I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s the reason I haven’t posted lately. I kept expecting to finish it and pare it down to something digestible for this medium. I will finish it at some point. It’s been an illuminating exercise going through all the joys, heartbreaks, craziness and adventures of the aughts. But by the time I’m done it may be too late to be relevant for a blog. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll post it at some point, maybe I won’t.

In the meantime, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my January.

November and December were jam-packed with activity and this month by contrast has been very relaxing. I finished an excellent book about The Beatles, I’ve been spending more time with friends, and playing some great live gigs. I’ve also been working on personal neglected projects. I completed something I hope to publish, I’m updating my sadly outdated personal website (not yet finished), and within a couple days I’ll start mixing a feature-length film.

I’m also spending more time trying to learn more Korean. I’m constantly under pressure from people to gain some interactive competency with this impenetrable language. My colleagues mention it, my mentor mentions it, some of my friends mention it. They can’t fathom how I’ve been here almost three years and still can’t cary on a conversation beyond the basics. Honestly I can’t either. But learning a language is fucking hard. Learning Korean is really fucking hard. It is one big exercise in that game “Concentration.” It feels like there are a few thousand tiny scraps of knowledge scattered in my brain. Speaking and comprehending are exercises in hunting down, lifting and organizing a dozen of them together into something communicative. Then there are the different forms of the language, and the strange Busan dialect, and the speed at which people speak.

I study, quite a bit actually. But I don’t practice. I recognize this as the problem. But the reality is that I don’t have to and therefore rarely find opportunities to. It’s not necessary to speak Korean beyond the essentials because every Korean that I know converses in English. Sometimes I want to give it up. In the time I’ve spent on it I probably could have been an expert guitar player had I chosen to spend time learning that instead.

But I’m still trying. My method is to saturate myself with Rosetta Stone, numerous iPod apps, handwritten flashcards, copious notes in my notebook, and private language exchange several times a week in coffee shops. My hope is that with all this saturation, something will break through eventually.

I was considering not taking a holiday this winter. I was in Japan in November, so I thought I might just mellow out at home during the break between semesters. But I decided to go ahead and book a two week trip to Thailand. I was last there a dozen years ago, my first ever trip abroad. I hear that a lot has changed in the country since then. I’ll spend five days with a friend in and around Bangkok, then meet up with others on an island somewhere for some sun and sand, then (probably) island hop to Cambodia and visit Angkor Wat. That’s a lot to do in two weeks, but it should work out.

And then it’s back to normal life, back to another semester with a fresh crop of minds to mold. This should be an interesting Spring. Around March or April, I should get a better sense of whether I’m staying in Korea beyond August or heading back to the U.S. Or Canada. Or… Australia.

When I finally sat down in the theater and fixed those 3D glasses on my nose, I was going in blissfully ignorant. So I’m not ashamed to say this: I’ve been waiting my whole life for this movie, for that experience. We’ve gotten close in the past 30 years, but nothing got to that place that Avatar got to. All during my childhood, I stared at images of otherworldly places in the pages of Heavy Metal, in the art of Vallejo, Giger and Dean. I’d stare at them and imagine a culture within and beyond the frozen image. What’s beyond this moment? What happened before and after, what’s going on outside the margins? That’s the great thing about geeky fantasy art. The static images allow your mind to fill in the rest; they free you to wonder and imagine. It’s the reason I started drawing pictures, making up stories in my head. But all the time I’d be frustrated because my imagination wasn’t good enough. I kept thinking, “dammit, when’s it going to MOVE?!”

Now it has, for the first time ever in my life, in the way that I’ve been waiting for. I saw Star Wars when it came out in 1977, but I was too young to get it. I soaked up every frame of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. But Avatar, in 3D, was the first time that cinema took me there. I almost cried a couple times and I’ve never cried in a movie in my life. When they first started flying on the dragon creatures, oh my god. Many times in the movie I let out little unconscious, unintentional sounds, little tiny orgasmic sounds. I couldn’t help myself. They finally did it, and I lived long enough to see it. I’ll never get my own personal space ship, but I have this.

A few random, more sober thoughts about Avatar:

• Roger Dean deserves mention, somehow, some way. This is my favorite artist, for the reasons I’ve mentioned. Dean is, for me, the visualist who best gives me that imaginative lift. Take a look at his Morning Dragon, his Arches Mist, his Flights of Icarus. Take a look at this article and gallery. This isn’t just coincidence.
• The only major flaw I have with the movie is the godawful song at the end. Who the hell was that? Celene Dion? That pulled me right out of my warm and cozy diegetic fusion and into the Hollywood machine that I was trying to avoid. Truly dreadful, dreadful stuff. In fact, while I loved the sound of the movie (Christopher Boyes can do no wrong*), the music by James Horner didn’t do much for me. I know he worked with an ethnomusicologist and all that. I applaud the effort, but it’s surprising how unimaginative the result is. The earthy percussion and breathy pan flutes bordered on new age, and the orchestral stuff seemed really heavy handed at times. And it covered up too much of the movie. You’ve gone and built this amazing visual culture; now please, let me hear the sound of that culture too.
• Finally, one of my former sound students from when I taught at SFSU was one of the sound effects editors. He actually visited me here in Korea recently and without saying too much (I wouldn’t let him), got me excited about seeing the movie. It was a kick to see his name in the credits.

* Ahem… SFSU alum, I should also add.

When it comes to talk of contracts, work situations, and the familiar threads of frustration that come with it, there’s common ground. But when it comes to talk about life here, that’s when divides occasionally emerge. He and I couldn’t be more different. And it’s probably why we’re not anything more than acquaintances.

Recognizing from the outset that it’s unfair for me to summarize his perspective into a paragraph, I’ll nevertheless paraphrase his outlook as fairly as I can: He likes his life here. He has a good job, and spends most of his free time with his longtime Korean girlfriend. He rarely goes out and meets new people. The reason is that he has a problem with foreigners. They’re everywhere these days, they get younger and younger, they get more and more rude, and they have an arrogance about them that he can’t tolerate. Strangers don’t say hello on the street anymore. Foreigners are aloof and think they’re big shit because they feel like they can come here and be more important than they would be Stateside. In the U.S., he could chat up someone in a bar without a problem. But if he tries to do that here, other foreigners look at him like he’s a freak.

Then I told him my perspective: There is a built-in community here that comes from shared experience. Together, we make up a collection of mutual others. It is the equivalent of a small town where most foreigners know most of the other foreigners. If you meet someone you don’t know, you could walk up and probably have a pretty interesting conversation. Most people are polite, interesting, and willing to make new friends. In the States, people keep to themselves. They collect into small private units of family or rommates. Yes, if I talked to an American in a bar, we could have a cursory chat. But if I walked up to an American in any other public setting and started a conversation, he’d probably be suspicious and wonder what my intention was. That’s not a problem here.

So who’s right? We’re probably both right to a certain degree, which means our differences were a matter of perspective. I recognize that things have changed, even in the three years I’ve been here. There are a lot more people who look like frat boy punks. But this doesn’t really bother me.

It comes down to how you choose to live here. This is something I learned very quickly. There is ambiguity in everything you do and see living in Korea. You can choose to see the bad in a given situation or you can choose to see things as a collision of culture. Maybe there’s something weird or offensive going on, but it’s just as likely that it’s a misunderstanding. I stretch this to the foreigner community by choosing to be positive and social. It’s really not that difficult. But what’s interesting to me is that it’s something that I didn’t do in the States. I was what this acquaintance was. I hid in my apartment with my girlfriend and had three or four close friends that I’d play music with or have dinner with.

I’m surprised by how social I am here. I have the people that I am close with, and they are very close. We spend a lot of time together. The other part of this is that they (with some small exceptions) stretch out concentrically to reach a wider circle of other mutual friends, and then further out to others whose company I like and whom I see on a somewhat regular basis and can talk to.

Admittedly, I have a nice glue that helps things work: music. Being a musician goes a long way here. Musicians bind together into a really nice community, particularly lately. There are egos and there is competition, but everyone — and I mean everyone — is respectful and nice to one another. This, in turn, extends to the people who come out and listen to live music. Not only are they part of this community as well, they’re kind of the fuel that keeps it moving and keeps it interesting.*

I write this today, because it’s the end of the holiday season. It’s a good time to be thankful for the community I have here, and to appreciate those that I have around me. It’s been a great week. Despite the melancholy of my previous entry, I had a fantastic Christmas. On Christmas Eve, I met with friends and regulars at a local bar for a great dinner. Then we went to another bar to wish a Merry Christmas with others. Then we went to yet another, where we met some musicians and played some extemporaneous songs for the folks who were there. Christmas day was fantastic, with one of the best parties I’ve ever been to. Amazing food, good cheer, another unplanned acoustic jam session, and some nice bonding.

Now it’s New Year’s Eve. In a couple hours, I’ll go out and meet some friends for dinner (including one who’s here on vacation from his job in China). I’m playing in my main band at 10 pm, and then I’ll go across town to sit in with another band for some post-midnight music. It should be a fun night.

* I should probably add that my experience in Busan may be different from that in Seoul, Daegu, Ulsan, Yeosu, or anywhere else in Korea. Seoul, in particular, seems so spread out and vast — and so filled with foreigners — I wonder if they’re able to enjoy any kind of community at all.

Well, not really bummer. Just that this one day seems like such a big deal. Celebration is expected. This is fine when you’re surrounded by family, but it’s a matter of endurance when you’re away from your home country.

That said, I’m excited about the next couple of days. The neighborhood expat bars know how to ease the loneliness for all the fellow loners. Whereas people in the United States travel from relative to relative in their cars, I’ll go from bar to bar on foot. My friend Tom, who owns HQ Bar, will be cooking up a big Christmas Eve dinner of ham, mashed potatoes, etc, and etc. I expect a packed house of regulars. Across the alley, Eva of Eva’s Bar has apparently come up with her own new eggnog recipe. A couple weeks ago she asked me what people like to have for Christmas. I told her that the one flavor that I associate with Christmas is eggnog. She’d never heard of it, so I pointed her to some recipes online. I’m curious to sample what she’s come up with. Then on Christmas day, two of my friends are hosting a big party at their apatuh. Lots of food, a few games, some animated Christmas specials, maybe play a few songs.

I hope this doesn’t sound too cynical, because I don’t mean it in a negative sense. But these celebrations primarily function as analgesia for a feeling of absence. It’s a means of mutual coping for being away from what’s familiar. I welcome it all.

So, Merry Christmas everyone. But I wish a very special Merry Christmas to all those expatriated from their home world. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon enough.

They’ve recently announced a change in the format of the exam, to begin in 2011. (This news tip given to me by my mother, incidentally.) I had to scroll down to get to this little morsel:

Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a long-time critic of ETS, agreed, saying that the modifications were generally “small to modest changes designed to refurbish and reposition a stale product. It’s all about marketing.” He said that the lengthening of the exam time could make fatigue “a more significant issue.”

The larger question, he said, is whether graduate programs need the GRE at all. Given that graduate programs admit from “a much smaller universe” (of colleges) than do undergraduate programs (with many more high schools), he said that “the argument that you need testing” to compare candidates “is weaker.”

Only one group is sure to gain by the switch, Schaeffer said. “Whenever you change a test, you give a tremendous boost to the coaching industry.”

Historically, test changes tend to encourage more people to seek out test prep services. Some rush to take the old test (on the chance they earn higher scores there) and so use coaching to speed up preparation; and those who are among the first to take a new test are more likely than others to want test prep because they can’t rely on informal advice about the exams.

And, from the New York Times:

Generally, Mr. Seltzer said he saw the changes mostly as an marketing effort, to compete with the GMAT test, used for admission to business schools.

Congratulations, ETS, I hope you rake in the dough. And thank you, universities out there, for supporting their business goals.

Yes, I’m still angry.

I studied my ass off this time, hours a day, every single day. I set aside other things in my life during a very busy time, and even strained a couple friendships in the process. I used exam guides, complete with diagnostic reports charting my progress. By the time I’d finished all the practice exams, I was projecting a score close to 1200, a score that would have been at least satisfying and would validate the effort. I did not get near that score. And it’s the kind of score you need to get into a good communications program.

So, once again I say fuck you GRE. I concede that you win, you’re too much for me. In retrospect, it was stupid of me to think that I could regain all the complex algebra and geometry skills I may (or may not) have had when I was in high school two decades ago. So I will never take it again. It’s an exam for young people. Old men like me are not meant to take it. So, then, are old men like me not meant for doctoral study? It would seem to be the case. Universities, which use the GRE to determine eligibility, apparently only want young people. Incidentally, yesterday I saw a Facebook update from a friend of mine who signed up for GRE prep classes in Korea (she’s Korean) and was denied admittance to the class. The reason? She was told she is too old to take the class. No joke.

Now the good news: Japan is amazing, simply amazing. It was the perfect place to make me forget about my disastrous test score. So after the exam, I dug into Japan for four full days and nights. Nights in Osaka, day trips to Kyoto and Nara, a jam session in Kobe. I had a blast.

An interesting thing about Japan… I’ve never heard anyone mention a bad experience traveling there. I’ve heard good and bad things about China, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, etc, etc. But people seem to have nothing but universally good things to say about Japan. I now understand why.

First, there are the genuinely kind and polite people you come across. Then there is the utterly fascinating history of warriors and clans and honor, all those knightly aspects that rival and even exceed Camelot. But the thing I found particularly amazing about Japan is how there is an aesthetic quality pervading everything. Urban planning, architecture, parks, walkways, historical sites, food, interior spaces, cleanliness, even in some cases the presentation of environmental sounds — everything has an artistic intent behind it. But it’s not simply about making things pleasant. In many cases, there is a boldness to the construction of all this lifestyle and environment. The train station in Kyoto looks insane when you first see it, but then it starts to make sense. All the aggressive lines and the sheer audacity of it kind of warms to you after you spend some time there.

Now, I don’t presume to “know” the Japanese way of doing things, but I noticed something else that may be a contributing factor to this. I was surprised by how much individuality and freedom of expression there is to Japanese people. I’m talking mostly about young people. The fashion is insane, and everyone seems to present him or herself differently. In Osaka, I saw arctic snow goddesses, punks, space-age bee-hive hairdos, forest elves, men with capes, girls with face paint. It seemed as though everything was not only permissible, but encouraged.

This is strange to my Korea-dwelling eyes. I hate to make comparisons, but Korean men have dreadful fashion sense. The women are much better, and go to great lengths dolling themselves up and looking pretty. But there’s a sameness in style. I remember one summer black and white stripes were the latest thing. Everyone was wearing black and white stripes; everyone was wearing the same thing.

Again, not to overgeneralize, but this is likely an extension of cultural differences. Individuality is not encouraged in Korea, and therefore creativity and boldness is not evident. It’s a detriment to Korean society. But Korea is lives under a very different set of circumstances. This country is a resounding success in the way its built itself from utter impecuniousness to tech-savvy and economically robust in little more than a generation. Give Korea some time to allow Koreans to find their creative voice. They’re due, and it’s coming. I can feel it.

The good news is that after that, I have four days to explore the Kansai region. I’ve booked five nights total in Osaka. I hoped to base myself in Kyoto, but everything was booked up by the time I got around to planning places to stay. So I will take day trips there and to Nara, if all goes well.

This whole journey has kind of a lonely feeling to it. Part of it is the knowledge that it’s obligatory. It’s not really vacation; I’m going there because I have to. But it’s also the solo travel aspect. I don’t mind traveling alone, but I prefer the company of others. It gives you someone to share experiences with, laugh at absurdities, and discuss options. Soaking up a Blade-Runner-esque nighttime cityscape or a lush, green temple setting is nice to experience solely through one’s own eyes and ears, but it’s also nice at some point to turn to someone and say “cool, huh?”

But I’m excited. I don’t care about the GRE. I’ve studied as much as I care to, and that whole structure can go to hell. I’ll get whatever score I get. But I’m looking forward to the rest of it. I know very little about Japan and didn’t do much research, so I do feel woefully under-prepared for the vacation aspect. The one time I was there was for a Fukuoka visa-run that lasted all of 24 hours. That trip, only two weeks into my Korea experience oh so long ago, felt simply like an extension of Busan. So this feels like my first time. And I’m always up for a first of anything.

I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately, because I’ve been living primarily in the future for the past three or four months. It seems like everything I do lately is geared toward doing the next thing. This happens when you live by one-year contracts, and every cycle brings about a different signing scenario. I was profoundly disappointed by the last go-round, so I’m pushing myself even harder toward the next thing.

I’m applying for doctoral programs. This is an incredibly time-consuming process. It’s a bunch of maddening details made more insane by the vast body of water that separates me from my native country. Communication lags and takes the form of text, and there are certain things that need to be done in person that cannot be done. There is research, massive amounts of research. There is contact with advisors and students and program coordinators. There is contact with past professors for recommendation letters and advice. There are transcripts to be ordered (this simple thing being a strangely murderous process from my current location). There are statements of purpose to write, things to collect and package, things to consider including. And, of course, my big obsession right now: the GRE. I’m studying like a madman. I don’t know if it will help, but I’m dedicating myself to giving it my best shot. The exam requires a trip to Japan, which requires hotels, air travel, a big plan.

I also have, of course, my regular life. This involves teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, grading quizzes and projects, planning lectures, considering end-of-semester deadlines. It involves musical projects to which I’ve devoted myself. Everything else, including Korean language study, I’ve put on hold.

So this is how I exhaust my time. I’m burning that non-replenishable tank of fuel by preparing. The truth is, I’m not convinced that it will amount to anything. I don’t know yet if a) I’ll be accepted to a good PhD program, and b) I’ll accept an offer that comes to me. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m ready to leave. I like it here. Korea gives me time… to work, travel, write, play, experience. I like my friends, I like my life, I like what the place gives me. But I’m approaching that critical three-year period. From what I’ve seen of the foreigners here, this is the threshold. People who have been here two years talk about a future back home. People who have been here for three don’t. And if I do decide to stay, Plan B involves me staying for a very long time.

This mindset is what’s playing with my brain right now. It’s what has me thinking about time. Even if I wasn’t applying for doctoral programs, I’d still be using my time living in the future. I’d be studying Korean language (a long-term future endeavor), or I’d be re-writing my textbook (for future publishing), or I’d be thinking about new job opportunities.

It’s also got me thinking about the other things I could otherwise be doing with the time I’ve been given. I could be learning to play guitar. I could be expanding as a drummer. I could be mastering MAX/MSP. I could be writing a novel. I could be creating an ambient soundtrack to a non-existent film. I could be… Dancing Nancies.

The speculation on that article up there is about how much it will penetrate the market here. I expect it to be pretty much a status symbol. In South Korea, Apple is an image thing. Microsoft is so ubiquitous that people gravitate to Apple things to present status (a very important thing here). It’s big at my workplace. I know one Korean colleague who has a Macintosh in his office, but it just sits there. He doesn’t actually use it; he’s got his Windows machine for actual work. But damn, it looks good. I know another who bought a Mac and only runs Windows through Boot-camp. And I’d say there are about five or six people in my department who have Apple monitors running Windows machines. That nice bold Apple icon oozes coolness.

It will be interesting to see how the iPhone does. It’s not really needed here, because while it might be a big technological breakthrough in the U.S., it’s not that big a deal here. Through Samsung and LG, people already have phones with huge hard drives to store and play all their music and a bunch of quirky apps. And because of DMB broadcasting, people can (and do) watch TV on their phones, something the iPhone doesn’t allow (at least I don’t think). The Samsung phones are pretty sweet, with touch screens and a bunch of cool features.

It will be interesting to watch how app development goes. I’d like to see some Korean-based apps come out. But again, from what I’ve seen, the interest in Apple is in the packaging (the hardware). Few people use Macintosh software, and I would suspect there are only a tiny number of people who could program for it.

If it does well, I suspect it will be because of the Apple brand more than the actual product. I probably won’t get one. I have a new iPod Touch that I’m happy with. Also, the iPhone requires a two-year contract and I don’t know whether I’ll be here that long. I’m not a bleeding edge kinda guy anyway. I’ll wait for the other foreigners (who are ready to make the leap) to test drive the situation before I consider it.