Reflections

One year in Korea has come and gone.  I'm still here, but on my way out.  21 more days and I will be back on U.S. soil.  For the 3rd time in 12 months. 

I came here to Korea knowing full well that I would be gone for a year.  No mid-tour, no leave, nothing.  I was gunning it out for the full 12 months, then taking 30 days to visit my family in between my move from Korea to North Carolina.   Then life happens.  This past year has been both the best and worst year of my life.  The first 6 months were wonderful.  I traveled to China, became confident in my new role as the Executive Officer at the hospital where I work, and met some of the best people in the world.  The next 6 months started with the death of a great man, my uncle Dan.  The original Godfather and a true testament to the term "family man".  I had such a tremendous amount of love and respect for my uncle and developed an appreciation for his quirky brilliance as an adult.  The respect continued to grow into true admiration and no matter how much time passes, his legacy will live on in the lives of the members of our family. 

Four short months later came the greatest loss I have ever known.  The loss of my father, Norman Stillman (aka Hunter Silvastorm).  There are no words to put into perspective what my father means to me.  Everything I am, I am because of him.  I am proud of who I have become.  I am proud of what I do.  I am proud of how far I have come in this life.  All of this, and all I am, I owe to him.  I am not the same person I was 3 months ago when he was still alive.  I miss him every day.  The hardest part is not being able to pick up the phone and call him.  We talked every morning and every evening.  Even while I was here in Korea and my morning was his evening and his evening was my morning.  There was no one on this earth I enjoyed conversing with more than dad.  Work, life, politics, movies, scruples, business, TV shows, science, nature, dogs, family, love. 

Dad and I knew how special our relationship was.  I was daddy'slittle girl in every sense of the word.  Rest peacefully, dad.  Tell mom I love her.

Tomorrow..."Happier times ahead"

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10 things about me you may not know

At least once a day I think about this blog and come up with some clever, or what I perceive to be, witty subject matter that I can come home and blog about.  Then I come home, get tired and just don't do it.  But I always read my brother's and sister in law's blog.  Sometimes I get inspired enough to steal one of their ideas and use it for my own blog.  They both wrote a list of 10 things you may not know about them.  Hence the title of this entry and the meat of the matter.  Here are 10 things about me that you may not know...

1.  I was the arm wrestling champion of my squadron in Tech School back in 1990.  I beat 22 females and 3 men before I almost collapsed from exhaustion.

2.  I did a stint in Law school that I loved and still miss to this day.

3.  I was a contestant on "The Weakest Link" TV game show.  I was the first one voted off.

4.  I am convinced that the only reason I succeed at most things I set out to do is because I have failed enough to be terrified of failure.

5.  I have stood on the Great Wall of China.

6. I have a dog that I love so much that I sometimes question if it's normal.

7.  The observation deck at the top of Tower Two of the World Trade center was my favorite place on the face of the earth.

8.  I would love to be able to swing dance, clog dance and play piano, but I have zero rhythm, horrible balance and zero talent for musical instruments.

9.  I sat here for 15 minutes trying to come up with something for number 9, and couldn't.

10.  I am terrified of spiders and currently live in a country with the largest concentration of huge black and green "Banana Spiders" in the Pacific.

Quality vs Quantity

I am a food lover.  Let me just put that on out there, 'k?  I have even gone so far as to refer to myself a food snob.   I grew up poor and didn't really know good food quality until I got much older.  I have grown into an appreciation of food that I didn't always have.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am willing to try new things. I even had squirrel gumbo once!  

Over the years, though, I have come to realize that the majority of folks i talk to love buffets.  They are all about the buffet.  I, on the other hand, have always loathed the buffet, in just about any capacity.  I hate everything about buffets; I can't stand paying a set price for food that I will never eat enough of for it to have been worth the price I paid, I don't like going to a place to eat where I am paying to serve myself  (it defeats the purpose of going out, doesn't it?), using the same nasty dirty food scoopers that everyone and their child has had their unwashed hands all over before I got there and most of all, I can't stand the idea that I am supposed to over look the lack of quality in favor of the mass quantity that is laid out in front of me.  However, I am no longer going to make apologies for being a food snob.  Because I am right.  Period. 

Tonight was a typical example of what I am talking about.  Officer's club.  Mongolian BBQ buffet.  I am there specifically because there is a going away dinner taking place for three coworkers.  You pay a set price, grab a bowl, scoop out the meat (in this case, beef, chicken, and shrimp) take as many veggies as you want, give it to a guy who takes the bowl to the kitchen, cooks it up and brings you the food you scooped into your bowl and you eat it.  All around me there were people with their bowls over flowing with food (all you can eat, after all) and here I am, with a little bit of chicken, a little bit of shrimp, a little bit of meat and some veggies.  And it sucked.  All of it.  There is nothing wrong with chicken, beef or shrimp.  It was THIS beef, chicken and shrimp.  Poor quality, small rubbery chicken andshrimp.  Meat that was so lousy that it could barely be chewed.  And folks were just eating it up.  Like they were starving on a desert island. I just don't understand it.  I will pay whatever price I must pay for a decent meal and would rather eat nothing then have nothing worth eating.

Now somebody bring me a ladder so I can climb down off my soapbox.

My Macy moo

I simply couldn't resist putting this video of my dog and my two nephews playing in Seattle, Washington.  It's good to know that she is having such a good time there!  I sleep better at night because I know she is being loved and cared for the same way I love and care for her.  Life is good...

Annyong haseyo!

Hello from the ROK!  That's the Republic of Korea for those who aren't in-the-know.  Yes, it's been 6 months since i have written and in that time I have been transferred from Shreveport, Louisiana to Osan Air Base in South Korea.   I have been here for two months now and now that I have gotten over the shock of the move, I am happy.  The worst part of this one year assignment was having to leave my dog, Macy.  I am so fortunate and grateful that my brother and sister in law agreed to keep her for a year.  I can't wait for the day i can come home and pet her and hug her again.

I have to live in a dorm here and that is difficult.  The room is small, damp, musty, and dark.  And it's a DORM!  I am 36 years old for cryin' out loud.  Ok.  Enough bitching. 

South Korea is a beautiful, mountinous country.  It sort of reminds me of upstate NY.  It's humid here, which bothers most people here, but I like it.  It cools down in the evenings and walking around is just awesome.  I went on a hike about a month ago up Mt. Songri and visited Bupju Temple and both were just amazing!  It was a 7km hike one way, up hill.  A steep hill.  The best workout I ever had in my life for sure.  I am going to take a trip to China next month which I am very excited about.   I will bring my camera and take pictures. 

Meanwhile, the countdown until I go back to the United States continues...only 10 months to go!  Whoo hoo!

Mommy, I wanna bicycle!!

A friend of mine has been talking recently about getting back into bike riding.  She has a bicycle and hasn't ridden it in awhile and after talking with her about it for a few weeks (in passing only), I told her today that I would look into buying a bike so we could ride together.  Nothing big, mind you.  No Lance Armstrong-ing.  No triathilons.  No racing.  Just something different to do for exercise on a Saturday afternoon. 

It's been a lot of years since I last bought a bicycle.  I think I lived in Germany and my ex-husband bought me a Cannondale.  I know it was an expensive bike (mountain), and I never rode it.  I hated the idea of mountain bikes.  I was much more comfortable with the old 10-speed street bike I had when I was a kid.  I couldn't understand what the draw was for these ugly-ass mountain bikes that everyone was buying even though the majority of the buyers lived nowhere near any mountains. 

What I did remember, though, as I made my way into the bike shop tonight, was that I needed a 24" frame ('cause I am super short), and that I wasn't interested in spending $600 for a leisurely Saturday afternoon ride.  I was ready for anything!  Knew exactly what I wanted and knew how to get it! 

Much like many of my little adventures recently, I was in for a rude awakening.  Do you know they don't measure bikes in inches anymore?  The guy says to me the I need a 47cm frame.  I don't even know how many inches that converted to (the GMAT studying hasn't been going very well. Shut up.)  He also told me that I can't get by without spending over $500 for a bike. Cheapest bike in the store:  $699.   I think I paid $50 bucks for my Huffy 10-speed, that I beat the shit out of and lasted for 5 years (or until I bought a car, I don't really remember).

I left the bike store with my tail between my legs and a handful of catalogs (which, I have concluded, is where the money for the bikes are going).  On the way home I had an epiphany...EBAY!  I was sure I could go search on ebay for my bike! $699 my ass, Mr. Bike Shop Man!  I'd show him!  The Rocky theme began to play in my head and I barely even acknowledged my dog as I zipped over to the computer, full of hope and excitement and pulled up an ebay search...

$699, it turns out, is a pretty damn good price.  *sigh*

Back up on my soapbox

I am a supporter of the death penalty.  So don't get me wrong when I go off on the media coverage of the execution of Saddam Hussein. 

My beef is this;  the difference between seeing people blown away, eaten by sharks, and sawed into little bits and pieces in the movies and seeing someone about to die for real on screen, big or little, is the emotion that humans feel.   I feel that Hussein deserved to die for his crimes.  I also feel that the U.S. is doing the death penalty a huge injustice by 1) delaying a death sentence for 6,10, or 20 years before carrying it out and 2) not allowing the general public to view it.    Then I turned on today's news. 

While the broadcasts I have seen stop short of actually showing Hussein hanging, MSNBC shows everything up until that exact moment.  That is some serious shit.  Then MSNBC gives a warning that they are about to show a picture of a dead Hussein and if you don't want to see it, look away.  The picture of him dead was NOTHING compared to the video of him about to die.  The warning should come before the process of the execution, not before the picture of a dead guy.  My reaction was definitely from the pre-execution and to a human being about to loose their life.  The picture of him dead was nothing.  If I, a proponent of the death penalty, had this reaction, then chances are this is going to play on the emotions of some of the American public who are going to turn around and say that he shouldn't have been executed.  Unable to separate feeling bad for a person who is about to die from the fact that they deserved it.  

I asked myself if I would have felt differently if it wasn't a hanging, but lethal injection.  I don't know for sure, but I think I might have.  Maybe because lethal injection sort of has the feel of a medical procedure rather than an execution.  If he was put to death via Guillotine, I would have probably felt the same as I did about the hanging.  Just seems barbaric.  I suppose that is the point though, right?  That is probably one of the reasons why the death pentaly in the U.S. isn't a deterrent.  

It's a tough call, I guess.  But in the mean time, how about if the U.S. started public caning?  Talk about a deterrent!  Hoo ah!