Well, they took their sweet time, but the folks at Discord finally got my account back for me. Too bad my two servers were deleted by the asshole who hacked me, but, well...

To anyone who might have been affected by it, I'm really sorry.

In other news, I've moved back to Canada now, and have no plans on leaving! I don;t make journals enough haha

Hey all, it's been a while, eh? I've been keeping myself busy in Japan, so I haven't had much of an online presence as I had in my earlier days.

However, please DO NOT ACCEPT ANY LINKS OR FILES from my Discord account! I've been hacked, and Discord is REALLY dragging their asses getting back to me on it. Apologies in advance if this asshole dupes you, but it's out of my hands at this point...

I consider myself fairly savvy about these things, but this hack doesn't seem like a bot, I think it's actually some dude replying to questions you have, which makes it more natural.

Again, please please don't even reply to this guy. I want to make sure that when I get my account back, I can message everyone and apologize :S

So for those of you who don't know, I've been working feverishly over the past few months to apply for a semester of university in Japan. After a lot of work, it went through, and even though I knew I was going for about 2 months now, even while I wait here in the airport at home to leave, it hasn't quite hit me fully yet. I haven't been able to sleep the last few days, so I know I'm stupidly excited on some level x3

I'm not sure where I'll post pictures, but I plan to keep people fully updated on how things go ^^

~3 hour flight from here to Toronto
~5 hour stopover
~13 hour flight from Toronto directly to Japan
~1 hour flight from Haneda airport
to Osaka, where I will be staying.

the worst part? the whole trip is only 8 hours longer than what the stopovers in China look like on the way back in June xD!

So it isn't anything big or anything like that, but it's been getting much more widespread attention than I anticipated, so I figured I'd post it here and see what you fuzzies think :3 It's very well-written by the editor, and I simply gave the most honest, OBJECTIVELY true answers I could, without resorting to too many details about the obvious social no-nos.

http://themuse.ca/2014/04/03/invest.....-furry-fandom/

Let me know what you think! :3 Leave a comment on the article, or here, and let me hear your thougts! :3

You disgust me :) I don't make many/any journal entries on this profile, but I felt the need to in this case, in the hopes one of you sad saps sees this.

I'm not here to trumpet any unfounded accusations (though everything I've seen regarding the new staff member in question is pretty nauseating, shame on you Dragoneer), but this is regarding the rampant censorship that has become apparent in the aftermath.

As the leader of a largish (500) fur community, I know full well the necessity of censorship in the interest of a persons privacy. However, you should know that part of picking staff members is also considering what sort of social ramifications it will have. If Hitler were an awesome web designer, and had awesome art, would you bring him onto your team as well? of fucking course not.

When I pick admins for my community, I actively try to avoid people who I know either don't get along with a large chunk of members, or have a questionable past. Rape accusations? You're fucking retarded.

I hope this gets taken down to prove my point. And I hope the admin who does it has just that little but more trouble sleeping at night for quashing freedom of expression, without the cost of someone's privacy ( no rules were broken in this journal, except calling FA admins out in general -- if you can't take criticism, you're in the wrong fucking line of work)

Hey guys!  tribalfox aka Skye has been kind enough to post an art raffle :D She does some really cute art, and is also doing dirt-cheap commissions, you should check her out!

Here's her journal on it: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4680771/

I never really do journals like this, and have always kinda rolled my eyes when I see them, but I've had a rough week or so, so any birthday wishes or somesuch wouldn't go awry. Turning 26 on Sunday~

EDIT: why do people seem to think I'm loathing turning 26...? o.o I'm having a rough few weeks for different reasons xp

Well, I've been home for about a week. It was a fantastic experience, but the last bit of it was really rough, and sort of shattered my memories of the last few days...

As most of you know, my dog passed away while I was in Korea, and there was no way for me to get home in time to see him before he had to be put to sleep. It was absolutely devastating, and it's sort of destroyed any drive for me to keep posting pictures. I have them all, and they're all on my skydrive, so if anyone wants to see them they're there.

So yeah, I'm getting by. I break down now and then, but it's getting more bearable.

Other than that, I'm just back to work, life as usual. I'm aiming to take out some student loans next year, cut down my hours from work, and finish my degree. The experience over there has reinforced my desire to teach... but not in Korea. The food just doesn't agree with me. But I'm going to aim to pursue my original plan of teaching in Japan, so we'll see how that goes.

That's it for me~

Whew! It's been a while since I posted! Sorry about that guys! Last week was kind of a blur, and I can't remember a whole lot of details , but I'll try to remember for all y'all~!

Day 8 (Holiday) - Today was Korean Memorial Day, held in remembrance of the Korean War, so there were no classes. Myself, Steph, and her church friends all decided to go to a lake where we had planned to set up a barbecue. Unfortunately, we were told we needed a permit to do it in the area we wanted to - this nice lakeside spot - so we relocated to a rather crowded park a bit further down the road. It was still nice, though. Loooots of big burgers, greasy sausages, and a bunch of American junk food bought off a nearby air base (I forget which one) by one of the group's friends. It was SCORCHING out, and I just about died, but fortunately the wind picked up a bit and the sky clouded over, so it didn't turn out so intolerable after.

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Days 9-10 - I honestly can't remember too much about these days. Neither daytime nor evening. This first full week of teaching by myself had exhausted me, and I kind of just wanted to flop after work. On Friday though I was invited by my fellow teachers (not Steph) to go to a Korean BBQ. I kind of didn't want to go, seeing as how I was the only guy, and the newest person, but I figured I'd be polite. It was similar to the other BBQ I went to; get raw meat, plop it on a grill at the table, cook it, cut it, and eat! This one was neat though; they came by with a kettle of beaten eggs, and poured it around a trough surrounding the grill, and the eggs cooked while the meat did! It was a really cool idea, and went great with the soy-onion dipping sauce that was intended for the meat :3 Also had some pig's skin, which is... exactly as it sounds :S It was really weird, kinda gelatinous, even cooked. It wasn't gross, I just probably wouldn't spend money on it again. After that, I went to more chicken with Steph and her church friends. It was awesome times, as it was the week before.

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Day 11 (Saturday) - Myself, Steph, and Steven, one of her church friends, went to Seoul once again to see some sights! We took a day tour bus, which was a really neat concept; for about 10 bucks, you could get on a bus that went in a big circle through Seoul, passing by popular tourist spots. At any point, you could get off and look around, and another tour bus would come every half hour, and you could just hop back on. It was a really neat system. We had plans with the others, though, so we were on a fixed schedule.

First off, we went to Namsangol Village, a tradtional Korean village (like a dozen buildings or so) that's apparently used for making movies often. As we got there, we heard music, and from behind a stage, we saw some colourfully-clothed dancers moving about, so we checked it out, and, wow. It was well-worth the random chance; we arrived right at 2, and the show started at 2. Here's a video I took

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQFqoSyWsjQ

After that, we explored the village itself. There wasn't a whole lot there that I hadn't seen the same of in Gyeongbokgung, which is to be expected, since this was apparently some rich family's resort back in the day. In the village, I picked up one or two more souveniers - in particular, a paper fan for my manager, upon which I got to paint "Thank you Wendy!" in Hangul, which was pretty cool (pictures to come)

After the village, we hopped in a cab (it was quicker), and he took us to the base of the mountain that Seoul tower was on top of. Unfortunately, only buses were able to go up the veeeeery steep, narrow road leading up, so he... rather zealously got out and hopped in front of a bus, trying to wave it down for us, lol... he was very helpful, and I felt bad that tipping isn't a thing here in Korea, otherwise I would have given him a large one.

The tower itself was... sorry to say this, disappointing. The view would have been breathtaking, I'm sure, and for what I saw, it was; the tower was directly over a densely-forested set of mountains, and you could see Seoul spreading out from the base of the mountain.... for about half a mile. After that, it faded away into a hazy, smoggy veil. It made me pretty angry, but I tried to not think about it too much.

After sightseeing, we had to run (literally, we vaulted over lane dividers, and stowed away on a train) to catch our ride to this restaurant called Fogo's. I had reservations about getting on a train for which we had no ticket, but as we ran to the train itself, Steph tried to buy tickets, but the machine had already stopped selling the tickets which we needed for the ride, so that was good enough for me... fucking machine wouldn't take our money, that's okay :P

We got to the restaurant and... oh man. All you can eat meat. It was around 26 bucks, but the chef came out again and again with different cuts of meat... sirloin, bacon-wrapped chicken, sausages, garlic chicken, plain ol' steaks... it was aawwwwesome... ate until I was almost sick lol. I was so focused on eating that I didn't snap any pictures except for the restaurant sign itself.

After a drive home, I relaxed for the night.

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Day 12 (Sunday) - At this point, I had pretty much declared Sundays as my do-nothing days X3 Relaxing, eating 5-dollar pizza, and playing tanks made up the majority of my day. Something I had eaten a few days ago had been bothering my stomach, so I didn't - and haven't since - been trying anything very adventurous in terms of flavour and spice.

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Days 13-14 - Again, a bit of a blur. It was around this point that I started looking forward to the elementary classes in the afternoon more than the kindergarteners in the morning. The kindergarteners are cuter, and I know them all better, but by God... they do not listen... @_@

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Day 15 (Teaching) - Today was a day where the school celebrated every student's birthday that was in June. It's an unusual, but cool, way to do things, and it was a bit more of an event that way. There was lots of fried chicken, which sounds like my kind of birthday celebration :3~~ The cakes they had were okay, but a little... weird-tasting. Reminded me of a gluten-free cake we made for my celiac friend years ago. Not terribly, just odd.
After class, I was invited to Foreigner night, but I turned it down, being too wiped out by the day, and the week thus far.

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Day 16-17 (Teaching) - These days went by quite quickly, but for a slightly different reason. Yeah, they were still stressful, but I had something to look forward to over the weekend;  Engine was coming to visit on Friday! Friday itself was pretty good; the kindergarteners weren't terrible, and the elementary classes were taken up by a speech test; every class in each time slot sat in the gym, and one by one they came up and (tried to) say a pre-determined set of sentences that they had to memorize over the past few weeks. They were each judged and scored by foreign teachers, and the best student from each class got up to repeat the sentences, and we recorded them for their parents.

Day 17 (Evening) - I managed to get off work relatively early after the speech tests, and trotted to the bus terminal to meet Ben. After standing around and staring at the one foreigner guy I saw and mentally compared him to the picture I had of Ben, I discovered there was an entire other side of the terminal that I'd never gone to before, and there he was sitting on a rail :P We hugged, I grabbed his stuff, and we headed to the apartment. I set up the TV and we watched some staticy (I think the cord I have is faulty), zany Korean TV. There's this bizarre young kid's anime about some pastry super heroes - literally, one is a slice of bread, another is a walnut/red bean pastry, and the other was... I had no idea... and another pair of super heroes seemed to be a rock-paper-scissors man, and some girl who punched things and turned them wobbly, and emit hearts...??? - and watched Inglourious Basterds on his laptop, then curled up and went to sleep :3

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Day 18 (Saturday) - We decided to check out Insadong - the street market I went to with Steph on my first weekend - and the surrounding area in Seoul, which would be interesting; up until then, I had Steph to guide me around, but this was the first time I would be by myself in a completely foreign part of the world. Fortunately, I paid attention the two times I had been in Seoul before, and felt pretty comfortable with the subway system. We managed to get to Insadong without incident, and thanks to an information booth, we found a hotel for cheap (50 bucks for a double bed) that was actually in Insadong, which was amazingly convenient. We wandered up and down the street, but at this hour of the day - around 4 PM - there wasn't a lot to see, so we stopped at a place to get food. We were presented with an almost entirely Korean menu, and my phrasebook was pretty useless, but we were able to determine what was and what wasn't chicken :P We ended up ordering a large pile of garlic chicken, and a bowl full of fried chicken chunks with this tasty sweet chili sauce. The garlic here in Korea is just... blegh, it's not nearly as tasty as it is back home, and this plate had literal HEAPS of the stuff on it. I ended up letting Ben finish that while I went in on his plate of fried chicken bits X3

After that, we wandered around a bit more. We just missed a taekwondo demonstration, which was too bad because Ben does that stuff back where he's from. Made me sad we missed it, but as we wandered back towards the main part of Insadong, we grabbed some Turkish ice cream, which is basically just a really stringy, kinda chewy form of ice cream, it's pretty neat, and he'd never had it before. It was odd to see a foreigner (a Turkish guy, go figure) manning the stand, and he regaled us with his story about how he liked Taiwan better, and he's only in Korea for his wife. I felt bad for him, but then he said he was a little drunk, so I felt less sorry :P

I picked up another souvenier for someone I had forgotten/was unable to get the last time I was there, after a very desperate search. I got something that I'm very pleased with, though, so I hope he'll like it X3 I showed Ben those court cake guys; the guy we had this time wasn't nearly as entertaining, or maybe that's because I had already seen it before, but he just didn't seem as lively. Either way, the cakes were, again, delicious. I think I'm gonna stop there again before coming home and grab like... 3 packs to bring home X3

Around 9 or so, we came back to the hotel - incidentally called a "love motel" because of how cheap it was - and chilled out for a while. We watched the second half of Iron Man 2, and Shrek Forever After on TV, while we watched the motion-sensing (?) light in the shower/toilet area flick on and off for minutes at a time. It was pretty weird. The room was quite small, but it had all the ammenities; sink, TV, AC, computer, water cooler, complimentary toothbrushes, everything! It was really impressed. I was less impressed by the size of the single blanket we were given, and the way the AC would turn on and off after it reached a certain temperature. It was like the room had a heartbeat, and it was very distracting.

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Day 19 (Sunday) - And here I am. We woke up at the crack of FML (6 AM) to catch the subway to the airport, which took about an hour anna half. The subways were thankfully pretty deserted at that hour of the day, which let us take a seat for the often-long rides between transfers. But we made it without incident. We got his ticket after a bit of wandering around aimlessly in the airport, and sat down for McDonald's (disclaimer: I was still uncertain about trying weird Korean food, my stomach had only just settled maybe the day before?). After eating, we went back upstairs, hugged, and he went through security.

I'm glad we decided to do something other than laze around Anjung the whole weekend... It might have been what I impulsively wanted, but I would have felt like a terrible host if he didn't get to see SOMEthing. I loved having him over, but I was glad to get back home, after a sleep-filled 2-hour bus ride. I stumbled home like a zombie, chugged a Hot-6, and vegged out all day (It was around noon by the time I got home) on tanks :D A great weekend that I won't soon forget <33

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Ooof, big one. Hopefully there won't be as much of a gap between this journal and my next one. I'll try to do one on Thursday, since not much usually happens monday/tuesday, and Wednesday I'll probably crash after foreigner night. I'll post a bunch more pictures I have from days 11-onward, and that should catch me up on what I have to update. Until then~! :3

Okay! I've put this off long enough! Let's continue!

Day 4 (Teaching) - I don't remember a lot of details about this, but I do remember it was... stressful, lol. It was my first day by myself, and it was a mad blur of making kindergarteners listen, and scrambling to find CDs for elementary classes. I have a really, really hard time with names, even on a good day, and it's taking me a long time to get used to everyone's names. A few of them stand out, by my god-awful memory just washes it all away in a grey mess of forgetfulness. Either way, 1st day of teaching went about as expected in terms of stress.

Day 4 (Evening) - After class, Steph and I went with some of her church friends to this chicken place. Trevor, a pastor - who is incidentally incredibly attractive lol - seemed to enjoy my company, as did everyone else. I just thought it was odd that a church group was going out to eat a buffet of MEAT... dunno why lol. I don't have pictures (yet) because I had forgotten my phone, but I should be getting the pictures off Stephanie sometime soon. But there were 3 platters of chicken - soy sauce, BBQ, and then this amazing combination of chicken, cheese, and I think marinara sauce? Oh man, it was fantastic... It was a great night, but no real sightseeing to speak of.


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Day 5 (Saturday) - And on to the weekend! Saturday was huuuuuge for me! Steph and I went to Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, which was the largest palace in Korea for 500 years, until it was destroyed by Imperial Japan during their occupation before WWII. Along the way, we stopped for some pretzels at a place called Tom 'n Tom's Coffee. Tasted pretty comparable to Pretzel Maker. I'm in the midst of putting up photos of the place now, but I snapped over 100 pictures. Midway through the palace we hit up the Folk Museum, so there are pictures of that too.
After the palace, we went to Inchong Market. This was another street market which was much busier, cleaner, and bigger than the first one we went to. On the way, we encountered a trio of street performers doing some pretty good covers of classic rock music. We listened for a bit and I sorta wriggled through the crowd a put a few thousand won in their guitar case, and as I left, everyone else in the audience started doing it too XD Steph said I started a trend.
So at the market, I went around grabbing souveniers for everyone, so I got all my shopping done in one fell swoop, it was fantastic. The highlight of the market by far was the court cake. I'll be posting pictures of the end result, but check out this video on Youtbue; the act we were given by the makers was very similar, but ours were a bit funnier in my opinion. I'll try to record my own video if I get a chance to go again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK10VEiN3x0

After the market, we left for home. The bus going back to Anjung was absolutely packed, and I ended up giving up my seat to a middle-aged Korean woman. Everyone was staring at me like I had three heads, and I swear this pair of early 20's Korean girls were actually cringing away from me. I guess next time I'll trip an old lady up instead of offering my seat to her. So when I got home, I flopped. LONG tough day, my feet were killing me.

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Day 5 (Sunday) - Didn't do much today. Went to Home Plus, which is the go-to grocery/department store in Pyeongtaek, with Steph, Trevor, and some other church friends. Original plan was to get some Popeye's Chicken, which we don;t have at home, but I opted for some more exotic oriental (specifically, Japanese) food. I forget what it was called, but I have pictures~! Grabbed some bread to make my own meals, and after that, just sat around all day and played tanks, staying out of the heat and off my feet.

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Day 6 (Teaching) - Ugh, Mondays. I don't know if it was the drag of going back to a work week, or me waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but I REALLY didn't have a good time Monday. And the oppressive heat in the classrooms doesn't make the stress of running around between students and CDs and classrooms any easier, sweat pouring off my head while I try to teach. I was so close to flipping my shit at the kids, but I don't think I actually would be able to, which I think is good.

Day 6 (Evening) - Aaah, the long-awaited Korean BBQ! It was very similar to Japanese sukiyaki that I had years ago; a bowl of burning coals was placed in a crevice at our table, and we were given raw, marinated meat to place on a grill over the coals, along with garlic, vegetables, and lettuce. Also ordered some egg soup - really just a big bowl of boiled egg - which was quite delicious. Also tried some soju, which wasn't nearly as bad as I was led to believe by certain cute wuffies (really, it's much like vodka, but with less bite), though three shots and I was soooorta feeling it. After that, I walked home smelling like smoke and meat! :3

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Day 7 (Teaching) - Another stressful day. Not as bad as Monday or Friday because I made an extra effort to prepare and make ABSOLUTELY SURE I had all the required CDs. Definately went a lot smoother, but the kindergartener kids still have trouble listening to me. It's to be expected; they're just kids, but still... I wanted to boot some of them in the face sometimes, lol!

Day 7 (Evening) - Not much. Went home, got some 5-dollar pizza - pretty good, though not enough sauce, and the crust is nothing special - and... well, pawed. A lot. My libido has been spiking severely since I've been here... not used to being with  Skylerresias to cuddle with, yiffy or not, and it's starting to wear on me ^.^; I'll last, but... I can't get home soon enough <33 Love ya, sweetie.

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That's it for now! I've been here a week, and working where I was before - a gas station - feels like a lifetime ago! It'll be surreal to go back, but I won't turn down a taste of the mundane again! lol.

Okay! So there's quite a bit of material to cover here, so let me go through it all step by step.

Day 1 (Evening) - After being given a really quick view of the last class of the day, I'm taken to Lisa's apartment. There, her and Stephanie - my friend's sister, who has been a HUGE help - made me and their friend (I think his name is Ki Jeung "key-jewng") a delicious meal. One plate was vegetarian, and keeping to my vow of "trying everything once" over here, I had a taste, and it was actually quite good. The potatoes even sorta kinda had a meat consistency! It was a spicy dish of just a buttload of vegetables. They called it "Buddha Chicken" even though there's no chicken, and hopefully no Buddha, in there. Apparently the story behind it is from them mis-hearing a Korean term for "preparing a dish out of odds and ends you have lying around", and the name stuck.
The other bit of food was sausage bread... just a big roll of bread, lots of cheese, and chunks of sausage, made by Lisa. Very delicious! But I was dropping like a rock, having travelled for 42 hours with very little sleep - most of it literally on the floor of San Fran airport - so I went to bed after only eating a bit. But! Plenty of leftovers~!

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Day 2 (Teaching) - Lisa made me some French toast with some tasty pumpkin bread, and then we went to school together. I got introduced to the teachers (I'm TERRIBLE with names and faces, even with my own ethnicity, so I still have trouble getting their names right), and accompany Lisa to all over her classes. It breaks down roughly like this:

9 AM - 2 PM: Kindergarten: I fucking love this class. I spend more time with these kids than any other class, so I guess that's to be expected. Classes are divided into 40-minute periods, and I teach 3 of them, so I get a fair amount of breaks thrown in there. And then noon is lunch time. There's this one kid, Bill, who's a year younger than the other kids, and has a hard time getting motivated to eat. If he's acting up for whatever reason, we call him "Baby Bill", and he shakes his head, then we ask "Taekwondo Bill?" and he nods then usually does what you ask of him. Absolutely adorable. And this other kid, Sam, is a bit of a tattletale and a sook, but I have a soft spot for him. He's really honest and has these glasses that make his eyes all big, so cute!

2 PM - 6 PM: Elementary - This... is a bloody marathon. I got a little flustered during this time, because there are EIGHT classes crammed together in half-hour periods, with no breaks between, so you have to rush back to the office to get the books for next class, then run back in and TRY to get everyone to listen. It's really stressful, and to make matters worse, there are audio Cds to accompany most books, so you also need to make sure you have the right Cd, which sometimes simply isn't there, or the book references the wrong track. It's frankly pretty poorly managed, but I figure it's something I'd get used to. It seems very typical "bustling" Korean, though.

Day 2 (Evening) - After class, I think I was still feeling jet lagged, because I just hit a wall at around 5:30. So unfortunately, I decided to come back and just crash. It's too bad, because I missed foreigner's night. I need to make a point to be ready for it next week!

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Day 3 (Teaching) - Woke up, made some more French toast with leftover batter. I also trotted to one of the many nearby convenience stores and grabbed a random box of ramen noodles. Of course, I didn't notice until after the unsettlingly happy-looking squid on the box, but I decided to try it anyway, following my promise to myself. It actually wasn't too bad; I'd never had squid before, it really just tastes like chewy fish. The noodles themselves were pretty spicy too, so it overpowered any unpleasant taste that might have been there with... pain XD
Another whirlwind day of classes, and getting a few more concepts in my head. I also participated a bit more in the actual teaching.

Day 3 (Evening) - After class, I had a bit of time to relax with some tanks and general computerness for the first time since coming here. A bit comforting to come back to something I was familiar with, but I didn't tarry too long; Stephanie picked me up to go to nure-bon (probably not spelling it right) - Korean karaoke. I inwardly grimaced, not enjoying what I know karaoke is like back him, but I kept my vows in mind and readily agreed. First of all, Stephanie and I went to Pyongtaek, a nearby city which, from what I hear of conversations, is the go-to place besides Seoul. We strolled around looking for an Indian food restaurant that they love, and decided to get side-tracked by a pair of street markets. The first one was... actually really dirty, I'm sorry to say :S It had a very third-wordly feeling to it that I didn't like much at all. However, the next street over was much livelier and cleaner. We strolled down, looking at things... pigs heads (entire, cleanly-severed heads), buckets of live crab (small ones, not the big things we see back home), and tubs of wormy-looking things that reminded me of some Star Trek-y type food. It was all very interesting. Stephanie bought me - despite my protests - a Korean donut (very similar to ours, except instead of jelly in the middle, it's red bean paste), and some rice balls. I also bought myself sandals, because the shoes I wore here, frankly, stink... and I'm gonna be in close proximity to kids all day every day, so I decided to nip that problem in the bud.
We got to the Indian food place. It was very nice, and the menus were in Korean and English, and the waitress spoke both as well, so it was really comfortable. I ordered garlic ban (large, thin bread-type stuff), a type of chicken (I forget the name offhand...) and some chicken curry (I'd never tried it before, never really liked the thought of what was in it, but... TRY EVERYTHING ONCE). it was all pretty good. the chicken curry's curry taste was pretty overpowering, so I barely finished half of it, and the ban wasn't as garlicy as I was hoping, but it certainly wasn't BAD. The other chicken I had, though, tasted almost exactly like buffalo wings, so anyone who knows me at all doesn't even have to ask if I gobbled that down instantly.
Then it was off to nure-bon! As we walked the streets of Pyongtaek, everything was lit up! It was very neon-y, and vibrant. I'm sure there are places like that in larger cities in the States and some in Canada, but certainly not back home. Also, Spider-man is apparently a sexy cookie who sells lingerie (picture to follow). The karaoke wasn't what I expected at all though! Instead of a large room filled with the smell of alcohol and sweat and loud, slurring singing, we went down this hallway with several closed rooms - actually, that in itself was creepy. Anyone ever been to Furcadia? The Slave Pens? That's the shit I'm talking about - but inside was a huge LCD TV, 3 mics, a computer, and two huge Bible-looking books with listings for thousands of songs. Now, I suck at singing, but I was eager to try a bit of fun, so as soon as I saw Rasputin by Boney M, I put it right in.
Korea is apparently pretty weird about gay stuff - it's not illegal, but the topic kind of makes them uncomfortable - so the community is pretty underground. So I had some fun picking songs like Material Girl and YMCA, to make Ki Jeung and his other Korean friend (Peter) crack up laughing. They don't understand English, but they can read and speak it really well apparently, and they sang duets and stuff to some English songs. They're part of an actual singing group, so as you might expect, they blew everyone away with some hardcore licks.
And after that, it was home! Safe to say, I conked out almost immediately.

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Day 4 (Teaching) - ... More on this later. This is a huge enough journal, and I still have more to do tonight! So until then, see ya! :D

So, this isn't what I expected at all. From 5-student classes to having 8 toddlers literally clambering all over me, this is going to be a lot different, and a lot more interesting, than I thought. I have no idea how I'll cope from here on in, and I hope I'll have the energy to update you guys tomorrow, but for now, I need to pass out. Coming down with some sort of cold, and the jet lag is taking its toll.

Love you all. Miss yas.

Whew, alright. Sorry for my lack of updates, just getting settled in, and the place I'm staying only has 1 ethernet port, so I don't wanna hog internet from the girl whose apartment I'm staying it :3 She's leaving in a day or two, so I'll have more regular access then.

the flight was LOOOOONG. but I managed to sleep through like 4 hours of it fortunately. In-flight movies blew. Only good one was Sherlock Holmes, which I'd already seen, but it kept me busy. The in-flight meals were delicious, though! First one was some teriyaki beef, and the second was dumpling noodles.

Once I landed, I was picked up by the school "bus" driver - it was actually just a van, lol.. - who spoke very little english. My phrase book let me mumble off a few words of conversation to him, but by and large, it was a quiet ride. 1.5 hours. Snapped a few photos that I'll upload later today. And get into a few more detailed information about the classes I'll be teaching and such. But for now, I'm off!

Just woke up and got checked in. Sleeping on the floor was oddly more comfortable than any of the chairs. It's going to be a FUCK of a long flight lol... I'm a little worried, because the girl I've been in touch with isn't responding to my emails.... Other than that, things are going well so far. If I get something to eat, I'll post it.

Well, arrived here in San Fransisco not too long ago. Airport staff are super-friendly here, it's a nice change from the usual treatment I receive at American - or any - airports. Decided to get some pizza after figuring out my flight stuff, and tried this one place. BBQ chicken sounded good, but I didn't think to ask what was on it... fuckin' onions. Now my fingers smell like red onions since I tried to pick them off, the pizza was too sloppy to do it really well. The pizza was good, but I had lost my appetite :( Ended up getting a milkshake to better my mood.

So I'm stuck here for 16 hours. It's gonna be hell, but I have a workaround; I brought my desktop and a monitor, in hopes of finding an ethernet port in the wall. No such luck there, but apparently I can use my iPhone as a tether for wireless if I plug it in via USB. Anyone know much about that? Will I be charged crazy amounts? My iPhone's connected to the airport's wifi, so I don't think it will, but I'mma try to do some research into it on my lappy here before I try for real. Besides, waiting for one of two bozos to move on from using the desks they have set up here for computer users.

That's about it for now. Gonna upload some pictures, and talk to you sexies on MSN :3

Arrived in New Jersey a couple of hours ago. On my way to transferring my bags over, I was informed by a very helpful gentleman about an earlier flight that shaves 4 hours off my stopover wait. Hopefully they'll be able to accomidate something like that over in San Fransisco, because while it makes THIS layover shorter, it just makes the one in CA longer XD

Had a really greasy burger - no Wendy's, makes me sad - and some season-y fries from a place called Smashburger. Very tasty, but holy fuck, the grease was actually dripping through the bag. It was deliciously disgusting.

Had to pay 8 bucks for wifi here, which isn't terrible... hopefully it'll work over in CA because it lasts for 24 hours. I don't know if I'll be able to get on tanks in the airport, sadly... I was hoping to whip out my desktop and just blow shit up for a few hours.

Other than that, mmm, not much to say so far. The plane I took over was really tiny, to the point where I had to take my computer and monitor out of my bag and stow them seperately in the overhead bins, because my carryon - and most other peoples - was too big. Drifted off for an hour or so, but my neck was hurting so much, and my ears were makng me uncomfortable. Surprisingly not completely exhausted, but I have a feeling I'll get some sleep in on the 6-7 hour flight to CA.

That's all for now! I'll get to downloading iTunes on this laptop - which is actually behaving quite well - so I can transfer some pictures on the go.

I'm leaving for South Korea in about 8 hours. My stomach is in knots. I'm queasy from lack of sleep, and having two energy drinks for "breakfast" this morning. I'm not sure if I shaved my head evenly in the back. There is SO much shit that could go wrong, it's not even funny; ranging from my being dead to losing every piece of clothing, and a LOT of computer equipment.

I fucking love it.

This is such a surreal experience, I can't believe it. I don't even know what to type here lol... I'll be making an effort to post as often as I can... both journals and pictures, so keep your eyes and ears peeled!

Is it sad the thing I'm looking forward to the most for the flight over is triple baconators (!!!!) at American Wendy's? You lovely, grease-loving Americans <333 You invent the best/worst things~

Okay, so, in the past 24 hours, I get an IM from my best friend Mark. He tells me he's gotten a "crazy message" from his sister, Stephanie, who teaches English in South Korea. Once my fears of the North invading have been allayed (Seriously, North Korea scares the FUCK outta me), turns out that she and her friend are taking their vacations come the last week of May, and need someone to substitute for them for the entire month of June.

Enter your favourite lazy, overweight Pika. It's pretty well-known amongst moooost of my friends that it 's been an ambition of mine to teach English in Japan. So apparently one of Stephanie's first thoughts was to get in contact with me. While I'm completely flabbergasted, I can't express to her how grateful I am for even thinking about me for something like this. So, they offered me their positions - otherwise losing them permanently to a new hire. The two biggest obstacles for me was getting time off my real job without quitting or getting laid off, and getting the money for airfare, at least $2000.

First off, my boss almost instantly said "yes", which floored me, but I should expect that from her; she's done nothing but support me and try to make things work for me since I went to that store, so she's 10,000% awesome. And I just got off the phone with my dad, who said he could loan me the airfare, provided I pay it back ASAP - most of that will be paid for with the wages I'll make over in South Korea.

So now, barring a passport that needs renewal, and The Great Successor wrapping his greedy sausage link fingers around the South, there's nothing stopping me from living on LITERALLY the other side of the planet for a month, and literally living the dream. MY dream.

 SkylerResias has been nothing but supportive during all of this, and he already means the world to me, but it means so much more to me that he's willing and eager to help me through this in any way he can.

Mark, Stephanie, Stephanie's friend, dad, boss-lady at work, Sky, there are no words I can say to thank you guys that would be sufficient. The best I can do is try my absolute DAMNEDEST at this job, and go at it like nothing I've ever done before. I WILL make this work, and I WILL not kick any kindergarten Korean kids in the head for being annoying.

......................

...at least while anyone else is looking.

Alright, my World of Tanks shoutout can wait, because this is much more important!

 chipcaramel has opened up dirt-cheap commissions! He's super-awesome to work with; very accommodating, gets things done quick, and his art is really cute to boot :3 If you want really affordable arts done, he's your mouse!

Journal here - http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3156944/

So! The latest thing I'm crazy into is World of Tanks, a free-to-play MMO, kind of like League of Legends where there's incentive, but not requirements, to spend RL monies. You fight in WWII-era tanks and basically have a blast with various types and weights of vehicles.

I made a furry clan! Anyone who think they might wanna give it a try, lemme know over MSN or via note, and if you don't already have WoT, we can getcha going on it, and if you feel you like it, I'd love to have any of ya along for the ride ^.^

Yeah, I know, I should have done it a LONG time ago, but I finally got around to uploading all my old comic artwork. Ain't it terrible? I hope the subpar writing will at least make up for the terribad stick figures.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be posting some stuff in the coming days/ weeks. On a bit of an art kick. I'll be doing some oC stuff with a friend of mine, but will happily look for more company too! Anyone wanna doodle with me? :3

So! I've got a tablet on order. Anyone wanna doodle sometime? :3 I wanna work on my art, and actually get to point where I can post something fapworthy X3

Also, I have an f-list now: http://www.f-list.net/c/chu so anyone who wants to randomly open up a chat with me with one of those "Faves", will probably be met with a positive reaction X3

Anyway, um. That's it! Turned 25 yesterday. My mate was awesome with a surprise gift and cake, and family also gave me quite a bit of money :3 So it was a good day.

Bai~!

Okay! The minecraft server is up! To the couple of people who replied to the last one, sorry, I should have specified any of my friends... no offense to any of you guys, but there are one or two kinda shy/sensitive people I have on my server, and I'd like to make sure I know someone at least through a friend of mine before I hand out the IP :3

So anyone who likes, send me a note and I'll hook ya up with the IP. And if you guys have a friend who wants to join, lemme know!

Holy shit, a journal??
I won't bore you with updates on my life, cause I know I wouldn't be interested :p Things have been okay, life being what it is and all. Still with my wonderful Skyler, who proposed to me back in December, so I can't say life is too terrible :3

Anyway! I'm gonna set up a Minecraft server later on tonight thatll be open to anyone interested, so... is anyone interested? :3 it'll be furry-friendly, but not necessarily furry-specific.

I'll post the IP later tonight!

Well, it's been another eternity since I posted... not much has gone on since...

'cept for, you know, getting engaged~