Curiosity to fill the void.

Dearest readers and friends I apologize for not writing in a while but there have been many a happening in my life as of late and that is what I want to write about now.

Two months ago I had my birthday and then a week later I met a Korean girl who is now my girlfriend. The week after that my boss, Sunny, took me into her office and told me I was fired.

That's right. Fired. The following is the story.

March 18th my boss sits me down and tells me that she is firing me because she has been so pressured by the parents to get a new teacher. She talks about how there have been ongoing complaints about my teaching style and abilities. Sunny also mentions the financial implications of everything and that if she gets rid of me she can hire a new teacher for a little less than she was paying me. Reading between the lines of this conversation she was basically using me as a scapegoat for the low enrollment and high dropout rate that J Language is facing. This all went down five minutes before I had to teach my last class for the evening so there wasn't a lot of discussion.

I couldn't really think of what to do so the next morning I called the agency that placed me here and they basically told me to roll over and take it...real cute. I said screw that and then I talked to all my friends that night at the local bar and they started to give me advice. One friend, Chris, gave me the email address of a legal aid type person he knew, John, and so I started to talk to him. Now John said my contract was 95% solid and that she was not firing me for legit reasons and that I could fight it. That is what I wanted to do. John then pointed me in the direction of an actual Labor Law Firm here. I started to email with a man there and he gave me some options all of which would have ended up costing me an arm, a leg, and my first born.

Basically what the law firm could do was file a claim for me and then Sunny would have had to battle it if she wanted to, keep me on, or pay me out. What she would have had to do to fire me from that point is to prove that through two consecutive quarters I, alone, had caused a 50% loss in revenue. This being impossible she would not have stood a chance in court. All this being the case I would have unintentionally shut down my school from how much time, money, and effort Sunny would have invested into it and I was not about to do that.

I had been talking to one of m coworkers about my situation and it was brought to the attention that there could be trouble if I went to the law because there was a small small chance that the school would have been investigated and certain members of the staff fired. One of my coworkers decided to quit an upon doing so informed Sunny of my going to lawyers. Sunny did not bother to listen to me right away as I told her she didn't know the full story and that I had only talked to people who know the labor laws of Korea for guidance in what to do in my situation. This all made her very angry and she told me that she could do what she needed to do to legally fire me right away but she didn't want me to go until she had a new teacher to replace me. She let me pick a date and May 4th is what I chose as my last day there for the new guy to come in and me to get out.

To make this long story short I was fired for bullshit business reasons and I am forced to come back due to certain things going on at home that you may or may not hear about.

Some of the other things that Sunny did while she was firing me was to lie to me through her poor communication skills by leading me on to think that the other foreign teachers were fired or had quit because of me, thus making me out to be a bad guy, and she said that she could never trust me. Q.E.D. I felt like shit and it made the situation a lot worse because I really didn't want to show my face to anyone or talk about it with people. Oh well these things must happen for a reason yes?

This firing also means that I don't get my next few months pay, I don't get the severance pay, and my flight home was not paid for by the school. It all sucks but I am getting over it all. I just need to come home and get my head on straight now and all will be good.

Side story: Sunny's trust in me was replenished over the ensuing weeks up to my termination due to a couple things. First off I continued to put the same 110% effort into teaching these kids as I always did and kept a level head about things. I am proud of myself for that and I have realized there is not point in being a dick or whatever because that is going to get you nowhere. The other thing was that there was a situation at the school where Sunny had to immediately fire a different teacher and that made the entire school feel a little unsafe and insecure but Sunny knew how against this other teacher's situation I was so her trust came back. Sunny now claims as a favor to me she will write me any kind of recommendation letter for whatever my next job may be.

Anyway that is pretty much it. I fly out of here tomorrow so I will be seeing you all soon and I will do a recap of my 10 months blog and a last weeks here blog too.

Later days!!

Blog Shout out: To Netty for helping me through all of this.

And the award goes to...

Here are mostly my choices and a few of my "Academy Predictions" which means what I expect the Academy to pick. I am posting this just before the awards and then we can do a comparison later to see how many I got right! This will be a fun experiment. I hope that you all enjoy the awards as I cannot really watch them here in the ROK.

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Hurt Locker

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
District 9 --Shorted Watchmen

Visual Effects
Choice: STAR TREK
Prediction: Avatar

Sound Mixing
STAR TREK

Sound Editing
STAR TREK

Short Film (Live Action)
N/A (Didn't see any)

Short Film (Animated)
N/A (Didn't watch any)

Music Original Song
Princess and the Frog "Down in New Orleans"

Music Original Score
Choice: Up Michael Giacchino
Prediction: Avatar

Make Up
STAR TREK

Foreign Language Film
N/A (Didn't see any)

Film Editing
Choice: District 9
Prediction: Inglorious Basterds

Documentary Short
N/A (Didn't see any)

Documentary Feature
Food Inc.

Directing
Choice: The Hurt Locker
Prediction: Avatar

Costume Design
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Cinematography
Avatar

Art Direction
Avatar

Animated Feature Film
Choice: The Secret of Kells
Prediction: Up

Actress in a Supporting Role
Maggie Gyllenhaal

Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock

Actor in a Supporting Role
Choice: Matt Damon
Prediction: Christoph Waltz

Actor in a Leading Role
Morgan Freeman

Best Picture
Choice: The Hurt Locker
Prediction: Avatar

Oscar the blog #2 (Best Animated Feature Options)

Naturally this is my category of choice and this year there were some choices, and while I feel spoiled that there were finally 5 films to choose from I still thought it wasn't enough and thought a few got shorted. Below are the five nominees and my quick opinions on them. Again, I will not post who I think should win until my next blog. Thank you for reading and enjoy...

Coraline:
Henry Selick did a fine job at another stop-motion animated film. I am a little indifferent on this film as it had an even amount of things I liked and didn't like. Let's start with the bad. The story had some issues like some things needing more explanation and it just wasn't in depth enough. My other issues were that there were too many similarities to past films like Beetlejuice, Spirited Away, Alice in Wonderland, and Nightmare Before Christmas. The good came through a bit in this though and that was the incredibly well done animation. The look of the film was solid and stunning. I was amazed with the cinematography of the whole film because it really helped give it a whole feel. As I said I am indifferent on Coraline. I don't love it, but I don't hate it. It did deserve its nomination.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson completely blew me away. I was expecting this to be ... well, I am not sure what I was expecting, but it was really good. Even though it was an animated film and that was a new realm for Wes the film still felt like it was one of his. I never read the book as a kid so I wasn't super excited about the film. The animation is great, the characters are great, the story is great and the direction was great. This definitely deserved its nod here and not just because it was Wes.

The Princess and the Frog
As most of you know I have a long standing grudge with Disney and there films especially 2D ones. The last one I really liked was Lilo & Stitch and before that was Lion King so it is rare for me to like them nowadays. Despite this fact I found this movie to be amazing. It takes a lot for me to be able to say that but Disney didn't stay so formulaic in this film. They worked out of the norm and retold a classic story in a new way. The songs weren't that bad either. I truly loved the style and the characters though especially the villain. All in all it was a refreshing return to 2D for Disney. Besides that it made me have a mad craving for some soul food.

The Secret of Kells
This film went under the radar. I was in awe of it for sure. The story was new to me, it had incredible animation and artwork, and its illusion pulled you right in. I don't really know what to say about this movie besides that you need to see it yourself. Beyond worthy of its Oscar nod and has apparently won all sorts of other animated awards. Besides that it was good because it came out on my birthday last year. :)

Up
If you read my previous blog about Best Picture than you should have read what I wrote about Up. Up was a good film. Not one of PIXAR's best but still a good film. It doesn't hold a candle to WALL-E, Nemo, Ratatouille or most of the others but it was cool. I think the fact that it was PIXAR was the only reason this one made it to this list. The Academy and I differ on opinions a lot of the time and here it couldn't be more apparent. I did not think that Up deserved to be listed this year and especially do not approve of it in the Best Picture category. I am pleased that there is an animated film up for Best Picture but it is the wrong year to have done this. Up was fun and was a normal good hearted film. It was really fun to see in 3D so I saw it twice. People, please do not get me wrong I really liked the film I just thought it was lacking the usually PIXAR pizazz.

My opinions on the other animated films this year are as follows... Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs I felt was shorted out of a nod. It was really stylized and really funny so I liked it.
Monsters Vs Aliens was pretty awesome too especially with the witty comedy and having Colbert as the voice of the President.
9 should have stayed a short film. Sorry Shane but I liked the short a lot better.
Ice Age 3 was better than 2 but not as good as 1.
AstroBoy was the last one on my list of films this year. I think it was a brilliant resurrection of AstroBoy and I think IMAGI is under appreciated but the world will love them when T28 comes out.
Of these which do I think truly got the shaft? Cloudy and AstroBoy should have been in there but I can understand why they weren't...mostly.

Oscar the blog #1 (Best Picture Opinions)

As you all know I am a movie fiend. I have taken the liberty of feasting my eyes upon most of all the major Oscar contenders this year. This first of a couple/few blogs is about my thoughts on the 10 movies that are up for this years best picture. I am a bit of a pretentious film geek and that comes with the territory but at the same time I hold a long standing and ever growing grudge against the Academy so I would like the world to know where I stand on 2009's crop of silver screen gems. These are not in any particular order and to find out which one I pick you need to stayed tuned for one of the next Oscar blogs in which I reveal my choices for all the categories.

1. Avatar
Avatar was a pretty damn awesome film...not gonna lie. It was an all around good movie, good soundtrack, good action, decent story. There were a few issues I had with it though; I understand it is fictional and takes place on another planet but it was again too much CGI for me. The story was uber reminiscent of Ferngully among other movies. It was also a little too epic as if it were an LOTR movie. I have Avatar high up there on the radar as a great movie but will it win best? The Academy will probably give it to Avatar knowing what went into it and what not. Does it deserve it in comparison with its competition? Short answer...no.

2. The Blind Side
This movie was a heart warming film and was another feel good sports story. Sandra and Quinton did amazing acting jobs but in all truth it was just another sports struggle story. It wasn't that special to me...I mean it was a good film but it needed more. To sum it up for you the story starts off at the lowest point and just gets better and better. The main character of Michael Oher keeps getting good things in his life and never has some high fall from grace where he picks himself back up and proves his worth so that is what the film really needed. Although this being based off of real life events couldn't necessarily have that. If this wins anything it will be Sandra Bullock for her acting.

3. District 9
This was an all around incredible film. It does a better job at a real life alien story than M. Night's Signs. As a sci-fi nut this film was a personal favorite for 2009 but yet again there were some small issues. It starts out as a bit of a documentary about aliens landing in South Africa and gradually turns into a narrative so the style of the film changes throughout and that isn't a bad thing but kind of breaks the illusion a little. The story was great, the graphics were great, and the whole feel of the film worked. I for sure was enthralled by the brutal reality that was presented to viewers of the treatment of the "prawns" and how they were living. Amazingly well done film my hat is off to this one as a major contender and it is a breath of fresh air to see a sci-fi film such as this up in the best picture category.

4. An Education
A feel good film for one that really had no special quirks but seems a staple style film for the academy to put into Best Picture. It seemed like a backwards take on Lolita (the original) and the story wasn't ever that enticing. Carey Mulligan plays a good young English schoolgirl but as I said the movie as a whole wasn't spectacular. I found it hard to relate to anyone or anything and it was difficult to become immersed in the illusion of the film. It was a decent film but nothing stood out about it. Truly An Education is just a safety for the Academy and I think there were way better movies out there that should have taken its slot in this category. For this flick I will be surprised if it wins.

5. The Hurt Locker
Sheer brilliance! Suspense around every corner and although it is a fictional story it has nothing fictional about it. I think Kathryn Bigelow is an amazing new director and should get serious kudos on her fine work here. The story is fantastic from the get go. You can really feel for the characters in the middle of this war ravaged landscape and the slow motion action shots are a weakness of mine. I wasn't looking forward to another war movie especially one that is on current events but man did this film hit home. I don't really care if this wins or not but just the mere fact that it was recognized by the Academy shocks me.

6. Inglourious Basterds
Oh Tarantino... as of late you never cease to disappoint me. I hate Q.T. and his films continue to be bad. I can't say that they get worse and worse but I can say that he sucks more and more. Basterds was a bad movie. I was expecting way more action and way more story about the Basterds themselves and yet there wasn't. I liked the small bits about them and even when there was a little background on some of them but otherwise Tarantino didn't fail, yet again, at too much dialogue. (In a mocking voice) Hi. My name is Quentin Tarantino you may also know me as the King of Too Much Talk. I really wanna know what the Academy was smoking when they decided this should be in Best Picture. Couldn't they have slotted something better in like Star Trek which was truly worth of recognition due to its awesome fan pleasing? Where does Tarantino get off thinking he makes these good movies. I think people are afraid to tell him off because he is so involved in the film world and such a pretentious film prick that he will somehow put a hit out on them in the movie world and they will never work in the industry again. Piss off, Tarantino! If this wins then all my faith, which is very minimal to begin with, in the Academy will dissipate.

7. Precious
This was not a feel good film and really brings you down when you watch it. I liked how real the movie was and the truths it showed. I was terrified by the horrors of the story but deep down I knew that some people lead lives such as that. This too seemed like a staple Academy pick but it was slightly different due to how true the movie is to real life. I just like this film for what it was and how it was. I do not think it will win for this category but it is fine if it does. However I do think that Gabourey Sidibe should get something for her great acting in this.

8. A Serious Man
Coen bros. are true masters at their craft. This movie was a fantastic dark comedy that was easy to relate to and get immersed in and it all just worked. Of course the Coen bros. get picked by the Academy for a Best Picture nod. but I am not complaining. I found this movie to be funny, witty, clever, and it was put together well. I really liked the fact that it was entirely open-ended and you had no clue about it, which was really the point of the film. A Serious Man was just a great film and I will not be sad nor surprised if it is picked. Good job Coen Brothers.

9. Up
PIXAR's latest installment in their reign of computer animation mastery was not at all their greatest and I do not think deserves its slot in this category. Don't get me wrong I am ecstatic at having an animated film in Best Picture again, but it is the wrong year to have finally had its return. Up was a great movie and I loved every moment of it but it wasn't PIXAR's best work. I only think the movie is in here because it is such a fantastical and romantic story and that is usually what qualifies for the Academy. I will not be upset if this wins but I will be incredibly surprised. I mean it is truly a whole hearted and feel good film so it isn't a great mystery why it is up in Best Picture it just is completely the wrong PIXAR film to finally make its way to this category. Oh well.

10. Up in the Air
Jason Reitman has quickly become a personal favorite of mine with everything from Thank You for Smoking to Juno. I thought this movie was a great dark comedy and was amazingly witty. It started off sort of slow but picked up and quickly got you involved in the movie and never wavered off course. The story twists and punches were great and fairly unexpected and the best part was that for once in a movie it was not a happy ending. I found that to be so exhilarating and refreshing that this movie made my list for best of '09. Seeing as it is a dark comedy I will be pleasantly shocked if it takes this award but I think that it would be a good boost for Reitman and it could never hurt Clooney. The acting was also great in it and I can see myself watching this again and again as the years tick away. Bravo J.R. on a movie well done.

As I said I will not pick my winner here but I will later. I hope that I did not spoil these movies for anyone of give anyone a pre-viewing bias. I do think all of them are worth seeing and I am very interested in hearing all of your opinions on these as well. Please stay tuned for my next Oscar blogs as I talk about the animated movies and my picks for the winners of each category. Thanks for reading ;)

Blogzilla!!

Alright everyone this is the blog (and then some) that you have been waiting for...

As most of you know I went with Paul to Japan for our holiday break. We were gone from the 25th to the 2nd/3rd. I am going to recap it all as best as I can and as quickly as well.

We started our trip with a minor mishap that proved to be no big deal. We got up on the morning of the 25th to commence our journey to the land of the rising sun, gathered our things, and made our way to the bus for the airport. After a little while on the bus, Paul looked up from his ipod and screamed an expletive. I asked him what was wrong and he said he forgot his passport. He knew exactly where it was and why it was there so I said it is no big deal we will just get to the airport and see if we can push our flight back, go back to your place to get it, and come back to the airport. Long story short it all worked out pretty painlessly. After our incredibly short flight from Gimpo to Kansai, Osaka we grabbed a bus to Osaka station. From there we hopped a bus overnight to Tokyo. While it seemed as though a night bus was going to be cool and we might see some of Japan's countryside in the nighttime...we did not. We both got placed in aisle seats and all of the curtains were shut so there was nothing else to do but catch some Zs. We arrived in Tokyo sometime after 7am and figured our way to the area we were staying in. After a few hours of stumbling around Takadanobaba, Tokyo we finally got to check into the Tenten guesthouse. This was a place for travelers if we had ever seen one. There were a few rooms close to the size of a large studio apartment and each was equipped with numerous bunk beds with the lower bed just being on the floor. There were tiny kitchen areas and a small bathroom. Our bathroom had a squatting toilet and no shower so we had to use one of the other rooms' bathrooms if we wanted to have a proper elimination or shower. There were various travelers there and even Japanese guys who were living in there to save money. We met a nice guy named Tai (sp?) who was awake at odd hours and always wanted to know where we were going or if we were hungry. When we finally had a chance to do anything with him...he had left for good.

Our days in Tokyo at the start were on the rough side because we apparently came ill prepared. We quickly found out that most places in Tokyo do not take credit cards and it is a cash only city!! We each had ventured there with an allotted amount of cash but available cards expecting to be able to use them, so this spelled trouble. My father suggested that we go to a bank and see if they could help us and while that was a good idea; the banks were closed because it was the weekend. I naturally, overly stressed out about this and caused myself to not be able to enjoy a lot of what we did because of it. The problem did get solved on the following Monday but my stress didn't dissipate. On our first day we met up with Roy, a Japanese friend from college, and he took us around to Shibuya and Shinjuku, and then we went to a traditional Japanese bath house. We had some fun there until we found out that I could not go into the actual bath area because of my tattoos. The Japanese are fairly conservative on tattoos and believe that if you have them that you are or were a member of the Yakuza organized crime gang. This in fact, and obviously, is not true for me, but I respect their beliefs and policies so I made sure to stay away and told Paul to go in.

The following couple days were spent roaming around Tokyo to such areas as Asakusa, Tsukiji, Akihibara, Roppongi, Harajuku, and a few other places. Asakusa had a really cool traditional gateway, Tsukiji is the major port so we got sushi there, Akihibara is the main area for anime and video game stuffs, Roppongi is full of bars, and Harajuku was most similar to Wicker Park at home with lots of fashion places and such. We went to most of these places with Roy as our guide and we cannot thank him enough for showing us around and helping us with finding things. Oddly enough Paul and I picked up a lot of Japanese while we were there, even faster than we have picked up any Korean in the 6-7 months we have both been here.

On the last day or two we ended up heading toward the Imperial Palace only to find that it was closed for the holidays but we snagged a few pics from its exterior so it wasn't too big of a disappointment. Post palace we made our way by foot to Tokyo Tower where we found a mascot that looks remarkably similar to a dog's penis...no joke it was disgusting. We had some fun in the Tower but only went halfway up since it was so crowded. On our last night in Tokyo we met up with another Japanese friend from school; Buntaro. He took us to Harajuku to show us the area and then to Roppongi where we went to the same bar we had been at the previous night with Roy. On the next day we hopped five different local trains to get from Tokyo to Osaka and that took the whole day and took the wind out of us. We did, however, get to see Mt. Fuji from the train and it was surrounded in the most spectacular cloud cover that made it look as though the clouds were eating the mountain.

In Osaka we got to meet up with our third Japanese friend from college; Hiro. Hiro, Roy, Paul, and I all hung around the next day and ventured a little around Osaka. We then parted ways for a few hours and later re met up with Roy to go to his house for a traditional New Years!! We went with Roy to the house he grew up in to have dinner and celebrate the new year with his parents. His parents were amazing. His mom made us an amazing dinner complete with sushi and Soba (sp?) which is soup and noodles. Then his dad got out this kendo fighting armor and put it on Paul and showed us some cool things. We watched some Japanese tv up until the time to ring in the new year. When it came time the news anchors bowed to each other and said happy new year in Japanese, but there was no countdown so it was a little surprising and strange to Paul and I. After that we thanked Roy's parents and left with Roy to go to a Japanese temple to see what they do there for new years. New Years in Japan is treated as Christmas is in the States, QED its a big deal. At said temple it is decked out as though it were a carnival complete with game booths, food booths, and booths that sell all sorts of trinkets including Magic cards and Nintendo Wiis. We hung around there for a bit and went up to the temple where you throw in a coin of any denomination and pray for a happy and healthy new year. We then bought some fortunes that were to keep us safe for the whole year so those are pretty cool.

The next day in Osaka Paul and I pretty much hung around our accommodation. He ventured out more than I did because I was having some stomach issues and was still uber stressed out for no good reason and knew that I was not fully enjoying the trip. That night I decided that I would leave Japan a day early due to my health and lack of enthusiasm. I had a fleeting and uncontrollable need to leave and even though I love Japan and will go back someday I had to get out of there and return to my temporary home in Korea. The next day Paul headed to Kyoto and I went to Kobe for one last thing...Gigantor!! Kobe, Japan is where Gigantor (Tetsujin 28) was created and they had within the past six months erected a life size statue of the mammoth anime robot that I love so much so I had to go see him. I got loads upon loads of pics of that mechanical masterpiece. Then I bought a few gigantor things and headed towards Kansai Int. Airport to get outta there. Paul stayed the extra night as planned and came back the next day. In retrospect I had a great time but I just didn't allow myself to have the fun I wanted to and there really is no good reason why. Maybe this was one of the lessons I needed to learn while I am over here. I guess we can say lesson learned.

All in all Japan was really cool and I would love to do it again, but next time with more time and money and maybe different places in Japan as well like Hiroshima, Sapporo, Okinawa, and Matsue.

Blog shout outs: Paul for helping to make the trip possible and for being able to enjoy it with me in a cranky and sick state of being.
Roy, Hiro, and Buntaro for being awesome friends and showing us around Japan and for showing us a great time!!

Fell off the blogwagon and scraped ma knee

I haven't the foggiest as to where I left off but I am guessing it was somewherez around Thanksgiving so I am gonna try to do some short recap work here so bear (rawr) with me.

Once upon a time...or maybe twice...

Back a couple months ago, almost, it was Thanksgiving and nothing was planned as to what we were going to do out here. It was also Alivia's birthday weekend so we knew something related to that would go on. We decided to hightail it to Incheon for the weekend where we had fun at a carnival-esq place, stayed in a sex hotel, got drunk in a two floor pagoda, and went to a spa for relaxation the next day along with a feast afterwards. There are pictures documenting our fun filled adventure there on facebook if you care to take a gander.

The weeks following were a little rough because it was all leading up to the holidays. I sent postcards to most everyone that I could to wish them well for this wintry season and also sent home presents to the fam. from both online and from Korea. I cannot recall all of the specifics of what happened during those weeks but naturally I met more people, had more fun, saw more things, and did more stuff. Elegant in its brevity, I know. Within those weeks up to the magical holiday of christ I did make a new friend who I think is the bee's knees and would like to talk about here. I went to a going away shindig in Itaewon after going to see some crazy snowboarding competition in front of city hall and discovering a hidden world beneath a statue. This going away gala event was for Jenn who, obviously, was going away. She is real cool and has loads of cool friends/coworkers. We were in a pretty regular type bar called Nashville and as the night wore on more people showed and I eventually met this young lass named Emily. Emily is from Michigan...not Michican, and she is hilarious. Granted at the time of introductions she might have been a little inebriated but still her smile is infectious no matter the state of mind. She decided that it would be prudent to call me Rupert and that was fine with me. Anyway we hit it off and we ended up hanging out a week or two later. Now transition to right around then.

This was a week before Christmas and Leanne, Alivia, Paul, Andy, and I had our xmas dinner party which was loads of fun with lots of food. I even made latkes to share with them all and yes they were good even though finding the proper ingredients here is like looking for remaining pirate treasure in the Caribbean. We had fun festivities and played card games and drank til odd hours. The next day I went to spend with Emily in which we had xmas fun planned like watching movies and making xmas things. Little did she know what I had in store for her.

(Wow that sounded deliciously evil)

Anyway a few weeks before xmas my mother had so kindly sent me some goodies that included an advent calendar and a gingerbread house kit. I took said kit with me to Emily and she had no clue but boy was she surprised when I brought it out. Nonetheless, movie watching, xmas creating, shenanigans, and xmas cheer ensued, thus, curing me of my need for an average xmas at home...well, mostly. Here are the results of aforementioned house...



The next few days were comprised of an xmas party with the work gang and the last preparations for Paul's and my adventure to Japan. I have full intentions on a Japan blog that I am now working on so please everyone keep your cannons at bay and await the arrival of the godzilla blog!

Special blog shout outs: Leanne, Alivia, Andy and Paul for being awesome friends here in SK
Emily for helping to make my Christmas here bright and full of cheer
My family for missing me at the holidays.
My loyal readers for not giving up on me here.