Little by little...

It's coming up on midnight but I'm not feeling sleepy at all having just got in from the trek that was my journey back home from band practice. Rehearsal was decent tonight but, of course, there were only three of us so it was hard to go through anything properly. Maybe not everyone was as prepared as they might have been but the positive signs are still there. The song that I was really worried about is already sounding as if it could be very, very strong. I surprised myself with the vocals a little. Nice to be able to do that after 23 years of singing. Wow I'm old... I called Cheon (bassist) and tied him down to rehearsal next Wednesday night so hopefully he'll come and we can have a really solid jam together to get his heart back in it before Jim (our drummer) leaves at the end of July to go back home to England for four weeks. It's a shame that he's going just as we're getting a set together but I'm happy for him that he's going to get a good stretch back in England with his family and friends. I'm looking forward to that at Christmas myself.

Just prior to rehearsal I met up with my good friend Jess, who I haven't seen enough of this year. It's just so easy for weeks and weeks to pass by without seeing people we should be going out of our way to keep in touch with. She's one of a number of my friends who are leaving Korea at the end of August. It'll be tough but it comes with living in a place like Seoul where so many people are on different paths and come and go according to their own personal life plan. New people always seem to come in their place and life goes on. Jess seems to have exciting plans for the future. Hearing other people's hopes and dreams always makes me reappraise my own. A lot of that going on these days.

The rest of my day was as routine as they have been in general of late. I get up, I prepare for my class, I teach my class (very glad to see the return of my old student Chae Young this morning), I reply to emails, catch up with the news, read my book, read 'Time', study some Korean (still very basic), mess about on the guitar (even more basic than my Korean), practice my songs and do some research for the TOEIC classes coming up next semester. It's not the most exciting routine I've ever had but it passes the time and feels ok. At least I feel as though I'm being productive even though I'm stuck in a splint still. The end of the third paragraph and the first time I mentioned my dodgy knee! Must be some kind of a record.

Lots of distressing news coming from back home in Ireland these days. Eight dead in a car accident near where I'm from; most of them in their late teens and early twenties. That seems to be a bit of an epidemic where I'm from, although it's my understanding that things had been getting better up until this, the worst traffic accident in Ireland since records began. Trouble brewing in Belfast around the 12th July Orange marches. I can't explain the feelings those stories stir up in me. 'The troubles' were an every day part of my life growing up and have largely gone away since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. It seems that a small band of people are intent on dragging the province down into the past again. I'm confident that the will of the majority will see us through these choppy waters. The thing is, in Northern Ireland, you're never too far away from digging up a lot of hatred and bitterness on both sides...