Oryowoyo!

Sorry it has been a few days since I last blogged. I haven't been particularly busy or anything but, somehow, I just haven't been able to sit down and record everything. I'm quite proud of myself for staying fairly active and keeping busy in spite of my immobility this week. Speaking of the knee I'm still in the splint and on crutches when I need to cover any kind of distance. However, the swelling seems to have gone down and it doesn't really hurt as long as I don't try to turn too sharply and keep it well rested and iced up. I'll finish my meds over the weekend and I'm so hopeful that I'll get good news when I go back on the 29th. I'm so ready to get back to normal, you have no idea. Coincidentally, that's my mother's birthday. I now have no excuse if I forget it this year...

The last few days have been filled with my regular little chores; teaching, reading, preparing TOEIC classes, and so on and so forth. It has been fairly enjoyable having time to fool around on the guitar, get back into my Korean lessons online and just generally being able to catch up with people without feeling guilty about 'wasting time'. "How to be Free" by Tom Hodgkinson has been a very influential book on my life over the past few years. On the one hand, I try to live with as few constraints as possible and avoid the pitfalls of 'career', 'pressure' and 'expectations' as much as I can. In saying that, I seem to have some kind of innate Catholic guilt that makes it impossible for me to just relax without feeling as though I'm letting someone down or wasting my life. More on that another day I think.

I met Rob, Steven and Andy at Seoul World Cup Stadium for FC Seoul V Daegu FC in the last-eight of the Posco Cup on Wednesday night. Credit where it's due, the stadium has decent facilities so it wasn't hard for me to get around on my crutches. The game itself wasn't up to the same standard, which is hardly surprising given that it was their first game back after the mid-season break for the World Cup. Lee Seung Ryeol was our (FC Seoul's) only player in the South Korea squad in South Africa. It didn't take him long (22 minutes, to be precise) to show his quality with a deft pass giving Adi the chance to open the scoring from just outside the penalty box, although the Daegu keeper could have done better. Ha Dae Jung did well to scramble home a second six minutes later following good work from Choi Hyo Jin down the right and FC Seoul looked as though they were coasting.

It rarely seems to work out that way. A simple long ball from their own half allowed Daegu to grab one back through Om Byeong Hun on 36 minutes. Shocking defending from Kim Jin Gyu and Park Yong Ho, reminiscent of Terry and Upson for England against Germany. They were equally conspicuous in their absence as An Song Min nodded home an equaliser unmarked from a corner kick after 73 minutes. Somehow FC Seoul were holding on in a game they had looked so dominant in initially. Thankfully they secured a place in the last-four with a convincing 5-3 penalty shoot-out win, but it should never have gone that far. The highlights video (below) is worth a look if only to witness Dejan's audacious spot-kick to secure the win. I doubt he ever tried anything like that when he was playing back in Europe. What a legend (ok, maybe only to me).

I guess it'd be helpful for me to explain why exactly I love him so much. Well, a while back we were all at COEX Intercontinental Hotel wine buffet to celebrate my friend Jessica's birthday. In the middle of trying to sort out a wire transfer of some emergency cash to my friend Thomas, I passed none other than Dejan and Adi in the lobby!! They were so civil and I talked to them for ages, showing off my FC Seoul knowledge. Dejan casually mentioned that I should go to the tunnel after the match next day and he'd give me his shirt. I thought nothing of it. Under the urging of my girlfriend, we crawled between the gates at the end of FC Seoul's 5-1 drubbing of Jeju (in which Dejan scored two crackers) and I joined the little bunch of fanatics vying for their attention. Somehow he saw me, pointed straight at me, approached, stripped off his shirt and stretched over the other well-wishers to place the soaking wet trophy straight into my grateful clutches. It might sound silly, but I was ecstatic! I'm excited again just writing about it, to be honest. It's sat in my wardrobe (I washed it... eventually) and I'll be saving it to wear on special occasions. Whatever his intentions, he has a fan for life in me now. I'll be back on Saturday night for the K-League encounter with Chunnam Dragons and wishing him all the best, as ever. Incidentally, you should go here to vote for him on the K-League All Star team that will face FC Barcelona on August 4th. I'd love to see how he'd fare against that kind of opposition...

Here are the video highlights from FC Seoul V Daegu FC last Wednesday night.

On Thursday night I met my friend Stephanie in Myeong Dong for dinner and a long-overdue catch-up. She has recently come back from visiting family and friends at home in the US and experienced something fairly common to me and my colleagues in Seoul. When we are here, working, living, traveling and whatever else we are doing, we are changing as people. At the same time so are our friends and family in our respective homes all over the world. Going home can be a difficult experience. We all have a certain idea of what 'home' is and people back home have an idea of what we are like. When those things don't match up, it can be tricky. In Stephanie's case, her parents don't even live in the same state she grew up in. I think all of us who have moved away from home can identify with that. I usually really enjoy my first week home, enjoy my second a little, then start hating being home any longer. It's a horrible feeling because it's tough on my family to see that I'm unhappy being back, but it's just a fact of life that people grow up and feel more comfortable in their own set of circumstances where they are independent and in control of their own lives on a day-to-day basis. I'll be home for two weeks this Christmas. Hopefully that's just the right amount of time and I can be mature enough to make the most of my precious time at home.

Not much has been going on over the past couple of days. Monsoon season has kicked in at last, just in time for most of my mates going to MudFest in Boryeong, but hopefully they'll all still have a good weekend anyway. I think it has abated enough for me to go watch FC Seoul V Chunnam Dragons tonight at 7pm. I promise I'll get my camera in action and show you the little stream out my window that has developed into a gushing river over the past 24-hours. I also got my birthday present from Ji yesterday, an Apple iPod Nano. It's strange that I've gone from someone who shied away from 'gadgets' to someone who has a laptop, digital camera and iPod within the last twelve months or so.

I just can't seem to focus on what I'm writing today so I'm going to sign off. I hope you're all having an enjoyable weekend, no matter what you're getting up to.