Distinctly Average

Bit of a dangerous title for a blog entry but I'm referring not to myself or my wares, but to the first weekend of the English Premiership. I might be being a bit unfair but over the weekend none of the games really grabbed me and the more I have watched highlights and so on, the more underwhelmed I have become. I know there were some big wins (Blackpool catch the eye) but the games I was really looking forward to all ended as stalemates. I was hoping that Spurs could start off with a win against Man City (and they deserved to) because the constant splashing of the cash is becoming tiresome and I don't want to see that approach continually vindicated. I also can't understand what Shay Given has done to lose his place in the team, although I admit I'm biased towards my fellow Donegal native. And Joe Hart had a stormer, in fairness to him. On top of all that, my fantasy team were average and I'm already languishing in mid-table in most of my leagues. Obviously it's very, very early days, but it's never good to lose too much ground early on. I think I'll have to choose reason over gut and drop Rooney as my captain. It seems as though his World Cup form has carried over into the new season. Maybe my feeling that the weekend's football was average has as much to do with my own fantasy team and another home defeat for Derry City against Cork City Foras Co-op. Thankfully, Monaghan lost too, so we got away with it to an extent. Still, we need to get back to winning ways or risk squandering what was, at one stage, a 12-point lead at the top of the First Division. Oh please next weekend give me better news. A win for FC Seoul at home to Gangwon FC on Saturday would do the trick just nicely.

That'll be the last FC Seoul game I'll be at with my best mate, Robert (for the foreseeable future anyhow), as he leaves for England next week. I have mentioned before in the blog how people are always coming and going in Korea and that your friendship group is ever-changing. I have to say that this week will be different. It goes without saying that I have been close friends with Rob since we were about 13 (and known him since play-school) so it's going to be tough when he leaves. It's hard to put a value on having someone around in this environment who you know and trust completely and don't generally have to worry about how you are around them. I'm glad for him that he's moving onwards and upwards but of course I'll be sad to see him go. The very same week Jessica, a former co-worker, also leaves for England and she's someone I have also been very close to. The following week Kev (my long-time guitarist) and his girlfriend Joanna leave for Barcelona so it's shaping up to be a grim enough time. Thankfully I still have a lot of people here who I would consider to be friends, but the loss of those four is significant.

Saturday is shaping up to be such a busy night of goodbyes that I decided to pull out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers gig I was due to sing at. I feel really bad to let Cheon down at this late stage but there was no way I could miss any part of a night this important. I'm hoping I'll get the chance to do something some other time with Cheon's band. Jim (our drummer) gets back from England on Saturday so we'll hopefully be back rehearsing soon and might play a short show on Friday 27th somewhere. I'll write it here if we do. At the minute, my main focus is on the acoustic night at Rocky Mountain Tavern on Friday (20th). I'll be singing about ten songs with Kevin after sets by him, Zee (The Pines), and Patricia Chamless (Sour Mash). They are all really good singers so I hope I'm not shown up but we rehearsed last Saturday and it was sounding good so hopefully we can emulate that. I'm looking forward to singing at an acoustic gig because, fun and all as the 'rock' band thing is, this is much more complimentary to my voice. If you happen to be around Seoul on Friday night, try to make it along. I think it's going to be a nice chilled-out night with a lot of good music. I'm certainly looking forward to hearing Kev, Zee and Patricia again.

I can't really think what else I wanted to say today. This week I've been doing a fair bit of reading, studying Korean and trying to strengthen my quad in anticipation of maybe being able to walk properly again sometime soon. I've started doing a bit of preparation for my next semester again and I feel fairly sure of what I'll be doing for the first couple of weeks at least. Today, the girls in the office tried to give me money for the lessons that I taught them a while back. Basically, there were crossed-wires between my boss and her boss which led to me teaching the girls in the office as part of my summer schedule, only to find out I wouldn't be getting paid for it. The girls got the money together themselves but I definitely can't accept that because it wasn't their fault at all. The fact is that they probably get paid a little over half of what I do for a lot more work and much less vacation time so I think I can take the hit better than they can. In saying that, I'm going to be so skint next month I barely want to think about it (always the best way to handle your financial concerns...).