A Needed Update

To my readers, I want to apologize for not updating this more, as I thought I would, but this is how things have turned out lately. I did write an update a few weeks ago and it was going to be my second installment about Seoul and the time we were in South Korea this summer. I had finished it with pictures, hyperlinks to more information about the places I had written about, but right before posting I realized that it was basically the same content as the first post of Seoul Snipets. This was frustrating, so I deleted it and emailed to my computer different pictures of our time in Korea to write the second post, but that has not happened yet.

For this post, I have decided to just give more of an update on my life and what is going on. First, I would say that in a lot of ways after the big trip this summer, I thought things were going to be different in some ways when we got back especially since there was a lot of effort and energy used on the trip, but that didn't exactly happened and some unexpected things/challenges came up after we got back. I feel like I am starting to recover a bit from everything that happened (a lot of good things and I would say considerably more than bad things) last academic year, from the trip this summer, and things that have happened since then.

I turned 40 in the middle of September or as I like to call it my 15th annual 25th birthday. I think some people might consider me to be pretty vain or extremely scared of dying when they hear this, but for me this is not the case. Because of my faith, death doesn't scare me at all, it's going to happen, and I am confident in what happens after that. What I don't like about turning 40 and getting older, is simply that, getting older. I am not someone who looks forward to not being able to do certain things as I age or not be able to do things to the degree and frequency that I can now. I know that in many ways, I am probably not a normal 40 year old man and how young I look, how in shape I'm in, and things like this, which in some way I will admit that I do take pride in that. Maybe this is a fault of mine and realize that I could get some disease tomorrow and waste away quickly or even die, but for the time being I really want to continue to try to maintain who I am and even improve still where I can. I want to be one of the youngest 100 year olds some day and when I do pass away some day at 100 or older, people will say I thought he was like 75, haha!

In fact, I am running the Purdue Half-Marathon this Saturday and I honestly do not know what to expect or what to shoot for. My fastest half-marathon time is about 1 hour and 38 minutes or somewhere around that. I've only ran one half-marathon before and it was about four or five years ago. I am not sure if it is realistic to say that I should try to beat my time or just say I would be happy with under 1 hour and 45 minutes. I feel like I am in pretty good shape, but I've had like a cold/cough since coming back from Korea where I trained very hard and then got COVID last week. Yes, I got COVID for the first time (which was annoying) and it was not a mild case. Maybe I have a very low pain tolerance, but for about four or five days, I couldn't do much and definitely do not wish COVID on anyone. I have been vaccinated and boostered too, Jihyun got it too, and we both had it pretty bad, so yeah, great times!

Since we have been back, I am still busy working three jobs and then we had Yena's cross country season (which she did very well), now swimming season, and just life, but have felt like I haven't been as active as I was last year. I have been trying to stay quiet and lay low, so to speak, in my jobs and just doing what I need to be doing without trying to be too ambitious or make a lot of noise because I have just felt the need to after things didn't all work out like I had envisioned from last year, which led to some disappointments in my professional and personal life (and I have no one to blame but myself). In some ways, it has been okay, it has allowed me to concentrate on making my new office comfortable and helped me create a sense that it is "my space,"started knitting a new blanket that I hope to finish by Christmas, and continue to work on the garden and plants in my yard. However, I have been in a bit of a writer's block and reader's block situation besides journaling since coming back from our trip this summer. I have managed to write one short story/poem on the smell of a secondhand bookstore, but not work on any novel ideas or stories, I have tried to read, but without much success. Although, I am currently reading Where the Red Fern Grows because I am going to use it next semester for my class to switch things up again. I thought it would be more lighthearted and close to my heart because it takes place in the Ozarks where I am from. However, it is actually an incredibly dramatic, gory in parts, and sad book in many ways more than I remembered, so this should be fun as I continue to read it and plan for next semester.

But with all of this up to the point, you might think I've been kind of down and even though I said I am starting to recover, you might doubt that a bit. Now, I do not want this blog to get super spiritual or one where I talk about my faith and you feel like I am trying to convert you (my readers) or something, but in the past week a word that has been in my head is rest. I am not saying rest only in terms of phsyical rest, but mental as well as spiritual rest and what that means and what I feel like God is telling me and where he is leading me. I am not exactly sure what this means completely yet, but I am trying to not feel like I need to constantly be trying or doing something and feel like it is helping me find an inner quietness that feels refreshing and secure. It doesn't mean that I am less busy or active, I mean I am running a half-marathon on Saturday and still working all my jobs, but really trying to focus on just being quiet on the inside and okay with this. I do not know what is coming or what is going to happen next, as we all do not, but right now I am focusing on rest.