Stephanie in Suwon

I’ve been trying hard to take it all in, the fact that this journey I started on 3 months ago….no…..2 years ago….is really coming to an end. I’m finding it difficult though, for some reason, to feel that, to know that. Today just feels like another day in Seoul. But it’s not. It’s my last day. My last day in Seoul. Walking home from dinner last night, I choose to put away my headphones and just listen to the sounds of the city as I made my way through the streets. Horns blaring and the whoosh and zoom of traffic, scooters zipping by with their put-put engine noises, and feeling the air around me shift and the sound barrier be broken as a Ducati flew past me, it’s wheels barely grazing the Seoul streets it honored with its presence. I listened to the sounds of drunken male voices, raised in good spirits and soaked with soju and kept my eyes on the sidewalk in front of me as I passed the business suit clad men who stared and shouted and stumbled towards me. I skirted the edges of the sid...

Rewind... How can a place that feels like a dream contain such harsh realities? How many ways can you lose yourself? How quickly can you forget who you are, how you are, what you are? How many ways can you love and loathe at the same time? How long will it be until you go, mercifully, numb? How did it come to this? And now…. Life in Technicolor. Sweat and shaky muscles. Peanut butter and banana. Joy. Laughter and longing. Iced vanilla lattes. Music and lyrics. Goodbyes…

Mr. Toombs, my fourth grade teacher, had decided that our class was going to raise butterflies as a science project. We watched our caterpillars eat, grow, wrap themselves up in their cocooned world and emerge triumphant; there was a sense of satisfaction at watching something ugly turn into something so beautiful. We had already released two of the three we had raised and were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the last one of our “pets”. We waited. And waited. There was a small crack in the cocoon and we could see movement coming from the inside if we watched closely but after 3 days, we were staring to get impatient. One of the boys in my class, Chaz, decided to help out our little friend and with the support of the rest of us he swiped an exato knife from the desk of our teacher and carefully, oh so carefully, enlarged the opening so as to assist the butterfly’s entrance to the world. The next morning we arrived in class to find our butterfly, the last butterfly, the butterfly we ha...

I haven’t been sleeping well as of late. And by as of late I mean since arriving in Seoul in May. I have slept all the way through the night approximately once since touching down. At first I chocked it up to nothing more than a severe case of jet lag, combined with the stress of starting a new job, and a fucking stressful job at that. Working for 14 hours a day might have enduced exhaustion in some but not this girl. Nope. Having to move 3 times in 2 months while hauling 2 suitcases, 1 backpack and an assload of emotional baggage also might have taken its toll on some. But not this girl. Watching the curtain close on yet another significant chapter in one’s life while being confronted with uncomfortable realities that one was seemingly unprepared for, might also have sent certain others into an emotional coma. But not this girl. I can’t sleep. And it’s starting to get to me. Last week I had one of the worst days I’ve ever had in Korea. It was Friday and after a (yet another) night of...

See you on the flip side my sister. Congrats. You survived. I love you.

Neon John Mayer I Could Say Lily Allen LoveGame Lady GaGa Crazy Bitch Buck Cherry You Rock my World MJ (RIP) Your Ex-Lover is Dead Stars Womanizer Brit Kissing Bliss Stolen Dashboard Confessional Time in a Bottle Jim Croce Morning Train Sheena Easton I’m Shipping Up to Boston Dropkick Murphys Life in Technicolor Coldplay Striptease Hawksley Workman Broken Strings James Morrison Human The Killers Most of the Time Bob Dylan I am in the midst of compiling a playlist for my last night in Seoul. There is much about bidding adieu to my experiences here that I have come to terms with/have been looking forward to/celebrated. Saying goodbye to this amazing city is not one of them. I feel truly blessed to have been able to spend close to a year and a half of my life living in, loving and exploring this place. On my last Sunday here, I’ll be trekking up to Namsan tower, an observatory situated atop a hill in the center of Seoul, to sit, sip iced coffee and watch the sun go down. The polluted haze...

This time around… I feel more connected. In every way one can be. I feel more connected to those who have become intertwined in the day to day life I am currently leading, than I felt about the people who I, once upon a time, spent close to a full year with. Nowadays I have come to appreciate the simple lunches and thoughtful hellos, no muss, no fuss. Dinner in Gangnam, gossiping and waxing poetic about cultural politics. Acknowledgement of how short our time has been/is/will be together, and sincere bittersweet smiles at the thought of saying goodbye. Weekend hiking trips. Tears, chocolate cookies and milk. Shisha, wine and cigarettes. I feel more connected to myself, relaxing into my skin in a way I’d forgotten existed. Loudmouthed and sassy. Speaking my mind in a way that suits me regardless of how or what people may think. My ironic surprise at the acceptance, understanding and laughter that greets me more often then not when I do so. And I do. So. Often. Laughter. I’d forgotten ho...