32 & 31 - Getting close...

Come too darn far to quit now!

Even if I'm just marking the days and don't take the time to always do a proper update, I want it known to myself that I was here and I was keeping track, darn it! I watched every single one of these days go by. Sometimes I didn't do my best, while sometimes I gave more than I thought was humanly possible, but I was present and showed up for every single one of these days. That counts.

After reading a comment on my "Decisions, decisions" post, I have begun to re-think NOT taking the TOPIK test. As my friend pointed out "the day after the test, my friends will still be 'there'. The test won't." It's worth noting.

Said good-bye to yet another friend today. She and her husband (and their pre-born little one) are heading back to South Africa on Wednesday. She's one year older than me and has been in Korea on and off for about 5 years. The first two times she was here alone, but the third time she came back with her new husband and now she leaves with a new little one in their mix. Even though I haven't spent that much face time with her, that friendship is one of the most important ones in my time here and I'm so glad that we're leaving so close together. She gives me hope.

And along that theme, here's my quote for the day:

"Writing is an act of hope. It means carving order out of chaos, of challenging one's own beliefs and assumptions, of facing the world with eyes and heart wide open. Through writing we declare a personal identity amid faceless anonymity. We find purpose and beauty and meaning even when the rational mind argues that none of these exist. Writing therefore, is also an acto f courage. How much easier is it to lead an unexamined life than to confront yourself on the page?"

Jack Heffron

via wordpainting.tumblr.com

87- The best laid schemes...

I can't help but think about the future at this stage of my life. I think it's only natural. On the cusp of possibly the second greatest transition period of my life (the time directly after graduating from college being the first) I find myself casting forward for all possible iterations of my life after returning to the States.

As my best friend from college once remarked in the May of our senior year, "I've never been less certain of where I'll end up three months from now." and now I find myself in that place once again. I have plans (loosely laid, of course) dreams, visions, secret hopes and desires. All I can know for sure at this stage of the game ...is that I can't know anything for sure at this stage of the game. And I am learning to be OK with that.

"To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest, with the Plough"

Robert Burns.

Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,

O, what a panic is in your little breast!

You need not start away so hasty

With hurrying scamper!

I would be loath to run and chase you,

With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

And justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth born companion

And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;

What then? Poor little beast, you must live!

An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves

Is a small request;

I will get a blessing with what is left,

And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!

Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!

And nothing now, to build a new one,

Of coarse grass green!

And bleak December's winds coming,

Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,

And weary winter coming fast,

And cozy here, beneath the blast,

You thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel plough past

Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,

Has cost you many a weary nibble!

Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,

Without house or holding,

To endure the winter's sleety dribble,

And hoar-frost cold.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often askew,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!

The present only touches you:

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and fear!