Odds and Ends

I knew I had a few little things to report, nothing big though, and was trying to get it all together, when I realized I also have the trip to Taiwan to mention.

So, in order! First, all is well (except that I seem to have come down with some thankfully minor stomach thing), work is fine. I find that I go through money far faster than ever before… it could be because I’m more socially active, I guess, though what I’ve been realizing is that, among the other great things about ILS, I don’t think they were taking out any money for insurance, because I make a little more money than there, but a couple hundred less is deposited into my account, and the receipt of pay and deductions I receive from this place shows me exactly where that money goes, and it all adds up and makes sense. While we are cooked dinner by the owner here (well, an evening snack to me), there’s rarely much protein in the meals because meat is expensive, so I was in the habit of going to the Lotte Mart to buy their little packages of roasted pork, skin and fat and all. Largely because I work out at night and am less inclined to cook as well when I get home at 10-10:30. And of course, Sue the owner is right, meat is expensive, so I have been spending a bit more money on that, due to my knowing that there is no way I’m getting enough protein for the working out I do. Due to that and my huge hunger when I get home from work, I have some protein powder that I now keep at school and make a shake twice/day, which will hopefully help a lot more with protein consumption and hopefully help me eat less and finally (MAYBE?) trim off SOME fat. It’s just… how much? I decided way back in my 20s that I’d put on around 5-10 pounds because it helps hide lines and wrinkles. The other problem is that I did this whole heavy-duty dietary deprivation when I did P90X, & I find I’m less interested in working that hard at not eating and living in general. Especially as I noticed I was feeling bloated some evenings, and it appeared that coincided with when I ate a small bowl of cereal for dessert… wheat, that ongoing question mark. 

So I’m not eating wheat in the form of finished products. The thing IS, Asia is ground zero for cross-contamination. The idea that you should not use the same tongs you handled raw meat with is completely unheard of, so the idea that a little wheat used in some other dish being present is absolutely in NO WAY a thing or understood to be a problem. People think with all the rice they eat here (and they do eat a lot), there’s little or hardly any wheat here. Au contraire! Bakeries are EVERYWHERE here, and while you’d never likely guess it, all red kimchi has flour in it because it’s made from Korea’s red pepper paste, which is thickened with flour. So whenever there is red kimchi present or in something, if you have Celiac disease, there’s not a thing you can eat. Though there’s no WHERE you can safely eat either, what with using the same utensils and workspace and grease, etc., that cooked other things with wheat.

My stomach is ok but I’ve eaten very lightly this week due to its sensitivity before, so I’m aiming to keep eating as little as I have this week for the next several weeks. Here is hoping.

While I’m still seeing Aaron, I did, despite my knowing better, decide to give a new guy named Bill a chance. Things started off unconventionally enough when I received some texts at work which said, “Please I need to talk to somebody now.” When I got off work, I called. He’d had a flashback, because pretty much all the guys who are here seem to be military combat vets. After a few weeks of talking, he did what every blasted guy does: insists on seeing me when I have plans. Furthermore, he wanted to see me when I went up to Seoul for brunch, and his base is a good 1.5 hours south of my place. Meaning a 2-hour commute. I SOOooo didn’t want to. And I kept thinking of my rule that ANOTHER combat vet taught me in Chicago, namely, I don’t travel for guys. That’s kind of hard to do here, since military guys aren’t exactly treated like the adults you’d think they are, as they have nightly curfews, and if they wanted to stay off-base for a night or even after hours, they have to ask for leave. Plus, most guys are from the majority of America that has no public transportation, so the trains are buses are new enough to them, never mind adding a whole different language and alphabet into the mix. In short, if I am intent on repeating my mistakes from necessity, here in Korea I will have to go to them. (Note: the same vet who was my lesson on not traveling was I believe the same vet responsible for the rule about no more combat vets either.)

It was an extremely trying trip, punctuated with Bill suddenly not seeming sure he’d have enough time for me or not, so I had to wait around the train station by my place, waiting on his final decision. He said he’d have time, so onward I continued, cranky and despairing about my rule-breaking.

Sooo, long and short of it, his base is different from Aaron’s (or they’ve really cracked down on security since the exercises started up), so everything took much longer once I got there, from figuring out if I was at the right gate, to Bill not knowing how long it takes him to get to the gate from the barracks, to signing me in.

He was nice, just wish he knew… his way around the base, his way off the base… though at least once I was there us getting lost/not being able to find a cab to get to the restaurant he wanted to go to didn’t concern me in the least, since this was all his problem now.

Nice guy, but haven’t really heard from him since then. I really liked him, but I suppose it’s well enough, I just don’t need to get wrapped in a vet. I keep wondering if this is how my guys were when they got back? God there are just SOOO many of them that already have interpersonal issues and are starting to or already have PTSD. Sadly it looks like it’s going to be another generation’s turn to be a Jen or Claudia or Ruth to these guys, I just don’t have the wherewithal to figure out the inroads with them, and I don’t have the emotional capacity to break through their far fresher wounds.