I got my self

It's not that I can't sleep tonight, it's just that I haven't tried. Though I'm exhausted.

I just finished the book. Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. Chide Opera all you want, but 'she' chooses some damn good books. What a messed up story. My god. I've said it before and I'll say it again: When a book (or a movie, song, image, or person) makes me laugh out loud or cry real tears it gets my stamp of genuine approval. I remember the first time it happened: when Anne's grandfather dies at the end of Anne of Green Gables. That was some serious emotional stuff. It's gotten me cleaning my room (and blogging(at the same time)). And using some weird new mathematical type of bracket.

Evita was bad. Seeing ol' friend Robin was nice, and her boyfriend. And her friend with his girlfriend. There were five of us and we went out for dinner. I made a joke about being alone and she layered on the sympathy. It was a joke! My mother thinks I would be happier if I would just find a man. Why bother, I say, when I'm about to leave the country?? I say that because she doesn't understand me when I say that I don't need a man to be happy. I say that because I haven't yet met someone who can do that. I'm not particularly unhappy anyway. And I'm not afraid of missing out on love. She replies that I'm putting my life on hold by leaving the country. Putting my life on hold?? Isn't this what life is about?

I feel like I'm at an important junction in my life right now where decisions have to be made. The two paths I envision are either a 'traditional' life of work and family and things, or a non-standard life of travel and experiment and rule-breaking. If I choose the latter, into which I slot Korea, I might never be able to rejoin the traditional. If I opt to be safe and return home after one year to 'find a man' and whatever else comes along with that, I might never be fulfilled. I don't know if I can choose both. There's no urgent decision to be made right now, since this one year that I am taking will hopefully provide some answers for me. But it is on my mind lately.

Taka is a 33 year old guy in my class who was born in Canada, raised in Germany, and educated with a six year law degree in Germany. He then went to Thailand on a whim to travel and got stuck, staying for at least four years. Returning to Canada he has found himself to be useless here; unable to use his degree and unable to find a job. He's moving back to Thailand at the end of the course to marry his Thai girlfriend and live in Thailand for the rest of his life. He really says that.

I can't imagine giving up on home for a country where you are forever a foreigner. He says that once you leave, even for just a year, your home ceases to be your home. It's like a sense of limbo where you don't feel complete in either the country you were living in or the place you came from. The people you knew have moved on with their lives without you and you have changed significantly. This idea intrigues me and scares me only slightly.

I'm ready to leave here. I'm curious to see how things will turn out. I feel like this whole thing will be a major determiner in the course of my life.

I'm on cold medicine too and perhaps feeling a little overly dramatic. And now I'm making excuses.