A short (but important) post

I've thought about the writing of this blog post a lot. Like, A LOT. And for a long time. I've thought about how it might affect current relationships, my family, my budding career... and my feelings are still very conflicted. But I know that I need to be open about this in order to be a happy, healthy person.

So, here it goes. *deep breath*

I'm gay.

(Oh, that still feels weird saying that where other people can hear it... or, you know, read it.) I definitely like girls and I have been dating a wonderful woman for almost a year now. I told my family members a little while after we started dating. That time in between starting to date and telling them was so strange because I do not really keep secrets from my family... I'm a bit of an oversharer, generally. The decision to start dating women was not lightly made and came after much internal struggle and many hours of prayer and soul searching. And I am really happy that I made the jump. Not just because I was able to meet a wonderful lady in the process, but also because it was a huge step in accepting myself.

I know many of you will have many questions, but I'm not going to really go into much detail here or on Facebook. If you have questions for me, you are welcome to private message me and I will answer as much as I am comfortable revealing (again... oversharer here).

I also know that some of you will have strong feelings (some of you positive, some of you negative), but please know that this is not up for debate with me. I understand the need to honor and respect other's opinions and I *mostly* try to not get into "political" debates online (notice I said online; a very important distinction... also "mostly"). However, this is not a political debate nor an opinion. This is my reality and my life. So, for my own mental health, at this point I ask that any comments you may have that are anything less than positive and supportive comments be kept to yourself.

Yep. Okay. I did it. *high fives myself* Now, please enjoy this video of cute kittens.

30 before 30: Second to last update!

I know I'm a little late. But only by a few months, right? I'm going with that being okay. But I realize that now I have less than a year to complete my 30 before 30 goals! Oh my gosh! I'm not sure I will get all this done. Eep! I picture myself doing a lot of work this summer to catch up.

But here it is! My next to last update on my 30 before 30 goals!

1. Graduate from the Portland State School Counseling graduate program
I did it! After two years of working part time, going to classes in the evenings, writing papers, reading, reading, reading, six months of clinical practice and then 9 months of stressful internships, and I did it! I met some amazing people who are now doing amazing work at schools. Go team!

9. Get a "real" job
Around about the time I went to Korea last summer, I was starting to feel a little worried about what I would be doing in the fall. I had done SO. MANY. INTERVIEWS. So many. And I had gotten so many phone calls and emails saying no, no, no. I got a couple of phone calls that were like, "It was down to you and another person, and we went with the person with more experience."

Then, in August, when I was in Santa Clara for my grandmother's unexpected funeral (rest in peace, Graham Cracker), I got a phone call while at the wake at my Aunt's house from a job in Newberg. We played a little phone tag and I got the interview set up. Then I got ANOTHER phone call from another school in Newberg asking if I wanted to schedule an interview for a little bit after my interview at the other school since I was in town.

Back to back interviews and both went well. I got tours of the schools showing me where my office would be, etc. As I as going into my second interview I got called off from work which turned out to be a blessing because I got a phone call from the district asking me to come interview with the superintendant (and the principal of the school from my first interview of the day). At that interview I was offerred my pick of either position and while I felt like I knew which one right there, I told them I would sleep on it and call them in the morning.

Thus I became the school counselor at Mabel Rush Elementary in Newberg! Every day is an adventure. There have been many tears and lots of self-doubt, but I have been told by my principal I am doing well so I'm going to trust her judgement and continue working hard to create a better and more prevention focused program next year.

19. Practice my language skills (Spanish? Korean?)
Well, I am definitely practicing. I have a fair amount of Spanish speaking families and I try really hard to go out of my way to speak with them in Spanish when I see them (same with my Spanish speaking students). I have been told I have a wonderful accent (why, thank you), but I still have a lot to learn! I really really REALLY want to do some more active practice. I'm hoping to find an imersion program (preferably involving travel, of course) where I can attack this language.

20. Put fun color in my hair
I BECAME JEM!!! I had pink hair last summer. I was going to wait until I had a job but when July rolled around and I was frustrated with not getting hired, I decided to color my hair so it would be pink for the two weeks in Korea. It was amazing and I felt like a fairy princess.

I plan on dying my hair again in June. Still trying to decide if I will wait until school is over or if I want to have pink hair on the last day of school.

23. Learn to sing Korean karaoke
I decided to say yes to this one, though it is half-hearted. When I wrote this goal, I meant that I would be comfortable reading the Korean alphabet enough that I could sing Korean songs at a noraebang. Well, I'm not quite there yet.

BUT!

Mindy and I DID manage to sings a song in Korean when we went to the noraebang in Korea (mostly) AND we were able to figure out the  remote to work the basics of the karaoke machine at the noraebang.

In other news, I recently went with some friends to a Korean noraebang place in Beaverton that had the SAME GIANT REMOTES. And they had a sticker on the table with the translations! Look! It's so awesome!!

26. Go back to Korea (hopefully with a job there, but I'll settle for a vacation)
I went on a two week vacation to Korea last summer! It was AWESOME!!! I'm on the edge of deciding if I want to go back and work there (kind of feeling the vibe for western Europe), but that kind of depends on where I'm at in the next few years.

There are still quite a few of my goals that I have not reached yet (why did I put so much reading on there? and shoot a gun? what was I THINKING?!), but there's a year of adventure before me so we will see what comes!

Eat all the things!

Last, but not least, FOOD! Of course this needs it's own post. We ate LOTS of delicious food in Korea and there are definitely days where I wish I could eat some of those things. Soooo good...

First, every morning, the guesthouse people put out a nice little spread for the guests. Nothing fancy, just hard boiled eggs, bread, nutella, jam, some fruit, cereal, milk and yogurt. Some mornings there was juice or some of those little yogurt milk things (not sure what to call them). It was a great way to start the mornings.

We also consumed large quantities of ice cream. Mindy go a fish shaped cone with ice cream and strawberry sauce. I was still full from who knows what so I didn't get one.

LOVED these rose shaped ice creams in Myongdong! Tasty, pretty, AND they matched my pink hair!

Got this honey comb ice cream in Hongdae. Mindy had never had honey on ice cream (baffled my brain because that's my go to).

Just one example of the many delicious ice cream bars you can get. This one has chocolate crispy crunchies on the outside with strawberry sauce in the middle. Mmmm... I want one.

We also tried lots of tasty snacks. Although these are way better when it is cold outside, Deli-mandoo are always delicious. They fill these yummy little things with custard. Yum yum yum. The ladies were also really impressed with my hair and we took a selfie with them.

 Mindy chillaxin with some of our favorite snacks: the spicy sweet tteokbokki crackers (SO GOOD!!!), choco pies, and rice cracker things.

A pile of more SNACKS!!

And gummy chicken feet!!

Mildly in love with Korean pizza... might have convinced Mindy to order it 3 times. Maybe... yes.
Go Pizza Heaven!! With K-Pop boy bands on the box (no idea who they are... Mindy probably knows).

Couldn't wait to take a picture... sorry. This one was sweet potato pizza. It had corn, onions, and sweet potatoes (not yams... sweet potatoes... they are different). And we got a free corn salad on the side. We ended up ordering multiples of that on the other orders. The guy at the front desk thought we were really weird ordering sweet potato pizza and so much corn salad...

SO GOOD.

A also love jajangmyung. It's noodles with black bean sauce. A little bitter and oh so good!

We went out for bbq one night and ordered pork belly which then came with a million sides. Poor Mindy was very patient with me. I would start out super hungry and then wimp out when there was still a ton of food left. She felt honor bound to finish all the meat. We didn't even touch the soup...

So... much... food... mmmmm...

 We tried to find this one restaurant in Hongdae and after hiking around trying to find it, we gave up and went to this yummy looking tteokbokki place. WHICH WAS AWESOME!

We got a set with tteokkbokki, cheese pizza (cheese bread with honey dip, YUM), and a GIANT BINGSOO. Tteokkbokki is chewy rice cakes in spicy sweet sauce. This also had ramen, veggies, some mandu (potstickers) and some other unidentifiable yummies. And baby quail eggs! So tiny!

Bingsoo is shaved ice with ice cream and sweet red beans.

We were really full and poor Mindy might have eaten her bingsoo a little too fast.

Brain freeze!!

 We REALLY love tteokkbokki... so we went to Tteokkbokki Town! A street lined with tteokbokki restauraunts! I really wanted to try jajangmyung tteokkbokki... but I guess she didn't understand me when I ordered and we got regular spicy tteokkbokki. Oh well. Still yummy.

And this lady was really funny. She kept trying to talk to me and I tried explaining that I couldn't understand but she kept talking and laughing and, like, hitting me on the back. And the FUNNIEST part was she just WOULDN'T TALK TO MINDY!! Mindy speaks more Korean than I do and kept trying to talk to this obviously excited grandma but the lady just blatantly ignored her!! Hahaha!! It was so funny!

Oh, and it was funny that Mindy and I wore aprons and still managed to get sauce on our clothes.

And then we went one more time to that yummy place in Hongdae.

At the recommendation of one of her friends, we also went to this one place that is supposed to be super famous. We went and Mindy ordered what we thought was just pork. Then she looked it up on her phone and looked at me with a scared look on her face. "I just ordered pigs feet."

Surprisingly very tasty (though very greasy) and paired very nicely with the soup it came with. I just couldn't do the fatty skin parts. I did for a while and then just... couldn't any more.

 And though we had just eaten a very large lunch with Mindy's friend's friend (I ate raw ground beef and didn't get a picture), when we found the Hello Kitty Cafe, I HAD to go!

An adorable brownie and lemonade.

One of our last meals was samgyetang: a whole chicken in a bown that has been tuffed with rice, ginseng, jujube, and garlic. Then boiled to delicious perfection and topped with green onions. I am salivating just thinking about it.

And our final meal in Korea: Taco Bell! At the airport, we were looking for food before our flight and when we headed up to the food court, Mindy looked at me all sad and said, "I REALLY want American food... can we have Taco Bell?" And I was MORE than happy to accommodate. And it was AMAZING!! Why do we not have a burrito with beef, nacho cheese, and FRIES?! OMG. Soooo good! Perfect food to eat right before a 10 hour flight, right? Right? Nothing could go wrong... and nothing did.

P.S. look at that adorable shirt Mindy is wearing! Apples! That are ORANGE! I got the same one with pink apples.

Buy all the things!

So, I LOVE shopping in Seoul! There are so many cute things and there is so much cheap, cute, good quality makeup and face car stuff. So I came home with A LOT of junk!

I put all the things I bought on my bed when I got home. The pile in front is presents and the pile in back (the big one) is MINE!

So much cute makeup! I LOVE the little cupcake lip and cheek tint!

And here are my face washes, creams, lotions, and masks! The little pink bunny is a mister for when it's really dry and you are out and about, the orange one is a perfume stick.

These are all face masks (only a few of which I actually purchased, most came free).

And THIS is all the free stuff I got!

I LOVE stationary stores! So many cute cards, stickers, and notebooks! So many...

3 adorable bags.

And then here's some of the other random junk I bought. Lots of it. 

Last, but DEFINITELY not least, Eat all the things!!!

See all the things! Part 3: Jeju-do

Woof! A lot has happened since I last posted and I STILL haven't finished updating you on my trip to Korea! Woops!

Anyways, on to Jeju-do!

Mindy proposed that we go to Jeju-do, an island off the southern tip of South Korea. So I put her in charge of figuring out how to get there and how to get around once we did. It ended up being super cheap: less than $60 for round-trip tickets to fly down and then we spent maybe $20 on the city bus. What an awesome day trip!

So we got up super early and headed to the airport to hop a short plane ride to Jeju and then it was a trick to find the right bus to get to the first stop for the City Bus Tour. We hopped on the bus and headed out on our adventure.

Aaaand I was really grumpy for, like, most of the day, and trying really hard not to be.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to eat any breakfast before getting on the plane and we could not find any convenience stores or anything at the airport (which we figured out how to find when we returned, but that doesn't matter). We decided that since we were going to really touristy places, there were BOUND to be some convenience stores or vending machines (SOMETHING). There weren't. So I was a little hangry. Luckily there were plenty of places to buy drinks so I drank a lot of water. But we didn't get any food until after noon and it was REALLY hot and we were REALLY hungry.

BUT we did see some awesome things! We went to a great market, the Jeju stone park (which features a park with some of the famous volcanic stone sculptures and natural formations of volcanic rock), the Jeju Peace Park, and Dragon Head Rock.

Unfortunately, I was really horrible about taking pictures. I'm so sorry!

I did get some great photos of the Jeju Peace Park. When we first pulled up, we were a little worried it was closed because there was literally NO ONE THERE. And it was a little eerie with all this huge black crows flying around a big empty space. We didn't know much about it before going in, but we had heard it was a somber place. The museum pays tribute to the Jeju Island Incident and the war crimes that occurred during an uprising on the island. You can read a little bit more about it here on Wikipedia.

The museum had a neat interactive art installation where people could write on slips of paper and hang them up on this wall. Many notes were in Korea (of course), but some were in English and said things about never knowing this had happened or about hearing stories from their grandparents about the incident and feeling more connected with them after going through the museum.

Outside was a big fountain. Around the fountain were stones with hundreds of names carved on them of the men, women, and children who had died (most having not received a proper funeral).

After the Peace Park, we went to the Stone Park which would have been more fun if I hadn't been hangry and it hadn't been so very hot and humid. There were statues much like these guys (which the island is famous for).

We meant to go to two markets (the first of which was fun), but the second one was either closed for the day or we just went the wrong way. But we had about an hour until the next bus came. We ended up finding this tiny hole in the wall coffee shop and ordered the only thing on the menu that we could figure out which turned out delicious. Then there was a whole awkward bathroom incident which... we don't necessarily need to go into.

We got to the airport several hours early and then our flight was late. Poor Mindy wasn't feeling well at this point and we were both hot and tired. Long day *whew*

Next up: BUY ALL THE THINGS!!!!

See all the things! Part 2: City Tour Bus

As part of our time in Seoul, we decided to spend a day hitting multiple things and decided that the hop on, hop off city tour bus would be an easier way to find things than taking the subway - faster and air conditioned, less stress trying to find locations of things. Yeah... it didn't quite work out that way... but whatever.

After getting our tickets and hopping on at Gwanghwamun, we decided our first stop would be the Korean War Memorial. We were dropped off on the side of a busy road and left to find it on our own. Word to the wise: there are NO SIGNS in English for the memorial. Just FYI. We wandered for about 30 minutes before asking a security looking guy near where we were dropped off who pointed us towards a big arched sign in Korean that led to a deserted and very official looking parking lot where we found a guy who pointed us in the right direction of another official looking building where we finally climbed a bunch of stairs to walk down a lovely corridor filled with names of foreign soldiers who died in the Korean war. There was a statue of some kind as well and a small cafe.

See this? Now you know you are there. 

The view outside

We had wandered so much that we missed our bus so we had to hang out until the next one. We got something to drink, some ice cream, and then headed out so we would get to the bus at the time the schedule we had seen posted at the bus stop said it would be there (which, by the way, was a different time than the schedule we had been given when we bought our tickets). Of course, the bus just kind of comes when it wants to, anyways, so it didn't really matter what schedule we looked at. That's fun, too.

Then it was off to our next stop: the National History Museum! At this point we realized two things: 1) We've learned a lot of Korean History from watching historical Korean dramas, and 2) We know very little about Korean history. Solution? More dramas, of course!

The museum is beautiful and free (an added bonus). We wandered a bit before we realized we were both fading and in dire need of sustenance. After some foods and more wandering of the museum, we decided to move on to our next stop on our adventure.

This stop was the hanok village. A hanok is a traditional Korean house. There is supposed to be this neighborhood you can walk around and admire the lovely houses, but I think where we went wasn't that. Wherever we went, it was fun anyways. We got to wander around some traditional house grounds and see the pretty architecture.

This is also where we saw the doctor, which I was remiss in saying was at the palace in my last post (oops!).

Mindy takin' some pictures

The BESTEST part of this stop was that we got there just in time to see a taekwondo demonstration. We came in after they had brought up some audience volunteers to break some boards. One lady had a dress on and they showed her how to kick and when she went to do it the guy threw himself in front of her so people wouldn't see up her dress. Good job, dude. Suuuper funny. But the guy broke his board so, good job!

After that, they got up and did a big presentation onstage. Now, I got to see a lot of taekwondo when I was in high school because I would often take my sister, Jesi, to taekwondo practice. But THIS was an entirely different sort of demo. This was one of those, "Let's be impressive and show off our action movie moves" kind of demos. They did crazy flips and multiple board breaks where they would run and jump off of someone's back to get to a crazy high board. Very cool.

There was also a dance which was really cute. It was like this guy trying to meditate and this girl comes out and is teasing him and when he tries to catch her she makes him look all clumsy and adorable. Loved it.

Cute AND funny!

After the performance and a bit of wandering, we decided to head back to the bus. We had plans to hit up a palace, but, unfortunately, they were all closed for the day. That was fine with me, because I was fading fast. I was still jet lagged and it had been a long, HOT day. We got back to the guesthouse and Mindy guided me to dinner (we grabbed some spicy chicken with tater tots and deok (chewy rice cake) from a street vendor) and we fell asleep watching dramas... ok. I fell asleep and Mindy turned off the drama and said I needed to go to bed. Whatever.

Next up is the final installment of "See all the things!" with our trip to Jeju-do!