I'm Ten Years Old...And My Name Is Platypus-Ninety-Nine

• Yesterday I did a lot of caulking around the house to keep cockroaches from making their crawly way back in again. I did this with great vigor and enjoyment, but when I opened the package of black, symmetrical, pentagon-shaped, and seemingly born to judge and kill poison traps - infect roaches so even their poop is poisonous and kills the others in the nest when they eat it - I just lost a lot of my enthusiasm. If I could just keep the cockroaches out, what is the point of going out of my way to kill them all? A re-occurring thought: what is even so bad about living with cockroaches, maybe even sleeping with them crawling on me every now and then? They don't bite, and I'm beginning to think that they might not actually sleep in peoples' ears and lay eggs (just barely though). What is the concrete disadvantage to living with cockroaches in your apartment, besides the fact that no one will come over because they think you're really dirty? Perhaps they are filthy, I thought after a bit, and they would be bad for your hygiene. Ah well, I thought, as I put the four traps around my apartment. I only felt like I needed two, but since the pack came with four and they started losing their effect as soon as the bag was opened...

• I had an awesome time in South Korea. I'm really grateful to my great (grate) friends who showed me all over the place, housed me, fed me delicious food, and just shared with me their great company. Great/What's happening to my vocabulary?　もしかして、日本語の邪魔・・・Here are some pictures, right...here:

Han River on a *** night.

By the way, I'm listening to Yura Yura Teikoku's "Kuukou Desu." So if you've got it, put it on...now.















Mmm?
















Mmm...
















Mmm.
















Rice Baby. Kind of scary. And talk about about bad table manners...little brat.
















Inordinate amount of cops before a parade. This was about a twentieth of the cops there.

Beautiful.















Protesters. Against South Korea's current president.














Drumming. Amazing.















The parade was planned to file into a covered, outdoors area where there would be pop concerts and the like. The protesters, of course, were not invited to this part of the ceremonies. Eventually, however...














Took the stage.














I felt like I was flying.














Until.














Ran in file through and over the people in front of me.






























Some cops tried to push their way inside a group of protesters only to be hit repeateldly, yelled at, and pushed out helmetless and covering their heads, cowering.














Media interviewing.














The area cleared up and people went on to sing and dance and pass out fliers.
It was inspiring and refreshing to be surrounded again by people who care enough about something to educate themselves about it, at least to a degree, mobilize together, and publicly show their feelings against it. I felt a certain kind of connection even though I didn't know anybody there protesting.

And that will take you to the beginning of my second night and day in Seoul! I have much more to write and show, after all it was a trip full of different beautiful and interesting experiences. You can look forward me recounting these tales in future posts (South Korea pt. 2!!). But for now...

• I keep coming back to a desire to be able to play a role in helping people understand each other better. I feel like so many of the world's problems are caused just by people not understanding each other and instead fearing and reviling what (they perceive) is different about them. If we could just communicate with each other.

• At the same time, I'm learning to take it slow. I would do best to not try to decide now how I'm going to offer time and energy to this movement. I'll just decide some tools I'm going to use for now.