Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Well, that year had it's ups and downs, but I think was a pretty un-interesting year overall actually. Sure I got a lot done, but I just don't feel that sense of excitement and adventure I always hope for. I student taught (man, that seems like forever ago), finished being Circle K Governor, graduated with much family and friend hoopla, went to New Orleans for Circle K and got my wallet stolen, went to the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas; went to my first Anime convention in Maryland, met the Green Power Ranger; picked up Patsy from Camp, visited the Jersey Shore and D.C.; passed the Foreign Service Officer exam; worked on Senator Brown's re-election campaign down in Chillicothe, got him reelected (woohoo!) paid my credit cards down to zero with the earnings from that, now in the process of getting my student loans taken care of so I have no debt to my name going into early 2013. Got myself a PS3, a new phone, mom got me a digital pictu...

Alright, my 30 Rock obsession week is almost over, but I have been thinking of a way to return to New York city for months. Amanda has even pointed out it's been too long since this show has gone on a road trip, and last time I went to New York I definitly didn't get to hit everything I wanted. So this time, I think I'll plan ahead a little bit better. And now that the Roosevelts are not a major target of my trip, I can try harder to find a hotel in Manhattan . 30 Rock & NBC Universal Store : Ha, I had the opportunity to see this place up close last time but time was short and interest was less than it is now -- definitely taking the opportunity to go back there and find some 30 Rock paraphernalia!! Maybe an NBC page will give me a tour like Kenneth does! :D F.A.O. Schwarz : So I'm watching this travel channel thing about Christmas in New York, and they went to the oldest toy store in America! I first heard of this place during an SNL skit actually, and it...

Woo, well after a fairly successful Thanksgiving (for this family) -- today Sarah & I drove out to Fremont, Ohio to see the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Museum, House & Library . I'm using the fact that going really is extra credit in my American Presidency class, but really I just love going to Presidential sites -- especially the ones in Ohio I haven't been to. n.n Fremont, btw - is in the Sandusky area of Ohio, so an hour and 40 minute drive West. (Approximately the width of South Korea!) The temperature was 25 degrees today X_X this fact will come into play later. So we go up to this big fancy entrance, and wouldn't you know this is just the for-show entrance -- you actually enter on the side. Ugh. So we go inside, buy our tickets (for admission to both museum, and the house tour is 13 dollars a person. No student discount -.-) Luckily though, cause we didn't want this to take all day, there was a house tour in 5 minutes. I didn't want to carry m...

HOLY SH*T! I just scared myself half to death. Okay, over the course of the last 48 hours I haven't gotten enough sleep. Work 12a-4a, then 8a-5p with other craziness bookending those. So I'm pretty heavily falling asleep at the desk - and out of my peripheral vision just now the stand-alone hand sanitizer dispenser looked like a ancient Greek statue that was about to kill me ! Like I legitimately almost went to red alert, defensive mode. I *Really* need to sleep. ... So. Moving on. Me and Sarah decided to take Spring Break in New York City, and on the way there stop in Centralia, Pennsylvania ! I've wanted to go here for like, 5 years! This is the place that INSPIRED Silent Hill !!! (To those not in the know, Silent Hill is my favorite video game series ever. Yes, more than Pokemon.) A little more background, this actually makes more sense if you've seen the Silent Hill movie than if you've just seen the video game - but in the movie and game, Silent Hill is this ...

What a good day! Me and Sarah decided a random, not too planned-ahead road trip was in order the first opportunity we were both able to go over break. And after initially considering Chesapeake Bay, based on a book I once read and my recent taste for mussels - we decided on Washington D.C.! We originally hoped for a two-day trip :( but a bunch of things got in the way on Tuesday, so we ended up leaving pretty late and getting to DC at like 8. The trip down was interesting, got to talk with my baby tons :D and explore different radio stations. And all through Pennsylvania, that Damned rock chased us! By which, I mean to reference the fact that whenever I pass through PA I laugh at the fact that there's tons of signs that say "FALLING ROCK" (pictured), shouldn't it be falling rocks? Is there this one Rock that's falling they're warning us about? This funny thing was first noticed by me and Alex on our trip to Intercourse, PA back in... 07 I think? Anyway, moving...

O ff to International Convention! Rather than fly, me and J.K. decided it would be cheaper to drive to Birmingham, Alabama and it would give us the opportunity to visit historical sites along the way. Also, I don't believe he's a big fan of flying. I was okay with the idea, and can't pass up an adventure like that! So I drove the 2 hours to C-Bus, and then he drove the rest of the way to Nashville, Tennessee. U nfortunately, due to other matters in my life including but not limited to ASG's increased complications about taking out the Visa and picking up my Korean at the airport, our in between-travel time was cut short. So in reality, we only got to visit one historical site on the way down - 7th President, Andrew Jackson 's House - The Hermitage . T hat was alot of fun. I do love me historical sites. It had a small video right as you enter -- Oh! Let me rant for a minute that entry is 17$, 11$ for student, but Student does not mean college, just high school >...

Lately the car has a little coolant light that is on for the first minute while I'm driving, but goes off every time. Still, I'm thinking I probably need to add more coolant. Yet, I imagine the car overheating just on my way down the street, the engine getting explosively hot and smoke/steam coming out of the hood like the stereotypical image. Aside from the car, that's how I've felt lately. Too much is going on, my life is too exciting - wow, things I'd never thought I'd say. What I wouldn't give for a lazy day [correction: week] to sit around and do nothing, because no one can hang out, and I don't have anything to get done. They say jetlag lasts 1.5 days for every timezone change. I passed through, um, 12. Yeah, I've still been feeling the effects of the day of airports coming back from Korea, to top that off I've been hanging with friends too often screwing with my sleep scheduel. I stayed up all night the other day, I don't even remembe...

S ome of our group is unfortunately starting to get homesick, as the study abroad advisers invariably warned of. I am not quite there yet, but I expect I will be by the end of the week. I am still of the impression this is one of the greatest experiences of my life -- and it has been -- and I don't want it to end! It's like summer camp, but instead of learning to make fires and identify leaves, I'm learning about foreign cultures and traveling a bunch! AHHH! I LOVE IT n.n I love it so much I'm already brainstorming my next trip! After staying in the Youth Hostel in Seoul, they are (often) an affordable alternative to hotels and they cover the globe! I'm thinking Europe should be my next destination, in particular the scandenavian countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland. Or maybe the Czech Republic to find the home of a majority of my ancestors. I've also been invited to visit new found friends in Canada, Germany, and China. And I've been advised not to...

So over the course of Friday and Saturday, a majority of the group took a roadtrip to Busan (a major port city and tourist attraction ala` Cleveland to Ulsan's Akron.) The first group partied and clubbed as mentioned in the previous blog, the second group left in the morning and took taxi, bus, subway, other subway - and mainly went shopping. Led by our fearless leader - So-Yeong (who was awesome, she really stressed herself out trying to keep track of 19 students running across a city she wasn't even from.) we went to a big shopping center. Remarkable observation: I'd noticed in Korea that the "popular" name brands were kind of everywhere. Not like, American Eagle or Hollister, but Polo, Ralph Lauren, Nike, Adidas, K-Swiss, etc. While talking with Kyu-hun (who eventually met up with us while we were shopping) he implied you have to buy names in Korea - because non-name brands are probably badly made Chinese imports, that fall apart after you wash them once. Its i...

Woo! So I'd been hoping to devote a road trip to another pseudo-major city in Ohio for abandone buildings, particularly one that had many on websites like Illicit Ohio or the No Tresspassing one - and when Sarah wanted to go on such a road trip, Youngstown seemed like a great idea! Especially since rather than one abandoned building, they had a whole abandoned military base! On top of getting a late start, it took us quite a while to find the place! We saw a bunch of apparently abandoned steel factories, and any other kind of establishment you can imagine in "The Incredible Shrinking City." One gas station tried directing us to the Ravenna Arsenal, but that turned out to not be it (and be much more heavily guarded than I would want to try to break into. It had a tank!) But after hours of searching, we found it! But had to find a good place to park, a closed car repair shop with a near-full lot was perfect cover! After the hike up a hill (I removed my sunshine yellow polo ...

Haha, so anyone who knows me knows I like referencing "The TV Show that is My Life." Because my life is a TV show, with repeats, guest stars, and cliff hangers. Well it seems like lately the show went on location in this forest near a huge-round onramp. And I've encountered this exact image (in different places) like four, five times this week (twice supposed to be the same place.) But I've been joking with Panda and Sarah that we just filmed on location for one day, and my character just changed clothes three times. Long story short, me and Amanda returned to the scene of the crime so to speak and found a castle in the woods we'd been looking for earlier but couldn't find. Remember my blog is like the bonus features and in depth story of my Facebook albums, so these pictures are all different (and usually more intersting) than the ones on Facebook - but should be read in conjunction with. The story of Faymore's castle is that a pharmacist got rich off ...

Oh. Desperate for a clever title, I settled for that. So last night me, moon, nata, panda and dan (sort of nicknames and aliases I guess) went out to a supposedly-"haunted" castle in Willoughby Hills in the middle of the night. First off, yay for getting to hang with Renata! I never get to cause she's busy. Because it was night, (night, knight, it's a castle-- get it) the pictures did not come out very good at all unfortunately. In this one you can see a camera glare in the fireplace and by the window. If the "haunted" stories are true, I guess some ghost hunters believe these to be the ghosts/spirits? I dunno, I think its the flash reflecting off the water particulars in the air, it was a very misty night. The story apparently goes, that (Oh-- this place is called "Squires Castle" btw, and its in a Cleveland Metropark) turn-of-the-century Cleveland Oil Tycoon Squire built the castle to serve as the groundsmens house for *his* huge-uber castle mans...

So to those not in the know, mom/grandpa/I (in a strange ownership circle) are now the temporary/long story proud owners of a 2009 White Toyota Yaris. Bought it with 70 miles on it, this morning I put my 1,700th (I've had it a little over a week or two.) But until I leave for Korea, the car's mine :D so the other day I did some traveling across Ohio, and found two abandoned buildings. Thought I'd put some explorations on here. Well, I'm reminded of one instance last year camping with Brit and Sarah, when I wanted to explore an abandoned house on the side of the road in the middle of no where but it wasn't a good idea. So I was driving past these two buildings - across the street from each other - then decided to turn around and check them out. Here we have a barn thing. Falling apart, apparently abandoned, it was in the middle of no-where Southern Ohio, down the road from a cement/sand plant kinda place. The inside was pretty basic what I expect out of an old abando...