Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Day 5 (if you start from where I started.) Technically, its the second day of the program. Regardless: I'm LOVING Korea! This is an awesome trip! It's practically a vacation, the "classes" don't require much work - just exploring aspects of Korean culture. Yesterday we learned about Hangil the Korean written alphabet, and did two hours of practicing that. Also were invited to the awarding of an Honorary Doctorate to a national celebrity, and today we learned about Korean history and the differences between Korean culture and western culture. The first two days were unbearably hot and sunny, thought I'd sweat away my ... I dunno, there's not "DeF. phrase" for this situation. But since then its been very rainy, muggy, wet. But cooler, woohoO! Everyone else hates it, I'm loving it. Remarkable Observations: Koreans rarely wash their hands in the bathroom x_x I still have. Because of that, there are sinks but *NO* paper towels/air dryers. ANYwhere...

Andrew's log, Korea, Saturday June 27th - Day 01. I am presently in a Starbucks at Seoul Gimpo airport, enjoying an "iced orange black" (i presume tea.) Though they have free wifi, you need to be a Korean citizen (and have a draft registration number...) to access it. The trip here so far has been largely stressless, thank God. (P.S. The American song "can you believe, they put a man on the moon..." is playing. In English. How odd.) Delta Airlines was average by all measures. Korean Airlines was very hospitable, as Mrs. Marx said they would be! The touchscreen built into my seat was kind of annoying, but I was glad it existed at all for my 13 hour plane ride from Atlanta to Seoul Incheon! During those 13 hours, I slept for 2 hours, had two meals (Chicken and Beef, the chicken came with a side of sushi I tried and did not like.) Haha, I was totally offered wine but declined. During the trip I watched (in entirety) Taken, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Bride Wars, a...

End of Volume 5. [v.o.] "Previously, on The TV Show that is My Life... " [Montage of Summer adventures, culminating in clips of my arranging for the South Korea trip. Last party of the year at Kayla's, Jen's grad party, Circle K Spring Board Meeting, road trip to Rio, the haunted castle at night, the abandoned castle during the day, Cedar Point, driving aimlessly through Medina County, getting pulled over in Bedford Reservation, the abandoned school, 24 hour Walmart, Donut Depot, IHOP, Kim's picnic, The Melt, Edgewater, buying fireworks, setting them off,... ...Eventually fading to live-- Andrew, sitting at the Cleveland Hopkins international Airport. It's 7:45 AM. He has his labtop and carry on bag, and his large travel case finally packed with clothes. Passport in hand, he waits patiently to head to Atlanta, Georga. His plane leaves at 9:30 AM.]

So ends the second-to-last episode of the season. But don't worry, The TV Show that is My Life may be going on hiatus for a month - but you can still follow our made-for-TV-movie! Andrew Goes To Korea! Countdown to Korea: 20 hours. Well it's been a busy last episode or two X_X I've been shuffled office to office all over the University of Akron to get the last form filled out before I can leave. Turns out -- the History department doesn't keep any advisers on campus for summer (unlike ALL THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS) so I'm going to have to email and fax while I'm in Korea. On top of that, I got my first bloody parking ticket > It's just been a very frusterating week. The upside has definitly been I've argued Verizon into giving me my new upgrade early - so despite previous reports to the contrary, I will be able to call and txt and facebook from Korea! I have the new Blackberry Storm, its so perty n.n In other news, my bff's are arranging a dinner in...

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 ...

Woo, so for some reason I was up till like 6:30 -- but my insomnia finally got me to clean my room significantly. So the other day I did some preliminary explorations around various places - abandoned paint store in Garfield, abandoned school and house in Garfield, etc. So I haven't actually gone in any of these, but am considering in the future. Here we have the abandoned school by Dan's house on the outskirts of Garfield Heights, in the ghetto-est part of the city. Lol, I actually didn't compute that this school existed where it did. My mom actually worked here very briefly in the 1990's as an office clerk. All I really remember is that she taught a bunch of hoodlums to make paper airplanes and she felt accomplished. Another thing that never computed: a former school in Garfield was named after one of my two favorite Presidents! OMG! *u* Likely Franklin D., as it was built in 1960. Still, reminds me of a scene from Star Trek where they time travel back in time and fi...