Unto Us a Blogpost Is Born!

As if we needed more proof to support the idea, “We earn nothing; God provides everything,” today was a fantastic Monday. I say this somewhat hopefully as it’s only 3:00 and plenty more could go wrong from here to lights off, but I’m fairly confident that a day of incidental exploring is hard to sully.

The goodness of today did not start with an hour-long wait at the bank (there’s only two employees who speak English and they were busy). It also did not start when I discovered it cost me $83 to transfer money back home, nor when I barely made it through half a work out since my legs were inexplicably tired from . . . doing nothing except climbing up and down mountains in order to go to the bank.

It was my day off and I was sweaty, red-faced and fresh from a workout, but still I managed to run into bevies of students several of whom wanted to talk and a couple of coworkers including my surrogate grandmother, Annette, and my needy surrogate mother, Nancy, who is a victim of her age and its coinciding with the birth of the USB. Trials.

A little exploring goes a long way.

Maybe that’s when the goodness of this Monday started, because it’s always nice to be able to help the not-so-elderly with computer troubles. On a scale of one to proficient where computers are involved, I am somewhere muddled between two and luddite, so when I am able to be useful, it is cause for great rejoicing.

So I ate egg-on-a-bagel and rejoiced.

After that I spent less than twenty minutes in the national pension office (a chore I had assumed would take several days and many more tons of patience) before being assured I would get about $2000 sometime in September. I can only assume it will cost about $400 to transfer said sum, but that’s still a profit!

With time to spare I checked a map for the nearest library and hopped on a bus which took me wending around the city, up a mountain, and through a picturesque mountainside town. There (or rather here) the library is nestled among the rolling green mountains of Busan, adjacent with Memorial Park and a courtyard in which old men to play checkers.

Unfortunately the library is closed. Fortunately, the weather today is a sunny celebration at 26 C. Mostly I think I’m happy to have had a little adventure today. They seem to come when I least expect it. Even after this past weekend’s puppy café and the excitement of a college acquaintance/buddy visiting, I spent the morning bemoaning the banality of my existence here in Korea to my patient parents.

Lately I’ve been tossing around the idea of writing a memoir of my expat time here in Korea, but I can’t justify the use of paper it would be. It would all boil down to nothing more than a single humbling truth:

I earn nothing; God provides everything.

Even corgis!