Wed Aug 13, 2003
Narrating the copious and boring details of my life is starting to feel tedious to me. This attitude, unfortunately, poisons the writer’s work, seeping into the pores of every sentence. Writing into a near vacuum seems somewhat pointless to me now, especially considering I’m a very private person and will never indulge in unbridled catharsis in this journal. Of course the inner workings of any human mind makes for a more fascinating read than a day to day laundry list of events, but I cannot do that here, and hence, I’m frustrated by my self-imposed restrictions. Well, whatever, here it is.
On Saterday I went hiking in the hills behind city hall and discovered an abandoned guard tower inhabited only by a spiders and frogs. The view from the top was very cool. Then I ran around the trenches like a soldier and thought about buying a hammock so I can string myself up in the cool trees and doze in the summer heat. That night I went over to Brian and Mika’s and watched the new James Bond movie (ugh) and this movie called “Drumline”, I give you the title only so you can avoid watching it. Ok, it wasn’t TOO bad, but was definitely saddled with a painfully predictable plot.
On Sunday we went to Yongsan Electronics Market and Brian introduced me to his connection – Mr. Kung. We put together a computer for myself from scratch. We also bumped into some South African friends of Brian and Mikas there. Brian was egging me on to get the best components with ‘speed’, ‘power’ and ‘performance’ being the operative words. Being a somewhat typical male in this situation I made sure my computer was one bad-ass pumped up machine. For those in the know, it’s a Pentium 4 - 2.5 Gigs of speed, with just over a gigabyte of RAM, 52x CD-rewriter/DVD player combo, 64 Megabyte 3D graphics card with TV out option (so I can watch DVDs on my TV), 120 Gigabyte hard drive, Optical mouse, and a 17 inch flat screen. While I was there I bought the entire Indiana Jones movies on DVD and some other cheap VCDs, including the Gods must be crazy, The Shawshank redemption and Gladiator. I went home with empty pockets that day, but I daresay I’ll never be bored again. I’ll probably be getting the internet hooked up at home too, since it does seem an awful waste not too unleash the full potential of my behemoth PC. We also went to an ‘Australian’ restaurant called “The Outback”, where I indulged in some shockingly rich Western food. They had lots of cheese, something hard to come by in Korea. Some more South African friends of Brian and Mikas were there. At that point I started to realize the full scope of the South African ‘invasion’ in Korea. I’d forgotten how much the average South African talks about crime and mayhem in our country. I’ve been disconnected from this kind of contemporary discourse for so long, it’s jarring to hear those familiar tones of urgency and despair once again. I’ve been nurturing the unquenchable spirit and goodness of S.A. inside my heart and memory and left all the bad behind, I don’t want to hear it or talk about it. It no longer has any bearing on my conscious engagement with the world. In this respect I am no longer South African…but I never really was I suppose, being far too unpatriotic and cynical to adopt any national identity.