Happy (Chinese) New Year! (and a State of the Union address)

First, here's some pictures from the totally awesome cruise to the Bahamas that Kate took me on. It was definitely one of the best vacations I've taken in a really long time.

It's a little late for 'happy new year,' but better late than never, I suppose. I'm disappointed in myself that I've gone so long without blogging, but I've accomplished a lot of other things, which I'll chronicle in this entry, so I won't beat myself up too badly over it. Let's see, I'll try to sum it all up.

1. Most importantly, I weighed in this morning at about 189 pounds, which is pretty darn exciting. Overall, this is a loss of about 46 pounds, down from my highest of 235. I don't really feel all that skinny now, although I can certainly feel a difference. I find it difficult to believe I ever carried around 46 more pounds than I am now, but I have old blog entries to prove it. My goal is to lose between 30 and 40 more pounds. I'm not sure how much I really ought to weigh... BMI calculators and such still tell me I'm obese (not just overweight), which I find difficult to believe, and predictors of my ideal weight are usually around 130-140, which I think is impossible.

My goal was to be in a size 12 by the time I went home in January to buy new clothes, and I didn't quite achieve that. The new pants I bought while home were size 14, although I'm worried that they'll be too big long before June (they already feel a little loose). The biggest achievement was in shirt size. At my biggest I was shopping at Lane Bryant and wearing size 22/24. I was pleasantly surprised (that's an understatement) to return to Lane Bryant and discover that I can now wear a size 14/16. It's... amazing. I really can't see the difference in myself (except in my face), but it's there. I put on a 22/24 shirt for comparison, and I was swimming in it. I'm pretty sure I wore a size 14 through at least the last two years of high school, so I honestly can't remember a time when I was smaller than a size 12. We're in uncharted territory here, people.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be down to target size (8 or 10 waist, L shirts) by the time I come home in July, and to weigh somewhere around 150-160. I have no idea what that will look like, but I'm pretty excited about it. I do feel like a look better, not necessarily in the mirror, but in pictures. I'm just looking forward to being able to shop like a normal person, not at special stores. And what it would be like not to have that weighing on you (no pun intended)--the fact that you shouldn't be eating this or that, or that you should be exercising when you're watching TV.

I'm really curious as to why I was finally able to lose this weight, when I've been, theoretically, trying for years. What confluence of events made me successful this time when I failed so many other times? And will I be able to keep it off? (I did get down to a size 12 the summer after my freshman year of college, and I can't remember how I ballooned up again, which is frightening.) I'm sure being here in Korea is the reason I've managed to pull it off. With no wonderful chain restaurants and Taco Bell drive-thrus, it's simply impossible for me to possibly ingest the thousands (and I mean more than 2) of calories I ingested daily in Florida. And I did gain a few pounds while I was home to visit, which does worry me, but the fact is that I'll just really have to change my lifestyle.

In Korea I've changed, although against my will, so when I go back to America, it'll be a test. I need to learn to cook and force myself to actually do it. I need to stop seeking comfort from Taco Bell. I need to spend time with friends in other contexts aside from fattening and expensive meals at restaurants. I want to believe that if I do manage to get down to the size I want to be, and buy a set of clothing in that size, I'll be able to do it. I think I have managed to make myself the kind of person who enjoys exercising semi-regularly, so that will help. I'll just do my best, and if my pants start to get a little tight, I'll know I need to chill out with it. I won't keep clothing in larger sizes lying around, or wear elastic things that allow my waistline to expand unchecked until I go shopping the next time. I'll just stay on top of it. And I want to believe that if I look the way I really want to look, I'll be willing to grow up to keep it. Cooking can't really be that bad, can it?

Sorry, that was kind of a longer rant about weight loss than I expected.

2. In truth, it's not that I haven't been blogging. I have, just not here. I created a Livejournal (or rather, revived an old one) and have been using it solely to chronicle my efforts to keep my New Year's resolutions (mostly weight loss), and I've found it really helpful. One thing I struggle with, as related to blogging, is striking a balance between talking about what's on my mind (which is usually pretty mundane), and reflecting meaningfully about Korea, which is what people actually want to read. I didn't want to have two separate blogs, because I feel like it's hard enough for me to update even one regularly, but then I realized that part of the reason I don't update this blog sometimes is because I want to write mundane things. So I'm giving his method a try. I really don't want to let this blog die, because I really enjoy reading back on previous entries, so I want to have that for the rest of the year too. So I've set Google calendar reminders to post here once a week and at the other mundane journal once a week. It's not that I don't have time, although I'm sure I've used that complaint. That's part of my resolutions for the year--using the plenty of time I do have more efficiently. So we'll see how this goes. I was supposed to post here on Sunday and I'm just now doing it today, but hey, at least I'm doing it.

3. I went home, and it was an even more revelatory trip than I imagined it would be.

Now, before I start, let me say. I really do love Korea. I'm not sure I love Korea, but for the most part, I really do love my Korean life. I'm not sure it's sustainable for much more than one to two years. (Actually, I'm not sure it would be sustainable beyond the 1 year because of the changes that would have to accompany that: 1. Meghan, Tim, and Amy would leave, but especially Meghan leaving would be difficult, because I see her at least once every day and rely on her companionship probably more than I know. 2. I would live in an apartment, which would be nice, because there would be no more annoying host kids, but possibly more trouble than it would be worth, especially cooking and stuff.) But as it is now, I really really like my life. I don't clean. I have hot water. I really like my job. It's cold now, which is gross, but you know. I have a lot of free time. I have a good friend in walking distance. My life is generally very stress-free and consistent, but with unexpectedly bright moments. It's comfortable, which is unexpected. (There are still the infrequent "oh my God Korea what why?" moments too, but that's inevitable.)

But for the reasons I previously mentioned, if I extended, the next year might not be nearly as pleasant. I'm sure, if I put myself out there a little more, I might be able to make Korean friends, but it's not easy. And with Meghan gone, I'd have no one to speak regular-speed English to all the time, which I imagine would be far more difficult than, well... I can imagine. Anyway, long story short, I don't think I'm going to extend. I will be really really sad when I leave, I'm sure, but I think another whole year would be too long. Plus, part of the reason that extending has been so appealing the past few months is that I didn't really know what I wanted to do in the US when I got back, so there was no rush. But now, I think I do. I want to get a job teaching. I'm nervous about it, because I'm not sure I'll love it as much as I love teaching in Korea, but I have to try it to know, and since I've been basing my whole life around the idea that teaching is the job I'll love, and the best job for me, it would probably be good to test that theory now, while I'm young. If I like it, I can do a Master's at Breadloaf in the summers.

I guess I'm just excited even about having an apartment and living in America. We'll see if that survives the first Florida summer or traffic jam, but for now, I feel real enthusiasm I haven't felt about it in a long time. I just feel a real impetus to get STARTED in life that I haven't felt for awhile, while I was biding time in Korea. In fairness, for a few months I thought that this WAS what I wanted to do, that this would naturally lead to an NSEP and a career in the foreign service, but as I've chronicled in this blog previously, I've since figured out that that's not what I want. So now, I want to get started on my real life. And then put it on hold to go back to college for an MFA a few years from now. So my plans might change, but for now, I'm planning on moving back to Florida and looking for a teaching job (either in Orlando or Fort Myers) in the middle of July. I had a really nice visit with my family, especially my mom, and I realized that by this summer I will have lived abroad, almost continuously, for a year and a half, which is a long time. Melissa's kids are getting older (and for that matter, so are my parents), and I'm at that stage in my post-college life where I'm figuring out which friends I'll work to keep, which ones will naturally fade away, and how important family is. So I want to spend some time with mine. I would also consider moving up North, if I thought teacher certification wouldn't be so difficult. But I'm still planning on doing my MFA in New England, so.

4. I switched from PC to Mac, and so far, it's going really well. I don't think I mentioned this, but I noticed a much more rapid deterioration in my laptop over the few weeks before I went to America (including the DVD drive breaking, and more frequent random shutdowns), which convinced me that I ought to go ahead and buy a new laptop while I was home, rather than waiting for summer, because I'd really be screwed if it died and I didn't have a replacement. So, I took a big step and purchased a MacBook. It was much more expensive than even a comparable PC might have been, but I figured, hey- I've used PC all my life, and had a lot of problems with them, so I might as well give this a try. I really love this little thing. It connects to the family's wireless network without the accompanying broken hardware that thwarted my PC, and it's just... so nice. There are some things about it that I don't like, of course, and I am genuinely concerned about conversion problems with the lesson plans I created last semester (mostly just because I now have Mac Office 2008, which is totally different than the older version I was using). But as of now, I'm happy with my decision. I also bought an iPod, which was expensive, but which I think is really cute and cool. I've been downloading NPR podcasts to listen to while jogging, which I'm sure I could do without an iPod, but it helps me feel a little more informed, which is nice.

So yeah, I think that's all the news that's fit to print about me. I'm tired, since I woke up early to go jogging in 27 degree weather, so I may enjoy a midday nap. Hopefully I'll be posting again on Sunday. I've been invited to go with the family on a ski trip this weekend, so we'll see how that goes. Awkwardness will most certainly abound.

Oh, tomorrow (Thursday) is the Chinese (and thus by extension) Korean new year, which means more bowing and eating gross food is probably in my near future.

And in conclusion, today one of my friends said to me, by means of comparison with someone else, "You step outside of your comfort zone all the time." To which I responded, perhaps too self-congratulatingly:

"I live outside of my comfort zone, baby."