little hobo in big korea: the final hurrah, for now at least

So, I guess I already wrote an emotional enough blog entry for the goodbyes, and such.
Not many pictures were taken during this period.... I guess we waz unablez to take many picz, b/c we were soakinz upz sum tearz. Yeh.. fuck, sorry this isn't getting old for me.

Anyway, I'll make this brief..
On the afternoon of the 22nd, we had to bid James farewell. James was one of my first chingoos here and I had to say bye to him first. Yeh, that really wasn't fun. He had a pretty sizable entourage following/stalking him to the airport limousine: Ryo, Jake, Anna, Peter, Pat, Gelly, Seth, and myself. We gave him our final hugs and all, but for some reason it was still completely surreal. It was tough for me to register it in my head that James was leaving Korea. We watched him board the bus which took off shortly after.. to which Gelly responded, "Oh. The bus left." That pretty much summed up my feelings about it as well... I was just in complete disbelief. Especially because it seemed like he was leaving Korea on some random ass bus... we didn't see any airplane fly away or anything.. I don't know. It was just really weird. I started feeling sad later so I called James since I knew he had his phone on him.. fuck nuts.

Pat and I decided to stay with our remaining chingoos in I-house while they packed up their shit.
We also had to say goodbyes to the Austrians, who were also some of my first chingoos. This was starting to suck. A lot. That night, everyone was caught in some sort of foggy haze that they couldn't really escape or put their finger on exactly. I think the process of packing was so exhausting that it was hard to process that after that task was done, they'd be shipping off. It was a sleepless night as by the time everyone was done, we packed up some taxis and headed off to the airport limousine. Ryo and Gelly were the first to go through the gates pretty much directly after we arrived at the airport. One of the most endearing moments of the morning was when Ryo farted and with an anxious look on his face, stated, "I always get really gassy when I'm stressed out." UGHHHHH I can't take it. Ryo, I want to squeeze you at all times of the day. Of course, after they left... I couldn't take it so I called Gelly's phone as well. We all got to hear their voices again and it was nice, although it was still such a sad moment. Although I got to laugh quite a bit when Gelly told me that Ryo proposed that they get a drink because they just couldn't handle it. It was freaking 9 in the morning!! Oh, those two. That was really sweet.

And then there were three.
Ames didn't have to board until 2pm so we had quite a bit of time left. We decided to shack up in a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for a total of five hours haha. I even slept for about 20 minutes. Yeh, we were bumming it. When we finally got up to go see Amy off, it was completely bizarre because here I had just spent 5 hours with her at the Coffee Bean and I couldn't really figure out where she was going. god, this day really really sucked. I had to wave her bye-bye and then I'd look up at Pat who had this really serious expression on his face, his eyes welling up with tears. That was tough. It pretty much took all I had in me to not begin to bawl. The bus ride was intense.. we were both in disbelief that we had to see off the vast majority of our best friends in Korea in such a short period of time. I played DJ on the ride back, and tried to play some happy music... but it's funny how when you're not feeling too hot, the happy music turns to sad music. And by sad, I really mean to say absolutely devastating. Blah.

Anyway, anyway, anyway.
I know I say "anyway" a lot. It's my favorite segway, that anyway. Rhymes. Busta Rhymes. Rimes comma Leann. O.k. I'll stop.

All of my chingoos are now in their respective homes: New Jersey/New York, Kentucky/Ohio, Austria, Seattle... and they all seem to be having a tough time coping. I mean I heard before that re-entry/re-culture shock was the toughest part, but I guess no one can ever be prepared enough for that. I'm in great fear of it myself. Some random guy I met before I came to Korea told me that he had studied abroad for a year, and that the hardest part for him was seeing his friends.. because he felt that he had changed so much and had seen so many amazing things and he came back, and all of his friends were living the same uninspired lives. You know, I don't even know what to say to that. So I'm sorry to my chingoos because I don't quite know what to say to make you feel better without having to feel like I'm having to lie to a certain extent. I know I'm going to have to face the same thing half a year from now and I'm not looking forward to it. Some of my good friends might even move out of the city because of graduation, and etcetera. Although I do like my friends back at home.. I don't have many of them, but I like the ones that I do have. But, yeh. I guess all I know is for now is that I think you're all amazing people and that wherever you go, greatness will follow as long as you put in the effort. I haven't figured out the rest yet. But I guess that's a work in progress, as usual. Gross.

For now, I'm still fighting to stay positive... which hasn't been as hard as I previously thought.
I have you guys in my life now, so I can't say I'm unlucky.. you know? Far from it. We were fortunate enough to have met one another, and we each had a major impact on each others lives. I don't know.. take from it what you will. Blah, geography can be a bitch sometimes. No one has invented teleportation as of yet, but for now we have SKYPE!!!!, email, aim, etc. That will keep us together.. until we meet again. Oy oy.

Continue to search for inspiration, and aspire to inspire others in return. It's all we can really hope for.