Home

I’m home. I’m on my laptop, sat upon my bed, drinking a jukalash cawfee (chocolate coffee), and I’m comfortable. Korea has gotten to the point where it feels like home.

That sounds more permanent than it’s meant. Illinois was my home. Iowa never felt like home but Bangor did for a time. And I left all those places and came to Korea and one day I’ll leave Korea too. I’m okay with that. I’m always okay with leaving home as I’m not much for feeling sentimental over that stuff. I miss my dog. I miss taco bell and I miss hockey nights with the one-eared freak, but I was okay with leaving Illinois.

Korea has turned into home, seemingly suddenly but I've been here three months and the realization was sudden though the process was not. I know where the Lotte Mart and Emart Traders are and I know my budget and how much I always go over. I could get to the DMZ if I wanted or to Busan or Seoul and I know the prices of KTX tickets. I know how to get places the KTX doesn't go and how to speak to the cabbies. I know when to say “Ne” and what hand motions to use to say no to emphasize “Aniyo.” I no longer worry over dealing with the cashier at the 815, though sometimes I’ll get some chicken and they’ll point to it and say something I don’t understand and I imagine they’re saying “This is dog, you know,” just because it gives me a laugh and I know it’s not true.

I plan to go at the end of my year here, so June 2014, but who knows? I can’t speak for the future but I can tell you that right now I’m home.

I got some Oreos

How many cookies were you allowed as a kid? After dinner, if I remembered to ask, I'd get two and some milk. Two Oreos or two fudge stripes or, around Christmas, two peanut butter blossoms. Two thin mints or two tag alongs. Sometimes I tried to apply this rule to brownies or pieces of cake. My parents just cut the piece in two.

One summer, I spent my afternoons with a friend, Max, and we'd go swimming at The Racket Club nearby and I was amazed after lunch when Gruba, his mom, pulled the flimsy plastic from the crinkly foil packaging and just left the Chips Ahoy! for us and his three younger brothers to devour. As many as we wanted! The youngest couldn't reach so he'd have to rely on the good nature of the rest of us and usually when we pulled two or three cookies from the container, we'd toss half of one his way. The five of us only got through three of the four rows, but still! The allowance of cookies was a greater freedom than recess.

But even after that experience, I still always settled for two Oreos as a kid. It was the rule. I'd break them apart and make double stufs or if they were double stufs already, quadruble stufs. Or I'd lick off the cream and just dunk the cookie in the milk. Sometimes I'd be feeling depressed and I'd do nothing special to the cookie before letting it soak, and as my thoughts fell upon my elementary troubles, I'd forget to withdraw the cookie and it'd crumble to the bottom.

I allow myself a box of cookies a week. Each box is generally the same: each serving is wrapped with foil. Some boxes have each cookie wrapped. Others follow my rule of two. But Oreos--they're for when you want to indulge. They're the treats among treats. They're not more expensive than the next brand, maybe $1 for two foil packages. But each contains five cookies.

These Koreans spoil me.