Baltimore made me nostalgic for the time when I lived in places that weren’t the desert. I got to enjoy 90+ degree weather plus buckets-full of humidity. I got to be around different types of trees that weren’t palm trees. I got to see buildings that have been around since this country was first officially named its own country.

My trip to Baltimore was a pleasant experience that gave me at least one extra subject to think about as my 6-month lease comes to a close at the end of this month.

Pictures of the wedding will pop up on here soon. But first, I have to get pictures from last week to one of my most awesome paying customers. The virtue for me this week from Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues is Order. “Let all your things have their places; Let each part of your business have its time.” (Link to app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bens-virtues/id333333687)

I can make that choice consciously and decide how I want to act around other people. Or I can let my personality be chosen subconsciously by agreeing with people who told me how I should be and never thinking about how I want to present my self to other people.

I believe it is possible to decide how I want to act and act that way. I believe people do it all the time. Everywhere I go, I see people that can be easily labeled. And what’s wrong with that?

I bet it’s a blast to see an intriquing personality type and decide to become that. Then one day, decide to pick up a different personality and play a different character for a while. That sounds like fun!

And who can tell me not to be who I want to be?

Can reminiscing lead to a happier life?

Every now and then, I use some of my time to reminisce on different stages in my life. I’ve noticed that I focus way more on the awesome things that happened rather than focusing on the things I considered dreadful.

Every phase of my life is a time that I can recreate in my mind (or wherever). I’ve learned that I use that time to think about how much I enjoyed the billions of things that had happened, people I’d met, food I’d eaten, and lessons I’d learned. Even in situations that were less desirable than I hoped, I can recall tons of instances that I’m glad I was there for.

Currently I make an effort to focus more of my attention on the things I want rather than the things I don’t. The people who use my ceiling as their floor have a huge dog. Sometimes the sounds like all of Santa’s reindeer are being pursued by an American Werewolf in London. I get to choose how I respond to everything and I also know that in 20 years, I’ll look back and laugh at that situation even though I could choose to let it make me miserable. It’s not worth my time to think about since it doesn’t really affect anything about my life in the end.

What times in your life do you look back on and remember as being amazing even if the entire situation wasn’t ideal? What made it so amazing to you?

For ANYONE to be able to complete 100 consecutive pushups in 6 weeks sounds impossible. But I’ve done quite a few things that I once thought impossible (polyphasic sleep, live in South Korea, Bikram yoga) so this will be yet another adventure.

I learned about this while I was working with old friend and Detroit’s most talented rapper Stryfe Da Fantam (facebook page | official webpage). Somewhere in between the working, laughing, joking, Black Dynamite watching, and helicopter flying, he told me about how he was able to do work up to doing 100 pushups and showed me the website.

I did my initial test today and I was able to do 30 consecutive pushups. According to their guide, I get to skip to week 3. So 4 weeks from now, I’ll be able to smash my chest to the ground and push myself back up until I hit the ceiling 100 times in a row. And I’ll post a video to prove it. And even if I can’t, I’ll post a video of my failure and we can laugh at me together!

http://www.jermilsadler.com/blog/2010/04/one-hundred-pushups/

Some of the kids I teach are really smart and actually care about learning English. Others aren’t so smart but still try. While the rest really don’t care and just want to play around. That’s probably the same with kids anywhere. But lately I’ve been thinking about how certain kids will turn out as an adult.

As I meet more Korean people that are around my age, I’ve started to wonder what they were like as a kid. Were they one of the kids in class that wanted to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes? Were they the kids that constantly yelled out “GAME TIME” while the teacher was trying to teach? Were they the one that learned an English curse word and used it to try to make the teacher mad? Or were they one of the kids that actually cared about learning English and every other subject they were forced to take.

There’s no way I could ever know for sure unless I kept in contact with a kid until they were older and saw how they turned out. But that would probably affect the outcome. And it would be really creepy. I guess I could just ask someone what type of student they were.

Joe Rogan wrote about something similar to this in one of his blog posts. When I write more about this, I’ll link to the exact post.

But anyway, here’s two random pictures. One is from when my sister came to visit me in Korea and the other is from a strawberry festival.

I have a HUGE problem with that.

What most people don’t realize is that Facebook simply a big ploy for advertisers to get information on you.

I’m sure it started out as a few college kids writing a web application to keep in touch with their friends that they went to college with. But over time, it blossomed into this ridiculous marketing tool where you put as much personal information on your page as you can fit.

You put your favorite everythings on there. You tell facebook all of your friends. You tell facebook all of the people you would barely call friends. You tell facebook all of the people that you would only speak to if you saw in a random country where you knew no one else. You tell them your favorite movies, songs, books, activites, hobbies, quotes, your birthdate, schools, political views, websites, blogs, phone number, all your jobs, and way more if you want to.

They store all this information somewhere and use it to advertise to you. They let people buy space on their site to advertise to you for things you may want but most likely have no use for.

On top of all that, you tell them 25 more things that don’t fit into any other category. 25 completely random things that maybe you never told anyone about yourself. 25 things that if this was 10 years ago, only your closest of closest friends would ever know. And you give it away willingly because someone clicked on your picture when they were telling 25 of their completely random but extremely personal things.

In case you didn’t know, everything that you ever put on facebook is forever. If one day you decide that facebook isn’t the place for you and you want to get rid of your information, you can’t!

You can only disable your account. This means facebook still has all of your information stored somewhere and they can still do whatever they want with it one day.

All of your most personal 25 things that you think are safely hidden from human eyes may be up for sale one day to the highest or suavest bidder. And there’s NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

So please… PLEASE stop giving away your personal life to a website. Whether it be facebook.com, myspace.com, or whatever else there is that asks you for more information than anyone on the planet ever needs to know about you.

Thanks?

It’s 10:30pm where I am.
I just had a full day minus 6 hours of doing whatever I want.
And the 6 hours are full of fun.
I teach kids how to do what I could do since as far back as I can remember.
Speak English.
What a job.

When I wake up at 9am KST, I won’t be thinking about getting an extra hour of sleep.
Not even an extra minute.
I’ll smile.
Then I’ll think about how I don’t have to be to work until 1pm.
I’ll think about how great it is to be here.
Then I’ll think about the arboretum that I’m going to take pictures at before work.
I’ll take a hot shower in water that’s unsafe to drink.
I’ll go to a Korean restaurant around the corner.
I’ll order my favorite breakfast dish – omorisay.
It’s an omellete filled with rice.
Or maybe I’ll get dool-sok-bee-bim-pop.
It’s seaweed, sprouts, a fried eggs, and a ton of other stuff in a hot bowl.
Hmmmmm…
Maybe I’ll try something new with an equally weird name.
I’ll decide when I get there.

Then I’ll head to the arboretum.
I’ll take the amazing pictures of what I find inside.
I’ll walk back home with a huge smile on my face.
The Korean people who cross my path will stare at me like they always do.
I’ll imagine they’re staring because I’m famous.
Or because I’m ridiculously handsome.
At least one of these is true.

I’ll get back home.
I’ll put my pictures on my computer.
I’ll smile as I see each one appear on the screen.
I’ll laugh at the one of the little Korean kid posing for me.
They seem to really like cameras.
I’ll sit back.
I’ll relax.
I’ll marvel at the fact that I’m actually living in Korea.
I’ll take a deep breath.
I’ll let it out slowly.

Out of nowhere, I’ll remember the two girls I met during lunch the other day.
I’ll put a reminder in my phone to call both of them around 3pm to meet up tonight.
I’ll giggle.
Then I’ll remember that I have to go to “work”.
I’ll giggle again.

It’s not even noon.