I am quite happy today. Out of the last 13 days, I have climbed 7 days - hard.
After a wonderful mid-semester thanksgiving break, I don't feel so bad eating vegan chocolate zucchini cake for breakfast. Although cooked in the toaster oven, dirt bag style, it is satisfying. (Hey sister Lauren, I think you need to teach me a thing or too about baking!).
We ended the Chu Seok holiday – Korea’s biggest, with a stout bouldering session in Bukhansan National Park. Notice the smallest crimpers in the world! Just like Thanksgiving in America, this holiday deserved thanks - especially for the 9 day reprieve from work. Myself, my kitty cat Soo-Bak and my friend Kris aimed high and climbed hard! While climbing in both Seonunsan and Yongseo Pokpo, I was amazed at the abundance of animalitos running, hoping and flying to and fro. From fireflies to fat assed toads to pin eyed bats and squalls of mosquitoes, we were inundated with nature in its finest. Complete with my humble tent and gourmet pocket stove, we dined in grand style. Each night I had a special set menu wherein the ingredients of veggies and lentils and fruits and nuts weighted down our packs not unlike other camping trips. Never did we go hungry.The rock in Seonunsan, with its overhanging jug festival teased and satisfied me. The abundance of limestone pockets plastered in white chalk confused the onsighter with tricky technical sequences. Pump-a-licious! After 3 days of the 40 minute approach back and forth, we took a day to travel and rest and stalk up on more edible treats (not to mention a few bottles of cheap red wine to rinse our pallets). When we arrived at Yongseo Pokpo – The Dragon Tail’s waterfall – we were greeted only by the distant hum of the intermittent train and a few droplets from the sky. All alone, we set up camp and blazed a fire that roared into the wee hours. 
Although it rained almost the entire next day, our near alpine start and slightly overhanging wall choice allowed us to climb five routes by one o’clock. Afterwards, the three of us sought refuge in a near abandoned min-bak. Not quite abandoned so much as that the owner wasn’t around. With the doors left unlocked, we took advantage of the opportunity to stay dry and warm. When a group of other friends arrived, we indulged in the sauce and each other’s sparkling company. The only near-death mishap that occurred the whole week was when I predicted the rock fall that scared the shit out of me in its forecasted omen. What I am about to describe, I am sure has happened to you. You know when your thought process happens so fast and links one thought to the next that what you began to think about and what you ended thinking about have little in common, so little that you would have to explain the entire thought process to someone in order for them to understand where the end idea came from in the first place. Well, it goes something like this…I was just causally admiring the waterfall as we prepared for the day of climbing and wondered what it would take to make the water pour down full force. I realized that if there were fewer obstacles at the mouth of the fall, more water would be able to flow. Then I imagined a rock fall, then I imagined a rock fall on my tent that would squish my cat – I know – morbid, but I am sure that these kinds of thoughts have graced your consciousness too at some point in your life. Anyways, a hour later I heard a distant thud and down plummeted a softball sized rock, headed in a beeline for my tent! Busy belaying, I had to wait and see the damage done. Sure enough, this sinister rock sliced open my tent vestibule, mangled the tent zipper, destroyed Kris’s headlamp and even flattened its batteries! Thank the stars that Soo Bak, the kitty, was nowhere in the vicinity. She is still purring at my feet right now.
And so the reflection goes. My students graciously presented me with a chalk board full of “congratulations” and a dozen yellow roses engulfed in baby’s breath. Congratulations? I guess I have survived yet another year in this hostile world. Although the clouds slowly roll in the sky this chill, crisp day, I couldn’t be happier. I think I am going to stop writing now and go and get myself a corner chug! (how I describe chugging a beer on the street corner!)
The contemplation begins with remembering that I am living in the present and as much as I want this day to last, it too will pass. Finite time. The ever present, ever changing river if you will.
