BBQ's & "high" BP's

I have in my hands a stolen copy of the latest Time magazine. I do love to indulge myself in reading articles that have little or no relevance to what I am interested in..you know, just to get surprised. When you read something, you can have different emotions taking complete control. You can go from  “ohhhh shiittt! No way!” to “really? funny they don’t have cheese in space” to ,”hahahahaha” to “whats happening?” to “Prometheus sucks?”. All of those rollercoaster shouts do happen at some random stage while reading and I just love that. Surprise, Surprise! (deep side I do have a distant desire to write for an established magazine. I do have an innate talent to waste others time by forcing people to read stuff that don’t make sense..was that self praise?)

samkyubsal, the korean bbq

I also have a packet of nachos right beside me. As I munch on and disturb my dormmates (Yep, in the lounge right now) I have this crazy, undying lust for those tiny drops of crisply malted beer. Although I am well aware that in case of beer, the alcohol level limits to zero (mathematically speaking) compared to other drinks that are nearby, patiently, ever so silently waiting to be picked up, I have now sadly decided not to indulge so much in what was an everyday affair. My daily activity since vacation? Sleep-eat-drink-drink-eat-laugh-shout-disturb halal-text stupidly-drink-eat-sleep-more sleep. Oh, shit too. That changed this weekend.

the other bbq

I was “forced” to go to this non-alcoholic camp (I prefer to say that, people here will know what I am talking about), a place where you can just eat all the bbq in the world, all the famous samkyabsal I can devour but no drinks. 2 hrs drive and you could wonder around the beach, take some time off,maybe hit a ball or two,you know just relax and see the “countryside” of Korea. Of course, besides that Everland trip and that awfully ass wracking Ski trip, I hadn’t had the chance to go out anyways. So this was something Jiyong’s mom planned for me from a very long time. She was however, kind enough to give me options:

1.I Had to go.

2.I HAD to go.

The good thing about the camp, besides the awesome, mouth watering, soul refreshing, mind bogging bbq and Korean “samkhyabsal”, that I got to catch up with my health issues.

I enter this room, the doc takes out his whatever you call that thing that measures Blood Pressure, ok lets just call it a “machine” the mechanical way and does his thing with the pump. POP! The machine shows a reading, the doc gets serious and asks me if i can give him my other hand.

Oh god.

driver for the day, jiyong

He repeats the same thing, the machine shows the result and the doc gets depressed even further.

Doc: “Did you run just before coming here? Any physical activity”

I think deep. Nope. All I can see is rapid chat.

Me: “Nothing as such”

Doc:”Any family history for high BP’s or hyper tension?”

AHA! Nailed it doc. Mr. and Mrs. Maskey senior both have high bp’s or hyper tension or whatever you call them. They don’t put salt in their meals AT ALL. That bad. When I went back home last winter, my mom asked me to go buy salt.

Me:”Yes, both of them have it”

Doc:”You have to be extra careful now. As positively as I can say, you in the border line for Hyper Tension”

And so my non-alcohol diet has then taken form. Of course, I did share a bottle with jiyongs dad(love him) the other day, but that’s not too bad.

I have also made it sure, as the doc suggested to eat, sleep and exercise well. There’s no stopping me from sleeping and eating but exercise? If you call 2 pushups a day an exercise YES. If NO, then clearly I needed to work. My conscience finally prevailed and I took up the most ridiculous sport. Beach football.

Ok the thing about beach football is that you are near the sea, everything is soo relaxing..quite…and instead of jumping inside and cooling your body, you find yourself running your ass off on hot sand. I did later demote myself to the goalie position after my lungs stopped breathing just minutes into the game but again, I got my posture back and played deep. I haven’t even said the worst part yet: I absolutely had no clue what my teammates looked like. For me, distinguishing between Koreans were already a huge pain in the ass, even more so when I didn’t have your glasses on. With random T’s, I was just passing the ball to the guy whoever was close to me. No wonder I had the best stats.

My Beach football Stats

Suicide goals 2

Suicide assists 3

Actual assists: 1

Most successful player. 2 goals is really not a joke I tell you haha.

I did go for another round of physical “activity” when I suddenly found myself in a 7 aside game today. Although the pain from all the running was still fresh as it could possibly be, I had no choice but to do what I pledged to do.

Waiittt…..

My dormmate just said he is hungry hahaha. We all are.

Where was I?

So we play this game, I run around stupidly but I do contribute. I was wearing my german jersey so kindly sent by some friends, something I am really not proud to wear right now but who cares. And just when I thought that I had lost my touch in the game.. I score. Yes I did. I did.Took it first time with my right and the ball curled a beauty right into the top corner. The goalkeeper was completely wrong footed and just stared at the ball as it went past. Unfortunately though, nobody seemed to be interested in celebrating. We were already down by…mmm..i don’t know…we lost count.

I do have other things to be taken care of as well. I will be heading to Vietnam but that’s a month away from now. I wish I could say the same for the preparation that’s required. We have a lot of presentations, meetings, discussions to do before, so its more like work. I will, however, be right back in time to greet Mr. and Mrs. Maskey senior at Incheon Airport.

July does seem to have a lot of things packed up. I am still waiting for the green signal for my internship. Whats sure is that there’s a road trip planned ahead of Ramadan, something halal is really looking forward to. He has a local driving license and does not drink soooo its just perfect. (yes, renting a car) We are planning to go to some really crazy places,get the cheapest deals and try out the food they offer. 5 people stranded in a car, doing that dil chata he thing I dreamed of. Not bad.

This should be it for now. The next blog should be online pretty soon as I will be writing about how a semester looks like in Korea. I know its not the best place to come and do your undergraduate but its not that bad either. Depends on how you choose to live.

I am off to bed with a pair of sore limbs. Need to wake early and make a prezi presentation for tomorrow’s meeting. Have yourselves a jolly good time.