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Jhaysonn’s Journals

Excerpt 3

Muju-gun was amazing. Really something else, especially at this time of the year with the leaves changing color. I really feel like that is what made the experience. Imagine waking up in a car after nodding off and seeing the bright sun shining just over the crest of a mountain. Your eyes still crusty and vision blurred from the nap; your eyes ach with the change in brightness but your heart leaps at the sight of a million trees in every color from brown to green to gold and back to blood red covers a mountain larger than any high rise could impress upon you. You wind your way up 800 meters of this mountain, attacked with visions of black barked trees pushing forth leaves that seem to radiate a yellow directly from the sun; whose beauty is magnified by the beauty of a tree whose leaves are scarlet as the wind blows the blood and the sun begins to dance and as you gaze upon the fleeting image from the passenger seat of a car you feel filthy for all your “progress”. Cars, planes, roads and pizza mean nothing next to the timeless, patient beauty that God puts before us every day.

Jhaysonn’s Journals

Excerpt 2

The peak of the mountain was a copse of large boulders that were easy enough to climb on. Atop the tallest boulder was a headstone looking piece of marble with (calligraphy) etched vertically in it, marking the closest point to the heavens above. I got there at the same time a large family arrived coming from the opposite direction. I soon started talking with an older woman that had very good English who was telling me her son, seated not three feet off, went to an American University. We started talking about our pasts and had a good conversation, pausing to take pictures with the family about Korea, business, and life. They left, heading back down to the town below and I stayed wanting both to begin a sketch of what I saw and take a nap atop that boulder. Needless to say after last night’s lack of sleep the idea of sleep won over and just before consciousness left me I had the wonderful sensation that the boulder beneath me was but a cloud, carrying me on the winds around the world.

Jhaysonn’s Journals

Excerpt 1

I am very blessed. I am in a foreign country that is literally on the other side of the world I used to know and have amazing friends Last weekend I went to Gongju again and was introduced to Baduk, or Korean checkers, by Young-Jin and Jay- Kyang, I think Baduk is the game that I have always been looking for. The game called “stones” by Robert Jordan in the wheel of time series. I visited Songsan-Li again and was awarded the opportunity to become more familiar with the area. Originally Jay-Kyang was supposed to be working at a motorized para- sailing festival but as the only internationals that came were from Russia, his English abilities were not required. After that I went to a PC Bang with some of my students; Terry, Robert and John. I hope to learn their real names. I was doing pretty well in counter-strike but failed horribly in StarCraft. The week went by without any problems and I am officially a certified legal alien!

Always Learning, Loving, Sharing

Jhaysonn’s Last Great Journey Was His Time In South Korea I'm sitting on the highest point of the tallest mountain in sight, at the edge of the South Sea in Korea. The water in the sea is the same color as the clear sky above me and the sun seems to be reflecting off of them both, setting the landscape on fire. Old Man Winter has set up camp inside my bones, but that's okay. Some things need to be seen, need to be experienced. And besides, it's not as cold as it was two days ago. Two days ago was really cold. It was five o'clock in the morning, and I had stayed up the whole night in anticipation. I began walking to my friend Song Young-jin's house while it was still dark outside, which only added to the feeling I have that my neighborhood was designed by a comic book artist. Song Young-jin lives in a home older than the United States of America situated in the middle of a park surrounded by apartments as tall as skyscrapers. He traces his family lineage back not to grand-fathers and great grand-fathers, but 16 generations back, to Song Shi-Yeol. A famous advisor to a famous King. Why get up at five in the morning on New Years? Who is even conscious at five o'clock on New Years? Apparently a couple thousand South Koreans are and they all flock to whatever mountain is closest to celebrate and say, "Hello!" to the first sunrise of the year. After all, if you don't make him welcome he might not want to come back. The night started off unpleasantly cold and just got colder. Oh, when you hike up a mountain at about a 50° incline you start to sweat and begin to feel quite nice. But as soon as you stop the sweat freezes to your skin and you just want to cry at the irony. And ironic it was, because the weather just kept getting colder, and colder and me, Song Young-jin and about 300 other Koreans atop a 1500 year old mountain fortress were reminded just how much we love the warmth of the sun. So an hour after the suns first rays began to burn off the morning fog around the mountains, hundreds of voices bellowed out a roar of excitement at first sight of that shining ball of fire in the sky. Song Young-jin told me, "Koreans call this a difficult experience. Beautiful". I couldn't agree more. There are a lot of things that I learned at Stetson. I added a bit more to that in Gainesville before coming back to Deland and learning how to make sushi at Oudum's Thai. I learned a lot about school and academic pursuit. Even more about friendship and falling in love. But in Korea, I'm learning a lot about who I am as a person. Sometimes it can be quite difficult. But most of the time it's just beautiful.