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Adam and I have had the creative bug lately. Adam has picked up his paints and pencils again. He has done a bunch of sketches, and today he did some watercolors. He’s also doing a little acting. It’s fun for him. Adam’s is also continuing to do a lot of artistic photography, and he’s thinking about ways to integrate his photos and painting. Our artist friends Cynthia Toffey and Kwon Daeha are encouraging Adam with use of their studio spaces, and Cynthia wants to help him put together an art show. I recorded the Christmas song with some friends, I’ve been playing with film making, and I’ve picked up my knitting again. We’ve also done a few little craft things around the apartment to make it look more festive for Christmas. My parents sent us 2 boxes of Christmas presents and birthday presents. :). I made a fake Christmas tree out of Adam’s Kumdo sword, green wrapping paper and scotch tape, and now the presents are around the tree.

I’ve been fantasizing about making great travel documentaries and going all over the world. Adam reminded me that we’re already kind of doing that. Now I’m working on editing our video from Mexico that we took on our honeymoon. We wandered all around Cabos, and we have some cool footage we’ve been meaning to edit for years. Now that I’ve got the bug, I’m working on it.

Since it’s cold outside, I’ve begun knitting again. I realized that most of my hobbies involve my eyes: reading, emailing, writing, watching movies, now video editing as well. I came home from work the other day, and I had such a headache because I used my eyes so much. I started listening to Harry Potter on iTunes and decided to take out my knitting. It’s nice to busy my hands. In the box my mom sent us, she included a knitting project that my Grandma Rau had begun before she passed away in September. It’s a sweater. I’ve never knit a sweater, and I’ve never knit from a pattern, but I love the sweater in her pattern, so I’m trying it. It’s nice to think that I’m sharing a project with her. I ran into a confusing spot already, and I was sad that I couldn’t call to ask her how to do it. She was a great woman.

I’ve also been reading Bob Dylan’s autobiography, “Chronicles, Volume One”. It’s excellent. I identify with him in his early years. One of the greatest songwriters ever didn’t really begin songwriting until he was in his twenties and had a record deal with Capitol. I wrote some songs in college, and since then, I haven’t been able to finish a song. I beat myself up about it for a while, and then I just let it go. Bob Dylan makes me feel good about that choice. I’ve read more than one-third of the book, and so far he still hasn’t written his first song. Where I’m at in his life, he’s realizing that he wants to write, but he doesn’t want to write crap, and he’s just listening to as much music as possible, reading a ton of poetry and prose, reading century-old newspapers for transcendent topics and ideas. He writes:

“I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I’d been pulling an empty wagon for a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture. I was changing in other ways, too. Things that used to affect me, didn’t affect me anymore. I wasn’t too concerned about people, their motives. I didn’t feel the need to examine every stranger that approached.”

I’m there. Adam has been doing a lot of reading about Integral Spirituality. It’s like spiritual cross-training. If you want to know God more, you need to pray and worship, but you also need to have a healthy body and creative mind, or you can only reach a certain plateau. People grow holistically. Great athletes don’t just focus on their one sport. Great football players have been known to study ballet for more agility and flexibility. Skiers will run and weight train. If I sit and stare at a piece of paper, trying to write a song, there is no spark in my mind. Knitting, reading good books, writing this thing, making travel films all spark my brain. They’re filling up my wagon. I’m building an arsenal, and when my mind says it’s ready to make a song, I’ll be ready. As Bob Dylan wrote about waiting to begin songwriting, “Not today, not tonight, sometime soon, though.”

I’m also getting into teaching. I came here as an edutainer. I came to both perform and teach. But, the performing opportunities here don’t really thrill me. I enjoyed doing my Jazz street performance in the Fall, but that even proved to be a little flat by the end of the season. What I’m really enjoying here is my teaching. Never thought that would be, but it is. I’m helping develop a program for the kindergarten Hogwan kids that come here on the weekdays. That’s pretty cool, but I’m really stoked that in a couple of weeks, I get to begin training in the “Mommy & Me” program. It’s for 2-3 year olds and their mothers. There are 3 or 4 neat girls that already teach that program, including my friend Melanie. I’ll get to teach the same kids and moms week to week and develop a relationship with them, I get to help develop new projects and lessons, it’s very hands-0n and creative since the kids are so small, there is a good potential that I could finally work Monday-Friday and be more in sync with Adam’s schedule, it’s still in the One Day Program with which I’m comfortable and familiar, and it’s a small, consistent group of teachers who are low-drama. I’m really glad about that. I think it will be a further opportunity for my cross-training.

whew. So there’s been a lot on my mind and on my plate as of late. I’m so glad we’re here. We have so much room to breathe and try so many new things. And Christmas is coming. It’s beautiful here at Christmastime. English Village is full of lights. Since I currently have Mondays and Tuesdays off, Adam and I are making plans for Christmas day. We’re going to see the Nutcracker ballet with Larry and Melanie, we’re going to have a fancy dinner, then Adam and I are going to stay in Seoul at a luxurious hotel. It will be a nice way to spend our first Christmas away from home.

And, happy birthday, Dad. We tried to call, but we could never get you. We love you.

Love to you all. Have a good weekend.

-Jessica