It's been more than two weeks now since I've been able to access or edit my blog. And not it's been three days since I've been able to access hotmail. Why?!!

Hmmm . . . What a progressive country I work in. Hard to imagine anyone would ever use such a benefit; a woman would have to announce why she was taking the day off and surely it would be hard to keep her coworkers from knowing why she was absent.

How did I get here? What train of damnation brought me here so swiftly? Why did I so readily ignore the pavers on this road to hell? I so readily supplied those pavers, a willingly blind accomplice to my own personal destruction. How anxious I was to sublimate my supposed eternal agenda in favor of the dark secrets of my heart. How utterly foolish I was to think I could aspire to those lofty peaks as I wallowed in the gutter of self-satisfaction.

Cast all of my upcoming psycho self-analysis aside and think on my own about the root of my problems. What do I fear? Of what am I uncertain? Why am I reluctant to face or concede my shortcomings especially when there exists the possibility I could break the chains that bind me? Do these musings of late bear any worth or do they just mask or shelter me from yet again facing the truth? I should bear in mind they ought never become more than a means and never the and itself.

Mine is the life of the damned, the life of the miserable, lonely, unhappy, unfulfilled, discontent, disquieted, abandoned, the life of the damned.

I am alone.

How I got here may some day be a lesson to others how not to live. But really, what did I do so wrong that would engender such misery? Am I really as bad, repugnant, despicable, and without redemption that I deserve such punishment? If not, then how did I really get here?

What did I really do to get here?

Where is here? Here is lonely, alone, unhappy, single, nearly friendless, neglected, forgotten, bitter, and, once more, damned.

If I don't self-implode of my own doing it will be due only to the elusive grace of God.

Happiness is elusive. So is lasting peace. So are true friends, caring friends, unconditional friends. Do they exist? It's doubtful.

Where can I turn for peace?

If the time should come that I can think about dating again, I'll have a fundamental problem to overcome: the plague. Yes, I have the plague or something equivalent to it that makes the softer sex run away, screaming for life. I can recall at least four instances of such terror-runnings over the past twelve months.

The cause of this fundamental and monumental problem is both obvious and murky to me. Obvious because I can hear a professional making the cause and effect link after suffering through an hour of listening to my sad tale; murky because I just don't' get why behavior A leads to outcome B. Thus I flounder and fight the tide that would bring me home to the sheltered harbor I dream will protect me from the frequent, sudden, violent storms I new endure.

Dating then is a distant, sometimes pleasant, often forgettable, memory, not a present hope. And my pain grows.

When it comes to interacting with others, I know I can be an ass. I know that even as I try to avoid this tendency, as I try to be a nice person, people tend to think of me with ill regard. I don't mean kind, charitable people; rather, I mean worldly, do-it-on-your-own people, the types who are subject to their daily changing personal whims.

This all flies in the face of the kind of persona I try and think I exude. In spite of my easily offended nature, I think of myself in terms of being a thoughtful, considerate, jovial person. I go out of my way to offer the types of common courtesies to my coworkers I hope they'll offer in return. I am more patient and forgiving than most. I almost daily seek to initiate conversations and interactions that will promote and build on common ground.

So I take severe exception to people who appear to take long-term offense to me or my behavior. I cannot help but take it personally, deeply personally, when others shut themselves off to me under the guise that I am impossible to work with, especially when they do so without so much as attempting to seek a common ground or understanding themselves.

Of course this rant all has relevant context. Excluding the drama of my problems with C. some months back and dismissing the ongoing but (I hope) improving problems with the K.T., I feel embroiled in yet another growing misunderstanding between S. and myself, which would be bad enough by itself but it's spreading to the reasonable, stable half of that partnership, G.

And I'm faced with the same problem I always encounter in such situations: should I act and proceed as though I don't care, that it doesn't bother me, and as if I'm completely ignorant of the change in the other person's behavior or should I instead confront the problem and, in this instance, the dreary, tedious, dull, reactionary, contrary, small-minded, frumpy, borish perpetrator of said problem?

If it's possible to feel worse about myself, I'm sure I'll discover it. I don't just feel physically fat, I feel obese in all my other selves: emotionally, spiritually, and more selves I can't think of.

Why did I allow myself to be led down this path of misery and loneliness? Why did I slumber? Why did I permit so many powerful opportunities to go unrealized? Why do I yet go down this path?

Was I really so lazy, incompetent, and/or stupid to think I could procrastinate my salvation 'til the time felt right? I think that's it: in the end, I was just stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Yet I still go down this path. Sometimes I even run. Do I sprint? I've been a f*** little s***, haven't I? Who else has squandered so many rich blessings? I have spent them all, like so much expendable capital thinking (rather not thinking) there wouldn't be an end to them. What an idiotic thing to do. What a childish, stupid thing to do.

Yet I still go down this path. I curse the lost things, the vanished chances. I curse the day I set foot on this path. I recall it too well. F*** that day.

Yet, I still go down this path. The kind people, the chances to grow and advance, the chances to serve and love and show charity - I spit on them all. I reject them, squander them, spend them, all to save myself the inconvenience of leaving this path, this path with the all-too-well-worn rut, and striking out into the unknown.

The unknown. I'm such the adventurer, right? Then why this 10+ year reluctance to take on the most eternal of challenges, this life altering (if by God's grace I could get it to work) self-peace process?

I live in self-imposed, solitary confinement, in the midst of a sea of people. When I muster the desire or the courage or the stupidity (no hard task) to venture out to interact with others, the smallest infraction is all it takes for me to give up. Were anyone to accuse me of not trying hard enough they would be right - though it feels I've become raw from trying. Remaining open and vulnerable in spite of the harshness of human(not-so)kind - what could possibly be harder? I'm damned, aren't I?

I am empty. I am lost. I fight to resist the endless surge of loneliness that ever strains to swallow me whole. My resistance wears thin. My defenses are vanishing. My hope is fading, fading...

What can I do to renew my hope? Where can I turn for help? How can I realistically expect to find a solution to my pain and loneliness? How can I possibly believe that I'll recognize it if I find it? In the name of God, what will it take to make me successfully use such a solution when or if I find it and recognize it?

If I dwell for more than a moment on the sheer size of my failure, the darkness, the abyss, fills my breast with terror. I am horrified when I think what I've squandered. How did I allow so many opportunities to slip away?

I stood at the crossroad, dazzled by the endless number and infinite variety of choices, baffled by the implications of the choices, mystified how I could ever make the right choices, and the opportunity to choose well slipped away.

What a fool I was. What a failure I am. What a hopeless, pathetic caricature I've become.

Heaven help me. Who else will?

I submitted the following this morning for publication in the high school newspaper. Keep in mind it was written to first year high school students, equivalent to 10th grade in the States, with intermediate English language skills.

My Big Family

One of the first things I noticed when I came to Korea last year in March was that families appear to be very important. Whether a family has one child, two children, or even four kids, Korean parents spend a lot of time and energy trying to raise happy families. It is much the same where I come from. My home state of Utah in the United States is famous for its large families but as large as each family gets, parents still love each child equally.

My own family is quite large when compared to most Korean families. I have one brother and four sisters. Both my mother and father came from large families so I also have many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Recently I sat down to determine just how many relatives I have. How big do you think my immediate and extended family is? Fifty people? Seventy five people? One hundred people? I think you'll be surprised.

I already mentioned that I have one brother and four sisters. Two of my sisters and my brother are married. One sister has two sons, the other has two daughters and one son, and my brother has one daughter and one son. That means I have four nephews and three nieces. Add them all up and I have eighteen people in my immediate family!

Now for my extended family. My father has two brothers and three sisters. They are all married of course and they have many children. So, on my father's side, I have two grandparents (though my grandfather passed away eight years ago), five aunts, five uncles, and twenty one cousins. That's thirty three people.

My mother's family is even bigger. She has three brothers and six sisters. Most of them are married and some of them have enormous families. On my mother's side of the family I have two grandparents (my grandfather died twenty five years ago), nine aunts and six uncles. And, believe it or not, there are forty two cousins on my mother's side of the family. That's fifty nine people!

If you didn't fail your last math exam, you now think that there are one hundred and ten people in my immediate and extended family but you are wrong. Many of my cousins are married with children of their own so, to get an accurate count of all my extended relatives, you must also include them in the final number.

Are you ready? If you include the spouses of my cousins and their children, that's an additional one hundred and fifty five people. I am not lying! Now, add them all up for a final tally. What is the total? I confess that even I was surprised to learn just how many relatives I have. The final number is two hundred and sixty five. That's right, I have two hundred and sixty five people in my immediate and extended family. If we all got together at the same time, that would be one enormous family reunion, don't you think?

How about your family? How many aunts and uncles and cousins do you have? When you get married, how many children do you hope to have? If you are really ambitious, you could do what my friend Sam's parents did. They had twelve children. Actually, these days I don't think that's ambitious, I think it's plain crazy!