BUB

Last post September, eh? Yes, it's been a bit. New since:

Most recently-
Military holiday parties with all sorts of Desperate-Housewives-worthy drama, a hint above a scuntch above a tad over the possibility of going to war with North Korea over them shelling the living crap out of a civilian island "disagreeing with the military exercises happening," getting in the groove of teaching business English (which coincides with the end of posting... hm), sister and her hubs have gone back to US, general adjustment to Korea with a few minor freakouts (notably yesterday... after trying to Christmas-fy our abode with some technical difficulties).

Other things-
Got a cat, named her Dumpster Kitty or DK for short. Have started P90X OF DEATH exercise program as a competition with the hubs, brilliant of me. Started Korean/hangeul classes with vigor and have tapered off in attendance, going to being again in January all American-style resolutiouny. Considering going back to the US for work, and trying some sort of remote-in-between thing (and actually sending out feelers for jobs). Moving to Seoul in February if all goes as planned. Have consequentially stopped trying to decorate current home, with the exception of the overrun of Christmas joy.

Other things new year resolutiony- posting more often and more pithy/funny/not simply updatey.

Vocab of the day: 
Korean: update = 갱신  (gaeng sin) 
Military: BUB= Battle Update Briefing (I know this one is legit! I've heard it used)

Wedding #2 Haiku

Second wedding time
Six score nearest and dearest
More booze for this time

The Funk

Image from Invest Talk Blog

Sadly, this does not refer to a genre of music. This is The Funk, capital letters, proper noun. I've observed The Funk in many of my friends in the past few months. The Funk has followed our completion of a nicely rated two year masters program at a good school which promised to prepare us for fabulous jobs, and settles in when the two years and many hours of resume editing fails to snag said fabulous job. I've also noticed The Funk increasingly in a number of military spouses who are savvy, ambitious and newly landed in their roles as MSs.

Symptoms include: mood swings ("I'm amazing, I'll get this job!!... I suck at life, why do I even bother?"), several attempts to reinvent the self ("Maybe I'll be a spin instructor instead of a lawyer. It's way cooler anyway. Or maybe a chef. Or a Tibetan climbing guide..."), excessive sleeping ("I'm just catching up on my rest from the last three years of crazy... and I have nothing better to do... wow, it's 3 pm.....") and friend/family/significant other/spouse support and bafflement in stages ("You're totally going to get that CEO job... absolutely, you're the best for the job. And yes, you are crazy right now").

I've also seen various stages of grace in dealing with The Funk. When talking to the lucky brutes who landed the non-profit/big firm/dream job clocking 80 hours per week, they marvel, "Wow, you have such an opportunity to travel, relax, read, sleep, learn a new language, take up parasailing, etc." And while those in The Funk most often know this is 99% true, it can't feel like a vacation unless the clock is ticking toward when the fun is supposed to stop. Not to mention vacationing can be difficult with no/low income. However, some in The Funk have managed to seize moments of opportunity, even labeling the nebulous time of unplanned, unending job search as "funemployment." My hat is off to them.

Great advice from a friend and former Funker: Plan at least one thing to look forward to each week other than job searching. If it's a yoga class, visiting a tourist attraction, dinner with girlfriends, or watching your favorite episode of your guilty pleasure tv show, let that mark time in this dreary stretch. Make small lists, check off do-able victories like working out, sending notes to friends/family you wish you had time to keep up with and finding at least one volunteer opportunity to keep you engaged. And know that you are not even close to alone- another Funker can be great company if you can find him/her.

 
Vocab of the day:
Korean: setback = 방해  bang hay (a blind leap of faith into the arms of BabelFish...)
Military: PSYOPS = Psychological Operations (a la Men Who Stare at Goats, or finding a job overseas)


Update! Great article- 17 Ways to Build Confidence While Finding A Job.

Best Free Korean iPhone applications

Image from Kawanet Tech Blog

Deviating from life-pondering and going consumer reports here.

As an iPhone nerd, I've been loving having the iPhone for travel. I'm also hosting a bunch of awesome people in the next few weeks so I got to digging through the Korean apps that are most helpful/I use the most.

Unless noted, these are great for foreign travelers as they don't require internet (i.e. roaming charges) unless otherwise noted. My favs in no particular order:

• Subway maps--  
• BPMetro- Static map, route planner and gives estimated times and cost in won. Five stars.
• Seoul Metro Lite- Static map, but can search for particular stops or nearby stop with GPS. There are many similar, but this allows you to pan in and out most easily of the ones I tried.
• KorSubway Lite- static maps for Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan and Gwangju
• Translators-- 
• iTranslate (by Sonico GmbH) 
• Language Translator (by Piet Jones)
• both pretty decent, but have their quirks and troubles (left as in left hand or left behind?)
• Phrasebooks-- 
• Vovavox Korean Phrasebook
• Lingopal Korean (great pickup lines)
• Korean Essentials
• Food-- 
• Korean Food Dictionary (by O'ngo Food Communications) AWESOME APP with pics Korean and English, doesn't have all the foods I'd like but it's pretty helpful when you can't remember which jigae you liked that one time. I use it all the time.
• Various Travel/location specific--
• Travel in Korea: Seoul (/all)- I'm pretty sure these are government-designed apps. They have pretty good lists of cool places to check out. I've sused the Seoul (city) and Gyeonggi-do (surrounding province) versions, but if I recall they cover most of the provinces.
• iKorea-awesome
  
  

Anyone want to pay me to review your English-based Korean iPhone apps?=) I'd love the chance to!

Vocab of the day:
Korean: iPhone = pronounced "I-Pohn-ee", yes iPony. I claim rights to whichever band first realizes this is an awesome name.
Military: POTS =Plain Old Telephone Service

Finding home

I've come to discover that living in a place doesn't necessarily make me feel like it's home. Sometimes for quite a while- three months in the current case. In fact, I've decided that the one thing that truly emphasizes the idea of home is leaving and flying into the local airport.  It's that feeling of, "I know this place. When I get to the end of this trip, I'll be in my bed, using my shower and cleaning up my space again." When I moved to Seattle, it probably took five or six trips into Sea-Tac before I could pick out landmarks flying in, mentally drive to my neighborhood and plan my next exploits of going to school, grabbing groceries or coffee and planning a night out with the girls. It's being able to visualize myself in a place that helps solidify its home-ness, and the airport is a key place for me to truly understanding where I live.

For the moment, flying into Seoul still seems totally bizarre- how can "home" be a place where I don't speak the language, where most of my friends don't live, I don't have a job and I can barely figure out how to buy laundry detergent on a good day? But somehow, each trip whether an hour away or around the entire world (see month of June... or imagine it as I didn't post then) helps the relief settle in just a bit more when I hear our talking front door welcome me home, even though I've yet to learn the phrase it uses.

As with most military families, I'm sure I'll learn to adjust more quickly the more moves we make. I can't imagine the upheaval that comes with moving 5, 6... 10+ times during a careers and how the families that don't strangle said career person dragging them from state to state or country to country.

So for now I'm going to settle in with a mug of tea and my coziest blanket for an episode of a crazy Korean drama and be happy I'm home.


Vocab of the day:
Korean: home = 가정 (gah-johng)
Military: HD = home defense

On the road again

Three weeks in the states officially graduating, making September wedding celebration plans (family/friend event as before we basically eloped) and now in London to present a poster at an amazing conference at Cambridge. Many things to reflect on but I'll leave with this:

Travel is just so much cooler in some ways when you mostly speak the language. Cheerio!

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 여행 (yough hayng? tricky vowels on this one) = travel
Military: Space available travel= free flights if you can wait in line for a few hours=)

-less or -free?

Whoa there, army baby.

I had the delight of attending another variety of spouse orientation today, the fourth in the six months I've been married and militar-ied.  While such orientations tend to have at least one highlight (i.e. learning to seal an infant into a chemical warfare suit) many tend to give variations of the same information rather drily. Part of my boredom is my lack of children- today I estimated that a good 1/3 of the orientation wasn't  applicable to me as a spouse with no kids.

Now, I totally get that the vast majority of military folk have kids- if you're going to, the benefits of having rugrats inside vs. outside the military support system is incomparable. I love the kiddos, but in the military it seems that not having any makes you immediately suspect. I was asked THE WEEK AFTER WE GOT MARRIED by my hubs' commander when we were going to start popping them out. Another military friend was assumed to be barren when she and her husband of two years kept the family to just them. It's just weird, mostly. Many military families can make an instant connection through their kids and not having any requires you be more resourceful to find compatible friends (and keep them when many families have schedules dictated by school, sports and the like).

This train of thought got me to googling, which turned up this interesting article about being sans kiddos in the military. While a bit more aggressive than I'd write, it seemed fairly neutral, especially as I continued to search for other points of view. This search confirmed my nagging suspicion that using either the terms "child-less" or "child-free" hold some serious emotional charges (being incomplete, purposeless without parenting v. being smart or lucky enough not to have to deal with the screaming messes).  I stumbled upon a heated debate of a blogging dad who posted an ironic ad for his kids and at least one "child free" blog who heartily agreed with the post, with some commenters getting so riled up as to refer to parents disdainfully as "breeders."

While I find both extremes ridiculous, it seems hard to find a middle ground and a neutral term. Do I have to describe myself as either joyfully escaping parenthood or sadly without children? Child-neutral? Adultly-gifted? Undecided? For now I'll just keep answering, "Nope, no kids. I teach plenty" and carry on.


Vocab of the day:
Korean: 아이들 (ah-ee-dil) = children
Military: dependent= family member of active duty servicemember

Observation Post

It's not really a coffee shop as a Seattleite would expect. It's more a breakfast item/coffee vendor tucked in the second floor of motel on base, but it has a few reasonably comfortable chairs, tables near outlets and nobody gives you the stink eye if you hang out for hours with your single drip coffee.

Often when I'm killing time, I bring the trusty old lappy along and settle in a corner to catch up on news, whittle away at email, peruse facebook, read blogs or even browse Failbook if I'm really trying to kill time. However, even better than the amusements the interwebs hold is the people watching at this particular establishment- a little slice of military life.

This little cubby is apparently a hot spot for folks waiting at the hotel to PCS (permanently move) out of the country and I've been privy to some fascinating conversations, as summer is when many people move to accommodate school schedules. From the drawl-tastic Southern young man frantically trying to corral his two small children while his wife texted indifferently in the corner, to an older couple browsing the newspaper and chatting, to the mom with two teens challenging them to a game of hangman, it's fascinating to be a fly on the wall during their upheaval.

I've witnessed a correlation: those who seem to have more time in the military often have the same conversation ("Yes sir, we can't leave the country without x, y and z documents. Any chance we can get them today?") with far less panic and frustration than those who are visibly newer to the service. I can only imagine where I would have rated on that scale during our first move, and ponder how many moves one has to do before putting all your belongings in crates (every 1-3 years) and shipping them to a new country in which you have no home, no friends, no language skills and knowing that everything will turn out in the end. As much as I may poke fun of the concept, that definitely qualifies as Army strong.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 사람들  (sah-rahm-dil) = people
Military: OP= observation post

Snuffles, Slippers and Stick Shifts

Mr. Snuffles.
On the way back from the Lantern Festival, my husband and I encountered a woman in the Seoul subway station hocking adorable, sweet, fuzzy baby bunnies! We hesitated for a moment (well, I might have grabbed one and started envisioning our life together), and we decided this was another presentation of our recent desire to add to the family and left before we could do anything rash. It seems many couples who have this desire fill it by having babies, but just we tend to talk about getting dogs, cats, baby snow leopards, orangutans, koalas... and I guess bunnies.

About three subway stops later, we started to discuss why a bunny would actually be a great option for a pet-- shedding less than a cat, lower maintenance than anything but fish, still cuddly, and we could take it home in my ever-present big bag of crazy and name him Mr. Snuffles and live happily ever after! About four subway stops later, we decided that they'd probably be cheap and we should turn around carpe bunny while we could. Unfortunately, this revelation came about 5 seconds before the subway door closed. The hubs made it out, I did not. Our flurry of confusion and surprise and miming and waving from opposite sides of the glass led to not a few giggles from the folks around us, and one older gentleman who then continued to laugh and smack me on the arm until the next stop.

When hubs and I finally reconnected I nearly mobbed him to see the little bun-bun, only to find out the bunny-vending woman had moved. For the hour long drive home, we both mourned the mishap of Mr. Snuffles. (Later to consult the wisdom of the Googles and find out bunnies can be mean and destructive.)

Slippers.
And there I was, doing my first real interview in Korea in slippers. This is not unusual for Koreans (shoes and outside ground are considered grossly dirty, shoes are removed in homes and some businesses), but I also had no idea what the blue blazes was going on. I'd submitted my resume for an earlier part-time job to this hagwon (English teaching school) which was already taken, so when the principal called and asked if I could come in that day, I assumed it was for a similar position and didn't want to be the pushy American needing to know everything. Upon arrival, I had the strangest career-based conversation I've ever had with a very nice guy with pretty limited English skills. (Which I've now learned is pretty common for the folk who run these English-teaching schools. Weird.)

After chatting about my background and military life (he was retired Air Force in Korea), he asked me if I would speak with a student for a few minutes and evaluate his English. I agreed, trusting my basic subject-teaching skills to help me figure out how to evaluate language acquisition and moved to the next room where I had a lovely conversation with a 14 year old who spoke fantastic English already. After having him read, write, and speak with me I came out to give my verdict, only to be told that the mother expected "a long more intense time." At this point I realize that both me AND this kid are working to get into this school, and now I have to please the mom as well. An hour later after more quizzing the kid, reviewing his performance with mom and principal then setting up lesson times, I finally got to ask about pay, benefits, etc. Only to find it was about half of what private teachers can make. Mamma mia.

But now I have the next two weeks of INTENSIVE English lessons to learn about how to teach ESL and make a few dollars to boot.

Stick Shift.
This one is fairly obvious. I learned how to drive a stick shift over the weekend (thanks hubs!) and took the beast out for our first adventure in Korea yesterday. Best part: while there were a few bumpy times, the only time I killed the car absolutely dead- after a frenetic burst of bucking like a wild bronco- was after getting my ID checked at the military installation gate and trying to pull away. Me, open car window and three gate guards in uniforms with guns trying not to laugh. Classic.


Vocab of the day:
Korean: (cha) = car
Military: CIB = Combat Infantry Bunny (-ish)

Salute!

Two posts this month! I'm on a roll these days.

So I'll leave the travel tales (Lantern Festival this weekend- could make for some good stories) and stick to militaryness for the moment. While adjusting to military wifery life has been a process, one of the things that still strikes me as bizzare is the salute.

From wikihow.com

If you were playing charades and trying to get someone to guess "military" or any derivation thereof, most likely you would salute. While that's about all I knew before marrying into the service, more has become apparent as I've spent time on various installations. For one, the distinction between enlisted service members (soldiers, sailors, guardsmen, airmen) and officers is that usually that officers have gone to college and completed an officer training camp/school. One thing that continues to blow my mind is that the highest ranking enlisted soldier will hypothetically never outrank even the officer who just graduated and joined last month. And when it comes to saluting, the lower-ranking person must always (when appropriate) salute the higher-ranking person, or be viewed as a terribly disrespectful and possibly even insubordinate soldier/sailor/airmen/guardsmen. (Man, those generic terms are gender-unfriendly)

My hubs is a lawyer therefore an officer, and during his training many of his trainers were enlisted members who would both get in his face during the daily 6 mile run and still call him "sir." What a weird parallel universe. I really respect that my hubs (and many others I've met) stay humble to folks who have been in service longer than him regardless of enlisted/officer status. However, military-wide the salute remains to remind of rank regardless of experience, job performance or anything else.

Our first week on base I nearly giggled when a passing soldier saluted my husband as we walked to lunch together. This became a problem, as most people were in uniform (in civilian clothes you normally don't have to salute) and everyone we passed either saluted him (lower ranking) or he had to salute (higher ranking). As unobtrusive as the guy I married is, it was hilarious to me that every few seconds we had to stop our conversation for this rather archaic uber-masculine gesture of demonstrating pecking order.

Even better was the morning when went on base for our driving test. We were running a bit behind, and to ensure we didn't get locked out of the exam room, we began running (me none to gracefully in my slip-on shoes and huge bag flailing about) toward the vicinity. As we approached the correct building, a taxi full of young men in uniform pulled up and began to pile out, laughing and joking, obviously on their way to the same exam. The hubs asked one of them if they knew which room the driving test was given in. One chuckling sandy-haired young man wobbled out of the cab as the others pushed out, then caught sight of my husband and I. He suddenly snapped violently upright, suddenly solemn, saluted and responded emphatically, "Negative, sir!" Never have I seen such an instant demeanor change, made even more ridiculous by our sweaty and bedraggled state. On the way out of the same exam we crossed paths with a bicycling soldier, who stopped to shift his weight and saluted the hubs as he rolled by- which led to a full out gut-busting laugh after he had passed (oh, I wish I had a picture- balanced on bike and saluting is so funny to witness).

It is most unfortunate that this very serious sign of solidarity and respect still makes me giggle, but I'm coming to respect it more. Although stories of junior officers demanding of more experienced enlisted soldiers, "Are we not saluting officers today?" make my skin crawl, I'm even coming to find it normal. It's like a wave from passing bus drivers, a bow in Asian culture- it's a sign of acknowledgment and support, even if it does venture on an insiders-club secret handshake. And the good news is that unless I get a crazy streak and decide to join up, I'll never have to.


Vocab of the day:
Korean: 인사 (een-sah)=  salute    *All translations courtesy of BabelFish. I also blame them for funny/horrifying/wonderful mistranslations=)
Military: SALUTE (not the gesture, but an acronym)= Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time and Equipment.

Namja!!

Quick preface- I've been meaning to write for a while, but previous attempts starting with apologies usually derailed the process so here's the start of what I hope will be a better writing streak!


For any of you who speak any Korean, you know that "namja"(남자) means "man." Fairly simple. And for you who don't, mini lesson in Korean: the L-looking character is an n, the ㅏ is "ah," the box with legs is m, the headless guy is j and then there's ㅏ again. Look! You can read Korean- you're brilliant! This is one of the few dozen words I have acquired in Korean due to the brilliance of Rosetta Stone. I'm still working on such things as "restroom" and "plastic recyclables" (to my dismay each time I take our items down to the apartment complex waste area, only to be rebuked by the guy there). But I digress.

One fine evening last week the hubs and I went up to the Seoul area to hang out with a friend of his who happened to be in the country for a few days. He introduced us to some of his english teaching friends and we had ourselves a right little Cinco de Mayo party all told, complete with any random Spanish music that could be found online and some respectable burritos and even a few Coronas. Afterward some of us ventured out into the pouring rain to find a no-rae-bahng (karaoke house) and enjoy the evening further.

In Korea, people often live with their parents into their 30s/until they are married mostly as an economic arrangement. This has led to a category of business (love motels) aimed at the market of young adults who are under constant parental supervision to facilitate time away with their special someone. Which also happen to be clean, comfortable and wonderfully cheap to the passing foreigner who doesn't mind whatever scorn is directed at such establishments (the parking area ceilings are often shrouded in cloth privacy danglies, lobby doors opaque, cash paid up front, etc).

After our enjoyable evening out, the hubs and I found the nearest motel to get out of the rain and checked in for the night. He then remembered that he had forgotten his backpack earlier and needed to go retrieve it. I, tired, sopping wet and a bit discombobulated from the Cinco partying, stripped out of my wet clothes and sprawled on the bed, beginning to doze off.

The next thing I know, there was a small, loud  and adamant older Korean lady in our room shouting things I can't understand. I tried to both understand and speak to her, belatedly realized both that I was stark nekkid in front of her and that she didn't even knock before entering the room to have this enlightened discourse. I dove under the covers, then tried again to puzzle out what the heck she was trying to convey.

Motel lady: AJGKDJALSD KSDFKNG KSDFG LEHRLTI ONJDKH NAMJA!
Me: Ummm.... oh yeah, namja!
Motel lady: LADSHFIN AKSNDFK DKERN AKSDNFIH KSNDKHA NAMJA?
Me: Ne, namja (yes, the man)
Motel lady: INGKGSDJ TAHGKD PASKMGKH WIENKNSG NAMJA!
Me: Namja? (Shrug)
Motel lady: Namja!
Me: Oh boy.....

This exchange went on for a few minutes, with "namja" as our only common word. I worked out that she was looking for the hubs, but couldn't really communicate that I knew nothing about when he would return. I eventually thought to call him, located my phone and began dialing, at which point the good man stepped in the room and returned the umbrella he had apparently borrowed from the innkeeper. She was on her way with a parting, victorious "Namja!" while pointing at my husband. All for an umbrella. The moral I took from this experience:

1) My current level of Korean is useless, and
2) Deadbolt doors in such motels, or pay the price of naked confused conversation in the future.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 남자/namja = man
Military: WOA = warning of attack

Twitterpated

20 minutes of computer battery left, many errands to do before the borrowed car is returned, caffiene rush from homemade latte + coffee with awesome welcoming wife and no internet at home yet make for a Twitter-style update (cheating a bit- it's 140 characters without spaces). Here goes:

Love Korea, learning Korean, adjusting to Army, great apartment, furniture in tomorrow, motorcycle licensed, husband + sister/family time, and Korean karaoke!

More later!

Here or there

Last night, I'm sitting in Chili's sipping a margarita and watching Nick Collison (go KU!) play basketball on the big screen tv, waiting for a takeout order of a swiss mushroom burger and shrimp pasta. The serving staff began a parade out with tambourines and noisemakers to sing the birthday song to a booth stuffed with merry-making 20-somethings.

But Shannon, you say. Aren't you in Korea? Not only Korea, but didn't you just move from the capital to a less metropolitan area? Ah, reader. You forget that I am on a military base- where you can forget entirely that you're in another country. And when you look a little closer, you can see some small differences. All the servers are Korean and have the language around the menu down pat but are eager to work on other conversational English. Most of the folks in Chili's (and pretty much anywhere we go these days) are in military uniform.

It's been hard to write lately because there's so much changing I don't know where to start. I can already tell that some of the things that seemed insanely weird to me before are now less so. When I went to the gym last night, the woman at the front desk was happy to give me a tour and only about halfway through I realized she probably thought I was military myself instead of a civilian. And for the first time, that struck me as a compliment instead of a strange miscommunication. Yesterday we met some of the folks hubs will be working with and one of the guys was nice enough but was quite down on Korea and couldn't understand why anyone would want to live off base. It seemed like a logical argument until I remembered that living on post was something I would have shuddered at a mere month ago.

Some of the great things about moving so far: time with the sister and her fiance, who have given us awesome tours of Seoul, learning the characters of Hangeul (the Korean alphabet) so I can read if not understand what I'm reading, spending more time with the hubs than we've been able to since we've been married, and having no work or school to attend to for the moment (though I'm already planning how to finish my teaching masters' degree online).

Ben should be back in a few minutes with news of if we're moving to another post today (which should allow us to go house hunting this weekend in addition to hopefully getting phones!) so that's it for now.

Love from Asia- tomorrow is a good day already.=)

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 서울 = Seoul    서= s+ough   울= oo + l
Military: BDTD = Been there, done that

And so it begins

Day 1 in Korea

“I don’t know when I count” I say to my husband. In this particular instance, we were aboard a bus taking us from the in-processing building on post to the DFAC (dining facility) for breakfast. The guy wrangling us on to the bus had called for a count off, and luckily in this case I was able to quickly enough discern they just wanted people on the bus and not specifically soldiers and blurted out “Three!” without too much confusion.

But this has been a theme of the past 24 hours or so and will likely continue to be at least during the in-processing ahead. Of the two dozen or so new soldiers who arrived yesterday and are doing “Day Zero” training all day today, not one seems to have a spouse along, though several have families as they've asked questions about how to address various issues when their families arrive. Overall, I’ve been either completely ignored or politely acknowledged depending on the situation, from the briefer giving me a warm “Good morning, ma’am” to the later comment I heard on the bus– “We have 25 people on the bus. But it’s not all military, there’s a wife.” (I can’t even really discern the reason for the last comment- it seemed to just be a statement of fact, but why did the commenter feel the need to differentiate?) There was even a small ruckus at said dining facility when the cashier at the front was insistent that either I couldn’t eat there or that I had to pay (the first was untrue, the second we were offering money for, to some confusion) which was only cleared up many minutes later after some tricky limited language conversation with the manager. And of course, after holding up many of the other folks behind us.

As I noticed when I stayed with Ben in the soldier’s quarters a few months ago at JAG school, none of the other spouses I’ve encountered seem particularly keen to jump into these experiences with their significant others. They seem to stay in hotels elsewhere, eat elsewhere, generally make themselves scarce unless at an official event where showing up and looking pretty is part of the package. It’s probably that they all know better than me, or have done this once and are now over dealing with the awkward looks, or perhaps feel awkward themselves walking around in soldier’s quarters and facilities like they belong (God knows I do). There's that whole "they're serving the country, it's a very special job," and technically we're not... but....

In some ways, this pisses me off that spouses who have likely given up their careers, homes, friends and familiar circumstances to move across an ocean to support their service member can’t feel comfortable in their new surroundings. But yesterday I also realized that in some ways I was the only spouse in attendance at Ben’s “bring your wife to work” day. If he were at my research office in Seattle, I wouldn’t want him interrupting my boss’s remarks or getting in my way when I’m trying to accomplish things. So should I be surprised that it makes the most sense for me to mostly be quiet and ask questions only when we’re waiting around?

The to-do list for today looks both terribly domestic and at the same time just awesome. After balancing school, work, thesis, student senate and school governance,  both past and upcoming wedding celebrations  and until fairly recently helping with a mayoral campaign, it’s strange to be by myself with no phone, no internet (yet) and a full day to deal with such a small number of things. I can understand how it would be easy in this life to focus on keeping the home in order and going to the gym, and I think I’ll enjoy it for a while and then enjoy getting back to work myself.

To do:

Call the sister

Go to mini-PX

Go swimming! A lap lane that's completely empty= heaven!

Enter ID in system so I can leave post

Explore- hotel, post, as far as I can walk?

Korean character flashcards

Buy a watch (so used to the iPhone ):

Work on rank/symbols

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 여보세요/ Annyong Haseo= hello (new goal to phonetically spell out as many Korean vocab words as possible in the future!)
Military: DFAC= dining facility

Waiting, waiting

Some time between middle and high school, I remember hearing a performance of a song which I'm pretty sure was a spiritual which went something like, "Waiting... waiting... waiting... waiting... waiting, all my life." I can't find reference to it on the wide web, but I'll continue to believe it exists.

The song seemed laborious, sad, beautiful... and I'm not shocked that it's coming to mind right now. I'm completely tuckered out, with the little frantic rabbit-patter in my chest still, and yet everything hinges on waiting for something out of my control. This coming morning, if all goes well, someone in Korea will have put their stamp of approval on one piece of paper (my command sponsorship) and sent it to an installation in Georgia, where someone will amend another piece of paper (hubs' orders), who will then have to book me on an international flight that leaves TOMORROW.

And of course if all is set in motion as hoped, tomorrow is all the time we have to drop off my car on post (an hour away) to be shipped, get me a visa from the Korean consulate, merely begin processing my government passport application and drop off some of our remaining belongings in storage. And then some other errands like doing our taxes, throwing a goodbye party and finding a temporary home for my wedding dress that don't hinge on bureaucracies across two continents behaving. Ah life.

It is fantastic to have the hubs back. It is not so fantastic to feel a bit adrift- unemployed (if temporarily) for one of few times since I was 14, graduated from school (yay! what now?) and unsure of what's next and if it will even resemble anything like former phases of life. I am thrilled to see my recently-engaged sister within the week and trek off on this adventure in earnest, but right now it's a lot of uphill boulder rolling and paper pushing before we get to even glimpse the other side. Also trying to get wedding/reception receptions mailed... um tomorrow. I'm rethinking my previous conviction that handcrafting and wax sealing each one was absolutely essential. Good night, and good luck.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 급함 = hurry
Military: AT = awaiting transportation

Inside/Outside

Wow, today my work sent out the following email. So incredibly sweet, but also a little overwhelming with all the military-ness. I guess it's time to get used to it...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ten-Hut!

Shannon is shaving her head, donning camo, and heading to Korea!

(She's graduating early; her last day at work is 3/19.)

Let's have a little [office] gathering to give Shannon a big Hooah!*

Shannon ain't no box of rocks,** but while she's been squared away*** at [work], she's entering newbie**** land now.

Please bring some beverages and/or snacks, 4 pm, [office] barracks. Weather permitting, we'll hit the deck. Camo encouraged, but not necessary.

Questions? Just ask Sgt. Star:  http://sgtstar.goarmy.com/ActiveAgentUI/welcome.aspx

Need a little bootcamp before 3/18? Watch an episode of "Army Wives"  (starting its 4th season ... who knew?)

http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/army-wives

Or, perhaps read the moving poem below (moving... get it?) from the "Army Wives" website.

over and out (and clearly unfit for duty),

d

*Probably one of the best known Army words is "Hooah!" (pronounced who-ah, or who-uh). This word is usually shouted or grunted by motivated soldiers. It's general meaning is "Yes", "OK", "I agree with you", "Awesome" or any other concurring comment. Oftentimes, a group of soldiers will offer up the "Hooah" response when they are acknowledged for a job well done, or to express their happiness when told that things have gone exceptionally well and they are proud of their accomplishments.

**Box of Rocks - Uncomplimentary description for an Ate Up soldier, who manages to repeatedly do stupid things. Such a troop may be described as "...dumber than a box of rocks".

***Squared Away - This is a description of a soldier who always looks sharp, knows his job exceptionally well and is always on top of things.
****Newbie - This describes a fresh soldier just arriving into your unit.

The Military Wife

Lots of moving...
Moving...
Moving...
Moving far from home...
Moving two cars, three kids and one dog...all riding with HER of course.
Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house;
Moving curtains that won't fit;
Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.
Moving away from friends;
Moving toward new friends;
Moving her most important luggage: her trunk full of memories.

Often waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting for housing.
Waiting for orders.
Waiting for deployments.
Waiting for phone calls.
Waiting for reunions.
Waiting for the new curtains to arrive.
Waiting for him to come home,
For dinner...AGAIN!

They call her 'Military Dependent', but she knows better:
She is fiercely In-Dependent.

She can balance a check book; Handle the yard work;
Fix a noisy toilet; Bury the family pet...

She is intimately familiar with drywall anchors and toggle bolts.
She can file the taxes; Sell a house; Buy a car;
Or set up a move... all with ONE Power of Attorney.

She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.
She reinvents her career with every PCS;
Locates a house in the desert, The Arctic, Or the deep south.
And learns to call them all 'home'.
She MAKES them all home.

Military Wives are somewhat hasty...
They leap into:
Decorating, Leadership, Volunteering,
Career alternatives, Churches, And friendships.
They don't have 15 years to get to know people.
Their roots are short but flexible.
They plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come after them.

Military Wives quickly learn to value each other:
They connect over coffee,
Rely on the spouse network,
Accept offers of friendship and favors.
Record addresses in pencil...

Military Wives have a common bond:
The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands; his commitment is unique.
He doesn't have a 'JOB'
He has a 'MISSION' that he can't just decide to quit...
He's on-call for his country 24/7.
But for her, he's the most unreliable guy in town!
His language is foreign
TDY, PCS,  OPR, SOS, ACC, BDU, ACU, BAR, CIB, TAD
And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.
She is the long- distance link to keep them informed;
the glue that holds them together.

A Military Wife has her moments:
She wants to wring his neck;
Dye his uniform pink;
Refuse to move to Siberia;
But she pulls herself together.
Give her a few days,
A travel brochure,
A long hot bath,
A pledge to the flag,
A wedding picture

And she goes. She packs. She moves. She follows.

Why? What for? How come?
You may think it is because she has lost her mind.
But actually it is because she has lost her heart.
It was stolen from her by a man,
Who puts duty first, Who longs to deploy, Who salutes the flag,
And whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military Husband,
She will remain his military wife.
And would have it no other way.

Oh what fun it is to call...

I'm generally adverse to using the phone. I prefer text, IM, email or in person. I guess this is a product of being a high visual learner, but thankfully most of the modern world quite easily accomodates my strange preference.

Except, of course, the Army. If you're planning on dealing with the Army, make sure you have your phone fortitude stocked up and a good unlimited minutes plan. Even their fancy pants website with supposedly accurate phone numbers has been a total bust thus far, so it's been more efficient (notice I don't say simply efficient) to just call around and hope someone somewhere has some idea of what I'm talking about. So this has been the fun today:

(Note, each of these are at least one phone call. And sadly, little to no exaggeration below.)
Husband: Ok, so you need to take a terrorist identification training program before we leave for Korea, and your regular passport (which was acquired in haste for the move) won't work- you need to go get a government passport on post for the move. And don't forget your required shots, you can get those on post when you get the passport from the transportation office.
Me: Ok, cool. Post medical clinic, can you help me schedule an appointment for shots?
Medical clinic: Nope, you have to schedule that with your healthcare provider.

Healthcare provider: (4 phone numbers later) Which clinic? Sponsor's full social security number and history? Full medical history? Wait...nope, you can't schedule an appointment, just walk in any day. But make sure you get directions from them.
Medical clinic: Great, here are directions. But if you don't have a sticker on your car, I'm not sure if they'll let you on post. Call the visitor's office.
Visitor's office: Sure, just make sure you come here first with id, licencse and registration and you can get a visitor's pass.
**Victory dance! One task at least one task understood and able to be planned.**

Me: Ok, when can I come get a government passport?
Transportation office: No clue. You definitely have the wrong office. Try the info line.
Post info line: Oh, you need the personnel office. Here's the number.
Personnel office: Nope, not us. Maybe re-assignments? Sorry, we don't have the number.
Post info line: We only have a general info line for assignments, it's (proceeds to give me first clinic number I was given an hour and a half ago).
Me: Awesome. Let's try the website for "new to all this mess"... Civilian Advisory! Sounds helpful.
Civilian Advisory Center: Please leave a message and we'll get right back to you.
Me: SHANNON SMASH!!! Ahem, please give me a call back with the number for passports as everybody on post, not to mention your website, seem to have misplaced it. Thank you.
Post website: I'm sorry, your search for "assignment" cannot be completed. Service is not running.
Husband: Wow. Try this number.
Transportation: How the heck did you call us again? No.
Husband: Ok, it has to be this one for sure. It's the passport office.
Assignment office: Yes, we can help set up an appointment but there are no openings until March 19.
Me: That might be a problem, we're trying to leave March 25th.
Assignment office: Well, it takes 6-10 weeks to process. Have you filled out paperwork A, B and C?
Me: Um, no idea. Can it be rushed at all? Where do I get this paperwork?
Assignment office: Well, I'll schedule you for the 19th. Call the passport office tomorrow at this number and they can give you the paperwork. Good luck.
Me: Good luck indeed.


On the up side, I'll never forget the area code for the post ever again.

Vocab of the day:

Korean: 전화 =  telephone

Military: TAP-IT= telephonic automated produce information technology

I've always wanted to live like a hermit...

So the movers are at it, and legally I can't help so I get to sit here awkwardly pretending not to hear the cat yowling from the balcony and attempting to do homework so this weekend can be thesis-tastic.

Whilst labeling boxes overnight and early this morning (I was told about the move about 30 hours before it happened. Awesome), I wrote both my and hubs' last names for about three boxes, then just gave up and started labeling with his name. After all, if they get lost it will only confuse people to have mine on there and they know how to track him down with military precision. The epic battle of Army practicality versus feminist identity... today goes to making sure our stuff doesn't end up on a different continent.

I also find in funny ways that I'm getting less offended by military culture and the hubs is getting more so. Funny-ironic, mostly, as about a month ago I launched into a tirade about how spouses are treated and was regarded with a blank stare. After a long (and good) conversation, he'd brought to my attention that at least from where he stood, the actual policies didn't do much downplaying of spouses, but that perhaps the culture of the folks who tended to self-select led to a culture that does all the things that really scratch my eyeballs raw. However, as he lost the power of attorney when he changed computers, submitting the move paperwork was all but impossible for me (had to do it twice to two separate posts, gross boo hiss) but went through effortlessly as soon as he did it. I think I'd come to expect as much, but he was quite frustrated, no doubt mostly by the fact that his current training has him outdoors 18 hours with no phone on many days.

Well, tonight I will have only my mattress and the stuff that fits in two suitcases in my room. (And will be done with the insane doses of ibuprofen for all the medical/dental procedures I've been packing in. Yay!) How weird. However, it might help kick my butt into thesis writing mode as it becomes unavoidably apparent that the days are dwindling.... 

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 포장하기 위하여 = to pack (whoa! throw an infinitive in there, and it gets all fancy)
Military: PCS= permanent change of station (a recycled goodie)

In progress...

Stats on the countdown:

• St. Patty's Day dash in a bit over two weeks (in which I'll be wearing THESE beauties. Don't ask how much I've trained though...)
• Thesis/classes done in 3 weeks
• Hubby arrives in 4 weeks
• Move to Korea on week 5

After that, I'm a great blank slate.

Jumping back, I have to relate the second great weekend with the hubs in which I had such tooth pain I cried through our Valentine's dinner at a classy establishment. Well, a root canal set me right and a few hundred bucks back, and surely between the food poisoning/car wreck weekend and root canal weekend, our next reunion and subsequent months should be karmic-ly cleared for sheer joy and perfection.

I also had an amazing, hilarious IHOP night tonight. A guy came in asking about his free pancakes (National Pancake Day = free pancakes! starting at 7 am) and when he was told it didn't start until tomorrow, he started a hilarious diatribe about how excited he'd been about the pancakes and how he'd made up a "Free Pancake Song" on the way over in the car. The poor server tried to work around it and point out how the fruit pancakes were great regardless. "But they're not FREE!" came the response.

Good thing I wore a hat so I could hide the fact I nearly burst out laughing.

The rest of life is absolutely nuts. I'm going to work on blogging more regularly (I actually do have a bit of a backlog of military/moving stories...), but suffice it to say that my 1:00 am trip to QFC on the way home yielded bubble bath, a 6 pack of apricot ale (mm, thanks Pyramid) and a 6 pack of Smirnoff Ice. Smirnoff Ice- I'm definitely in trouble.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 밤 = night
Military: NAAR = night to air refueling

OW

Impending root canal. Lots of vicodin. Lots to do. Big problems.

The Joys of Insomnia

Thesis draft due + insomnia= finishing my glass of wine and my work at 7:13 am.

I had the most amusing night at a coffe shop/IHOP (sequentially) which also seems to have stirred my productive vapors. Sitting on the balcony directly above the coffee grinder at Bauhaus made me think crazy thoughts like, "Can I find a coffee shop in Korea to sit and smell grinding beans?" After being booted at 1 am (sad change from the previous 2 am close), I moved to the ever-sketchy but so-much-fun 24-hour IHOP a few blocks away.

After trying unsuccessfully to diagnose the language spoken by the group of rambunctious men across from me, the most creatively dyed and tattooed group I've seen in a while came in and played NASCAR corners in the booth directly at the other end of the restaurant. A cute but silent older Hispanic couple sat across the divider next to me, and as I was finishing my draft up around 3:00, an agitated gent brought me a piece of paper with [10,000/hour seattle attorney] scrawled on it and asked me to google it for him (on the cleverly named "IHOP, yum!" wireless network). He told me at length about his pending case against National Insurance then wandered away without realizing that I still had earphones in listening to interviews, and the friendly server/host came to ask if "that man was bothering me."

Really, an epic way to spend your waking hours if they weren't meant to be waking and are usually far less entertaining. All topped off by the most ridiculous fog I think I've seen while driving home. So I cleverly took a few shots while driving (hey, there was nobody else on the road). 

I'm either going to sleep or run now... but later have some amazing stories about my first real trip onto a military post. Be very excited.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 불면증 = insomnia
Military: PBS = project breakdown structure

Epic, fantastic disaster

So, I've been away for awhile. Apologies to my two amazing avid readers.=)  However, I think the story that follows will make up the absence. We'll play it in the style of Fortunately, Unfortunately... (told in Georgia font for appropriateness)

Fortunately, I got to go visit the husband this weekend in Atlanta before he began his next military training stint.

Unfortunately, it took a 7 hour flight to get there.

Fortunately, he was waiting at the airport and had amazing things planned like drinks atop a 73rd floor rotating bar, a trip to the Georgia Aquarium and chicken and waffles at Gladys Knight's restaraunt.

Unfortunately, the turkey wings at Gladys' gave him horrible, three day, projectile-vomiting food poisoning.

Fortunately, we had gone Chatanooga Contra dancing before he got sick. (Who knew square dancing could be so much fun?)

Unfortunately, we got in a fender bender on the way home and had to wait for the police for 1.5 hours in the FREEZING cold. (and dented the rental car door to near un-functionality): .

Fortunately, the hubs mostly recovered from the food poisoning and surprised me with a visit to the Agatha Christie's Mystery Dinner Theatre.

Unfortunately, they had our reservation booked for the following week, so we went home and watched Wall-E instead.

Fortunately, we had an awesome time visiting Martin Luther King, Jr's church and getting the hubs to his required station.

Unfortunately, he brought too much stuff to training and needed me to fly some back to Seattle.

Fortunately, the airlines tend to not charge for military baggage when you have orders.

Unfortunately, they did charge me and airport security took 45 minutes, making me miss my flight time and my reserved exit row window seat.

Fortunately, after some begging they let me on the delayed flight, squished in the back between about 12 pilots going to cover other flights abandoned by stranded DC pilots.

Unfortunately, our flight left an hour late (due to a missing pilot, ironically) and my gate-checked bag got left in Milwaukee.

Fortunately, I managed to catch the last light-rail train at midnight after filling out the missing bag forms.

Unfortunately, this train inexplicably stops halfway to Seattle on Sunday nights.

Fortunately, there was a bus to downtown from the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately, there was no bus from downtown to home.

Fortunately, I caught a cab home for much less than the $50 it takes from the airport.

Unfortunately, I realized that the lost gate-checked bag contained my keys as I pulled up to my apartment and my roommate could not be woken by buzzer or phone.

Fortunately, we sometimes leave our balcony unlocked.

Unfortunately, I have not the monkey abilities that previous boy climbers to our balcony have and the evergreen trees nearby are not climbing-worthy, as I found out after imbedding sap in my hands.

Fortunately, I have some McGuyver in me and managed to balance the neighboring store's trashcan on the narrow cement ledge, throw a garden hose over the railing and knot one end into a foothold to arrive in the home with only some torn clothing and scratches worse.

Ah, life. I'm only glad to say that most of the disaster can be laughed off and I'm still glad we got some quality time together.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 운이 좋은 = fortunate
Military: BAD = broken as designed

A friend loves at all times, and a (sister) is born for adversity

Proverbs 17:17, proof that good friends are timeless, crucial and what get us through.

Quality friend time= 27.43
Confusion/chaos/frustration/suck= 0.5

Everything from sharing ridiculous youtube videos, trading job frustrations, wrestling with big issues or just sharing funny stories, consolation or support are the things that I already miss the most about moving. The amazing thing is that sometimes these people can be of entirely different histories, ideologies, nationalities, and personalities, but by just listening to each other the way ahead seems lighter. Friends can be family, spouses, frenemies or a random stranger on the bus who is willing to listen.

Kudos to those who are good to their friends and those who are kind to strangers.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 친구 = friend
Military: IFF= Identification, Friend or Foe

Don't come knocking...

Sitting at the airport... commence blog down in 50 minutes and counting.

For the joy of skiing and family and friends, I'll be incommunicado this weekend. Kudos to the lovely desk lady at Frontier who re-booked me for free after a light rail fail.

There are times when all you need is a break, whatever form that's in. A glass of wine, a long run, a candlelit bath, a vacation, whatever. Hopefully any fool reading this will find time this weekend to do a little of break time.


Vocab of the day:
Korean: 휴가 = vacation
Military: AWOL= away without leave

Brilliant.

So, although I'm still new to this (not yet broken the 2 month boundary), there are some things I've learned about marriage.

Plus:

• automatic date for events short of the really wild gender-specific ones
  
• eventual fading of the internal "who likes me?" voice in the coupley sense
• friends with benefits. or I suppose spouse with benefits
• partner for the hard stuff in life (and the good stuff=)
  
• snuggle buddy for movies and lazy Sundays
  
• *unconditional love and mush and stuff
  

Questionable: (not necessarily bad! just different)

• another person to schedule/plan around- emotions, ideas, careers
  
• learning to communicate, live, be around another person a lot
• legal/logistical stuff- insurance, taxes, records, bank accounts
  
• an additional extended family
  

I think I've managed to effectively void most of the immediately visible pluses by living across the country. Why was that a good idea?


Vocab of the day:
Korean: 배우자 = spouse
Military: Sponsor= military spouse's relationship to the civilian spouse

Musical ponderings = less blogging

Behind but not feeling bloggy. Sorry, y'all.

However, today the kindly Apple folks outfitted me with a newly-cased and wire-fray-free Macbook and swapped me out for a brand new iPhone (hooray for warantees). I'm currently trying to connect my keyboard and my Mac and the driver/MIDI situation might defeat me for the night. So I leave you with one of my inspirations...

Imogen Heap's "Earth"

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 음악 = music
Military: T&D = training and development

Ode to Seattle

In a conversation with a friend I tonight realized I'm between being pissed that I don't get to see my husband for three months (nearly a new record, even for the two of us) and grieving that I've just gotten to feeling comfortable in Seattle and having to leave.

Thusly, tonight's installation will be (no, I'll spare you my sappy love poems) a list of the beautiful and wonderful things I will miss about Seattle. In no particular order:

• My kitty (anyone want a slightly sweet and slightly crazed little beast? Army says no go) also viewable here!
  
• The ocean
• Clear days when you can see Mt. Rainer and the needle at the same time. Bonus points for sunset/sunrise at the same time
  
• My two roommates (yes, I only have one now but they both still get the label)
• My fantastic, amazing, wonderful friends
• Having figured out a transit system, more or less
• UW
• Cherry blossoms
  
• The UW gym
• The library system. Le sigh.
• Having figured out a grocery store, dry cleaner's, hair salon, etc etc
• Than Brothers Pho (and pho dates with Beth!)
• All the delicious coffee and tea
• Belly dancing in the Fremont Solstice Parade 
• Movie/TV girls nights, wine nights, poker nights, crazy nights out
• My apaaaaaaaaaartment.... (a la Ben Kweller)

I have to be missing a bunch... I'll get back to that. Other suggestions?

Vocab of the day:
Korean:  고양이 = cat
Military: Base, Post=home

Honestly?

Ok, weekend break from writing was nice, but back to it! We're now at week 9 before shipping off into the wild blue yonder, and it's growing nigh time to schedule the military movers and truly start thinking about all this stuff. Last medical appointments, computer checkups, anything that might be more difficult on the other side. I've also decided that included in this "before we go" checklist should be some amount of shoes and clothes acquisition as my sister has told me that non-Korean size clothing (read: above size 10) costs extra there, and I've had to buy and ship her shoes at least twice before.

To that end, I've been enjoying the after-Christmas sales and found some delightful items that will be well used (workout pants with pockets! cocktail-length dresses for military balls! suede boots!) at grad-school compatible rates. After getting my trusty MacBook checked at the Apple store tonight, I had a few extra minutes before class and wandered into H&M to see if there were any cheap goodies.

I love that most of the folks who work at H&M look much more like they should be advising on fashion than say, advising on education policy, though tonight's dressing room attendant looked like her goal was straight up Lady Gaga. All sorts of black sequin layers, matching neon pink lipstick and eyeshadow, one of those weird tiny fedora hats with the birdcage veil and then inexplicably Halloweeny orange-and-black striped tights with crazy platforms. And I'm sorry to say, a noticeable lisp. Alltogether an interesting package, but even more special was her unique gift for feedback. I had grabbed a crazy pair of shiny grey satin pants off the sale rack (who can resist a $10 tag?) and was debating how insane it would be to get the more-than-fitted beasts (of course, no other sizes on the sale rack) and stepped out of the dressing room to ask pink-and-orange-Gaga's opinion.

"Hey, can I get a second opinion on these?"
"Can I be honetht?"
"Please do. Are they way too tight?"
"They make your legths look like thausage cathingth."
"Huh. Uh, thanks."

Now, I did ask her to be honest. True, true and true. And I do appreciate Ms. Thing not just trying to sell whatever crap the crazy customer tries to squeeze into. But wow. Problem 1: I am concerned about the logic on this one. Either my legs look like sausages or the pants are sausage casings... but my legs looking like casings would be quite a feat that I'm not sure even my legs are up to. Problem 2: There was an easy out- just say "Yup, too tight." It's a moment where I both want to laugh until my lungs ache and call her manager for being not just a fashion nazi, but a rude one. Regardless, thanks to Ladytasticness for helping me save money this evening. And for keeping me from looking like sausage (casings?).

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 재미있은= funny
Military: AARAD= attack assessment radar

The story of military stories

Well, took a day off yesterday but wrote elsewhere to my boo. I think the roughly daily goal is a good one and the writing is a good habit- I had a summary to write for work today and it quite fell from my fingertips with little effort.

On to today's quandry: military stories, including dramas, series, books, true stories, the works. I am still early in my collecting of military stories, but of those I've amassed so far, there's a very similar setup: range of women (sometimes men) who are married to various stations in the military from various places, now all forced to do this strange military thing. Usual characters:

• The high ranking wife. Generally older, caring and understanding, but strong. All about the hubby's career and can be cutthroat if something threatens said career.
• Somebody slightly diverse. An ethnic minority, military husband, somebody other than the white women that overrun the military spouse ranks. This person acts mostly like everyone else, but every now and again reminds us that they're diverse (a product of the authors or the military? who knows.)
  
• A spouse of a serviceperson with an intriguing, dangerous job. The spouse is an intelligence agent, secret mission specialist, or something that requires him(her) to become a royal jerk "due to the stress." Wifey (hubby) puts up with this to "serve their country."
• Spouse who used to work, loved their work and now is told he/she shouldn't. This can also be all characters.
  
• The wife with a dark side. Hubby is abusive, she does drugs, they have money problems, she has an affair from the past that won't go away, or he a kid that she pretends isn't his. She usually does this mostly on her own but may let in a few of our other leading characters, strengthening their camaraderie in shared secretiveness.
• Poor, low ranking wife. Usually loud, savvy and very loveable. The story gets higher plotmarks if she married the man after knowing him, say, 30 minutes.
  

Some of the characters can be combined- say the abusive husband in special forces or the high ranking wife with a secret. But in some combination they always seem to be there. It is usually through this last character, the downhome, endearingly ignorant wife (I've yet to find a story where this character is a husband) that the culture of the military is explained to the untrained audience. This wife makes most of the etiquette and protocol faux pas possible without actually getting their husband dismissed, but because of this unknowing rebellion the audience empathizes with the plight of the poor unknowing woman fed to the rabble of those who follow the rules and like it.

There's some sense in structuring a story this way- the audience is let in on how things should be from different perspectives, shown what's acceptable and what's not, and given a character to root for regardless of your personal views toward the military. My only question is- am I missing stories where relatively educated folks grapple with the customs and rules of the military? Quite likely this is just my bias, but it would be a helpful parable of even a slightly different type of protagonist. It's not because our protypical heroine isn't educated that she fumbles through her introduction to the military, it's because it's a different and sometimes confusing world, regardless of where you've been before.
 Watch out, maybe I'll write that story someday.

Vocab of the day:
Korean: 연극 = drama
Military: FOW= family of weapons (few acronyms having to do with the person-based family, but this seemed appropriate)