Happy New Year! I had a safe trip to and from South Korea, and enjoyed the time I spent with my old roommate. I took plenty of pictures, and regret I didn’t take more. I hope to one day return to South Korea to meet up with my friend again, and take triple the pictures, but that will be some time in the future.

I should have written this post when things were more fresh in my mind. Now that I’ve told so many people about the things I did and saw over there, typing it out here a month or so later feels like I’m bringing up tired news. I don’t mean to insinuate I dislike talking about South Korea; rather, I’m worried I’ve already said too much, and am annoying everyone.

Things were so strange for me in South Korea. I expected the business and lifestyle to mirror the United States in many ways, based on the information I could gather on the Internet. I was definitely wrong in my assumptions, and was quite shocked to see how different everything was in Seoul. I finally understood the stress my South Korean friend had when he volunteered for a year in Bartlesville. The differences went beyond those found between a small city like Bartlesville, and a huge city like Seoul. The way people act, the way business is done, the way traffic operates, and the way people live are just some of the way in which South Korea is different from the United States.

My friend showed me around many areas of Seoul for the five days I visited with him, and I was impressed by the amount of work he’d put into showing me the city. I learned more about South Korea in those five days than I had ever known before, and he wasn’t able to show me everything he wanted!

I don’t have much time left today to write out this post, so I’m not going to get into grand detail about all the things I saw over there: I’ll leave that information for another post. I wanted to post an update to show I haven’t forgotten about the site, and to let you all know the pictures I took are (eventually) going to be posted. I have a plan for what I want to do with the pictures, but that involves more effort and time.

For now, please enjoy one of the pictures I took in Seoul. The two buildings on the right are Samsung Gwangjin Trapalace Apartments. The picture was taken in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, South Korea, beside the Yeongdong Bridge. I think I took this picture on my third or fourth day in South Korea.

I can’t believe I took so long to post. So many things have been going on! I’ll leave that for another post.

Back a few months ago, I was in a conversation with a coworker about my hopes to one day travel to South Korea to visit my old roommate. At the time I was in the conversation, I had done a little saving, but not enough to cover the cost of the ticket. My coworker asked me about my progress, and said he would be willing to help me out once I figured out all the costs. I thought little of it, because I didn’t assume he was actually serious about that offer.

After a month or two, I was again asked by the same person about my progress, and this time I was able to provide a better answer on my savings for my trip to South Korea. It surprised me when he again repeated the offer, and shocked me even more when he then started working on getting a date set for my flight.

With the help of my coworker, I have set a tentative schedule of December 9-15 to fly out to visit my roommate in South Korea, provided I receive the necessary papers in time for the ticket to be affordable. I and my roommate are very excited, and I’m already anxious to start taking pictures of the area. I’ll have to buy another memory card to replace the one I lost (unfortunately, the pictures that were on the card will require me to wait for the leaves to return to reshoot), and purchase some sturdy luggage to carry all the stuff I hope to buy while I’m over there.

Life in Bartlesville remains the same, and I am feeling more comfortable with my job these days, or at least, I’m less nervous. My social life is social enough for my taste, and I am content with my daily routine. My car is still running, and I am continually thankful for the generosity from VOM executives to offer it to me.

I had plans on putting up a picture of a bridge near my house here in Bartlesville, but I discovered the memory card that I lost was the only placed I had stored the picture. In its place, you get a more recent picture of a tree from downtown Bartlesville, which has since lost nearly all its leaves.

As usual, I apologize for the delay between posts.

I hesitate to update this blog more regularly because I worry about writing about mundane subjects. While I enjoy my work, and my responsibilities are increasing, I imagine reading about these changes is far less interesting than experiencing them. While I have fruits to show for my labor (check out the cover to the September Iran issue from The Voice of the Martyrs), my day-to-day workload isn’t interesting enough to share about here.

After my family kindly lugged down all my stuff from Michigan to Oklahoma, and I spent days setting it all up in the house, my family ended up reading a portion of Ephesians that really changed my outlook on my material goods. The portion is the following:

The concept of being an example of Christ wasn’t new to me, nor was the idea that Christians were “temples” of God. The way this passage was written gave me a slightly different perspective, but one that was different enough to get my attention.

This passage really hit me, because I knew I was becoming far too focused on buying silly material goods instead of focusing on more important things. I saw that how I was presenting myself to the passerby might not be what would be the most Christ-like. Someone asked me once if I framed my life around movies, since I often talked about them. While the comment was intended as a humorous joke, and my discussion about movies was due to a lack of other available topics, it got me thinking about my priorities.

For years I have been troubled about my interest in science fiction in particular, because of its frequent insistence that God doesn’t exist. There are many instances in episodes of Star Trek where the story and characters seek to disprove the existence of God, not including the aliens featured in nearly every episode. In the past I’ve wondered how I could allow myself to become so engaged in the lore and world of science fiction series when the entire existence of the series is regularly hinged upon the lack of any kind of deity, nevermind God.

As I mentioned, this doubt isn’t new to me: for years now I’ve felt it nagging me in the back of my head, but it wasn’t until this passage that I made a decision.

I’ve sold off some of my movies, some of my video games, and am preparing to sell a lot of my books. I really wish I had come across this passage earlier, since it would have spared my family all the trouble of bringing this stuff down to me. I hope to repay them somehow for their kindness, because I feel terrible for causing this sort of trouble.

I am still saving up for a trip to South Korea, although that process is moving slower than I hoped. I am excited to see how much I’ll save now that I’ve rethought my position on entertainment, since I fear I spent far too much on small purchases like DVDs just for the sake of being able to buy something. Perhaps someday soon I’ll be able to buy some lenses for my camera that I’ve wanted to purchase for over a year.

In another fashion of keeping this temple of God in proper condition, I’ve been working out with a personal trainer for the past couple of weeks. I won a contest at a local bank, where I won ten free sessions with a personal trainer who lives in the neighborhood (this event and my photo were featured in the local newspaper, too). After about two weeks of exercise, I feel stronger and everything feels tighter. I’m excited to see the attitude of treating exercise as less of a burden and more of a daily routine starting to take hold, and I hope that attitude continues beyond the ten free sessions.

Today’s Image is the rear entrance to a local business in Bartlesville. I treated it with various layer effects to bring out the intended emotion I saw when I snapped the photo. I’ve been having interesting talks with an coworker at The Voice of the Martyrs over what constitutes “reality” these days. While photo editing has been done for as long as photography has existed, image editors like Adobe® Photoshop® (cough) allow for editing to be done to a greater degree.

Considering simply choosing a different type of film in the past, or choosing a particular sensor in the present can change the look of a photo, it would seem to me that there is a considerable uncertainty on what is “real” in photography. There are obvious realism-breaking tools that one can use, but even a sharpening filter can make drastic changes to a photo. There doesn’t seem to be a line that can be drawn, outside of using in-camera settings only. However, choosing to use in-camera settings only does limit what can be done with a photo, especially when post-processing effects like dodging and burning have been performed on film pictures for decades.

My personal stance is that as long as the facts of a photo remain intact, editing a photo to evoke a mood is acceptable for most applications. Outside of the purely editorial, wherein only extremely basic editing may be done for the sake of clarifying the object(s) in the picture, I don’t see much reason to hesitate to use any and every tool available. Even so, if one wishes to get truly nitpicky, even those kinds of photos aren’t truly “reality”.

I am now completely moved in to the new apartment, and I signed up for a proper Internet connection! I’ve been living in the new apartment for about three weeks, and I am enjoying my new home. Getting acclimated to the new location and new home has been made smoother by the coworkers and friends I have made here in Oklahoma, along with my family outside of Oklahoma.

In case you haven’t seen it already, here is a small tour of the apartment soon after I moved in. Things have already changed in the house since this video was shot, but I don’t want to make another tour.

I have hesitated to update this blog because moving in to a new home is only interesting to those who are doing the moving, and reading about a hassle-free move is even less interesting. I tend to want to offer something worthwhile to those who are reading, so I didn’t want to make a small update without providing some extra pictures to fill the space. Unfortunately, because of my time constraints, finding time to edit the pictures has been a bit difficult.

However, I have been able to find some time and present to you the following pictures: while I like them, they don’t work for the “Today’s Image” feature, so I can’t use them for that purpose. However, I think they are worthy of your eyeballs, and have therefore placed them in this blog post. Enjoy.

Today’s Image is another cloud picture. Sorry.

As I type this the bed cover and sheets are drying in the laundry room, and just about everything left that I own in the VOM apartments is packed up and ready to go to the new destination.

Moving has been fun and just a little nerve-fraying. There are many responsibilities and bills I must now manage, and the cost at times seems higher than the return in advantages.

However, when I stop being melodramatic, I realize the benefits are plentiful. I can now walk to work, rather than driving five miles, and I can easily walk to a nearby grocery store if the need arises. I have the house entirely to myself, giving my neurotic tendencies toward cleanliness full reign. There are many other reasons why having a new apartment is great, but I think the above reasons are by far the ones that resonate the most with me.

Work continues to challenge me in various ways, and every day holds the possibility for being interesting in potentially a new way. My coworkers have been very helpful in preparing me with the new move.

My family has been very supportive of my decision to stay in Oklahoma, and have been a big help in keeping me sane while I move. I am excited to see them in the coming month, and their imminent visit has spurred me on to make the apartment look welcoming.

Oklahoma definitely has hotter summers. I thought I knew how hot the days could get based on how the days felt when I visited in September. Everyone told me that I had only felt the cooler autumn weather, but I was fairly certain they were incorrect. I was definitely wrong in that assumption, as the temperature—and humidity—has already jumped quite high. The new apartment did come with an air conditioner, and despite my mindset to use it as little as possible, I suspect I will succumb very quickly to the heat and sit in front of it all the time.

I will certainly miss the wide field of view I enjoyed while I was in the VOM apartments. Thunderstorms down in Tulsa were visible from my bedroom window, and I spent many nights watching the flashes in the distance. Now that I’m moving downtown, I have the back ends of several houses in the way of the horizon, so I won’t be seeing much of the storm clouds any longer. I joked with a neighbor that I might end up coming back to visit at the VOM apartments just to watch the weather and sunset.

For the first week or so I will not have Internet access at the new apartment. I would’ve preferred to have it activated before I arrived, but bills being as they are, I figured it would be better to wait until the next paycheck before I tried to sign up. I’ll still have Internet access at work, so I’ll still be able to check my email and update this site.

Today’s Image is something I saw while I was walking around downtown Bartlesville. I don’t recall exactly where I found the hand print, but I thought it looked potentially interesting. I used Photoshop to tweak the contrast, brightness, and colors, to give it more of the look I had in my head when I shot the photo.