Author: Drak <[email protected]>     Reply to Message
Date: 6/15/2018 1:28:36 AM
Subject: RE: We're closing in on being here for 20 year

At 34, I've been living in Asia for almost 6 years and I love it, but my girlfriend Maida and I just have 1 more year here (Hanoi Vietnam now, Hong Kong starting next month) before we head back to the west coast, the best coast, for however long. We will try to make the AmeriCanada thing work and see if we actually like our home countries again. She's from Scarborough and I wouldn't mind living in Toronto but her family is ultra religious and we are the polar opposite. I can't be bothered with church-related stuff in my life. The only churches I'm okay with are Buddhist temple stays that we do once every 2 years or so including no-talking for 24+ hours at a time.

I speak 3 languages street-fluently or above now (English, Korean, Vietnamese) and 2 more to go (Japanese and Russian) to achieve my "5 by 40" goal that I set 5 years ago. I can speak Khmer and Mongolian to a decent enough level to get around. I should have studied Spanish and French harder but I didn't know I had an affinity for languages until I turned 29, which sucks. Always force your kids to be bilingual, Americans! It's so good for the brain.

I run the biggest laptop repair shop in the capital of Vietnam right now and I'm in the process of handing it over to a likeable candidate but haven't decided who yet. As for my primary job, I was teaching Cambridge Math, Physics, and a side Adobe class at a great school called Nguyen Sieu that graduates simply brilliant students in Vietnam. Much smarter than me for sure - I'm just the teacher who landed a job way above my actual intelligence level.

I don't know what I'll do in Hong Kong but my entire life I've really just done whatever I've wanted and somehow have made it work out. I'm more concerned they will be a bit racist since my GF has darker skin than them and I hope she can score a good job there. But she doesn't really need to I guess, as she is a painter and sells her paintings for around $400 on average these days and it takes her a day to make one.

I'm still a gamer for life. Hardcore on the internet but not so much social media anymore. But I keep up.

I miss California every day but it's just better being out in the world and influencing people here and doing fun things like organizing charities that are related to something im good at, like technology drives. My GF got me into that stuff. I'm not the best at "helping myself" and keeping my own health up to par, but when I help others I realize I have to help myself be good first before I help others, so it benefits me greatly.

I rarely ever talk about myself in person, only on the internet. But I become increasingly paranoid that it might make me look self-centered or ego-centric, so even on Facebook I don't talk about my feelings much anymore. I need to think about that more critically and find out if that's healthy or unhealthy. I'm probably more self-loathing than I ever could be self-centered. Or maybe they are totally independent and aren't congruent with each other.

I remember saying "I'll kill myself if Planetice ever goes down" as a joke when I was 14.

20 years later, and I still think that joke is funny.

I'll kill myself if Planetice ever goes down.
_