Sleep, sleep and more sleep!

Well it's the Lunar New Year here in Korea so I am in the middle of a five day weekend. It has been pretty nice and relaxing. Due to my lack of money managing skills, I have been pretty much stuck in my apartment with nothing to do all week. This has given me lots of opportunity to nap, as well as read and watch a lot of movies. It's kind of nice to take a break from life for once.

Along with sleeping and movie watching, I have been doing a lot of thinking this week. I've realized that I am slowly growing further apart from the life I had in Fredericton and becoming more and more independent and used to my "real" grown-up life here in Korea. Sometimes I find myself missing being a student, mostly just missing the life of never ending parties and friends around every corner. When I originally moved to Fredericton from my hometown, I was a small town girl in what I thought was a big pond. After three years of university and a few different jobs, I found that the "big city" I had moved to, was really not that big at all. It was virtually impossible to go anywhere without running into a classmate, coworker, or friend. That kind of familiarity has always been somewhat of a comfort for me, being from a tiny city of roughly 12000 people. But now here in Korea, I am easily lost amongst the hustle. It is so easy to fly under the radar here. I could go on with my life here and meet very few people. It almost forces you to become outgoing and seek out new friends and experiences. But it also forces you to get used to being alone and become comfortable with the fact that you do not always need to have friends around to be okay.

The other day I was having a conversation about life with a friend. Particularly, we were discussing our beliefs on religion due to a lesson we had to teach in school dealing with different aspects of the bible and God. Now for anyone who knows me, I am, by far, not a religious person. That being said, I am not going to argue that my beliefs are superior to those of any religious believers, but I will engage in a conversation to hear what they have to say. So my buddy and I were discussing whether things in life are "meant to be".  His stance on the matter is that there is a higher being, (not necessarily God), who determines the plots of our lives. Obviously I disagreed with him on the simple fact that this can not be proven to me. In my opinion, if there was a higher power dictating all of the events of the world, wouldn't said person be slightly kinder? I mean with all of the hunger and poverty on the Earth, you would think that a higher power would be able to make that a little less horrible? I believe that each of us makes our own future. We have the power to decide what we do on a day to day basis, therefore enabling us to change the path of our lives. My friend believes that he is meant to be alone. That this higher power put him on the Earth for the sole purpose of him living his life completely and utterly alone. Now because I love said friend, I spent the next twenty minutes telling him what an amazing person he is and that he obviously was not meant to be alone. But it got me to thinking, how are people getting through their lives believing this kind of thing? I mean if I were to wake up everyday and say, "all the things that will happen to me today have been already decided" I would likely not make any attempt to achieve anything new in life. I would have no motivation to pursue my goals or to try to become a better person. I would simply just survive. Now, with all that being said, I must state that I don't judge others for what they believe in. Everyone has the right to believe what they want and I think that each person uses their believes in a different way. I guess I would say I use mine, (or lack thereof) to accomplish my goals and pursue my dreams.

Whew, writing that has been the most productive thing I have done all week (besides organize my external hard drive of movies) I think it's time for another nap. Adios!