How I met a famous Russian artist in a worthless Korean town...

To my dear readers. I apologize for the hiatus to those of you who have enjoyed reading. I guess in some respects I just haven't had anything worth writing about which also has to do with my distaste and disdain with my job and its day-t0-day mismanagement. But back to an update with where we stand.

We found out the president of our college snuck out of North Korea before the DMZ was really established... that explains some of the crazy.

Grad Schools:

I got into the University of Jyväskylä in Finland for the Masters in Sport Psychology which is great. But financing has been troublesome. You can't get any financial from the government unless the university has applied for "Title IV" eligibility, nor can you get a private loan for a foreign university, Finland doesn't give any aid (loan/scholarship) to any Masters seeking students especially if you come from the USA and the main Grant for studies in Scandinavia can only be applied for the year before you begin and before you even know if you will be accepted or not. As you can see, it's a bit of a predicament at the moment. So my options are only if the university will grant me a deferment or to re-apply next year after finding a decent paying job at home, or if I need to, go back abroad for work.

So somehow our korean-redneck-village got to host this international symposium for cultural exchange recently. It turns out it was mostly Russian artists, teachers, and students from Moscow. And that's how I ran into one of Russia's and even the world's highes regarded painters, Nikas Safronov. At the moment I ran into him and his friends at this restaurant I didn't know what he was really known for, but it turns out he's made many works for people like David Bowie, DeNiro, Putin, and Pierre Cardin. Apparently, he's just rollin' in the rubles at the moment. He told me stories about Stallone's mother was looking for their relatives via Gorbachev, a couple of his illegitimate children, and how I need to get an orthodox cross necklace.

I met them one more night at the local Hotel/Casino resort and had a drink with them and also ended up meeting Yuri Rozum who is apparently Mikhail Gorbachev's favorite pianist. The best part is I got all their contact information and was invited to come to Moscow and even offered a job at a social sciences academy. Who knew that from such boredom, unthinkable lack of social order, etiquette and manners in this town that I could meet a prominent group of cultured and artistic individuals from Russia.

We had Katie Dobie and David Hardnett visit recently as well. We had an awesome time, seeing the DMZ where I took photos past the line where you're not allowed to Jason Bourne-style... hung out in Seoul, went to some of the beaches on the east coast and we ended up skipping two days of work effectively sticking it to the man...