Bye Bye Xanga

My cross-posting plugin on my personal blog seems to be incompatible with my Xanga account now. After a good 4+ years, I will no longer update this account. Other options for reading my personal blog (read.iloveconor.com):

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http://www.facebook.com/p/Conor_Meagher/66806067

April Already

source: http://read.iloveconor.com/2007/04/12/april-already/

Well hello. I’m getting bad at blogging these days. My time is divided into a thousand different little projects that never seem to end. It’s not like the good ole days of one post per week. Now I just squeeze in what I can. I will say that I’ve been religiously following my selective sports teams the last couple of months. Watching the Hawks go deep in the tourney, the Islanders squeezing into the playoffs, Manchester United making it to the UEFA Champions League semi-finals, and Royals starting the much anticipated regular season. I actually wanted to write a running diary of opening day, but I wasn’t feeling too creative at 5am and Bill Simmons wrote a much better one when Daisuke pitched in the third game against Grienke (Roll of Daisuke). I could write a book on how this baseball season has gone so far, but I will say that it’s really not helping me sleep normal hours. Other then the meaningless sports that enslave me, I am doing some important things for my future. In my second year of teaching English as a second language in a business environment, I’m being to feel the need for a new challenge. Living in Korea has made me aware of all the different opportunities for me, but after taking Korean Language classes at a local university, I became pretty confident that I wanted to go back to school and pursue a MA degree. Thankfully, I feel that I’ve found a pretty good fit with an dual masters program with Cleveland State University and Chung-ang University in Seoul. Right now I’m in the application process with both of these schools and won’t know the results until after I take the GRE in June. That’s the biggest time consumer of my life, outside of my job, is preparing for the GRE. When I finish with all my paperwork and send it in, I’ll post more information about the program and the details behind it. Also, I got a little better idea of when I would come home next and when I return to Korea for school. I’m predicting my last day at work will be July 20th, which is the last day of the July session making a smooth transition for both the school and I. I’m also guessing that my visa will expire soon after that, so I’d be on a plane in a matter of days. I’ve also found out that fall classes in Korea at CAU start September 1st, making my return home a longer one then 2006, which is good to know. When I confirm the dates better, I will be sure to update!

Lloyd Visits Korea

source: http://read.iloveconor.com/2007/03/19/lloyd-visits-korea/

My old friend from college came to Korea for a two week vacation to explore his Korean roots or just get away from medical school. It was good to see him after a couple years since I came to L.A. for a winter trip to sunny California. When ever I get together with Lloyd, things happen. It all started with a night in Apgujeong with his cousins and their friends. Drinking, talking, and having a laugh. A couple pitchers of beer and 4 bottles of soju later, Lloyd began to show his “enthusiasm” for his ethnic pride by raising his voice and knocking things over. Soon after that, he would see what a bathroom in Korea was like. I never saw him the rest of the night, but my evening continued. Jeong-in came at 10:30pm and Lloyd was already out of the picture. But I became friendly with the other guys and we decided to move to another bar. One guy in particular was very fond of me, even though we just met that night. He was recently married to a very attractive woman who came with him, but she just sat the whole time without saying a word. Her husband though, was quite the talker. He kept saying to me “Why do you hate me?”, only because I was a little freaked out when he asked Jeong-in and I if we would want to do acouple party with him and his wife early into the conversation. I knew that he meant to say, double date, but sometimes Koreans use English words and make their own meanings. Like for example, oneroom, which means a studio style apartment. Anyway, we all got drunk together and I found out he was a lawyer or judge (it’s hard to decipher in Korean), so now if I ever get in trouble, he will bail me out. Sweet.

The next time Lloyd and I got together, we met near my house in Sinchon and he came with his cousin. We just had some dinner, took some pictures, and went to a really crazy sit down bar called Moo. It was like I was on an early set of a Star Trek episode with white skeleton interior and glass tables. But there’s nothing like a little alcohol to kill the weirdness. It was a Wednesday night, so it wasn’t a late night for me.

The last time I got together with him, we went to Hongdae on an eventful Tuesday night. The bars were empty, but we managed to still have a good time. We started at a foreigner friendly bar called U2, yes like the band, and met up with a former classmate of mine named Kevin. After that, we would try to move around and go to another bar called Tinpan 2. It is a famous foreigner bar that was close. Everybody was feeling good and doing fine. Then Lloyd decided to go against the usual practice of “liquor before beer, your in the clear” and ordered a gin & tonic after drinking a fair amount of beer. Soon after that he was at the bar, c-blocking a fairly high ranking US Military officer from the cute bartender who he had been flirting with ever since we got there. After laughing my ass off, it was time to go. So we sent Lloyd back to his relatives in a taxi, hoping he would make it back safe. I would later find out that he made a little detour before making it back. Good times, good times.

Free March Madness

source: http://read.iloveconor.com/2007/03/02/free-march-madness/

Just a friendly reminder that you can watch NCAA March Madness on Demand from your computer for free! All you need to do is register an email address. I guess money hasn’t totally corrupted college athletics yet.

http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod

Yes! Forums

source: http://read.iloveconor.com/2007/02/23/yes-forums/

I don’t know what it is, but I have a love affair with online forums. So much so, that I’ve created my own. Call me a narcissist, but I think the Conor Meagher Fan Club needs a section for interactivity. Ok, it’s not as self absorbed as is it sounds because the other side of me wants to being people together. Besides the forums devoted to yours truly, there are other forums for my families and friends. Making it a central point of information with the hope that people will be more connected with each other no matter the distance. That sounds like something Steve Jobs from Apple would say, but I mean it on a minor level. It’s great for posting upcoming events such as birthdays or family cookouts and on the other hand you can post funny YouTube videos (ie. Interviewed on Korean TV). So anything goes really!

Family, old friends, new friends, friends of friends, coworkers, ex-coworkers, classmates, or whoever are all welcome to join in and partake in the discussions. The more the merrier, so take a second and register and let me know that your alive!

Yes! Forums
http://yes.iloveconor.com/