Verbal Backdoor Trots

I'm just going to put it out there that I actually put the word diarrhea into Thesaurus.com to see if I could get a more "appropriate" word if you will to follow the word verbal in my entries title. I just couldn't pass this one up because, backdoor trots? That's funny. I don't care who you are, that's good stuff.

Whenever I am preparing for a big trip, going somewhere abroad, or just a move across country I forget how undeniably annoying it is just getting ready to depart. When I first moved to Hawaii I was young and naive. Even though I was scared shitless, I entered into a program that basically held my hand every step of the way, and then I had my mom doing more or less everything else for me. She even flew out to Oahu with me for the first week, made sure I got settled into the dorms alright, ate in the dining hall with me to inspect the food, and cried endlessly when I finally said, "Okay mom...you can go now".

When I went to Spain I first experienced the pain in the ass process of going to another country for an extended period of time, and all the bullshit that comes along with getting a Visa. I mean they actually expected me to FLY to Cali to physically get my Visa. News Flash Spanish Embassy, a flight to Cali from Hawaii isn't just a hop-skip-and-a-jump over the Pacific Ocean. It's damn expensive and now they don't even feed you that rubbery chicken parmesan that I so look forward to mid-flight.

The rest of times I've been out of the country were for backpacking trips or vacations. From Bangkok to Munich all I had to do was make sure I had my passport in hand, and try to spend some serious intimate time with my backpack to make sure we understood each other.

Preparing for South Korea has proved no different to all my previous adventures. Sure it's exciting, but for the most part it just blows. Visa's, passport photos that need to be 3.5cm x 4.5 cm instead of 2 x 2, criminal background checks, recruiters, and basically any other government run agency is enough to make me throw my hands up and say "It's too hard! I'm done!”

But I don't of course because I love being outside of America. I love being in other countries. I love traveling. I love living among the locals. And most of all I love being a foreigner.

As my departure date nears closer and closer, I am overwhelmed with the possibilities of the next year. I keep thinking about how great it's going to be, how hard it's going to be, and how the heck I'm going to figure out what comes next. However, today I spent a good hour thinking about all the stuff about the good ol' US of A that I'm going to miss. And so this post serves no purpose except to list the things I'll miss, and so that I can feel all nostalgic when I re-read and re-read this post millions of times over the next year. Here goes:


- The terms "medium" or "large" when deciding how many calories/caffeine you'll put into your body via ONE drink at the local cafe
- Brunch. The love affair between breakfast and lunch. Two words that'll make my heart melt. Breakfast Sandwich.
- My door slamming open, window shades flailing open as my mom tries to "nicely" wake me up.
- A steaming cup of delicious coffee aside my bedside table to make up for so abruptly waking me up
- The use of sarcasm. Because lets face it, lost in translation is an understatement when trying to be witty and sarcastic with the locals.
- Pickles and Peanut Butter. I don't know why, but only here can I truly enjoy binge-eating pickles or spoon fulls of crunchy Skippy.
- The reliability of my own toilet. I don't know what it is about going to the bathroom in another country, but inevitably something very bad happens whether I'm prompted to push the left side of a button or pull a string to flush the toilet.
- Websites like Hulu and Pandora. The only way I was going to get caught up on LOST was to lock myself in my room for 5 days while watching back-to-back episodes starting from the first season on Hulu.
- Last but not least: Trying to teach my dad the ins and outs of recycling as he holds up an empty plastic bottle of Coke completely dumbfounded.