Its Korean poetry time, kids.

크나큰 잠

한 자리 본 것처럼
깜빡 한 여기를 놓으며
신호등에 선 목이 꽃대궁처럼 꺾일 때
사르르 눈꺼풀이 읽던 행간을 다시 읽을 때

봄을 놓고 가을을 놓고 저녁마저 놓은 채
갓 구운 빵의 벼랑으로 뛰어들곤 해
먹어도 먹어도 줄지 않는 사과 냄새 따스한
소파의 속살 혹은 호밀빵의 향기
출구처럼 다른 계절과 다른 바람과 노래

매일 아침 길에서 길을 들어설 때
매일 저녁 사랑에서 사랑을 떠나보낼 때
하품도 없이 썰물 지듯
깜빡깜빡 빠져나가는 늘 오늘

깜빡 한 소식처럼
한 지금을 깜빡 놓을 때마다
한 입씩 베어먹는 저 큰 잠을 향해
얼마나 자주 둥근 입술을 벌리고만 싶은가

벼락 치듯 덮치는 잠이 삶을 살게 하나니
부드러워라 두 입술이 불고 있는 아침의 기적
영혼의 발끝까지 들어올리는 달콤한 숨결
내겐 늘 한 밤이 있으니
한 밤에는 저리 푹신한 늘 오늘이 있으니

Magnificent Sleep

As if seeing a spot,
Letting go of here momentarily forgotten
When the neck standing at the traffic light bends like a flower stalk,
When drooping eyelids reread spaces between the lines,

Letting go of spring and fall and even the evening,
I jump at times into the precipice of freshly baked bread.
The smell of apples that I eat and eat but never wanes, and warm
Inner skin of sofa or the aroma of rye bread,
Like an exit, different seasons and different winds and songs,

When every morning I enter a path on the street,
When every evening I bid farewell to love from love,
Like a tide that falls without a yawn,
Today always flickers and ebbs away.

Like a forgotten flickering thought,
Every time a now is momentarily forgotten,
Toward that big sleep that slices it in mouthfuls
How often I desire to open my rounded lips.

Sleep descends like thunder and lets life go on.
Soft the morning's miracle the two lips are blowing,
Sweet breath that uplifts the spirit even to its toes,
I always have the deep night,
In the night there's always a soft today.


___________________________________

Just so you know... this poet received a
"Commendation Award"...
The Grand Prize poem, by a different person, was
only translated into English.
I thought it was more fun to see the Korean version,
too :)

Holy Gochujang!!!!

Temptation of Hot Pepper Paste `Gochujang,'' or hot pepper paste, along with soy sauce and soybean are representative slow foods that can take as long as several years before they can be eaten. By Shim Hyun-chul Staff Reporter The temptation of red: not lipstick, but a well-matured ``gochujang,'' or sauteed hot pepper paste. First, the deep red color strikes the eyes, and memories of its spicy taste teases the mouth to water. You try to resist, but succumb every time to that red gojchujang. To make gochujang, rice, made with barley, is grounded and then mixed with ground fermented beans and hot peppers. Sweet rice taffy oil, water and salt is added to complete the paste, which can take months or years to ferment before people can get their hands on it. Along with soy sauce and soybean paste, gochujang is one of the three main sauces used in Korean cooking. Different from the Western idea of hot, its taste runs from spicy hot to sweet, and Koreans add gochujang to just about every dish-gochujang bulgogi, ``tteokbokki,'' red-hot fish soup and ``bibimbap.'' Koreans religiously believe that the paste determines the palatability of any Korean cuisine. The paste is also nutritious, with protein, fat and vitamins. It also has capsaicin, which has anti-carcinogenic and dieting effects. Recently, the Korea Food Research Institute and Academy of Korean Studies have come forth with documents dating back several hundred years, all the way to the Imjin Wars (1592-1598) with Japan, to refute the claim that hot peppers entered Korea via other foreign countries. Their feat has provided the platform for hot pepper paste-based Korean dishes to be recognized globally as genuine native Korean cuisine. Shim@koreatimes.co.kr

Obviously, I cut and pasted this from The Korea Times
website...
Check out more interesting stuff at
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/index.asp

Preston is home!!!

Seriously... could this baby be more adorable??



Uh.. No.
Its not possible.


Fellow bloggers, Mark and Jen, are finally home with baby Preston. You can view more pics on their blog by clicking their names above..


It is so amazing to see their sweet, little family together.
It makes me happy and sad at the same time. Weird, huh?

No! I'm not feeling sorry for myself right now.
Okay, maybe a little.. Although, I've yet to completely wallow in self-pity..
Oh but be assured.. that day will undoubtedly come...
I am nothing if not honest and I am well aware of the ridiculous whiny-baby that I am capable of becoming...
Trust me, its not sweet or attractive... Poor Stuart.

But the wait is just part of this whole adoption-experience.
Mark and Jen had to wait, as did many, many other families..

And so do Stuart and Summer....
Dammit. And to think I've always thought I was special!? ;)
Boo.

Adoptees you may know..

For some people, adoption may seem kind of unusual, uncomfortable... or just not the "norm".

However, I think we all known more adoptees than we even realize... both famous and in our own lives..

Below is a list of some well-known adoptees... who knew so many? Pretty cool.

Entertainers

• Halle Berry -- actress

• Ingrid Bergman -- actress

• Richard Burton -- actor

• Charlotte Church -- singer

• Nat King Cole -- singer

• Ella Fitzgerald -- singer

• Melissa Gilbert -- actress

• Deborah Harry -- singer

• Faith Hill -- singer

• John Lennon -- musician

• Ray Liotta -- actor

• Sarah McLachlan -- singer

• Marilyn Monroe -- actress

• Priscilla Presley -- actress

• Shania Twain -- singer

Writers

• Louisa May Alcott

• Maya Angelou

• Charles Dickens

• James Michener

• Edgar Allen Poe

• Leo Tolstoy

Political leaders

• Alexander the Great

• President William Clinton

• President Gerald Ford

• President Herbert Hoover

• Nelson Mandela -- former president of South Africa

Business leaders

• Larry Ellison -- chairman and CEO of Oracle Corporation

• Steve Jobs -- cofounder of Apple Computer

• Tom Monaghan -- founder and CEO of Domino's Pizza

• Dave Thomas -- founder of Wendy's International

Others

• Aristotle

• John J. Audubon -- naturalist

• Les Brown -- motivational speaker

• George Washington Carver -- inventor

• Crazy Horse -- Lakota chief

• Jesse Jackson -- political activist

• Malcolm X -- civil rights leader

• Moses -- Hebrew prophet

Learning random Korean.. Lesson 2

Good stuff, huh? Actually "sweater" in Korean sounds a lot like
"sweater" in English. Verrrry interesting...

PS Hopefully no one reading this is wearing a 'chuyurining'...
Seriously, you need to change clothes immediately!

Oh! How cultured we're all becoming now! :)

big dorks

maybe we're just very, very, very ready to be parents...
OR
we could just be really big dorks?

yesterday was our first trek to the movie theater in a looong time... and what did we see?
something action packed? perhaps taken? nah.
maybe a romantic comedy.. duplicity? not a chance.

no, we sat there like two complete goobers in our weirdo, 3-d glasses and watched coraline...
a cartoon.


oh yes. its a child's movie... BUT it was a super-cool one!!
we loved it.
(although its not for the really young kiddos.. prob 10 and up?)

surprisingly we weren't the only non-kid-toting adults there.... at least 3 other couples.
so i gotta say, it feels good to know that we may be dorks..
but at least we're not alone :)
ha!
you other weirdos know who you are..





oh and to further tell on myself...
i recently purchased the pinocchio and peter pan dvds.
but you know how disney threatens that they are 'limited time release'? blah blah blah.

clearly, i totally bought into the hype. and now we have a movie collection any 4 year old would be proud of...
its sad and yet somehow exciting!

wow.. having a baby is weird, isn't it?
or maybe its just making us even more weird?

our poor kid doesn't have a chance!

Learning random Korean.. Lesson 1

Isn't this cute?? And cool?

Well, "Annyeonghi Gyeseyo!"
Uh, I think...

Must be a Southern thing...

The Cherry Blossoms are officially in bloom! And not just in Macon, Georgia. It seems that South Korea has a few things in common with our own South...

This pic is from the Jinhae Gunhang (Naval Port) Festival in South Korea. Soo pretty!!
It is the largest cherry blossom festival in the country and attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists, eager to catch a glimpse of the delicate flowers.

The Gwangyang Maehwa Festival opened last weekend, the first in a string of flower festivals around the country this season.
Imagine... over 83 acres of blooming "maehwa'' (Japanese apricot) trees!
When in bloom, the apricot trees are filled with white flowers called "ume". The entire Maehwa Village and the Baegun Mountain are blanketed with pure white ume that create a picture perfect landscape.

The trees also produce the small green Japanese apricot called "maesil",
which has a tangy flavor. Many shops sell maesil, as well as maesil drinks
and preserves.
I bet its pretty tasty... mmmm, apricots :)


The Hwagae Cherry Blossoms Festival, which runs from April 3-5 in Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, may be smaller than Jinhae's festival but offers no fewer pretty blossoms.


Couples should take note while walking along the "10-ri cherry blossom street"... also known as marriage street.
According to an urban legend, couples who walk while holding hands along that street will get married and live happily ever after.

Awww..
We'll have to check that one out for sure when we get there!! ;)
Its not too late for us, hopefully!! ha.


Seriously... don't you just love Spring??




(Pics and some script courtesy of Korea Times.com)

NOW in Korea

Fellow bloggers, Mark and Jen, are currently in Korea at this very moment, meeting and bringing home their baby.
Their blog was actually the first one I read when we made the decision to adopt from Korea.. and then the decision to do our own blog.

Anyway, they have some cool pics and a sweet, little video of their first meeting with their baby, Preston, a few days ago. Soo cute!

Thought you might like to see what it may be like someday soon for us! :)


(Just click on "Mark and Jen" above, and that should take you to their blog)

rice cake envy?

Today I had an uneasy feeling..

It all started when my manager at work asked me how the adoption process is coming. I told her it was good, still trying to get all of our paperwork together and forms filled out for the application. Then she said that she has a really strong feeling that we'll have our baby a lot faster than we think.. "a LOT faster.."
Ok..

It may sound crazy, but I actually started panicking a little bit. What does she mean "a LOT faster"??
Don't get me wrong, we're ready for our family to be together. But we're not ready-ready..
you know, $-wise...
Let's just say, we're ready in our hearts but not in our bank account! Ha.

I worried about it for a while at work, then I had a few appointments and got over it.
Until I checked my blogs tonight and saw that someone just received their referral. Yay!!!
Except they only applied in January... as in 2 months ago!
What the? How is that even possible, when I have other people on my blog list that applied last June, August, etc. and they are still waiting for their referrals?
Hmmm.. I wonder...
Seems kinda weird that it would be so fast for them... Maybe its their agency? I don't know.

I freaked again though because that means they'll probably have their baby home by July! That's less time than a pregnancy.. 7 months! Nice.
Well, good for them. Truly, I'm very happy for their quick process and hope a speedy trip to Seoul for them!

But I really, really, really hope it doesn't move that quickly for us!
Seriously, I'm totally ok with the good ol' 18 month plan! Oh, yes.

___________________________

Found an awesome Korean proverb...


남의 떡이 더 커 보인다
Someone else's rice cake always looks bigger.


Ah... So true, so true.
Aaaand that just about sums it up from here ;)

So what now??

Well, the adoption seminar went great!
It was super informative, 2 hours packed with all sorts of adoption Q & A. It wasn't a very big group... two other couples, one single woman, one woman without her husband, and us. One of the social workers has personally adopted from Korea and Guatamala.
Talk about great inside knowledge, right?!

We learned lots of interesting stuff. One of the other couples asked where the biggest need is.. domestic or international? They said that domestically, the only "need" is for children over the age of 12. Stuart and I are definitely not prepared for that!

As far as babies and children under the age of 4... they said that in the foster system, those children are usually adopted by their foster parents, should they become available for adoption. Its super rare for the foster parent to not choose to adopt a child that young. And in the U.S., adopting through a birth mother, Juno-style, is common. But they stressed, there isn't what they would classify as a "need". That's a "want"... as in, 'I want a newborn baby'. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There simply isn't the same need for adopting babies domestically as there is internationally.
"Need" is a relative term, though. All children need to be loved... I guess this is just a topic when you simply need to follow your heart..

And that leads us to Korea, where our heart and our baby is..

Since China was our focus for so long, we knew that a girl was pretty much a definite.
I guess we thought it would be the same in Korea..... well, maybe not..
It turns out that most people want to adopt girls, regardless of the country. Everyone simply wants a girl.
So, the need is actually for adopting baby boys.

The current wait time for adopting a Korean baby boy is 18 months... for girls, its 24-30 mos. Obviously, the longer wait time is a big consideration for us but its not a deal-breaker. If we truly had our hearts set on a girl, we would do it, without question.

You wouldn't think that it would be so hard to make that decision though... Boy or Girl?? Just shut up and pick one, right? No, its not that easy..
Its just not "normal" to get to pick, you know?? You don't get pregnant and think, "Hey, God! Hook me up with a little girl this time, would ya?"
I mean, you don't usually have a choice...
But we do... and that's a huge responsibility.

So, how do you pick? How do you say "Yes. I want a girl..." and know that by making that decision, we're passing up a sweet, baby boy? That's one of the main reasons we chose to adopt to begin with! Baby girls in China are continually discarded and disregarded simply because of their gender...

We had to ask ourselves... are we adopting a "picture" in our heads or are we adopting the baby who truly needs us?
So there it is...

We will place ourselves on the list for "no gender preference" but according to the case worker, she's 99% certain that we'll get a boy by not specifically requesting a girl.

So..... I guess, we're having a BOY! :)


Our focus, as of now, is our application. I'm working like crazy to finish my autobiography. Stuart is still struggling with his own. Then we have a lot more paperwork and document-collecting to do. We also want a certain amount of savings before we officially pass 'Go' on this adventure.
So we'll be sending our official application around the end of May.

That means, we'll hopefully have our baby before the end of next year... maybe by Christmas!!!

Wow, huh?
Wow...

Did I mention a baby boy?? :)
Yeah, wow.

This is it!

100% excited and nervous. That's pretty much it.

I'll update as soon as possible, most likely tomorrow morning... to let you know how the seminar goes! It is supposed to go from 6:30 to 8:30. Its in Murfreesboro, about 40 minutes away. Shouldn't be home too late... but we'll have lots to talk & think about, I'm sure.
A big evening for The Moore's! :)

Oh and the food last night was fantastic! Definitely recommend Watanabe in East Nashville.
Its an Asian fusion restaurant, so lots of choices. They actually have Chinese, Thai, Japanese, and Korean chefs. So all of the dishes are delicious and authentic.
I went with the Ten Don Bowl (sp?), which was Japanese tempura veg and shrimp over rice. Stuart had a Korean original, Bibim Bap. It was a big bowl with rice, veg, beef, chili paste, and a fried egg on top. The photo from our "Rumors of Kimchi" blog is of that dish.
Anyway, our review is very, very good... So if you're around Riverside and McGavock Pike, check it out!

Until next time....

Tonight and Tomorrow

Tonight~
We have the perfect evening planned for our last supper before officially jumping into the adoption world.

Tonight, we're meeting our friends, Kim and Juan at Watanabe Sushi & Asian Cuisine in East Nashville. The restaurant is new but has great reviews. We are very excited! And hungry!

Only in Nashville could you find a banjo-playing sushi-chef, right?? ;)
That's awesome.

And of course... tomorrow.
Tomorrow is our very first meeting at the adoption agency.. at any adoption agency ever. Our first time to talk to REAL people that could actually be the ones that point us in the direction that our little baby is going to come from... Kinda cool, huh?

Holy crap! Are we really doing this? Wow.

So keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We're on a big venture and this is obviously just the beginning.. But its sooo exciting!!! I can't believe we actually have an appointment to do something... after gabbing for a decade. Better late than never!

We were busy developing... uh, character. Yeah, that's it. Just think how much MORE character we'll have after waiting another 2 years! Ha! Hopefully it will just be a year and a half, though.
And that Wait will be okay, I think. Because we'll know what's waiting for us at the end...
our family.