Nunchuks. A martial arts weapon. Causing pain. Used with skill for protection. Or, a band. That’s right, three of my colleagues here have joined forces and started a band. Think more eclectic than you could ever imagine, with instruments like the b-flat pocket trumpet, the banjo, guitars, and of course the ever-popular egg for percussion. The repertoire ranges from Johnny Cash to Christmas carols to Young MC to Joan Jett and beyond. They have a certain talent and a definite flair, and what they lack in expertise they more than make up for in enthusiasm and a major sense of humor. Oh, and they’re fabulous guys in general. If you ever have the opportunity, you should definitely check out the Nunchuks, and try to catch a performance if you can - an experience not to be forgotten.

. . . I went skiing. For the first time in a few years. And I had a really good time.

What I’ve heard about skiing in Korea prior to actually going on Monday is the following: It’s insanely crowded. You spend more time dodging people who are creeping down slopes that they’re not comfortable with than you do actually skiing. Lift lines are crazy-long. You should bring your rock skis instead of your nice skis because there will be bare patches sometimes, rocks sometimes, and ice all of the time. Koreans don’t know how to ski well but they buy themselves the latest and greatest ski gear. Fresh powder does not exist and the vast majority of the snow is completely manufactured.

Monday’s experience, by contrast: yes, there are major patches of ice on the slopes, making it difficult now and then to turn, and yes, the snow is manufactured and completely groomed, but the latter is not necessarily a bad thing. But because it was a normal working day for Koreans, there were far fewer people on the slopes than I’d been led to expect (and a greater than normal proportion of Americans). There were no lift lines. They had made snow the night before, and because the number of skiers was so much smaller than normal, there was pretty good snow on many of the slopes well into the afternoon.

The verdict: very glad I went. Very glad I got the email from a colleague saying, “hey, who wants to go skiing on MLK Day?” and signed up to go, then dragged my lazy butt out of bed early enough to be out the door by six o’clock on a non-work day. Very glad to have gotten out of the house and out of Seoul (incidentally, the countryside we drove through bears a striking resemblance in my view to much of Bulgarian countryside, with the major difference seen by the naked eye being the roof tiles). Very glad to have gotten in some good exercise, breathed some fresh air, seen the “East Sea” (aka Sea of Japan, though the Koreans cringe to hear it called that) from the mountaintop, and gotten the chance to get to know some of my colleagues a little better.

So thank you, Doctor King. For all that you did for civil rights and equality, absolutely - that’s a given, something that changed the world for the better and can never be discounted nor forgotten. But also, secondarily, for being inspirational, memorable, and important enough that the U.S. government decided to give people a day off in your honor. This year, I’m more glad than usual for this secondary aspect.

Some of my friends have asked me why I don’t talk about my job much. I tell them that they probably don’t want to know, and that it’s really not that interesting. I understand, though, that this kind of answer is less than satisfactory, so I have decided to break with my general way of doing things here and talk about what my work is like, at least in broad terms. Seriously, I’m not kidding when I say it’s completely uninteresting. People say that the best and most amusing/extraordinary stories in all of State Department work come from consular work, but in Seoul the bland, factory-like nature of the work is not even conducive to that. It’s work that needs to be done, and it’s work that does make some kind of difference in the lives of people who want to go to the U.S., but it is definitely more draining than interesting or engaging.

Every day, a couple thousand people come to the non-immigrant visa windows here for an interview, trying to get a visa to the U.S., and the flow of applicants never slows down. The officers and the locally-hired staff work our tails off every day, often to the point of complete mental exhaustion. Each officer stands at a bank teller-like window and asks the same questions a hundred-plus times every day, getting the same half-answers (”I work for a company.”), and there comes a point most days when it starts to become difficult to remember which questions you’ve asked of whom. In my own case, by the time it’s time to go home, I have a hard time speaking any language at all, and my ability to comprehend or retain information is completely shot. I am rarely able to do anything that requires any real degree of activity or interaction with others by the time I get home.

Then, the next day, it starts all over again. You never make a dent in the flow of applicants - they just keep coming, and it’s as if all the work done the previous day never happened. It’s the hole dug on the beach that fills up with water just as quickly as you can empty it out, even if you expend every ounce of energy you’ve got in the effort. Or the rock that, just when you’ve finally managed to roll it to the top of the hill, always gets away from you and rolls back down again for you to start all over. Luckily, we appear not to have made the gods quite as angry as Sisyphus did - we’re not here for all eternity. After two years of this, we have the possibility of doing something else, and if we’re really on good behavior, we may have the chance to diversify our activities during the two years. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Here’s to 2007 being the best year yet. May we all get to enjoy less work and more play, and may we learn something new that’s both useful and fun. May all your New Year’s celebrations be enjoyable and end well, and may you stick to your resolutions, whatever they may be, at least until February.