Simple Pleasures.

The teacher's office is awash with new blood. That is, slews of incoming freshmen girls are walking around in hordes. I don't know why they're here. Maybe for an orientation or something. They're all dressed in plainclothes, which ironically makes them all look older than their uniformed seniors-to-be.

Remember that crack I took at my school's gym teacher a few days ago? I just found out one of my favorite students, a sweet, smart little girl, is his daughter. Oh the irony of life! She deserves better. I will adopt her and raise her as my own. As GOD meant her to be raised.

Yeah, sometimes I scare myself too.

Last night was immensely enjoyable. It was my second episode with alcohol since returning to Korea, and it was just what I could have hoped for on a work night: relaxed, interesting conversation in a relatively quiet place with good friends. Grilled chicken and sausages, rare pleasures in my Korean life. But the high point of the evening was most definitely the playground.

Let's talk about playgrounds.

I don't think any of us truly outgrew playgrounds. They just stopped being a normal part of our daily lives and we got used to the absence. Like all adults, we convince ourselves that we are somehow too good for the indulgences of our youth, that we have grown too sophisticated for simple pleasures. But somehow I can distinctly remember every time I've been to a playground in the last 6 years. It's only a handful, so it's not that hard, but there's something wondrous each time about reliving that bliss of haplessly spent energy, exertion for the sake of exertion.

Our adult selves have been conditioned to instrumentalize everything. How much is my time worth? How can I be more productive? Am I making the most efficient use of my energy? Of course there are things that we do solely for amusement and gratification. Sports, movies, going to the beach. But think of the analogous adolescent activities associated with these things: not sports, but games... not movies, but cartoons... and how about building a sandcastle on the beach or burying a friend in the sand? I wonder how many grown adults can remember their last snowball fight.

I guess the point of all this, unsurprisingly, isn't actually the merits of playgrounds. It's the disowning of our youthful spirits. The self-consciousness and arrogance of the "wizened" to believe that they have outgrown their inner children, when, in fact, they have grown entirely around them. And that's why playgrounds will always hold a special place in my heart: they allow us to reconnect with that certain, wonderful shape of our minds where things weren't complicated by goals and pressure and expectations.