New Digs

With age, at least for me, I have developed an ever-increasing awareness of how easy it is to settle into fixed routines. Examples might range from going to bed around the same time and eating the same food to reading the same type of books and mingling with the same type of people. While none of these habits are bad things, their collective danger - often invisible and odorless - is that they wrap persons of habit into a world of limited context, experience, knowledge-base and perspective. While appealing, their allure also carries the potential of limiting one's ability and even desire to communicate as well as they can.

As a person of many habits, I recognize the necessity of rattling one's own cage from time to time in order to impose a necessity to connect with others in ways unlike how one is or might be used to. Doing so helps keep our intellectual muscles sharp and flexible and slows down our eventual slide into stagnation. All this is to say that since my last blog entry, my wife and I have taken - for us - a major step outside our comfort zones. I have taken a four-month teaching assignment in Songdo, South Korea, literally across the world from our residence in Northern Virginia. Specifically, I am teaching several communication classes at George Mason University's campus in South Korea. My brave wife is sharing this adventure with me.

The still-new city of Songdo, then, is our new digs. Located next to the more established Incheon and approximately 60 miles north of Seoul, it is a clean and vibrant new locale. For us, this translates into new food choices, new acquaintances and friends, a new view outside our residential windows, and perhaps most importantly, the need to raise the bar on our communication skills. As of this writing, we are one week into this new adventure. I am happy to report that so far all is going well. For that to even come close to continuing, it is important we remain at or near the top of our communication game. Life calls for it. Life outside one's routine demands it.