(Day 90) Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center-day 77 C-6

sit-ups	push-ups	chairlifts
2 x 100	2 x 80	3 x 30

Breakfast	2 hard boiled eggs soy milk bread with peanut butter/almond filling
Lunch	kimchi hard boiled egg in soy sauce veggie and tofu soup
Dinner	kimchi corn & cabbage salad tuna and veggie soup

It turns out one of the Chinese had an epileptic fit last night and eventually went to the hospital. Whether or not he's still alive? I don't know...

The room supervisor just came by and said something in Korean, but no one understood because no one knows Korean in my cell. He asked if anybody wanted to go and study Korean... If we knew what he said in Korean, why would we need to study? It's the same as the guard in jail asking me if I spoke Korean and when I said no, went on to explain jail procedures to me in Korean. It makes no logical sense and it would explain why after 10 weeks here, this is the first I've heard of language study.

There should be a weekly schedule of all the various activities in various languages posted in each of the cells so people can use and take advantage of them. The problem with that, is the times and days seem to change constantly. The exercise period was on Monday this week, instead of the usual Tuesday and it seems different cell blocks do different activities on different days or alternating weeks. It doesn't make any sense and is hard to follow.

I got a letter today stating that I will have a lawyer to represent me in 6 days. My chances towards freedom just increased. I only hope they work out and in my favour and this time next week, I'm either at an airport on a plane or in Thailand or only days away from any one of those scenarios.

Current cell population: 1 Thai, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Uzbekistan, 1 Pakistani, 1 Egyptian, 1 Canadian and 8 Chinese. I'm the only one who speaks English. The Uzbekistan, Pakistani and Egyptian who just arrived today understand a little, all to varying degrees and none of it that good. The Uzbekistan, Pakistani and 3 of the Chinese speak Korean. The other five Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai only speak and understand their respective native languages, like me. Whenever any Korean is the Vietnamese, the Thai, the Egyptian and I have no idea what is being said. and the Egyptian and I can find out only through broken English and charades. Usually, after its too late to matter anymore.

Dietary restrictions based on religion are crazy. The way I see it, if God or Allah or whatever you want to call it, had meant for us not to eat it, it would have been poisonous as so many things are. The only justification I can see is a moral or ecological one based on killing of animals as either being cruel or by doing so it will kill the environment and ultimately you will also die as a result.

I took the packaging for my toothbrush and some stickers from the lids of the orange juice containers and I made a pen holder on the side of the payphone like I'd seen in the previous cell. Then I took one of my old pens that hadn't quite died yet and put it in the holder. Almost immediately someone took the pen and cleaned it for their own personal use. I found the offending person with the pen stashed behind his ear (I could tell it was mine because I chew on the lid when it starts to fade so I can keep track of which pens are newer-- I've gone through a lot of pens drawing over 60 pictures) snatched the pen from behind ear and put it back in the holder. Later, he asked if it was alright to take the pen so he could write a letter. I said "No. Go buy a pen. They're 50 cents. You buy coffee, cookies, and choco pies... Buy a goddamn pen, you cheap bastard."

This is why I'm so selfish most of the time to strangers. If I do something nice, I don't expect a reward or acknowledgement, but inevitably some asshole has to take advantage of it. Which leaves me to wondering, what's the point of doing anything nice? It's just going to get ruined almost immediately and any benefit others may have gotten from it is lost. It takes more effort to do the nice act than anybody receives. But then the optimist in me keeps hoping I'm wrong and I do it anyway or I'm a jerk to the offender who usually runs away complaining what a jerk I am, over-shadowing the nice thing I just did, and it last a little longer than "almost immediately."

I've been reading a lot of books about religions lately and it turns out I've been a Buddhist all along I just didn't know it... how Zen is that?