Vacations are BEAUTIFUL things!

When I left Korea to come visit my mother and uncle here in Crescent City, CA, I knew that I was tired. It had been a long hard semester, and I could feel the weight of it building the closer it came to ending. I guess I was more tired than I thought.

My schedule up until yesterday (yesterday being the first day since I've been here that I didn't take a nap) has been amazingly consistent. I get up around 5:30 am, watch the news with my uncle, have some breakfast, watch the World Cup games (which, thank God, are on at a reasonable time here), read for a while, take a 3-4 hour nap around 2pm, eat dinner, and finally hit the sack some where between 8:30 and 10 pm. I've been sleeping approximately 12-14 hours a day. I haven't slept that much consistently in years. Needless to say, the whole thing has been very theraputic. I actually feel rested for a change (although I do feel another nap coming on pretty soon).

All in all, the vacation has been exactly what I wanted; no pressure, no hassles, just pure and simple R & R. I'll have more to say about it once I get back home and have a chance to upload the photos I've taken.

World Cup Notes:
Alas, both the US and Korea have been eliminated from the World Cup. The US never had a chance considering how lousy they played against The Czechs and Ghana. The Italy game game gave me a spark of hope, but it was misguided at best. I thought Korea, on the other hand, had a great chance of advancing to the second round, but got beat by Switzerland today (although I thought they had a real chance until that ridiculous call on the second Swiss goal. That seemed to take the wind out of Korea). My problem now is who to root for. I guess I'll go with either Ghana or Australia simply because they are the biggest underdogs going into the second round.

Is it me - it could be, I don't know THAT much about soccer - or has the officiating in this tournament been atrocious? I'm not just talking about the US and Korean games (and there were some pretty horrible calls in those), but it seems that yellow and red cards were being given out for the most minor of fouls and pure muggings were not called at all. Korea was on the both ends of really bad calls. The first was in the game against France where the Korean goalie batted a ball away from the goal that was clearly across the line. It should have been a goal for France. Then today, the Swiss scored a goal that was given to them when it should have been offsides on the Swiss. The view from behind the net as the ball goes in clearly shows the side judge with his flag in the air, yet the goal was allowed. I certainly hope the officiating gets better for the knockout round.

Anyway, that's it for now. I think it's nap time.