More of the past. One of these days I'll get to the present.

A week and a half after I arrived in Korea I "moved" into my present apartment. I took a train down to Pohang, visited friends, celebrated my birthday and drove back up to Seoul with all of my stuff. When I arrived, I learned from my roommate, Natalie, that the old roommate was refusing to move out for another two weeks. I had unexpectedly walked into another troubled situation that had nothing to do with me. I began to get flashbacks of my time in Thailand....

The problem, it seemed, was that these two girls had stopped getting a long three months ago. The one who was moving out apparently started taking out her many frustration and anger on Natalie. She would yell at her, verbally abuse her and manipulate situations to justify her wrong behavior and actions. They had agreed that she would move out the day I was moving in, but suddenly, the day before I was to move in, the old roomie went back on her word. She was adamant that it was her right to stay since she had paid the rent for that month. And she claimed to have never agreed to move out the day I arrived. Natalie was furious but she couldn't throw her out. And I didn't want to get involved so I didn't.

Since I had no place else to go and since I was under the impression that I could move in, I did.... sort of. I brought all my stuff up to the apartment and piled it in the living room where it stayed for two weeks.

It took almost every reserve of calmness and endurance I had to survive those two weeks--not because the girls couldn't get along (they got a long only because I was there and the old roomie was pretending everything was okay), but because there were three of us in a small apartment and all my stuff was all over the place. I couldn't find anything. I couldn't relax anywhere. I had no space, no place. There seemed to be people and things everywhere. It was driving me crazy. And the old roomie refused to leave before the two weeks were over, no matter how cramped and crazy things got. She had no good reason for staying (she was moving in with her sister’s family for free). She just wanted to flex her muscles of power and control. That really made me mad.

Two weeks ago, she finally left. Her time was up just as I had reached my breaking point. I could no longer stand to be at the apartment with it the way it was. I dreaded going home in the afternoons and preferred the homeless feeling of wandering around the city for hours on end. But she left. Finally. Thank God.

Now my apartment is great. I finally have a place for myself and can find things. It's a perfect size for two people--not ever three (unless someone is visiting). Seriously, those two weeks were rough, but I guess in retrospect, this was worth waiting for.