Back home. Exhausted but happy. A lot of questions still on my mind I need to resolve.

Fun stuff from this past weekend (mostly for my own memories): Laughter. Sleeping in random places. Cooking food (failing a few times, but learning a lot of lessons). Great Smokey Mountains. Campfire. Biltmore Estate. Forcing Yush and Han to listen to a medley of these songs after they forced me to load up Hanson's Mmmbop: Arethra Franklin's "It's Raining Men," Eiffel 65's "Blue," Pointer Sisters "I'm so excited," Divinyl's "I Touch Myself" (never again will they want to listen to that blasted Hanson ever again). Learning that I NEED TO QUIT FORGETTING TO NOT DEFROST MEAT. Wondering why people kept playing Dream (that girl band Puffy created a few years ago) on my iPod. Curry rice (carrots, meats, onion). Driving (lots of it). Hammock. Cold, crisp fall nights. "Shooting stars." Good talks with good friends. Hot-tub. Falling asleep on the hammock in freezing weather in a sleeping bag covered by a comforter, cuddled in the warmth of my own body heat listening to Sigur Ros (f'ing awesome). Pool (slanted table). Spaghetti. Circular stairs that may fall apart at any time. Trying to do the worm in a sushi roll but hitting my knees on the ground... HARD. Jjambbong. Realizing you need a lot of spinach to make california rolls. Learning that watching TV while making california rolls is REALLY not a good idea. Learning that inverse water pressure can break glass cups. Getting stains on my tshirts EVERY time I ate. Doing dishes. Falling asleep on the front bench wearing shorts and a tshirt in freezing weather and realizing that my body won't wake me up if it gets too cold. A view of the lake nestled in the mountains early in the morning. Seeing Nasty Nate get his groove thang on. Discussing the merits of satellite radios. Quoting Zoolander and Team America constantly (our response to seeing the model of the Biltmore in the Biltmore: "What is this? A house for ... ants? It needs to be ... at least... 3 TIMES the size of this"). Han, Nasty Nate and I showing our acting skills in imitating escalator and elevators (video soon). Realizing that planning meals, buying the right amount of food, cooking it for a lot of people, and making it taste well is much harder than I originally imagined it to be. Hearing laughter echo from the cabin while staring at the dwindling campfire. Being able to see the stars and wishing I knew more constellations. Falling asleep. Waking up. Jjajjamyun (lesson learned). Learning that champagne bottles have a LOT of pressure. Poker. Losing myself. Finding myself. Playing 20 questions: Kao: "Is it man-made?" Alex: "Yes." Roy: "Is it organic?" Alex: "Uhh, no." Kao: "Good, we've eliminated cloned elephants." Zack and the Beanstalk. Coin purses. Bojangles in Bryson City ... damned GOOD. Getting people addicted to Lost (YES, FINALLY I CAN HAVE LOST PARTIES). Team America DVD. Attempting to do the discus at the Biltmore estate with a rock, and COMPLETELY missing where I threw it (luckily nobody got hurt). Group dynamics. Laying in the grass. Staring at the sky for more hours over the past four days than I have in the past four months. Marvelling at beauty in general (man-made and natural). Good friends, good times. Lessons learned.

Unfortunately, my mind was a bit clouded to reach any good conclusions. I really need some time to reflect on the past five days, but that probably won't happen anytime over the next few days until I can clear out the backlog of job and project-related stuff.

A few thoughs and questions that kept going through my mind:

I seem to be unable to do nothing. I always feel like I need to do something. Why? I feel like it keeps waking me up early in the morning, even when I'm really tired.

The toughest thing in life seems to be risking something that is 95% perfect for that thing that is 100% perfect.

I've got a lot of growing to do.

I need to quit internalizing and being so cut-off from people.

I have the emotional patience of a five-year old. Stay the course, Roy.