DS9 Season 1, Episode 16: "If Wishes Were Horses." Classic. We've already done The Naked Time twice, so... everybody's imaginations come to life. Because of aliens. For Dr. Bashir, it's a sexed-up, totally submissive, dumb-as-a-box-of-hair Jadzia Dax trying to climb into his pants. (Classy.) For Ben and Jake Sisko, it's one of the last great baseball players, Bokai of the London Kings, who wanders around trying to get them to play baseball rather than do their work. For Chief O'Brien, it's Rumpelstiltskin. CHIEF O'BRIEN, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM. Everyone's imaginations run wild all over the ship, and Quark makes fun of Odo for not having one, although if I had to guess who was introducing all these minor disturbances that only Odo can deal with, I'd pretty much choose Odo. Quark imagines hot bitches until he realizes that people are imagining winning constantly at his gaming tables and then he gets depressed. Some kind of random Trekky rift opens in space and threatens the station unless they can do something scientific within a set time limit. The imaginary creatures have a creepy little meeting, where we learn that, yet again, ALL IS NOT AS IT APPEARS. Sisko and the gang try to fire missiles into the rift, which should for some reason make it collapse, but instead it gets worse. Rumpelstiltskin offers to fix the problem if O'Brien will trade his wife and daughter and O'Brien agrees way too fast. No idea why Keiko isn't murdering him hardcore by the end of the episode. Sisko suddenly realizes that Jadzia imagined the rift and that they can all just pretend it's not there, and, lo and behold, everything disappears. O'Brien takes his wife and daughter home with no signs of imminent murder. Bokai comes back to have a deep conversation with Sisko about how the imaginary creatures are actually explorers. Sisko doesn't get pissy at him for threatening DS9 with imminent destruction, even though, yes, technically Dax imagined the rift. She wasn't the one who made it TANGIBLE, you know.

DS9, Season 1, Episode 14: "The Storyteller." We kick off with Sisko once again trying to be Picard; the Bajorans, taking a page out of the Federation's playbook, ask him to settle a dispute between two alien species no one has ever heard of, but everyone knows will be exactly opposite to each other in every way until they realize they're more alike than they know. In the B-plot, Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien enjoy a bad bromance. Jake Sisko and Nog get up to hijinks on the promenade. Odo plays stern, creepy uncle. Nog disrupts the gay vibes by popping a lobe for the Paku Tetrarch, who is for some reason a 15-year-old diva bitch.

O'Brien gets pulled into more Bajoran prophecy juju and Dr. Bashir gets his medical panties in a twist when he's called out to Bajor to heal Bajoran Moses, whose death will extinctify the entire village, since an evil monster comes out of the woods at a ritual time each year. The Bajorans drag Bajoran Moses out of bed against Bashir's extremely prim orders and everyone crowds out to the ceremonial rock, where Moses shouts into the wind that O'Brien can't pick up on his tricorder. The audience at home begins to ponder whether this ritually-appearing creature is All That It Seems. A wild cloud beast called the Dalrok appears (out of the sky, not the woods) and Bajoran Moses shouts at it. Bajoran Moses does some unity magic, but the Dalrok uses magic missile, prompting O'Brien to shout "Bloody Hell!" Bajoran Moses claims that O'Brien is his successor and asks him to chase off the Dalrok with a stirring speech. The unity magic shows up again, hovering over the angry mob, and shoots into the Dalrok. Everyone hugs and revels.

Back at the A-plot ranch, Sisko has a conversation with the Tetrarch Diva Bitch. Nog and Jake see her pouting over the promenade and Nog busts out his Ferengi logic on her. I notice for the first time that Nog paints his nails powder blue. Odo interrupts the teenage hormone party just as Jake starts to work his mojo. On Bajor, Julian tries to encourage O'Brien to sample the fruits of his newfound Moses shtick. The Bajorans bring whores. The specter of Keiko seizes O'Brien by the balls and he flips out at the mayor, who convinces him to stay one more night and fight the cloud monster Dalrok. O'Brien decides to apply science.

Nog decides to profess his love to Tetrarch Diva Bitch by stealing Odo's bucket for her. An inexplicable oatmeal fight ensues before everyone gets caught by Commander Sisko and Odo the Perpetual Buzzkill. The Bajorans keep treating O'Brien like Irish Jesus. Moses's old apprentice tries to stab O'Brien. Julian intercedes in the most foppish way possible. The apprentice tells O'Brien and Bashir that he is the One True Thingamajig, and that Moses was pissy because the apprentice couldn't cut it. It turns out the Dalrok is a symbol for the villagers' internalized hatred and that the story is about bringing them back together. The Bajoran mayor isn't happy about this new development and won't let the apprentice give the whole Pokemaster thing another shot. O'Brien has to put the very fabulous robes back on.

Tetrarch Diva Bitch tries to stick up for Nog and Jake with Commander Sisko. They have a heart-to-heart about her lack of friends her own age. Tetrarch Diva Bitch reveals some of her own insecurities. TDB comes up with a Ferengi exchange plan while all hell breaks loose down on Bajor. O'Brien gets up on the ceremonial rock. The apprentice glares while the Chief tries to remember how the story goes. He slaughters it. Julian makes his best WHAAAAAT face and then busts out Star Trek's most classic line -- "DON'T YOU SEE?" -- to get the apprentice to step up. The villagers bitch until the Dalrok implodes. O'Brien and Bashir book it back home.

The Tetrarch smooches Nog on the cheek for giving her a bright idea. Nog's ears look like they're about to fall off. Despite their differences, Bashir and O'Brien, bonded by traumatic experiences and strange semi-Arab cultural traditions, are now Bros.

DS9 Season 1, Episode 15: "Progress." Nog hears his dad getting chewed out by Quark for ordering way too much yamak sauce, which apparently only Cardassians can stomach. For some reason, Nog's tingly lobes mean that opportunity is knocking, and he drags Jake into his schemes. Sisko is overseeing Bajoran scientific/economic development. Major Kira and Dax engage in what I'm led to believe is girl talk in one of the shuttles. Dax's Trill-ness makes her find Morn, the lump of silly putty permanently infesting Quark's, attractive. Major Kira, desperate to get out of this conversation, notices that some of the Bajorans are still on the surface of the moon they're drilling into and transports into a mystical garden, which is Star Trek code for horrifying wasteland behind some kind of hologram. Gardeners attack Kira, who back off after an elderly farmer hits on her awkwardly and then tries to feed her supper.

Nog and Jake wander around DS9, trying to sell yamak sauce. They trade the yamak sauce for self-sealing stem bolts, and the audience buckles in for 45 minutes of Yog and Jake trading down and down until they're left with something totally worthless that they try to sell back to Quark, who assigns them some hilarious punishment. Farmers try to get under Kira's skin and infect her with their roughnecking spirit. Nog skillfully maneuvers the yamak sauce out from Quark's. He and Jake exchange a mysterious fisting gesture of victory.

Kira listens to endless old man stories on the moon. They drink lots of wine to kill the boredom. Kira and Old Man Farmer decide they're not so different after all because they're both too stubborn to give in when it's good for them. Nog and Jake try to sell self-sealing stem bolts to Quark. Jake and Nog's hilarious misadventures turn into mystery-solving as they try to resell the stem bolts, starting with the definition of self-sealing stem bolt.

Once again, Kira's feelings are disrupting the natural flow of space diplomacy. She gets into a bitch-round with an ambassador in Sisko's office. She goes back to the planet and tries to get Old Man Farmer off the planet. He tells another long story in defense. Shit gets ugly across the field and one of the old guy's mute companions stabs one of Kira's redshirts. Kira flips out, Old Man Farmer gets shot with a laser, and everyone heads back up to DS9 for the inevitable bad news.

Nog and Jake are still at it in the B-plot. They exchange stem bolts for land. Nog is unhappy, but Jake's Earthling instincts are telling him that land is valuable. Kira brings Dr. Bashir back down to the moon to treat Old Man Farmer, who punctured something unpronounceable but can still talk and tell long stories. I decide to open a new pack of cigarettes to get me through. Bashir wants to move him to DS9, but Kira supercedes him, having been infected with the roughnecking spirit. Bashir tattles to Sisko. Sisko abuses the chain of command so Kira can stay on the planet for a day or two. Kira flashes a little flashlight at the farmer's wounds and they talk about her complicated, angry feelings. Kira starts telling a story about her childhood, proving that her infection is in its final, most serious stages. She also wanders around in her tank top and INCREDIBLY high-waisted uniform pants. Sweet ugh, those pants. Sisko comes down to convince her to work for the Man and she has more feelings. They decide they're friends and Sisko leaves a shuttle, JUST IN CASE.

Kira nurses the old man, who has flashback nightmares. She shoots him up full of sedatives and puts a rag on his head, Wizard of Oz style. Old Man Farmer continues to be unpleasant. Nog and Jake are trying to play some form of poker where Nog has three cards and Jake has six. It turns out their land is worth something to a government. Nog starts trying to sell the land back to Quark.

Kira wakes up and Old Man Whatsit is out building his doomed kiln of seriously abused metaphor. With four minutes left in the episode, this has got to end soon. Their uneven love shrine is finally complete. Kira comes back with her bag and bedroll. Kira randomly blows up the kiln, what the what? and sets fire to his cottage? I like Kira a lot more, all of a sudden. The old guy asks Kira to shoot him. Kira has more emotions. She refuses and beams them both up. DS9 is HELLA DARK, y'all.

Why am I watching Deep Space Nine? It's not because it's particularly good Star Trek. It's somewhere between the hokey feel-goodiness of The Next Generation and the one-worldiness of Voyager. With none of the intermening charm.

Episode 13: "Battle Lines." Kira Norice, I CANNOT DEAL with your feelings. Or your horrific fake crying. In this one, our intrepid Commander, Major Kira, and a joyriding Dr. Bashir take the Bajoran Lady Pope through the wormhole for reasons that I assume are completely logical. They crash-land on a moon where everyone who dies immediately comes back to life, including Bajoran Lady Pope. Nobody thinks to just take away everyone's weapons while they're dead, proving once again that I would make the best Star Trek captain in future history. This deathless moon thing doesn't explain why two eternally warring races, the Ennis and the Nol-Ennis, are still trying to kill each other, except maybe as an extension of the Bajorans-as-space-Arabs metaphor... except that the two violent tribes aren't Bajoran; they're dirty, mostly silent red shirts in greasy wigs and fairly decent scar makeup. How they got these scars when they heal every time they die is a mystery to me. The Bajoran Lady Pope wanders around looking popey, babbling about a prophecy and consoling Kira, who's extra emotional about her natural tendency toward violence. Commander Sisko debates everyone into the ground and plays fast and loose with the Prime Directive in classic Picardian fashion. There's lots of strangely bloodless stabbings, grunty fight scenes and things on fire, which I guess indicates that this is a Super Serious War Zone. Dax and Chief O'Brien make incredibly boring crosstalk on the rescue mission. Bashir does science and experiences the ensuing moral conflict, which he tries to solve with genocide but eventually gives up on. Bajoran Lady Pope decides to stop the war single-handedly and takes the last spoken line to let us all know that she's going to be coming back for a cameo later in the series.

In other news, I went to Itaewon for the first time today! It was weird; somehow I was expecting the streets to be filled with foreigners, like in Chinatowns in the US, but the foreigner population was just increased from 1% to maybe 10%. I bought a ton of clothes that will actually fit me from OKBT, a women's plus-size outlet. Thinking about going back for some shoes.

I also bought KFC, my first real Western meal since I got here a month ago, and it was incredibly delicious. I never had it in the States, so I can't tell if it's authentic, but that didn't stop me from wolfing down an entire box of it in the subway station, trying to ignore the vaguely repelled not-stares of various Koreans around me. (Koreans never stare or make a scene in public, despite being a [generally speaking] highly emotionally charged people. They are capable of ignoring just about anything on the subway, including, a couple weeks ago, my uncle drinking a plastic cup half-full of Scotch after a Christmas party.) Halfway through said box of chicken, a Korean man who spoke English made awkward conversation with me. After a few comments about "world-famous chicken!" he left me alone. Usually I like it when Koreans talk to me out of the blue, but this time I really just wanted to stuff as much chicken into my face as possible.

Some Koreans think all Americans are adorable, even fat, unattractive ones eating chicken in the Line 6 subway -- I get a lot of random stares from children and old people because I look very Caucasian with my blonde (for Korea) hair, blue eyes and fair skin. In a culture where just about everyone has the same coloring, a huge leap out of the normal order of things shows up a lot more than a single Asian person in a room full of white Americans would.

Christmas in ROK

It's my first Christmas away from home; I thought it would bother me more than it has, but the implosion of my parents' marriage and their subsequent attempts to Keep On Keepin' On through the holidays have made spending the season with a couple of friendly 50-year-old men, several bowls of daktori, and too much somek seem like just what Burl Ives wanted for me. Also, for the first time, I got to sleep wildly late on Christmas morning, which has been a personal goal since the age of 14. Construction of the new teachers' apartments across the way still woke me up by 9 or so, but it's close enough to a holly jolly season for me.

Now it's Boxing Day and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, since I'm not British and I don't have any servants to box things for. Instead, I'm staying in all day, gorgeously unshowered, and recovering from my hundreds of exhausting trips into the city over the last week by chaining through episodes of Misfits, an E4 show about superheroic delinquents that is my current obsession. (There's no more Boardwalk Empire or Dexter or Downton Abbey this year, and too much Adventure Time with Finn & Jake makes my brain feel spongy.) I'm into the third season and still loving it, which means it must be good TV, since obviously my taste is impeccable.

Christmas this year was my smallest haul of living memory; my parents have money and spend it foolishly on the holidays, but my "uncle" -- read: mother's best gay friend from high school -- John and his boyfriend Sam don't, so this year I got a plant, a picture frame, a traditional handle-less Korean tea set, a jar of olives, and, most beautifully, two huge chunks of real cheese. Since many Koreans are lactose intolerant -- it could only occur to the unwashed denizens of Western Europe to try drinking out of other species -- cheese and milk aren't as popular here as they are in the West; they're not impossible to find, but the versions you do get are watered down, sometimes weirdly, which I've been told explains the popularity of "banana milk" and Laughing Cow spreadable cheese. It's next to impossible to find a decent sharp cheddar, but Uncle John somehow tracked down a block of extremely palatable Edam which has been my main source of sustenance since I ate the entire Christmas cake given me by my employer, Principal Song. My resistance to going shopping is, yes, mostly shower-based, but as long as I have milk for tea I'm pretty much set and I don't care who knows it.

It's amazing to live on my own for the first time in my life. I've literally always had roommates, from my parents to my freshman year dorm-mate Ari to various friends I've lived with through college. Even before I came to Korea and after I moved out of the collegiate duplex, I was renting a room from a small business-y type who came home at odd hours but still lived in the same house, which meant I could never really get comfortable unless he was out of the country, which, granted, was pretty often. I love living by myself; I can be as messy or as clean as I want, set the heat to whatever I want, eat whatever I want, and generally get my early-20s disgusting habits out of my system before I have to inflict them on anyone else again. I'm a little worried that all the luxury of my 100-and-that's-generous-square-foot studio apartment will forever ruin me for cohabitation, but I suppose most people live on their own and then make the transition back to caring what other people think of them in the dark of night, so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

It's equally amazing to be able to go out and see people, like for Christmas, to have fun and get a little drunk and generally revel, and then be able to come back to the quiet of one's own tiny apartment and hang around and drink some tea and eat some cheese and go to sleep. I thought it might be lonely, but it's not, really. It's liberating. I'm not terrible company for myself, which, according to most of the daytime TV talk therapy I've seen, is one of the best things to be.

Merry Christmas, all you mooks still in Western time zones! Happy Boxing Day, Empire-inclined expats! Cool it on the soju and don't get mugged on the subway!

FIRST!

One of my main sources of pride in my life online is that I've never felt even remotely compelled to post "FIRST" on anything. I'm going to say that because this isn't a comment, I'm still winning.

Welcome to Go East! This is mostly a personal space for trying to get back in the writing game, since I let life at university lull me into a state of extreme laziness about writing for myself. It's amazing how much you miss something after you get used to scratching the itch with 8-page papers about feminist politics and then suddenly have the diploma pulled out from under you and thrust rudely into your hand. Please allow for a lot of paragraph-length sentences and navel-gazing; I'm out of practice and the last thing I wrote was a thesis, which is like being an amateur swimmer and allowing your trainer to hold your head under water so long you get brain damage.